Workout clothes for different body types

Sometimes it is hard to find clothes that make us feel good and confident. Clothes that show off our good points and hide the bad. It's even harder when the clothes are all tight and made from lycra.

It can be enough to turn me off working out when I can't find clothes that I want to work out in. Here are some clothes I found for:

Curvy thighs and/or bottom. I love these tights from Skirts Sport. It has an attached skirt over capri length tights. The skirt helps disguise jiggly bottoms, sweaty crotches and camel toes. There's usually sightings of these all around gym. It's their natural habitat.

Lotta Breeze Capri $75

Curvaceous Bottom. This skort from Lorna Jane is so cute. Keeps the dimples and hungry bum hidden under the cute pleated skirt.

Brittan Skort $75.95

Mummy tummy. Team this Lorna Jane singlet with high waisted tights. Low riding tights add to the tummy tummy and high waisted tights will smooth the lumps and bumps.

Tanni Excel $59.99

These Skirts Sport tights have a rolled waist band. You can roll them up or down.

Evermore Capris $65

Tuckshop arms or Bingo Wings. Another top from Lorna Jane. This has loose sleeves and a mesh back. This will keep you looking and feeling cool. Yup, I said it.

Melody T-shirt $59.99

Or like me, you can wear of combinations of all the above.

Now, my playlist for this week is:

1. Battle Scars - Guy Sebastian. This is one of my favorite songs ATM
2. Bitch - Meredith Brooks
3. Are we all we are - P!nk. I can not stop singing this
4. I knew you were trouble - Taylor Swift. I download this for my girls and then like the beat. I realise this sounds like I am making excuses...and I am
5. Shake you Pom Pom - Missy Elliot
6. Play Hard - David Guetta
7. The boy does nothing - Alesha Dixon
8. Could've had everything - P!nk
9. Ho Hey - The Lumineers
10. Baby it's cold outside - Glee. Getting my Christmas on and a nice slow cooling down track

Gym Etiquette: 10 things you shouldn't be doing

Earlier this week, Deb from Aspiring Mum asked if I had written a post about gym etiquette. I couldn't believe I hadn't and I loved the idea. Thanks Deb.

Now, I am not the rule girl on all manners and I would love to have your input. Here are my ten 10 gym annoyances:

1. Forgetting your towel. You are there to work up a sweat, it's great that you do but you need to wipe down the equipment. Even the handles
2. Loud grunting when doing your reps. I haven't worked out if this is on purpose or not. I have been known to do a few heavy sets and I do not groan - EVER. You will be lucky to catch me grimacing
3. Treadmills are like toilet cubicles. If you can, give people some space
4. Spin/RPM classes. Put some resistance on your peddles else you'll be bouncing around like a handball. Bouncing bums are really distracting. Put on a little resistance and you'll stop the bouncing. Plus all that bouncing must hurt your lady bits
5. Remove and/or replace weights to their correct home when you have finished with them
6. In classes, moving AND STAYING in other peoples personal space. Classes can get crowded but we do need more than a postage stamped size area to whip out a roundhouse kick or some awesome Jam moves
7. If you aren't Rhianna then don't singing really, really loudly to the class sound tracks. We can hear you
8. Don't hog equipment if you aren't using it. Don't stand there chatting or just leave your towel hanging on it for 10 minutes
9. Personal trainers you pay by the minute that spend your valuable time talking, peeing or eating. (In case my PT is reading this - I'm not talking about you)
10. BO. This is really unpleasant. Gym, exercise, sweating, I know it can sometimes be hard to control the smell. But start clean and wear antiperspirant.

Or you can just avoid the gym and use my tips on how to look fit when you are not.

What a your biggest gym annoyances?

Why I am glad my treadmill broke...

I love my treadmill. We have a great routine that involves a lot of multi-tasking and running. I could put on a load of washing, or start dinner preparations and jump on the treadmill to review a movie until it was time to move the washing around or toss another vegetable in the soup. It meant I could always find time to exercise but the rest of my world didn't stop.

Then it had a blow out.

While I am waiting to fix it, I had to go out of my way to exercise. I had to schedule around children. For a creature of habit, this was hell.

But I took Lola, my permanent furry fixture...

..for a run along the waterfront. The temperature was perfect, there was a slight breeze and the air was salty (and a little seaweedy)

...I rediscovered the beauty of nature.

I'd still prefer the convenience of my tready but the outdoors is pretty amazing too.

My busted belt and Monday's motivating playlist

I really hope my playlist motivates me this week. I need all the help I can get. I have completely lost my exercise mojo. I am blaming it on a combination of a few things:

1. My treadmill busted its belt. The same will happen to me if my tready isn't fixed quickly

2. It also started making a loud thumping sound
3. I am also low in iron. I have started taking supplements but they haven't kicked in. The curse of a vegetarian that is a little slack cooking decent vegetarian dishes. I will be spending a lot of time stalking Veggie Mama's blog this week finding lots of excellent and easy recipes.
4. It's ridiculously windy and has been for a few days. This stops me from running or riding (or even walking) outside.

In the meantime, I am going to go follow my own suggestion and do a lounge room workout.

Here is my playlist for the week:

Give me love/Ed Sheeran - A slow start (Please ignore the fact that he may be hooking up with Taylor Swift)
Diamonds/Rihanna
My Signature Move/P!nk (because you always need P!nk to motivate you to move)
Locked out of Heaven/Bruno Mars
Spiderwebs/No Doubt - classic old No Doubt
Don't Stop the Party/Pitiful
This is Love/will.i.am - He is the coolest guy ON THE PLANET.
Wake up call/Maroon 5 - For my Adam Levine fix.
Just a Girl/No Doubt - Can you tell that I rediscovered this album again on the weekend.
Just like Jessie James/Cher - Don't judge me.

PS: I look forward to telling you next week that I perked myself up and ended up finding my mojo and having an excellent workout week.

How to appear fit when you are not...

How to appear fit when you are not. This is a special skill and it's best that you don't skip any of these but add a few points of your own. This is all very important, so important I am going to use a list again even though I dislikes lists.

1. You MUST wear gym clothes for either the school drop off or pick up but not both.
2. Do stretches outside your kids class rooms. The bigger the better. People need to see it.
3. Nod at other people wearing gym clothes
4. Throw the following words into any sentence: reps, sets, kilos, kilometres, ripped, glutes and carbs

5. Drink protein shakes in public. If you don't like protein shakes, have a coffee in a shake drink container. I'm sure they do the same thing
6. Jog on the spot when talking to people
7. Wear a pedometer and check it often
8. Start every 3rd sentence with "oh, my trainer said........"
9. Limp or wear a bandage occasionally. Real fit people are always nursing injuries

10. Write numbers in permanent marker on your arms and legs. When people point them out say "oh how embarrassing. That's from the tri/bi/marathon etc I did on the weekend."

These are foolproof.

You are welcome.


PS: or you can actually go for a run or join a gym and be fit for real