Beachbody Challenge 2013 - Week 9

My own Beachbody Challenge has started on Feb 1, 2013.
In the following 20 weeks - until beginning of summer in Germany - I want to move up a gear and keep my eyes on low-carb clean eating in combination with 4-5 times training a week.

Here is the summary of my 9th week:

Friday, March 29
Friday is always Bootcamp time. We do a combination of cross-fit, strength-training, calisthenics, plyometrics, functional training and aerobic training...everything outdoor with no excuses of bad weather!! This is really exhausting! 

Saturday, March 30
- Rest -

Sunday, March 31
I planned to do a run outside, but unfortunately the weather was so muddy, so I decided to go into the gym. 

Monday, April 1
As some of my readers know, I quitted my attendance of Monday´s Zumba Class. But instead of Zumba I did (with my bf) some weight and strength training for the upper body at the gym.

Tuesday, April 2
- Rest-

Wednesday, April 3
Another weight and strength training for the lower body plus cardio training at the treadmill for 45 minutes.

Thursday, April 4
Yeah! Celebrating my 30th birthday. I tried to eat not too much of my birthday cake!.... with success :o)

Stay healthy and keep in progress!

Dear Fat: Be Prepared to Die!

A few weeks ago, I told you in one of my last post, I met my personal trainer Timo asking for feedback of my training and nutrition plan.

He gave me the following advices:

NUTRITION:

• my nutrition plan is almost perfect

• instead of natural yoghurt and cereals I should use the metabolism effect on morning and strengthen it until midday with a low-carb/no-carb breakfast (e.g. protein shake)
  

• after 4 pm strictly no carb

TRAINING:

• my training plan is also almost perfect (1x fun training Zumba and 3x Weight/Cardio Training)

• instead of 1x Weight/Cardio Training I should do a short and high-intensive muscle-confusion training.....

• therefore: he invited me to participate in his boot camp. (link only in german)

I think, most of my readers will have now a picture of an 'camouflage drill sergeant with wearing combat boots and face paints' in their minds....or like Major Payne... (do you remember of this funny movie of the 90s??) :o)

via google-research, source: Movie "Major Payne"

Don´t worry...! :o)
 
Today I tried out -for the very first time- his "Winter Outdoor Boot Camp"-Class..... !!!!

And that was so incredible!! But here are my first impressions:

This Boot camp is a combination of cross-fit, strength-training, calisthenics, plyometrics, functional training and aerobic training...everything outdoor with no excuses of bad weather!!

After warm-up with a sprint , we did some stretchings and short exercises for the arms, shoulders, chest, legs, butt, abs,.....and for the finish another short sprint for to boost the heart rate one more time.

I started sweating profusely within the first five minutes of class as the tough instructor Timo encouraged us with a series of training exercises that had me gasping for breath.

Some of these 60 minutes of training was a real mental fight with the bastard inside of me, because I didn´t have enough muscles for making push-ups.

But I won´t give up, because I know, that I will feel a million times stronger and more resilient.
Hey, in this workout I rocked 547 kcals!!!

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If you are also considering taking your first bootcamp class, feel prepared and confident to dominate this intense workout by following my tips:

• Finding the Right Camp. First check to see if there are any starting requirements—like being able to run a 10-minute mile or do a certain number of push-ups in a minute, and what level classes are offered. Another tip: If you’re nervous about adding a boot camp fitness program to your workout schedule, see if you can pay for one trial class.

• Doing the Prep Work You don't have to be in peak condition for a boot camp workout, but you should have at least a base. 

• Hydrate one or two hours before class. Definitely bring water or a sports drink to class, but it's difficult to bounce around when your belly is full of liquid. 

• Enter with a good, can-do attitude. The workout will be challenging, but it's so important to continue to motivate yourself and keep your mind calm when your heart is racing and your muscles are burning. I try to smile and laugh to help release tension in my face. 

• Stay present, and listen to the instructor. If you concentrate on how much it hurts and how much you want to quit, you might forget the next sequence or next relay move. Actively focus your attention on the instructor, and you will distract yourself from the pain. 

• Remember your breath and your abs. Breathe through tough exercises, and simultaneously, be sure to contract your abs to protect your back. It may seem awkward and uncomfortable at first, but you will eventually train your body to breathe deeper while your abs are engaged. 

• Push yourself to stay up front. Be the first person in the relay race line; stand in the front of the room; and run towards the front of the jog line. Being last will make you feel lethargic and more prone to giving up. 

• Don't stop moving. If delayed onset muscle soreness usually gets you down, challenge yourself to move around rather than take mini breaks. My bootcamp instructor kept yelling at us to jog in place throughout the entire hour to prevent muscle soreness by sending fresh blood to the muscles. 

• Load up on electrolytes after class. Intense workouts and sweating cause you to lose essential electrolytes. Be sure to replenish them with an electrolyte-filled snack.

