Inspired by Others

When I take time to stop and think about it I realize how crazy it is that as the self-proclaimed "least athletic person" I am now running 5x/week. Honestly, it's pretty insane how I started out just exercising more to accompany eating right and now I'm pretty much addicting to running. It's kind of funny actually.

 What's awesome though is the number of friends of mine that have started becoming more active and even starting the Couch to 5K program because of little old me! Four of my friends have told me in past weeks that they have started as a result of my efforts and that just blows me away. Two of them will be running this intense race with me over the summer. :) And of course my family got gym memberships while I was home and I went to the gym with my parents a few times a week! The hard work of others is definitely motivating me to keep moving as well.

Yes, my cereal bowl does include a drinking straw

Anyways, I've become a big supporter of breakfast. I've always known breakfast was important but I'd just kind of eat it because it's bad to have coffee on an empty stomach (duh). But it's SO important to have breakfast or else your body goes into this crazy fat-storing starvation mode and nobody wants that.

My breakfast is becoming predictable though. 80% of the time I'll have oatmeal mixed with fruit and a very little bit of peanut butter. YUM. And the other 20% of the time I have Greek yogurt (It would be more if it wasn't so darn expensive!) or a fried egg on toast. Or both. All that is just to say that breakfast can be splendid and it really starts your day (and your metabolism!) off on the right foot.

The condition this treadmill was in made me miss the YMCA

Today I continued my interval running and I'm actually starting to notice a difference. When I started running for distance, I cut off all interval runs. That was okay, but it seemed to take a while to improve my distance without feeling like death. I've noticed a difference since adding intervals though and that was just last week! Yesterday's distance run went so much better than even shorter ones that I have done before. Also, I had to push the incline during today's run to get to the right level of nasty gross nobody-dare-look-at-me mess that I just love. All this to say, intervals really do help. Now only for it to get warm enough to do the non-interval runs outside! UGH.

On a completely random note: today I discovered Cold Turkey and I'm thinking it'll help cut my procrastinating back this semester...maybe? Time to go put it to use!

Progress Update and Interval Workouts

       So I did my weigh in on Saturday and I was down another 3 pounds, which puts me on the other side of the halfway point of my weight loss goal! I know this last half is going to be harder than the first half, but I’m gonna stay positive and power through it.

        Today I want to share some good workouts and what I have benefited from up to this point. Starting out, I wasn’t really sure what to do. As a result, I kinda fumbled through my first few workouts until I really learned what was best in pursuing my goal. Hopefully my experience will save you some of that effort.

        I started off trying the Couch to 5K program. Several of my friends have used it and it’s worked well for them, plus I really want to become a longer distance runner. At the moment, my goal is to be in my first 5K during the spring semester. Here’s hoping!

     At the end of week 2 of the program, I was in bad shape. I’ve had really bad asthma since I could remember and I did have a few small attacks at the end of some of my workouts. So, I had to slow it down and repeat week one several times. I began increasing the speed and the incline on the treadmill as I was working out and eventually increased the length of the runs and length of the overall workout too. What I didn’t realize was that I was training myself using interval workouts. And once I read up on them, I became a strong believer. Here’s why:

       

         1. No asthma attacks! The break in between jogs gives my lungs a chance to catch up, so short bursts of intensity seem to be better for them than longer runs. Granted, over time it is getting better as I increase the length of my interval, but it has been better for my lungs to slowly become stronger in this way.

         

        2. They are so beneficial! I have read several studies that say that interval workouts burn 2-3 times more calories after the workout because of an “afterburn” effect that your body experiences. And I totally believe it because I am usually dripping with sweat by the end of interval 2 and I can normally feel some of the effects for a couple hours afterwards. It's intense.

Here’s a link to an interval workout, although I really just modify week 1 of the Couch to 5K program to an intensity that works for me. So modify and find out what works best for you! Especially if you're a beginner runner, start out slow and add intensity as you get better. I do this about 3 or 4 times a week and another couple of days are spent doing another modified interval workout on either a bicycle or elliptical. I like to keep workouts interesting so I do change it up quite a lot.

Also, I was pretty bad about toning as I lost weight. So, I buckled down these past couple weeks and began toning my stomach muscles so that I won’t look silly. I found this workout over the summer and I did it sporadically. Now I’m doing it about 3x/week and I’m noticing a difference! It isn't too difficult, really works my abs, and it doesn’t only target one area.

Hopefully these exercises will be helpful to you! Like I’ve said before- I really don’t spend much time at the gym because I can’t afford that much time out of my day. I only spend 25-40 minutes on cardio and the ab workout really only takes 15-20 minutes at the very most. All of this gives really good results as cardio is what is always suggested for weightloss, followed by some exercises to tone as well. As I start toning my legs, etc… I'll post workouts that I find beneficial.

That’s just some stuff I’ve learned and has helped so far, I’m sure my knowledge will increase on this stuff as I become more experienced, but this is a wonderful place for anyone to start in an effort for a healthier lifestyle.