You know why I need to put that up front because I had to take a little break from working out because of my fall on that piece of ice. Apparently keeping up and doing workouts was not helping and it came one day a week later that my knee just hurt like hell and I barely could walk without it aching. So, the last two weeks have been more about eating well than working out.
Still, I managed to get in a few workouts.
First one was a short one consisting of 3 moves that I did 3 rounds of from Tone it Up for abs.
These only look easy but they were actually pretty tough after a while. It was also very effective. Great workout 🙂
Next up, I believe I’ve posted it before but I did a full Intermediate round for Tribesports’s Women’s Fitness Home Workout.
I did 3 rounds of this and it was so painful by the last round. Dorsal Raises actually really helped my back. One Legged Bridges were shaky mostly because I was doing a challenge and it already had bridge. Any of these, by the third round started feeling pretty intense.
Now, whats amazing is that for the most part, I kept up with my 12 Days of Fitness Challenge.
My first full body accumulator workout challenge was actually aside from being painful for a few of these, it was also pretty fun and challenge. The final few days were pretty crazy since it hit right before the holiday so I had a day or two of double days packed into one and those were the ones I cursed myself.
For the most part, doing those other challenges this year made 12 crunches, 11 lunges, 9 chair dips, 8 squats, 7 mountain climbers and 6 pushups feel like nothing at all. 4 Burpees aren’t extremely hard either and 5 Star Jumps were pretty cool. I personally hate Tuck Jumps because they are so hard to control and oh so hard to not injure myself again. Still, the absolute worst part of all this was doing the wall squat. I still hate it, from start to finish. I did get better after 12 days but I still have such a long way to go. I believe bridge was the one with the biggest improvement but I did a lot of it had to be attributed with just being bored of staying propped up for the full 3 minutes and have nothing but stare at my lilac ceiling.
It was still very awesome!
Whats not so awesome was my Dietbet. Why? Well, not working out also meant that losing weight became harder as well. So I pretty much stagnated and didn’t go any further and fluctuated in the last week between 133-135 lbs depending on the day. Still, I hold true that I did change my eating habits and I look forward to keeping it up. I’ve swapped in all whole wheat options now and I am looking into healthier substitutes even when I bake and cook, so everything is heading in the right direction and this week, I resume my workouts as well!
2014 goals coming up tomorrow! Remember to drop by, k? 🙂
I’m really enjoying updating everyone with my workouts on biweekly basis, only its been so uneventful on the workout front. As much as I hate using the excuse of having no time, my life has been consumed with work and cleaning, prepping for the new season, returning my room to a habitable state. That, in itself is a mega workout. I think all the dust and allergies might be causing my brain to forget some workouts but here are the ones that I do remember. Even though it wasn’t a lot, they were all super intense and crazy awesome. I’m brainwashing myself after everyone that sore is the new sexy because thats how I feel the following days…
First up is a repeat workout that I like a lot called No Excuses Workout from PopSugar Fitness. I especially like to do this one when I have skipped a few days to motivate myself.
Circuit one has to be the hardest to complete as always. This time around, I did the push-ups with the full form and not modified. If you have back problems, Superman move is the BEST! When I pulled out of the one minute from Superman, my entire spine adjusted itself. It felt like my chiropractor just worked her magic. 🙂 Its going to be intense but its totally awesome!
When in doubt, I always go for some yoga. It helps me relieve a truckload of stress and calms my mind so that I can get back to full productivity. Fitsugar came out with a workout video for something called TMAC Flow. Its some type of modified intense yoga. This routine takes only 10 minutes and it felt all kinds of great 🙂
But goodness, can someone please give me some flexibility? More yoga should be the solution, right?
I definitely did take that as a sign this past weekend when I did frequent yoga moves to relieve the hip pain. Isn’t it just awesome being a girl? Monthly hip pains, cramps, migraines…I get those in extra strong dosages all the time but its even worse when I’m mega stressed. If you suffer from this horrible fate as I do, maybe you’d like to try these moves at this link HERE 🙂
Final workout I’d like to share is the highlight of this week. A workout to train for the zombie apocalypse 🙂 There was a few ones I was looking at for the Run For Your Lives Campaign at Tribesports but since its been raining a lot the last few days, the whole going to the playground to help with the equipment I lacked at home was not able to be done. I ended up doing the Zombie Survival Under Siege Workout which is completely body weights.
30 minutes of doing these sets of exercises as many rounds as you can. I managed to do 2.5 rounds. My last half round ended at the 30 second side plank. This workout kicked my butt. Plus, I realized that walking lunges are at least 10 times harder than alternating lunges. Talk about burning in my legs…that did the job right away and my legs still feel a bit sore from this workout 2 days ago.
