Monthly Archives: December 2013
PiYo Strength and Circuit Fusion
I went to a PiYo Strength class for the first time. It was interesting. Combination of pilates and yoga moves put together in a constantly-moving pattern. Lots of quick-paced up and down motions. Not advisable for those people who get dizzy easily.
I thought it was fun though. Awesome balance and leg work, especially with the hips. Various kinds of push-ups and squats/lunges were added in as well.
The music was upbeat but not super fast or anything – perfect for how the class is set up. I enjoy the teacher’s selection of music. She teaches Insanity at the gym as well and has fun music for that too. I imagine the same can be said for her RIPPED classes.
PiYo Strength isn’t relaxing or soothing and you don’t have that rest time before or after. No falling asleep in this class!
In other news, Circuit Fusion has officially been taken over by a new instructor. My friend Kelly is switching jobs so her class was taken over by… I don’t know if he’d be cool with me using his name here so we’ll call him D.
It was his first time teaching a group fitness class. The class could be summed up as follows: shoulders, squats, and cardio. It was a little rough around the edges and didn’t work all the muscles but, if he keeps the class as it is, my shoulders and butt will look awesome. If nothing else my butt will be amazing come summer time.
That would be nice – less cellulite on my butt and back of thighs.
We’ll see how D manages the rest of his classes. He said he would experiment. I’m cool with his cardio but I hope he adds in more strength training. I think the feedback he got today from others in the class covered what my feedback so I told him I’d reserve mine till after his next class to see how he works that one. I did comment, however, on the number of squats he had us doing. “Death by squats,” I said. It got the intended laugh.
It’ll be interesting how it all turns out and the direction D takes the class.
Winter Holidays and Honey Treats
Winter Holidays.
A season for love. A season for family and friends. A season for happiness.
A season for no free time at all because your children are on vacation and you still have all the normal day-to-day duties to get done plus the stress of those pesky holiday pounds.
I wish I were talking about the English pound but, alas, I’m not.
But to say I’m stressing over my holiday pounds would be a lie because it seems to me to be a worthless thing to stress about. I have enough worries on my plate without adding holiday food as well. Oddly enough, when I mentally slapped some sense into me and stopped worrying, I immediately lost the few pounds I had gained.
And I’m happy. Not because I’ve lost weight (though that’s quite lovely) but because I’m able to enjoy guilt-free what holiday treats I get. Stressing over every little treat whether it be a cookie or a rice cake sandwich with deli meat made me want to shove the entire box of cookies or a million rice cake sandwiches in my mouth.
Thank goodness I know better that to eat a whole box of cookies (two small chocolate chip cookies make me feel weird, more than that and the consequences are dire) but the sandwiches are another story. My digestion was suffering.
At first when I told myself it was all right to indulge over the holidays, I went a little overboard. But then when I had calmed down and the cravings had been satiated, I accepted the fact that I had gained weight and went about enjoying one of the only times of the year when it’s generally considered acceptable to eat treats.
Moderation won out sooner than expected. Honey replaced chocolate chip cookies while oatmeal and salads replaced the sandwiches. Voila! The weight has been lost.
Do I feel deprived? Not in the least. I still enjoy a cookie a day though not usually at night and my oatmeal has been spruced up with almond milk and honey. My tastebuds revel in that meal and I’ve been tricked into thinking it’s a treat because I always used to keep oatmeal to its bare minimum for the sake of calories. How delicious almond milk has become! I never knew. Even without the honey it’d be a yummy meal. But with the honey? Glorious treat!
A little honey goes a long way so all it needs is a drizzle to be effective.
Another honey treat is rice cakes with almond butter and honey drizzled on top. Pure heaven.
These are my main treats. With them I can control most of my cravings and remain allergen-free so I don’t feel gross or sick. And, yes, I’ve lost weight by substituting them for cookies and pastries.
This holiday season has been good for my health. I’m even ending the year with my second-lowest weight ever – 163lb. I bounce from 163-165lb now. I thought when I hit 162.2lb that I would be able to reach my goal of 160lb before New Years but that’s when the stress became too great and I started gaining weight again. I may not make my goal weight before the new year but I will soon after I have no doubt. Maybe even before my next birthday in March. Wouldn’t that be a nice birthday gift!
