Good Morning, Arizona!

Good Morning from sunny Arizona!!

I arrived in Tucson last night around 9:45 p.m. local time and was so excited to see Brian waiting for me at the airport. I know it has only been two weeks since I last saw him but it feels like an eternity! Since I was still on east coast time and it was waaaay past my bed time in that time zone and since Brian had to be up early for practice this morning we both crashed pretty much the second we made it back to his room!

I did have one surprise waiting for me though!

Brian thought to make Valentine’s Day come early with flowers, (double) chocolates, a stuffed dog and a big box that still remains a surprise to me!

Good thing I came prepared with a surprise V-day present for him too! 😉

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First thing this morning, I wanted to get a workout in to start my mini vacay off on the right foot. I ate a Luna Bar to get something in my stomach and then ventured to find the fitness room at the hotel.

It’s located directly next to the pool and is pretty decent fitness center for a hotel.

It’s not very large in size but seeing that I was the only person in there until the very end of my workout, the size wasn’t an issue. The equipment is all Precor, with treadmills and ellipticals available along with a free weight area and core area complete with medicine and stability balls.

I’m pretty sure I could get use to view from the treadmill…

…it sure beats the back of other people’s t-shirts that I see at the gym at home!

Workout

I was on the treadmill for a 40 minute routine that included running, walking and sprints. I started with 30 minutes of steady running, walked for a couple and then worked in a four-minute Tabata of sprints before walking out the rest of the 40 minutes.

After the treadmill, I did some core work with this view to look up at:

Who wouldn’t want to workout with these views?!

I mixed in a variety of different exercises:

• Hamstring curl with stability ball
• Basic crunches
• Crunches on stability ball
• Crunch with side twist with medicine ball
• Free weight swings
• Standing side bends
• Uneven alternating push ups with medicine ball
• Crunches with stability ball pass (from hands to feet)

After my core work, I finished up with some stretching and called it a workout. I’m sure I will be venturing back out today to explore, apparently there is a 3.5 mile trail directly across the street, so it looks like more exercise is definitely in my future!

I’m also pretty sure some time relaxing right here is also in my future.

Yessss, please!

As for now, off to snack on some yogurt and clementines before deciding what to get into next!

Catch y’all later!!! 🙂

Question:

Are you more motivated to workout and fit random exercise into your day when you are in an unfamiliar location?

Tabata Training

Since I have been trying to mix up my workout routines lately, I’ve been focusing less on including long periods of running in each of my workouts and more on different techniques to get cardio incorporated. I’ve still been using the treadmill as a key form of cardio but, if you notice, most workouts have been interval based and eliminate long periods of running at the same pace. I’m definitely loving the way I have been mixing it up and tried something else new to me today.

Tabata Training.

For those of you not familiar with Tabata Training, it is high intensity interval training that lasts only four minutes. The idea behind Tabata Training is to go hard for 20 seconds with an exercise and then rest for 10 seconds before repeating for a total of eight sets.

Workout

For today’s workout, I used the following exercises for my 20 second of the hiit and marched in place for the 10 second recovery periods:

• Skaters
• Pushups
• High Knees
• Squats

Each exercise was repeated twice to get in my complete four-minute workout.

After I was done with an intense four minutes, I hit the mat to do some core toning work. I followed the “Toned in ’12 Abs Circuit” that Bess recently posted.

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15 minutes of straight abs is no joke my friends.

Add the two workouts together and you have a complete body workout in under 20 minutes. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

**I used this Tabata Timer for both my Tabata training and also my ab circuits.  You can set the timer for whatever period of work and rest you would like along with the number of cycles and complete Tabatas you wish to perform.

Dinner

After my workout and a quick shower, I was ready for dinner! My dad made some burgers on the grill last night for dinner but I chose my mom’s leftover chili instead so I had my burger wrapped up for tonight and it made for a quick solution to my hunger.

I served the ground chicken, feta and spinach burger topped with cheddar cheese (the more cheese the merrier!) on half of a toasted whole wheat English muffin.

With balsamic ketchup (yum!) for dipping and steamed broccoli to get my veggie intake on the day!

Now it’s time to cuddle up on the couch with Telli Monster and watch some quality TV – Gossip Girl and The Bachelor! 😉

Question:

Have you tried Tabata Training? What are your thoughts?

How To – One Minute Drill

I received a few questions on yesterday’s “One Minute Drill” workout so I thought some images of the exercises included could be helpful to those of you that were interested in doing the workout yourself but weren’t exactly sure of how each move was executed.

Jumping Jacks

I’m pretty sure everyone knows how to do a jumping jack from elementary school gym class but if not, here is the simple explanation: Start with your feet together and hands at your sides (A) and then jump to spread your legs beyond shoulder width apart and lift your arms to the sides of your head while keeping them straight (B). Now repeat! Remember, feet together/arms down, feet apart/arms up!

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Planks

Lay on the floor with your toes and forearms on the ground. Lift your body and hold. Remember to keep your butt even with your shoulders and to keep your core muscles engaged.

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High Knees

High knees resembles running in place while pulling your knees as high as possible with each step. Stand in place while pulling one knee up towards your chest followed by the other in a continuous pattern.

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Side Plank

Start by laying on your side with your legs and feet stacked. Raise your body up to balance on the outside of your lower foot and the forearm of lower arm. You can either keep your upper arm bent on your hip or straight up reaching towards the ceiling. Use your core muscles to pull your lower hip as far from the ground as possible and hold.