*Takes a deep breath* Just remember this:
My goodness, am I feeling ever sexy 😉
Lets hope the next two weeks, I’ll get some more sexiness in. But then, I’ll be starting a new 30 day challenge for November so we’ll see if the next few days I can squeeze in some workouts!
Its hard to believe that I’ve committed myself to working out for over half a year already. Lets see how the last two weeks was!
Early September, I decided to challenge myself and joined the 30 day Fitness Challenge. That means to complete 11 different 30 day challenges to complete that one challenge. Afterwards, I wanted to get a full body workout so I matched up the 30 day Arm challenge and the 30 day Squat challenge. To see the post and update, you can check it out HERE and HERE.
Both the challenges ended yesterday! Lets take a look again at what it was 🙂
1) 30 DAY SQUAT CHALLENGE
Squats were supposed to be the easy part in all this. Some other Tribesports member had written that they lost inches off their hips and whatnot. I didn’t do a before after but I can tell you that my leg muscles are definitely more defined and less fat, in general. Still quite far from slender but I think we’re on the right path. For the workout, its really straightforward. I do not own legs of steel or anything so by the time we got into the 200+ reps (maybe even 180) I had to start splitting up into certain reps and giving myself 20 seconds of rest in between. I have to say that I’m proud to complete this, to start from the rather easy 50 reps to a crazy hard 250 is definitely an accomplishment in my book. The fact that I even keeped at it during my weekend away and even if it meant coming home at 11pm and doing it at the crazy hours of midnight, it showed discipline. Something I felt that I might have lost as I started feeling like I’d lost motivation.
2) 30 DAY ARM CHALLENGE
As proud as I am of finishing the squats, I felt even better about completing this one. I seriously thought I’d give up on this but I never did. Despite doing dragonboat, I have a much stronger core than I have arms. Especially since I had been training on the right side, my left side is totally weak and has very little muscular endurance. When I first started this challenge, the tricep dips started getting challenging by Day 6 and the push-ups (normal full body, not modified/girl ones) were difficult from the start. Pulling into Day 30, its been amazing how my upper body has gotten really muscular. I can actually see the contours of muscles when I move my arm and even muscles that I never thought existed are showing up. Plus, not to mention that I can now do 3 sets of 20 pushups and 3 sets of 30 tricep dips. I have to say, this is quite impressive.
For all of you wondering whats up after this? I’m taking a day or two of break to rest up my body. As I have been working on upper and lower body during these challenges, its hard to just jump into another 30 day commitment. I’m going to go back on my random workout routines from Tone it Up, Pumps and Iron and a few other sites I follow and some individual workout challenges in Tribesports for a week or two before I go back into it.
I did learn something about myself during this month. As much as music is extremely motivating to have when working out, many hours of it was spent watching (and listening to, when doing push ups) TV series.
During the next two weeks, its going to be deciding what 30 day routine to do next 🙂 I’m thinking abs but maybe I’ll change my mind! Who knows, right? For now, I’ll stay proud of myself and just enjoy some spontaneity and more intense workouts!
Okay! I’m running out of catchy headings for my weekly workout roundups and just writing Week# is kind of bland and boring…That was from two workout shirts I bought at Walmart. Although, I probably need more shorts than workout tops nowadays, but they don’t have these motivating slogans.
This week, we’re back into my freestyle weeks! I have a few workouts I want to do already but we’ll try to keep it with a relatively normal schedule of at least one core workout, one full body and hopefully this week a lower body and put in at least a day of cardio. Two would be better, but we’ll see! It is the Labour Day weekend coming up.
Monday
Nothing motivates me more than starting the week with a workout! It sets my week off full of energy, or at least more energy! Today was a tough day at work, as all I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I have no idea why I was so tired since I slept earlier than usual the night before. Either way, Monday is my abs/core day! I went ahead and did the workout that I’ve been contemplating doing but kept putting off from Pumps and Iron called Side Plank Workout.
You can always count on Nicole at Pumps and Iron to kick my ass with her workouts! Obliques are my weakness and I suspect because of dragonboat, my left side is oh, so weak. At the second set, the left side exercises felt like my arm was going to crumble under my weight. My right side felt that way in the 3rd round. This one worked not only my obliques but I felt it in my shoulders and my arms during the workout! Definitely a winner!
Tuesday
My eye infection is still around. I’m starting to think it’ll never get better but thats just how I feel when I get sick with something else. I called early in the morning so that I could get a doctor’s appointment. Unlike last time, this turned out to be such a time-consuming task where my doc was an hour in delay, she did give me another antibiotics and referred me to an eye specialist if that failed to work out. After that, I stood and waited for my mom’s bus from Toronto to arrive which was yet another hour or so in delay where I stood and walked around. Turned out to be a day off…
Wednesday
I had my temp job after actual work. It did finish earlier than usual but we were mad fast and crazy efficient. Thats what happens when its with a crew thats all used to the job now. At times, all the boss has to say is go there and we know what he wants done. Lots of packaging merchandise for shipping and then carrying things around and clearing up area. Manual work equals a workout, right?
