Fitness and Exercise Blog Post
Jul. 3rd, 2009 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ht_murraySo, I have no real idea what to post in here that's going to kick things off without a huge long backstory about my fitness and weight issues. Not gonna do that. Let's just say that this is my gene pool:
The woman in white (No her name isn't Constance) on the left is my mother. The other women in the picture are my grandmother(seated) and my aunts. My grandmother passed away three years ago or maybe four. She was 62, and as of now, the longest lived of her brothers and sisters. She had a sister who died in her thirties, heart attack. Her brother, died around 50 of a heart attack while deer hunting. Also near Thanksgiving. Ironic. He was slender, as was her sister. My grandpa on that side, died of a heart attack at 48. Also, around Thanksgivig. I'm sensing a trend here.
My aunts... well, let's just say this is a photo of them at a time in their lives when they were still willing to be photographed. Since my youngest aunt is only seven years my senior, I spent a lot of time with them when I was little, and by the time I was ten, you better believe I knew what calories were and that fat was bad (their take on it, mind you.) My youngest aunt even admits that she had an eating disorder in college to the point of amenorrhea (stopped having her period). So, yes, tangled, tangled web of confusion on the whole fitness and weight loss discussion.
This isn't about them. This is about me. I want to be fit, not because I find overweight people unhealthy or unattractive. I love my family and know how much they struggle with it. I want to be fit, because I find that when I'm fit, I'm more focused, I'm less inclined to depressive fits of sitting in front of my computer with a tub of ice cream, I don't go off on my friends and coworkers. I like to be able to buy clothes and look good in them. I also find female athletes incredibly sexy, and for all that I've never been an athlete, I love people telling me how athletic I look. So, yeah, it makes me feel good. I don't want it to be at anyone else's expense. I want it to be because I earned the compliment through hard work and determination. That's that.
What will you see here?
-Workout discussions and goals
-General thoughts on the process
-Result tracking in the form of inches gained and lost
What you won't see here:
-before pictures
-weight in pounds
I have to say, I won't post beginning pictures or weight. Here's why. First, I don't own a scale. I don't measure progress in pounds. Muscle weighs more than fat, so I'd actually like to gain a few pounds of that. So often I hear people say, "I want to get in shape, but I don't want all those muscles." Muscle mass is the key to weight loss and maintaining it. You can do all the cardio you want, but you mostly only burn calories and fat while you're working out. When you incorporate strength training and muscle building exercises, you raise your metabolism, and you keep burning fat all the time. There's a term in the fitness industry called "skinny fat." These are people who are really thin but have almost no muscle mass and therefore have a large compositional skew toward fat. Fat comes in all sizes and shapes, I'm afraid. What makes a person fat is not their size, it's how much of their body percentage is made up of baggage instead of active, calorie burning tissue. Some fat is necessary. It pads your organs and aids in water balance, so there's a danger in losing too much as well as having too much.
So, yeah, you won't ever hear me talking about actual pounds lost or gained. I can estimate by doing the pinch and guesstimate test, that I have about six extra pounds of fat on my hips, around six on my stomach, and a couple more each on my legs and arms that I'd like to change to muscle. In doing such, I anticipate seeing a period of shrinking, and a plateau where I'm losing fat but gaining muscle at a similar pace. This is when I'll put more focus on places where I'd like to add more bulk to speed up the fat burn.
Common misconception is that you will bulk up and look like a guy by doing strength training. Unless you're taking anabolic steroids, this is simply not true. You can get cut and ripped as a woman, but you won't bulk up. And even if you've seen female body builders and fitness competitions and thought that look wasn't for you, you should know that even they do not look like that when they're not competing. On competition days, bodybuilders often dehydrate themselves, add definition by tanning and spray tanning contrast lines, oil up, and then pump up by lifting huge weight right before going on stage. They don't look like that walking around on the street.
