On The Hunt For Fashionable And Functional Workout Wear

Leave a comment
I'm on the hunt for new workout clothes. This Panache sports bra is on my list!

I’m on the hunt for new workout clothes. This Panache sports bra is on my list!

While doing mountain climbers, my top flipped up so my back and stomach were showing. I pushed through the routine before pulling my shirt back into place.  My once form-fitting top is now too baggie for the gym.

Plus during the kettlebell goblet squats, noticed a few tears in my pants near my thigh.

Clearly it’s time to replace some items in my workout wardrobe.

What Am I Looking For?
Great Material — While I love my cotton tanks, I need to find fabrics that wick moisture away from my skin. Something like CoolMax or Dri-FIT.

Avoid Flashing — I’m looking for form-fitting clothes so they don’t get in the way of the workout. The last time I picked up workout threads, the sales clerk recommended I buy one size smaller.  That seemed to work.

A Kick A$$ Sports Bra – This is my Great White! I don’t know if such a thing exists in the wild. There are exercises I avoid (jumping rope!) because I have yet to find a bra that can handle diverse workouts. I’ve started double bra-ing it for my 5K training because nothing I own gives me the support I need.  I’ve read good things about Panache and Enell sports bras. Users seem to swear by them. I plan to try both out.

Note to bra makers: Yes, we larger cup women want support when we workout. But we want to look fashionable too. Unfortunately, you make products that create the dreaded uni-boob look.  What are you thinking? I want a bra that gives me the support I need, but also hugs and shapes in the right places, isn’t too tight in the back, the straps don’t dig in and isn’t visible when I wear a v-neck top. Now get to work!

No Baggie Pants — I love wearing sweats to relax around the house, but I can’t work out in them. The cloth can get caught in the stationary bikes or elliptical machines. The same goes for any workout pants that flare out at the bottom. The other challenge is finding workout shorts and capri leggings. Most stores only have gear for winter.  Oh well…

There’s always Amazon!

Why I’m Not Wiped Out After Tough Workout

Leave a comment
Feeling mighty sweaty and exhausted after weight training and 1 mile run. The banana and protein shake recharged my battery.

Feeling mighty sweaty and exhausted after weight training and 1 mile run. The banana and protein shake recharged my battery.

This morning my trainer kicked my butt with a tough workout. I followed up with 30 solid minutes of interval training for a 5K.  Why am I not wiped out after such an intense workout?

After yesterday’s cycling class, I felt too week and sleepy to do anything…other than take a 3 hour nap. Yet I worked harder today than yesterday, but feel the opposite. I’m ready to take on the world.

What Workouts Did I Do Today?
Today’s muscle workout focused on using the TRX suspension system. I did 3 sets of 12 repetitions for each exercise.

Yes, it was grueling, but I felt great.  As my dad would say, I was “filled with piss and vinegar.” So I decided to do my 5K-interval training once I got home.

Slated to run for 1 mile, using the 20/40 second run/walk rotation, I forgot to turn on my app’s GPS system. So my app didn’t track mileage. So rather than running a mile, I ended up running 1.5 miles. D’oh.

Now I was exhausted. And very, very sweaty! I promptly ate 1/2 banana, downed my chocolate flavored protein shake and chugged two glass of water.

I bounced back immediately after the food. Now I’m ready to take on the rest of the day!

So what was the difference between today and yesterday? Three things stand out.

Getting The Diet Right
I think I’m doing a better job balancing the low carb diet on the days with my muscle workouts. On these workout intense days I up my carb in take to 100g.

My major carbs – whole grains, fruit, protein shakes – I eat before and after my muscle workout.

It helps with the soreness – I’m recovering faster — and my energy level stays high.

On days where I’m only doing cardio, I should eat up to 50g of carbs.  But yesterday, I only ate 20g.  Normally that would be fine, but with that 60-minute spinning class, my body needed a little more fuel.

No Longer Waking Up At The Crack Of Noon
I’m an insomniac. Getting to bed by 3:00 a.m. is early for me. But I’ve noticed a change in my sleeping habits since the weight loss. For the last few weeks, I’ve turned in before midnight.

