LOTS of Workouts and Weight Loss Strategies (:

Hello and Happy JULY!!  Our weekend was a little bit of a whirlwind and I’m thinking the rest of this month will be the same way!  I’m still working on healing my stress fractured foot.  It’s getting a little old.  I want to run and work out hard and I just have to wait.  It’s much better, but I can still feel a little pain without my shoe or boot.  Next week I’m going on a pioneer trek and walking somewhere around 25 miles.  Crazy!  My doc says I should be fine if I wear my boot.  After trek I’m hoping all will be well!  Looking forward to that!

Today we started the week off AWESOME with my track workout!  It’s so great to be outside for a workout!  Here are the last two weeks of workouts!  They were both hard core sweaty fun.  I kinda just stood there and did a few abs, biceps, and triceps…very few.  It’s hard to even push myself with upper body or abs when I’m injured.  I took some great pics. though!

JUNE 29 WORKOUT

1 MINUTE EACH EXERCISE X 4

SPEED SKATERS

HAND RELEASE PUSH UPS

WALKING LUNGES

HIGH KNEES

JUMP SQUATS

HIGH SUMOS

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS

AMRAP (AS MANY ROUNDS AS POSSIBLE) 15-20 MINUTES

20 BICEP CURLS

20 WEIGHTED SIT UPS

10 BURPEES

20 TRICEP EXTENSIONS

20 AB JACKS

1 RUN UP THE HILL

TRACK WORKOUT JULY 6, 2015

20-18-16-14 DO 20 REPS OF EVERYTHING ON THE FIRST ROUND,

18 ON THE SECOND, AND SO FORTH

THRUSTERS

LATERAL RAISES

BURPEES

TRICEP KICKBACKS

REVERSE LUNGE WITH BICEPS

RENEGADE ROWS

SNOW BOARDERS

FULL SIT UPS

RUN THE HILL AND BEAR CRAWL DOWN 3 X

5 MINUTE POWER WORK

DO THE FOLLOWING EXERCISES EVERY MINUTE ON THE MINUTE 5 X

10 JUMP SQUATS

10 PUSH UPS

10 SPLIT LUNGES

My Friendsies!

This weekend I’m taking my daughter to San Diego!  We will be there for 3 days.  I found a few workouts that we’ll be able to do together!  Some of these exercises I will modify because of my foot!

Mostly we’ll be spending our time sight seeing, going to the beach, ONE DIRECTION, shopping, eating, and hanging with my bro. and his family.  I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Next week I’m going to talk more about food.  July 15th I start my Oxygen Challenge.  I’m so excited!!  One of my friends is doing it too with her 14 year old son.  I’m so glad!  I will FOLLOW it 100% unless I have to be on pioneer trek for 3 days (:  12 weeks!  I’d like to take progress pictures along the way.  Stay tuned!!

One quick weight loss story to share!  My friend’s husband recently dropped a LOT of weight.  I think he’s 6’1 and weighs 170 right now.  He’s actually a little too thin.  He told me he runs 10 miles every day!  GEEZ!  His diet is pretty boring and almost the same every day.  He eats instant oatmeal for breakfast, yogurt for a snack, KFC grilled chicken breast and green beans for lunch, and whatever the family is having for dinner.  For his treat at night he eats Kipper Snacks.  I’d never heard of them, but apparently they are very stinky fish in a can.  He also eats fruits and vegetables to snack on.  Hmmmm…sounds like a successful plan!

That’s all for today.  Here are a couple pictures from our 4th of July weekend and my latest 26 mile bike ride with my friends!  Keep Working Hard and Smile!

Eat clean, all over body workout, and fun fashion

One week into my healthy eating.  I weighed in at 133 today.  I feel pretty good about that!  I’ll keep at it.  I don’t feel hungry and cravings are small.  Here is my eating advice:  Make dinner.  This week I made stir fry and turkey burgers, which the kids don’t really like so I have lots of left overs for me!  I snack on veggies and hummus.  I have an apple and a protein bar every day.  At night if I’m hungry I make a protein shake.  I fill a tall glass of half soy or almond milk and half water and add one scoop of casein protein powder and blend it up with my handy dandy hand blender.  It’s yummy and fills me up!  My clients are doing well!!  I’m happy when they stick with the diet and exercise plan and they start seeing  results.

