New workout time!

I print out my workouts a little fancier for this since I am doing the same one for a month.  Easier to read than my scribbling.

Today’s protein drink for the workout? Almond milk, cinnamon, applesauce, whey protein.

On to Stage 3A

Now it feels like the real ‘meat’ of the program. I looked at this workout on paper and did not have any idea how challenging it would be.  Planks on a stability ball?  Hello!  This was really, really tough.  I could barely hold 30 seconds on that.

The step over is something that doesn’t sound hard, but is.  You take a step, put one foot on the step and the other one behind you on the ground in a lunge position.  Then you lift the back leg up and over the step (without touching it) and come down in a lunge position.  Then take that leg back over.  Damn this is tough. I was supposed to do 15 on each leg, but I couldn’t.

And The Finisher? (please say this term in a deep menacing voice)  As Rachel says, it is designed to finish you off.  And it does.  A squat thrust is also known as a burpee.  I don’t care for burpees (and I hate the name – so forever are known as squat thrusts to me), so this was really hard for me.  You do 3 squat thrusts, then 1 body weight squat. Then 6 squat thrusts and 2 body weight squats, and so on upwards.  If you feel like it, you can rest for the same amount of time it took to do the circuit and do it again.  No thanks!  I was wiped out.  There is no way I could have biked home without waiting at least 15 minutes to rest.  Good thing I drove  😉

Definitely a lot room for improvement with this workout!

I got home and baked up a banana bread pudding and topped it with coconut butter.

I love this breakfast because it keeps me full until lunch.  Warmer weather meant that I bought salad fixings!  Of course, today is colder and drizzly, but I need to eat it up.

The old stand-by of chicken, feta cheese and BBQ sauce.  Yummy.

Fran made a comment yesterday about making great progress over the 4 weeks stages (thank you!).  One thing that I make sure I do when I go to the gym is to challenge myself a little each time.  So I will do 1 or 2 exercises with heavier weights, or longer hold times or whatever.  Not every exercise because you will burn out.  Just a couple. Then do different ones the next time. That is how you see the improvement.  The strength building actually comes when you *aren’t* working out and the muscles repair and recover – hopefully stronger.  So, if you have been hitting the weights, or even your cardio, and haven’t changed up anything in a while, do more.  Challenge yourself.  Make the most out of your workouts.

Ready for a latte?  I was!

Pixie was annoyed that I had to make her get up so I could get this.

Why, hello there, Jabba! Sorry, haven’t seen Han Solo.

It was such a dreary day.  We need the rain – I just don’t need the clouds for my mood.  I finished up work just in time for dinner.

These blueberries were so good that I went back for a second bowl!

Good eats today. Yesterday I had myself a carb fest and over snacking.  Definitely nice to eat like this today.

My mother is coming over tonight to show pictures of the cruise she just got back from.  I roasted up some decaf so we can have that.

Here is hoping the rain stops so we can bike to breakfast tomorrow!

Yesterday just flew by.  It was very busy and boring, so I didn’t bother posting anything.  I was ready to lift today. I notice the sun coming up earlier and earlier! It is a welcome change.

Today, I tried a different workout shake. I did some mango, almond milk, cinnamon, and whey protein.  It was pretty good.  Not as thick as my pumpkin shake, which is actually a good thing.

So on to Part B of this 2nd stage.  Anyone who says you can’t work up a sweat or get strong with mostly body weight exercises is very mistaken.

An easy explanation for the SHELC is to go into a bridge position with your feet on a stability ball, the pull the ball towards you with your feet. It really works the hamstrings, plus your core as you have to keep your hips up. This workout was not as hard as the one the other day, but it felt more awkward. I don’t necessarily like the stability ball. It doesn’t help that the ball in my gym is canary yellow and large. It especially calls attention to it when it rolls away from me as I fall off it.   🙄  I should have a super stable core when this Fit Female series is done, I will say that.