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Skaters

Start to your right side with your right leg bent and your left foot resting off the ground and bent behind your right. Your right arm should be bent beside you with your left arm coming across the front of your body.  Your body should mimic that of a speed skater in stride. Jump to your left side while swinging your arms across the front of you and mimic the stance on the left now.   Continue to alternate back and forth while using your arms for extra momentum.

(click image for source)

Standing Side Crunch

Stand with your legs shoulder distance apart and your hips squared to the front.  Now lift your right left to a 90 degree angle and bend your right arm behind your head.  With your left arm straight out to the side, bend to your right to bring your knee and elbow together.

(click image for source)

Another option for standing side crunches is to keep your right arm straight at your side and your left arm bent behind your head, slowly move your right hand down your thigh towards your knee while focusing on constricting your oblique muscles.  Slowly raise back up, using your oblique muscles on your opposite side to pull you back to a standing position.

(click image for source)

Jump Rope

Again, jump roping is another exercise that most of us learned as young kids, however, you don’t need an actual jump rope to perform the action. Simply mimic the exercise completely (including the rotationo f your hands) and jump in place as you would do if the jump rope was rotating around your body.

(click image for source)

Mountain Climbers

Start on the floor, resting on the palm of your hands and your toes with your legs straight and body even. Bend your right leg up, letting your toe hit the ground under your mid-section, push-off and exchange the position of your leg, the left one now being bent under your midsection, repeat at a fast pace.

(click image for source)

I hope these images prove helpful to those of you looking to do the core specific One Minute Drill workout.

Question:

Would it be helpful if in the future, I include pictures of different moves that are incorporated into my workouts when I first post? Let me know if this would be useful and I will do my best to make the additions!

Another Week, Another Monday

Good morning and welcome to the second week of May!  Wow! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed time with your mom or any of the other moms in your life.  Such a fun day for them 🙂

Workout

This morning’s workout went according to schedule.  Woohoooo! 

I was able to get up with my 4:50 a.m. alarm and felt great.  No headache to be seen, or eh, felt.

Once I was dressed and ready, I hit the pavement and ran over to the Helping Up Mission to meet the rest of the Back on My Feet team to circle up and then get on with our 1 mile run together.

It was so nice to welcome in three new residential members to the group and it was exciting to be a part of their first run.  We all ran together as one big group for the mile and once we were finished a small handful of us took off to run two more miles.

Those training for the Delaware marathon, which is this weekend, had a three-mile run on the training schedule so a few of us joined them to finish up.

Once we finished with those extra two, we met back up with the rest of the group who had stopped at one mile and circled up for stretching.

I then ran home for a total of just over 4.5 miles.

Once I was back in the apartment I got right to Jillian Michael’s 6 Week Six-Pack workout.

I love that girl to death and totally want to be her friends with her but sometimes the things she says during her workout dvds make me want to throw something through my TV (don’t worry Brian, it’s still fully intact). 

She’s just so off the wall sometimes!

Breakfast

Once I was ready for work I put together a pretty simple and quick breakfast.

I put two sheets of mini waffles in the toaster and while they heated up, I fried an egg with an additional 1/4 cup egg whites on the stove.

Once everything was complete, I topped the waffles with the eggs and egg whites and added some syrup.

Eggs and Waffles

I’m not really sure why but the mix of these flavors really pop in my mouth.

A little of everything

 

I love it!!

Syrup is a food group, right?

 Especially the bites that are a tad runny and gooey from the slightly undercooked yolk.

My favorite part!

Yummm!  Perfect breakfast combo to start the week off right!

Best part of this week?

I get to see this face on Friday night!

Hi there!

Ok, so I got to see it in this picture too when I he sent it this morning…

…but it’s not the same as in person!!  And I get to in person in 4 days!!  Yay!!!! 🙂

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One last thing before I go…

So, I’ve mentioned before (for more than 2 months now) that I really want to cut back on my after dinner snacking.  I allow myself one snack after dinner (which is actually dessert on most occasions) and once that snack is done I’m really working on cutting myself off for the night.

This is in my monthly goals for the 3rd month in a row now because obviously I have failed the first two months.  However, this month I’m really making progress.  It’s been 6 days in a row that I haven’t had made a trip to the kitchen after my dessert on the evening.

Annnnd, get this one.  Last night we were out to dinner for Mother’s Day and I passed on dessert entirely while at the restaurant!  I NEVER do that. 

I just wasn’t really feeling anything sweet at the moment and knew if I had anything, I could do with something small.  If I ordered a dessert there, I would have eaten the whole thing no matter what the size.  It’s just how I roll. 

So, instead, I opted to pass altogether.

This is hugeee for me!!

I did have two date thumbprints from Whole Foods when I got home and two pieces of candy but even so, once “dessert” was over, I was done on the night! 

Dates, oats, almond butter, coconut and apricot....

And even more impressive?  When I stopped in Whole Foods to find something for dessert, I picked up a million things…cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes, even ice cream…and put them all back down because I just didn’t want them.

My final purchases in addition to the date thumbprints were…

Yogut and Peanut Butter

Only because I was out of peanut butter and because I fell in love with Stonyfield yogurt yesterday morning and HAD to get more/try more flavors!

Maybe I’m losing my sweet tooth?  Nah!  That’ll never happen! 😉

Have a great Monday!!!