Thursday
Today I decided to do a back/butt workout. No one quite kicks my ass doing a booty workout quite like Tone it Up girls so I did the Love Your Booty Routine.
I did this 3 times in a row. What is crazy about this workout is that I didn’t feel like anything until the third set came by and my legs were all shaky in all the workouts. I’m pretty amazed that I made it through and man, I was a sweaty mess. Now I know what I need to work on a lot more (or maybe it was just really humid). Either way, this one is awesome 🙂
Friday
I was going to go jogging at the basin where I usually have dragonboat practice even though I couldn’t join into practice but it decided to pour outside. Normally, I’d still go out, but thunder, lightning and eye infection all didn’t seem like such a smart move. Had to get myself an off day…
Saturday
I had a pretty decent long walk after brunch today with my friend under humid weather but at 10:45pm, I started feeling guilty that I i didn’t have a more intense workout so I looked through pinterest since I sat around to pin some workouts to my getting in shape board and did this one:
The song was almost as long as the workout, I had to end it with 15 more jumping jacks to not feel like I cheated the one song deal 😉 Its not particularly hard but it was pretty intense especially with the one song thing at the back of my mind. Well, you know I can’t stop at an intense 4.5 minutes workout so I decided to try another song (which I didn’t like) and the workout was way longer than the duration
Other than that, this one might have been a little tougher. Or it was just because it was the second workout of the day. 10 minutes intense workout sounds like a good enough day. At least I don’t feel guilty anymore 😉
Sunday
After spending 4 hours to get tickets and then having other errands to run, the only exercise I did was stressing, practicing piano and walking around, then getting drunk off two Sour Puss mixed drinks at a barbecue.
OVERALL…This week really didn’t go too well as in the quantity of workouts but it did go well in the intensity and how I structured them. For the most part, I’m really getting a good idea of how to target certain areas of my body when choosing a good workout and able to find one that works well without overexerting. This week’s recommendation has to be the Side Plank Workout. You ask why? Because nothing screams a good core workout like working on your obliques and if you get some other muscles to get involved like shoulders and arms, then its definitely an efficient and amazing deal 🙂
I’m looking at some challenges and if weather cooperates, a lot more cardio (especially ones I can do indoors) to increase that aspect. I’m definitely on the right track. I went through my 4 selfies from front, back and side to see the improvement and as little as there was, I do see a difference. Its motivating to see any amount of change and its a booster to remind myself that everything I’m doing as a concrete reason behind it 🙂
Last week, I felt like my whole motivation came back! I think this new alternating weeks of different workouts is going to work out just fine. Now its changing up my diet to be a lot healthier to help out the staying fit. I have been eating a lot of snacks at work due to elevated levels of stress. I need to find ways to fix that 🙂 Or at least choose healthier alternatives than say, gummies and Sour Patch Kids….
Monday
Seems like Monday has officially turned into my abs/core workout day. I like it! Working out the core hurts but its challenging and energizing! I love how it looks afterwards and it always keeps me motivated for the week! I’m on my Tone it up schedule this week so scheduled for today is Love Your Abs Workout!
As requested, they said to do this 3 times and I did just that! It was really hard and thats why I love this workout now! All the moves are quite awesome and work different area of the core.
Tuesday & Wednesday
Off days! Some stuff came up and I decided to kick up the gear to try to work harder to finish up my TESL certificate 🙂 I did get a good amount done!
Thursday
With my eye infection very much still there, my planned dragonboat practice for Friday was not going to happen till I went to see my doctor again (hopefully next Tuesday). I figured since I wasn’t going to have practice, I’d do a workout. Sweating out the stress is always a good way! I chose to do the Tone it Up Surfer’s Paradise Workout.
I always like to do a mid week full body toning now, so its really cool! I hate this workout for the most part because it does use my weakest muscle and I end up feeling so inefficient but my boyfriend told me I need to do the one I dread to strengthen that muscle more. By the way, its my triceps that I’m talking about. I did the routine 3 times as they suggested. First two times was their max reps asked for and the last set was mostly with the lower reps. Maybe its because I haven’t done workouts of this variation in a while, it felt pretty challenging and that makes me feel pretty good about myself.
Friday
Dragonboat season really never resumed as I had hoped for it to this summer. Its not a completely bad thing since I took the time to prioritize other things in my life. I was going to head to the basin to do a jog even if I can’t paddle however, an emergency came up and I ended up doing my cardio from walking all over the place.
Saturday
Being on call to help with an emergency and in massive cramps mode, I decided to do some yoga to help relieve the pain. For the ladies, maybe you go through the same pain as me and this might help 🙂 I know it did for me a little! Check it out HERE! It did help ease the pain a little bit and that is already just that much better.
