Beach Body BootCamp!

Was today's work-out...

I went downstairs ( today is a PD day, so the kids are home with me) I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for my work out today. I was still a bit sore from yesterday's ABS. Oh my!  That one really works.  So I punched the bag for a bit...felt aggressive and on fire! ha!  Then got on the treadmill, but my back wasn't feeling it again today...

So Beach Body Boot Camp it was.

Burpee's X 10
Side Lunge X 10
Push-Up X 15
Jack Knife Sit-up X 20
Plank- 1 minute
Lateral Mountain Climber X 10
Reverse Lunge - X 20
Bench Dip- X 20
Russian Twist X 20
Split Squat Jumps X 10 each leg
Foot Up Split Squat X 10 each leg
Standing Side Crunch  X10 each side
Incline Push Up X 15
Side Plank 30 seconds each side.

REPEAT all of this 3 times!  1-2 minute rest and water break in between. 

 Aftewards I realized I made a mistake.  My abs should have been avoided in this workout today, since they are obviously still recovering from yesterday.  Right now- 3 hrs later...I feel tired, exhausted,  lacking any appetite, sore.   Am I coming down with a cold? Perhaps, but I think it is a huge RED FLAG! I totally over-trained this week.  NO more for me on the week-end...time to rest the body and get it ready for Monday.

Today's Work Out- Focuses on a 6 pack of Abs!

I thought I'd share my at home work out today. I didn't feel like going to the gym, so this is what I did instead.

It focus's on Weight Loss, and a goal towards 6 pack Abs. I threw some lunges in there too.

Step 1: Run for at least 20 minutes- aim for 30 or even better- 5 km. ( you need to burn calories and fat to see these new abs of yours, right?)

Step 2: Rest for 3-5 minutes, drink lots of water.

Step 3: Do the Plank. Hold for at least 30 seconds, but you want to aim for 2 minutes eventually.

Step 4: Do 1 set 15 reps of V-up crunches - work your way up to 2 sets

Step 5: Do 1 set of 15 reps of Bicycle crunches- work your way up to 2 sets.



 Then I then took the doggie out to the mail box and back and did walking lunges there and back. OUCH!  ( I don't have a short laneway) lol


Rest at least 24 hrs before doing this again. You should be " aware" that you did something to your abs the next day...you WANT that feeling, that means you challanged yourself enough that the muscle needs to repair itself and GROW!  IF you mess with them again during this repair process, ( 24-48 hrs) you won't get the results you want, and the muscle will continue to get damaged without being able to heal and grow.  Instead, work on cardio, arms, legs instead...then go back to the abs in a day or two.

Muscle Building and getting cardio in a Spin Class?

courtesy of Livestrong.com


Considerations


The muscles worked during a spinning session can depend on the spinning instructor and the intensity at which you exercise. To build muscle, you must challenge your muscle fibers in a way that damages the muscle tissue enough that the body must repair itself. That's when you have worked enough to build muscle. When you take a spinning class, you must challenge the legs at a high enough resistance and engage in arm-muscle building exercises like pushups on the handlebars to gain muscle. If you do work the muscles hard enough, you can experience muscle gains in addition to burning calories.

Leg Muscles Worked

When you spin, increasing the resistance on the bicycle challenges your quadriceps muscles. These are four muscles that make up the front of the thigh that help you to flex your leg, bringing the knees closer to your chest. When you stand and spin on the bike, you are working a number of muscles, including the calf and hamstring muscles. Hovering just over the bicycle seat can help you build muscles in your buttocks. Because these are major muscle groups, you can experience muscle-toning benefits when working hard enough.

Arm Muscles Worked

When you spin and are seated, you should not put too much pressure on your hands. Instead, you should rest lightly enough to where you could quickly lift the hands off the handlebars. However, you can work the arm muscles during a spinning session by performing simulated pushups on the bicycle's handlebars. This pushup variation helps to work the shoulder, biceps and triceps muscles.
How to Tell

When you spin to build muscle, you want to exercise at a level that allows you to complete the spin session but is hard enough to leave your leg muscles sore. If your leg muscles are sore the day after your spinning session, you have worked hard enough during your spinning session to build muscle. The same is true for your arm muscles. If you do not experience muscle soreness, increase the resistance at your next exercise session





Here we have the muscles worked when pedaling. The quadriceps are a bigger muscle group than the hamstrings, and they tend to develop faster. Running targets the quads much more than the hamstrings, and the quads are also dominant when cycling. However, the part of the pedal stroke where you pull upward does help to develop the hamstrings -especially if you wear cycling shoes that have your foot securely clipped into the pedals – and therefore, can help to minimize the imbalance between the two muscle groups.

Do you look good naked?

SO true.

10 Exercises to Buff that Butt (And Everything Else)

Here we go. Try these 10 exercises to maximize the nude and rude body bits that really matter.



