The No Gym, No Problem Workout

On Monday I gave some insight into excuses and what a slippery slope they are. One of the biggest excuses I hear is that people can't afford a gym membership, don't have time to commute to one, travel to much to take advantage of a membership, or hate exercising in public so weight loss is out of reach for them. So, I'm going to give you a tool to combat that excuse. 

The main line is: Just because you don't own a gym membership (for whatever reason you choose) doesn't mean you can't workout. You can do the following workouts in your house, at the park, or in a hotel room. It's totally up to you. You don't even have to buy a bunch of equipment or free weights to be effective!

I have a few workouts that I cycle through on days when I don't have time to get back and forth from the gym.

The first one is simple. Basically, Run. When it comes to cardio, distance running is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Without a gym membership, you can do that outside when the weather is good. I'll run in rain or in snow (as long as the sidewalk is clear). The only thing that forces me personally to go to the gym for a run is intense heat. It just completely deflates me and I can't perform well enough to get in the burn that I like. That's really only an issue in the summer. You can also try a HIIT running workout with sprints, if that's more your thing. Science tells us it may be even more effective than distance running when it comes to getting an optimal calorie burn for the whole day and strengthening your heart. If you need a training program to get started as a beginner runner, I recommend Couch to 5k and of course, my favorite, the Zombies, Run 5k Trainer app. 

Another option is yoga (or as I refer to it, Avatar training). I have attended a lot of yoga classes in my life throughout college and at the gym. I'm a big fan of vinyasa and you can easily do that in your home if you clear a bit of floor space. If you don't have access to a few free classes to get the hang of it and learn some positions and cycles, then there's a lot of great resources on youtube. You can put together your own warm ups and create goals for working on some of the harder positions. The only cost is a yoga mat and you can find those under $20 at drug stores or sporting goods shops. 

The last option is one of my all time favorites: The bodyweight circuit or the "Starbuck Special," as I like to call it. What I love about it is that it's simple and it's easy to increase the intensity from week to week as you get stronger. The idea is to cycle through a string of repeated exercises that target different areas of the body about 4 times. Here are some exercises you can choose from.

• Sit-ups
• Pilates body roll ups
• Leg lifts
• Planks
• Pushups (adjusted or regular)
• Rows *
• Squats
• Lunges
• Bicep Curls *
• Lateral Oblique Lifts *

* NOTE: If you don't want to buy free weights or resistance bands, you can try taking an empty milk jug and filling it with sand, rocks, or cement. I've also taken a small bag and filled it with heavy hardcover books. Do whatever you need do to pick up something heavy. 

There are a lot of options and you don't need to include all of them each time. I like to increase the reps by 2 every week or increase my plank time by 5-10 seconds. To help get you started, I'll give you the circuit I started with. 

Warm up: 5 minutes of high knees, jumping jacks, or a 5-10 minute easy run outdoors. 

1. 15 squats
2. 10 push-ups
3. 20 lunges
4. 10 Pilates body roll ups.
5. 10 rows on each side.
6. 10 lateral oblique lifts on each side
7. 30 seconds plank.
8. 20 Jumping Jacks

Repeat 4 times.

Cool down: Stretching. Make sure to stretch your quads, arms, and back. You'll be feeling the burn later!

I usually finish in 22-30 minutes.

You can decide how to increase the intensity of your circuit over time. Add reps, add cycles. It's up to you to continue to challenge yourself. It may seem simple, but I guarantee you'll work up a crazy sweat and you'll definitely feel the burn. The nice thing is you can pretty much do these circuits every day without harming yourself because you're not living crazy amounts of weight like in a free weight routine. All I can say is my best body results came when I alternated running with bodyweight circuits. 

What's your no excuses workout? What do you do when you don't have a gym to lean on for support and equipment? Please share in the comments!

Quest Accepted: Couch to 5K

Ever since I started my fitness journey, I've avoided running. I've tackled new things like HIIT workouts, Zumba, and Yoga, but I've always hated running and so I never elected to add it to my cardio routine. 

I had a million canned responses ready for when people asked why I didn't try running. 

"My well endowed bosom would be painful! The bouncing! Ouchies!"

"The high impact would be murder on my joints."

"The elliptical burns more calories anyways."

"I tried distance running in high school. I gave up 3 weeks in and joined the soccer team instead. Never again."

"Do I look like a graceful gazelle on the plains of the Serengeti?"

When it comes right down to it, those are all just excuses. I've lost 85 lbs. I have NO EXCUSE not to challenge myself. Zumba and Yoga have been such positive experiences for me because I have another way to measure my progress besides the scale.  Plus, adding even more variety to my fitness can only be a good thing as I plow through these last 40 lbs. Of course, the tipping point in my decision was when I realized that when the Doctor comes to call, I'll have to be able to keep up with him on our time traveling adventures!