I got home thinking of oats all the way! I made up plain oats with egg whites and then mixed in the apple cranberry topping I have been loving as of late. I put half underneath the oats.

Very good.  I am starting to increase my carbs more this week as we have a long ride planned this weekend (and just more riding in general) and I have to build that up.

Quick lunch of pork that was cooked yesterday in the crockpot.  Love the leftovers on busy days.

After lunch it was off to Albany. My sister had a minor surgery done on her eye and needed someone to come pick her up from the hospital.  It was over an hour away. Eek!  Long day. After I picked her up, we stopped for coffee as she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since 8 p.m. the night before.

I had brought some dried pineapple and cookies for her to eat right away (because I am a good sister).  I had some pineapple with the latte. It was quite tempting to get a donut, but I held my own.  Sometimes you just want to eat whatever when the schedule gets mucked up, you know?

I had to get back to work  when I got home at 4:30.  It’s going to be a long night to catch up work.  Today is the last day of the pay period, so no chance to make up lines another day.  Oh well.

I stopped for dinner and cooked up a quick pan sautee of veggies and shrimp with a bit of lemon pepper.

Lame strawberries, though.  You know how sometimes they are just watery and flavorless?  That was these.

Oh, also – here is a photo of a goose egg! My sister and BIL have geese and turkeys and when I dropped her off at home, she gave me some goose eggs.

How giant is that!  It’s next to one of our regular large chicken eggs. It ought to make a tasty omelet, although I am a little skeered  😀

More work to do tonight. Lots more work.  I have a snack planned, but other than that it will be typing, typing, typing tonight.

Lucky readers, it’s new workout week!

On to Stage 2 of the Female Body Breakthrough! This is workout A. This month the goal is few reps and heavier weights, although on the first day of each new workout I will keep the weights light to get used to the moves. Some moves are new for me.

This is hard. I think it is harder than Stage 1, but I think that is the idea. My goal is at least 75 second plank 3 times by the end of the month. Lots of balance work, which is really good for me.  The offset load squat is harder than it appears. Basically, you just do a dumbbell squat, but only hold a dumbbell in 1 hand. You need a lot of core stabilization for that one.  My glutes were burning at the end of this workout, too.

I want to get back to unassisted chin ups, but that won’t happen in a month.

I needed my post workout shake today.  Okay, I guess  I don’t need to say that after every workout.  🙄

Once home, I made up a 1-minute muffle and topped it with some ricotta.

That is 1 strawberry, too.  Another giant mutant strawberry.

This lasted me to lunch time.  Gotta love the 1-minute muffin for that.  I ended up having the chicken for lunch that was supposed to be for dinner last night. Plus mango.

Gratuitous Pixie shot. She was just vulturing on my chair arm today.  Not quite sure why she does this sometimes.

Not exactly sure what that look is.  If only I could read her mind sometimes. She’s probably thinking it was about latte time and she shouldn’t get in my lap, which would be correct.

I think lattes are more fun in a Mickey cup.

Another attempt at fish today.  This is a Sea Cuisine frozen product. Potato encrusted tilapia.  We had a coupon.

Jury kind of out on this one.  John really liked it, but I thought it was more fishy than the salmon.  The breading was good. It was kind of peppery like Mexican seasoning.

I’m off for Mother/Daughter night.  Coffee and chit-chat, always nice.

I can’t believe I am back at work already today.  I look at my blog and know there was a weekend there, but geez!

It was hard to pull myself out of bed this morning, but I perked up for breakfast:

Banana bread pudding topped with peanut flour and jam.  This breakfast will keep me full until lunch.

So, Saturday was the last B workout of Stage 1 for the Female Body Breakthrough. This was the tougher of the 2 workouts, I think.  My progress for the last month.

