#RunWithMe & New Workout Goals!

It sure seems like my brain is running wild on me and I’m making crazy decisions. Thats okay! Its all for bigger and better things.  Apparently, relaxation doesn’t suit me, even if my body thinks it should. I just can’t imagine not having some form of workout goals anymore.  Let me tell you.  I just got back into my workout motivation and its been 2 weeks since my Week 52 post went up, signalling the end of my working out for a year straight on 3-4 workouts a week. I did maybe 2 yoga workouts since then and last week when I got the Tribesports email on their new campaign called Run With Me, I was literally doing a victory dance. Thank you Tribesports! You just gave me another goal in my life! Whats nice is that it matches up with a weekend chat I had with my best friend to start training together in hopes to participate in a half marathon in 2015. I always talk about Tribesports and the whole sporting community.  Fact is, I think its a really awesome platform especially since this week they are promoting my favorite workout of theirs: Core Workout! 🙂

I truly believe in the core being essential to a lot of our cardio work, especially in jogging.  Whatever way you think about it, your core supports the whole torso which connects all the body parts.  The strength in your core is linked to your back so working your core usually means working some other muscles as well. It works on balance, posture and I know that I’ve done better with cardio since I’ve worked on my core 🙂 This Core Workout is just absolutely great.  Its less intense than it used to be but I know I’ve gotten better since more than a year ago because I now do full pushups (and not modified ones on my knees).  The reps are less painful but I still shook yesterday in my second set because I haven’t worked out in a week or two doing intense workouts. Planking was massively painful but I am able to still hold for a good while.  The best part is that I actually know I’ve strengthened my obliques because 30 second side planks are quite good 🙂 Despite my whole 30 day crunch challenge, not working out for a while killed my endurance because that last set of 50 crunches was horrible.  I wanted to cry because my abs were screaming in pain. Literally, in pain.  Thats good though.  It just means that I’m working those abs 🙂 I’m not much of a runner but I’ve learned that running is very refreshing for the mind.  Plus, it costs nothing and helps in the burning fat process so I’d say its a winner in all areas. Are you a runner? Maybe you want to join me as I explore the world of training to not only become a runner but towards my first marathon. Wait, before I move along, lets look at the two challenges I’ll be working on 🙂 I know myself well enough that if I don’t at least jump start this with a challenge or two, I’ll just fall off the map and sit around doing nothing.  At least I know my best friend and I will try to meet up every week at least once and do a run together 🙂 Plus, I’ll be getting in a lot of cycling while I help my more advanced running friends prepare for their half marathon in September. My running goals will start with this little 8 week plan I found on Popsugar Fitness.

WEEK	WORKOUT
1	Mon: walk 2 min., run 1 min. (7x) = 21 min. Wed: walk 2 min., run 2 min. (6x) = 24 min. Fri: walk 2 min., run 3 min. (5x) = 25 min.
2	Mon: walk 1 min., run 3 min. (7x) = 28 min. Wed: walk 1 min., run 4 min. (5x) = 25 min. Fri: walk 1 min., run 5 min. (5x) = 30 min.
3	Mon: walk 1 min., run 6 min. (4x) = 28 min. Wed: walk 1 min., run 7 min. (4x) = 32 min. Fri: walk 1 min., run 8 min. (4x) = 36 min.
4	Mon: run 8 min., walk 1 min., run 9 min., walk 1 min. (2x) = 38 min. Wed: run 9 min., walk 1 min., run 9 min., walk 1 min. (2x) = 40 min. Fri: run 9 min., walk 1 min., run 10 min., walk 1 min. (2x) = 42 min.
5	Mon: run 10 min., walk 1 min., run 10 min., walk 1 min. (2x) = 44 min. Wed: run 10 min., walk 1 min., run 12 min. (1x) = 23 min. Fri: run 12 min., walk 1 min., run 15 min. (1x) = 28 min.
6	Mon: run 15 min., walk 1 min., run 15 min. (1x) = 31 min. Wed: run 15 min., walk 1 min., run 18 min. (1x) = 34 min. Fri: run 18 min., walk 1 min., run 20 min. (1x) = 39 min.
7	Mon: run 10 min., walk 1 min., run 21 min. (1x) = 32 min. Wed: run 10 min., walk 1 min., run 23 min. (1x) = 34 min. Fri: run 10 min., walk 1 min., run 25 min. (1x) = 36 min.
8	Mon: run 26 min. (1x) = 26 min. Wed:run 28 min. (1x) = 28 min. Fri: run 30 min. (1x) = 30 min.