I’m committed to my marathon training so my friend and I took off on a snowy run this morning.  I’ve been trying to run 4 days a week.  Some of them end up on the treadmill at the gym.  I can only handle about 5 miles on a treadmill!  My workout at the church was stellar this week!  We had a great group and I think we were all pretty much trashed at the end.  Mission Accomplished!

We did a trio of exercises.  Each one for a minute for 3 rounds.  Then we alternated switch lunges or walking lunges.  We finished with abs at the end.  1 hour workout DONE!

So today is a little bit of everything!  I’ve got two outfits to share.  A Sunday outfit with my little girl and my birthday present outfit from my friends.  Love LULU!!

Keep working hard!  Be happy!

 

Workout wears and upper/ab shred

Alrighty!  I put together a workout this week that seemed a little busy but it was AWESOME!  5 stations.  10 minutes at each station.  As many rounds as possible.  I brought some kettle bells and a stability ball too!!!  I BIG must for an at home gym!

Love these!!  You can do a gazillion things with them!!  Here is the workout!!!

10 minutes at each station

#1

Cheer Press 20

One Arm Dumbbell Row 20 each side

Exercise Ball Pull in 20

Press Jacks 20

#2

Bent Over Row 20

Jack Knife sit up 20

Kettle Bell Swings 20

Burpees 20

#3

Mountain Climbers 20

Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl 20 each side

Bench Dips 20

Plank to Rows 20

#4

Thrusters 20

Narrow Pushups 20

Walking Planks 20

Switch Lunges 20

#5

Tricep Extensions 20

Bicycle Crunch 20

Push Ups 20

Tick tock abs 20 each side

The exercise ball pull in was the best.  If you have not done these, I challenge you to do 1!  Here is an example.  I think I need to do 100 of these a day till my birthday!  New challenge I just thought of!  Super great core, abs, and upper body strength.

On to another LOVE of mine!  Exercise clothing!  Lately I’ve noticed I’m grabbing the same tops and bottoms to work out in.  I thought I’d post my FAVS and MUST HAVES for your gym attire!  From top to bottom!  Lots of these are Lululemon.  I can’t help myself (:  They are the best.

Fly Away tamer Lululemon

Bitty Bracer

All Sport Bra

Energy Bra

My favorite workout style is a bra and tank top.  I’m not a fan of built in bras so much.   Here are my favorite tank tops!  I’m tall and I like longer tops.  All of these are perfecto!

Lululemon cool racerback

Nike pro combat tank

Athleta Stride tank

Lululemon is always my favorite for bottoms.  They make anyone look and feel good!

Run for fun crop

Run Inspire II

Pace Setter skirt

To keep me warm I love long sleeved stuff from Lulu and vests!  Super duper WARM!!

Won’t stop vest

Star runner pull over

That’s all I got today!  Off to get my preschooler.  Happy exercising!!!  Stay warm.  Hydrate.  Dedication.  Lift.

It’s night time

Well, it’s Wednesday night.  This feels a little bit like a journal entry.  It’s late and I can’t sleep so I’ll write for a few minutes.  I had a busy day of chaperoning 2 field trips today.  The first one was with my 5th grader to the Festival of Trees.  Very fun and tiring.  Amazing and beautiful trees all donated and sold for the benefit of Primary Children’s Hospital.  A great tradition I’ve been attending since I was a kid.  Here’s my group of kids for the day!  Cuties!

I had a few hours to regroup until I had to head out again with the youth from church.  We went to the lights on Temple Square and then went up to the 22nd floor of one of the leaders office building and had pizza and hot chocolate.  Great great group of kids!!  It was VERY cold!  Right around 15 degrees!!  Welcome winter (:  Here is my other group of charges!  I love these kids.

I’ve hit the teenage years.  It’s hard to go to sleep when my oldest son is studying with a girl and my 13 yr. old daughter wants to tell me every texting conversation she has with her boy and girl friends.  I better get them off to bed and me too.  5:40 comes early each morning!!  This morning I had a hard workout with my 6 am group!!  Lots of reps and sweating.

