"Aaah! I wish I could make more time for exercise."

"I wish I could be more motivated to work out!"

"Dammit, it's so hard to stay consistent with my exercise routine. I'll never get back in shape!"

Are these thoughts that you've had at one point or another? Do they sound familiar to you? Well, just know that you're not alone. Most of us out there can't skip out of bed for a run on a regular, consistent basis. Staying in shape and exercising regularly takes commitment, discipline and motivation. But even to the best of us, life comes in the way. Fatigue or laziness creeps in. Heck, even raising kids is a great excuse to throw out there! But in my opinion, the only way to make regular exercise sustainable is to make it realistically fit into our everyday lives.

After having my second baby recently, my core has taken a beating and my body is out of shape. I am determined to whip myself back into shape. But I know that juggling two kids and going back to work will present me with quite a challenge in making time for exercise. This is why I'm starting out with short workouts which I can realistically squeeze into my day, for at least a few times a week. Here's how I plan to do it:

Step 1: Measure my waist and record my weight on day 1.

Step 2: Take on a 30-day squat-lunge-plank challenge! Every day, I will follow the schedule shown here. Please refer to my video below for doing a series of squat-lunge-plank exercises (rest days are included) and also this previous post on the appropriate technique for doing them. These exercises in themselves will not make me lose weight but they will certainly help to tone my abdominal area and lower body. I will be supplementing these exercises with 20-30 mins of running and ab crunches 2-4 times a week, depending on my time. If your fitness level allows you to do more than that, go ahead! (Diet will also play a key role in helping with the weight loss but that's a separate issue for another day!)

Step 3: Measure my waist and record my weight on day 30. At the end of the month-long challenge, my goal is to see whether or not these exercises made a difference.

Many of you saw my posting on Instastories about this challenge and asked about it. I'd like to share this with all of you and ask if anyone is interested to join. Follow me on Instagram (@urbanmantra1) and my Instastories to stay updated and to connect with me using the #SLPChallenge. We can do it together!

Travel to new destinations offers us a mental escape from the everyday routine we have in our lives. Why not break free and do something daring in the physical sense too?

With so many great places and unique locales to explore in the world, I have become a big fan of combining sight-seeing with fitness challenges. This, my friends, is my new hobby. It’s exciting, it’s adventurous, it’s fun!  I’ve been doing it for the past 3 years now and I love it.

It all started when I did the vertical race, climbing over 86 flights of stairs up the Empire State Building in New York (read here). I got such a high from taking part in a unique fitness challenge such as that. It was so atypical from the usual races one does. From them on, I was hooked! The next one I did was a run through an ancient archeological site steeped in history, the Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Soon after, it was a run through the Singapore Zoo where we got to whiz by wild animals. The most recent one I did was the Vietnam Mountain Run.

The Vietnam Mountain Run is no ordinary race. It takes place in Sapa, a small town that sits among mountains in northern Vietnam. You might imagine that a race in a mountainous region might include lots of rocky dirt roads, winding trails, and steep inclines. You’re not mistaken.

My 10K race started at central Sapa town with the rest of the race taking me past local minority villages, through scenic ricefields, jungles, and streams. I had trained on flat, pavement roads in urban Singapore. In rural Sapa, I was greeted with the rocky-studded dirt paths, dangerously narrow trails, slippery muddy paths, and steep slopes along the way. I had prepared for a tough race, this was even tougher than I expected. I realized early on that this race was going to be a test of endurance and agility. I had to keep going through a combination of running, climbing, and walking. It was no doubt the hardest race I’d done until now. The first 3 km were essentially downhill but the last 7km were entirely uphill to a height of 1500 meters. Talk about pushing yourself against gravity!

Despite all of that, I made sure to pause every now and then to taken in the incredible scenery in front of me. Yes, I had a race to complete but that didn’t stop me from taking my iPhone out multiple times during the run to take gratuitous selfies and panoramic shots of the gorgeous landscape. I also felt lucky to have gotten the chance to see the quieter, hidden corners of Sapa and access some of the more remote parts of this locality through this run. As I crossed the finish line, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. I had pushed myself to complete a very strenuous race but the journey had been incredible. Now, I’m already thinking about where my next destination and race will be. 

Only the beginning of the run. All easy downhill turns at this point. 

Quick photo to capture myself along this side cliff, and then getting on with the run!

"What's up with these foreigners wanting to run through our village? We do it every day,
it's no big deal."

