Tag Archives: burning calories

Now Comes The Exercise

10 May

I warned you in the last post this one would be about the new exercise plan so don’t blame me if you’re all “omg all she is writing about is working out, ugh” πŸ˜‰ lol

I found the work out plan I am going to follow by complete and total fluke, such a pleasant surprise!

I can’t lay claim to any part of this plan, I found it here…

http://www.popeyescanada.com/strongtothefinish-en.html

It is the Popeye’s Supplement company website. I was on it seeing if my protein powder was on sale (sadly, it isn’t) and noticed they are having a contest. I can’t enter because it is already started but that doesn’t mean I can’t read the information they have on the site and learn from it.

You select your gender and from there check out four different workouts. I have made copies of all of them with the theory that once I have gotten good at the beginner level I will be able to move up to the more advanced workouts and well, might as well be prepared for that, right?

Here is what the beginners workout plan looks like…

Capture

For some reason the part that most appealed to me was that all the workouts can be done at home. Normally I don’t like working out at home, I like being lazy at home. Buuuuuut there are advantages, like, I don’t have to worry about making myself presentable to the world, I don’t have people in the gym watching me, I can work out at anytime of day or night, my shower is less than ten steps away so when I’m done I can get cleaned up super fast.

Oh, and the biggest perk is that I have no excuse to not work out. My gym closes at 10pm Fridays and Saturdays which means I can’t get there after work and I don’t care for working out prior to going to work so I have used those two reasons for more often than not skipping my Friday and Saturday workouts. Well, no more!

Something else I like about this plan is the alternate exercises. It is smart to not keep doing the same exercises for weeks and weeks and weeks in a row so having things to swap out to keep the body guessing is good. Also, as I get stronger I can add weights to the moves, add more reps and sets, make it more of a challenge. πŸ™‚ Plus it alternates cardio with the full body circuit and even throws in a rest day and a stretching day. It’s a good mix.

I wasn’t intending to have Day 1 be a Monday but I wanted to start the program right away and I found it last night so right away meant Monday. Whiiiich actually turns out to be a good thing because if you’ll notice on Day 2 and 4 I will be doing cardio and in the alternate exercises one of the options is “sport” and those are the days I have dragon boat practice which means my dragon boat practice can be substituted in to this work out plan and count. Yay! I figure I am probably still going to do a separate 30 minutes of cardio on those days, cause why not? But if life gets in the way and one day I can’t fit in time for a run or hike I won’t be missing out completely cause I’ll still be going to practice. Maybe my logic is flawed but it makes sense to me…

So today after work I went for a one hour hike with a friend then came home and immediately did Day 1’s workout. I had to make some minor changes, after the second set my knees were hurting quite badly so during the third set I did 20 squats instead of 15 squats and 5 squat jumps, the squat jumps were killing my knees. Also, in set 3 I did my push-ups on an angle because I felt it was better to do angled push-ups with proper form than pathetic push-ups on the floor that weren’t giving me as good of a workout as they could be. I’ll get stronger and be able to do all three sets of the push-ups soon but until then I’ll do one set angled, build those muscles!

There ya have it, my new work out plan. Easy in the sense I can follow it and have no excuses to not work out. Challenging enough that hopefully it will start me on a lovely path of getting more fit. πŸ™‚

Care to join me?

 

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Exercise Interuptus

7 Nov

I’ve been working out to the Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30 dvd lately, yes I know I attempted it before and failed miserably but I figured why not try again? πŸ™‚

Why oh why haven't I seriously started this yet??

Attempt Number 2!

I really did plan to follow the dvd the way it is set up – there are four different workouts, labelled Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 and Week 4. You are supposed to work out 6 days a week and you progress through the workouts until you’ve been working out for a month and are, apparently, ripped.

Being the doubting type of person that I am, I don’t believe I would ever be ripped in 30 days, even if I followed the work out plan and meal plan religiously. That just isn’t possible lol I was hopeful for being in better shape than when I started though. Small goals my friends, small goals! lol

So day 4 of week 1 and wouldn’t ya know it, I was injured. Lovely. *rolls eyes* I hurt my shoulder which was seriously impeding normal day to day activities let alone push-ups, planks and free weight work. I had to take a break from the dvd and baby the shoulder for a bit. After about 4 days of babying I went back to the dvd and gave it a try, using lower weights than previously. The shoulder seemed ok so I kept going. Well, sort of, sigh.

Life got in the way, as it has a tendency to do and I missed a day, then a couple days later I missed another day, all in all, it took me two and a bit weeks to finish Week 1 of the dvd workouts lol I’m pretty sure that would get me a severe tongue lashing from Jillian if she were to find out, good thing she doesn’t know I exist! πŸ˜‰

Yesterday I decided screw this, I’m bored with the workout for Week 1, I wanna graduate to Week 2, I can do this! *insert battle cry here*

On to Week 2!