 Stay healthy and keep in progress.

Everyone should have a Role Model for pushing the goals

When we were younger, most of us looked up to someone. For the majority of us that would mean our parents, but on top of that it wasn't unusual to also find ourselves looking up to heroes on television and in films. 
These were figures who seemed to embody everything that we thought was good, all of the ideal traits that we would like to be able to possess for ourselves, and the kind of life that we would one day want to live.  

When role models fulfill their... role... the way they're supposed to, they can provide us with a range of benefits. For instance they can provide a model for living and for getting to the point we want to be at in our lives. For instance if you've always wanted to be a singer, then seeing someone who is successfully living that dream not only gives you a concrete example to aspire to and to show that it can be done, but it also gives you a template for how to go about achieving that. You can see how they approached their aim, and then you can see if taking a similar approach works for you. In this case that would probably mean finding an agent, getting singing lessons etc etc. This also gives you the motivation to keep going, and hopefully when you see that person perform you will be inspired anew, and you will be motivated to do your own training. 

At the same time a role model can be a comfort and almost a surrogate parent in our own minds. For someone who has a true idol, seeking out their words of advice and their shared secrets is a great way to get guidance and advice in your own life. 

Finally, having a role model can also make life more exciting in some ways. It's great to have a 'favorite' and watching a sports game is made very different if one of your heroes is on the pitch/court and this can help you to get more involved in what's going on in the game. 

My personal fitness role model is Kelsey Byers - She did a great body transformation: from 175 lbs to 135 lbs. With consistent training and clean eating!!
And now she´s a popular fitness-model. Look at this stunning picture!!!

via trimmedandtoned.com

You´ll find her transformation here.
She also wrote an helpful weight loss guide for Fitness Beginners. You´ll find it here. 
And here are some nutrition plans for download.

Eat clean & follow your dreams!!

New Year's Resolutions

What's your #1 health & fitness goal for 2013? Lose weight, healthier diet, get in shape, drop a bad habit? 

via google

The whole point of a New Year’s resolution is to start the year with a positive outlook and the hope for a better you. When you set goals that you can’t reach, the opposite tends to happen. Set realistic goals for yourself this year by following these tips. 

Be realistic. If you wake up on 1 January with a hangover and a strong urge for a double espresso and a bacon sandwich, is this really the day to begin the 'first day of the rest of your life?' Start on the 2nd, instead, and use the 1st to finish up the stilton and the Quality Street and to clear the cupboards of any other tempting food that is not in keeping with your new regime! 

Set a goal you can keep - take baby steps. First, choose a resolution that is attainable. Forget about losing 100 pounds or saving enough cash to buy a house. When you make goals that are unreachable, you set yourself up to fail. Instead, set small goals that you know you can reach. If you succeed, you can just keep going, and you'll feel great about accomplishing your goal. For example, set a time frame that within 3 months, you will lose 10 pounds. This would be a healthy way to lose weight, about 1-2 pounds per week. It is possible that you could actually lose more weight, which would make you feel that losing weight is easy. If you were trying to be healthier either through diet or exercise, set a more realistic goal. For instance, plan to exercise for 30 minutes 2-3 days per week, and gradually increase throughout the year. Set goals for the week or month. When trying to eat healthier, make small changes, such as eating one fruit per day, and increase as this becomes a daily habit.

Don´t go it alone - Get help. If you're setting a big goal, find someone to help you along the way. Want to lose weight? Hire a personal trainer or look for an workout buddy. Want to find a new job? Visit a career counselor. A professional who is trained to help you meet your goals will have an arsenal of tools to get you where you want to be. If you can't afford a professional, look for a friend, a websites or support groups to help you meet your goals. There you can motivate each other and share ideas. Most of life's challenges become less daunting when you aren't in them alone; working with a friend to reach your goal may mean the difference between success and failure.

Be patient. Fitness and weight loss don't happen overnight. That's why it is important to have a time frame for your goal. Set mini goals to work towards along the way - these give you something more immediate to aim for, and help you build confidence and faith in yourself.

Keep track. Spend some time formulating and writing down your health and fitness goals, ensuring they are challenging but realistic. Be positive and confident about your ability to achieve them. Keep a food and/or exercise diary to monitor your progress and help motivate you to stay focused on your goals. I use an excel-file for my plans and documentations of weight and training.

