The Final Fifteen Pounds

We can't always get to our preferred place to workout. That's why I created a workout that teachers can do in their classroom. Here's how it worked for me yesterday.  Goal: exercise everyday. Couldn't. Due to an evening appointment, I was at school until 6:30 PM.  And my mind was tired. So I turned on the TV and got a little work done.  Commercial came on - I did push ups. Or squats.  I break my strength training routine into push days and pull days. Pushes are push ups, dips, squats. Pulls are pull ups, horizontal pull ups, and leg lifts. Yesterday was a push day. Today is a my-arms-and-chest-are-burning day. But in a good way. It's one way I know that my workout was effective. And even when my food is messy messy, I know I can work at keeping fit.  Right now the food is real messy. Lots of good input, but I'm struggling to really stay on a weight loss food routine. Exercises You Can Do In Your Classroom (or office?)... Squats -...

Walk We have all heard that walking helps us lose weight. Yes, there are other great ways, but walking can work for virtually anyone. When my #weightlossjourney began about a year and a half ago, I had a coach helping me. And he told me something I didn't want to hear. He told me that I had to exercise. I like to exercise, so that wasn't the problem, but I have an issue. I tend to injure myself when I workout--especially when I am lifting something.  But then, I thought about this. I can walk. I can walk like crazy. I walk in the heat (well hydrated). I walk in the freezing cold. I can walk in the daytime. I can walk at night.  Using a bouncer, I can even "walk" in my living room. And that's what I did. And I lost 40 pounds. Love it. I would be walking around the track at the college and it was so cold that my fingers cried. But about 20 minutes in, I didn't care. About 30 minutes in, every care in the world would just drop right down on the tr...

Wow. Tuesday... Good day. Took a day I wasn't too thrilled about doing due to a sleepless night and turned it oh so nice. #TLAP Teach Like a Pirate So Monday night, I planned and "attended" the #TLAP Twitter chat. If you haven't done a chat before, TLAP ( Teach Like a Pirate ) is a great one to get you started. It starts at 8 PM central on Monday nights (I'll let you work out the other zones). I came out of the chat with two ideas. Keep my students active. And get them to generate questions. My mind was buzzing (hey, maybe why I couldn't sleep). But those two ideas activity + questioning = engagement. Around the World (my classroom) Here's the basic review lesson we did. Put vocab words up all over the room. Students go around the room to each word and ask a partner a question. The partner tries to answer. BUT THEN the partner who answered gets to ask another question about the same word. I like this because that second question drives the qu...