30-Day Beach Body Challenge

So, I finally got roped into a 30-Day Beach Body Challenge. I've been using Beach Body programs for years and often get told "You should be a Coach"; "You need to be a Coach"...blah blah blah. Not that I don't appreciate the compliments, I'm just too crazy-busy to put any other sort of "business" on my plate. I do the programs for my personal results, not the Tier-level performance.

Anyway, this challenge came at the right time because it's pretty much been the direction I've wanted to head with my workouts before summer. I wanted to still do 5-6 days a week strength-training at the gym and then I also wanted to do a Beach Body DVD, like Insanity or T25 at night after the kids go to bed. This, my friends, is what I call "taking it up a notch". So now I have a little group to hold me accountable. It starts today.

THE PLAN

Here's a snippet of my workout plans for this week {it worked so well to write it out like this last week that I had to do it again}:

You can see at the top I already had Insanity planned in there!

Today I'll be doing the gym sesh as described above and then tonight I'll do Insanity: Plyometric Cardio Circuit.

Monday

Legs/Glutes

Insanity: Plyometric Cardio Circuit

Tuesday

Back/Shoulders/Abs

Insanity: Cardio Power & Resistance

Wednesday

Legs/Glutes

Insanity: Pure Cardio

Thursday

Chest/Tri's/Abs

Insanity: Plyometric Cardio Circuit

Friday

REST

Saturday

Legs/Glutes

Insanity: Cardio Power & Resistance or a Run

Sunday

Back/Shoulders/Abs

Insanity: Pure Cardio or a Run

Wish me luck, and if you are a Beach Body program owner, I encourage you to take on the challenge as well!

Daylight Savings, Running and Summer is Coming

I don't know about you, but I don't mind losing the extra hour of sleep one bit. I have been waiting for DST to begin, well, since it ended, basically. I swear by the end of the winter, I find myself in a funk with working out...I also tend to have been drinking more with holidays or get-togethers with friends because there just wasn't really much else to do when it's dark outside by 5:30pm. It's all just a recipe for disaster and not keeping sight of my goals. Of course I've worked out throughout winter, but I did let myself get lazy and skip more workouts than I normally would. It just seems to happen every winter. You know what always gets me out of this funk? DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!

I hit the gym for the first time in weeks this past Saturday. I hate to say that I hadn't been since sometime in early January! Farrah had just been sick for so long, I avoided taking her to the childcare there, which meant I really didn't get to go. I worked out at home instead, but I sure missed the gym. Also with my new job, finding the time for the gym has been tricky, but I plan to squeeze it in Monday thru Thursday around 4pm before I pick up the kids after work. Then of course, I'll continue to go on Saturdays and Sunday after church. Summer is coming and I don't have much time!

I believe having a plan makes all the difference, so I've written out this week's gym routine in advance:

My cardio will get done via running outdoors in the evenings on nice days or Insanity when it rains.

Are you happy DST is finally here? Does it help you with your fitness goals? How do you stay on track?

Tabata Tuesday

Tabata training (aka, the Tabata Protocol) is a type of high intensity interval training that follows a specific format:

• 20 seconds of a very high intensity exercise (e.g., sprints) - it is up to you to perform these at 80-90% exertion {talking should be pretty much impossible}
• 10 seconds of rest
• Repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes 

Find out more here. 

I hope for this series to be a weekly go-to for you fitness lovers. It's a great, quick exercise that you can easily carve into your day. If you've got four minutes, you've got time for Tabata. If you're even more rockstar, you can repeat the 4-minute circuit 5x for a 20 min HIIT workout. 

 

 

I recommend downloading a Tabata timer app. I use Tabata+ Lite. I love that it automatically provides a few seconds to set up before it goes right into your first 20 seconds.

My Morning Workout Schedule

I am so glad to be back on a regular morning workout schedule. It has definitely been a challenge working in fitness this summer between newborn, 4yo and 8yo...I managed to do very well, but some days I had to throw in the towel.

