There's a reason Tabata circuits are short...

DAMN!

These just never get any easier do they? I don't even know how long I have been doing Tabata style circuits and they still kick my ass.

Circuit 1: in no particular order, swings make up the missing rounds

2H swings
1 arm swing L&R
alt swings
snatch L&R

Circuit 2: in no particular order, swings make up the missing rounds

2H swings
cleans L&R
C&P L&R
highpulls

And it looks like I am back to posterior work only. One week of BW squats and my knees are starting to act up. So back to bridges and RDL galore and evil stretching.

Number crunching

I did some number crunching tonight.

Since January I have lost 35 pounds. Not bad for 8 months. That averages about a pound a week so it is on the low side of normal.

But I think what is cool is that at 210 pounds I am wearing the same clothes that I was wearing when I weighed 185 pounds. On top of that my posture is way better, I have muscle and my shoulders are wider.

So for my number crunching...

My body fat has gone down 8%. (I actually think it is more than that but the calculator I am using is all I have to go by.) Based on that, of the 35 pounds I have lost, all but 2 pounds was from fat.

I have reduced my body weight by 15% without starving myself.

I have lost a total of 31.5 inches. Seven of them from my hips, 5 from my waist and 5 from my chest.

And my BMI has dropped 5.5 points. Ironically though, I would have to lose lean body mass in order to be considered a healthy BMI at 20% body fat. And that is to be in the top range of "normal". At my initial goal of 165 with 20% body fat I will still be considered over weight.

So, not bad for 35 pounds, if I do say so myself! LOL

The elusive last set

Maybe it is a mental block or maybe I am just writing a REALLY challenging program for myself??

But, I can not seem to finish the last set of my circuit. I am thinking of switching the order of the circuit. Right now I have snatches as my last set. I LOVE snatches. I can make (and have) an entire workout out of snatches, but I am snatching my heaviest KB and they are HARD!!!!

Here was today's workout:

Working in a circuit:

BW, just shy of ATG Squats (12, 12, 10)

Deadlift, 92lbs (12, 12, 10)

Incline Push-ups (4, 3, 2, 2, 4)

Leg Assisted Ring Pull-ups, heavily assisted! :) (4, 3, 2, 2, 4)

KB Swings, 25 (12, 12, 10)

KB snatches, R&L, 25 (12, 12, X)

It is amazing what not doing quad work for over a month will do to your balance. I am not using weight yet so I don't know if I lost any strength. Honestly, if I did it is probably a good thing. Achieve that quad/ham balance a bit faster! LOL I am planning on keeping the squats BW only for a while. I am not that interested in the knee pain I was having returning anytime soon. For now I will work on full range of motion and perhaps add some light weight down the road.

I think I am going to lower the weight on my deadlifts and switch to Romanians to better isolate the posterior chain. I am really trying to keep quad work to a minimum!

I can't wait until the weather gets cooler so I can move my workouts outside. I want to start doing some sprint/KB combos but I can't do it inside and outside is to miserable right now!

My weight dipped below the 210 mark today. Very exciting. I won't count it official until it stays there a few days. My eating has been very erratic lately and that actually seems to be helping! Calories have been in check but macros are way screwy.

My ever so difficult children interrupted my workout today so I never got my stretching done. I am heading to do that and my bridges now. I may even hit the gazelle or hula hoop when I am done.

Amazing what a week off can do for you...

Well my week of less than stellar eating has paid off. Now mind you I wasn't too bad but my carbs were WAAAYYY higher than they usually are. (Of course I had a friend point out that just breathing on the bread isle gave me more carbs than normal! LOL) When we got home from our trip I was only up 2 pounds. I expected far more. But that was gone the very next day. Today I hit 210. I haven't been 210 in..... well..... my 2nd trimester with Drake?? Yeah we'll go with that!

I have actually been keeping my carbs higher than usual. My workouts were suffering before my dreaded trip and I had decided to up hem anyways!

Yesterday's workout was rough. I haven't done anything heavy in almost 2 weeks. Boy can I tell!! I reintroduced squats yesterday after my 1 month ban! I did body weight only. I will probably keep it at body weight for a while because I really like walking! LOL My knee only popped once yesterday and that was after sitting at my desk for a couple of hours. SOOOO, so far so good.

