How to Work Out Without Really Working Out

I’m still en route to becoming a Lululemon-wearing, morning-run-loving gym bunny. But until that happens (or until a gym selfie gets posted, whichever comes first), I’m a firm believer in working out without really working out.

• Dance all night. Get drunk on booze and bachata. Be the first on the dance floor and the last to leave. Better yet, dance on tabletops and bars; on your bed; on the beach with your friends; under the stars at night. Take a ballet lesson or a hip-hop class. Get your Zumba on. Learn salsa and bring your dancing shoes to the next Latin night. Salsa on the beach. Bachata on a boat. Laugh. Sweat. Get sexy.

• Hike. I’ll let you in a secret: hiking is just walking, uphill. That’s all. Bring your biggest sunglasses and Kenzo snapback, your neon Nikes and Brita bottles, and get hiking. Do it alone or with someone you love. Snap pictures along the way; there’s no reason to deny the Insta-world of your view du jour. (The world could do with one less selfie, promise.)

• Go for a midnight swim. Clothes and/or bikinis optional.

• Explore. Explore your neighborhood, or the next town over. Wander around a city alone or with a group of friends. My best memories are ones spent in a comfortable shoes embarking on some sort of a spontaneous adventure, whether it be hopping in a car and driving off to Red Bank where I discovered a whole art installation hidden in throughout the town, revisiting Washington D.C. and doing every tourist-y thing, ever, or trekking Montreal’s cobblestone streets and falling in love with this French-Canadian city.

• Take a hot yoga class. Take the earliest session—we’re talking 6 a.m. here—if possible, too. Sure, it sounds New Age-y, but yoga truly is the stuff that feeds body and soul (not sure about the mind yet, I haven’t practiced regularly enough for that breakthrough; I also think too much so meditation is out of the question). It’s fulfilling; you leave that hour-and-a-half session feeling wholly satisfied.

• Follow a fitness video. I guess this is working out, but my brain associates working out with gyms and fancy treadmills, so at-home fitness is game for me. I’m a huge fan of the Tone It Up girls, everything about them is beautiful and aspirational—which makes “working out” kind of fun. I also adore Tracy Anderson because her workouts are more of Pilates-meets-dance format—which like the TIU videos, makes fitness enjoyable for me. There’s no pressure with these type of at-home workouts: it’s just you and the laptop.

• Hula-hoop. Get yourself a weighted hula-hoop (“fitness hoop,” as the sports stores call it) and hoop for entirety of a playlist or part of a TV show. You almost don’t want to stop, it’s that addicting.

• Replace your office chair with a fitness ball. I haven’t done this yet, but I plan to once the fall semester starts. It takes a good amount of core strength to balance yourself on a large rubber ball, making it the ideal way to sneak in an ab workout during your busy days. I love anything that ups my productivity game; efficiency is the name of the game.

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xx

(image via)