You can check out the full article HERE!  This works for me! I’m a walker.  I walk everywhere because I like being outside (when its not cold) but its also being cheap with my bus pass and avoiding the stinky and not well circulated subway. Last summer, I went outside to jog TWICE and worked out in my backyard a few times also.  Thats actually nothing to boast about but for me, its improvement on the ONE time I went to do a lame jog the year before that. I’m improving, ok? Its just hard sometimes to make myself get out of the house and not be sure what to wear.  Its not like you are at home, right? If you start getting sweaty and disgusting you can remove pieces of clothing but I’m not much of an exhibitionist so I’m not all for the whole jogging in my sports bra only outdoors.  Its just not who I am.Before that topic gets awkward, one last bit of business is that I’m back on the 30 day challenge thing and I chose the Beach Body Challenge.

I just want to state a point that I believe whoever put this together is batshit crazy.  Day 7 and we’re already doing 50 burpees.  Wish me luck, okay? I have a feeling that I’ll back out of this one really quick.Still, I’m going to give it my absolute best shot! Let’s stay positive and embrace the crazy together! 🙂

Hell yeah! Of course I am! I’m ready to take this on! 🙂 

Are you a runner? Have you ran any form of marathon? How do you challenge and/or motivate yourself?

P.S. Are you on Tribesports? Add me if you are! It’d be nice to have friends there!

Week 44: Sore? Tired? Good!

I’m still taking in that I’ve been working out for 44 weeks.  Seriously, Its going to be eight more weeks and I would have hit a year of keeping this up.

Despite all the sickness and well, the cold that doesn’t want to go away this very moment, I’ve kept up with working out in hopes that it’ll sweat out some toxins and I’ll feel better.  I’m not exactly sure if its working but I’m not getting worse so I guess it is, right?

First things first, the previous week I started the 30 day Abs and Squats Challenge.  I’ve been really on track with that one and haven’t missed a day either.  If I foresaw that I’d be going out late, I even did it in the morning.  That part makes me pretty proud actually.  Its somewhat of a side goal for when the snow melts to start doing morning workouts and gradually building that habit.  Hopefully, I’ll work a few more of those in before then to get into a new pace 🙂

Next thing is that I managed to get three other workouts in to pair up with the challenge.

Monday was the first day I didn’t feel to great so I skipped it but I did end up doing it after my late New Year’s feast that I talked about in my previous post. I was actually feeling bloated and felt like it would help, which it did and PopSugar Fitness had this awesome workout called Fire Up Your Core Circuit Workout.

I love these sorts of workouts.  You call them circuits, right? They are intense, fun, challenging and just makes me feel a million times better because through all the pain and pushing through it, I feel invincible afterwards.  And well, it also makes me feel ten times lighter just by shedding off a load of stress.  The most challenging part of this was definitely the Runner Lunge with Push-ups.  I couldn’t walk up the stairs the next day at work and well, the ladies restroom is a floor down.  The most energetic had to be side lunges and well, the last circuit in whole was the toughest, as I felt my ab working the most for all three moves.

Moving on…next up was the new Tone it Up workout.  I haven’t found any that has been really awesome but this new Love Your Total Body Workout was pretty fantastic.  I did it to the video but to make it easier, I’ll just post up the rundown of the workout.

Goodness, that workout looks so long.  It actually took about 15-17 minutes. Its because of their double duty moves that I love doing Tone it Up workouts a lot.  It makes it so much more efficient and poses a different challenge.  The ones that really appeal to me here is the Lunge Rows with waistline press, Cross Tummy Tuck with glute kickback, and Chaturanga.  This one is a circuit workout in a way also.  Its actually the first time I’ve seen it from TIU and it was on eof the best ones that I’ve done from them.

I look forward to see more of their workouts if they structure it out like this 🙂 Now to the last one that I just did earlier this afternoon.  This time, I went back to my first workout site that I used to do workouts from: Pumps and Iron.  I love the workouts because its always kick-ass and so much fun to do, and well, usually comes with a lot of cursing in my mind.  This one was called Bodyweight Abs Workout.

