Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way – No Gym Needed

I used to think that I wouldn’t be able to get fit and lose weight without a gym membership. That’s what I told myself to justify my actions (or lack thereof) when my self-image was low. “I need to go to a gym to exercise well and lose weight. Everybody who really wants to get fit goes to a gym.” But you know what?

That’s just not true.

Sure, a gym could make it easier because it has all this cool stuff you can use and there are classes that could do wonders to motivate you for whatever reason (Zumba? Hello! Seriously fun!). But getting fit doesn’t require going to the gym. It can make it easier for a lot of people, but it’s not necessary.

Just like new, cute fitness clothes aren’t necessary for exercising…though they can go a long way in making you want to exercise.

POPFlex activewear by Cassey Ho. http://www.popflexactive.com

I can’t afford a gym membership. I can’t buy those clothes. I’m going to save whatever money I get for however long it takes to save enough, but I’m not going to put my fitness journey on hold while I do it. I have exercise clothes that are perfectly good and before I had them, I had an over-sized t-shirt and a single pair of stretchy shorts. My non-super-sporty shoes came from either Payless or Walmart.

And, yet, with only a few over-sized t-shirts, a single pair of stretchy shorts, and a pair of cheap-as-dirt shoes, I was able to lose about 70 lbs. During that first bout of weight loss, it’s true that I was taking an aerobics class, but it was a credit-based college class. It was the hardest thing I had ever physically done at the time.

I lived off-campus and had no car or bike so I walked everywhere. That includes the grocery store so I majorly cut back on how much I ate so I wouldn’t have to walk 2 miles round trip carrying groceries every week. On any given day I was walking at least 3 miles round trip.

So, previous weight loss attributed to:

• college aerobics class
• walking 3+ miles nearly every day to get to and from classes
• necessity-enforced diet

None of that has anything to do with a gym. Everything I did was for college and my GPA.

Fast forward about 8 years or so. I’m married, have a car, have a job, and a baby…and 20 extra pounds. And, no, it wasn’t baby weight.

I tried to walk and/or jog every day for myself and for the baby (let’s hear it for the stroller!) as well as do fitness DVDs. Eventually I found Sparkpeople and religiously followed the workout plans they gave me. The site also allowed me to control my diet by counting up all the calories, protein, carbs, etc in everything I ate.

After awhile we splurged on a treadmill though we couldn’t afford it. It was worth it. I logged many a mile on that sucker. Even my husband did a few. A friend of mine is a personal trainer over in California and she gave me a good starter plan for running. (Thanks, Kimi! I’ll never forget it!) I lost the 20lbs I had gained and had tons more muscle.

2nd bout of weight loss attributed to:

• walking/running with a stroller
• fitness DVDs
• Sparkpeople.com
• an at-home treadmill

Still no gym required.

We were able to get a gym membership after awhile and that lasted for several years, but we haven’t had one in over a year now. I’ve gained weight. Again. I had stopped exercising and my diet deteriorated.

But for the past month I’ve been pushing myself like I used to, not as much with the diet (though that has changed as well) as with the exercise. I have a tiny space to exercise in but it’s enough. I’ve made it be enough. When the weather’s nice, I go out for walks and jogs again. I do Cassey Ho’s POP Pilates and her new PIIT program on the internet. There’s a recumbent bike I can use (and I do) and apps to make my workouts more interesting.

With so much free stuff on the internet, exercising at home has never been easier.

Here are some good places to turn to:

• Blogilates
• Tone It Up
• YouTube
• Pinterest

While I haven’t lost a lot of weight (diet’s far from perfect or even good at times), I am improving.

January 1-31 measurements:

• Weight: 187.8 lbs -> 185.6 lbs (2.2 lbs lost)
• Upper Arms: L 12″, R 12 3/4″ -> L 11 3/4″, R 12 3/4″ (1/4″ lost)
• Chest: 32 3/4″ -> 32″ (3/4″ lost)
• Waist: 35 1/2″ -> 35″ (1/2″ lost)
• Lower Belly: 42 1/2″ -> 41 1/2″ (1″ lost)
• Hips: 44 1/2″ -> 44 1/4″ (1/4″ lost)
• Thighs: L 24 1/2″, R 25″ -> L 24 1/4″, R 24 1/2″ (3/4″ lost)

Total inches lost: 3 1/2″

Not a huge change but a change nevertheless. And one made without a gym.

