I'm back on track!
Exercise and diet wise, anyway. The jury is still out on whether the weight is going to actually drop, thought, because it's official. I'VE HIT MY FIRST PLATEAU.
But there are a few things I'm doing to try and fix that.
Plateaus stink. I'm in a groove here! I don't want to have to buckle down and work harder or eat even smarter. I'm tired of counting calories and carbs!
Luckily, Nikki from Nikki Fitness had some words of advice for those of us struggling to get to the next level.
I asked Nikki about my plateau issue, because I was concerned that since my body had adjusted to her workout (a workout I was absolutely loathe to give up because it had cause a two inch drop in my waist measurement in the 5 weeks I was using it). Unfortunately, "buckle down and finish" is not something I do well with traditional workouts, so I was compensating by doing a 10 Minute Solutions cardio mix followed by a set of strength training, then another 10 Minute Solutions... You get the idea! I wanted to make sure I was not working out to no avail (because I'm really not a fan of working out anyway).
Luckily, Nikki has trained me well and I was on the right path! Intervals have been shown to have a higher impact on the body in both calories burned and the calories your body continues to burn after the workout is over. One study even showed that those doing interval training burned the same 300 calories in 19 minutes that it took traditional cardio exercisers half an hour to burn! And really, it just doesn't seem like such a daily grind when you "mix up" the workout that way. For military spouses with stuff to do and not a lot of help to do it - a shorter, more effective workout is definitely a bonus!
For those of you who are interested in previewing parts of Nikki's workout, you can check out her latest military.com column here, with links to youtube for demos.
Nikki is also releasing a Booty Camp DVD this winter - and she promised to get some butt exercises down for us this weekend! Look for a link to that next Friday!
Okay, now for some free stuff that is neat stuff!!!
This week I started my page at Spark People. What is Spark People? Spark People is a FREE diet and exercise program available online, packed with tons of cool tools like free exercise trackers, weight trackers, food trackers, recipes, discussion forums, articles, and so on! I've spent the last week tweaking my page (you also get a free fitness page there!) and I do hope that you all will think about creating your own page there to document your fitness journey. It's one more thing that's kept me accountable! I'd love to have tons of SpouseBUZZ contacts on my Spark Page! Fitness is something we'll do much better if we do it together!
One more thing - you can record and make public your daily workout routine - so if you've got a mind to, you can go see exactly what I've been doing this week and how I feel about it! Sunshine and lollipops I'm certainly NOT. But I still do it.
And it's FREE! Free is a word I must admit I do like very much!
So tell me, Fit Clubbers - how are you doing this week? And how do you break your plateaus?