That being said, I'm not going for a bodybuilder physique, so don't let that scare you off. I just want definition so I can show off my abs again. I love a good belly shirt. Sue me.
I'll also not post 'before' pics in here, because half of you will see them and say I'm crazy for wanting to lose weight, and half of you will see me as unfit and not someone you give any credibility to. To each his own, I guess.
Believe me that I will post after pics. I'm an attention whore like that. :P
Strengths:
-athletic build (I have muscles and am proud to show them off.)
-good definition in upper body.
-moderately flexible
Weaknesses:
-My six pack is wearing a layer of marshmallow creme :(
-My endurance sorta sucks
-weak in the chest and shoulders (presses and pushups are not my thing)
Things I can't change through working out
-small boobies
-short legs
I'm doomed to never wearing capri pants and never being able to reach the stirrups in a western saddle, no matter how cut my legs get, and I will either need plastic surgery or some really good bra stuffers if I want to get cleavage. Sorry, no miracles to be found here. :P
So, what am I doing about it?
Right now I'm just getting back into the swing of things after some time off. That being said, a few years ago I was a member of a gym and worked out religiously, so I have some muscle memory working in my favor. I did a workout the other day that I had on a shelf from years ago when I was first starting to get in shape, and I used to hate it, because it was soooo hard, and the other day, it was almost too easy. So, I'm not as unfit as I thought, but I'm still flabby.
My current regime involves three workouts. They're all on DVD, because I can't afford a gym, I have limited space, and it's been 106 degrees in the shade for weeks now, so there's no way in hell I'm going outside.
Day 1, I do Jari Love's Get Ripped!and Chiseled.
This is a challenging workout for me. It focuses on high repetition and light weight strength training. I started off just doing the first half one day and the second half later in the week, because by the time I got to the pushup series, I was dead. Now, I do the whole thing, twice a week. The first time, I change the warm up to the Vinyasa series from Rodney Yee's Yoga for Strength. That's on tape. I don't have a link. The second time I do as much weight as I can possibly manage.
Day 2, I do Hip Hop Abs Level 2, Fat Burning Cardio AND Ab Sculpt 2
This is an intense cardio day with focus on abs, since there is no ab track in the Jari Love workouts. I used only to be able to do one half of the cardio and dedicated a whole other day to the Ab Sculpt, but I'm pushing the envelope now, and really putting my nose to the wheel, or something cliche like that. I'm really impressed with myself for being able to do both in a day now. I also modify the Ab Sculpt 2 workout in that I use ankle weights. I do that to build up my hip flexors to get that cut hip bone that really defines a good set of abs. As a consequence, I absolutely do stick to the low impact modifications. There's no reason to jump around and over-extend your leg movements when using ankle weights. You're just asking to get hurt. I also use the weighted gloves instead of the dumbbells for this workout. Except during the Row the Boat exercise and the weighted abs section in which I use one ten pound dumbbell and do not lift it over my head.
And the real reason I love Hip Hop Abs Ab Sculpt 2? Alex Estornel. Let me show you him.
Remind you of anyone we know? I swear, I think of Jared Padalecki from Supernatural every time I watch the vid. A little shorter, but still... yum. Which reminds me, Jared's really missing the boat if he doesn't do a workout DVD.
Sorry for the crappy caps. He's way hotter than Shaun T, so they keep him in the back of the room. LOL.
Okay, enough drooling, and back to the ripped chick vids.
Day 3, I do Jari Love's Get Ripped! 1000.
This is a realllllly tough workout. She claims you can burn 1000 calories in this workout. I don't know how to figure how many I'm actually burning since I don't own a scale to determine my weight. Anyway, it uses light weights again, but compound exercises, like squats combined with overhead presses, so you work two muscle groups or more at the same time. I could not do more than two segments of this workout three weeks ago. I just added on another segment every time I did it, and now I can do the whole thing. I will admit, I still can't do all 70 pushups. I do sixty because I rest on the set of ten in the middle. But the whole point is to keep your heart rate up while working on strength, and this workout definitely does that.
