WW calculator APP

Last Night after my 5.75 miles I felt like I ran a marathon. I was a little surprised at the feeling. I can’t explain it either. I went to bed early and got started at 5:30 this morning. I trained with Michelle for 30 minutes. We worked with the Bosu and exercise ball. We also started working with the medicine ball. She stood about 3 feet away from me threw me the ball, I caught it squatted and touched my ankle and then threw it back to her. That made the squats interesting.  She also had me go on that double crunch machine as I call it. She put 30 pounds on it, I did 2 sets of crunches, then did side crunches by shifting my legs. I notice I have no problem feeling my obliques when I work out, but my abs not as much. Maybe it is due to the extra layer of fat that the frontal abs have compared to the side abs. I could be wrong.

Anyways I finished my workout with 26 minutes on the elliptical. What’s funny is the thing that was motivating me was earning the activity points. I felt like I was yelling out mama needs a WW ice cream, let’s earn it in 15 minutes. Too funny. I tried doing the points before but it was just a hassle remembering my points for the day. I even went out of my way to create this excel spreadsheet, with the formulas for activities and logging in my food points. But I’d have to remember to log all the food in. Now, they upgraded the WW calculator app to include the activity points calculator as well as a daily tracker. So I can look at my phone at 12pm and know how many points i have left etc. The new app has the new PLUS points calculations which take protein into account int he formula. So much easier now! It is definitely worth the 99cents!

Sneaky treadmill & Aspartame

I wasn’t feel well thru the night so I decided to not do my AM workout. It’s amazing how it affected my day, feeling tired and rundown for most of it. I got home after work knowing that I  need to go to the gym, especially since I clocked my food on my WW app only to find out when I eat dinner I will be 7 points over my allotment. :O So that kicked my butt into gear to get to the gym.

I do not miss the evening gym hours, with the parking lot full and the machines crowded as well. I finally found a treadmill and no one was going to get me off of it. I ran 35 minutes and then quit and restarted as I looked around me to make sure no one could call me out on it. I ran/walked incline for 19 minutes, restarted again. Then I ran 19 more minutes. What I found interesting was that because I restarted a few times, my brain saw 5 minutes, 10 minutes not 40 minutes or 50 minutes so I think that gave me more energy and didn’t make me feel bored. So I logged 73 minutes 5.75 miles. The best part when I logged my minutes in my WW activity app it said i burned 12 points! OOO I have some room for dessert now! 🙂

Since Friday, I have had no diet soda because I am trying to give up soda but most importantly the Aspartame that is in the soda. A few years back a coworker and I gave up the diet soda because we had read for the first time all the bad things Aspartame can do to your body, from headaches to breathing problems.  After the gym I went to the supermarket to stock up on fruit and some low cal snack. To my surprise Aspartame is in the sugar-free Jello, so I got regular. Aspartame was also in Dannon yogurt, so I got the WW yogurt. I didn’t realize how much stuff that I eat on a regular basis has this junk in it. Food for thought.

Feel Good Workout

I had a good workout with Michelle today. I feel like we did everything. Here’s the rundown, of course the order isn’t exact as this is from memory. Sorry for the boring post of a list but I know some of you have told me you like seeing what I am doing. All I can say is that I really felt good after the workout.

1. Warm Up:
   1. Step on stepper, then twirl backwards and repeat. Don’t know the official name for this.
   2. Mountain climbers on the Bosu ball.
2. Bicep curls while standing on an upsidedown Bosu ball. It took me a good minute to get my balance, I was surprised how fast I was able to stabilize.
3. Walking lunges while holding a 20lb barbell on that ball of my neck/back.  I thought these would hurt my neck, but the positioning was perfect. J
4. Free Motion Machine: two arm push.
5. Free Motion Machine: Split Stance Two Arm Push-Pull
6. Standing on Bosu ball holding a plate, I bent to my left ankle and then up high to my right side. This one was hard to balance and my sneakers were digging into the top of my ankle since they were angled on the Bosu to balance.
7. Standing crunch with plate on the Bosu.
8. Standing with the plate and just twisting side to side without moving hips.
9. Crunches criss-cross

10.  Jump Rope for 2 minutes.

11.  I call these swimmers. While lying down legs extended just before my back arches and just move the legs as if you were swimming.

12.  Laying face down, stomach on an exercise ball, feet against the wall for support, I did back extensions or supermans. I have done this on the ground before and have felt back ache, but the ball and my feet against the wall provided so much support. I kind of liked this one.