In case you're wondering - yes, I stopped a fellow runner to ask if he could take a picture of me as I stood panting like a dog...against this backdrop.

Waving the Indian flag at the finish line! Oh, so victorious! Haha!

Thirty days of putting my body through a squat and plank challenge came to an end just a few days ago. On the last day of the challenge, as I completed the last of the 250 squats I was supposed to do, I couldn't help but let out a loud victory whoop!

In an earlier post, I had talked about taking on a 30-day squat and plank challenge as a way to get back in shape post-pregnancy (see post here). I saw it as a time-effective way for busy people to stay active and fit. The challenge was particularly appealing to me as a mother of a 5-month old who often struggles to make time for exercise. A workout that targets multiple muscle groups, such as quads, hamstrings, abs, and butt, in one shot? Count me in, I said! I can do this while the baby naps!

Did I make it through the month? Was the challenge worth doing? Yes to both. In terms of the level of difficulty, the workout challenge wasn't that tough. It simply required consistency and dedication in sticking with it. It would have been very easy to give up half way through, but I hate quitting. I was determined to complete the full 30 days and complete I did!

Were there any days I skipped or got lazy? Truth be told, there was one day I let myself down. On the third last day when I was supposed to do 230 squats, I only got to 120. Shhh, don't tell anyone :)

The deets? Most days, I incorporated the squats and planks into a larger workout of about 30-40 minutes that included running, weight-lifting, and ab exercises (e.g., crunches). Other days, I would only do the squats and hold the plank pose (but I would try to go for long walks with my baby in a stroller! Sometimes I did up to 2 hours of walking over the course of the day and it seriously helped as a fat-burning exercise). In both scenarios, the challenge worked to raise my heart rate and tone my legs. While there are no visible differences in how my legs look, I can honestly say that my legs feel firmer and stronger. An added bonus? I lost about 1.5 kilos (about 3-4 lbs) this past month with all the combined exercises. It may not sound like much but hey, every bit counts. :)

Image Source

In the past several months, I’ve had to replace lifting weights with lifting a baby, cleaning spit ups instead of clearing sit-ups, pushing a stroller instead of doing push-ups. As a fitness junkie, I was eager to get back to working out as soon as the doctor said it was okay to do so. But as a new mom, I soon discovered the challenge of fitting exercise into my daily routine. True, I have had the good fortune of spending my maternity leave back home in Asia, surrounded by family who can help me look after Baby K. Yet I still struggle sometimes to find time in the day for fitness. The problem is, I never really get a good chunk of time to do anything at length. I always heard about how babies need constant attention. I’m now experiencing that firsthand for myself. It’s always a spare 20 to 30 minutes here or there. Maybe if I’m lucky, I get a couple hours to myself when the baby is napping during the day.

But where there's a will, there's a way! I recently started setting aside 30 minutes in the morning for exercise and have managed to stick with reasonable success. On days when I’m feeling lazy or plans go astray, I still try to do some yoga stretches or go for a walk with the baby. Currently, I’m doing the 30 day squat and plank challenge, a great way to firm up the quads, hamstrings, abs, and butt and strengthen the back! The combination workout targets multiple muscle groups so it's a great postnatal workout for new moms who want to tone up. And the best part? It can be done anywhere - in the nursery while the baby naps, in your office cubicle, in the park, or in the bathroom if you so choose! I’m hoping I’ll see results by the end of the 30 days (I'm only on day 6 so far). Watch out for a post-challenge report on the blog!

Check out the 30 day squat and plank challenge schedule I put together below. 

A few additional tips:

• Please be sure to follow correct form and technique for these exercises (Youtube videos for squats and planks)
• Try to follow up this short exercise with lower body stretches so that you aren’t sore the next day. (Some yoga stretches that I found helpful were pigeon pose, lizard pose, and the kneeling hamstring stretch)
• Remember to breathe while doing squats and planks! For squats, breath in as you bend low, breathe out as you stand up
• For more intensive squats, sink low and try to get your thighs parallel to the floor
• You can do the squats and planks in whatever order you want - it's up to you!
• If the number of squats is getting too much for you, you can break them up throughout the day or build them into a longer workout. For example,  on the day you have to do 100 squats, you could do 25 squats at four different times in the day. Or you could do 25 squats after every 10-15 minutes of running on the treadmill
• Partner up with a friend for this fitness challenge - it’s more fun that way and you’re more likely to stick through the whole month!