Drop 10 and Ladders Workout

40-30-20 (Complete 3 rounds of each set going down by 10 reps each round)

 Spiderman Push up

Forward Lunge with kickback

2 Ladders

 

Shoulder Press

Jackknife Sit Ups

2 Ladders

 

Burpees

Hammer Lunges (hammer, standard, reverse)

2 Ladders

 

Mountain Climbers

Tricep Extension

2 Ladders

 

OPTIONAL-3 Rounds

 Dumbbell Press 20

Side to Side Pushups 20

One Arm overhead squat 20 each side

Side Lateral Raise 20

Upright Row 20

Tricep Kickbacks 20

Dumbbell Pass Crunch 20

I feel very grateful for my many friends!  I had to take a picture of this small message that caught my eye at the Festival of Trees today!  Very true for those in my life.  I only hope I can be like this for others!  Happy and Merry Merry Christmas Season**    

 

Strike a chord

Ha ha!  I love this quote and need to put it on my mirror!

I read articles on super fit women and find ways to emulate them.  I struck a chord with my workout class when I told them about an article I read from a VERY perfectly fit woman.  She had perfect abs and she said that she only worked them once a week!!  We had a little ungluing going on.  I guess I shouldn’t say that to a group of highly motivated mothers with a little competitive edge to them (:  GENETICS is all that is!  She hasn’t had twins!  Some people build muscle better than others!  And when I said it’s because she eats well, that was blown off as if it was of no consequence.  HMMMM….is Easter around the corner and we all want to eat chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs?  I’m sure glad Easter is early this year because I will eat more than I should this weekend and luckily Monday is APRIL 1st, which is when I especially love making new goals.  I need to go back to my NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS and review them again.  I need to regroup and get back to my 3 treat days a month!  Look for another list of GOALS and SUPER CLEANSE I’ll post about on MONDAY!!

O.K. enough of that.  Here is the GREAT workout we did on WEDNESDAY!!!!!  We did supersets and triplesets.

WARMUP-75 walking lunges, 50 jumping jacks

Alternate PUSHUPS and LUNGE SWITCHES 20 reps each and repeat 3 times with no rest

Alternate OVERHEAD TRICEP EXTENSIONS with BICEP CURLS 3×20 again

Do the next 3 exercises for 20 reps each, 3 times

HIP LIFTS (lay on back with one foot in the air and lower hips up and down.  20 each leg)

BURPEES

THRUSTERS

Sprint 1 lap around the church

I hope that makes sense.  After you go through that once, DO IT AGAIN!!!  We finished with 10 MINUTE POWER WORK.

Do 8 overhead presses, 5 burpees, and 8 sit ups on the minute for 10 minutes.  The GYMBOSS trainer works GREAT here!

We felt great after!!!  This will be a FUN weekend.  Saturday, my husband and I are going to a NPC bodybuilding show!  His secretary will be in it and I’d love to see what one is like!  I’ll let you know what I think.  We’ll see which side of the fence I fall on for doing a body building competition!

Hope everyone has a fun weekend.  I’ll be running a lot, which I LOVE now that SPRING is in the air.  I need to get out to my yard now and the rest of the housework.  Keep it uP 10+++ times more than before!  (;  

30-25-20-15 workout

GREAT workout day today!!!  I am 3 days into my 7 week challenge and I feel sooooo much better already.  Imagine how I’ll be 7 weeks from now.  Getting more sleep is the only struggle sometimes.  The weather is turning and it’s nice to see signs of spring!  I can’t wait to see more of this!

I was contemplating quitting my Wednesday workout class with my favorite Moms and so many of them said how much they loved and missed it when I don’t do it, that I decided to make it work.  It really is a nice break.  So, here’s the WOD!!

30-25-20-15 workout

Do each circuit 4 times going down in reps 30-25-20-15 before

moving to the next circuit

Circuit 1

Hand release push ups

Sumo squats

V-ups

High Knees

Circuit 2

Chair dips

 Step ups (each leg)

Tick tock abs with weights

Mountain Climbers

Circuit 3

Side to side pushups

Inner and outer thigh lifts

Full sit ups

Burpees

REWARDS are very important 🙂 in helping me stick to my goals.  Lululemon is sporting all the beautiful spring colors right now!  Here are a few rewards I am loving right now.  After 7 weeks, I’ll narrow it down to ONE…maybe TWO (if I’m really good) things to give myself!