I did have a goal to try to do a 90 second prone cobra, but I kind of forgot that I would really only be doing this workout 8 times during the month and it was a little unrealistic for me to add 30 seconds to that. 75 was pretty tough!  I did not do anything with the russian twist because that exercise was a little bothersome to my herniated disk.  I think I might have maxed out on the overhead squat because I felt unstable at that weight, but I suppose with more practice it would get better.

So how do I feel after this month?  Quite good.  I feel very strong and I think my posture is better.  Not much scale difference.  Maybe some difference in my clothes, but again, I have trouble subjectively judging that unless there is a large difference in fit.

Tomorrow starts the next stage and I am excited!

I breezed through work this morning  – thank you very much for that happening on a Monday!  I sauteed up some veggies to go with a cheese omelet.

After all my candy yesterday, I am surprised that I don’t feel crappy today, but I don’t.  Just more relieved to be eating like usual.

Including the usual latte:

I actually was finished with my allotted work by latte time (thank you productivity), but I continued working my usual number of hours to make some extra $$.  Plus, I may need to cut my work day short on Thursday, but I am not sure yet.

I thought chicken was on the menu for dinner, but John put the chicken in the freezer yesterday. Ooops.  Plan B – the other poultry!  Turkey burgers.

I topped mine with laughing cow and BBQ sauce.  I am making an concerted effort to get more veggies in lately.  It’s a big deal for me to have them for 2 meals for many days in a row    Life would be so much easier for me if I loved veggies.

My goals tonight are to do a little cleaning and a little stretching.  I have 1 window done and I stretched one time for the month.  I better get cracking on those goals! 😳

Here is my snack for later:

Blueberries with ricotta.  This is becoming one of my go-to evening snacks. And yes, I do pre-make this to let it chill.  I haven’t decided which way I like it best, warm or chilled.

Question: Are you back on track after Easter – or never went off track?

I made it through yesterday and didn’t seem to have the snackies today.  Of note, there were no nuts left after the poker game!  So, I guess I don’t have to worry about that.  BTW – if you are interested in the nut recipe, here is the link. Be forewarned – addictive is a mild term for these things.  Pecans are the best.

Gym day!  I really look forward to going to the gym and doing these workouts.

I finished the A workouts today (B will finish on Saturday). Four weeks later. This stage had a max of 12 reps for each exercise, so what I would do each workout was to either increase to 12 reps or drop back down to 10 and increase the weight. Each session I would increase either weight or reps on several exercises. So, here is my progress on the A workout.  I did this workout 6 times over the last 4 weeks.

Pretty pleased with this. The co-contraction lunges are hard and I had burning legs and I never did add any weight. Any kind of split-leg stuff is hard for me. I am ready for the next round of pushups with variation, so that should be fun. Feeling nice and strong with that.  Update of workout B after this weekend.

I realized that I hadn’t made coconut flour protein waffles in a while, so that is what I made when I got home.

Yum!

My lap buddy was back. She was totally sacked out today.  I was lifting her up here and she doesn’t even care.

She must be part ragdoll. I love my cat big hairy feet and all.

Lunch leftovers!

I wanted crunch, so I had some Nut Thins with it.  They are the crunchiest cracker ever!

Work was kind of annoying today.  We recently got a new supervisor on one of my accounts, and he actually doesn’t know the account very well, which leads to communication problems.

I needed my break today:

I could have used a shot of liquor in there, but I refrained.

It was a poultry kind of day today. Chicken for lunch, turkey for dinner.

Topped with laughing cow and A1 steak sauce.  Or turkey sauce, I suppose.

Took a night out to have some coffee.  Yes, I brought some pineapple to have with my latte.

Gotta love my netbook and the free wifi!

I think I am going to totally delete my blog feed and reburn it.  I did that once already, but I am totally out of ideas about how to stop the comment feed.  Of course, this is only with Google reader and not with other subscription feed readers, so I don’t necessarily want to do that and lose those that aren’t having an issue.

