Saturday 28 August 2010

Walking as weight loss workout

Yes I had to make a new post about walking. I went off topic on my pedometer post. So in this one I will let you know about the todays walk. Which of course was 15000 steps continues walk, just as I promised. Let's admit it. I did first think that this is workout that really out of shape people would do. A sissy workout. I have been a walker in my opinion for a long long time. Actually when I was a under 16 yrs old, I kept myself fit by walking everyday to every place. Why? Well I had time back then!! I will add a picture that will proof that I did the 15000 step walk!
I did overally do 16114 steps, 15998 were aerobic steps(continual movement, I didn't stop or take breaks!). According to pedometer walking 15998 aerobic steps took me 139 minutes(for lazy ones: 2h 19 min). I lost 515 kcal(so that's my breakfast and snack!!! sandwich with cheese, turkey meat and iceberg salad+banana+nuts= 508kcal, it might be less than that since I think I always add extra's on my calculator), which is 44.3g. I did walk 10.79km, insane ehh??

5000 steps! Great start for healthier life! (also great as additional workout)
Breathing started to get heavier. Not much but it felt like this might really help somebody to lose weight. I would recommend to set this as your goal if youre a first timer. I was suprised how long it took for me to get to 5000 steps!! Of course if after 5000 steps youre able to walk more, then go ahead!

10000 steps! To keep you fit and healthy! (reduces also chronic disease risk)
This is a part when I really started to feel that my body is working hard. Breathing was heavier, this time enough heavy to call it a workout. I started sweating a bit!! This should be your next goal.

15000 steps! You will lose weight!This part was funny. I was breathing hard and people probably thought that I'm some kind of weirdo. My face was probably red like a tomato, that's how it felt! my skin felt really warm! Not to forget that my walking became clumsy. I sometimes forgot to raise my feet high enough! I really felt tired aswell. 12000-15000 steps are recommended to walk to lose weight. So this is your goal after 10000 steps.

I guess I looked a bit like a fool since I didn't want to go to areas were I haven't been so I was walking in same park about 5 times. But I did definately find a beautiful place near the park. It had a beautiful view to the sea and city! So it was worth to walk there. I recommend atleast try walking as a workout or do it on weekends. It's relaxing and you can enjoy the enviroment. While walking you could listen to the music or chat with your friend. That really helps you to keep on walking. You won't even notice that youre working out!! You don't have to own pedometer to walk enough. 2h 30min walk gets you close to 15000 steps definately. So you only need a watch! Unfortunately as a student, who also goes to work, I don't have time for walking. Only on some weekends. But when I get my school done or quit my job then I will certainly start walking!

Friday 27 August 2010

6 Week Challenge | Dedication

"Instead of giving myself reasons why I can't, I give myself reasons why I can." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
During this water diet I'm doing everyday cardio all day long whenever I get few minutes, also I do circuit training and 2x weight training every second day. So Friday was weight training, tomorrow is circuit, sunday weight etc. =) This circuit and weight training has been included today. I want to stay on that track for lets say 4-6 weeks? This is mostly a challenge to myself, since I always change workouts and don't do enough of weight training. It starts on week 34 on friday. Ends on week 41 or 42.
Weight training is time challenge and divided into 2 parts. One weight training consists of 2 exercises and trying to do as much sets of reps that I can in 15min. Today I managed to do WT1 12 sets and WT2 10 sets. Next time I should be able to do 13 and 11(hopefully).
Circuit has 4 exercises, each lasts 15min. I'll be doing 1 in the morning, 1 in the evening. So 30min a day. But of 4 exercises I do only 1 during one day.
Everyday cardio can be split into parts. So 8min+12min+20min cardio. Total of cardio is 20+min per day. Morning cardio is required. Sunday is cardio day, 40min!! Tiny reminder: intensive workout burns fat even if you are doing for 4 minutes! :> I'm sweating for half an hour after my 4 minutes workout :P I'll just keep updating this one!