4th Week of January

Last week of January! Did you work it? I totally crushed this week.

You’ll notice I separated some of my cardio and strength training this week. I don’t usually like to do this but it’s annoying breaking up biking/running/walking with strength training all the time. A lot of times I like pure cardio and pure strength training.

I get a better workout with circuits and intervals but sometimes it’s not about the better workout. Sometimes it’s just about you and how you feel during your workout. So if you really get into the groove running a constant pace so you can zone out and enjoy yourself, go for it. Every single workout can’t be about pushing yourself to do your best and burn the most calories. Once in a while forget the calorie burn and just go.

The Ultimate 2016 Ab Workout

1/25/16 Cardio, Upper Body, Core:

After letting my knees rest one last day, I “crawled” back into my cardio.

equipment needed: recumbent bike, internet connection for Youtube or the Blogilates app

Recumbent Bike: 6.57 miles 31:28 min

Upper Body:

• Turbo Toned Arms Workout – 3 min
• How to Grow Taller Exercises for Better Posture – 8 min
• Toned Arms & Sculpted Back – 10:30 min

Core:

• The ULTIMATE 2016 AB WORKOUT – 10 min

8-min Bikini Thighs Workout

1/26/16 Lower Body:

In order to give my knees a break, I focused on my butt and thighs. Ouch.

equipment needed: internet connection for Youtube or the Blogilates app

Lower Body:

• Quick Leg & Butt Sculptor – 3:30 min
• Glutes & Thighs Trimdown – 9 min
• 8 Minute Bikini Thighs Workout! Swimsuit Slimdown Series – 8 min

Lean & Toned Arms

1/27/16 Cardio, Upper Body, Core:

equipment needed: recumbent bike, internet connection for Youtube or the Blogilates app

Recumbent Bike: 5.9 miles 26:30 min

Upper Body:

• Lean & Toned Arms // PIIT – 2 rounds – 14 min
• Arms on Fire – 10:30 min

Core:

• Dance With Me Ab Challenge – 3:20 min
• 3 minute Turbo Obliques Workout – 3 min

OMG. I kicked my own butt today. That PIIT workout incorporates a ton of cardio. Practically every move has cardio mixed in. Cassey says to do 4 rounds if that’s all you’re doing, but it wasn’t all I was doing so I only did 2 rounds. And then Arms on Fire?? What was I thinking?!

1/28/16 Rest:

Oops! Missed this one. My thoughts during the day: “I’ll do it after this. I’ll do it after that. I’ll do it before bed. Ah screw it. I’ll work harder tomorrow.”

Spring Fling 1: Toning Workout

1/29/16 Total Body:

equipment needed: internet connection for Youtube or the Blogilates app

Total Body:

• Spring Fling 1: Toning Workout – 14 min
• The Way We Tone – 11 min

Cardio:

• Fat Burning Cardio Warmup – 4 min
• Spring Fling 2: FAT LOSS Cardio Workout – 10:30 min
• Fat Burning Dance Workout to “Bodypop” – 2 rounds – 7 min

Stretching: 10 min

Man. I used to be able to do hour long Zumba classes and now I’m huffing and puffing after just 7 minutes of energetic dancing. In my defense, my body was already tired by that point but still. Bummer.

I set my workouts up as cardio, toning, cardio, toning, cardio, stretch. That 2nd Spring Fling nearly killed my legs. Jeez! I had to take a break after it to pick my son up from the bus and my butt and thighs were shaking and wobbling so badly. My goodness! Then I came back inside and struggled on with the last two videos. Yeah, I died. Or I wish I had anyway.

The end of the month is fast approaching. How’d you do? Considering it’s my first month of going hard and the fact that I strained my knees that 3rd week, I think I did pretty well. My eating started off well but degraded pretty quickly. We’ll see in a couple days how far that set me back. Even if my measurements aren’t as good as I’d hoped, I feel stronger and that’s what really matters.

The scale is not your friend. Neither is the tape measure if you’re bloated for whatever reason.

Favorite Exercise Video of the Week

I was trying to insert the workout videos I did each week in my posts so people didn’t have to go searching for them. How convenient that the videos were right there in the post, you know? That worked because I only did perhaps one video the whole week while the rest of my workouts were of my own making.

