Monday, August 13, 2012

Tabata and Salads

For 4 days Mike worked a 12 hour shift, that left me with Kellen in the hotel all day long. I couldn't make it down to the "dream gym" on the second floor so I knew I'd have to exercise within our hotel room. I decided the best way to go about my fitness plan for these 4 days was to do bodyweight exercises using the Tabata method. If you're not familiar with Tabata, it's a very intense but short in time duration type of training. It incorporates a brief 20 second period of intense exercise followed by an even more brief 10 second period of rest done for 8 total repetitions. The entire set lasts only 4 minutes but by the time you're done that four minutes should have gotten your heart rate more than just elevated and the target muscle properly fatigued. I downloaded a free interval timer onto my iPad and set the work sets to 20 seconds, rest time to 10 seconds, with a total of 8 rounds. My first exercise? Burpees! I don't like them but I know they're a great full body exercise. After my first Tabata I rested 2 minutes then did two additional Tabatas, first was push ups, second was jump squats. I then performed some planks and crunches followed by stretching. My entire workout required no equipment and lasted only 20 minutes from my warm up all the way through my cool down. I did this high intensity interval training 3 of the 4 days in my hotel room. The other day Kellen and I went down to the pool and frolicked! As for my diet I've made myself a rule, eat like a lizard! Lol, yep, I've been eating salads like its no ones business but mine! It's been working for me in a sense that I can control my calories, I know I'm getting all my servings of veggies, I'm well hydrated and... I keep regular. And by regular I mean no constipation here! My family, friends and clients always complain about getting "backed up" while on vacation. Most of the time this is contributed to a high fat, low vegetable and low hydration issue. So if you eat a salad for lunch and dinner this resolves that issue. I know some of you are thinking, "I really don't want to eat salads on my vacation!" but let me tell you I've had some of the most delicious salads ever these last two weeks! My favorite place by far is Sweet Tomatoes because I make my own salad. My favorite toppings are beets, carrots, corn, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives. So yum diddly um. Kellen likes Sweet Tomatoes too, he prefers the plain rotini pasta, olives and cucumbers. Then he always chooses the grapes over the chocolate brownies. Is that weird my kid chooses fruit over the processed food?! I'm a proud momma! 




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