Did you know that you have access to hundreds of free workout videos on YouTube?!?!  I put out a call to my friends to see if they knew of any free workout videos on YouTube that they could recommend. So many people responded and wanted to give me their opinion of their favorites that I was overwhelmed. Turns out that all of my friends have been using exercise videos on YouTube and I had no idea that we could have access to all of this for free!

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Have you ever been running listening to a great song and feel like you could run forever and then the next song comes on and even though it is a good song it slows you down? I finally figured out why that happens and how to find songs that keep me going at a good pace.

Each song has a certain number of beats per minute (BPM) and the more BPMs in the song the faster your pace will be while listening to the song. You want to find the correct songs for the pace that you want, you don’t want one that is too slow or even one that is too fast.

My favorite way to find out which is the right pace is the next time you go for a run or walk pay attention to which songs inspire you to run or walk at the speed you want. Afterwards go to your computer and find out what the BPM is for that song by going to this website,  www.songbpm.com and typing in your song. Type in one or two that you like so you have a range of BPMs that work for you.

If you already know the pace you want to run/walk or you have now figured it out by the above website then you could go to www.jog.fm and it lists songs by pace.

For example it will say:

Shake it Off by Taylor Swift is 160 BPM and therefore a 9:00 mile pace

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benetar is 181 BPM and is a 6:54 mile pace.

This is fun because it will give you ideas of songs that you may have never even thought of before. You also may try new artists that will pump you up for a good workout.

If you are like me, good music really makes a workout feel great. It even helps motivate me to go for a workout if I know I have new music.

What songs do you like to listen to while working out? I like Blurred Lines, Uptown Funk and Blow as some of my favorites. What are yours?

Do you feel so tired when you go to bed that you think you will fall asleep before your head hits the pillow? Then when you do lay down you can’t get your mind to shut off and you end up laying there for what seems like hours before actually falling asleep. I used to swear it took me at least 45 minutes to an hour to actually drift off to sleep. Now that is all over, I actually found the solution to falling asleep within a couple minutes of putting my head down.

A sound machine!

Yes, a sound machine is a must for helping babies fall asleep quickly and stay asleep longer so we should all be using them too.  I wish I would have figured it out 20 years ago. I would lay there telling myself I needed to fall asleep right then to get 7 hours of sleep and then stress myself out as the time dwindled away with me just continueing to lay there. Now I fall asleep so quickly that sometimes I can’t even remember putting my head on the pillow.

It is the constant buzz that drowns out changes in other noise. For example, you may still be able to hear the air conditioner kick on if you really focused on it but if you have a sound machine on and you are starting to drift off to sleep the sound of it kicking on no longer jars your body back to being awake. Here is an article that talks about it more scientifically than I can, click here.

It takes a couple days to get used to it. I recommend you try it at a very low setting at first so you barely hear it and then work it louder every couple days to get the full effect.

Here is the sound machine we use in our our house.

Now I can really say that I sleep hard like a baby. My baby and I both sleep listening to a sound machine.

This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

In my last post about How to get into the Weight Loss Zone I talked about how it is important to start at a time where you have 3 – 5 days in a row where you know you won’t have any major temptations such as a party, birthday or other social event where you will be tempted to get off track. I am going to talk today about how losing weight is like the debt snowball that Dave Ramsey talks about in his book the Total Money Makeover.

You want to have several days to let yourself get into a routine and not have to make decisions. Make a meal plan or eat similar things each day for at least 3 – 5 days so you automatically are having some small successes. I ate basically the same meals each day for almost a week to limit any decisions I would need to make. If I left myself open to making a decision I would possibly give myself a decision that was not healthy or conducive to getting me to my goal.

This is the same situation Dave Ramsey is trying to give people who are trying to get out of debt. He recommends that you start paying off your debts smallest to largest. This way you quickly feel some success with paying off  small loans and then you are in the routine of feeling strong and successful in your mission. This will be the same with weight loss. Once you feel some small successes you can be stronger against temptations such as social events or being stressed and tired and can still acheive your goal.

Give yourself 3 – 5 days of your new way of eating so that you can feel good about yourself, strong and happy. This gives you the strength to get in the weight loss zone. Once you get in the zone you feel like nothing is more important than getting to your goal and you are strong against temptations. So set yourself up for success and get yourself into the zone!