That doesn’t exactly work this week though as pretty much all of my workouts (minus some cardio) are Blogilates videos. It seems a bit ridiculous to insert 10+ videos in one post. So I’ve decided to link the titles to Cassey’s Youtube (to the exact video of course) and devote a separate post to a single workout.

Since I’m doing several videos every day this week (they’re all pretty short), I’ll pick a favorite (that I haven’t put up before) from the first half of the week.

And the winner is…

Glutes & Thighs Trimdown!

It was a hard choice because the upper body workouts I did seriously worked my shoulders and back and that was awesome, but my shoulders are super tense lately and those workouts didn’t help to alleviate those painful knots. In fact, I do believe they might have made the problem worse (the pain not knots) because now my shoulders ache from soreness as well as from being too tight.

I also have a very limited amount of space for my exercises and my arm span is longer than the space so I either have to keep my elbows bent, which feels like cheating, or continually hit stuff with one arm.

Work with what we have though, right?

The Glutes & Thighs Trimdown video was awesome! Between the single leg circles and the single leg bridges, my thighs and butt burned! The sideways scissors completed the thigh killing while the plank jacks at the end added a bit of cardio that would’ve been more helpful had I done the video the appropriate number of times.

Don’t be deceived by the video’s length – the workout is only 9 minutes. Cassey says to do it 4 times total for an entire lower body workout, but since I was doing other butt and thigh videos as well, I only did it once. Even once made me burn though.

Cassey gives 7 moves back-to-back and explains how to do them before and during each exercise. She keeps you from noticing the pain by keeping up a steady flow of chatter. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. It helps most when you haven’t seen the video before so everything she says and does is brand new. There are times, however, when I want to kill her despite the steady flow of chatter because the workout is so hard. Actually, at those times, I may want to kill her because of her chatter (and difficulty of the workout). She’s just so cheerful! When I’m dying during the workout, I want to scream and throttle the perkiness right out of her. And then I finish and lay exhausted on the ground while giving her a feeble thumbs up and an almost dead “yay.”

If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. And if I didn’t love her, she wouldn’t be my go-to trainer.

Glutes & Thighs Trimdown Moves:

• Squats
• Bridges
• Single Leg Bridges
• Single Leg Circles
• Sideways Scissors
• Dancing Animal
• Plank Jack
  

My favorite move is the Dancing Animal. It’s awesome despite my having to look at the gravity-enhanced cellulite that hides (usually hides) in my thighs. Not a pretty picture. It doesn’t make me happy to see that.

Without further ado, here’s Cassey Ho’s Glutes & Thighs Trimdown!

3rd Week of January

1/18/16: Skipped

1/19/16 PIIT & Snow Shoveling:

Cassey’s first brand new PIIT workout! It’s called Booty PIIT. I did 2 rounds of this in order to hit both legs equally. This kicked my butt! My butt and legs were so sore the next day. It was so much fun though! Took 14 minutes to go through the video twice.

I started the day off with shoveling snow for about 20 minutes. Then the snow came out halfway through the day and melted everything. Lovely. Actually, it was way too bright for the rest of the day and it gave me a nasty headache.

1/20/16 Cardio:

I ran! OMG! This was the first time I’ve been out running since early last summer (2015). It was super difficult and I’m pretty much back to where I was when I first started running – unable to run even 1/2 a mile. But that’s okay. We all have to start or restart somewhere. I was able to jog/walk for 3 miles! That at least is better than I was when I was first starting. So at least I haven’t lost my long-term endurance.

It felt good to experience “rungry” side effects again. I was SO hungry! I was good about my snack but still hungry. Then not so good about dinner and I was still hungry. Yes, I was a hungry hungry hippo.

Rather than eating more though, I drank water and waited till my stomach caught up with the food and realized it wasn’t as hungry as it thought it was.

1/21/16 Rest:

OMG. How effing stupid can one person be??!! At the time of yesterday’s run, I felt fine. Tired but good. Hours later my muscles had completely cooled off and stiffen into one giant painful mess. There was a nerve in or near my hip flexor that sent nasty pain shooting through my groin so my legs started to crumple (like when I was in my last month of pregnancy and it would feel as if my son was sitting on my leg nerves so my legs would crumple).