Tone It Up – Holiday Waistline Trimmer
For weeks now I’ve had this free core workout from Tone It Up. It’s nothing big and the moves are very simple, but for some reason I had never gotten around to trying it until recently.
Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn are successful personal trainers who teamed up to create their fitness site Tone It Up. There’s really only one word for them – AWESOME! And beautiful. So I guess two words. On a regular basis they contribute their mad skillz to Self Magazine for Self’s Drop 10 and other exercise routines.
But the routine I’m interested in today is called Holiday Waistline Slimmer and it was featured some time back on their blog. The moves are pretty simple and there are only 5 of them.
- The Bird-Dog (alt sides, 10r each side)
- Crunch and Punch II (alt sides, 10r each side)
- Chairpose Squat (15r)
- Waistline Cincher (10r each side)
- The Pike! (15r)
Do 3 sets of the moves. Dumbbells, a mat, and a stability ball are needed. I kept my dumbbells light at 5lb but I would’ve been better off with my 3lb dumbbells in #3 because my shoulders are not the best. I also don’t have a stability ball so instead of doing #5 I did reverse crunches.
Later I learned I could’ve done the #5 without a stability ball. The results wouldn’t have been exactly the same but they would’ve been closer than reverse crunches.
I only did 1 set because I hadn’t been planning on working out the day I tested this. I was just curious to see what the moves were like. Actually, I ended up getting a light workout in that day because even one set of these moves (#3-5) got a bit difficult and then I went through a 3-minute warm-up about 6-7 times in an attempt to get it right and record it for a friend.
I’m not sure if my light sweat came from my movements or from the heat in the room. I had to open a window to let the winter air cool me off before I was done. Turned off the heat in the apt too because I was roasting. I learned from that experience and keep the heat off and the window cracked when I exercise at home now.
Tested – Perfect Design Series – Level 1 – Beginner
I announced in my last post that I would be testing out Tracy Anderson’s 50-minute DVD The Perfect Design Series – Level 1 – Beginner this week.
The Perfect Design Series – Level 1 – Beginner
I completed it once (alongside my 4-year-old no less!) on Wednesday (12/18/13) some hours after attending my friend Kelly’s 30-minute Circuit Fusion class and meant to try it again on Friday on its own so I could really see what I thought of it.
Friday never happened. Although my core got more than an excellent workout on Wednesday due to the combination of Kelly’s class and the DVD (I totally rocked my ab work that day! I’m still proud of myself), the rest of me wasn’t happy with its burn.
The DVD is designed to work your entire body according to Anderson and leave you universally tired with no particular spot screaming more than another. This, however, I did not find to be the case. By the end of the DVD I was universally tired, yes, but I had particular areas of my body burning a lot more than others. Namely my hips, shoulders, and core.
While the DVD works your entire core (AWESOME!!!), it doesn’t noticeably work all the muscles in your legs or your arms.
The moves are all deceptively easy, at first, but due to continuous repetition and constant movement throughout the 50-minute DVD, you are burning like crazy within the first 5-10 minutes of the exercise portion (they give you the option on the menu screen of skipping the warm-up…which I did not take advantage of).
After finishing the reps of one move on one side of the body, instead of switching legs and repeating to allow that side to rest, Anderson pushes you forward through the entirety of the leg moves. The result is that, long before the end, your hips on both sides are burning with exhaustion before you’ve even switched to work the opposite leg. At which point you have to switch legs and do it all over again on the other side.
Then comes the core and after that the arms which work mostly just the shoulders with some forearm. I thought she looked incredibly silly doing the arm movements with her flapping hands but I felt anything but silly when I did it along with her. My core was burning and my arms felt as if they would fall off after awhile.
She combines all three at the end to reactivate the hips/butt you worked out in the beginning (agonizing final movements for me) and ends with light continual movements that would constitute more a cool down than stretching. Anderson states during her cool down that she doesn’t do static stretching (stretches that you hold for an amount of time).
Muscles I felt being worked:
- shoulders
- light forearm
- all over core (including lower back)
- hips
- light butt
I know the butt was being worked a lot but it didn’t feel like it, probably due to the intense burning in my hips. I was sure I had broken my lower back and needed a new one. I had other aches but they were due to Kelly’s class, not the DVD.