Seeing as I forgot I did an abs workout earlier this week, and I’m doing the abs and squats challenge, this one was pretty crazy.  Can I just say that side plank cross crunches are SO hard.  I almost face planted a few times.  Oh, and oh I hate the boat pose.  Its so tough, but its also the reason why I know I need to work on it more. The most energy consuming of this was the plank jacks with jump.  The new one was the bear planks/tucks.  That was a bit weird but I think I figured that out and I figured how to engage my abs and could feel it.  For this one, I almost stopped after two rounds but I figured that I had to push myself so I did a third one.

I have to say this week I really kicked some butt.  Probably had to do with the fact that I started tracking my physical look with pictures in a more organized fashion so that I could track my progress a bit better.  I hadn’t intended on posting any of it but I’ll post up today’s since it also shows my awesome new workout tank top from Tribesports that I had ordered for Christmas and finally managed to get it picked up.  No action shots this week but I had to share this one.  The design is so comfortable and feels so great!

Front view

Back view

The back is the best part, but the whole thing is so well-thought out and just so comfortable. I love their gear 🙂

Now this is how I felt in terms of workout motivation:

Yeah! I’m going to keep up this spirit! 🙂

Onto Week 45 with lots of energy and motivation!!!

 

Welcome December: Announcements/Updates!

2013 is finally ending! I’m not sure if you felt it but this year was a rough one! I’m super happy that its ending because next year has only one way its going and thats up! Thanks to all of you, I’ve been able to stay positive and hold on tight! This blog has kept me breathing and motivated to push through everything! Plus, its been going really well.

Lets do a little recap on what happened these past few days, since I just did a quick update post a few days ago HERE!

Dinner at Casey’s Restaurant & Bar

Friday evening was dinner with one of my good friends who will be going away soon to pursue his dream.  Its a bit sad to see friends go away but I’m also happy for him because he held on and didn’t give up for the so many years and finally he made it in, which is already a great start! I wish him the best of luck!

Brunch at Ben & Florentine’s

Saturday morning was brunch with my girl friends and then some Christmas shopping.  It turned into a very awesome Christmas crafts shopping.  I have acquired most of the materials needed to do this year’s crafts for gifts and I’m extremely early so I can take my time to do a beautiful job at it 🙂 I’ll be posting that up when I’m done bit by bit. It was a fun day! 🙂

That somewhat wraps it up for the weekend activities! It does start with my updates and announcements!

Tribesports outfit & Dietbet weigh-in!

On Thursday night, I came home to a package from Tribesports with the Kickstarter goodies that I had backed a few months ago.  Mine included a Tribesports towel (not in the picture), short sleeves shirt and capris.  I’ve been obsessed with workout clothes and I’m telling you, these ones are super comfortable and looking at the design, I’m excited to start working out with them.  They have air out spots exactly where I sweat the most so that’ll be great. It’ll reduce the chance of rashes when I work out really intense. 🙂

On that note, last week, I joined my very first Dietbet that will be from December 2 (today) to December 29 hosted by Pumps & Iron to lose 4% of my body weight.  I’m not exactly sure if I can drop from my 136 to 130 but its my way to encourage myself to kick start an even healthier eating habits since I’ve been eating a lot of junk food lately due to all the craziness in my life. I’ll update you later on in the month 🙂 Plus, the pot currently has over $9,000 so thats pretty impressive. Losing weight during the holidays will be a difficult task but I think that’ll strengthen the motivation to work out more and if I succeed, I know that I’ll be able to get through it all.

December is the month for Christmas marathon! Last year I used up most of my Christmas movies so this year, I’m focusing mostly on Netflix movies.  Some might turn out to be stupid but still, its the best I could come up with. I’ll put in a little twist with some that are just winter related or family focused.  I have a general list for it but I’m thinking maybe I’ll add in a little Narnia marathon 🙂

RIP Paul Walker

**As most of you probably already know by now, the unfortunate and tragic death of Paul Walker has postponed this marathon a bit because I feel extremely saddened by it that I want to watch a few movies of his that I never had gotten around to until now as a way to remember him. Expect that this week!**

One of last year’s baking: Gingerbread cookies

Other than movies, Christmas is also the month I’m going to resume my baking.  Its been a while but with Dietbet also, I’m going to try to stick within delicious and healthy. I do know that there will be some that will go outside of it.  I’m looking at trying out making Christmas log and possibly cake pops.  Maybe, also some cookies and cupcakes as well since the boyfriend made a request for it 🙂 Is there something festive that you always eat for Christmas? I’d love some ideas!