Add to that the tendons or ligaments in the back of my right knee had decided that they wouldn’t work anymore so I had to keep icing the back of my knee and resting so I could eventually walk again with a semi-straight leg. The knee cap itself was not happy with me but that’s a preexisting injury from years back that will probably never go away so I wasn’t surprised about that one.

I’m broken.

1/22/16 Cardio:

I iced the back of my right knee most of the morning and would lightly stretch it out by bending and unbending the leg to keep it from stiffening back up. By lunch both legs felt completely fine.

I really wanted to go for another run and both of my legs felt great so I got my Zombie Run and Charity apps ready and headed out. I’m not entirely stupid (or so I thought). I figured I’d walk unless the zombies were chasing me and then I’d jog.

Luckily I didn’t have the zombie app set up right so no zombies chased me. I was seriously disappointed but I say I was lucky because the back of my LEFT knee was then having problems.

I wanted to rest it, but I was a mile from my car. I should’ve paused the apps and sat down till the leg felt better, but I thought it was another injury and that it wasn’t going to feel better. So I stuck it out and concentrated on not limping. I stretched as well as I could afterwards and then drove home. By the time I got home, both legs felt totally fine.

wth?

I iced the backs of the knees and rested while watching The Martian (awesome!).

So what have I done to the backs of my knees? That is the question. I mean, I was just walking! And not fast either. It was the most boring walk ever. After some googling, I believe I’ve strained the tendons in both knees. Story of my life. It should take at least 7 days to heal.

How boring.

This isn’t the first time this has happened but it is the first time in a long time. I’ll stick to the recumbent bike for cardio next week. This would be boring but I have some apps I want to try out with it so I’m looking forward to it.

Cassey’s New Workout Program – PIIT

Cassey Ho has been working on a new way for all of us Popsters to exercise. It’s called PIIT.

Pilates Intense Interval Training

This combines pilates moves with cardio moves and is much like HIIT (high intensity interval training) and circuit training. She loves pilates and she loves/hates HIIT because it gives great results in a shorter amount of time. The magic is in the intervals. I’m sorry about this long infographic but it can explain it all much better than I can.

Interval training is nothing new. So what is so new about Cassey’s new PIIT progam?

……………….

I can only see that she’s sticking in pilates moves between cardio moves instead of whatever else.

I love her death and I love following her videos and I love wearing her clothing lines and I love buying her products and I love looking at her pics and reading her blurbs everywhere. I’m super excited that she’s succeeding at her dreams. But I really don’t know what’s so special about her new workout program.

I mean, her first video – Booty PIIT – was all about the butt. It was a totally awesome workout for my legs and butt. I did the video twice yesterday (once for each leg) and I am super sore today. There’s no question about it being a good workout and her being an awesome teacher. But what makes it new or different from what’s already out there?

It combines pilates moves with cardio moves to strengthen the muscles and get the heart rate up.

No, I don’t know why this is different from regular circuit training. Except that you don’t need equipment at all which I’m sure could still be managed in circuit training. I think I need to know more about pilates (the only thing I know about pilates is what’s in her videos) before I can safely give an informed opinion.

In any case, this is exactly the sort of style I’ve grown to love/hate. I may not know why Cassey thinks it’s different and new, but I like it so I’ll continue to do it. It’s convenient that she’s given this video as it means I don’t have to think of my own routine to do the next time I have a leg day.

Here’s her new video – Booty Pop // PIIT:

2nd Week of January

Another week is over and what a week it’s been. Good and bad, personal and non-personal. But I’m only going to go into the fitness part of it. It’s my weekly workout update! I post these for my own enjoyment, as a way to be held accountable, and for anyone who wants to share in the torture. These workouts aren’t for everyone and I’m not responsible if someone tries one of them and gets hurt or doesn’t get results.

How do I know when I’ve had a good workout? When my muscles are wobbly then I know I’ve worked them enough. And the next day if my muscles are sore then I know it was a good workout. For example, if your butt is sore the next day and you can’t sit on the toilet without using the handicap bar, you know you did plenty of squats the day before.

1/11/16 Total Body:

This one I’m writing down from memory because I did it on the fly and then forgot to write it down later. I’m pretty sure I remember all the moves but it doesn’t seem right because what I’m remembering should’ve lasted longer than my watch says it did – I used my watch to time the workout and then saved it for future reference.

The warm up/cardio I used came from Blogilates’ Snowbunny Blast. The rest was done in the same manner (45s exercise, 15s rest).