Although I intended to try the DVD again on Friday, I thought back over Anderson’s routine and felt too bored to do it. Gwyneth Paltrow may praise Anderson’s training but this particular DVD definitely wasn’t for me. It’s not my idea of an enjoyable workout and would not inspire me to exercise at all no matter how good Anderson looks.
As for cardio, this DVD was pretty much strength training and toning. My heartrate did rise moderately given that the movements were constant and lasted for 50 minutes so I did work up a bit of a sweat, but I don’t think it really works for someone’s cardio goal. I work up a light sweat in yoga class too occasionally but I’m not going to count that as my cardio either.
Tracy Anderson – The Perfect Design Series – Level 1 – Beginner
This week while I practice my demo, I’m going to be testing out a DVD I borrowed from the library today. It’s from Tracy Anderson, a celebrity personal trainer. Celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Courtney Cox, and Shakira swear by her and she was featured in Self Magazine with a broomstick routine she created for Gwyneth Paltrow.
As I have no broomstick or mop or any other kind of tall, straight stick, I’m not going to try out that particular workout any time soon. The DVD looks…interesting…and is called The Perfect Design Series – Level 1 – Beginner.
I watched it through once to see what I was getting myself into and my eyes just about bugged out of my head! The hip exercise repetitions were enough to make me want to return the DVD to the library before actually attempting it.
My main issue as I watched it on fast forward was that not once did she ever smile. She looked bored or something. It was a real turn-off. I won’t let her lack of visual enthusiasm deter me though and I’m determined to do this DVD from start to finish (a whole 50 minutes!!) at least once if not 2-3 times to see how it feels when my body is more used to the moves.
The lower body portion is filled with simple moves that are repeated many many times without break. The core section is filled with super hard moves that will have my lower back screaming for mercy. I predict modifications needed for that area as my lower back and abs aren’t strong enough for these moves. The upper body section was constant and constantly changing with no real direction as to what the arms were doing and were going to be doing. It’s choppy and silly-looking choreography that will need to be memorized for me to be able to do it successfully.
We’ll see if I feel silly as I’m doing it and/or after I’m done. I think my shoulders and hips will be burning if nothing else.
Demo Feedback
The demo class went well I think. I was really nervous in the beginning but my voice and body weren’t shaking at least. Woo! I messed up in the very beginning with the warm-up and I was able to laugh it off and keep going instead of freaking out and starting over. “I’ve made my mistake so the rest of the class should go well, right?” They gave me marks for taking the mess-up in stride and not letting it hold me back.
Main areas needing improvement:
- cueing
- transitions
Things I did well:
- welcoming voice
- meeting/greeting
- hit all large muscle groups
- demonstrated lower impact moves without shame or judgement
- announced exact number of push-ups
My transitions are a bit choppy and the routine needed the barest tweaking with move order in two sections. One switch was suggested in the beginning and, showing that I had understood the advice and was implementing it, I then suggested later another switch that will prove beneficial for a smooth transition.
Mostly what I need work on are things that will improve with time and practice. Not a problem. But my cueing and transitions need to be better before I can start teaching so they’ve given me another month (or less depending on how quickly I can get myself ready) to practice the advice given at which point I’ll do another demo. If all goes well I’ll start subbing after that.
Maybe most other teachers don’t need more than one demo to prove they can teach but I don’t feel bad or discouraged. I have zero experience and most other teachers have at least degrees if not experience as well supporting them. I’ve gone from being morbidly obese to being fit and healthy enough to teach a group fitness class. It doesn’t matter how many demos I need to do to get ready for this, I have done a fantastic job.
Circuit Fusion Demo Class
It’s time! My Circuit Fusion demo class is tomorrow. Exciting! And scary. I’ve waited a whole year to do this and suddenly it’s tomorrow. Whoa.