I also added back in my beloved deadlifts. My month off from those has cause my numbers to drop again. But I am sure they will recover quickly. I am shooting for 75% of body weight by the end of the year. I might need to bump that up. I can almost do that now!

Still working through the 100 push-ups plan. Although I have gone back to the beginning and switched the type of push-ups. I have gone from knees to incline.

And, as always, KB swings and snatches are a staple. Without them I might have withdrawal! LOL I am such a junky!

It's that time again!

Aug 27
Bust - 44 (-.25)
Chest - 36 (-.25)
Waist - 40 (-1.5)
Hips - 48 (-.5)
Thighs - 25 (-1.5 each)
Calves - 14.5 (-.25 each)
Upperarm - 15.5 (-.5 each, 'bout damn time!)
Forearm - 12 (no change)
Wrist - 6.5
Neck - 14
Weight - 210.6

BF% - 37.5%(-1%)

Open Challenge Goals
Goal 1: Weight Loss of 43lbs (218 to 175) - I am at 210. Not as far as i would like to be but considering the month I have had I can't sneeze at 8 pounds!

Goal 2: Losing 2 dress sizes (18 to 14) - I am still an 18 but I can get into some of my 16s so I am on the verge of sizes.

Goal 3: Compliance - Goal 3: Compliance - Performing HIIT twice a week and SS cardio 3 times a week. Compliance sheet will be maintained. Success at the end will be determined by compliance %. - My compliance is 75% because of my week out of town for the funeral. The rest of the month was 100%.

Goal 4: Perform 10 pushups. (0 to 10) - Push-ups - Still at 0 here but I have progressed from push-ups on my knees to push ups on the bench. I was able to do 7 of them. That is up from 3 when I started the challenge.

Back on track Monday

Why does everyone start on Mondays?? LOL


This week has been completely and totally off-program. Diet and exercise is just not easy to maintain while driving for 45 hours in a car, getting 10 total hours of sleep and attending a wake and funeral over a 4 day span (man it seemed longer than that). Then driving home into a Tropical Storm which lasted FOREVER and dealing with an old house that does not like wind driven rain was the icing on the cake this week.

My body is simply done with this week. So instead of trying to jump back in I am resting until Monday. This seems like an excellent time to reevaluate the program and make changes. I doubt I will make many changes. I am happy with what I am doing and it is working, slowly, but working. I do think I will up carbs. I have been considering it for a while now. In fact I am tempted to say the hell with macros and just eat, keeping calories in check through IF.

I will be pulling out NROL today and flipping through it. I have been considering alternating between it and kettlebells. I know replacing the kettlebells entirely would be a bad idea. I have too much fun doing them.

Haven't done crap...

...this week. If you read my other blog you know why. If not, sorry, I don't feel like explaining it again.

Today's total...

is 97! It would have been 99 but I didn't count two of them because I couldn't get my elbows locked out on them. I am talking push-ups of course. Today was week 3/day 1. I really struggled on today's but I did it. Set 3 and 5 I had to take a brief rest (10ish seconds) before completing the set.

I skipped planks. After 99 (97) push-ups I was done!

My weight was up 1 pound today. I figured that after my high carb weekend and my raging sunburn was probably the cause. Then I got a surprise early visit. So maybe the gain was TOM related. Maybe it was a little of everything and I will see a big drop next week. I am going with that theory! LOL

Eating was good today, although out of order. I usually start my day with PWO shake but I didn't get my workout in until 8 tonight. So I ended the day with PWO instead.

Logs for Week of 8-4-08

New log style this week. As much as I like the type logs I just can't keep up with them in the computer. Workouts this week were bare minimum.

SS cardio this week was on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and HIIT was on Monday and Friday

Better now

I finally finished my workout, minus the SS cardio. Just don't have it in me today. I will spend all day tomorrow at a water park chasing my children around who can't swim so I will get plenty of cardio there. I did do my 3 "required" sessions this week already though! And if we are counting my kettlebell workouts as HIIT then I did 1 extra session there.