Sunday
My boyfriend and I had postponed last weekend’s day trip to this one so off day as well 🙂 Post about that going up tomorrow probably! Remember to drop by to check it out!
OVERALL…This week has been average. Its not that my motivation wasn’t there but rather there were other events that took place to take up some of my time and forced me to change my plans around. However, the two workouts I did during the week were pretty intense and felt extremely efficient. With the increase stress (and woman-related reasons), yoga was one that really helped. It was also new yoga moves/stretches that helped a whole lot. At least it managed to get me to do stuff around the house and take care of a few things. That yoga workout was also the only new thing this week. Its really helpful to relieve cramps so try it out my fellow ladies, if ever you need it 🙂
Also, I’ve been seriously considering a 7 day detox plan in September. My boyfriend thinks its a pretty good plan to try out. I’ll update you if ever that comes down 🙂 I will probably try to keep up the weekly workout roundups for a full year then figure out a better way to less frequent. Its a goal to keep myself focused and motivated also, hopefully it’ll work 🙂
After some thought, I think August will still be with weekly roundups until I figure out a solid way to do this without having a mega long post 😉
To motivate myself this week to get back into my healthy routine, which means not only getting back to normal physical exercise frequency but also to get back to my healthy sleeping patterns. Some point during this past month, I ended up sleeping at really late hours and because of that, my syndrome started kicking me in the behind and I started feeling all sorts of bad. Hopefully with a regular routine back, things will get back to some form of normal and I will feel more energetic 🙂
The decision I took on setting the schedule on this day was for the tentative week, I also decided that I would do alternating weeks of Tone it Up routine and follow through with the following week of a mix of workouts from Tribesports (and they just had a whole bunch of new ones), FitSugar, Pumps and Iron, and various other sources that I grab my workouts from.
Monday
For today, I started this week with Tone it Up to make it a tad easier. The workout was the Sleek and Slender Abs 🙂 I have done this one before and its pretty challenging. Here it is:
This was super awesome as always. I love working my core and this one really does a nice one. The hardest to do for me was the Cat Crunches and the Plank Kicks. I did this full routine 3 times 🙂 By the last set, the exercises started getting a lot harder and I had to push to get some of the last few reps. It did feel great and I was tired enough to go to bed by midnight! SCORE! 🙂
Tuesday
I had an extra extended day at work today due to my coworker being on vacation so the idea of doing an outdoors cardio workout was postponed. However, due to the work stress, I decided to still do a workout and went to Tribesports and did one of the workouts. I did do this one before in the form of a challenge. Its called Tone Up Tight Routine.
The third time doing this routine was mega painful. My arms were shaking at the last few reps of the pushups. My abs were shaking (because I worked them yesterday) and I had to push really hard to finish the last 10 reps. Squats and Lunges were painful for my legs. I almost felt like I was in a trance doing the jumping jacks, like my legs had detached from my upper body. Don’t even mention those painful like crazy wall squats. All done and sweaty! Protein shake time and gloat in my sense of success 🙂
Wednesday
After yesterday’s crazy workout, I decided to take a break. I’m trying to be more disciplined with staying active but to also knowing when to let my body rest. Workout resume tomorrow 🙂
Thursday
I was feeling all funky and weird today: a mix of fatigue and bloatedness, so after dinner, I went for a long evening stroll with my mom. Exercise and quality time to chat with mom, sounds like an awesome choice, right?
Friday
I was going to go to dragonboat today but something is wrong with eye so until it goes better, I wanted to avoid contamination. I still did a home workout and chose this week’s new workout at Tone it Up called Summer Sizzle Workout.
If you click on the workout up there, you’ll get to the page so you can get the workout vid to know how to do the workouts if its not clear 🙂 This workout was BRUTAL! I did it once since they didn’t say otherwise. At the end of the workout, my core, arms and legs were all shaking. All the moves were pretty intense. Lat Rollout was by far the craziest one. I knew it would before I started since my triceps are mega weak. I try to train it more but it also takes longer to recover so I’m taking it step by step. If you want a good leg and glutes move, that Lunge, Lift & Kick was pretty awesome. I definitely felt this! Protein shake coming up 🙂
Saturday
I went to 2 festivals today! TWO! I was a lot of walking, shooting photos, and *mumbles* eating. That turns this possible “workout” day into one that isn’t quite that. So means that tomorrow will be my 4th workout day instead. However, do check out sometimes this week, my post on those two festivals (most probably in one post on Tuesday).
Sunday
I had originally wanted to do a full body workout, but in the afterthought that I just did one on Friday. I wanted to change it up. Although I think I still did a full body workout just I had wanted to do the 8 Double Duty Moves. I haven’t done those in a few months already. Here’s the video if you’d like to check it out!
