For the mini challenge this week I did two things, first I threw the ball for my son’s dog Sophie, I’ve talked about her before, the only thing she wants to do is fetch. She will chase her ratty old tennis ball until YOU drop, she has yet to tire out (even when we tag team it!). Second, I thought it would be fun to do the http://skinnyms.com/summer-arms-challenge/.
The first day of the Summer Arms Challenge was a breeze, I already lift weights so I was able to complete day one with no problem, day two however kicked my butt – in 4 minutes! Day two consists of 20 Tricep dips followed by the 4 minute Tabata workout – Oh My! You work out for 20 seconds then take a 10 second rest then move on to the next 20 second interval. You do 4 different exercises per set (20 second each with a 10 second rest in between) and 2 sets for a total of 4 total minutes. This workout is said to burn fat for up to 36 hours after you complete it. After my first try I can see why. My heart rate was high and I felt like I had just run a marathon! Of course, once I was finished recovering I felt great, seriously great. I had just completed my second day of the 7 day Summer Arms Challenge. Thankfully, the day after that workout was a day of rest, from the arms challenge and my morning treks to the gym. By Tuesday of this week I had already earned 12 Broom Points with another 12 anticipated, which is a good thing because I did enjoy my wine over the weekend.
What the Tabata workout showed me was that I need to incorporate additional cardio into my workouts, walking 4 miles per hour, which is as fast as I feel comfortable walking before I start running, is obviously not doing what I need it to do, and I can’t run due to my bad knees. So, when I went back to the gym Thursday morning, after my weight training, I changed the program on the treadmill. Instead of walking a random pattern of hills I chose to do the hill program that takes you slowly up a hill and then slowly back down (twice), having you work at each “elevation” for 1 – 1 ½ minutes, I do 30 minutes of walking so it was traveling one hill per mile. My incline was roughly 6.2% at the height of the hill. This workout got my heart rate up nicely. Friday morning, since I work out with weights at night a la SkinnyMs.com Arm Challenge, I chose to increase my walking to 50 minutes and upped the level to 8. The workout is still spread out over only two hills so you work longer at each elevation. The peak this time was 6.4%– I was working hard Friday!
Aside from the wine indulgence this week was pretty good. I found a good Yoga DVD along with another one on Meditation techniques that I really like (Elemental Goal: Air), I drank lots of water (Elemental Goal: Water) and tried to eat fruits and veggies with every meal and snack(Elemental Goal: Earth). That is something that Weight Watchers is promoting, eat a fruit or veggie with every meal and snack. So I am working on it.
I earned 18 broom points which makes me very happy. I hit the gym 4 days and did the Skinnyms.com Summer Arm challenge exercises 5 days (Elemental Goal: Fire).
Overall I am happy with how this week went. I worked on all four of my elemental goals which make my approach balanced and makes me feel good (Elemental Goal: Spirit) and which will ultimately help me get healthy! Yay!
This morning I went to my Weight Watchers meeting and found that I had lost 1.6 pounds! Not too shabby. Now, I am off to focus on day 6 of the Summer Arm Challenge!
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