After my workout was finally finished I made my protein shake and put blueberries in it. I felt instantly better after that. So I guess I need to up my carbs a bit. Blueberries in the protein shake it quite yummy so I guess I can manage! ;P

I completed week 2 of the 100 push-ups program today. I did every one of them I was supposed to. I probably should have waited until tomorrow or Sunday to do my exhaustion test for next week but I knew my weekend was going to be crazy and I would likely not have the energy to do a good job. So, although doing the exhaustion test 4 hours after my workout was not ideal, I was still very happy with my numbers. I did 26 push-ups. I have NEVER done that many push-ups at once before!!! So that put me, BARELY, into the third column. The reps in that column for next week are really intimidating!!! But I am excited. I still haven't tried any big girl push ups yet. I think I will wait until I do my monthly check in for the Open Challenge.

Food will be a bit challenging this weekend. My husband's company is throwing their summer party and suppling food. Chances are it will be bbq style foods; burger, dogs, etc. If I stay with meat items only I should be fine. Hopefully they will have salads and fruit as well. I am packing some snacks but those are mostly for my children since they have some food restrictions! I will sneak in some nuts and maybe some pepperoni crisps. I am also planning on mixing up some coconut oil bark. I should be able to find a bucket of ice to put it in to harden it up.

Warp Speed Revisited- Sorta

I really liked the diet the diet that came with WSFL. My only problem was eating so many freaking times a day. My body just doesn't work like that. So I think I will take the general layout and tweak it to suit my eating schedule.

Here is what I came up with. This will follow my typical 16 hour fast and 8 hour eating window. Non workout days tend to have a shorter eating window since I don't have to have a PWO shake.

PWO shake (11am) - 1 cup skim milk, 1 cup wild blueberries, 1 scoop whey PP, creatine and matcha powder, water and ice as needed

Meal 1 (1pm) - spinach salad with 2 tsp oil, 2 hard boiled eggs, 1/4 cup raw nuts, 4 ounce lean meat, chai with 2 Tbsp heavy cream

Meal 2 (4pm) - toddy coffee ice - 6 Tbsp heavy cream, 1 scoop PP, matcha powder, 8 ounces frozen toddy, water and ice as needed, Torani sweetener

Meal 3 (7:30pm) - 6 ounces lean meat, spinach salad, salad veggies, 2 tsp oil

This gives me 1650 calories, fat 52%, protein 33%, carb 14% on workout days

and

1380 calories, 60% fat, 32% protein, 7% carbs on non-workout days

uhg!

I am wiped out today. I don't know exactly why but I suspect it has to do with the fact that week has been psychotic and my sleep patterns are messed up.

I made it through half of my workout today and simply did not have the energy to even consider KB swings. I am going to take a rest and go back later.

I am also beginning to suspect that I am keeping my carb levels too low. Which really sucks because I like my diet I don't really want to add any carbs. Maybe I will play around with a small amount of berries in my shake. It's time to switch up the diet anyways.

The scale actually hit 213 this week. It didn't stay there but the number was nice to see anyways!

Cardio has been hit or miss this week. I put it as part of my goals that I would do 2 sessions of HIIT a week but I think I am going to have to rethink that. I suppose, depending on how you look at it, my kettlebell work could be viewed as HIIT. Maybe I will adjust the work vs rest times and use that as HIIT. After I do that KB work I don't have anything left for additional high intensity anything.

OK, enough whining and blabbering for now. Back to the kettlebells!

Painfully Simple

I was talking with someone the other day and mentioned I had just finished working out and that I was tired. She then proceeded to express her concern about how hard I workout. She said that "There are much simpler ways of losing weight." and "That I was going to hurt myself." Oh and let's not forget, "You don't want to get big and bulky like one of those freaky gym guys." (no offense to any freaky gym guys!)

I told her that my workout wasn't just about losing weight. I mean, I could do that and sit on the sofa all day watching TV. I know, I did it!

And I only wish I had the ability to get "big and bulky".

Working out was more about being healthy and being grounded. It was about knowing my body, not only it's weaknesses but also it's strengths. (Something I think the average person doesn't really know.) It is about becoming stronger and healthier. And it is about discipline. Working a little each day toward a goal whether I make good progress or not. It is not about the training volume. It is about the daily practice of bettering myself and my health.