Equipment Needed: 2 pairs of dumbbells

Warm Up: SB – 1 round

• Squats
• Bicep Curls
• Alt Side Lunges
• Tricep Kickbacks
• Front Lunges (each side)

SB – Butt Kicks, Mountain Climbers

• Front/Lateral Raises
• Plie Squats
• Reverse Fly
• Calf Raises
• Deadlift
• Front/Side/Back Lunges (right side)

SB – Football Runs, Front Kicks

• Upright Row
• Front/Side/Back/Lunges (left side)
• Bicep Curl w/Shoulder Press
• Reverse Lunges (each side)
• Infinity Abs

Stretching: 5min

This was an awesome workout. I wish I had combined the lower body with the upper body moves though so I could’ve gotten a better workout. Still, the cardio had me sweating and my butt was sore the next day.

1/12/16: 

Whoops! Missed this one. I’ll have to make up for it later.

1/13/16 Lower Body:

Warm up, cardio, and cool down were done on a recumbent bike. Each mile took somewhere between 4-5 minutes. Strength training exercises were each 45 seconds long with a 15 second break in between. It was easier to keep time this way and I wanted to do the same kind of set up from the Blogilates’ Snowbunny Blast routine. I’d skip the 15s rest time if I had to do it again though – I didn’t need it.

Equipment Needed – recumbent bike

Warm Up: Recumbent Bike – 1mi

• Squats – 45s
• Stationary lunge (each side) – 45s, 45s
• Hip side ext in squat (each side) – 45s, 45s

Recumbent Bike – 1mi

• Plie squats – 45s
• Calf raises in plie – 45s
• One legged deadlift (each side) – 45s, 45s

Recumbent Bike – 1mi

• Side lunges (each side) – 45s, 45s
• Butt lifts (each side) – 45s, 45s

Recumbent Bike – 1mi

Cool down: Recumbent Bike – 1mi

Stretching: 5min

The whole workout was 45 minutes long. I figure if I do another of the same length another day (or do 2 in one day HA!), then I’ll have successfully made up my missed Tuesday workout. Of course, I may just workout on Saturday instead because I wasn’t all that fond of having 2 days off in a row last time.

1/14/16 Total Body (emphasis on Upper):

This was meant to be an upper body and core workout but then I thought about how much better it would be if I incorporated the lower body into it as well. Do both upper and lower at the same time, ya know? You burn more calories that way because you’re working harder to activate more muscles all at once. And you get more done in less time. This was a dilemma as I had just worked my lower body the day before; however, I wasn’t sore and this was still going to be mainly about the upper body and core so I figured it’d be safe.

Times are easy. Used Cassey’s Snowbunny Blast again for the warm up/cardio. This time I took my own advise and nixed the 15s rest between the strengthening moves. Still did everything for 45s though. Also, the core work at the end is from Cassey’s 30 Day Waist Trainer. Instead of her last move with the leg raise and side crunch, I did a plank. I wish I had stuck with her move though as this killed my poor, weak abs.

Equipment Needed: 2 pairs of dumbbells, mat

Warm Up: SB – 1 round

• Bicep Curl in Stationary Front Lunge (right side)
• Tricep Kickback on One Leg (right side)
• Hammer Curl in Stationary Front Lunge (left side)
• Tricep Overhead on One Leg (left side)
• Shoulder Press w/Squat

SB – Mountain Climbers, Football Runs

• Front / Lateral Raises
• Reverse Fly
• Single Leg Deadlift (right side)
• Single Leg Deadlift (left side)
• Upright Row

SB – Front Kicks, Butt Kicks

• Push Ups
• Tricep Dips w/Leg Raise (both sides)
• Chest Press w/Butt Raises
• Chest Fly (hold butt up entire time)

Core:

• Eagle Abs
• Reverse Crunch
• Double D’s
• Infinity Abs
• Plank

Stretching: 5min

1/15/16:

Oh poo. I never got around to exercising this day either. I had planned to walk/run outside because the roads were mostly frozen instead of their usual squelchy mud. But it was freezing the whole day and I had being outside when the air is so cold that my nose, ears, and hands freeze upon contact.

1/16/16:

It’s even colder today. Jeez. It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow but I don’t know…Exercising 3 days a week is my minimum so at least I did that much. And they were good workouts. The last one especially. Good luck to us all next week!

