Boy my muscles are sore!

Well, the last few days, I have gone to my normal aerobics class workouts, but both days, we worked very hard. On Monday, I started with 12 minutes on the stair machine for a warmup before class. My warmup helped me start the calorie burning process with 67 cals burned. In class we did a 45 minute BOSU workout. Here is a link to what the BOSU looks like. http://www.bosupro.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=bosupro/itemdetl.html?item=BP1002
I have done a BOSU workout before, but not in a while. Basically we used cardio music and did step routines, but used the BOSU as our "step". This really helps you work your core while you are getting your cardio routine in. I followed this class with 45 minutes of Pilates. We used the ball during our pilates class and did some new moves that I had not done in the past. I was feeling my obliques (ab muscles along the side of your body) today before I went to class. I was doing one of the moves in pilates that I have tried before and never been able to do correctly, but when I did it yesterday it worked! I was very excited. The instructor said I must have found the right spot to be on the ball. It was nice to be able to do the exercise instead of watching everyone else. This particular move is when you have the ball under you and you are laying over the top with your feet spread out and touching the floor. You put your hands on the side and then push your body off of the ball. It was nice to finally get it!

Today I started with a 9 minute warm up on the eliptical. Nothing too tough, just warming up for the day. I burned about 50 calories. I went to my circuit class today. We started with our 5 minute warm up and some stretches. Then we started our circuits. First circuit was football run for 1 minute 30 seconds. Then jumping back and forth over a rope on the ground for 1 minute 30 seconds. Then we did a few minutes of weights. During our weight segment, we did squats with every arm movement. Next circuit was running up and then down on the BOSU. Then cross country ski on the floor. Both of these for 1 minute 30 seconds each. At each circuit we were given a low intensity and high intensity option. Most of the time, I opted for high intensity. Back to the weight segment. Boy those squats started getting hard by this point. My next two circuits were tap the BOSU with each foot (some fast and some slow) and jump squats. So then we went back to the weight section. I didn't think I could do anymore, but we kept pushing. More squats with our weight lifting section! By now the cardio circuits are looking good. My last two circuits were shuttle run and then jumping jacks. We followed up with a move my instructor calls "Elvis Pelvis". You go down into a squat then turn to the right and lunge. You only have to do about 10 of these on each side. They are tough! We finished with a cool down and stretch. I felt good after class, but now tonight, I'm feeling a little sore. Although, it's a good kind of sore. Makes me feel glad I worked out and that I can feel my muscles getting stronger. Hope you are getting stronger and healthier too!

PS - Make sure you are getting enough water! I have been battling headaches for the last week or so and I think it may be due to not getting enough water throughout the day. So, I'm trying really hard to have more water. The problem is that the more water you drink, the more you need to use the bathroom and I view trips to the bathroom as a complete waste of time, so I don't like having to go more often. You can even ask my mom about holding it all day when I was a kid! :)

Everybody's Working for the Weekend!

Well, it's Friday! We made it through our first week of school here. So now comes the times where we really look forward to Friday. Unfortunately for me, this usually means that I don't eat as well and I don't exercise. This is not a good combo. What happens is that I work hard all week in both my workouts and eating and then I blow it all over the weekend. I haven't been putting a lot of thought into this lately, but today I realized that this could really be sabotaging my weight loss efforts. So I'm going to make it a plan to try not to overeat this weekend and to keep myself more active. Even if I just go out and weed or wash the car, at least I will be moving around. I could even play some Wii Fit!

I started my Friday with a good workout to jump start my weekend. I jogged/ran for 30 minutes. This is a great way for me to start my workouts as this 30 minutes burns about 200 calories. I only burn this many calories when I am running outside. I don't seem to get the same numbers when I am on the treadmill. I then went to a one hour aerobics class. This class was a combination of step, weights & bands with an ab workout on the end. This is a great all over body workout. At the end of the class I had burned an additional 327 calories. So I am on my way to having a great weekend. As I write this down, I hope it helps me to remember to stay on track over the weekend. Stay away from the wine! :)

Working Hard???