•Butt and front thighs - squats and weighted lunges

•Rear thighs (hamstrings) - deadlifts, good mornings

•Abdominals and 6-pack - crunches and deadlift

•The back muscles - bent over rows and lat pulldowns

•Arms (biceps) - curls

•Arms (triceps) - extensions and pushdowns

•Arms (forearms) - reverse curls

•Chest - bench press, incline press

•Shoulders - Incline press and dumbbell front raises

•Calves - squats and calf raises

Fitness is where it is at! CURVES, MUSCLE, STRENGTH, ARMS, BOOTY, but good and hard.

The key is making a committment to yourself, to your health, and scheduling at least an hour a day to keep your body at it's best.  Our heart needs it, our lungs need it, our bones, our energy level, and mental well-being.

Roasted Chickens X 2 = 3 different meals!. + 2 gifts = multi-tasking at it's finest!

On Sunday we decided to roast two chickens on our Green Egg . Two of them so we would have leftovers for the meals to come. It worked out pretty great actually...

First night- Roasted Chicken with grilled Ontario peaches and goats cheese salad.

they weren't sitting very lady like....

 My new fun thing to bake is bread. Fancy breads...I made a double batch and stuffed them with provolone cheese ( lots of it!) shaped into a ball, added fresh basil leaves and cherry tomatoes from the garden, sea salt and garlic butter on top. OH! so good.

I made up two of these baskets. One as a Hostess gift ( my friend was having us over for dinner) and one for an older neighbour.  I got little jars from the dollar store and made my own butters. Maple Butter and fresh Herb butter)

I put it all in a basket, lined with a new fall dish towel, and wrapped it up with a THANK-YOU!  I thought it turnd out kinda cute...

OK! so back to the chickens. Dinner.

While the grill was still on and the chickens resting, I grilled my sliced peaches...added them to Arugula, sliced tomatoes, and goats cheese. Drizzled with a salad dressing I made from grated orange juice, ginger, garlic, balsamic glaze and olive oil.

it came together quite nicely out on the deck ..then...

The Canadian Navy Ship- heading into our town.

9-11 No less?

No worries, it was there for a casual visit to show kids the ship, learn more about the Navy...

GOOD night.

GOOD Morning- Alan always makes me a great breakfast. My eggwhite, veggie omelette, he loves beans and rice from ( thanks to our Costa Rica Trip) and my dark rye toast. Fat free salsa and fat free sour cream with my hot coffee. I LOVE HIM.

Now our next dinner- Left over chicken. I roasted cubes of squash, added it to a chicken salad with the left over greens, tomatoes, and cheese curds I happened to buy that day. Served with bread. VERY good, as it was a hot night.

Night #3  Skinny Chicken Enchilada's. My kids favourite.

( AND I made an extra one to put in my freezer for another day) MOM!? are you reading this- they are in the small freezer if you want them.

I used the left over shredded chicken, with sauteed onions, garlic, tomato sauce,  black beans and enchilada sauce in a pan. Added all the funky spices I wanted to heat it up...cilantro as well. Rolled in a whole wheat wrap.  Put remaining sauce on top, lots of really old cheddar, for extra flavour.  Baked one, froze another one for another day. Top with cilantro and sour cream.

The family loved it.

Notice- water now. It's a week night! I am trying to limit my wine consumption---but I miss it, so I put my Perier in a wine glass! ha!

Now, I think we will be having a DIFFERENT kind of meat tomorrow night...as much as I LOVE chicken, this is getting ridiculous!

Everything in Moderation- right?

After a few hard days of exercise and eating very healthy, we decided to have a night of fun!



a night out on the boat....good wine....I get to sunbathe while the kids and Alan fish...( we tried to eat well last night! But we didn't get any fresh fish...)

So Raclette it was!




Marshall's amazing creation. Crispy Prosciutto, raclette cheese, chorizo , potato and aged cheddar, all grilled in garlic butter on crispy garlic toasted bread.

My creation- Grilled sourdough bread with garlic butter, crispy alpenshaken, ( sp?) mushroom and lots of melted raclette cheese to glue it all together. TO DIE FOR!








and how did we end this night?

a sunset like that from our deck! so pretty...

LIFE. IS. GOOD.

Fitness - Killer 550 Rep Workout

30 minutes of SPIN! Get set, ready GO!

HI Wendy! Hope you  try it! :-)  have your trainer help make sure you are set up on the bike properly and get the seat and handles at the right height, and show you proper hand positioning.  Spine Neutral, look ahead, relax your hands, belly button in towards your spine...lots of water...GO FOR IT GIRL!

