Success! I did my Yo-Yo Workout at the Gym today. I ran my top speed for the entire 3 minutes! I have been trying to do this for a few weeks, and would only last about a minute, and need to reduce my speed to finish out the 3 minute running block. Now my goal is to do this for a few more weeks until it becomes comfortable, and then I’ll up my starting speed, thus increasing my top speed. The machine I used did not let me enter my weight and age, so I don’t know how accurate this count is, but it said I burned 400 calories in 30 minutes! I think that’s pretty good, considering magazines like Shape give you half hour workouts to burn about 250 calories.

I was reading my Wellness magazine today, and came across an article titled Melt the Last 10 Pounds. I love getting little tips like this, but I particularly liked #6:

6. GO FOR THE CALORIE BURN
Have you been heeding the advice that longer, lower-intensity exercise bouts maximize fat burning? That may be why the scale isn’t moving for you. While it’s true that the percentage of calories from fat that you burn does decrease as you up your exercise intensity, when you’re trying to lose weight, you want to burn as many calories as you can, whether from fat or carbohydrates. If you double your exercise intensity, you double the rate at which you burn calories – both fat and carbs. Add an incline to your treadmill workouts or notch up the intensity on your workout machine of choice.

 This goes along with what I said in my Diet Tips and Strategies Page (the 3rd one):

When you work out, try to work out hard! The harder you work out, the better it is for your body. Hey, you’re there anyway, you might as well get the most out of your time.  Don’t let that overwhelm you though, just walking and breaking a sweat is better than nothing at all, so get moving!

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Article tags: Burning Calories, Diet Tips, Motivation, Rule of Three Diet, Shape, Wellness

Posted: October 10th, 2007 under Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts, Strategy.
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I lost 1 pound last week.  I’m at 138 this morning. Although it’s not much, it is something, and I am not discouraged.  A healthy amount to lose is 1-2 pounds a week, so I’m right on track. I tried a new workout today from Health Magazine.  For 20 minutes, you are supposed to ride a bike doing the following:  Pump hard for 8 seconds, then rest-ride for 12 seconds. I noticed my 8 seconds were up to about 120RPM and my rest-ride was around 80RPM.  I was out of breath and bored after 10 minutes, so I moved to my new stand-by walk/jog routine.  After 10 minutes of that, I was ready to try the bike routine again. I couldn’t stop thinking about the magazine article boasting about a study where women who did this trick lost 3 times more fat (especially from their legs and butts) than women who exercised at a steady pace for 40 minutes. So I went back to the bikes, but this time I tried a recumbent bike.  It was not as hard a work out as the regular bike.  This is a definite ’try again’ work out. Maybe next time I’ll last longer than 10 minutes. If you try this biking trick, I’d love to know what you thought about it.

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Article tags: lose 3X the fat in 1/2 the time, Minestrone Soup, Rule of Three Diet, Spicy V8 juice

Posted: September 24th, 2007 under Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts.
Comments: 2

Many health professionals are now telling their clients to work out yo-yo style.  The cardio workouts they put together aim to get your heart rate up, then slow down a bit, then up a bit higher, then slow it down a bit, and so on.  Shape, one of my favorite magazines, often comes out with cut-and-take cardio routines that blast 250+ calories in half an hour.  My problem with taking these to the gym is that I can’t read and exercise, so I never know when to go up a level, or how long to stay there.  

While on the treadmill today, I decided to give the yo-yo theory a try on my own.  It worked. I wasn’t bored (a big feat for me) and I got in a really good half hour work out.  Here’s what I did: Everything in intervals of 3 minutes.  My fitness-walk pace is 4.5, and my challenge Hill level is 10.  I always walked at this pace and hill level together. My comfortable jog pace is 6.0. I added .5 to this every time I needed to jog, until I reached a point where I could not go any faster and I came back down .5 do finish out the 3 min.    So my workout today looked like this: walk, jog 6, walk, run 6.5, walk, run 7, walk, run 7.5 for 1 min, 7 for 2 min, walk, run 6, cool down. 

Here’s a chart, in case you want to fill out your own activity levels:

This chart doesn’t look much different than the ones in Shape, I guess.  Kind of overwealming.  But to me, it’s a lot easier because of the set walk pace and the set time.  You just slowly increase your jog level. Also:  pick YOUR pace.  Do not try to do the levels I did; I may be at a different fitness level than you.  Your comfortable jog may be a 5, and your challenge hill a 6.  Stick with what will be a slight challenge for you. If you decide to give this a try, I would love to know how it goes.  Post your comments below.

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Article tags: jog, Rule of Three Diet, run, Shape magazine, Spicy V8 juice, walk, Yoga

Posted: September 21st, 2007 under Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts.
Comments: 8

 In my Body Pump Class today, I felt empowered.  There I was, laying on my bench, pumping iron to semi-hard rock music.  It was so energizing!  I was focused, in tune with my body, and I felt the music pull me along.  I usually get bored within ten minutes lifting weights to my own music.  Maybe I need a new playlist. This class lasts an hour, and it’s over before you know it.  Your muscles are glad for the end of the hour, but my mind felt like I could do more.  If you have a chance to try out a class like this, I highly encourage you to do so.  Strengthening your muscles is so important.  Don’t worry.  You can just lift 2.5 pounds on each side if you are nervous. Just get in there and try it.  One of the keys to making exercise a habit, is finding something you enjoy doing.  If it’s a chore, you won’t do it for the long haul.  Try everything. What fitness activities do you love?

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Article tags: body pump class, empowered, Mexican Bean Salad, Rule of Three Diet

Posted: September 20th, 2007 under Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts.
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