Well even though I haven't posted in a few days, I have still been busy with my workouts. On Friday I did a 30 minute run and then went to an hour aerobics class. I got a great workout, but my watch was not working with me today. Every once in a while, I have trouble with the watch taking my heart rate correctly. Today it kept saying that I was at 190 beats per minute which is over 100% of my maximun heart rate. I know that it was actually not that high, but since the watch doesn't know that it starts counting calories much faster than it should. Usually I can get a good reading eventually and then I can get my calorie count figured out from there. But, on Friday, it did not want to work with me at all. I eventually took the watch off and stopped trying to get it to work. Sometimes I have to remember that even though I do not have my calorie count, doesn't mean I didn't actually burn the calories.

On Monday, I did my 45 minute step class and 45 minutes of pilates. During step I burned about 275 calories and I burned an addtional 139 calories in pilates. My total for the day was 414. During my pilates class, Miss Mary from daycare came into the aerobics room with Morgan and asked if she was allergic to bees. Morgan got stung by a yellow jacket while she was outside playing. The site was raised just a little bit around where the sting occured, but I'm not allergic so I figured she would be fine. Miss Mary said that she didn't even cry. She just came over to Miss Tammi and told her that her elbow was hurting. I let Morgan sit next to me while I did some pilates and then she wanted to go back to play with her friends. I took her back to daycare and she played for another 20 minutes while I finished up class. By the time I picked her up the swelling had gone down and she was fine. Now, I was lucky that it was Morgan that got stung, because if it had been Kaylee we would have had to go home immediatly!

Today was a very interesting day at the gym. I have a PTA Executive Board meeting today so I was not able to go to my normal class. Since I don't like to miss a day, I decided to get to bed early last night and get up and go to the 5:30 am class today. Can you believe it??? I was actually up and at the gym at 5:30am!!! The class is called BOSU, so they use the BOSU ball thing. This is the piece of equipment that is flat on the bottom and like a ball on the top. It is great for working your core. Sometimes you can use the BOSU and do a step type routine. You can also use it for ab workouts and strength workouts. After a brief warmup and some work with the barbell for the first 15 minutes, we went out into the gym to work on the cardio equipment. This part of the workout was like being on The Biggest Loser! She put each of us on a different machine. We spent about 5 minutes on each machine. I started on a stairclimer at a medium level. After about a minute we had to let go of the machine and push ourselves for the next minute. Then relief for a minute, back to pushing and then back to start. Then we moved on to the next machine. I then did 5 minutes on the elliptical, 5 minutes on another stair climber, followed by the last 15 minutes on a stationary bike. The bike was the toughest. I was working at level 8-9 on the "easy" segments. Then I had to crank it up to 18-19 and stand up on the "hard" segments. During the hard segments, we would take one hand off and then switch to the other hand off. This was extremely hard and the teacher was like Jillian, coming around and making sure you were doing the hard levels. After we finished on the equipment we went back to the aerobics room and finished up with about 10 minutes of abs and stretching. This was a really tough class and I was able to burn 312 calories in just 1 hour! It was good for me to get a different type of workout that my body is not used to. I'm sure I'll be feeling it later and hopefully the scale will reflect it tomorrow. I am trying to get back down to my pre vacation weight!

Good luck with your workouts this week. I'll keep you posted on mine. I'm also working very hard to cut down on one of my new favorite foods! I have started enjoying bread (any kind will do) dipped in olive oil with seasoning. It is the best! I have been telling myself that it is good for me because it is olive oil. Well, at each sitting I was probably taking in close to 2 tblsp of olive oil. I just looked at the olive oil bottle the other day and 1 tblsp is 125 calories!!! Ouch!! So, I'm trying to only have this once a week instead of every day and to keep it to a small amount. I don't need to drown the bread, just get a dab to get the flavor. So, even though we think we are eating healthy, it can be sabotoging our weight loss efforts. So make sure you check those labels now and again.

Update on the Last Few Days

Well, I know I have not updated this blog in a couple of days, but it does not mean that I did not work out. Here is an update on what I have been doing this week.

