Welcome to my blog, puppies and pilates, thank you for stopping by!
As the name suggests, my blog refers to my love of both puppies and pilates. Sorry for anyone who was looking for a doggie pilates class.
A little about me: I am a twenty-something female currently living in a rural coastal town of South Australia. I live with my two puppies and my boyfriend. More about them later ;)
(Yes we are dressed as majestic unicorns...just go with it...)
I first 'stumbled' onto pilates by accident. Originally I was a complete cardio addict- running, skipping and cycling were my only forms of exercise. I hated any sort of weight training because it didn't motivate or challenge me, and I would get bored after one set of exercises.
Last year I noticed there was a considerable amount of pain in my right hip and lower back. I have scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine, yet I unwisely ignored the pain and continued with my intense cardio workouts. It was not until I was being kept awake at night by the pain that I went to a physio therapist who told me that the level of cardio exercise I was doing was putting too much strain on my joints. I needed to take rest days and I needed to stretch and incorporate strength training into my routine. I was doing neither of these things.
I left that appointment feeling a little conflicted. I loved cardio for the 'high' that it gave you after your workout, and I didn't think that yoga or weights was going to give me the same feeling. For a few months I dropped back to only walking my dogs and as much as I love walking my fur babies, it still felt like I wasn't doing enough. I wanted that high back. And I'm not going to lie, I really missed being toned and muscly, especially in my legs.
So I tried a bunch of things. I tried kickboxing. I tried zumba. I even gave yoga another chance, giving several varieties of classes a trial, but I couldn't make the workouts a habit as I got very unmotivated during the classes.
One day I was searching for workouts on You Tube and I came across a video by popular pilates instructor Cassey Ho, founder of Blogilates.
It was her total body workout for beginners video. I had heard of pilates before, but I always assumed it was like yoga with a lot of stretching and breathing. I didn't think that it would be challenging enough but I thought "What the hell". I gave it a go and became instantly hooked. I had no idea that an exercise could challenge my body and make it shake and sweat so much with simple, dance like movements. I currently still do Cassey's videos because they challenge me in a way no other workout has before. I love the variety, I love the way you can pick one based on what body part you would like to workout, their intensity or the amount of time you have to spare-some videos are 10 minutes long and they give you a great workout. I finally got that 'high' I was searching for.
What I also noticed was my body changing. All of a sudden I had abs!
Thin but flabby to...
Aw yea ab sandwich!)
I have always been slim but I have never developed any noticeable muscle definition apart from in my legs. I was very happy to see my abs, arms and glutes transform. My jeans fit so well now that I have some junk in my trunk!
And my chronic hip and back pain that I mentioned above? Gone. Completely. Because of pilates my posture and strength has improved. I am able to carry myself around without putting strain on my joints.
So these days my workouts consist of pilates and walking my dogs, Occasionally I will throw in a high intensity interval training workout (HIIT) like this or this to raise my heart rate. But most of my fitness comes from Pilates workouts.
Thanks so much for reading my story, and I hope you continue to read as I post about my daily workouts, my eats and everything in between.
-Tahlia xo
P.S: I hope you like pictures of the cutest dogs in the world because you're going to see A LOT of them!
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