When I realized the conversation was beginning to take a heavy philosophical turn I lightened it up by saying, "Besides, take a look (showing her my log). My workouts are painfully simple." She responded with, "It's the "painfully" part that I don't like!"

After reflecting back on that conversation, I wondered if it was really so natural to shun pain. Surely our paleolithic ancestors didn't avoid running down a wildebeest because their legs might be sore the next day. They accepted the pain was a part of life.

Now I am not talking 'broken bone' pain. I am referring to that 'I just had a killer workout' pain. That pain that lets you know exactly what muscles you have and exactly where they are.

Don't use "pain" as an excuse to avoid exercise. It is a natural biological response to work. And I am talking work of the muscular type.

I don't mind one bit when someone says to me, "I don't exercise because I don't want to." That person is being honest. Is it healthy? Perhaps not but they aren't making excuses to cover up the truth; that they have no desire to do it.

It is those excuses that irritate me.

"I'm too old for that." - Guess what? You're not getting any younger.

"I don't like to sweat." - Neither do I. That is what indoor plumbing it for. Suck it up and shower afterwards.

"I have bad knees." - So do I. Figure out why and do something to fix it.

"I don't have time." - Yes you do. Trust me!

"It is hard to workout with the kids." - Now I will admit with little ones things can get more challenging, especially at that in between, toddler age. But that is what nap times are for. The bigger kids can exercise right along with you. Just think of the excellent roll model you are being. Perhaps they won't be 30 trying to pass off any of these excuses.

"I just don't have any energy for that." - Gee I wonder why? Put down the Doritos and pick up some almonds.

"I can't afford it." - Huh? Is our society really so commercially driven that we think it costs money to make you heart beat faster and your muscles to contract??

Did I miss any?

Feel free to add on if i did!

Not my day

Well, I got jack done today. The kids didn't even finish their schoolwork. The second day of school and we are already behind!

The psychiatrist office screwed up my son's appointment so we ended up in the wrong office. This was AFTER they confirmed the appointment TWICE yesterday. So after sitting in the wrong office for 15 minutes they informed me that we could either reschedule or I could drive to Orange City. Since we have plans tomorrow I opted to drive to OC. They said they would call OC and let them know I was on my way. They didn't. So after a 30 minute drive and 30 minutes of sitting there for them to even look into the waiting room, (It's a psychiatrists office so hovering around the window is strictly frowned upon) she picked up the sign in sheet, crossed Kyllian's name off and closed the window. Twenty minutes later after they called the person who came in after us back I got up and made a nuisance out of myself. She didn't know we were there. :0 When I pointed out that she crossed our name off the sign in sheet she said she thought we were someone else. Huh????? So now it is 1 1/2 hours past our original appointment time with a child who was STARVING, CRANKY and UNMEDICATED. I was not amused.

By the time we got out of there, got food and picked up Drake, dropped the new prescriptions off at the pharmacy and got home it was time to start dinner and attempt to get some school work done.

I did get the dog walked and she was gasping for breath when we got home so evidently it was more intense than usual!

Today was a light day so no major workout was missed so I am not going to worry about it. I may move the windmills to tomorrows workout?? Who knows. We will see what schedule busting disaster tomorrow brings.

Log for the week of 7-28-08

Saturday's workout was done on Sunday because of scheduling conflicts.

I didn't get any HIIT done this week. But I did get all my SS crap done. I was able to increase my snatch numbers on my Max Vo2 training and I am keeping pace with the 100 push-ups plan!

Sixty-Five

That is how many push-ups I managed today. Not all at once but as part of the 100 push-ups program I blogged about earlier. I was able to eek out 2 more than what today's plan required. Go me! LOL

Yesterday I didn't get anything done so I tacked on yesterday's planks to today's workout. Those were hard after 4 sets of bridges.

Weight wise I am fluctuating between 215 and 214 this week. Yesterday was my high carb day so I gained a bit but I expect it all to be gone by tomorrow.

I have been pretty lax on cardio this week (We all know how I feel about cardio, don't we?). I am getting ready to go do my steady-state-twenty-minutes-of-hell as soon as I am done with this post and then I am planning to do some HIIT before walking the dog tonight.