Then I take a day off and start over again with Day 1. I have to note here that I get up at 4 A.M. and do these workout before I go to work. I have to. It's too hot in my trailer in the afternoon, and by the time I finish a twelve hour shift I'm dead, so I can only get a decent workout early in the morning. Plus, there's this weird zen feeling for the rest of the day when you know that the hardest thing you had to do today you've already done.
I plan to do this through the next two weeks. Then, I'm going to ease into Jillian Michaels 30 Day
Shred. I found a really helpful review on Amazon.com and I have the DVD. I just hope I have enough equipment. LOL.
My ultimate plan is to jump from that into P90X. I know P90X is supposed to be used by itself and most people use it to get into shape from the beginning. But I don't have any way to do pull-ups, not enough dumbbells, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to do this workout in my barn. No way I can do that during the summer. So, that's my fall goal, I guess.
I also would like to try the Couch to 5k challenge. I downloaded all the information for that. I just want to be able to say I can run 5k. I don't like to run. In fact, I hate running. Some people clear their heads by going for a run. I can't think of anything else while I'm running except, "When can I stop running?" So, I don't ever anticipate doing marathons or half marathons, but I'd like to be able to just hit the pavement if I don't have time to do a workout or Dan's watching t.v. and won't let me get to the DVD Player. LOL.
Okay, and maybe Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki inspired me, too, by talking about going for runs. I still do not anticipate liking it.
My personal goals:
-I want to be able to wear everything in my closet.
-I want to be able to do a handstand. (I've managed tenuous handstands, but never had a handstand as good as my headstand).
-I'd like to be able to do a one arm pushup. Just one or five. LOL.
-I want to be able to run up to five miles.
So, there you have it.
Call me a freak. I probably am. And I'm sorry for not posting very often, but as you can see, this takes up a lot of my time, and I still have writing, work, and horses to deal with. Not much time for anything else.
Feel free to comment with questions, encouragement, your own goals and restrictions. Whatever you want to get from reading this blog. I'd love to hear it.
Much love,
Tracy
The woman in white (No her name isn't Constance) on the left is my mother. The other women in the picture are my grandmother(seated) and my aunts. My grandmother passed away three years ago or maybe four. She was 62, and as of now, the longest lived of her brothers and sisters. She had a sister who died in her thirties, heart attack. Her brother, died around 50 of a heart attack while deer hunting. Also near Thanksgiving. Ironic. He was slender, as was her sister. My grandpa on that side, died of a heart attack at 48. Also, around Thanksgivig. I'm sensing a trend here.
My aunts... well, let's just say this is a photo of them at a time in their lives when they were still willing to be photographed. Since my youngest aunt is only seven years my senior, I spent a lot of time with them when I was little, and by the time I was ten, you better believe I knew what calories were and that fat was bad (their take on it, mind you.) My youngest aunt even admits that she had an eating disorder in college to the point of amenorrhea (stopped having her period). So, yes, tangled, tangled web of confusion on the whole fitness and weight loss discussion.
This isn't about them. This is about me. I want to be fit, not because I find overweight people unhealthy or unattractive. I love my family and know how much they struggle with it. I want to be fit, because I find that when I'm fit, I'm more focused, I'm less inclined to depressive fits of sitting in front of my computer with a tub of ice cream, I don't go off on my friends and coworkers. I like to be able to buy clothes and look good in them. I also find female athletes incredibly sexy, and for all that I've never been an athlete, I love people telling me how athletic I look. So, yeah, it makes me feel good. I don't want it to be at anyone else's expense. I want it to be because I earned the compliment through hard work and determination. That's that.
What will you see here?
