Weight Loss Secrets: Parts

Showing posts with label Parts. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Sprint Intervals to Melt Your Fatty Parts (Home Workout #9)

This workout is NOT designed as high-mileage. Depending on your fitness level, choose either 1 or 2 miles. Sprinting intervals provides MAJOR intensity, so there’s no need for a long run. If you’re a wild person and decide to go for additional mileage (are you kidding me?), it’s really unnecessary and might slay you, so don’t come looking for me if you keel over from excess-mileage.

You should know beforehand how far it is to the end of each mile. Use your Garmin Forerunner, map it out online, or drive the course first to determine your one-mile marker. You could also head over to a school track. Four times around the track is one-mile.

SPRINT INTERVALS WORKOUT

Walk approximately 1/8 of a mile to reach the interval starting point of your choice. Then perform some light stretches prior to your run.

1-mile Sprint Interval (round 1): Start your Interval Timer on the “stopwatch setting” and begin with a medium-paced jog for approximately 45-60 seconds. Then switch it up with a sprint for approximately 20 seconds. Alternatively (this is what I do), choose neighborhood landmarks, such as intersections, street signs, houses, or roadkill to dictate your interval switch-up points. Continue the intervals until you have completed a 1-mile run.

Interval break: Walk for approximately 1/8 mile. Do NOT skip this break. Unless you’re a decorated Olympian, it’s recommended that you take this quick interlude for extra recovery before starting the 2nd round (mile 2) of sprints.

1-mile Sprint Interval (round 2): Reset your timer and begin second round of 1-mile Sprint Intervals.

Now it’s recovery time! Do NOT skip out on proper recovery. Lightly jog or walk back home for a good stretch, then hydrate and re-fuel properly. Record your mileage time in your workout log.

Fitness expert and Yum Yucky reader, Emergefit, said it best when it comes to this type of workout:

BOOM goes the dynamite!

HOME WORKOUT CENTRAL

View the original article here

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Like Buttons In A Biscuit Tin: A Blog In Three Parts

Part 1
When I was 3 years old 45 years ago, my mother bought a tin of biscuits for Christmas. It was turquoise blue with gold trim and white inlay, topped with a noble-looking knob. It looked European, but the tin was made in the U.S. and the biscuits were made in Hopkins, Minnesota. Didn’t matter. It was still fancy.

Mom used the biscuit tin to store buttons she snipped off discarded items of clothing (worn out shirts and coats mostly), and my brother, sister and I used to sort through them on rainy or snowy days. We’d examine each of them like they were works of art, which some of them were, and we’d play tiddlywinks with the flat ones. Need a green plastic shamrock button? It’s in there somewhere.

I don’t remember how (there was probably begging involved), but I inherited the tin years ago and it’s now under an end table in my living room, filled with additional buttons I kept that were sewn or attached in little plastic bags to the inside hem of the shirts, skirts and jackets I’ve worn over the years. Claire recently discovered the tin under the table, and since she’s no longer putting anything and everything in her mouth (I still don’t trust 2-year-old Luca duke), I opened it for her. Claire’s eyes got as wide as the biggest jacket button in there, and she proceeded to sort through them the same way I did when I was little – by size, color and texture.

Part 2

Last week I went hiking alone for the first time. A real hike at a place I’d never been before – Todd Nature Reserve. With a scant reading of its trails, I decided to hike Loop Trail, a 2-mile hike that, according to the website, goes “through various forest habitats, including upland deciduous forest and the edges of hemlock ravines. The trail has rocky portions, one stream-crossing, occasional wet spots and moderate grades. Walking time: 60 minutes.”

I’ve been hiking many times, but always with a companion, usually my ex-husband. I was a little nervous to hike alone, and it didn’t help that: 1) when I got out of my car at the trailhead, there was a sign posted that read, in part, “If you encounter a bear…” and 2) I was also the only person there as the only other hiker was leaving the lot while I was pulling in.

I walked toward and into this very Thoreau-esque entrance to the woods:
And it wasn’t long before I met up with the mud:
And the stream crossing:
Each step was like adding a button to the biscuit tin that is my life. Some were ordinary, some felt like they were shaped like shamrocks. If I fell, too bad. I was the only one there to lift me up. If I slipped, I was the only one to catch me. If I was afraid, I was the only one who could comfort me.