Tuesday - 45 Minutes Walk/Jog/Run/Lunges
This was a good workout for me. I started out walking for a few minutes then went to running/jogging. I ran for a total of about 3 miles. Once I start running, I go for about 7 minutes or so then I walk so that I can check my heart rate on my watch. It is hard to do while you are running and you don't always get an accurate number. So I walk just until I get my reading which takes about 20 seconds then I go back to running. I kept this up for about 35 minutes and then I finished with a 5 minute cool down and 5 minutes of walking lunges. I forgot to write down my calories, but I believe I was around 300 total.

Wednesday - 30 Minutes Cardio Aerobics, 30 Minutes Yoga and 20 Minutes Elliptical
The cardio part of class today was on the floor. The teacher puts together some combos and we repeat them several times over the 30 minutes. I was able to burn 150 calories during this portion of the workout. We then move right in to the 30 minute yoga portion of the class. As this is the only yoga workout that I can go to right now, it will have to do. I would really love to go to a yoga studio and take class several times a week. I love the breathing and connecting with your body and mind part of yoga. During this portion of class I burned 66 calories. Then after my class, is the FitKids class that Morgan goes to. While she was in class I went and did a 20 minute session on the elliptical. I started at incline 15 and resistance 5. I stayed here for 5 minutes. Then I moved to incline 10 at the same resistance for 5 minutes. Then I went down to incline 5 for 5 minutes and finished up the last 5 minutes at incline 10 pedaling backwards. This added an additional 145 calories burned. My total for the day was 361 calories.

Thursday - Well, I did not want to get up and go to the gym today. So I just decided to take it easy this morning and go into the gym a little later. In a few weeks when Kaylee goes back to school, I won't have that option so I thought I would take it today. I couldn't decide if I wanted to attend the Cardio/Core class today or work on my own. I ended up working out on my own, but I had a really good workout. I started on the stationary bike (regular). I set it for interval training for 30 minutes. After a warmup it went to 2 minutes at level 10 to 2 minutes at level 4. You can adjust your level but this was a good starting place for me as I don't use the bike very often. When I was at level 10 I would stand and pedal for the first minute then sit down and pedal for 30 seconds. Then I finished up the last 30 seconds of the interval standing. Then when the bike went to level 4 I would sit, but pedal faster. On the level 10 intervals I kept the rpm's around 72, on level 4 I bumped it up to 95. After 30 minutes I had burned 200 calories. I stayed on the bike for another 5 minutes to cool down. Then I took 10 minutes to do some leg strengthening. I put a band around my ankles and then with my feet out wide did two sets of 12 squats. I then walked side to side for two sets of 12 with the band around my ankles. I finished up with 1 minute of jump rope, 12 squats on the BOSU, another minute of jump rope and my last set of squats on the BOSU. My total workout time was 45 minutes and my total calories burned were 286. Not too bad for a quick workout.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, so I'll probably do a hard day! Have fun!

Pilates Class Today

Well, after a nice weekend away from home, where I ate too much and had too many liquid calories, it is back to the gym for me! Luckily, Monday is a day where I do a tough workout to get me ramped up for the week. Please see my routine below and calories burned:

45 Minutes Cardio Step 288 Calories Burned
45 Minutes Pilates 105 Calories Burned

Total calories burned 393

One of the things I really love about Pilates is how it works your whole body, especially your core. However, one of the keys to working your whole body and your core is to squeeze all those muscles tight during your entire workout. If you don't engage each muscle group when you are using it, you will not see the results that you want. It is also important to remember to breathe during your pilates workout. My instructor is good about letting us know which part of the move we should be inhaling on and which part we should be exhaling on. I think most home DVD's will give you the same information.

Good luck this week with your workouts and eating healthy. I'm going to work on getting lots of fruits and veggies. Some of my veggies will even come from my garden!

Happy Friday!!!