-Workout discussions and goals
-General thoughts on the process
-Result tracking in the form of inches gained and lost
What you won't see here:
-before pictures
-weight in pounds
I have to say, I won't post beginning pictures or weight. Here's why. First, I don't own a scale. I don't measure progress in pounds. Muscle weighs more than fat, so I'd actually like to gain a few pounds of that. So often I hear people say, "I want to get in shape, but I don't want all those muscles." Muscle mass is the key to weight loss and maintaining it. You can do all the cardio you want, but you mostly only burn calories and fat while you're working out. When you incorporate strength training and muscle building exercises, you raise your metabolism, and you keep burning fat all the time. There's a term in the fitness industry called "skinny fat." These are people who are really thin but have almost no muscle mass and therefore have a large compositional skew toward fat. Fat comes in all sizes and shapes, I'm afraid. What makes a person fat is not their size, it's how much of their body percentage is made up of baggage instead of active, calorie burning tissue. Some fat is necessary. It pads your organs and aids in water balance, so there's a danger in losing too much as well as having too much.
So, yeah, you won't ever hear me talking about actual pounds lost or gained. I can estimate by doing the pinch and guesstimate test, that I have about six extra pounds of fat on my hips, around six on my stomach, and a couple more each on my legs and arms that I'd like to change to muscle. In doing such, I anticipate seeing a period of shrinking, and a plateau where I'm losing fat but gaining muscle at a similar pace. This is when I'll put more focus on places where I'd like to add more bulk to speed up the fat burn.
Common misconception is that you will bulk up and look like a guy by doing strength training. Unless you're taking anabolic steroids, this is simply not true. You can get cut and ripped as a woman, but you won't bulk up. And even if you've seen female body builders and fitness competitions and thought that look wasn't for you, you should know that even they do not look like that when they're not competing. On competition days, bodybuilders often dehydrate themselves, add definition by tanning and spray tanning contrast lines, oil up, and then pump up by lifting huge weight right before going on stage. They don't look like that walking around on the street.
That being said, I'm not going for a bodybuilder physique, so don't let that scare you off. I just want definition so I can show off my abs again. I love a good belly shirt. Sue me.
I'll also not post 'before' pics in here, because half of you will see them and say I'm crazy for wanting to lose weight, and half of you will see me as unfit and not someone you give any credibility to. To each his own, I guess.
Believe me that I will post after pics. I'm an attention whore like that. :P
Strengths:
-athletic build (I have muscles and am proud to show them off.)
-good definition in upper body.
-moderately flexible
Weaknesses:
-My six pack is wearing a layer of marshmallow creme :(
-My endurance sorta sucks
-weak in the chest and shoulders (presses and pushups are not my thing)
Things I can't change through working out
-small boobies
-short legs
I'm doomed to never wearing capri pants and never being able to reach the stirrups in a western saddle, no matter how cut my legs get, and I will either need plastic surgery or some really good bra stuffers if I want to get cleavage. Sorry, no miracles to be found here. :P
So, what am I doing about it?
Right now I'm just getting back into the swing of things after some time off. That being said, a few years ago I was a member of a gym and worked out religiously, so I have some muscle memory working in my favor. I did a workout the other day that I had on a shelf from years ago when I was first starting to get in shape, and I used to hate it, because it was soooo hard, and the other day, it was almost too easy. So, I'm not as unfit as I thought, but I'm still flabby.
My current regime involves three workouts. They're all on DVD, because I can't afford a gym, I have limited space, and it's been 106 degrees in the shade for weeks now, so there's no way in hell I'm going outside.
Day 1, I do Jari Love's Get Ripped!and Chiseled.
This is a challenging workout for me. It focuses on high repetition and light weight strength training. I started off just doing the first half one day and the second half later in the week, because by the time I got to the pushup series, I was dead. Now, I do the whole thing, twice a week. The first time, I change the warm up to the Vinyasa series from Rodney Yee's Yoga for Strength. That's on tape. I don't have a link. The second time I do as much weight as I can possibly manage.