Part 3

Last year, I left the life I’d known for 14 years; not happily, but for the greater good of not only me, but my husband. After three rough years, one of us had to flinch.

Leaving that comfort zone – which enveloped not only a marriage, but my home of 20 years – was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My first instinct was to find new comforts, but I slowly learned that’s not how life works. You don’t replace what you’ve known forever with things you’ve only test driven. A few months ago I stepped back, reevaluated, and started listening to my heart and gut and not so much my head and its ceaseless thinking and planning, convinced it’s always right.

One. Thing. At. A. Time.

Every one thing we do adds up, like adding buttons to a biscuit tin. Pretty soon you have an eclectic collection of experiences.

For instance, while I love the healthcare professionals who took care of me in my former life, for practical and financial reasons I had to replace them with folks locally. I now have a new primary care physician, chiropractor, dentist, eye doctor, and physical therapist. I shop at a different grocery store, drink coffee from a different coffee shop and a different Sheetz, buy wine at a different liquor store, bank at a different branch, hike different trails and bike different paths.

And it’s OK.

The only way we grow (or lose…as in weight) is through change. And change demands we step outside our comfort zones. But the anchors that tether us to who we are, those things that remind us what our lives are about (like those buttons in the biscuit tin), help us move more confidently outside our comfort zones.

In fact, stepping away from my comfort zones made the anchors that tie me to who I am that much stronger. As I’ve moved and changed these last several months, I’ve relied on my anchors more readily – those anchors being my children, grandchildren, friends, books, and silence. They have been with me willingly all the while. I just needed to remember I needed them.

Today I went hiking at Todd with BFF Shari. I took her on the Loop Trail. She said, “I can’t believe you did this by yourself.” Man…what a compliment.

Like buttons, I continue to add experiences, friends, and realizations to my biscuit tin that is my life. And when I have a bad day, I take out the buttons and sort them, flip them over, look at their beauty, and appreciate them for the anchors that they are.

As you move through your life – particularly as it pertains to weight loss – what are the anchors you rely on and what are some of the buttons you’re adding to your own tin? I know that this weight-loss journey I’ve been on keeps teaching me more than probably anything else has in my life.

View the original article here

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Will Green Tea Make My Fatty Parts Melt?

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Huh? FREE Shakeology from the Yum Yucky?

The requests for free samples has been overwhelming and I want to share with as many people as possible. Soon I will reveal how YOU can get your own free sample, courtesy of the Yum Yucky! (and I am happy that the Shakeology t-shirt makes my boobs look bigger)

90 Days of Shakeology: Days 42-62 It was a rough 20 days. I got super busy with just about everything – work, home, kids, blogging, ebook writing – I’ve been late for work, running on about 4 hours sleep each night, and NOT slurping my Shakeology consistently. In the time when I need it most, I slacked off and made excuses why I couldn’t take 5 dang minutes every day to make the shake that has personally proven itself to give me the energy I so desperately need. In the last 20 days, I’ve had my Shakeology probably 10 times. So that’s basically every other day instead of consistently EVERY day. What’s wrong with that, you say? Welp, I do feel the difference. It’s had a backwards affect and been serious energy drain. I’ve skipped days of Shakeology here and there before with no lost affects, but to skip days for such an extended period of time does not work for me. I’m glad I know this now. I’m listening to my body and back doing what I need to do, so perhaps this was a necessary lesson. I’ve always looked at Shakeology in terms of what it can do for ME and me only, but it’s benefits were actually helping me to also do what I need to do for my family, while giving me the natural boost I need to do everything that my crazy days demand….. Check out what a Twitter bud of mine says about Shakeology. And if you haven’t watched this video yet: See What Doctors Are Saying About Shakeology, do yourself a favor and watch it.

Weight Progress

Day 1: 172.8 pounds

Day 62: 166.4 pounds

I’m not intimidated by slow weight loss, especially since I’m building muscle, and that affects the number on the scale. I’m in a size 6 and have noticed more muscle definition. My abs are especially coming along nicely.

Get the complete details of my 90-Day Shakeology experiment.

Read the Shakeology success stories.

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