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

I had a good day today.  I went to the gym and wanted to do cardio and yoga.  I got over my guilt about leaving the kids in child care for longer than an hour.  They have a 2 hour limit.  I told the girl there about my guilt trip and she told me there are parents that will go over the 2 hour limit, so that she’ll have to go get them.  Then they’ll tell her that they ‘need’ to take a shower and will only be about 20 more minutes!  Puh-lease. That’s what the TV is for; to babysit during a shower.  (ha!)  I really liked my new yoga teacher.  She took the time to explain the moves, when exactly to do them with your breathing, and we did actual breathing exercises.  I loved it and think I will make that a regular class as well as my Body Pump class which I’m looking forward to going to tomorrow morning.

I almost ignored one of my tips tonight.  My dinner was so good, that I wanted ‘just one more spoonful’ of Mexican Bean Salad.  I turned around to go get some and zing!  I had already put it away, reminding me that I should not go for seconds, and I will probably feel full when my 20 min. is up.  Sure enough, I started doing all the dishes, and my craving for the salad disappeared.  I wonder how many pounds a year you would save yourself from gaining if you never went for ‘one more bite.’  I’d bet at least 10.

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Article tags: Mexican Bean Salad, Rule of Three Diet, Trader Joe's, Yoga

Posted: September 19th, 2007 under Daily Journal.
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I weighed in the same today.  I want a new scale though.  It seems that I have to weigh myself 3-4 different times every morning to get a consistent number.  I’ll let the machine turn off each time. I don’t get it.  I wonder if the batteries are low?  I’ve been sleeping.  I think my lack of sleep was due to my drinking less, and my antidepressant working differently.  I feel a lot better today.  Yoga was good.  Very relaxing.  My therapist told me I should take a yoga class at least once a week to relieve stress.  I think I’ll just do that.  I felt energized enough at the end to run a mile.  I ran because I wanted to decrease the amount of time I spent in the gym.  If I would’ve walked it would’ve taken me at least 15 min.   I love my gym.  I go to Club Fitness.  The child care is free, and the girls that work there are awesome!  The fact that the kids ask to go to the gym is a motivator for me too, although sometimes I just tell them, “no, we’re not going!”

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Article tags: Almonds, Chicken Salad, Club Fitness, Mexican Bean Salad, Open faced basil chicken/turkey sausage sandwich, Relaxing, Yoga

Posted: September 7th, 2007 under Daily Journal.
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