I notice a huge difference in how I feel after a workout when I get 7-8 hours of sleep. The night before my cycling class, I slept for less than 5 hours. After cycling, I came home and slept for 3 hours. Yikes!

Last night I got 7 hours and after 60-minutes of very intense exercise, I feel great.

Drinking My Aqua
I’ve read that drinking water before, during and after a workout helps to fight fatigue.

Looking at my tracker, I see a huge difference in how much water I had between yesterday (cycling class) and today (muscle workout/run).

Yesterday I drank 1 liter of water…all day. Well below the 3 liters I normally drink. Before noon today, I’ve already drunk 1.5 liters.

Since I’m upping my cardio, I’ll need to find the right carb balance on those non-muscle workout days. And I got to get my 3 liters of water in per day. That’s a biggie!

As for sleep, if I keep up with days like today, I think hitting the pillow early won’t be a problem.

Spinning Class Is A Slice Of Fried Gold!

1 Comment
weight loss cycling, spinning class for beginners

Yes, the class kicked my butt — literally and figuratively!

I arrived at my first spinning class a few minutes early to talk to the instructor (Joyce) and make sure I set my bike up correctly.  She was amazing. She did a great job walking me through the set up, showing me where to position my seat and handles so I’d get the best workout.

Joyce assured me I didn’t need to keep up with the pace of the class. In fact, she told me she’d call out different instructions for me. She didn’t want me killing myself in my first spinning class.

As folks started walking into the classroom, they went out of their way to make me feel welcome. All encouraged me, told me how much they love the class and said I’d do just fine. Without a doubt, the nicest people I’ve ever met in a class.

I started out strong with the warm up, going faster as the second song started. Sweat quickly poured down my face, back and arms.

About 10 minutes it was time to increase resistance and start jogging.  Wow, I don’t ever remember it being this hard. It felt like I was riding in quicksand.

Thankfully, Joyce yelled out for me to drop my resistance. D’oh, I’d set my resistance to 6 (out of 10) during the jog. I cut it in half to 3 and the jogging got much easier.

As much as I tried, I couldn’t do the full jog. So I sat back down and kept a steady pace. Then it was time to turn the resistance dials all the way down to the lowest setting. Woohoo!

I got really excited, and way too soon. It was time to go all out and race. I pedaled as fast as I could for 4 minutes.

My only thought: Glad I didn’t eat before class.

During the last 30 minutes every new song meant a new exercise – sitting, jogging or hanging over the handles.  The switching-up made the class interesting and more fun.

I did stop a few times and even got off the bike to walk around a bit. Not because it was difficult.  I needed to stop because of that damn seat!

weight loss and spinning class, spinning class sore saddle

Who ever designed this thing is an idiot! But a few more classes and I’ll get use to it.

My Spin Class Seat Is the Devil!
I’m not prone to violence. But about 3 minutes into the 60-minute class, I so desperately wanted to punch the guy who designed that seat. In the face. With a 2 x 4.

Did someone actually think causing pain to inner thighs and the butt – pain that lasts well after class ends, by the way – was a great idea?

Also, something about it disrupted my rhythm. I had to constantly readjust while sitting down. For about 4 minutes, I actually zoned out the pain and got into the music, and got a brief glimpse of the joy to come in future classes.

My instructor and classmates all told me the same thing: “It takes a couple of classes for the pain to go away.”

Crap!

Preparing For Friday’s Class
Sigh…I loved the class. Thanks to the seat, I don’t feel as if I gave it my all.  Which is scary considering how tired my legs feel right now.

When class ended, two of my classmates gave me some advice – padded pants! Now how’s that for a slice of fried gold?

Tomorrow, I’m on the hunt for padded bicycle shorts.

Related Video

Never been to a spinning class?  This gives you a great idea of what to expect.

Related articles

Peddling The Fat Off — My Next Fitness Challenge

2 Comments
weight loss cycling

Headed to my first spin class today. I expect it to kick my butt and turn my legs into jelly.

I’m a little late in picking my next 30-day fitness challenge. I’ve racked my brains trying to pick a good lower body workout. Walking around my gym, I stumbled upon the new challenge – cycling.

For the next month, I’m hitting the road…actually my local spinning class. I plan on attending a 60-minute cycling class twice a week.

