Tag Archives: exercise

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P.I.N.K. Method Update and a Personal Challenge

On Good Friday, my boyfriend and I went riding. I rode my Quad and he rode his dirt bike. I am just learning and it was my second time riding my quad. He was showing me the things I needed to do while riding on bumpy and hilly terrain. I did a lot of standing up and sitting down on my quad and after I we were done riding, I could barely walk my legs felt like noodles! I mention this because as result of riding, from Saturday to Thursday of this past week I was very sore. I could barely walk and I thought that I had torn my muscles. When I woke up Thursday morning able to walk to the bathroom without cringing I was in an awesome mood. I decided while driving to work to start a 30 day cardio challenge. Before I get into that, let me give you a quick update on the PINK method.

In all honesty, I have not been 100% consistent on the PINK Method and I plan to start over on Wednesday after I buy groceries. Why Wednesday you ask? Well that is my BF’s payday and we usually go 50/50 on groceries. I have not shared this here but on 4/5/12 I tried one of the pink method workouts. It involved a lot of squats and lunges which was very hard on my knees. I am so tired of my knee pain and I almost wanted to give up on this journey altogether.

Getting back to the 30 day Cardio Challenge, I started on Thursday evening. I did the Zumba Fitness 20 minute express and initially I felt good. However about an hour later the knee pain kicked in and I was frustrated until I received a message on YouTube that evening. The individual wanted to know if I have ever thought of using knee braces while working out. Nope, never thought of it and felt a little dumb for not doing so. I went and purchased knee braces yesterday which made me very excited. After being out and about running errands I came home, put on those knee braces and decided to do Day 2 of my cardio challenge. I completed the Zumba Fitness 20 minute express workout and the pressure on my knees were minimal. Today I decided to try the knee braces and work out doing one of the PINK Method workouts. Again, a better experience. I plan to do daily updates on my 30 day Cardio Challenge on my YouTube Channel and to update my blog with short posts about my workout for that day. I hope that I finally make working out and eating right a part of my lifestyle.

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Decision Made!

A few weeks ago I was trying to make a decision about my gym membership with LA Fitness. The one thing holding me back were my personal training sessions that were pre-paid. I had this plan of scheduling those sessions in hopes that it will motivate me to attend the gym more. Well, that plan failed and those sessions that I scheduled at that time were cancelled.

After careful thought and prayer (yes…prayer) I decided to cancel my membership with LA Fitness. I know that I am going to get “flack” from my decision but I really feel that is best for me right now. I prefer to work out at home currently and maybe I will revisit a gym membership in the future. I am also proud of another decision that I made.

Last night I decided to indulge in eating out for dinner so my family and I went to Applebee’s. Ok, some people feel that Applebee’s is gross but I happen to like their spinach and shrimp salad and I tried their grilled chicken/shrimp dish last night which was yummy. I figured that starting April 1st I will be starting the P.I.N.K. Method so I could enjoy one meal out before then right?

Anywho….while my daughter was driving us home (she is a licensed driver now, YAY!!) I told my family that I was starting the P.I.N.K. Method. I told them that I will be preparing foods that I have to eat on this program and that they are on their own for dinner from now on if they are not down for eating what I want to eat. I also told them I would not eat out during this time so if they are too lazy to find food for themselves then they can eat out. I felt so proud of myself for telling them and I feel that I have taken the first step in getting them to understand that I am trying to be healthy and fit and either they are on board or on their own.

Wish me luck!

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My Confessions

I must confess….I have fallen off when it comes to eating. I mean, really fallen off…I have been pigging out off and on over the past three weeks for dinner!!! I have been too lazy to cook dinner so we have ordered out: dominos pizza, Chipotle, Jimmy johns subs, it’s been crazy! I have even gained one pound and on top of that I have been lazy with working out. I probably worked out three times in the past two weeks which included my post about the Kettlebell workout on March 4. In addition to eating badly and working out sporadically, I have not been counting my calories. As a matter of fact I have not counted calories since I started this journey on January 16th!  I  learned in a nutrition course that I have to make sure that I create a deficit in calories to lose weight, which is where working out comes into play. Of course I am going to gain back a pound,I have not been creating that 3500 calorie deficit per week to burn off 1lb of fat.