Right now, I get my oldest dropped off to school at 7-7:10am. My gym is right across the street, so it makes it very convenient to go afterward. However, the gym childcare does not open until 8am...which left me about an hour to kill. The first couple days this week, I would just take Breckin and Farrah to the recreation department playground next to the schools, which was fine. But then I had an epiphany the other day and realized I could totally be using that time to get some of my workout in - if I brought the double jogging stroller with us in the mornings! Where Tanner goes to school is a very nice subdivision with walking trails, so it was perfect. I could just park at the gym, start walking/jogging from there and kill the hour, then hit the gym for my strength training. Perfect.

I get out of the gym by 9am and we head home. It has been going swimmingly...and I feel like I'm getting a lot more cardio in this way too!

 

I'm hoping this is the start of some major postpartum weightloss! I've still got about 20 lbs to go and it's killing me! Ha!

My Favorite Prenatal Workout DVDs

If you're a preggers without a gym membership and looking to find something good to do at home, here are my recommendations for prenatal workout DVDs:


1} Hilaria Baldwin's Fit Mommy-To-Be Prenatal Yoga DVD

I was given the opportunity as a Skinny Mom blogger to review this DVD series and it is a really great one. Feels so nice after a long day of sitting in a desk or chasing kids!


2} Tracy Anderson: The Pregnancy Project

This set gives you nine DVDs - one for each month of gestation and each workout is about 45 minutes. Great for already fit mommies trying to stay in shape during pregnancy.


3} The Bar Method Pregnancy Workout DVD

I love taking barre classes and the moves are very easy to incorporate into pregnancy. I like that this barre DVD is already tailored to pregnancy. This is an ideal form of exercise for keeping trouble areas tone throughout pregnancy.

Happy New Year!

Well hello there and happy new year!

Where the heck have I been with this blog? Sheesh! I must be honest, as gung-ho as I sounded about fitness in the beginning of this pregnancy, it still has managed to bite me in the ass. First of all, the holidays are hard enough to avoid weight gain without being pregnant and well, I fell a little off the fitness train between traveling and holiday get-togethers. I just have not been myself.

I even *gasp* quit my gym membership in November! I know...how the heck can I call myself a gym bunny now, right? Well, I quit for reasons other than not using the gym because I certainly was using it. I wanted to get out of my contract because I didn't like the terms and I had already met the contract date. I also started a new job and had found it hard to get to the gym due to pregnancy nausea...I figured I would just rejoin a gym after the baby came and workout at home in the meantime.

Well, that plan failed because I have been lacking motivation in the evenings. I get home around 6pm from work, have to make dinner, get the kids' bedtime routine done and then catch up on housework every evening...which, let's face it, it's tiring enough being pregnant...adding in a late night workout on top of all that just proved to daunting of a task most nights. I really need to get my workouts done first thing in the morning...before pregnancy tiredness kicks in. So what am I doing? Tomorrow I am rejoining the gym...at least I can take advantage of New Year's specials. I will start going before work again. I don't have nausea anymore, so I can manage to eek my way out of bed a tad earlier to get a good workout in.

I can't even look at that weight tracking chart I posted when I first found out I was pregnant because I am way off track! It's depressing. I'm not sure how it's even possible I've gained as much as I have, but there's no turning back now, I just have to roll with it and make good choices this last half of pregnancy. Here's me today at 21 weeks and 1 day:

Looking ripe as ever!

Oh, and if you don't follow along on Style Oyster {and you really should}, you missed my announcement that IT'S A GIRL!

I am so excited {and have a hunch this is the culprit for my extra weight gain - it's true what they say about boys vs. girls in the womb!}

But I can't stress myself out about the weight. I need to just do the best I can, let my body do what it needs to do and know that my fitness-motivated self will take care of the damage when it comes time. I'm already a step ahead as I've ordered Shaun T's Focus T25 program and plan on starting in June. I'm due in May, so I figure I will ease my way back into working out for a month or so and then get started with this intense HIIT workout. I will hit up Insanity after that. My husband is already doing it and I'm jealous I can't join in yet. I have been trying to do at least the warmups with him...but once it gets to all that jumping around, this prego has to bow out.