Welcome to Friday! I know how we all look forward to Friday, but for me Friday is my hardest workout. I think I do this to compensate a little for not working out over the weekend. Today I started my workout with a 30 minute run. Well it is a combo of walking, jogging and running. I have been doing my Friday run outside. There is a good run near the Y, so I am able to drop off Morgan and then go for a run. This run is kind of hard as there are a few hills. For me, running is really the only way to get my heart rate up and get a great workout in a short amount of time. At the end of my run I had burned 217 calories. Then to up my workout for Friday, I attended a 1 hour aerobics class. This was another 20/20 class like yesterday, so it was a combination of floor aerobics, weights, step and abs. We also did some kick boxing stuff today in class. I didn't used to like the kick boxing, but as I have gotten stronger, I do enjoy having this added to my classes. During class I burned 324 calories. So my total for today was 541!! One of the great things about starting with the 30 minute run is that it really gets my calorie burn going so even when I slow down a little in class, I keep burning lots of calories.

One thing I want to give you to think about over the weekend is something I have been hearing about more and more. It is eating more to weigh less. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? Well, I read an article in a running magazine this week that talked about an overweight women who had cut her calories drastically (around 1200-1400) and was working out a lot. She was seeing no progress on the scale, so she cut her calories even more. Still nothing on the scale. Then she talked to the "professionals" and one thing they said was that she wasn't eating enough to sustain her body through her workouts. They talked about eating breakfast (first thing in the morning) to get your metabolism going. This is so important. Our bodies do things even without us telling them and one of the things is to go into starvation mode when we don't feed them in the morning. What this means is that if you don't eat something in the morning, your body thinks it isn't going to get food so it starts storing fat and slowing down your metabolism. Plus you are even hungrier when you do eat and then eat more than you should at lunch. The woman in the story ended up changing her calorie intake to over 2000 and finally started to see the numbers come down on the scale. Now the thing is you can't just up your calories with french fries or cinnamon rolls. The idea is to get more fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. So just a little something to think about this weekend!

Have a great time and do something fun outside this weekend. I'll be walking around the Valkyrie (Craig's motorcycle) yearly shindig and checking out all the cool bikes.

Proper Form and Technique

I want to mention today how important proper form and technique are to your workouts. I have noticed over the many years that I have been working out that sometimes you can do a move without actually engaging your muscles and working out properly. As I have lost weight and do not have as much body fat, I am more aware of my muscles and when and how to squeeze them. This is a very important part of every workout. I would suggest that if you are not sure about your form try looking in the mirror (or sliding glass door). This will help you to see what you are doing. Another good trick is to start with no weight or small weights until you are sure your form is correct. Once your body is used to doing exercises with the proper form then you can increase your weight. You can also check online to find pictures of correct form for many different exercises.

My workout for today was 20 minutes on the treadmill. I did a 1 minute warm up at 3.5 speed and 1.0 incline. After the warm up, I changed the speed to 5.5 for a nice jog. I stayed at this pace with the 1.0 incline for 19 minutes. Then I went back to 3.5 for a 1 minute cool down. For this 21 minutes I burned a total of 110 calories. I then went to a 20/20/abs class. This class consists of a 5 minute warm up and stretch followed by 20 minutes of cardio which we did on the floor. Then we did 20 minutes of weights. The weight segment was medium to light weights while we were still moving our feets and working our arms, shoulders and back. The last 20 minutes of class were devoted to abs and legs. We did the old school leg lift workout. It reminds me of Jane Fonda, but I think they really do work (or else we wouldn't still be doing them!). During class I burned 251 calories. So my total for the whole workout was 361.

I have another thing I would like to discuss today and that is the scale. If you are trying to lose weight and you still have a way to go, my suggestion is to weigh yourself once a week. I would pick one day and a specific time and I would always weigh at that day and time. This gives you a better idea of how your weight loss is progressing. If you are at your goal weight or close to it, then I would suggest weighing more frequently. This helps you monitor your food and workouts better. I still suggest weighing at the same time every day. The other thing to be aware of is that our bodies fluctuate daily with weight. So don't be discouraged to see little gains in between the loses. This could be water retention or any number of other things.

Good luck with your workouts!