Have a happy, springy day!  Looking forward to Working Hard tomorrow**

 

 

15 ways to lose belly fat and the workout to help

HELLO!!  Happy Workout Wednesday!  It was so great to see my workout friends again this morning after a long break.  Winter is when we need exercise the most, yet it’s the hardest time of year to keep it up!  Today’s 15 tips to lose belly fat and a workout to boot will jump start your fit mind set!!  I read an article that you can find HERE about the ways to lose belly fat.  Here is my condensed version of the article.  Good to remember and review.  As you age (and everyone is aging every day) our bodies lose muscle and store more fat, specifically, belly fat.  Yes, it is true!!  Follow these tips (FOREVER) and you will be well on your way to washboard abs in no time!!

15 WAYS TO LOSE BELLY FAT

1-Keep cortisol hormone low!  This is a fat storage hormone that is released during stress.  Ways to keep it low: Get enough sleep, decrease stress, and avoid crash diets.

2-Don’t just diet.  Exercise increases metabolism while cutting calories slows down metabolism.  Do both!

3-Add muscle.  Full body strength program 3 days a week.  As we age, we lose muscle mass which slows down metabolism.  

4-Interval training 2-3 times a week.  High intensity for short bursts is better for burning fat than steady exercising.

5-Boxing.  Great for core and abs.  Try Les Mills Body Combat class.  The best!!

6-The more weight bearing the exercise the more belly fat you’ll burn.  Examples are running, eliptical machine, dancing, and basketball.  Non weight bearing exercises are swimming and bicycling.

7-Post workout meals.  Consume a combo of protein and carbs immediately after a workout.

8-Improve posture.  Do pilates.

9-Cardio after weights.  Burns more fat than doing cardio first.

10-Work back exercises and ab exercises.  Performing counter muscles will help strengthen both and improve posture and back pain.

11-Drink water.  People who drink more water, consume less calories.

12-Eat every 3 hours.  Maintains steady energy levels so you don’t crash and binge.

13-Cut out sugar.  Major stressor and increases fat storage in the body.

14-Chew your food thoroughly.  Aids in digestion.

15-Eat quality whole grain carbs.

Whew!  That was long.  Got all that?  Here is the WOD!

Complete AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 10 minutes for each set of exercise 

20 burpees

20 sit ups

20 biceps

20 thrusters

20 lunge switches

200 m run (1/2 a lap)

20 pushups

20 tricep extension

20 mountain climbers

20 side lateral raises

20 side lunges

200 m run (1/2 a lap)

20 walking planks

20 v-ups

20 tick tock abs

The best advice!

Have a great day!  I’m so grateful for Good Food and Friends*

 

Lock yourself in the bedroom workout

Alright!  I have been itching for a HARD workout.  Life has been busy, snow is everywhere, and I sold my treadmill!!  So…when I had an open hour in the middle of the day I took it!  Here is a GREAT, do at home workout when you are short on time or SNOWED IN!!!

WARM UP- 100 walking lunges

Complete 3 rounds of each exercise before going on to the next set of exercises.

SHOULDERS

20 front raises

20 upright row

20 overhead press

TRICEPS

20 narrow push-ups

20 skull crushers

20 overhead french press

ABS

20 sit ups

20 right side ups

20 left side ups

20 Superman back extensions

BICEPS 21

7 bottom to half

7 half to full

7 full

I used 12 lb. weights and they felt like lead!  I feel out of shape and it makes me mad.  I need to be better.  Next month will ROCK!!!  February sounds so much better than January right now!  I’ll post NEW goals for the month on Friday.  If you are a beginner, use 8 lb. weights and cut the reps in half.  I got this workout from gppfitness.com

But wait…I’m not done yet.  I’ve been craving cardio since I can’t run much in our weather.  So, here is the cardio part:

Alternate Jump rope and burpees for 5 rounds

100 jump ropes

20 burpees

I finished with another set of 100 walking lunges.  I had very minimum rests throughout the whole workout.

LOVED THIS!!!  I’m awesomely sore today.  It was a great workout that took just under an hour to finish.  I told me kids to pretend like I wasn’t home, locked my door, put in the earphones, and got it done!!  After, I had a yummy bowl of cottage cheese and went on with the busy day.

Hope everyone is happy and well!  Remember to slow down and not be in such a hurry all the time and don’t get mad about things you can’t change (3 feet of snow every other day!)

I really wish I was here.

