Ok so its been two weeks since I have dieted and exercised... I know naughty me but I do have valid excuses (Kid's camp and a dragging flu). Anyway, I was so ready to jump back on the weightloss train today but its sooo bloody hot!!
I guess coming from a cold province in Canada and moving to a hot state doesn't help. Anyway, I am sweaty and hot, and cranky from it. I don't want to load my dishwasher let alone exercise. I just want to sit and not move.
What do you do to get your booty up and moving when you're sweaty and hot?

Go swimming!

make a list of your goals and reasons as to why you want to lose weight and/or get in shape and/or go down a size (i dont know what your goals are) and read them. that should be enough to get you moving. bring some cold water with you and keep well-hydrated!

Exercise early in the morning before things heat up, and if you can, find a waterfront to run or bike (or whatever) along. The air off the water will make things a bit cooler. Also, make sure you hydrate before, during and after!

or you can exercise in the evening as well when it is a bit cooler

If you have access to a gym go there!
I always love exercising in summer because my home isn't air conditioned, so it's actually cooler at the gym, which is great motivation.

Heat is the best thing to have, after water. It makes your body work harder to sweat, thus burning more calories. If you can't take it then just swim.

Thanks for all your input!
Unfortunately I do not own a bathing suit nor do I think I would confident to wear one in front of people
Great ideas guys, thanks!

Forgive my directness, I'm not trying to be negative, but you have to get the term "valid excuses" out of your head. As long as there are ways to justify why it's OK to not do something, or to do something wrong then you'll always default back to them. If you don't give yourself a safety net then you don't allow yourself the opportunity to fall.

What might help, in terms of both the heat and overall motivation, is to figure out WHY you want to do this then, once you know, constantly remind yourself of that because if you have a strong enough reason to WANT to do it, then things like heat or otherwise won't be enough of a factor to keep you from doing it. If you allow yourself to not do something, and justify it with any kind of logic, odds are you didn't really want to do it in the first place and that's a bigger issue than heat,
camp, flu's or just "being busy."

As far as the bathing suit "excuse", go buy one and don't think about what other people might be thinking. Do what you want and say what you feel because the people who mind don't matter and the people who matter don't mind. There's really only one person who's opinion matters on how you look (two if you count your husband) and that's you. Your friends won't judge you and, if they do, they aren't really your friends! I'm willing to bet that when your real friends do see you in a swimsuit they'll spend all day talking about how amazing you look, how much weight you've lost and how they wish they could do it... Just focus on your progress and don't be self conscious!

Plus, I gaurantee that on those hot days there's someone wearing less than you who probably has "more to show" than you but they don't care Besides that, with all the progress you've made think about how awesome you'll look in it now, compared to back then! Even if you aren't where you want to be in terms of weight and figure (but then, when is anyone exactly where they want to be?), use every trip out in your swimsuit as a milestone to gauge your progress.



I'm pretty sure you've got that backwards, your heart has to work harder in the cold than in the heat. Either way, though, the increased calorie burn is probably negligible next to a sensible workout anyways.

I, uh, get my booty up and moving.... Most of the time I could be doing other things, and most of the time I would probably rather be doing other things, but I'm not going to get anywhere if I am.

What do you want??

I am a native Floridian, I thrive in the heat and humidity. It is when the air is cool&dry that I suffer. Trying to do cardio in it makes my lungs burn, and I feel sluggish when it takes so long to sweat.

To motivate in the heat, I suggest just hydrating properly first, then stretch a bit, once you are perspiring well, get moving, and just don't do it in direct sunlight, because it'll definitely wipe you out, but fast!

So, Stina, have you written down exactly what it is that you want from yourself yet?

If you have, I'm interested in having a boo.

Stay cool, mama!

We go walking at night with the boys when its cooler. Helps keep everyone doing something.

Get a gym membership and work out in an air conditioned building.

Do something infront of the TV (one of them workout videos) when the house AC is on.

Strip n..... er um well thats exercise too...

Illinois is NOT hot. Take a trip in July to inland Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, or Alabama for a real dose of humidity and heat.

Seriously though, how about working out indoors with a fan? You better believe I'm not stepping foot outside when it's hot, so working out indoors is how I cope. Man, there's nothing worse than taking a step outside and your clothes immediately sticking to you from the damn heat and humidity.

why on earth would you leave south carolina out of that list?

christina, go early in the morning, drink a lot of water, and find an accountability partner. there's nothing really you can do about the heat. but you have some issues with the swimsuit that need to be addressed.

i believe, though, that a flu is indeed a valid excuse for not going to the gym.

Yeah, it probably is.... When sick, though, there comes a time at the end of it where you feel crappy more from inertia than the sickness, and the cure for that is to get moving... Do a great workout and then dive in a neighbor's pool to refresh

I'll tell you something, yesterday at my in laws memorial day picnic, everyone was swimming and my daughter wanted to get in the water. I wanted to get in with her, but I was embarrassed about my body and was ashamed to be seen in a bathing suit. But I went upstairs and changed and got in anyway. It was liberating, to be truthful. And I got in a good workout and still had fun. And I'm by far bigger and bulgier than you. While I absolutely understand the fear part, no one cares and they are all too worried about themselves to be focused on you. Old Navy and some super cute one pieces for only $15 right now, so, when you go down a size (AND YOU WILL!!) you wont have made much of an investment!