Day 2, I do Hip Hop Abs Level 2, Fat Burning Cardio AND Ab Sculpt 2
This is an intense cardio day with focus on abs, since there is no ab track in the Jari Love workouts. I used only to be able to do one half of the cardio and dedicated a whole other day to the Ab Sculpt, but I'm pushing the envelope now, and really putting my nose to the wheel, or something cliche like that. I'm really impressed with myself for being able to do both in a day now. I also modify the Ab Sculpt 2 workout in that I use ankle weights. I do that to build up my hip flexors to get that cut hip bone that really defines a good set of abs. As a consequence, I absolutely do stick to the low impact modifications. There's no reason to jump around and over-extend your leg movements when using ankle weights. You're just asking to get hurt. I also use the weighted gloves instead of the dumbbells for this workout. Except during the Row the Boat exercise and the weighted abs section in which I use one ten pound dumbbell and do not lift it over my head.
And the real reason I love Hip Hop Abs Ab Sculpt 2? Alex Estornel. Let me show you him.
Remind you of anyone we know? I swear, I think of Jared Padalecki from Supernatural every time I watch the vid. A little shorter, but still... yum. Which reminds me, Jared's really missing the boat if he doesn't do a workout DVD.
Sorry for the crappy caps. He's way hotter than Shaun T, so they keep him in the back of the room. LOL.
Okay, enough drooling, and back to the ripped chick vids.
Day 3, I do Jari Love's Get Ripped! 1000.
This is a realllllly tough workout. She claims you can burn 1000 calories in this workout. I don't know how to figure how many I'm actually burning since I don't own a scale to determine my weight. Anyway, it uses light weights again, but compound exercises, like squats combined with overhead presses, so you work two muscle groups or more at the same time. I could not do more than two segments of this workout three weeks ago. I just added on another segment every time I did it, and now I can do the whole thing. I will admit, I still can't do all 70 pushups. I do sixty because I rest on the set of ten in the middle. But the whole point is to keep your heart rate up while working on strength, and this workout definitely does that.
Then I take a day off and start over again with Day 1. I have to note here that I get up at 4 A.M. and do these workout before I go to work. I have to. It's too hot in my trailer in the afternoon, and by the time I finish a twelve hour shift I'm dead, so I can only get a decent workout early in the morning. Plus, there's this weird zen feeling for the rest of the day when you know that the hardest thing you had to do today you've already done.
I plan to do this through the next two weeks. Then, I'm going to ease into Jillian Michaels 30 Day
Shred. I found a really helpful review on Amazon.com and I have the DVD. I just hope I have enough equipment. LOL.
My ultimate plan is to jump from that into P90X. I know P90X is supposed to be used by itself and most people use it to get into shape from the beginning. But I don't have any way to do pull-ups, not enough dumbbells, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to do this workout in my barn. No way I can do that during the summer. So, that's my fall goal, I guess.
I also would like to try the Couch to 5k challenge. I downloaded all the information for that. I just want to be able to say I can run 5k. I don't like to run. In fact, I hate running. Some people clear their heads by going for a run. I can't think of anything else while I'm running except, "When can I stop running?" So, I don't ever anticipate doing marathons or half marathons, but I'd like to be able to just hit the pavement if I don't have time to do a workout or Dan's watching t.v. and won't let me get to the DVD Player. LOL.
Okay, and maybe Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki inspired me, too, by talking about going for runs. I still do not anticipate liking it.
My personal goals:
-I want to be able to wear everything in my closet.
-I want to be able to do a handstand. (I've managed tenuous handstands, but never had a handstand as good as my headstand).
-I'd like to be able to do a one arm pushup. Just one or five. LOL.
-I want to be able to run up to five miles.
So, there you have it.
Call me a freak. I probably am. And I'm sorry for not posting very often, but as you can see, this takes up a lot of my time, and I still have writing, work, and horses to deal with. Not much time for anything else.
Feel free to comment with questions, encouragement, your own goals and restrictions. Whatever you want to get from reading this blog. I'd love to hear it.
Much love,
Tracy