I do have a set of barre DVDs coming this week and plan to incorporate those into my routine a few times a week for the rest of this pregnancy.

But anyway, that's my update for now. I plan on posting a detailed list of fitness resolutions for the new year next week. Do you have any fitness resolutions?

School Back in Session = Gym Back in Session

Finally! Today, I dropped off my now-2nd-grader to his class on this first day of the school year. I have really been looking forward to this day for the last month now. Ever since quitting my early AM shift at the gym, I was not so regular with my workout schedule. It was always...oh, I'll get up at 5am and go...then NOT...or, I'll go after work before picking up the boys...and that only happened sometimes. I was just not my Gym Bunny self...

Now, I have the convenience of a schedule that requires I drop off my son between 7:15-7:30 at school, so I'm able to head directly across the street from his school to my gym at 7:30 and get an hour's workout in before I need to be at work at 9am. This will happen a guaranteed five days a week, my friends. I will literally have no excuse to skip. I feel sooooo much better when I have a regular workout schedule going.

Any of you able to find a better time to workout now that school is in session? Or did it make a difference either way? Or do you even have kids? {They can make scheduling workouts quite difficult!}

Last week, you may have seen my post that contained my current measurements...I was not too satisfied with them...and I am eager to see some results. I've been doing a lot better with clean eating...and now that my workouts are getting back to 5-6 days a week, rather than a staggered 3-4...I know I will feel like my old {better} self in no time.

{via}

GymPact - Bet On Your Fitness

*This is not a sponsored post. I am just great at giving free advertising to products I personally do believe in. Because I'm so awesome at marketing by nature, this will sound like a professional ad. Companies - take note...and contact me if you want a badass review of your product. Of course, not free of charge. Thank you.*

Holy moly...It's been a week since I last posted!

Well, as bad as that is, at least I wasn't away from the gym for a week. Maybe that's my excuse for you. Yes, I haven't been blogging because I've been logging mad hours at the gym. Ha, OK, well not that crazy...just the norm. BUT, I have a feeling that I will be logging mad hours at the gym starting on Monday...

I'm checking in with you today to tell you about a new app I just installed on my iPhone last night. It's pretty dang cool. I have yet to be really involved in it enough to give a full review, but I think I'm going to like it.

Here's the preface: Money is probably one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, motivators out there, right? So what would you do if I told you that for every workout you promised to do that you didn't do, you'd have to pay $5, or more?

You probably would stop missing workouts then, right?

On the flipside, for every workout week where you completed your promised workouts, you get paid from the big money pot thanks to non-exercisers.

This app is called GymPact.

There are a few Golden Rules, of course. One major one being that you have to have proof of workout by GPS. This app syncs with RunKeeper, the running app I just so happen to use. So it will record those workouts for you automatically. Then you have to use the "Check-In" method you do via GPS to prove your ass was at the gym.

You get to choose what you promise. You can promise 3 workouts a week, or 5, or 7...whatever. BUT, don't promise what you can't truly handle because you'll be paying up. You choose whether you pay the $5 minimum, or more, per workout missed. You can link your debit/credit card or a PayPal account. They will automatically deposit any funds you earn when you tell them to disperse them to you.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. I start my pact next week. I have promised 5 workouts for next week between Monday and Sunday {that's how pact weeks run}.

Got questions? Visit their FAQ page.

Hope some of you start making workout promises and sticking to them!

Cut The Slack & Cut Those Abs

 

I've been SLACK on my Pinterest Fitness Board Challenge! Need to get back on that...today's pin is:

Good, I felt I needed to work some abs today. Adding this to my gym routine tonight.

{Psst - you really need to join in on this fitness challenge - head to your fitness pin board, pick a pin and get 'er done!}

And tonight's dinner is going to be a healthy one - something I pinned the other day:

{source}

Yum. What's on your menu tonight?