Today is my first cycling class.  My goal isn’t to keep up with the class — I won’t. I just want to finish the class, as I’m expecting it to completely kick me in the butt.

Why Cycling?
I have a few reasons:

1. While I’ve lost weight everywhere, my legs are the slowest to give up the fat. I know you can’t target where the fat comes off, but I can give my calf, hamstring and glutes a great workout without a lot of stress on my joints.

2. I needed a new challenge. I love lifting weights, yoga in the mornings and interval training for the 5K, but that can get old. Sometimes you need to add in a new exercise to shake things up.

3. The last time I rode a bike ride around my neighborhood was 30 years ago. That’s too long. In 2010 my husband and I purchased bikes.  I rode it for 2 minutes. I felt unsteady and uncomfortable. I weighed over 300 lbs. and had no confidence in myself. It was easy to think, “I’m too fat to ride a bike.” So into the shed it went.

That bike’s coming out of the shed.  I’m going to relearn how to ride and take my bike for a spin in my neighborhood before year’s end. The spinning class is a way for me to regain my confidence.

Hey, How Come You’re Not Cycling Everyday?
Yes, the 30-day fitness challenge is a daily challenge. Since I’m interval training to run a 5K, I don’t want to tire out my legs. I’m taking the spinning classes on my days off from training. Trust me. Two spinning classes a week is a challenge.

I do plan to ride a real bike before the end of the year. But that is a separate challenge all on its own.

Related articles

My Brain Hurts: Exercising After Work Harder Than You Think

Leave a comment

Did you know when your brain’s tired, you have a crappy workout?  Actually, your body thinks it’s too hard so you quit earlier than planned.  So concludes a report looking at how intense studying may harm our exercise routines.

It turns out that mental fatigue affects endurance. Test subjects tired 13% faster after undergoing mentally tiring activities and reported that their workouts felt way more tiring than usual.

After a long day at work, I felt like this:

Yep, my brain hurt. Despite the mental fatigue I tried to hit the gym 4 days a week. When you’re mentally exhausted, working out is the last thing you want to think about. Depending on how my day went dictated whether I hit the gym or not.  I’m not saying mental fatigue is the reason I didn’t go to the gym as often. Nope, just plain laziness.  But it did give me the ammo to justify not working.

Now a days, I find it difficult to start my day without working out. My morning workouts are certainly more intense. Perhaps my weight loss goals helps to keep my eyes on the prize. Putting my health first completely changed my mental outlook.

 

 

 

Upper Body Workout: Resistance Is Futile

Leave a comment
resistance bands, upper body weight exercise

Thanks to my new found commitment to weight training I’m sweaty, sore and feeling pretty dang peachy about myself!

I’m exhausted, sweating up a storm and my arms feel like jello thanks to a new upper body workout compliments of a great video I found on YouTube.

Up until this morning I’ve used the images in a booklet that came with the resistance bands that show the exercises as my guide. It gets rather dull and it’s hard to tell if my form is correct. So this morning I hunted for workout videos on YouTube. Most only show one exercise and I didn’t feel like stopping to switch out videos. And you really couldn’t see the exercise because someone didn’t use a camera with a zoom lens.

After about 30 minutes I found a video by a group called Fitness Blender. I don’t know who they are, but I absolutely loved this workout.

The Fitness Blender video is 27 minutes in length and you complete each set of exercises in 3 rounds. The video is easy to follow and challenging. Also the voice-over provides clear directions on form as does the video. Another nice feature – rather than jumping from one exercise to the next, the video also provided about 10-15 seconds in between exercises to give you time to adjust your bands. And between rounds there’s enough time for a short water break.

I did hit the pause button a lot during round 1. After last night’s push-up debacle, I continually added resistance during each exercise.  And each time, it was too much weight. So after wasting about 10 minutes switching out bands, I settled down and hit my rhythm during round 2. I did skip one exercise – the lateral pull. My room is too small for me to lay on the floor and get enough tension in the bands.

I found that by round 3, my arms turned to limp noodles. I hit the wall during the overhead tricep extension. I could only muster 9 at the end. On number 10, my forearm stopped midway up. I actually let out a small yell as if to will my arm up over my head.  My tricep decided to go on strike. It was awesome!