Never been to SC

go in the morning. I live in east texas and besides being irritatingly hot-its disgustingly humid! i feel like i sweat buckets from the humidity (sorry, tmi?) but your body is working harder and burning more. You just gotta do it, and the heat motivates me because i realize i want to look good wearing summer clothes! other than that, go swimming or workout indoors if you just cant stand it. but like other people said, if you find an excuse to not exercise, then you probably wont. so stop find excuses! good look to you girl!

tex

I guess I should clarify; I definitely don't hit the gym when I'm actually sick, but rather than even thinking about it in the same context of excusing myself from exercise, I take it as a healing/rest day, which is part of the routine. The idea I'm getting at is that you cannot justify negative behaviors because it only leads to more justifications for more negative behaviors, and the term "making excuses" is exactly that; instead accept those behaviors as part of your process and move on...

We, as a people, make excuses to not do things we don't want to do, or to do things that we actually do want to do, when that's the opposite of what we know (or think) is the proper course of action. Do we "make excuses" to go to the gym? Do kids "make excuses" to eat vegetables? In my mind, and this is just my perspective, it's NEVER ok to skip the gym because "something came up" or "I didn't feel like going", but it's perfectly acceptible and normal to skip the gym to recover or rest. You could say that "resting" or "recover" justifications are excuses, but in my mind I'm not necessarily excusing the day off, I'm using it as a positive step forward because, ultimately, I'm resting or recovering for the next gym trip.

When you think of something as an excuse for not going to the gym you're subconsciously admitting that you didn't want to go in the first place and once you attach the word "valid" to your excuse, you're telling yourself it was OK not to go today and that it there will be other reasons not to go in the future and, as a result, you'll look for more "valid excuses" on days where you don't feel like working out... like "it's too hot".

I'm not sure if I'm articulating my thoughts around this idea very well, since we're in the ambiguous realm of semantics now, but hopefully at least one person besides me gets what I'm saying, heh.

I do.
Obviously it depends on what's wrong with me but if it's just a flu or general cold, I find I feel much better after a bit of a run. It really clears the head and chest! I guess that won't work for everyone, but for me I feel better if I do go to the gym when I'm sick than if I don't.

Well, it's subjective to each situation of course, but if you're contagiously sick it's just downright inconsiderate to bring that to an environment where people are already susceptible to infection from all the germ exposure and such. That's just like when Coughy McHackupalung comes to work sick causing everyone else in the rest of the office to get whatever he has and miss the next day.

If I'm feeling just a little bit off then the adrenaline rush from exercise does make me feel better, but if I can't go anywhere without a box of Kleenex and my blanky (don't you dare mock Mister Blanky!) then it's usually a bad idea to go to the gym.

I feel better when working out while sick too. I think it's because you put your body through a lot of stress, much like it's reaction to the infection.

And don't think of it as "inconsiderate", think of it as a gift - from me to your immune system. We go to the gym, touch the same machines, and I help your body produce antibodies so you can avoid the infection later .

You know that's an excellent point, and I never even considered it! I'll have to keep it in mind next time I'm feeling off.
Of course the advantage of being fit is you get sick less often anyway

To me, IL is hot. I do not take heat well. Flu and being away with kids to me are valid excuses, I do not use being busy as an excuse because I find that many fall back on that while they sit on their butt and watch TV for hours at night.
Sorry if I sound a little negative, I just wanted some suggestions on how to keep cool.
Thanks for the input.

Apology accepted! j/k

Actually, it's me that should apologize for another thread jack heh... guess I focused too much on the "motivation" part , but here's my on-topic contribution, despite the fact that it's already been said:

Work out in the mornings or later in the evenings when the sun isn't at its peak; depending on the day it might still actually be hot, but we're coming up on the season where that's unavoidable.

Also, since it wasn't really too off-topic; I'll reiterate my stance on getting over the swimsuit phobia! If you try to cover up and go running in the sun you probably won't get very far, plus, like I said earlier, you've made a ton of progress so you should bask in it! I'm not necessarily the best candidate to be running shirtless, but I'll be damned if I care what people think when I'm getting my sweat on...

...unless they're looking at me and thinking, "Look at that sexy man!" Then I might care a little

as if there's anything else they would be thinking!



Drink plenty of water and simply enjoy all the sweating - think of it as an indicator of how hard you're working

Hmm, I wonder if there's an article somewhere that tells you how many extra calories you burn from being in the heat?

I think it's noted above, but you will burn more calories in the cold - your body must maintain temperature and it is more work to create heat than to sweat.

I've got a running and biking route that both end at the same spot, a lake. Most of the time I don't even stop, after about 8 miles of running I just run right into the lake and cool off. Feels so good. It's one of those lakes that is always cold and gets really really cold about 6 feet under the surface.