The Effect of January and When to Hit the Gym

The effect January, more specifically New Years, has on people is astounding. I looked at the stats for this blog while I was on hiatus and, while the number of visitors was steady, the moment January hit they shot up. Not through the roof or into outer space, that would be for those blogs that are super popular as opposed to mine which people seem to enjoy but doesn’t have the numbers to make up a small village. Unless that village/town was Perfection in Tremors. I probably get more tourist action than they do, even with their graboids.

(NOTE: FYI, Perfection had 14 people at the beginning of the first Tremors movie. It had significantly fewer by the end. They started a tourist thing in the 3rd movie but, although they didn’t specify, I think the population was still pretty low. I mean, who wants to live in an isolated part of the desert with graboids?? Come on!)

(NOTE 2: Although you would get some pretty good cardio and strength training from running away and climbing boulders/telephone poles/buildings/etc. Assuming you weren’t eaten right off the bat. And if your only chance of survival was running away, you’d probably get eaten pretty quickly. So, no, I wouldn’t want to live there.)

But January! Wow! What a month for people! The New Year starts and all anyone wants to do is get fit and lose weight.

It may look like I’m a happy passenger on this bandwagon but I stand by my initial statement that the date and my sudden change back to fitness are coincidence. There may have been some subconscious motivation going on that was connected to New Years, but on a conscious choice level it was coincidence. Sorry.

That’s not to say I’ve never jumped on the New Years fitness bandwagon. It was a usual thing for me every year up until about 4 years ago. There’s no shame in it. How else would gyms get their membership fees met? And I’m sure there are lots of people who stick with their resolution instead of giving it up when their motivation lags.

I saw the progression for 3 years in a row. It kind of sucked sometimes because it was impossible to get the cardio equipment I wanted at certain times of the day so I had to be extra careful to pick a time when the gym numbers would be lower.

Mid-morning (around 9-11) was usually a good bet. The before-work people were gone and the lunch rush had yet to come. But that was in Wenatchee, Washington. It’s a small town so the numbers aren’t going to match a gym in a city. Still, I would think mid-morning would be a good bet for the same reasons.

Lunch and evening would be insane no matter where you go so I’d advise avoiding those times.

Mid-afternoon I’m not sure. There’s the afternoon crash people feel and kids get out of school around that time. But most people work in the afternoons so I’m going to say that mid-afternoon (around 2-4) would have numerous people but not a “busy” amount. So you’ll most likely see a fair number but it shouldn’t inconvenience you with equipment and machines.

When in doubt, look at the class schedule. You can always tell when a gym’s attendance is going to be higher by looking at when the classes are taught. If there are no classes in the afternoon, numbers are too low to make it worthwhile to pay an instructor. Just because a class is being taught at a certain time, however, doesn’t dictate how many people will be in the weight and cardio areas. There are plenty of people who don’t go to the classes for whatever reason. But chances are, if there are no classes scheduled for awhile, then there aren’t a whole lot of people in the gym. Period. That’s why you’ll see a bunch of classes scheduled back-to-back in the evening and yoga and pilates in the super early morning.

Do I have a gym membership? No, I don’t. Not enough money even for the super cheap ones. My home is my gym. This is my workout area nowadays:

Yeah, out there past the deck on the driveway. The gravel driveway that is currently covered in snow. And when this happens, you’d better believe that I am not out there. In fact, I didn’t even want to go outside to take this picture which is why the deck is obscuring the view.

When this happens, my workout area moves to one of two places: A) upstairs in my bedroom, or B) first floor in a sort of “hallway” that has been made of stuff. The “hallway” has a recumbent bike (not mine and part of said stuff that created this path) that I can use for my cardio. My bedroom has just enough clear space for manual cardio (burpees, mountain climbers, quick feet, etc).

And here’s my equipment:

There’s more but this is what I use on a near daily basis. The iPad is there for workout videos…mostly from Blogilates. Really, I don’t even need this although I’d rather not do without the mat. You can do a perfectly fulfilling (translation: deadly) workout without any equipment at all. All you need is your body weight. But I can take only so much of that so I use dumbbells and sometimes bands. Depending on what exercises you’re doing you don’t even need shoes all the time. Woo!

Good luck with your New Year’s resolutions! And good luck with over-crowded gyms.

