Interview: Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
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(This is the eighth in a series of interviews with the top women fitness bloggers I could find!)
Angie Schumacher is a Certified Personal Trainer and writes a very informative blog at Women’s Diet and Fitness.
Angie answered some questions about her blog recently:
1) Why did you decide to start your blog or how did you start it?
About a year and a half ago, I got involved in an online group called Body For Life- Women Only, a google group. I had hit a plateau and was having a hard time trying to make changes in my body. I was online searching for anything and everything that would help me find the “answers”. I found myself being overwhelmed with the information and still not knowing what to do. It was then that I thought to myself that I be there are lots of other women out there with all the same problems…too much information and not knowing what to do with it. So I decided to take what I DID know and put together a website, just for women, to help them get all the health and fitness information they needed all in one place. I put together www.womensdietandfitness.com and decided to do a blog along side, to be able to interact with my website readers and thought it would also be a good way to keep them updated on the latest information. Hence, the blog: www.womensdietandfitness.com/WDF
2) What do you think is the biggest obstacle that keeps women from engaging in a regular fitness routine and/or from living a more healthy lifestyle in general?
I think all women have their own thing, whether it be lack of motivation, their busy lifestyle or just not feeling like they are important enough and taking care of everyone else first! What I always say is, “If you take care of yourself FIRST, you will be able to take care of everyone else so much better!” A lot of women think that it takes hours to workout and lose weight or whatever their goals may be, but in all actuality, it can take less than 45 minutes 3x per WEEK! Split that up into 6 days and you only need about 15-20 minutes per day! Now who doesn’t have that???
3) What do you consider to be the most unique or helpful thing about your blog?
Unique? Well I don’t know if I would consider it unique, but it does come from the heart and my passion of providing women to build a long and healthy life!
Please take some time and visit Angie’s blog: Women’s Diet and Fitness !
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Related Posts:
- Interview: JoLynn Braley of The Fit Shack
- Interview: Crabby McSlacker of Cranky Fitness
- Interview: Lauren of laurensfitness.com
July 1, 2008
Interview: Kelly Mills of Fitness Fixation
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(This is the seventh in a series of interviews with the top women fitness bloggers I could find!)
Kelly Mills writes at Fitness Fixation – fitness with a sense of humor!
I asked Kelly a few questions about her blog recently:
1) Why did you decide to start your blog or how did you start it?
I started Fitness Fixation for several reasons, but one of the main ones was that I was dying to see more humorous writing about fitness and exercise from people who still managed to cobble together a workout schedule. I just got tired of reading the sort of preachy, faux-girlfriend-y, chipper fitness articles I found in most magazines. “You can shed pounds by doing leg lifts while you pump gas!” That kind of crap. The truth is that exercise is hard and sweaty and you often feel like *thrpppth* while you are doing it, but there’s also big rewards that come with being in shape and I wanted talk about all that at the same time. And I also figured people might take some comfort in the fact that I am not a born jock, I was totally un-athletic for most of my life, and fell in love with exercise totally by accident. It’s easier to see possibility when the person you are talking to knows what it is like to feel hopelessly unfit and convinced they’ll never enjoy physical activity. Plus I needed a forum to do lots of swearing.
2) What do you think is the biggest obstacle that keeps women from engaging in a regular fitness routine and/or from living a more healthy lifestyle in general?
I suppose the easiest answer to this is many women don’t feel they have the time to exercise, but in truth we usually manage to make even a little bit of time for the things that make us happy. I actually think it might be more that the payoff isn’t good enough, and lots of women only think they *should* do an hour on the stairmaster rather than *wanting* to do an hour on the stairmaster. And I don’t blame them, it sounds really dull to me. I got into running because I have this really forceful friend who convinced me to wake up at ungodly hour and run with her, and this happened to coincide with me having an infant at home and I was just dying for time for myself and some adult conversation. From there I eventually got lots of benefits out of running–stress relief, weight loss, time for myself, feeling better in every way, etc.–and then found more physical activities I enjoyed. I’m still always fighting my own inertia, but now it feels worse not to exercise than to just do it and I know I’ll be over the moon when I’m done. And my activities, like kickboxing and crazy weight training classes, make me feel strong and badass so I drag myself to them even when I feel lazy.
People sometimes tell me they admire my discipline, but there’s not much nobility to it. If I don’t work out, I feel like crud, and if I do it, I feel better. It’s quite self-serving. Maybe women just need to be a little more self-serving. Hell, I’m just guessing. Women are all complicated, you know.