Make your health a priority Perhaps the most difficult thing to do is to make all of this work in your hectic schedule. It usually helps to maintain a list of things you need to do. To help with your cooking, try to plan a menu each week so you will know exactly what you need at the grocery store - and to minimize the possibility of ordering take-out. If you must eat lunch or dinner out, remember that healthy choices, such as salads or wraps, are better options. However, moderation is also OK. Occasionally having the dinner that you enjoy will not hinder your ultimate weight loss goal. As the saying is: Take care of your body.  It's the only place you have to live.  Jim Rohn

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In sum, don't try to put too much on your plate. Take each day as it comes, and do not get frustrated if you slip up every now and then. Don't be afraid to start again! Once you establish healthy habits, the rest will be that much easier. Treat yourself for reaching each goal or staying on track for a certain amount of time. Good luck with your resolutions!


As you know, I already set my cornerstones for 2013 so I don´t need a new year´s resolution. My plans and wishes are to be staying on track for reaching my goals of loosing weight, shaping and strengthen my body (with clean eating) and get into the best form of my body I ever have.

Take care!

Merry FITmas!

My Mission for this year´s Christmas will be:
 

Get fit, not fat, this Christmas

 
The festive season is upon us, and that can only mean diet debauchery, abandoned fitness regimes and six-hour TV marathons. But it doesn't have to be this way. With a little forward planning and a smidgeon of self-discipline, it is perfectly possible to enjoy a happy Christmas and enter the New Year feeling fit, not fat.

Many people fall off the exercise bandwagon at Christmas, or rule out the idea of getting into shape during the festive period, assuming there is no point in starting until the New Year.

But given that one of the biggest barriers to exercise is lack of time, a break from the usual routine can provide the ideal opportunity to begin or maintain physical activity. Staying active over Christmas not only reduces your chances of gaining weight, it also helps energise you, reduces stress and gives you a break.

Exercising first thing may entail getting up a little earlier than normal, but it does ensure that you get your workout done before other commitments and crises get in the way - and it will kickstart your metabolism for the rest of the day.

Workouts don't need to be long to be beneficial. If you're prepared to work hard, you can fit a super workout into just a 30-minute window. It's a trade-off between duration and intensity.

If an influx of family and visitors make it difficult to do your usual workout, try to get everyone involved in something seasonal, like ice skating or a winter walk.

If you can't drag yourself - or anyone else - outdoors, look for indoor alternatives to slumping on the sofa. The ubiquitous Wii-Fit Plus or XBOX360 Kinect - maybe you´ll find one of these gifts underneath the Christmas tree - offers a realm of opportunities for hitting virtual tennis balls, punching invisible targets or having a dance battle without leaving the living room.

While it would be rather Scrooge-like to suggest that you forgot all treats and extras at Christmas, you can limit the damage by selecting your festive foods more carefully. Try choosing healthier nibbles like pretzels, roasted chestnuts, unsalted nuts, dried fruits or satsumas instead of crisps and chocolate. And think twice before you open your mouth. Do you really want it, or are you just eating it because it's there?

Don't feel obliged to eat more than you normally would, just because it's Christmas. Turning down seconds doesn't mean you didn't enjoy your meal - it's just that you have had enough.

Similarly, there is nothing wrong with politely putting your hand over your glass when it still has wine left in it, so that you can keep track of how much you've had. When the whole season is an excuse for celebration, those alcohol units can really mount up. Mulled wine on Christmas Eve, buck's fizz with breakfast, wine with dinner, Baileys, brandy … Keep tabs on how much you are drinking, and intersperse alcoholic drinks with soft ones and plenty of water.

It's worth bearing in mind that it's not the amount you exercise and eat between Christmas and New Year that is the problem - it's what you do between New Year and Christmas that makes the real difference!

I found in the internet this helpful pdf-file for Xmas & New Year ’s Calorie Countdown, which I want to share with you.

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I´ll be off to St.Anton in Austria for a sporty Christmas Season from December 23 to December 25: Skiing, Winter walk, Swimming in the hotel pool and using the gym!

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Starting Training – What women need to know about training

There is no “one size fits all” plan and while following a generic plan can help you get started, it is often a frustrating path. The best investment you can make is to get yourself a trainer. A trainer who will design and individualize a training and nutrition plan specifically for you, your goals and needs. You will start out doing things the RIGHT way, instead of just randomly going in and doing whatever you feel like when you feel like. The benefits of having a trainer also includes accountability (which is very important), having someone there to show you the correct technique for each exercise (also very important – poor form leads to injury, ineffective and inefficient training, and is detrimental overall), and teach you about what you are doing and why, so that you can understand everything, with the eventual goal of being able to know what to do for yourself. If you don´t want to invest in a trainer you should have a good knowledge in the field of nutrition, biology and kinematics.

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Training

Learn and understand the importance of resistance training, cardio should not be the focus (in all honesty, you do not even have to do cardio to get the figure you want, but as you get more experienced with training or want to improve your cardiovascular fitness, then it can be beneficial to include).