I'm now going to be volunteering at our local YMCA to do the Spin part of a 1 hr class of Spin and Sculpt.  This is an after work bunch- 5:30 pm, they are looking for a good work-out, fun music, and I HOPE they want a challange as that is what I love to do.  Normally, you'd want at least 45 minutes for Spin, but we only have an hour. 30 minutes of it geared towards Spin. So this is what I have come up with. I can't wait to mee the class and try it out!

· No Super Star- 4:09

- Warm up- pedal with just enough tension to feel in control… Push-pull, pull your feel up, small circles, focus on only using left leg, right leg, both. Neutral spine, belly button pulled in, looking out onto the “ road”. Handle bar is only there for balance. Don’t use it as a stress ball during the class! Use your legs and lungs- …breath in and out, deeply and slowly even during sprints. Knees straight ahead and even. Think of running over hot coals, lightly down, kick up….shoulder blades back…SMILE! ( introduce yourself to your neighbour that you will be sweating along with!)

• OH LALA- 3:24- Review Zones-  

• Start in a nice casual ride…ZONE 1. Easy warm-up HR-around 50% Rate of Perceived Exertion-5/10, crank up your gears, ZONE 2- Challenging but still comfortable- 70% HR, Exertion: 6-7. Zone 3- Crank up more- Challenging and uncomfortable- 80% HR, 7-8 exertion. Zone 4- Breathless, but not max. Winded, 85-90% RPE: 8-9.

FIREWORK-6:42-

 Hill Climb RPM-    Zone 1- Seated Sprint for 1 minute, Zone 2- Seated sprint- 1 minute, Zone 3- seated  for 30 seconds- Stand for 30. Keep the pace to music. RPM- Zone 2- seated Sprint-1 minute- Zone 3- seated for 30, standing for 30, repeat

BON-BON- 3:36

 Jumps on counts of 4

 entire song- Zones- 2.5-3. ( Up 1, 2, 3,4....down 1,2,3,4)

PARTY ROCK-4:23

- cruise and drink- Zone 2. (1 minute) “ shake that”- stand up- Zone 3.- go hard ( 15 sec), sit back down, Zone 2. ( chorus) bring up the tension every 10 seconds…until “ shake that”…seated and drink. “step up fast” get up again, slowly bring up tension to maximum… until music reaches peak, then back down, zone 2, flush it out. Sprint.  Body posture check.

• PAUSE-3:00-

•  Zone 3 entire song. Do not change gears.  Standing, go hard, then stop-pause. Quick starts. 40 seconds, in- seated, until chorus- up, go hard, stop, quick starts, switch legs. ( apologize for killing them in the quads!)

• BORN THIS WAY-5:22- 

• Drink! Zone 2- sprints- RPM: 100 1 minute sprint.. push-pull up your feet, pretend you are kicking your behind

PUMPED UP KICKS-4:00- 

 Start to cool down--  Zone 2- stretch out back, twist to the left, twist to the right,  bring down heart rate…slowly reduce gears…

Slower music of choice to stretch out hamstings, calves, quads, hip flexors and glutes!

Now the next 30 minutes will be toning, with weights, and resistance tubing, balls, etc...

Great work-out!

Summer is over- Kids back in school- time to get back on track!

It is so easy to get away from your normal routine during the summer. The kids are home, we want to do fun things, we eat out and entertain more....I am unable to get to the gym. yes! I have a home gym, and that works for me a day or two a week, but I honestly need to be around and surrounded by MOTIVATED, fitness people, in order to keep up my fitness habit.

Good to know.  We did manage to get our little home gym kind of nice though.  The Jillian Michaels Circuits were incredible.  I could use a new treadmill, but it still worked OK for me.

But now that the kids are back in school....I am quite happy about getting back into the ROUTINE of things.

Day 1: Kids back in school!


Cooked up  my Veggie Egg white Omelet...then



 Off to the  Gym! I  Kissed and hugged all of my gym friends. All of them looked fabulous. Obviously they continued on at the gym through out the summer. Eating right, etc.  I was very happy for them, but also a bit envious of their motivation. GOOD for them.. It was a hot summer in that gym, as it is very old and the A/C isn't that good. So that is a lot to accomplish. WOW! way to go!

I hopped on my Keiser Bike at the Y and spinned for an hour straight.  I love these bikes so much, that I am considering returning the Diamond Tennis Bracelet my husband got for me, in exchange for one! Yes, crazy perhaps? But they are not cheap bikes,  however, they ride so smoothly....and help you burn  many calories.



Showered and met a friend for lunch...we ate a lot of this...



Then I went and did some shopping and came home with these...


Then when Alan came home, I told him we going to have to do a lot of this...



then eat a lot of this for dinner...


and NO more of this...


but lots of this!



It was a pretty good night.  A bit exhausted, but after a nice long walk with the dog we were ready to head to bed..


And every day this week has been similar. I'm pretty proud of ourselves.