Winter Shape Up 2016
Hi friends! Happy Monday, and happy WSU!
Welcome to Winter Shape Up 2016: a perfect chance to revamp your fitness routine, thrive from healthy eats, and revitalize your love for healthy living. Whether you’re looking to achieve a fitness, fat loss, lifestyle, or energy goal, hopefully this plan will provide you with steps, ideas and inspiration along the way.
For the friends who are new to Winter Shape Up, here’s how it works:
– I’ve been doing the Shape Up plans on my blog for years as a way to share free fitness and meal plans with my readers. I’m so happy Anne has joined in the fun to share her expertise as a Registered Dietitian. She’s my WSU partner in crime, and we love being able to put together these plans for you all.
Each week, for the next 4 weeks, Anne and I will be posting free full workout schedules, meal plans, videos, printables and grocery lists.
While you can follow these exactly as suggested, remember that these are just suggestions; they can be always be adjusted or modified to suit your personal needs and schedule. If you have a class that you like to do each week at the gym, by all means keep it in, but just remember not to do the same type of workout on consecutive days. For example, I wouldn’t take a hardcore bootcamp class the day after Workout 1, and avoid strength training the same muscle group two days in a row. If you need help shuffling things around, please hit me up in the comments or tweet me @fitnessista
Your 4 week focus:
-Visualize a goal. What’s your intention behind Winter Shape Up? Looking to shake up your routine? Burn fat? Get stronger? Write it down what you’d like to accomplish and remind yourself daily for the next 4 weeks. If you made an inspiration board, this is a great time to update it and check it regularly! If you’re looking for fat loss/muscle gain, I highly recommend a body fat assessment towards the beginning of the Shape Up, or take some pics and measurements so you can gauge progress. Keep in mind: this isn’t a weight loss plan. While weight loss may be the result of changing up your routine and implement new diet or fitness strategies, remember that weight is a poor indication of overall health and body composition. Focus on foods and habits that will encourage fat loss and encourage lean muscle retention/building if that’s your overall goal. All in all, use strength, energy levels, and confidence as some mental success meters. <3
-Nutrition. Eat like a PRO: meaning you’re going to emphasize PROtein and PROduce. Anne has a variety of delicious, healthy and satisfying recipes in the meal plan with vegan and gluten-free options.
-Consistency. The greatest way to achieve a new fitness or health goal is consistency. Stick with it and remember that the little things definitely add up! Be gentle with yourself throughout the challenge, and endeavor to be consistent in your actions to achieve your personal goal for the 4 weeks.
-Be a cheerleader for yourself and other Winter Shape Up participants. Make sure to check in each morning with your workout, pics of your healthy eats and to cheer each other on! The comments are a great option (which is how you’ll enter the giveaways), or if you’d like to tweet/Instagram, use the hashtag #wintershapeup and tag us @fitnessista @fannetasticfood.
We also have a private Facebook group with lovely supportive, active members. Check it out here!
The Winter Shape Up will run from Monday, January 25 to Sunday, February 21, 2015. Here are links to all the content (this page will be updated as the new pages are published).
More details and FAQs are below!
How do I enter the giveaways?
We’ll have two giveaways running each week. Check in on each weekly post for your chance to enter! (For week 1, you’ll check in for your workouts below in the comments, and check in with your eats on Anne’s week 1 page.)
How do I keep track of all of the deliverables and info? It seems like a lot!
This page that you’re currently reading (the Intro post) will be your home base for ALL things Winter Shape Up-related. Each week’s meal ideas and workouts, plus any giveaways will all be linked here. If you’re joining in, keep this page in a safe place (bookmark it, Pin it, keep it in your pocket) so that you can easily access all of the info. I’ll also add a widget to this page at the top of the blog (on the upper right side bar).
A special thanks to our Winter Shape Up sponsors, who will be providing amazing giveaways along the way:
Cabot | Sabra | Sizzlefish | Pure Canadian Maple Syrup | Daily Harvest | Gluten Free Chex | Crunch Live (use code WSU30 to get a free 30-day trial. After 30 days it will roll over to a membership at $9.99, but can be canceled at any time)
This week’s featured sponsor is Daily Harvest! I’ve been obsessed with their smoothies for a while now, and am so excited to share them with two lucky winners.
A little bit about Daily Harvest:
Each blend contains a mixture of fruit, healthy fats and superfoods. Add you do is add liquid in a blender, blend it up, and enjoy! The combos are soooo delicious, and I especially love that they don’t use any added sugars or preservatives; just whole, REAL foods. You can add protein powder to the smoothies, but I find that I almost never want to do that. They taste amazing on their own, and have a great mix of greens, fruit, and energizing super foods. Everything is picked at the peak of freshness and flash frozen, and the ingredients are non-GMO and organic whenever possible. One of my favorite things about Daily Harvest is the convenience and accessibility. For example, I love maca, but it isn’t really worth it for me to have a giant bag in the pantry to sprinkle into oats and smoothies. Also, when I make a smoothie, it’s fast and furious. This makes it so much easier to put the container in the blender, add almond milk or coconut water, and blend. If the container is two servings worth, it usually works out well because my tiny smoothie bandit (Liv) will claim it as her own.