Just like any intimidating challenge, it's best to take it in steps. I've heard wonderful things about "Couch to 5K," so I decided to download the app for my phone and build up my endurance that way. If you haven't heard of it, the program slowly builds you up to running a 5K incrementally by having you do a combination of running and walking. You start out walking for 90 seconds and running for a minute in phases over 30 minutes. It gives you a new program each day and slowly it shifts so that you are doing more running than walking as you build up your endurance. In a few months, it claims you should be able to run a 5K. 

Before my yoga class tonight, I hopped on the treadmill and got started. It was crazy how nervous I was to do it considering I've been working out regularly for over 7 months now and it's not like I'm starting from nothing, but I just told myself to chase the fear! And chase it, I did! I felt pretty good about it afterwards and I'm looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow! The app is free so give it a try and let me know about your experience with it in the comments!

Throw Down the Gauntlet!

Did Daenerys Targaryen become of the Mother of Dragons by slacking off and letting her environment define her? 

Clearly not. 

I've been recommitting myself to the gym over the last few days. I realized that in order to keep improving, I needed to turn up the heat in terms of the difficulty. I've been doing the same thing on the elliptical for over a month and it has become easy. I increased the elliptical's incline and the resistance in my interval and weight loss program and was rewarded by a higher calorie burn than I've ever had before as well as keeping my heart rate in the right zone for more of the time. I felt like I was going to die the first time, but I think that's a good thing. I'm challenging myself again and it's good to know I can depend on myself to throw down the gauntlet for the first time in my life.

Are you doing everything you can to challenge yourself? If you're not, try something new today or do what you've been doing, only make it harder. This whole process is only going to be as intense and successful as you make it!

FIRE AND BLOOD!

Love,
The Mother of Dragons

HIIT Training? Is That What Hit-Girl Does?

So for those of you who have been following along with my blog entries, you'll know that there is this trainer named Heather at my gym who drives me crazy because she keeps coming up to me and trying to get me to do a free personal training session with her (presumably because she wants to interest me in buying a series of sessions with her that I cannot afford).

AS ANNOYING as her constant hounding is when I'm in the middle of my workouts, the other day she asked me if I had a few minutes and she took me through a short HIIT workout on the stationary bicycle. I had no idea what "interval training" was at the time, but now I'm fascinated by it. SO I wanted to share this with all of you and maybe you can try it out yourselves.

What is HIIT?

It's an enhanced form of interval training where you alternate between short intense exhausting periods of anaerobic exercise and less intense recovery periods. These cardio/conditioning workouts should last between 20-30 minutes and have a LOT of benefits including increased fat burning capacity, improved athletic capacity, and improved glucose metabolism.

Why should I try it?

HIIT is a perfect way to maximize the effectiveness of a short workout. In most workouts, fat burning happens after a period of about 30 minutes, but HIIT is different in that respect. This workout increases the amount of calories you burn DURING the session and AFTER because it increases the length of time it takes your body to recover. In layman's terms, it forces your metabolism to ramp up during the next 24 hours and you burn fat and calories more efficiently during that time. It's a workout that keeps working after you've completed it. LIKE MAGIC. :) The other benefit is that it mimics the kinds of things that happen in real life, i.e. there aren't many situations where you have to run 5 miles, but there are times when you have to sprint to catch your train or climb a flight of stairs to make it to an appointment on time. This sort of training should make that sort of thing easier.

What's the catch?

It might be a shorter workout, but you HAVE to push yourself way past your comfort zone. You have to go as fast and hard as you possibly can during the High Intensity periods. You can't be lazy about it or it won't work. You'll know you're doing it right if you're really feeling the burn in your muscles as they are deprived from oxygen and the sweat is pouring off of you.

How do I do it?

You can do this exercise on a stationary bike, an elliptical (my personal favorite), or on the treadmill or just running outside. You'll need to be able to read your heart-rate to make make you're doing it correctly and you'll also need a timer or the clock on the machine to help you transition between the phases. Check out this chart to see where your heart rate should fall in both the anaerobic and low intensity phases of the workout.

• Start with five minutes of warm-up.
• Phase 1. 30secs-1min of high intensity. On the elliptical I push the resistance up to 20 and do what feels like trudging through drying cement as fast as I can.
• Phase 2. 2-3 minutes of low intensity recovery. Don't stop, though. Keep moving.
• Phase 1. 30secs-1min of high intensity.
• Phase 2. 2-3 minutes of low intensity recovery. Don't stop!
• Keep alternating for 20-30 minutes.
• Cool down for 5 minutes.

DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT an expert but I really think more people who are interested in weight-loss need to learn about HIIT. This gives you a general idea of what to do, but make sure you do your own research online or ask a trainer at your gym to explain it to you. The benefits just seem too amazing to ignore. HIIT may not be for everyone and you should know what you're getting into before you start it. It is a very grueling workout, but it's a nice way to mix things up if things are getting stale and I burn way more calories doing this for 30 minutes than I do in 45 minutes of endurance cardio on the elliptical. I've started to alternate HIIT with endurance training to allow my body time to recover between sessions and it definitely keeps things interesting.

I haven't weighed myself since adding HIIT in my own workout routines over the last week, but I'm looking forward to my weigh in on Saturday to see if it's had a good affect.