1st Week of January

My change started earlier this week and the second day I was so sore. Wow. Really. When it comes to exercise, nothing to something HURTS! I would rank my first workout on the medium to lighter side of what I used to be able to do. Does this make me feel bad? Not really because it still kicked my butt and I know that when you stop exercising, you can’t reasonably expect yourself to be able to pick it back up from where you left off. It just doesn’t work that way. If you try, you’ll hurt yourself and/or you’ll burn out super quick and end up stopping again.

I used the workout timer on the Blogilates app for some of my workouts.

It’s pretty straightforward – I put different exercises in, chose the time for each move as well as the warm-up time, a rest between rounds, and ended with how many rounds I wanted. It calculates how much time that workout will take and you just press start. Cassey Ho added her voice in for the 3,2,1 countdown for switching moves and resting. I would prefer a more complicated app that would allow me to change the times of moves and put in different moves for the different rounds and I believe apps like that are out there but I didn’t want to make the effort of finding one when all I wanted was to get down to it and exercise.

Here was the quickie workout I made for myself. Not a huge amount of thought went into it; I just wanted to hit the major muscle groups and make sure there was cardio in there to raise my heart rate. My equipment is also pretty non-existent so I had to keep it simple.

1/4/16 Total Body:

• Warm-Up
• Squats
• Plies (round 1) / Alternating Forward Lunges (round 2)
• Jumping Jacks
• Inclined Push Ups
• Tricep Dips
• Squat Jumps (round 1) / Side to Side Jumps and Quick Feet (round 2)
• Hip Adduction (Left Side) w/Side Crunch
• Hip Adduction (Right Side) w/Side Crunch
• High Knees

Warm-up was 2 minutes. 10-second rest between rounds – 2 rounds. Each move was 1 minute. Cool down and stretching lasted almost 8 minutes. About 28 minutes total.

1/5/16 Core:

I used a Blogilates video for my ab workout. It’s one of the new videos from Blogilates – The ULTIMATE 2016 AB WORKOUT. It rocked. And killed my abs. I probably should’ve done another video but my hip flexors were hurting. I’ve had issues with them for years now. Ah well.

(On a side note, I’ve been totally wanting that mat Cassey’s using. Money is a problem so I had to go with a cheaper and thinner mat from Target. I was disappointed but I love my new mat so it’s okay. There’s always next year!)

Now was I actually able to do every single rep? Umm…No, because my abs aren’t what they used to be so I was a lot slower than Cassey. But I tried my best and that’s what counts.

1/6/16 Total Body:

Total Body Tone Up came from Tone It Up. It was fun and the moves were simple enough but my belly is so weak that the end really killed my core muscles. For each move, they say to do 2o-25 reps. (NOTE: The one exception for this is #9: Side Plank Twist – you do 5 reps each side with that one.) I settled on 20 because I had never done this workout before and had no idea how difficult it might be. Just because a move looks easy, doesn’t mean your muscles won’t be screaming at you early on.

Equipment: pair of dumbbells (I used 3lbs)

This workout, including about 5 minutes of stretching afterward, took about 35 minutes to complete.

1/7/16 Upper Body and Core:

Because I stuck with a lighter weight the day before, this day was dedicated to my arms and shoulders. The warm up was 2 minutes, each exercise was 1 minute long, and there was a 10-second rest between rounds. 2 rounds total.

Equipment: 2 pairs of dumbbell (8lbs and 3lbs)

• warm up
• bicep curls
• upright rows
• front punches
• push ups
• shoulder press
• uppercut
• tricep kickback
• lateral / front raises
• arm raises (round 1) / cross hook (round 2)

The upper body portion took 20 minutes to complete (timed by the Blogilates timer I mentioned for the first workout). Add in 5 minutes of stretching.

I realized later that night that this other app I’m using to log my calories and exercise only counts workouts of 30 minutes or more for the challenges (one of which I’m in). In my opinion that’s stupid and frustrating, but I’ll deal and get used to it. Anyway, so I added in another 10 minutes of core work and 2 minutes of stretching at night.

• Eagle Abs – 55 reps
• Reverse Crunch – 55 reps
• Double D’s – 55 reps
• Infinity Abs – 5 reps

The ab workout came from Cassey Ho’s 30-Day Waist Trainer Challenge. It’s a daily challenge for the month of January but I forgot all about it and hadn’t even started it till the 7th. Since I needed 10 minutes to round off my 30-minute workout, I did the moves for each day I had missed in January.