Some of the other ingredients that they use: kale, avocado, cashew butter, pink Himalayan sea salt, ginger, cacao nibs, and wheatgrass.
2 lucky Shape Up participants will each receive a 6-pack of Daily Harvest smoothies, and can choose which flavors they’d like to try.
Here’s how to enter:
Leave a comment below EACH TIME you complete a workout this week! That’s right, you have multiple chances to win.
Bonus entry: Instagram a sweaty workout pic, and be sure to tag us (@fitnessista @fannetasticfood #wintershapeup)
Let’s get this party started! Are you joining in the fun?
xoxo
Gina
You might also like:
330 Comments
Leave a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Did the Barre burner last night! Boy those lunges will get you.
Went on a walk instead of the Barre burner last night but looking forward to workout #1 afer work today!
Wed – barre hitte X2 and barre leg strength X2
Thur – off – thank goodness since I was in the midst of sick baby land.
fri – workout1 X3 phew that last round was brutal!
Finally getting to do Workout#1 today!
I forgot to check in! Body Flow & 30 min. on the bike Tues.
Body Pump Wed. night!
Body Flow & 30 min. on the bike last night.
My baby didn’t sleep at all last night, meaning neither did I, but I still was able to finish workout 1 during naptime!
It took awhile but I finally got around to doing workout #1 two times and ended it with some meditative yoga.
Workout 1 done! Love the WSU this year, thanks as always!
I plan on doing Workout 1 again and probably a lot of Yoga… My Manduka is due to arrive any minute now and I could scream, I’m so excited.
Did the barre videos Wednesday, had a dance class last night, and workout #1 round 2 tonight!
Went to boot camp again this morning. My hammies are SORE from Wednesday’s boot camp so I took yesterday off. I also made a date with the foam roller. OUCH!
Completed WO#1 again. It’s always a great feeling when I’m finished with it! Lol
Great Pilates class today, with a serious focus on abs and lumbar! THE BURN will be killing me in the morning.
It was tough getting up this am, but managed to get in two rounds of workout 1!
Good thing there isn’t a workout focused on the fingers I wouldn’t be able to type. I did the barre WO and “Willitary Katey Perry squat” and “Willitary Uptown Funk arm” WO. With an AB series. My legs were a shaking!!! Hopefully I will be able to go to the bathroom tomorrow without too much pain. (just to clarify-squatting)
Completed all the workouts this week and loved them all! Loving this program!
Really enjoyed Workout 1! Did 2 rounds of it and my goal is to be doing 3 rounds of it by the end of the shape-up.
The barre videos are my favorite!
Did workout #1×3 over lunch today. Did the HIIT 30 sec on, 20 off to make it quicker.
Total body weight workout today!
Just did Workout #1. Really enjoyed it and I think my legs will be sore tomorrow!
yesterday was a rest day! much needed after a busy week. went for a nice long walk at night 🙂
took a really bad yoga class this am. forgot the instructor who teacches it… i dont like her. at all. blah. meant to go for a run before or after but i slept in, and afterwards i was too annoyed.
might do some PT this afternoon, but we’ll see because i’ve got a long drive ahead of me to go to a friend’s party! 🙂
Strength & HIIT combo today. Happy weekend!
Hills workout completed yesterday and 3 rounds of workout # 1 completed today!!
Went on a long walk! Yay!
I did a 30 minute circuit workout instead of the hill workout. Felt great. Can’t wait for a rest day/stretch day tomorrow!
family run today!
Power yoga and a walk.
Did my hill workout today!! Yay!!
went for a nice hour-long hike with my kids today. 🙂
Did the hill workout today. How long are you supposed to be at moderate pace in between 2 mins at max?
it’s depends on how long it takes you to hit your max!
Had an unintentional rest day yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well so I moved workout #1 to today and will do a hill run tomorrow!
30 minute walk outside with hills!
Elliptical today
Just finished a hilly treadmill workout! Saturday night meant a nice quite gym all to myself!
Did my HIIT workout today! My days are a little off, but working to get them all in 🙂
4 miles today!! 🙂 nice and refreshing 30 degree weather haha
6 miles today morning ! Going for more next time!!!
I did steady state on the treadmill today. Going to focus on PROtein and PROduce today.
Rest day! Just doing some gentle stretching/yoga
family walk and rest!
Did a body pump class yesterday!
Today was a four mile hilly run in the gorgeous Arlington sunshine.
I went to my first Soul Cycle class today, and I loved it!
Starting week 1 over today….only made it through first half of last week….workout 1 today!