Day 12 - 2 Days until weigh in!

Hi everyone,

So I have to be honest, these last few days have been pretty rough. Ive been very tired from the workouts and Jackson. Work has also been pretty long too. I haven't been on top of everything as much as I need to be but I'm getting back on track. Here is a cool new workout to do today and I hope you join me. I have a weigh in on Friday and I would like to have lost another 2 lbs. Check out the workout and let me know what you think!

Hope you have fun,
Faryn

http://www.bodyrock.tv/2009/12/10/turbo-fat-blaster-workout/

And Jackson is cheering us all on!

This Week's Workout Song

There's nothing worse than getting on the treadmill, turning on your workout playlist and quickly realizing that you are sick of all your songs. So I am always constantly trying to find a new song to workout to.
Call me cheesy or old fashioned but I still like songs from the 90's! I'm just not into Autotune. So this weeks fun song for your playlist is the famous Jay Z and The Verve mashup "Bittersweet Dirt Off Your Shoulder".

Enjoy!!

Day 10 - Booty Lift Workout

Hi everyone,

Happy Monday!! I thought it would be nice to start the week off right with a good booty workout, ha! I found a fun looking one on Zuzana's website this morning. It includes the following:

1) 2 walking lunges. Then 4 backward jumps into a half burpee with jump (no pushups)
2) Step up & one leg elevated squats (30 reps for each leg) Yea right! Ill do as many as I can though
3) One Legged Bridge - 2 sets of 15 on each leg
4) One Legged Wall Sit - hold one leg up for 30 seconds then switch. Perform twice.

Click or copy and paste the link for the video!
http://www.bodyrock.tv/2010/01/14/burn-fat-and-tighten-your-butt/

Day 9 - Pull Up Pyramid Workout

So Zuzana is busy moving to Prague (what a life, ha!) and therefore, Ive decided to do one of my own upper body workouts today. Pull ups are a great way to tone your entire arm and back. Its also good to have another challenge for yourself other than just weight loss. Sometimes trying to lose weight alone can get too boring. Ive made it my challenge to also be able to do a pull up by the time summer rolls around. Seriously!, pull ups are hard!! I use the assisted pull up machine that can be found at just about every gym nowadays. If you want to do this from home and have no way to do pull ups, you can at least work your shoulders by doing an overhead press with dumbbells (go ahead and youtube " dumbbell over head press " if your unsure what it is). So basically you will be performing reps that increase like a pyramid and then decrease after you hit the peak. Pull ups go up in increments of 1, pushups in increments of 2 and crunches in increments of 5 (perfrom these crunches on a stability ball if you can). For example: round 1 will be 1 pull up, then 2 pushups, then 5 crunches. Round 2 will be 2 pull ups, 4 pushups, and 10 crunches..

Here is the routine:
Pull ups: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 4.....
Pushups: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 12........
Crunches: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 30, 25...

Good luck and let me know how it goes. I am so sore already!

Day 8 - Active Rest Day

So today I have decided to take it a little easy to let my body recover from the last few days of hard workouts. I like to consider this a day of "active rest". Sometimes I feel too sore to do anything body changing but then I feel guilty if I don't DO something. Almost like I will back track. That's where the active rest comes in. So if you read my previous post, I went ahead and jogged for 20 minutes and within that 20 minutes, I performed some walking lunges (just enough to get a good burn in my quads). When I got home, I was surprised at how much more energy I had just from that short workout that I did some crunches on a stability ball. All in all, the workout was only 30 minutes but I feel great and not guilty at all for having some delishes food today.

And in honor of active rest day, I will be getting a light massage from Billy as my reward for all the hard work. If you like massages and can get them from your partner, I have found an AMAZING massage oil called Sea Source that feels just like the oil that they use at the spa. I always ask the people at the spa if I could buy the oil they use but its never for sale! And the stuff that you can usually find at a store never seems to come close the oil at the spa. But this stuff is really great and it smells good too! And if you dim the lights in your room, light some candles and play some spa music (I like SPA Hotel - downloadable from itunes), you will honestly feel like your on a vacation. I even like to turn on a space heater in our room so it gets warm and cozy.

Give it a try! Its been instrumental in helping me to continue my journey.

Workout How You Eat

Good morning everyone! Im going to keep this brief because I do not have much time. I am about to head out into the snow for a quick 20 minute jog mixed in with walking lunges. When you don't have a lot of time, its best to at least do something like this. I have one of my best friend's bridal shower to go to in a couple of hours and it will be held at one of NYC's best restaurants. When I have the opportunity to go to a very nice place, I WILL eat what I want because life is too short to miss out on culinary masterpieces. Therefore, I will be jogging before hand and later this evening. As my friend Kerry always says, "Workout how you Eat". And on that note, I will just be leaving you with an inspiring photo of Zuzana to get you off your butt and working out with me this morning.

Talk soon,
Faryn

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Our lovely landlord may be secretly trying to sabotage my weight loss goal. No no, I kid I kid! But today I stepped out of my apartment to discover a box of Cheryl and Co. cookies sitting up against our door which said "Enjoy!" I opened the box and there they were, not just a few cookies...but we are talking about 35 thick cookies where the icing is as thick as the cookie itself! I had to be strong in this moment. I unwrapped one called "butter cream" and smelt the sugary goodness....and then I ate it.

I want people to know that its ok to indulge a little and that you dont have to say no all the time. You just have to say no to a large portion. So I split the cookie in half and shared it with Billy. The next step I have to take now is to give the cookies away. This is a challenge in itself but I must remain strong. I must go with the motto, "Out of sight. Out of mind" because honestly, if its not around, I cant be tempted.

I'm glad I wrote this out, because now everyone at work will be expecting cookies and therefore, I have no choice but to hand them over. Right?