1/8/16 Lower Body:

Lots more snow out today. Sucks. Totally not going outside to exercise or going out at all if I can help because the snow shows no signs of stopping. Yesterday’s cardio kinda sorta really sucked (except my arms did get horribly tired and now they’re super sore today). Luckily I remembered there’s a recumbent bike (not mine) in the house that I can use so I’m breaking up my lower body exercises with cycling. I’ll be doing this later today.

• Warm up – Recumbent Bike – 1 mile
• Squats – 20 reps
• Alternating Forward Lunges – 20 reps
• Recumbent Bike – 1 mile
• Plie Squats – 20 reps
• Calf Raises in Plie – 20 reps
• Recumbent Bike – 1 mile
• Alternating Side Lunges – 20 reps
• Butt Lifts – 20 reps
• Recumbent Bike – 1 mile
• Hip Abductions – 20 reps (each side)
• Hip Adductions – 20 reps (each side)
• Recumbent Bike – 1 mile

That last mile will be slower to act as a cool down. At least 5 minutes of stretching follows and then all done for the week! I like to rest on Saturday and Sunday so I can start anew on Monday and then die the rest of the week.

Other people will rest only one day and exercise the other 6 but I’ve never really cared for that. My willpower weakens phenomenally quickly knowing I won’t be able to rest for a long time and then for only one day. It’s like going to work 6 days in a row and having only 1 day off – sucks big time. Not for me. Unless I’m training and am totally serious about completing everything and not slacking so I can make the people who said I couldn’t do it eat their words.

Now that’s REAL motivation.

I may or may not have issues.

So I’m super sore now but feel totally productive. How was your week?

New Year, Old Me

What??? Yep, you heard me – old me. Like, seriously old. I have gained so much weight and lost so much muscle that I’m back to where I was about 5 years ago. Well, maybe not 5 years ago because 5 years ago (give or take however many months) I was once more hovering at 200 lbs. That was when I started taking my life back with daily walks, cardio DVDs, SparkPeople.com, and calorie-counting. Though the exercise was good, the dieting was not. I ate awful food thinking it was okay because I was eating a smaller amount.

Everyone has to have a starting point though and that was mine. From counting calories I eventually went to healthy eating and my exercise increased. At my best I was 162 lbs (I’m almost 5’10”) and could easily fit into a size 12 jeans. That is no longer the case and I am horrified that I can no longer fit into my jeans. Lately all I wear are yoga pants and skinny jeans because they’re stretchy.

I hit 189 lbs the other day and realized my weight gain was not going to stop if my increasingly bad habits did not. So I’m rebooting this blog to help hold myself accountable for my actions or lack thereof. I’m not saying this will keep me from flubbing and missing a workout or slipping in my eating. On the contrary, I’ve already eaten a ton of chocolates (damn you leftover holiday chocolate sales!). But hopefully my increased exercise – from nothing to something – will make up the difference when I do indulge. Hopefully that won’t be a daily occurrence but I’d be deluded to think it won’t happen at least 3 times a week.

I mean, I’m just starting off again. Cut me (and yourself) some slack! Give serious devotion time to take effect before you start beating me (or yourself) up for too much indulgence. Change takes time.

Here are my icky new stats that I’m going to obliterate this year:

• Weight: 187.8 lbs
• Upper Arms: L 12″, R 12 3/4″
• Chest: 32 3/4″
• Waist: 35 1/2″
• Lower Belly: 42 1/2″
• Hips: 44 1/2″
• Thighs: L 24 1/2″, R 25″
• Calves: L/R 15 3/4″

Okay, so I’m not going to obliterate my calf measurements – I’ve always had big calves, even at my smallest – but I like to have them all the same. Those other measurements though. Ugh. That’s, like, a 2-4″ gain! Not good. Especially since my jeans don’t fit anymore.

If you’re not happy with your body either, you can always join me in my journey. It’s easy to find videos and workout routines for free online. Blogilates and ToneItUp are my favorites. In fact, both sites have come out with new videos this week. Blogilates brought out a new ab workout that I did today and Tone It Up has a new total body workout that I’ll be doing tomorrow.

Let’s beat those measurements into the dust!