Have you been following my journey?
My last post was a very open and revealing look at my history with weight loss and body image which I know so many people struggle with. Since sharing my journey, I’ve received a few questions on what sort of workouts I do and what works for me and I know firsthand how difficult it can be to find that perfect exercise that you actually enjoy doing – I’m currently trying to workout 3-4 times a week to manage running after a baby and eating all the chocolate that I do. For your benefit, I have scoured the internet and have here a list of YouTube videos for any style of workout and for any skill. I’ve broken them down in to categories so you can pick and choose depending on where you are in your journey.
I’d love to know if you find any you particularly like.
Yoga
Do you want to be flexible? Do you want to have more time to breathe and relax? Do you want to tone up? Yoga has such a bad rep for being “that exercise that only flexible hippies do”. Not true. Whilst I don’t pertain to the whole inward meditation of some yoga practices, I can attest to its awesomeness when it comes to gaining flexibility (I started doing yoga in 2015 and after just a few months, I could finally touch my toes and rest my palms on the floor when bending forward), balance, strength and good pelvic muscles…which come in handy for pregnancy and childbirth.
If you have never tried yoga before, start with Adriene and her huge choice of videos.
If you know yoga and you really want to feel the burn, try Prenatal Yoga With Heidi: Legs and Butt – I seriously don’t know how she does this without faltering and honestly, it kills me even though I’m not pregnant.
And if you are pregnant, Tonic has these amazingly real pregnancy yoga videos led by an instructor who is seriously pregnant herself. From these videos, I found ways to combat my painful hips and I loved how natural and honest she was.
If you want a real life class, I can only recommend Wild Thing yoga & body conditioning in Sea point. Run by two incredibly strong, yet gentle souls, you will struggle to find two women, aside from your own mother, that care more deeply about your well being.
Pregnant
If you’re pregnant and thinking that maybe you should do a little exercise but you’re not that keen, just for the laughs and the overtly American optimism, try the below video – it is so cheesy, but the pregnant chicks in the video hold it together so well that you wanna join in just to support them.
If you’re already the active type and you want to know how you can workout in the right way…BodyFit by Amy is going to be right up your street. Firstly, she is pregnant in the videos, secondly, she has content for all trimesters and thirdly, she has modified moves for those moments when you need to take it a little easier.
And if you’re just keen on working that core and pelvic floor, try this video and others in the playlist.
Walking
If your hand-eye coordination is a little off OR you need low intensity/gentle workouts OR you are pregnant, I really recommend these walking workouts. The lady who does them is a little overtly positive, but she does a good job in encouraging an audience she can’t see.
Full body
Interval cardio training is a fantastic way to get fit AND the bonus is that each exercise only needs to take between 30-60 seconds and then you get to have a quick break. It’s the ultimate work out if, like me , you get bored easily.
I am currently really enjoying Body Project – probably because it’s British and because you can actually see the sweat on their faces.
Legs, bums, tums
If you’re looking for specific body part workouts, I enjoy the ladies over at Xhit Daily (again, one of them is English and I can see a pattern forming). They have a huge range of videos and a collection of “exercise like a famous person” which I’m sure a lot people find inspiring. My favorite one to do is the Miley Cyrus leg routine which burns so bad.
Another option, is POP Pilates which have some cute, short videos that can make you feel a little sugary. Apparently though, her channel is one of the top fitness channels on YouTube.
Cardio
If you just want to get warmed up and move around some more but you don’t want anything that requires much thought…
If you love dancing and are one of those people who have great hand-eye coordination coupled with killer rhythm, you should probably look at this dance workout from Jessica Smith Tv.
Got seconds to spare but you need to sweat?
Kids and babies always seem to know when you need a bit of peace because that’s when they get the most restless. If you have only a short amount of time to workout in before someone starts screaming, consider these very quick workouts from POPSUGAR Fitness.
These are just a fraction of the videos that I found – it’s too easy to get lost on YouTube searching videos and never actually workout at all – but I hope they inspire.
I’m currently working through Body Project videos and I’m really enjoying the boxing workouts….great for relieving stress.
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