Week 34
Friday
  • WT1 12
  • WT2 9½
  • Cardio: morning: 20 min lunch: 4 min evening: 4 min, 12 min.
Saturday
  • Circuit. morning: 15 min evening: 15min
  • Cardio: morning: 4 min, 4 min(darn legs hurt a bit >.<, can't squat long enough). I think the walk was enough, so rest of cardio isn't needed.
Sunday
  • Cardio: morning: 4 min lunch: 4 min (yes outside and many people were wondering what I'm up to), did some running and packing= 10min cardio evening: 4 or 8 min. I will try to do 8 min but I won't probably have time for it. :< (I did manage to do 4+4 min ^^)
  • Gym. I COULDN'T RESIST IT!!!
Week 35
Monday
  • Cardio: morning: 4min lunch: 4 min evening: 4 min
  • WT1: 12 (this time I made it a bit harder)
  • WT2: 10
Tuesday
  • Cardio: lunch: 20 min evening: 4min, 4min, 10min.
  • Circuit: lunch: 15 min
Wednesday
  • Cardio: morning: 6 min lunch: dancing for 30min(I'll count it as 10min cardio; it's intense dancing but not enough :>), 4 min
  • WT1: 12½
  • WT2: 11 (wooo wooo!! whole 1 more :D)
  • 10000 steps walk
- Wohooo as you can notice that I make progress in weight/strenght training! I did ½ more again! Even if I last time made the workout harder and it was harder version again and I managed to do more!! :) /me soo pleased!!!
Thursday-Sunday
I'm badly injured, not from workouts. So all I did was minium of cardio. 10 min a day. Adding 1 more week because of this.
Week 36
Monday
  • Cardio: morning: 4min
  • WT1: 14(!!!!!!! Last time was 12½! What an improved! All I have done is cardio!!)
  • WT2: 12
Tuesday
  • Cardio: 8min, walking
  • Circuit 15min
Wednesday
  • Cardio: 4min+dancing, 4 min.
  • WT1: 15
  • WT2: 13
Thursday
  • Cardio: 10min +dancing. Lot's of walking.
  • Circuit: Well I met my nightmare/limit. I can't do Dive Bomber push up's, It's impossible. I sweat A LOT and my arms start shaking, then suddenly they give up. I can do 5 reps, then I'm finito. I managed to do 5+5+5 with 10 sec rest between them and that's it. I can't do more. My arms hurt like never before. I'll just do lots of cardio today. But someday I will manage to do more of bombers.
Friday
  • Cardio: 12 min(3 exercises: 2 for legs, 1 core.)
  • WT today is replaced with butt workouts to keep my body from getting used to WT's. I'll do butt workouts 2 times today, atleast try to. =) I have to complete all together 80 reps of 4 exercises in 4 rounds and then see if next time I'm able to do faster. Who knows when it's next time. :) But I might add here results and compare later with newer ones. Bleh lazy to use stopwatcher.
Week 37
Week 38
Week 39
Week 40
Week 41
Week 42
Week 43

Water Diet

I'm currently on water diet. Which doesn't mean that one day of week I will only drink water and not eat at all. NEVER! That is really harmful for my body and I will never ever do that.
My friend is on sort of water diet. Every monday she drinks only water and nothing else. Luckily it's only once a week. Yes she lost weight but she would have lost a lot more if she worked out a bit more, 5 meals a day and consumes all her body needs.
But if you really want to do that diet then do it once a month MAX. Or else your body will suffer. You won't get all the nutrients that your body needs. And that's bad. I'll try to find more specific information what happens if you go on water diet. I remember a bit about it but not much. So before saying something that might be wrong, I have to do a little search :)
Water diet for me basically means consuming way more water. I will try to add 10 more cup in my day because I think I'm not consuming enough. So during a day I will be drinking about 18 cups = about 4L (correct me if I'm wrong). I usually drink 6-8 cups but I want to be able to drink more. Hardest part about this is to remember to drink the extra water and getting used to it. Today I did drink about 14 cups. Not enough, but slowly getting there! =)
Mine water diet works on idea that if I drink lots of water before eating, I feel full more easily. So you will eat less = weight loss!

DON'T EVER TRY WATER DIET! NEVER!
(mine is harmless, do that one rather and it guarantees that you lose weight if you follow it correctly^^)

Thursday 26 August 2010

Pedometer!!!!

Can't wait to finally get it!!!! Yes, I have been checking my mailbox twice today!! I would have checked a lot more if it weren't so suspicious/embarrassing. AND tadah it arrived!!!!
So first thing I have to say to everyone who is about to get their first pedometer, Look for a good one! Rather pay more than buy thousand bad ones or what's even worse: Trust a one that doesn't count right.
I had a cheap one that claimed that I have walked 300 steps, when I actually was standing in one small tiny spot reading the manual. That made me angry.
So I bought 5 times more expensive one. Sorry grandma, I know you bought the first one to make me feel happy. But it ain't your fault that it doesn't work properly. I think the thought behind it was really sweet and love you for being such lovingly caring sweet person :) Yes, for just being yourself!! <3 data-blogger-escaped-span="span" style="color: #ffff33;">
Edit: Been using it now for some time, atleast at school I was with it. And my result is 2.10km and 3147 steps and 104 calories lost(5.8g). This is pathetic result. And I thought I have been moving a lot more nowadays. :/ 0 aerobic steps, which should be that 12000-15000. After work it said that I have walked 5573 steps. Which ain't much aswell. But I didn't have one lesson at school and I was picked up after work. So if all that wouldn't happened I would have walked 8000 steps, I think.
Oh well on weekend I'll do aerobic 15000 steps with fiance or mom and then I'll tell you guys how much time it took me etc.
But now I got a challenge to all of you! Everyone who reads this and owns pedometer, go out and then comment me how many steps you walked and how long it did take you. :) Hope to get some comments and some people to walk ;) You comment many times, ask me something, everything is welcomed. :)