My playlist is all ready and rarin’ to go. This is the routine I’ve prepared:
equipment needed:
- exercise ball, a pair of light and heavy dumbbells (5-10lbs)
Warm-up (2-3min):
- marching narrow/wide/double tap/narrow
- knee raises pull down narrow/wide
- squat side reach
- butt kicks
- jumping jacks
Strength Training (12r):
- sumo w/heel raise (D opt)
- walking lunge w/twist (B)
- chest flys (D, B)
- chest press (D, B)
- tricep ext (D, B)
Cardio (30sec each):
- standing scissor legs
- side-to-side jumps
Strength Training (12r):
- hammer curl shoulder press (D, B)
- wall squat w/punch (D, B)
- single leg deadlift (D)
- walking squat
- front/lat raises (D)
Cardio (30sec each):
- jump rope
- side-to-side shuffle reach
Strength Training (12r):
- side lunge knee raise
- push-ups
- 1-arm row plank (D)
Core (15r):
- kneeling side slimmer
- in & outs
- scissor legs
- superman
Stretching (3min)
Naturally I’m a terrible counter so those numbers are all rounded. The warm-up may change at the very last second because I can’t get my timing right on transitioning from knee raises to the squatting side reach. So maybe I’ll take that out and replace it with some marching butt kicks before going into the running butt kicks. Or…..
I hate warm-ups. The rest of the class requires little to no coordination.
Wish me luck! After this I’ll either be a sub or have a class of my own starting January. It all depends on what the boss lady decides. I’m so nervous!!
My biggest fears are messing up or getting too tired during the class. I’ve been experiencing a ton of muscle fatigue these last several weeks. Adrenaline (and perhaps coffee? hehe) should keep me strong tomorrow though. Just have to remember to breathe and be confident. I can do this! I’ve been doing this at home for nearly a year now. I can do it tomorrow in front of others too. They’re nice women. I know them. One is my friend.
…Must breathe…
Insanity
I thought about what I would write here after I tested out an Insanity class. It was filled with expletives. When the class was done, I told my friend who had asked me to go with her that it was her worst idea ever.
Ten minutes later we were making plans to go again to next week’s class.
So how was the class itself? Well!
For a normal workout eating something moderately light about an hour beforehand is no problem. Depending on the food and the exercise anyway. That was not the case with Insanity. Up and down and up and down. I got so tired that, toward the end, I threw up a bit in my mouth.
OMG! EEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!!
Word to the wise: Eat NOTHING for at least 2 hours before class!!! Nothing nothing nothing!
I won’t be able to taste the Pumpkin Spice ALT bars from Larabars the same way ever again. Or at least not for awhile in any case.
The class is made up mostly of cardio. It’s fast-paced and keeps changing all the time. I’m not sure what the DVD or other classes are like but the class offered at my gym was 30 minutes long and moved in increments of 30 seconds. The teacher would demonstrate all the moves we’d be doing in a section then we’d repeat the segment 3 times. Warm-up was intense and lasted (with stretches) about 5 minutes. Cooldown (again with stretches) lasted about 2-3 minutes.
The teacher added in an extra 5-10 minutes of ab work at the end for those of us who wanted it. More expletives can be imagined here. Then more stretching but mostly on our own.
My heart rate was immediately up in the class and stayed staggeringly high the whole way through. I had to stop many many times partially because my pants kept falling down (eek! wardrobe malfunction!) but mostly because my legs just couldn’t keep up. Part of that is due to some mysterious thigh fatigue I’ve got going on lately but I think it’s mostly due to the fact that the class was seriously high intensity.
You really do need to be insane to do that class! But due to the constant changing of the moves, the class flew by in no time! It was amazing how quickly it was done.
Yeah, I’m planning on going again next week. Hopefully Kelly will be able to join me again.
Cardio Mash-Up
After finishing Kelly’s Circuit Fusion class yesterday, she asked if she’d be seeing me the next day (today) at the gym. I happily said that, yeah, I had planned on going. I knew I couldn’t do strength training because she had already kicked my full-body butt in her class. But my gym recently got some new cardio equipment and I was eager to try it out. Besides, if you power through the soreness, your body adjusts and it goes away sooner than expected.
Well I woke up this morning, pushed back the covers, and my whole body began screaming at me.
Oh. My. Holy. Cow!
Every inch of me is SO SORE! I had finally deemed it time to up some of my weights back to their higher poundage in the class but didn’t think about the consequences that would show themselves the next day. Yesterday’s class was SO hard!! But I made a promise and if I want to keep my weight loss and increase it, then I’d better get my butt back in gear with my daily exercise. I keep telling myself that I just have to slog through this soreness today and tomorrow and Thursday it will miraculously disappear like always.
My legs have been mysteriously weak when it comes to cardio these last several weeks and I’d like to nip that in the bud too.