The last resort is moving my blog to a new hosting service, but I *really* don’t want to have to do that.  I just don’t have the time to be messing with it like that.  Nobody seems to be able to help me, either.  I guess I have discovered a brand new internet problem to have.  Lucky me!  🙄

At least tomorrow is Friday!

Man, is this week over yet?  Today seemed very long.  I slept fitfully.  I should just set an alarm because I wanted to make sure I woke up so I could be at the gym by 7, so then I kept waking up every 15 minutes from about 5:30.  Ugh.

Base workout B today from Female Body Breakthrough. I had my usual pumpkin protein drink and got to work. New exercises and routines and I kept the weights lighter.  The warmup went faster today since I had already done it.

The Russian Twist is something I am going to have to be very, very careful with. It kind of mimics the move I shouldn’t do because of my herniated disk – and I could feel it. So, I have to modify and do less range of motion. Also – the Bulgarian Split Squat, which makes no sense because people from Bulgaria just call them squats, is a thigh burner. Burning!!! It really is just a stationary split squat with the rear leg elevated on a bench. Holy crow is it hard. I forgot how hard this was – and truthfully I don’t really like it much (because it is hard – wuss!).  The key with this exercise is to lay the back foot so you are resting on the top of the foot and not the tip of the toes.  That way you can’t cheat and lean back onto the raised leg.

The prone cobra – like the plank (kind of the plank in reverse, really), is an exercise looks like nothing, but it sure feels like something!  At first it is easy and you think 60 seconds will be no problem.  After 30 seconds it gets hard. 45 seconds and it felt like forever until I hit 60!  I hope to be at 90 seconds after 4 weeks, which I laugh at now, but it’s my goal.

Here is a nice guide on the prone cobra. You can do these anywhere, too.

So, Tuesday’s workout and today’s will be alternating for the next 4 weeks 3 times a week.  I probably won’t list the workouts again until near the end for comparison of how much more weight I am lifting.  Each time, you are supposed to increase the weights/intensity of 2 or 3 of the exercises. I hope I don’t get too bored with these 2 workouts.  My one beef with NROLW was I was bored by the end of the first phase and ready to mix it up.

I chugged the rest of my protein drink in the car on the way home and made up brekkie:

Banana custard oats.  Yum 😀

Regarding the eating plan for the FBB, I am doing pretty well with it.  I have trouble on non-lifting days with the 6th meal, which would be a morning snack.  I just forget about it while I am working. I probably just need to make my breakfast smaller so I get hungry enough to remember.

Lunch time!  My new favorite thing – Greek yogurt with the apple cranberry topping.

I am loving this.  You can tell when warmer weather is coming because I start eating yogurt again.  Once I get to salads, it will be summer!  I seem to be very seasonal with that.

I had my typical afternoon break.

I don’t sweeten my lattes, but I like a little honey drizzle on the foam with some cinnamon or nutmeg.  I also had a couple of those coconut chocolate chews I made, but didn’t take a photo as they don’t look that attractive…

Earlier, I was rummaging through the pantry actually looking for tea and found a packet of this, which I totally forgot about.

I love this marinade flavor, so I cut up some chicken and got that marinating for dinner.  Too bad we didn’t get the grill out, but it was really good just the same!

With some shredded brussel sprouts and a pear.  I am doing pretty good today with fruits and veggies:  Pumpkin, brussel sprouts, banana, pear, apple.  I’ll take it!

After I finished up a little work after dinner, we hit the library before settling in at Starbies.  I found 2 books that I really wanted to be  checked in.  What luck!

And then this one:

I love anything bacteria/virus related.  Richard Preston finished this book  that  Michael Crichton started before he died.  Preston wrote The Hot Zone, which scared the bejeezus out of me.  It’s based on true events about ebola in Africa.  I have to bust through this book, too, because it is a 14-day loan.

John thought it was funny that I brought my books, my computer *and* the free weekly newspaper into Starbucks tonight.  Guess we will be here a while 

I’ve got this:

Question:  Do you eat salads as entrees or yogurt in the winter?