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Gymboss

Because I love Tabata's workouts, Gymboss has promised to make it easier for me. And everything that makes working out easier is worth to buy. Including workout clothes, timers, dumbbells, anything you think you need to make it easier. I just ordered pedometer and Gymboss, because I found finally pedometer that I like and company that sells Gymboss in my country! Yey! You guys just made smile! For 23€ I think Gymboss isn't expensive. It should arrive in few days and then I shall share everything about it with you guys!! :) So hopefully it will be soon!
Gymboss is really easy to use and I find it useful! It's tiny and simple. Just the way I like electronic stuff! I hate phones that have camera and all that useless stuff. It makes my phone laggy!
I love my gymboss! :) It helps me out a lot! I need it every day and I don't want to exercise without it. Constantly counting time myself or using phone was just pain in the bum! Sure there's timer on the net but I like exercising outside. So watch out everyone, there's one fitness crazy outside :) Boo! My workouts gather a lot of people around me. Mainly because of the intensity which is pretty funny that people like to watch the workout and think: Wow she is really fit. Silly people, I'm not that fit! Just tiny bit of practice and everyone can do the same! Mainly because I'm not dedicated only to HIIT's. I also bellydance, overally dancing belongs to my heart, Weight training, fighting and many more! If I would only do exercises that improve my whole body to be able to do more during intense workouts, then I would have been WAYYYY BETTER :D

Sunday 22 August 2010

Healthy Food!

Today I will share tasty sandwich and delicious dinner with you guys. Why? Well because it might give you a hint what is a healthy food. But there's easy rule in making healthy meal. Healthy food has 5 different colors! So you need to get those veggies and fruits into your meals to get the colors! Let's start!

Light Sandwich
-rye bread
-slice of turkey/chicken
-tomato
-cheese
-lettuce
Now we got all 5 colors! But you can add aswell spinach, parsley etc. Note that I don't use butter. I stopped using butter because it's just extra fat. I consume my fat from flaxseeds, nuts or fish oil.

Dinner/lunch

I'm not sure what to call this dinner I made. I was myself trying out some new food. Quinoa is well-known for it's healthy benefits and as rice replacer. I'll tell more about Quinoa someday. I don't wanna give up on my brown rice. So instead of having only rice or only quinoa. I added half of brown rice and half quinoa. Which makes the meal pretty exotic. Atleast for me. I liked it but it tasted like something I would eat when I'm abroad.
- Quinoa
- Brown rice
- Parsley
- Chives
- Garlic
- Onion
- Corn
- Green beans
- Chicken
- a tiny bit of olive oil and soy sauce!
(- I was thinking about having carrots and tomatoes in it too but that's toooo much!! It wouldn't fit into my fridge)

Theres lots of different tastes. But it's full delicious ingredients that I like. I have never been a person who just follows some boring recipies. My mom have always tried to mix all sort of foods together to complete delicious meals! I guess I learned it from her. Actually I noticed this when I started my weightloss project. I started reading all sorts of things from very very many sites, looking for healthy foods and the benefits and of course about exercising. I never do things just because someone says I have to do it. No, I always search my way to the truth. I want to be sure!