3) What do you consider to be the most unique or helpful thing about your blog?
Fitness Fixation is primarily unhelpful and if you don’t like the f-word, you’ll detest it. And lots of it is just me whining about fitness stuff and ranting and being very neurotic and grumpy. But sometimes other people write for me, and they are smart, and the commenters are often quite funny, and I can guarantee you I don’t pretend to know any more than I do and I’m very much myself there. So if you are into that sort of thing, you might like it. Oh, and I talk about hoo-hoos and other subjects that remain taboo in other places and yet are endlessly fascinating for someone like me with the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old. Plus we give out free makeovers. I totally made that last part up. The only thing given out free on Fitness Fixation is a bad attitude. But that is in unlimited supply.
Please take some time and visit Kelly’s blog: Fitness Fixation !
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Related Posts:
- Interview: Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
- Overcoming Underearning: Book Review Part 5
- New cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines for women
June 30, 2008
Interview: JoLynn Braley of The Fit Shack
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(This is the sixth in a series of interviews with the top women fitness bloggers I could find!)
JoLynn writes at The Fit Shack where she believes the mind, body, spirit are all involved with making the change to a healthy lifestyle.
I recently asked JoLynn some questions about her blog:
1) Why did you decide to start your blog or how did you start it?
Wow, this could turn into an entire post when you get into why and how I started it, so I’ll keep it short – I decided to start The Fit Shack after reading some inspiring posts online from Probloggers and combining that with my passion for spreading the word on processed foods, that was my initial reason.
I’d already learned through my experience with the 6-Week Body Makeover lifestyle plan that when you go back to basics (whole foods) that not only do you lose weight, but you also have tons of energy; hence my desire to inspire and inform my readers of how great life can be once you get off of those processed, dead foods.
In the beginning I was mainly focused on informing and inspiring my readers to get off the processed foods filled with sugar, white flour, additives, excess sodium, and other gunk – the foods that bog you down, slow your metabolism, cause food cravings, and do not help you lose weight.
2) What do you think is the biggest obstacle that keeps women from engaging in a regular fitness routine and/or from living a more healthy lifestyle in general?
I think that the biggest obstacle for women is that many women do not treat themselves as well as they treat the people in their life that they love. Somewhere along the line women picked up the thought that it is “selfish” if you put your own health and fitness first, when in actuality you are doing everyone else a favor by doing so!
The fitter, stronger, and healthier you are, the more you have to give to others. Therefore you are cheating your loved ones when you don’t take care of yourself first, because when you’re in poor health you are limited in the amount of care, love, and time you can give to them.
3) What do you consider to be the most unique or helpful thing about your blog?
I approach weight loss from a complete mind-body-spirit perspective, which makes my blog unique since I am not simply giving out diet advice – I don’t believe in diets and I do believe in creating a healthy lifestyle that brings all of these pieces together. I also put a lot of focus into the mindset that is needed to be successful and stay motivated to live a healthy lifestyle.
Additionally I freely share my own experiences with emotional eating, sugar addiction, weight loss motivation and such, all at the same time walking a balance between professionalism and engagement. The Fit Shack is a family friendly blog and I am very focused on giving a positive and inspirational message at all times.
Thank you for interviewing me today Trisha, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Thank you very much for participating JoLynn!
Please take some time and visit JoLynn’s blog: The Fit Shack!
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Related Posts:
- Interview: Angie Schumacher of Women’s Diet and Fitness
- Health
- Interview: Crabby McSlacker of Cranky Fitness
Women’s Health Weekly Review: June 22 – June 28
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Osteoporosis
A study in the journal Radiology indicates that an ultrasound of the heel may be used to predict if someone has a greater chance of fractures due to osteoporosis: Simple ultrasound exam may predict osteoporosis risk
Pregnancy
Some new guidelines regarding blood clot prevention for pregnant women were released: New blood clot guidelines for pregnant women
“Pregnant women who receive treatment for substance abuse early in their pregnancy can achieve the same health outcomes as pregnant women with no substance abuse”: Treatment for cigarette, alcohol and drug use in pregnancy improves outcomes for mom and baby
Pregnancy may help protect against bladder cancer
Ovarian Cancer
This is interesting – Ovarian cancer’s specific scent detected by dogs – I’ve heard of other cancers being able to be detected by dogs, now some researchers have “trained dogs to distinguish different types and grades of ovarian cancer, including borderline tumors. They found that the odor of ovarian cancer does seem to differ from those of other gynecological malignancies, such as cervical, or endometrial cancers, suggesting that a particular, distinguishable scent is associated with ovarian cancer. They additionally found that early-stage and low grade ovarian cancers emit the same scent as advanced tumors”. I don’t think they plan on actually using dogs to check people for it. Given how serious an ovarian cancer diagnosis is though maybe they should consider until someone finds another way to detect it early.