Weights

Anything from two to four days of training per week is ideal to start with, especially in the gym. Each body part should be trained once a week, giving it plenty of time to recover before the next training session for the same body part.
Resistance exercises you should be doing are multi-joint, compound exercises, as they use more than one muscle, and are the most effective for not only building muscle, but also in burning fat. Compound exercises require more body parts  to perform than isolation exercises. The best compound exercises that you can do are the squat and the deadlift, as they use pretty much every muscle in your body. Other compound exercises that are good to include are the power clean, bench press, shoulder press, pull-ups, dips, and calf raises (the only isolation exercise that’s really good).
Complete at least two exercises for each muscle group, with four sets of 6-10 (even up to 12) reps per exercise, with 1-2 minutes recovery in between. Always lift as heavy as you can for the number of reps you are set; the weight should challenge you... if it is too easy, you are not doing yourself any favours.
Be sure that you always use good form for EVERY exercise; otherwise you are putting yourself at risk for injury. All reps should be controlled and with good form. It is not about how much you can lift, but how well you lift. You WILL get stronger as you keep at it.
An ideal training time is 40 - 45 minutes; otherwise you become too catabolic and can end up losing muscle, which is not desirable.
So that your body does not get used to your training and stop adapting, every 4 - 12 weeks make small adjustments to your weight sessions. Adjustments do not have to be drastic and simply increasing the weight for the same session from one week to the next is a change that can make a difference. Other adjustments can include changing the order of exercises in a session or the number of sets and/or reps that you do for an exercise (and it only needs to be one exercise changed at a time, small adjustments over the weeks, not a complete overhaul of everything!).

Cardio

If you ARE going to do cardio, make it as efficient and effective as possible. If you do High Intensity Cardio or High Intensity Interval training, you can get the same, if not BETTER results with a brief 12 - 20 minute cardio session instead of spending two or more hours a day doing it! If you feel that you need to do more cardio, then you can add a couple of additional 20 - 30 minute moderate intensity sessions to your training week. Skipping, stair sprinting/running, or rowing, are the next highest calorie burners after sprinting.

Flexibility

Don’t forget about adding in some flexibility exercises, ideally 20 - 30 minutes a day on the days you train, preferably after you have done either cardio or weights, while your muscles are still warm, as this decreases the risk of injury. Stretching makes sure that you can move more freely and easily and helps elongate the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, for overall joint health and fitness.

Consistency

Understand that CONSISTENCY is essential; nothing is achieved without it. If you miss days, don’t stress over it; there is no need to “make up” for them either by doing more on another day - just forget about them and get back on track the next day. Remember the 70/30 Rule: As long as you do everything right 70% of the time, the other 30% allows for when things don’t go as planned because life gets in the way or some other reason.

Efficacy

Never forget that when it comes to exercise more is not always best! You want maximal results for minimal time. You also need to remember that some of this is experimental, and about finding what works best for YOU, since everyone is different and responds differently to different exercise programmes.

Let´s start!

Confession

I have a confession to make: I have been the biggest slacker in terms of fitness in the last few weeks, months, years ...

When I was a child I did a lot of sports: classical ballett, swimming, and gymnastics. In my spare time I played always outside with my friends.

But now? I´m getting chubby and chubbier and that really sucks! 
Quite frankly the reason for that being that my gym has definitely not seen enough of me lately and late-night (and wrong) snacks while studying or watching TV has been filled my stomach a few too many times. 

To make a picture of me: I´m female, 29 years old, engaged and work as a full-time assistant in the south region of germany (between Stuttgart and Munich). Besides my office job I do a study in general management as a distance learning class. And finally, my Body Mass Index is 28 (yes, twentyeight!)

Well, it’s all about to change!!

I am determined to get back to my old healthy self in the next few weeks and months. On April 2013 (in 4 months) I´m getting 30 and that will be my first cornerstone to recheck my fitness path.  

The other cornerstones 2013 will be:

• On May, 5 there will be in my home town a 10K city run (5x2km)
• On July, 28 there will be the premiere for a participation in a triathlon
  (short distance/olympic distance)*
• On September, 22, there will be also a 10K city run.

*Short Distance will be 500m Swim, 20K Bike, 5K Run
  Olympic Disciplin: 1,5K Swim, 40K Bike, 10K Run

Maybe some of you feel the same way and that’s why I thought I would share some of the things on my to-do list.

• I´m overweight. To get in a normal space of weight I have to loose at least 15 - 20 kg.
• Workout at least 3-5 times a week
• I have to train to run 30min, 5K, 10K without a break
• Reducing the sweets in general and especially in the late evening
• Asking myself: Am I really hungry or just bored?
• Drinking a lots of water and unsweeted tea: at least 2 liters.

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If you guys like my posts like this, I’d be happy to share some of my workout routines, favorite music for motivation or more healthy meals. I am by no means an expert in the department, but I always love hearing what works for others. Just let me know in the comments. Also, I’d love to hear what you guys do to stay active and healthy!!