There are always various kinds of messages on the white board in the fitness center at my gym. Today’s gave an idea for cardio to work off those holiday calories. It was simple and would keep things interesting because it incorporated short periods of time on different cardio equipment. Fun! So I decided to try it.
Plan:
- 10min warm-up (your choice)
- 15min treadmill
- 15min bike/elliptical
- 5min cooldown (your choice)
All done! Sounds easy, right? I like short time periods on different machines. It makes it seem like my workout is moving faster. Well, mine WASN’T EASY!! The new ellipiticals add incline rather than resistance (on the program I chose anyway) so I was literally working my butt off! Here’s what I did:
My Workout:
- 10min warm-up: Treadmill – hill program 3.5-4mph, .64mi
- 15min treadmill: jogging, 1% incline, 1.23mi
- 15min elliptical: intervals lvl 10, .78mi
- 5min cooldown: Treadmill – 0% incline, 2.5-3mph, .22mi
- Stretch: 10min
I’m tired. But I feel good. Except my back hurts from yesterday because I worked it too hard with the Stairmaster before class. New Stairmasters rock!!! I climbed higher than Big Ben it said! Woo! 38 floors.
Lost Weight!
So for those of you who don’t know (which is probably most people), I have serious issues with heartburn due to a surgery procedure I had to endure back in 2001. The valve connecting my esophagus to my stomach was too strong and wouldn’t loosen to allow food or liquid to go down. Consequently, I couldn’t swallow well and was constantly gagging my food back up. Gross, I know, but at least it never reached my stomach so it had no bile or anything with it.
Before the surgery the problem had gotten so bad that I was choking on my own spit. After much deliberation I went under for abdominal surgery and they lasered the muscle which effectively killed it. In order to give me a little help with keeping stomach acid under control, they took some of the stomach and tied it around the esophagus.
My dreams of being an astronaut were lasered away in that instant! I’ll never be able to eat in space because I need gravity to make the food go down now. Woe woe woe!
………I’ve never wanted to be an astronaut so that’s not a problem at all.
I would now be able to swallow but never like a “normal” person. I’ve found ways around gagging on my food and they mostly involve drinking a butt load of water while I eat. They also warned me I would most likely have problems with heartburn later in life.
“Later in life” has come! My heartburn has gotten so out of control that I started taking 2 Zantac along with 1 Alkeseltzer every day, usually twice a day. Once in the afternoon and once in the evening. Even then the effects of the antacids were no longer having any effect and I’d still go to bed with heartburn so I’d have to sleep propped up on pillows.
I was scared I was abusing the antacids and they weren’t working anymore so I saw the doctor. He assured me I wasn’t killing organs taking so many antacids (I’m sure that answer would’ve been different had I been doing that long-term though) but that a change of meds was needed since normal measures weren’t working.
So now I’m on Omeprazole (Prilosec), 2/day for 30 days instead of the usual 1/day for 14 days.
Yep. I’m on the heavy duty plan. It’s giving me nasty headaches but nothing unmanageable. And with this plan I’ve had to carefully watch what I eat so that when I get off the meds at the end of the month, I won’t drop back into my normal pain. I may anyway but I’m going to try to avoid it. So my diet has undergone a dramatic metamorphosis. Even with the Omeprazole, if I eat something my body can’t handle, heartburn begins to flare. A slice of salami will give me a stomach ache.
So I’ve tried to be diligent about cutting out fatty, spicy, super sugary, gluten, and dairy foods. So far I feel good. Although often times in the evening my stomach gets a bit finicky due to the Omeprazole again. Side effects are wonderful, aren’t they? But it’s not bad. I’ve cut down my portions so I’m not stuffed at the end of the meal and cut down the amount of water I drink with each meal. I’ve also cut down on my coffee and chocolate (and when I ingest both).
The result?
Serious weight loss! I lost weight on Thanksgiving!! I’ve never done that before! Even on my best years I’ve stayed the same weight or gained 1 lb. Nope. This year I lost weight and am down to a new low even!
163.2 lbs!
Woo! Go me! Heartburn sucks but at least I’ve got a consolation prize!
Maybe I’ll be able to reach my 160lb goal by the end of this year? I don’t know but I’m going to try at least!
Fitness Freak 