Last year’s outdoor exhibit ICEBERG

With Christmas in full swing,I’m going to scout out some Christmas decorations, lights and events around Montreal.  I’ll take my DSLR camera for a whirl as often as I can. Try to get back on track with the whole photography part!

I’ll try to up the variety of posts going up this month but still, there will be some changes!

Thats how I feel about my life and how I want to approach everything here! 🙂

As usual, its nearing the end of the year so I’ve come to reflect a bit on my blog. For one, I’m thinking if I should keep or remove certain sections.  I know for one that A Bite of China Project may have to go as I might cut out the cooking section and simply stick to baking.  I’m thinking about it but once the holiday comes in and I have some time off, I’m planning on fixing up some of the layout, menus and making it a bit more organized, especially subcategories for the movies section.

Here’s where I would love you all to help me out: What do you enjoy about my blog? Anything in particular you want to keep seeing?

I fully intend to keep movies, photography and baking going on as I have a few projects in mind.  However, once I hit the full 52 weeks of workouts, I’m not sure if I will continue putting on workout roundups.

How about book reviews? I was trying to think of projects to do for it.  I will keep reading but perhaps I might take that section out as a more leisurely sections with monthly shorter reviews instead of full posts dedicated to one book, unless its for independent authors and their releases.  Any projects you might want to suggest?

My mind will be on full time mode thinking about how to make certain changes for now, you should be expecting updates on some pages and a few subcategories gradually added in to clean up the overall blog and to help in better navigation.

Please share what you think. It’ll really help me decide on how to approach next year!

Before I leave, lets start the morning with some awesome music that I’ve been listening to this weekend! Kick start our Christmas/holiday/winter month in style!

And if you aren’t so much into Christmas yet, I’ve been totally loving this song performed on The Ellen Show by Travie McCoy and Jason Mraz called Rough Water!

Happy Monday! 🙂

Remember to leave me comments & suggestions! Thanks 🙂

Week 30&31: How Bad Do You Want It?

These last two weeks went by really fast, especially when out of the office.  I ended up taking two days off after completing the challenges.  That finished midweek of Week 30 and I really took it easy on Week 30.

On Friday, I wanted to work out my core and to check if it had any improvements so I went to go-to workout at Tribesports called Core Workout.

Then on Sunday, I did a Full Body Circuit with Weights from Fitsugar.

The week after, Week 31, on the Wednesday, I did a 25 Minute Workout with Playlist from Fitsugar. Tell you what, this only looks easy but it is in no way easy if you, like me, push yourself to the max and try to get in as many sets as possible.

SONG	EXERCISES
1. “Finally Moving” — Pretty Lights	Squats and Lunges
2. “Good Time” — Owl City	Run in Place With High Knees and Jumping Jacks
3. “Moves Like Jagger” — Maroon 5	Speed Skaters and Mountain Climbers
4. “It’s Time” — Imagine Dragons	Squats and Lunges
5. “Everybody Talks” — Neon Trees	Run in Place With High Knees and Jumping Jacks
6. “Sunlight” — Harlem Shakes	Speed Skaters and Mountain Climbers
7. “Whistle” — Flo Rida	Squats and Lunges

On Sunday morning, I got in a little Morning Session from Tribesports!

I followed through with a Hike which I posted about yesterday right HERE! 🙂

Its been 1.5 weeks of taking it easy but whenever I worked out, I gave it my all so I think it compensates for it plus, the whole messing up my room to clean it up again is taking up some of my energy 😉 I’m pretty much keeping up with 3 workouts a week and time-wise that works well with my schedule 🙂 The next 30 day challenge from Tribesports will start on November 1st, timed exactly to match a big month where I probably won’t have time to do an hour of workout in the evenings.

As some of you may see, its causing the whole blogging to be a bit off schedule.  This post should’ve been up on Monday but I’m being spontaneous and drafting most of these posts last minute and in weird order.  I promise things will get back to normal soon.  I’m working on it! Life just kind of busy and things get a little out of hand.

Week 28&29: Challenges Completed!

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!