13.  While in the same position, I did reverse flys with some dumbbells.

14.  Laying on the exercise ball on my side, holding a plate, I did side crunches.

Easy Rider

This morning I was supposed to run: 2 miles easy, 3 miles at short tempo 6.0mph, and 1 miles easy. I decided that I just wanted an easy run, I was concerned with being able to run 3 miles at the 6.0 without stopping many times to catch my breath. So I ran: 2 miles @ 5.2mph, 2 miles @ 5.4mph, 1 mile @ 5.6mph, half mile @ 5.8mph, and the last half mile at 6.0mph. Total of 6 miles run and I felt great during the run and the gradual increase gave me something to shoot for. 

I wanted to mention this product called KNEED IT. When I was training for my half marathon last year my knee was in constant pain with high mileage. To preface this I should mention that I have a slight tear in my right MCL from playing volleyball. I knelt for a ball 3 yrs ago and both my knees crunched. ugh. not a pretty sound at all!

KNEED IT

So the fact that I was able to run a half with the banged up knee says a lot. So I purchased this product towards the end of my training, and when I started running again in December I continued with KNEED IT. I haven’t had to ice my knees at all, and I haven’t felt any pain at all. I don’t know how it works because there aren’t any magnets in it. I am thinking it helps stabilize your knee so when you’re in motion the knee is in its proper position and not slightly twisting with each step. Below is some information if you are interested. You can basically search KNEED IT on google and find a ton of places that sell it.

Kneed-It Knee Brace – Knee Guard

Support Your Knee and Relieve Minor Pain  

 Kneed-It knee guard is an innovative and unique device scientifically designed to assist in the relief of minor knee pain commonly associated with Arthritis, Tendinitis and Chondromalacia by placing gentle pressure along the medial and lateral soft tissues of the knee. The knee guard provides pain relief by gently absorbing force at the knee and by exerting concentrated compression and warmth across the soft tissue in front of the knee. Its patented technology is a superior therapy and may be used in conjunction with traditional methods such as taping or wrapping of the knee.

 •Wrap around application for easy use

•KNEED-IT’s Knee Brace anatomic design works in concert with the motion of your knee. As you move, it gently applies pressure to the joint liner and patellar tendon and assists in the relief of minor knee pain, soreness, stiffness and inflammation. By stabilizing the inferior pole of the patella, KNEED-IT also may improve patellar tracking .

•A safe, natural, non-invasive, low cost device which helps the body heal itself of minor discomfort from daily activities

•KNEED-IT enables muscles to relax, which reduces stress on tendons and muscles… may be worn for long periods of time with complete comfort

•It can be worn on the right or left knee and easily adjusts to fit the contour of the patella and patellar tendon…ONE SIZE fits most

My Assignment

Ok so yesterday after running during lunch I pulled my lower back. :O Chiro said it’s probably bc of the heat and the tossing and turning in bed. Anyways i am not allowed to run until monday, i got him to squeeze it back to friday if i feel well. I have to ice ice ice, and i am still allowed to walk.

So being that there will be no road running this week I will give myself the assignment and make myself accountable to you guys and pick an ab workout from on demand and an arms workout.  Let you know how it goes.

Illness Diet

I haven’t posted in a few days because I have been sick and out of commission thanks to my husband.  My friends with children tell me wait til you have kids you will be sick all the time. Lovely. So I was bummed about the weight gain this weekend but nothin like a cold to bring you right back on track. I am at 199.2 so I am going to take advantage and get back on track.

Today I am still sick but I managed to go for an hour walk, it was too beautiful not to.  I felt a little icky bc im sick so I had to cut it at an hr, but not bad I almost have 7k steps for the day and it is only 3pm!

I did manage to eat some organic before my sickness took over this week.  Nature’s promise organic yogurt peach flavored was pretty good, the strawberry flavor well there was no strawberry in it. I even opened up another strawberry container because I thought maybe they mislabeled the container but same thing. It was like the Wendy’s commercial: Where’s the strawberries?

I tried some acai juice. This juice had too much of a blueberry taste so I added some water and some orange drink and that did the trick. Dr. Oz and many others say that Acai is IT. It speeds up your metabolism and it is just good for your body in general. I got it on sale at stop shop in the fruit section 2/$5 for an 8oz. bottle, and because I diluted it one bottle lasted me two days.

Since I already eat sugar-free applesauce the organic version wasn’t much different, same with apples and carrots which I have eaten organic before. I will let you all know how the pancake mix is and I also purchased some flax seeds. Apparently you can sprinkle on everything and it is good for you.  Will let you know how that goes as well as new veggie recipes.  I found two cookbooks I have to pick up at the library.

Happy losing!