I did the whole thing 2 times. Some of the moves were similar to the ones I did on Friday so those ones I cut down a bit in the second set as to not hurt my muscles too much. It did feel good though! 🙂
OVERALL…this week was pretty good! I did manage to get 4 workout days and another one for a light cardio in the form of evening walks. My aim is to get in an outdoors higher intensity cardio session such as jump rope/jog/bike for the coming week. However, I’m definitely getting back on track. I’m still tracking my physical from camera shots. Its a bit depressing..haha! This week’s highlight was Summer Sizzle workout from Friday! It was awesome 🙂 My recommendation for you!
Week 20 pretty much was sickness the whole way but still its part of the year so I’m going to keep it going to keep my workout tracked. Ear infection, cold symptoms and the whole kit..it wasn’t fun. Along with work having the mega huge deadline, energy and feeling better really wasn’t on my side. I decided that since I had 10 days of antibiotics, I would let my body rest and recover as much as I could before jumping back into the workout!
Week 21 was partially still under antibiotics! August 1st marked not only the start of a new month but also the end of my antibiotics and feeling better enough that I couldn’t resist working out again. My routine seemed to have gone totally crazy after not having my workouts and my stress went completely off the charts. Trust me, if something had gone just a little wrong, I would have burst into tears and bawled my eyes out! Even though I still have a bit of a cough left, I decided that I had to get back on track before my mental volcano erupted…for everyone’s benefit 🙂
Thursday (August 1st)
I wanted to push myself to the max but knowing that I’m not fully recovered, I decided to head on over to Tone it Up and see what was scheduled. I ended up with Under the Sea Routine! Its a full body body weights routine that I had to do 3 times.
I love body weights and I was able to complete it 3 times. It did make me realize how not working out and being sick had really affected me. I was sweating bullets after this. Just that Dolphin Dive move was murdering me in every single way! Last time, I already had started tracking how I actually looked physically…since I didn’t really do much, I decided to start over and took another set of pics of myself to track how my body was changing: front, side and back! Of course, I won’t showcase those pictures here because I don’t want to frighten anymore but maybe..if I have even progress to see a before after effect 😉
Friday
I took this day off. Mostly because as much as I want to push myself to do a workout, I had to make sure my body was able to handle it. With all the injuries and sickness this year, I felt it was time to change my workout routine a little to make sure it didn’t result in any more injuries.
Saturday
The desire was there but with my cat waking me up at 5am continuously till 7am. I finally gave up but was too tired to do more. I wanted to do a cardio jump rope routine but ended up drafting my blog post and waiting for my friend to tell me what he wanted to do. My exercise that day consisted of shopping 😉 Talk about fun and relaxing 🙂 If you didn’t read about what I did get, well, you could drop by HERE!
Sunday
This weekend really turned out to be a lot busier than I expected and although there was no actual workout done. I did manage to get my fingers exercising with piano (while my ears weren’t hurting from the sharp notes on the piano and the crazy emotional pieces). I also went to an exhibit called Planet Shark: Predator or Prey at the Montreal Science Centre which required a bit of walking and standing for more than an hour. I will post about this exhibit tomorrow (afternoon, most probably) 🙂 My boyfriend and I took a stroll around Old Montreal as well.
This is a short startup post but without all of you in my head watching my progress, it just doesn’t feel the same! I’m still pretty disciplined but hey, a little motivation and support always helps 😉 I hope to be changing my diet/eating habits soon, adding in more cardio workouts mixed with more yoga to keep things in balance and really putting in time to tone and lose some body fat if possible! Stay fit and healthy and maybe those cold bugs will stay away from me in the second half of the year 😉
I’m not completely sure if I will keep doing weekly updates on my workouts. Maybe I’ll try Biweekly and then drop down to Monthly updates. Its less time consuming and well it would be more of a monthly roundup by the time I get to that phase ;). Just need some motivation to get back on track! My goal is 4 workout per week 🙂
I never follow Tone it Up completely but this week, I’m drained out of focus, so they set the Inspirational Challenge which is all about intentions and goal setting. I felt that it would be cool to check that out. I’ll write about what the thing we have to do each day of the week as I move along.
Monday
After 4 days straight of working out, I had to give my body a break. Plus, with my boyfriend’s change in schedule, we had to shift date night a tad earlier 😉 Date night is all about the 3rd movie of May that we wanted to catch: FAST AND FURIOUS 6!! Everyone was anticipating most a bunch of super hero movies or sci-fi or even horror..for me, it was really Fast 6! I mean 2.5 hours of turning off my brain and watching something loud and intense with my fave Vin Diesel and The Rock. I’m down for that anytime 🙂 I’m going to leave the rest for the review that you can find HERE if you missed it!