This isn’t really anything new as far as I can tell: Symptom screening plus a simple blood test improves early detection of ovarian cancer.The CA125 test has been around for a while and by itself isn’t really helpful and still, the other symptoms are so vague.
Other
HealthGrades releases Fifth Annual Women’s Health in American Hospitals study. Women who give birth at top hospitals have 76 percent fewer complications for C-Section, 51 percent fewer for vaginal birth
I’ve been meaning to include this link for a while – there is lots of reproductive health information here: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/
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Related Posts:
- Ovarian cancer news review
- Blood test to detect breast cancer
- DOG scans may test for breast cancer someday.
June 27, 2008
Interview: Monica Shaw of SmarterFitter
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(This is the fifth in a series of interviews with the top women fitness bloggers I could find!)
Monica Shaw writes at SmarterFitter where you can find “Less diet, more brain”. Her web site is “designed to help people make smart fitness decisions based on hard data”.
I asked Monica the following questions about her blog:
1) Why did you decide to start your blog or how did you start it?
Smarterfitter.com grew out of my personal interest in fitness and food. I’m a science nerd who likes to know the details. I’s not enough to know that “flax seeds are supposed to be good for me, so I’ll eat them.” I want to know why flax seeds are special, and furthermore, I want to read the science behind the claim. The more I know, the smarter my choices, it’s plain and simple. Writing about all this stuff is a great way for me to remember the things I learn and share it with a community of like-minded geeky folk. “Wait, I’m not a geek!” some might say. Anyone who wants to understand the logic behind the choices they make is a geek in my book. Science geeks, art geeks, DIY geeks, archaeology geeks… all geeks are welcome at smarterfitter.
2) What do you think is the biggest obstacle that keeps women from engaging in a regular fitness routine and/or from living a more healthy lifestyle in general?
I can’t speak for all women, but I know that the biggest obstacle for me is having the willpower to overcome challenges in my environment. The modern world makes it tough to lead an “active life”, with cars being the main mode of transportation and packaged-meals being the main delivery device for food. This is changing, but ever so slowly. I’m lucky enough to live in London, a big city where it’s possible to get almost anywhere by bike or on foot. But there’s still pressure
all around. Social events almost always take place at the pub, a fixture on almost every street corner in London. Turning down a pint or a bowl of hot chips is tough in a society where drinking is the norm. It makes us feel either deprived or like a social outcast. Ick. Nobody likes that. Maybe the real obstacle is less about willpower than it is about perspective. I’ve certainly had to change
my perspective on my environment by learning to embrace the things that encourage good habits rather than fuss over all of the negative influences. It’s a similar mantra to AA’s serenity prayer:God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.I’m not religious, but there’s some truth to that. Still, there’s no avoiding onslaught of tempting cake and chocolates that arrives with every coworker’s birthday. But if we create the right environment and get our habits straight, it’s a lot easier to avoid overindulgence and love ourselves for making the choice that we know will make us happy.
3) What do you consider to be the most unique or helpful thing about your blog?
As its name suggests, smarterfitter is all about using our brains to get fit. My hope is that smarterfitter encourages people to make smart, rational choices based on real evidence rather than false promises for “rapid weight loss” or some similar claim. That was the goal in starting the blog, though I should really listen to my readerson this one. Most people tell me the best part about the blog is the food. I’m a vegetarian and my meat-eating readers say the recipes give them good advice for cooking with veggies (I forget that this isn’t obvious to many!). So much for my geeky intentions. But that’s okay; food is my obsession and I love to write about it. I’m just glad other people like it to.
Please take some time and visit Monica’s blog: SmarterFitter!
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Related Posts:
- Eating healthy to stay healthy
- Interview: JoLynn Braley of The Fit Shack
- Interview: Crabby McSlacker of Cranky Fitness
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