In the past I would have given up on my journey. I would have just said, screw it and moved on. However, my mentality this year is different from my attempts at losing weight in the past. Not to worry…I am back on track with my exercising which started for me last Friday. My motivation was rekindled when I went out with a friend and we danced for a few hours. I felt so good afterwards and even though I got to bed at midnight on Saturday morning, at 9 am sharp I was up working out with Kathy Smith doing her kettlebell workout. Sunday I rested because I was a bit sore, Monday I did the Kettlebell workout again, Tuesday I rode my mountain bike and today I walked 3.5 miles with my dog. Hmm…what to do tomorrow….? I am having so much fun.

As far as eating goes, I will be starting a new health and fitness program. I may have mentioned this before but I am going to do the P.I.N.K. Method, which is a program designed by a woman for women. I received this program on the 6th and it starts with the P.I.N.K. reset. So, since I align my grocery shopping with my paydays, I will be purchasing food items this weekend so that I can start the reset. I will attempt to blog about each day to let you all know what I am doing, how I am feeling, and things of that nature. As we all know, “if at first you do not succeed, try, try again” so I will keep trying until I get this health and fitness journey right! :-)

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Kettlebell Workout Day 1

This morning I decided to open up my Kathy Smith Kettlebell solution package and try it out. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the package came with a 3 lb and 5 lb kettlebell and the workout DVD. The DVD was sealed in a packet that also had two other items. There was a 10 page booklet called Kathy Smith’s Nutrition Solution and a large poster with all the kettlebell workouts along with the description and instructions of each workout. I thought that was nice because I can hang that up on the wall and create my own workouts on days that I cannot pop in the DVD (like those days that my daughter commandeer the television!).

I decided to take it easy this morning because in all honesty, I did not walk or workout last week. In addition, it has been a while since I even did an upper body workout so I decided to do the warm up and the Kettlebell Upper Body Solution. I wanted to record my work out session because I am a YouTube Vlogger documenting my natural hair journey (luvndanaturalme channel) as well as my health and fitness journey (Journey2Jazzness channel) but I honestly did not feel like setting things up. Any who, I got a very good work out in 25 minutes, burned 400 calories, and I am really looking forward to doing again. The workout was a little difficult because the muscles in my arms were like “hey, what are you doing? You don’t normally use us this way” so I am sure to be sore tomorrow even though I stretched before and after the work out but that is okay. Later on today I will do a 30 minute walk with one of my three dogs as I cannot handle all three of them and tomorrow I look forward to doing the Kettlebell Core Solution.

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Decisions….decisions….

Lately I have tried to decide if I will keep my gym membership with LA Fitness or cancel. The reason my final decision has been difficult is because over the course of last year I signed up for personal training sessions. In addition to my regular gym membership, I paid monthly for 4 -30 min personal training sessions a month. When I started working with my personal trainer, I really liked him. However, he really started being very pushy with me using his meal plan, and never really listened to me when I would tell him that my knees really hurt when doing squats and lunges. This was before I received my “moderate bilateral knee osteoarthritis” diagnosis (I started working with him in February 2011, diagnosis was received in December 2011).

Basically, I stopped going to that particular gym location altogether. I wanted to work with a different personal trainer but I did not want to work with that new trainer in front of him if that makes sense. Fast forward to today, I am sitting on 30 – 30 min personal training sessions that I need to use before giving the gym “the boot”. I have since decided to seek out a female personal trainer at a different LA Fitness location that is a 5 minute drive from my house. Yesterday I used my phone app to book 1 – 30 min session with this “new” trainer, and 2 -60 min sessions (totaling 4 of my paid 30 min sessions) to jump-start my plans to use them up.

Who knows, maybe the personal training sessions will refuel my motivation to start working out at the gym again. I drive past that location daily on my way home and it’s too easy to just stop and workout. However, for me its a lack of “gym confidence” that keeps me from stopping there on my way home. I always feel as if I look lost when I go into the gym because there are always a few guys just watching me. I assume they thing I do not know what I am doing if I walk up to a workout machine  I take the time to actually look at the picture and explanation of how to use the machine instead of just sitting down and using it. In addition, I would NEVER go into the free weight room.  Anywho….I am hoping that once I start using my personal trainer, I will gain confidence in using the gym and maybe I will not cancel my membership after I use all of my personal training sessions. Wish me luck!