However, I want to talk about the start of the inspirational challenge. Our work today is to write down the top 3 goals for the rest of Bikini Series! Mine will be to increase muscular endurance, happy with how I look in the mirror in anything and to stay healthy 🙂 I don’t know if thats how I do it..but its all more long-term but its still goals, right?
Tuesday
Today is the new workout day and we were introduced to Thailand Tush Workout!
This was actually really fun. I didn’t expect it to be as hard as it turned out to be. To me, this looked pretty relaxing but those Glute Burners really burnt. By the 3rd round, I wanted to just stop midway. However, I toughed it out as always 😉 Pretty fun! Then I ran off to reread my goals for the inspirational challenge. It said to visualize and see how you feel about it. I felt pretty happy thinking about it. To see myself accomplishing all those things made me smile and I know that I can do it 🙂 No modifications needed! I’m going to work hard to get there!!
Wednesday
Tonight’s workout looks extremely long with two separate workouts planned. The first one was Surfer’s Paradise. You’ve seen that one over and over again for the last few weeks. Still, here is the video to refresh your memories! I did 2 rounds of that.
Then afterwards, another throwback with Sunkissed Abs workouts. A full workout is 3 rounds for this one so I managed to do three even though honestly, I wanted to give up at 2. My abs were burning. It was a nice one which focused a lot on the core. On the side note, today’s inspirational challenge is to think about it for 15 minutes and visualize and feeling incredible. Somewhere in the thinking, I came to the revelation that this weekend, I will take a picture as a before version and really start working on compiling some healthy recipes to incorporate in my diet this weekend and we’re going to make things happen! Eventually I’ll look fit in the mirror 😉
Thursday
Those killer Thursdays again! Double full workouts again! We start with the Santorini Bikini Ready Workout. I did 3 rounds of these at varying between 10-20 reps depending on the exercise.
This time around the Scuba Dives felt a bit easier. However, those Coconut Crunches are still quite painful to do.
Second up, we have the Bikini Strap Toning Routine.
I only did two rounds of this one. For one, I have dragonboat practice planned for tomorrow. Plus, those rear flies kill my hands on my metal dumbbells. I need to upgrade them for this one and I don’t want to do that just yet. I’ll find some way to modify it eventually. 🙂 Plus, today’s Inspirational Challenge is to make 2 small changes to the current plan to make differences. I chose to bring healthier snacks with me and eat lunch outside which will allow me to stay active by taking a little lunch walk (except when it rains), if I miss one day, then I make it up on the weekend with extra distance on my bike ride or jog!
Friday
I’m trying to get myself to keep up with Dragonboat as much as I can. Since I have some other plans coming up that I’ll be missing it. I decided to go again. Dragonboat is really awesome! I took a 2.5 km walk before practice while hydrating myself like crazy. Then on the boat, we did some awesome drills and I was working on some problems to make my stroke longer. We were also testing as a team how fast we could push our stroke rate without harming our technique. It was a great practice!
Today’s Inspirational Challenge is to let someone know. I actually told my boyfriend about this and that I was going to start tracking the way I look by taking pictures of myself every month or so. Plus, I encouraged him to join me on all or some cardio workouts 🙂
Saturday
I started today off early and super efficiently did a ton of chores…then after an hour, I sat back down to rest and before I knew it, I was out and about. I didn’t end up doing anything….I’m a bit ashamed of that. It was supposed to be my cardio catchup day but the crazy 38C heat was killing me.
Sunday
I went for a 10.2 km bike ride (6.34 miles) which accounts 1/3 for the 100 By Summer Challenge. So I clocked into another 2.11 miles. Seeing as it came to less than my needed daily cardio. I decided that I needed to do some more cardio so I went to do 45 minutes of DDR. Then at night, I went for another 1 mile walk with my boyfriend to get enjoy some of the nicer cooler weather as it got a bit more windy.
My old bike that desperately needs an upgrade!
This week went alright on the cardio level. I’m gradually increasing it but if my calculations are correct (and they are), I need to do about 30 miles PER WEEK starting now in order to get to 100 miles by the first day of summer. I’m thinking of starting to do extra cardio everyday even if it means walking or biking, whichever it is. If things go as planned, it should be no problem. Plus, this week only had one new workout and thats the Thailand Tush Workout. Its a pretty good workout for the glutes. I enjoyed it quite a bit through the pain. Its definitely worth a try! Plus, I think that doing the Inspirational Challenge was useful. It helped me visualize where I want to be and highlighted the additional elements I needed to work on and just little changes to implement and its these small changes that will make the big difference 🙂
Now, I’m charged up! I know where I need to go and all I have to do is keep going! Summer is pretty much here and the weather has slightly settled in so I can bring up the cardio! The first bike ride felt awesome and spending quality time with my boyfriend is fantastic as well so we will definitely keep this up for as long as possible 🙂
Any sports/exercise/cardio you like to do when summer and the heat arrives?