Monday 9 August 2010

Mission Impossible - Weight loss

"Until you become fit and healthy, you really have NO IDEA what you're really missing in life." - random board post

Losing weight sounds impossible. If you need to lose a lot of weight, then first few kg's you lose really fast and easily. But after that, no matter how much you exercise, it seems like you don't lose anything anymore!! That's when you might stop exercising and stop eating healthy( I would rather say disgusting) food. You will lose control like that and probably gain more weight. Anyways I thought about writing some important things that have helped me during weightloss. Here we go:
- Portion control... If something is delicious, I often overeat. I actually started gaining weight because by every meal I ate a bit more than before. I didn't notice it till now. It's soo easy to gain weight by just eating a bit more. There's many ways to control how much you eat! There's food trackers around the net and the one that I use is Fist-size. I eat 4-6 times a day. So eating everyday about fistful of food is enough for me to get full.
- Water!! Water, water, water and water. This is really important. Because your body needs water. You need water for your skin, for being hydrated enough and to feel better. I hated water. Now it's important to me. Being without water makes me feel ill. So you can first start drinking 1L of water a day, then 1,5L and eventually 2L or more. Drinking over 2L of water won't harm you. Don't worry. It's only good for you. Also it makes me feel more full, so overeating isn't easy anymore.
- Healthy food. Vegetables and fruits are your best friends! Why? Well they are low on calories but it takes more calories to burn them! 15 calorie vegetable takes 150 calories to burn!! Also over time you don't want to eat burgers and all that. You will love the taste of healthy food!
- Some say that cheat day helps them but for me it ruins all. If I eat one day all I want then I will make the next day like that aswell. Or I'll just eat all those goodies 10 times more than I'm allowed. Also fully eating only what's healthy didn't help me. So I came up with method to control myself. For example salmon with chickpeas. I hate chickpeas. Eww eww eww!! But salmon I love! So I eat something I like and something I don't but it's healthy. And I try to always eat healthy food that I like. I love chocolate but I forced myself to choose from milk chocolate very dark chocolate. I had to try many many dark chocolates till I found few that aren't actually that bad. Also I changed my yoghurts to No fat-ones, which don't taste that bad when youre used to eating those and are pretty good. Most important thing is that if you keep eating healthy foods, finally you don't want to eat pizzas and all that junk. I felt one day like eating pizza and when I bought one, it was a disappointment to me. I thought the pizza would have been a heavily good, but no. It was tasteless and greasy. I would have rather had chicken salad. Sure in some special occasions I eat greasy food. But after that for whole week I want to eat only soups and salads. Btw I was unable to change my milk to low fat one. I just find low fat milk disgusting and I won't be drinking low fat milk ever.
- Exercise everyday. Every little moment you spend on exercising helps you out. First you exercise 5 minutes, then 10, then 15 and the list goes on. Also if you exercise everyday even a little, it will become a habit. So you won't give up so easily later. And don't forget that exercising makes you feel like you have more energy and you won't be so easily feeling tired.
- Find an exercise you would love. I actually recommend trying everything first. I tried running (and I hate it!), walking (not bad but gets boring and feels like waste of time), badminton (ahhh I like it but you need someone with you to play it!), dancing (love it, but I don't like having audience), weightlifting (love it), HIIT's (love it!), biking (love it! You can do it while on your way to work. First it took me 1h++ to bike 12km, nowadays only 40 min!!), swimming (I love it, but I find pools very dirty places) and I tried different cardio videos that are found on internet, but didn't really find those fun. The more you like what youre up to more likely you stick to exercising. But unfortunately I have to recomment doing strenght training few times a week, remember to have a rest day between strenght trainings. Because you have to allow your muscles to have some rest or else they will hurt and might hurt yourself really badly. Strenght training is important part of keeping yourself fit. Don't forget it.
- Be harsh to yourself. I have infront my eyes continuesly letter written by myself that if I even dare to think about giving up, I will ruin all that I worked on. Actually exact text is this:
Remember if you give up one day, the next day it will be a lot harder to get back where you left off! The more active you get, the better you will look and the better you will feel!
“Since it’s the habit that matters, I can work out tomorrow; today’s not a big deal by itself.” I finally got it right in my head that EVERY day, including today, matters. If I don’t find time today to push myself, then I won’t tomorrow or the next day either.”
And that text helps, since it really makes me think. Because I'm not using my brain when I'm wanting to give up. I'm just being lazy at those moments.
- Rather check your measures than weight. Check once a month all your measure and you will go nuts of joy! Check your scales and you will get depressed :P (happened to me, now scales are covered with dust).
- Most important one is to learn to accept yourself. Even if you lose your weight, you maybe aren't glad with your face or butt or breasts. So you should accept yourself and love as you are. If you don't love yourself now, you won't love yourself when you lose weight. For me losing weight will return my self-confidence. My butt will always be bigger than it should be and my breasts will always be in my opinion too small. But that's something that cannot be changed. Certain clothes can make me look like I want to. Some shirts make breasts look better and some skirts make my butt look smaller. Thank god we have this awesome clothes!!!!!! Hopefully this will help you out in losing weight.

And I also have weightloss secrets, that I might share! ;)