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! 

Baja Fresh and Migraines

I think I'm officially addicted to Baja Fresh. Today, the third time I've ate there in the last four days, I walked in and both the manager and cashier said welcome back. Kellen and I are becoming regulars. I ate the Skinny Chicken Bowl but substituted the rice for lettuce. Kellen ate half a veggie burrito. In the gym today I did a 30 minute circuit style workout including uphill sprints in the sets to keep my heart rate up. The workout included dumbbell push ups, shoulder presses, lateral raises, tricep overhead extensions and 1 minute 15% incline sprints. That is one whole set. I completed this circuit 5 times and then did light stretching. Around 2ish I felt a migraine coming on so I took a nap in hopes I could deter it but I awoke an hour later and it was there, nausea,  eye pain, sensitivity to light. It's no walk in the park taking care of a toddler with a migraine. The gift shop in the lobby didn't carry any Exedrine so I went back to the room and tried a more homeopathic way of relief with peppermint oil. Hopefully it will go away by tomorrow.

Summer 2012 Playlist

I entitle this set of songs Pumpin Playlist.

Take You Higher, Goodwill & Hook N Sling
Ghosts N Stuff, Deadmau5
Cry For You, September
Til Death (R3hab Remix), Wynter Gordon
We Run the Night, Havana Brown
I'm in Love, Alex Gaudino
Call Me Maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, Skrillex
Levels, Avicii
Sexy and I Know It, LMFAO

This playlist has all my favorite songs for this summer and all the beats per minute of these songs are high so they keep my energy up and motivation high. If you're not familiar with the recent studies proving that music can help push you harder than ever in your workouts, I suggest you read Dr. Jim Stoppani's article here http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_7_26/ai_n28010838/

Praise the Lord, I have a husband who understands!

I couldn't get the babysitter today and I was grumpy because I thought was going to miss out on leg day this week. Regardless if I would make it to the gym, I was going to workout. But there is something so nice about having my one hour free all to myself in the gym kicking my own butt. I could be a sadist, I really love hitting the weights hard and stumbling out of the gym on leg day. Anyways, my husband saw I didn't have a sitter so when he came home he offered to take baby Kellen on his errands while I get my much needed gym time. Wahoo. So today I really brought the pain. Workout was as follows; 4 sets 15 reps cable squats. 3 sets 10 reps each leg standing single leg press on the pull up assisted machine. No resting at all between sets, if you're not familiar with this exercise, it's totally dope! 3 sets 10 reps leg press. 3 sets 12 reps leg extension. 3 sets 12 reps lying leg curl. 3 sets 30 reps walking lunges superset with lateral shoulder raise. I put all this in the training calculator and it said I only burned 124 calories.... Ya right! I need a new calorie counter. Anyways, I followed all that with a lower body stretch and stumbled out of the gym, just like I hoped. As for diet, I was really good, except for the four small bites of white cake I ate after dinner. I shared it with Mike so I didn't feel too naughty. Nutrition calculator estimates 1984 calories consumed, which is really close to my goal for the day. I'm still breastfeeding and it was a leg day so I try to go on the higher end. If I'm hungry again later, I'll eat again. I listen to my hunger levels more now that'll a bf mom. Does anyone out there bf and train? How are your hunger levels?