Tone it Up not only launched their Bikini Series which I’m pretty much participating in except that they don’t take 2 days off but I do and I’m doing less cardio than them. However, this week launches their 100 miles by summer which means each day there averages to about 2.5 miles for the next 6 weeks. There will be days that I won’t be get it in but since it can be walking, jogging or biking (whatever distance accounts for 1/3 only though), its going to be motivating to get myself outside. I’m doing all this most of the time by myself so its hard enough to keep myself going without having to physically move myself off my own land and go out and let people see me dying from a little jogging. Since biking counts, I’m in and I’m getting those tires pumped up! We’re bringing in the cardio challenges now 🙂
Monday
Bad start for the week! I woke up feeling like absolute crap with a sore throat and a small cough and a bit of a runny nose. Took some meds and went off to work to figure that everything got better except my body fought it with a fever. All I could do when I came home from work at the end of the day was eat then sit in bed. Suffice to say, there was no workout today…
Only walking I did was to and from the bus station to work which is about 1 km each way, equalling to about 1.25 miles or so.
Tuesday
I can already see this week turning out to be pretty bad in the workout area. However, as much as I was feeling sick, I still managed to get in a light workout. Maybe sweating it out will work, right? So I went ahead and did the new workout that Tone it Up posted up called Your Bridal Babe Workout. 2 rounds of 20 reps for the majority of them. The only one I did 10 reps of was the Walking Down the Aisle. That was pretty intense.
It will be a constant that I have 1.25 miles to and from work. Today I did have to take a walk to drop off a document so that was an additional 0.70 miles.
Wednesday
Lets say energy level dropped big time today. It started feeling like the sickness was coming back already. However, I rested it up. Avoided going out in the windy night and stayed in but managed to get in the Thigh Workout designated from Tone it Up.
It actually got pretty tough by the third round. My thighs were completely screaming in pain! This is definitely a good one.
Walking to and from work 1.25 miles. From parking to chiro office 0.5 miles (I’m getting desperate)
Thursday
It seems that Thursdays are the day to murder ourselves. I’m starting to notice the slow build up every week to get more and more intense. This week’s Tone it Up set to do 3 rounds Surfer’s Paradise. I did that! At the 3rd round, I almost wanted to collapse while doing those Pacific Paradise. I’ve somehow acquired better balance for those Kiwi Kicks and not always preventing myself from face planting onto the hardwood floor (which is always a good thing). Maybe those ab workouts are paying off ;). Next up are supposed to be 3 rounds of Cowabunga Workout. Thats crazy! I ended up doing two and at the end I realized that I did the Far Out wrong and forgot to do the TIU Tummy Tucks. On my 2nd round, instead of Surf’s Up (which I did 4 rounds of altogether already), I did 20 TIU Tummy Tucks to make up for it. Very efficient and it felt super great! I was sweating waterfalls…but it was time to wrap up the wedding video for my friend! Looks like it’ll be a late night already…
Walk: 1.25 miles for work bus terminus, went out for shopping for an hour and that was at least a mile of walking 😉
Friday
Day off today! I finish work at 5:30pm and meeting up with the bride to be and the other bridesmaids for the bachelorette party at 6pm. WOOHOO! Party Time! Suffice to say, I wouldn’t fit it in anyways…
One thing about this night is that there was a lot of walking. 1.25 miles to and from work to terminus. All the walking we did in downtown between each location summed up to 2.3 km which is 1.40 miles roughly 🙂
Saturday
Friday night juiced me out real good. Shows that I’m aging. So I got in DDR 30minutes which is for the cardio part. Tone It Up girls said dancing an hour counts for 3 miles. I did 30 mins so I’m taking the 1.5 miles 🙂
Sunday
Today was my good friend’s wedding day! The day started off at 6am to get myself ready. It was extremely fun and everything went pretty much on schedule. As with everything, there’s always a few bumps here and there that we had to fix up along the way but we all stayed calm and carried on ;). I’ll have a post about that in a bit. Other than running back and forth and getting here and there for the wedding, there really wasn’t any exercising…although if it was for me, walking with artificial height is exercise in itself 😉
This week was decent, I’d say. My cold fought me but I fought back and managed to get in 4 days of workout as I had wanted. Although only one day qualified in the intense area, the point was that I stayed moving. Adding that 100 miles by summer goal was really fun and I’d say that this week, I clocked in 11.35 miles in a week. Not really at par most days BUT…this coming week, I’ll do better…or I hope because my cold is battling me with full force as I type this.
Luckily today is Victoria Day and its a day off. 🙂 Happy Monday everyone!