Or RUNNING here.

One day we’ll warm up!!

Rip it uP!  Stick to at least 4 workouts a week and 9 fruits and vegetables a day.  

Tofu and SNOW too!

Hello!  I’m such a rebel!  I have a confession to make.

My Green Smoothie challenge diet is taking a break today!  When you wake up with 2 feet of snow and it’s still snowing, you gotta have a party day!  So….today I’ll be making butternut squash soup (which is actually legal) AND homemade, white, buttery rolls!  I might sneak in a brownie or two as well.  It was fun getting up at the crack of dawn to help with the digging out process of two homes!  The snow is pretty!!  Here is my daughter and I last night.  I walked to pick her up from a friend’s.

 School was cancelled for the kid’s and it’s all about playing in the snow and hot chocolate today.  Last night I couldn’t get to the gym so I did a workout at home.  Luckily it was bi and tri day, so I didn’t need too much equipment.  Here is the workout.

I replaced the ab roller for the hanging leg raises.  This is all I needed:

Nautilus adjustable barbells

2 chairs

ab roller

The ab roller is seriously hard.  I need to do this more often.  It was a good night.  Here we are chillin’ after the workout in the swing!

I was going to post about the house status, but I couldn’t get up there last night to take some pictures.  I did weigh myself after the holidays and I’m 4 pounds up from my birthday.  No worries.  I’ll keep at it.

Last thing I have to share is a recipe I made with TOFU!!!  I bought the tofu for a salad dressing recipe and had some left over.  Believe me, I’ve always thought tofu sounded a bit crazy.  However, I was in the mood for pancakes, so I looked up a recipe with tofu.  They were soooooo good.  Way better than any protein pancake!  I changed up the recipe a little bit.  The original can be found HERE.

Whole Grain Tofu Pancakes

Blend everything together in a blender.

1 c. whole wheat flour

1 T. sugar (I use a half sugar, half stevia blend) Use 2 T. of sugar instead.

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1 c. firm tofu cubes

3/4 c. almond or soy milk (add more for desired consistency)

4 T. fresh lemon juice

2 T. coconut oil or canola 

1 t. vanilla

1 t. almond extract

This made 7 good sized pancakes.  I ate 3 of them with a handful of blueberries and a drizzle of agave nectar. 

Have a great weekend enjoying the snow!  Build a FIRE and Stay Toasty!  Think Warm and Happy thoughts *

 

 

Day 2 of Smoothie challenge

Hi ALL!  Just a few thoughts for today and then I’ll be packing some more!  I started a 1 week smoothie challenge and I’m on Day 2!!  I laugh when inventors of diets claim you will not be hungry!  Anytime you change what you normally eat and CUT out a LOT of what you typically eat, you’re going to be hungry.  Or course you can eat as many vegetables as you’d like, but how many vegetables can you really eat!!  It’s actually going pretty good.  Here is a picture of my yummy breakfast this morning!

I think the biggest thing with eating healthy is you get hungrier faster, but I like the RESULTS way more than the DISCOMFORT!!  My workouts have been good.  Today is LEGS day, which I love and hate.  I ran the other morning with a friend and it’s a little disheartening when 24 degrees is WARM?

I stopped my Wednesday workouts with the girls at the church for a little while.  I found an at home workout online though that looked GREAT!!  Really good blog too, blondeponytail.com.  I think I’ll try it!  I’d do the whole thing at least twice.

Another bit of diet and weight loss advice is to WEIGH YOURSELF!  I’ve blogged before about the scale and I believe it is a GOOD thing and a GREAT indicator of improvement over time.  I haven’t weighed myself since my birthday and I’ve slacked off since then.  For some odd reason we believe if we don’t know what we weigh, we really don’t weigh that much!  I’ll give myself a couple more days of the smoothie diet and do an after holiday weigh in on Friday!

Today is also my baby sister’s birthday!!  She lives in Connecticut and I never see her ):  I wish I could teleport myself back to her today!!  Here we are on the beach when I was about 19?  And a recent photo of me visiting her a few years ago!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!!!  She told me today she was jamming out to HEART and that I was the one that gave her the interior decorating bug!  We used to listen to Heart together and look at  Architectural Digest magazine!!  What fun!

Keep working hard!!!  I’ll post more house photos on Friday!!  Lots to be happy about!