Um, wow, I’m so not ready for Week 2 lol Some of the moves I can’t do due to severe lack of coordination. Oh geez was it bad, as in totally horribly bad, there is this move that I was so off with I’m pretty sure I got no exercise benefit from it at all! You start standing with your legs together, arms at your side holding dumbbells. You lunge forward and as you land in the lunge position you do a bicep curl, then the leg that is forward swings backwards, not back to standing position but behind you to another lunge, during the movement your arms go back down to your side then as you land in the lunge position your arms do another bicep curl. It confused my brain and my body lol I kept curling at the wrong time *rolls eyes*

There were other moves that I had to do the modified version of because of either confusion, inability or exhaustion. πŸ˜› Jillian would be so disappointed, sigh.

jillian

About halfway through the workout my phone rang, which never happens, I communicate almost exclusively via text or email…or facebook…So the phone ringing is a rare enough thing I took a look at the screen and it was an uber important person (my agent) so of course I answered. He actually had to ask for me because I was panting when I answered and didn’t sound like myself lol He was calling for an uber important thing (an audition) so totally worth the pausing of the dvd. We chatted for a while then I had to decide, start the workout back at the beginning because even though I kept walking the entire time I was on the phone my body had completely cooled down, or start where I paused it and basically force my body to leap back in to the high intensity part of the workout.

I opted for hitting play and continuing where I left off, mostly due to the horror I felt at the idea of repeating what I had just done. Nope. Nuh-uh. Wasn’t happening!

At the end of the workout I felt like I’d cheated a bit, since I’d had that break, but figured I’d make up for it the next day (which, fyi, totally didn’t, oops! πŸ˜‰ )

I have bad luck with this dvd, first my workouts get interrupted because of an injury, then because of a phone call. I can’t decide if it’s the universe’s way of telling me to stop using that dvd or the universe’s way of issuing me a challenge. Since I like the idea of a challenge better I’m taking it as such and will continue with the Week 2 workouts, let’s see where they take me! To Week 3? To injury? Who knows!

The bigger thing to ponder is…how long will it take me to complete Week 2?

Guess there’s only one way to find out! lol Bring it on Jillian. Bring. It. On. πŸ™‚

this makes me laugh and shrink back in terror at the same time lol

this makes me laugh and shrink back in terror at the same time lol

If the caption in the pictures is too small to read it says:

Picture One

Lady Working Out: “My back hurts”

Picture Two

Jillian: “That’s a bummer. Guess what else is going to hurt?”

Picture Three

Jillian: “Everything!”

These Shoes Ain’t Made For Walkin’

9 Oct

Oh my poor feet!

I own a pair of shoes that look like this…

converse

Well, they almost look like that, just think of those shoes but grungier lol and nooooo internal padding left, sigh.

I like to walk, especially when doing errands, it’s multi-tasking at it’s finest! Exercise and errands all at one time, plus the added bonus of saving money by not driving (not using any gas) and being a bit environmentally friendly. πŸ™‚

Normally if I am walking longer than a half hour I wear the runners I wear when I run, they have great padding for the feet, are super comfy and well, duh, are meant for things like long walks. Today however I decided to wear my converse. Dumb, dumb move.

See, my converse are old, and I don’t mean 6 months old but 2-3 years old. I know! I should have replaced them ages ago, but I can’t afford to and I love em too much to get rid of them. Besides, they are ok for shorter outings lol

I didn’t take in to account how long I would be walking, mostly cause I mis-remembered how far the store I was going to is, oops! By the 40 minute mark of my walk I was really regretting the shoe choice. It had been so long since I’d worn them, I’d forgotten about the lack of padding within the shoe and the ball of my left foot was blistered, sigh.

I got to the store an hour in to my walk, wandered the shop for a while, I was looking for items for my halloween costumes (yes, the pluralization of the word costume is correct, I need two!) then started the walk home. I was sooooo tempted to catch a bus but I just couldn’t bring myself to take a bus when I could walk and burn calories.

So, hour two of my walking happened, and by the end of it I had a matching blister on my right foot, oh and the left foot’s blister had grown, ugh. Β I hate blisters, not cause of the pain (which is there), or because of how I am now limping (which makes going back and forth to the laundry room all kinds of fun), but because of the squishy feeling I have with every step, the feeling of walking on two water balloons that are just waiting for the perfect time to pop! Ick! Ick! Ick!…did I mention ick? πŸ˜›

Least I got a decent walk in, 6.7 miles or 10.8 km, guess that’s worth two massive blisters, right?

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