The last two weeks seemed to have been sickly and then tiring. To top that off, we come into one of the busiest weeks of the entire year at work. I had no idea how it would go to be honest. To top it off, Tone it Up was starting its Bikini Series again which caused it to not give out the Weekly Schedule but rather just Monday workout. So no plans for the week on Sunday, causing it even harder to actually get anything going. Lets see if I even manage to get in 4 workouts and we enter into the last indoor practice for dragonboat, I’m not even sure if I can make it this week…but the intention is there.
Monday
Following my writeup on last week’s workouts, I realized I accomplished more than I had expected and it had tired out my body. Sunday’s one set along with the full exercise on Saturday caused my lower body to be in immense pain. I had to take the day off even I remotely wanted to do something on Tuesday.
Tuesday
Bikini Series starts today on Tone It Up. I originally wasn’t too sure about joining and I’m pretty sure I won’t follow the whole thing since I like to switch it up a little here and there. However the first workout did look cool. Even if they ask for morning workouts. I don’t have energy for that… Either way, I decided to put together this week`s workouts on this very day. Later than usual, but still, I`ll manage to get in a nice workout.
Today`s plan is a body weight workout called No Excuses Workout by PopSugar which I got from Pumps and Iron February Workout Roundup. Here is what it looks like:
OMG! This workout is crazy intense! The first circuit is possibly the hardest and it just smacks you down in pieces by the time you get to 3rd time. The other 2 circuits aren’t particularly hard if they were done before the first circuit. Definitely a keeper 🙂 I like to torture myself. I call it challenging myself!
Wednesday
Seeing as Monday was a break day and this weekend might be crazy. I decided to use today as a workout day also. Plus, the Bikini Series is supposed to be working out every day. They asked for 2 challenges today. Challenge 1 is a 45 Cardio. I don’t jog at night by myself…mostly for safety issues. I decided to the 45 minutes Pumps and Irons remix routine.
Did I ever tell you have much I love Pumps and Iron workouts? Because I do! Her workouts are like intense to the max where I end up cursing in pain and getting all disgusting and sweaty, but you know that its mega effective and efficient 🙂 I know I pushed myself every time after! I hope that she’ll come up with more of these workout DJ-ing! Mashups are fun stuff!
Then I followed through with the Challenge 2 and did Sunkissed Abs Workout from Tone it Up 🙂 Since I didn’t do a complete cardio, I did one set of this workout!
Thursday
Tone it Up workout for today is called Bikini Strap Workout! Normally this is my dragonboat day but overtime at work has caused me to miss out on the last indoor practice. Sad to see that this is the way I will end dragonboat season. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back on part time. Its my motivation to get that certificate done! Back to the Bikini Strap Workout, it was a strength training workout with super sets on mostly the upper body. It was pretty intense for some of them.
Friday
I had to give myself a day off. Other than having a long work day, I started coming up with sickness so I spent every moment I could either relaxing, drinking water or going to the washroom to flush out the bad toxins. It didn’t really feel like I did much but sit around. At least I succeeded in resting, something my body will need for the next 3-4 days of craziness.
Saturday
I had posted about brainwashing failure and how my sickness did not go away causing today to be a horrible day. It did NOT feel great at all. By the end of the day, for various reasons, I wanted to bang my head against the table and just sleep. I did bang my head against the table, but I did not sleep until later that night. I took the route of giving my body yet another day to rest and get better. 3rd day off this week, but I think its a good choice.
Sunday
Because if you were following my previous post, you know that it was a fantastic choice. My massive sore throat went away for the most part and I was super energetic and happy for some weird reason. The enthusiasm for going into the office on Sunday was a bit abnormal. Still, I didn’t end up staying for too long…4 hours or so and leaving. One of the reasons I left early was to go home and prep for my postponed piano lesson and the second reason is for you…however, I am debating whether I want to post about it right now. You will know about it eventually 🙂 Good news at night was that I managed to get in the workout I wanted. I did the Friday one below from Tone It Up.
That was one set and it worked the full body and felt pretty awesome. It didn’t say how many times to do it but I followed up with 2 sets of Itty Bitty Bikini Workout. I’ve already done this one before and I remember liking it the last time and I still do.
This week was tiring, stressing and all sorts of negative. I have managed to keep everything in balance and fought through sickness. I don’t think I completely won the battle as I have a bit of sniffles. It could be worse and so far its been pretty alright. Plus, I got a few things done and I managed to do 4 days of workout so there wasn’t too much slacking off. I didn’t even go and binge on junk food. I always give you some fave workouts. This week its a bit harder to recommend but I think I felt the most awesome was Tuesday’s No Excuses Workout and Wednesday’s Pumps and Iron Workout Mashup!
Next week’s Bikini Series workouts are all set out. I’m going to see if I can fit it all in. 🙂 Although Monday and Tuesday will be slightly tricky…
Tranquil Dreams 