After my workout, I decided to check out Fitness Blender’s YouTube channel.  I hit the mother load!  I found a ton of full length exercise videos. From yoga to strength training to Pilates, you’ll find what you need.

I plan to mine their channel for workout gold.

Drop And Give Me 3!

Leave a comment
Thanks to poor upper body strength, I have something in common with T-Rex. Fear not, wall push-ups save the day!

Thanks to poor upper body strength, I have something in common with T-Rex.

It’s day 1 of my truncated Push Up Challenge and it went as expected. Once in the plank position, I tried lowering myself down. I ended up flat on my face.

Not very graceful.

After a few more feeble attempts, I decided to give the modified push up a try.

So how did that go? Ugly!

I didn’t kiss my yoga mat, but my arms could hardly bear my weight. I ended up rushing through 3 half push-ups before rolling over on my back cursing what I got myself into.

Wow, 25 more days of this crap! Time to temper expectations.

A Flaw In The Workout Plan
Clearly, my upper body strength sucks. All my workouts center around cardio fitness and my legs. That’s just a boneheaded move! I weigh 246 lbs., I think my legs get plenty of exercise lugging me around. And cardio fitness is a good thing, but work is sorely missed on the muscle front.

This month’s challenge exposes a serious flaw in my workout routine.

I’m neglecting my arms, chest and abs. Sure I do resistance training with bands – but not consistently. Time to modify my workout schedule and add in 3 days worth of weight training.

I do love my resistance bands – they’re portable and take up very little space. But the amount of resistance is finite. And my house isn’t equipped with wall hooks to expand the types of exercises I can do.

I see free weights in my future.

Revised Push Up Challenge
Not a quitter, I decided to try 3 wall push-ups. While much more challenging than I expected, I could actually do them – barely. Hooray!  I felt stretching in my arms, shoulder and chest.

So here’s the new game plan: focus on the wall push-ups during the challenge, with the goal of moving my feet further away from the wall to increase the intensity (today I stood about 2 feet away). After each week, I’ll try the modified floor push up to check on my progress.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Related articles

Creating My Exercise Cave

1 Comment
Found! One pink gym bag with weights and a weight lifting book. A sign to start weight training again?

Found! One pink gym bag with weights and a weight lifting book. Just what my exercise domain needs!

I’ve claimed the spare bedroom as an exercise-friendly space! I’m not looking to create a home gym with expensive equipment – our humble Love Shake is just too small. I’m carving out a small, pet-free area with plenty of room for yoga and resistance band routines.

My exercise DVDs, placed strategically next to my iMac,  stand at the ready. The room doesn’t have any shelves, so I stowed my yoga mat and resistance bands neatly in the closet, but within easy to reach.

I cleaned out the room to give me plenty of space for aerobics, weight training and yoga.

The big bonus: No chance of my 4-legged pals diving on me during the downward dog pose (kitty felt frisky that day). I love doors!

The room is pretty ugly, so I’m planning on painting it as soon. I stumbled across this decorating idea online and thought it might be a fun painting project for one of the smaller walls.

While setting up my make shift gym, I remembered my little pink gym bag. I purchased it last year right before my injuries hit.  I used it for one week before my doctor benched me.

I put the pink bag up and never thought of it again until yesterday.

After 30 minutes of searching, I found it at the foot of a full storage closet in the basement. I dusted it and expected to find nothing but dirty gym clothes inside. I picked it up and it weighed a ton.

Just like Cracker Jacks, when I opened the bag I found a prize inside: dumbbells – 2, 3 and 5 lbs.

Perfect timing. I’m now reading New Rules of Lifting for Women.

What’s Your Exercise Type?

3 Comments

This morning I played with Weight Watchers’ eTools checking out the fitness section. I discovered a fitness quiz designed to build a personal activity profile and training guide. A quiz? Fun.

The first time through, I’d answer the questions honestly to get my profile. Then I’d run through the quiz multiple times to see the different types of personalities I am not. Why? I’m a marketer. It’s what I do.

The multiple-choice questions were pretty simple: last time I exercised regularly, do I like working out with other people, outdoor vs. indoor workouts, and am I competitive.

From what I can tell, quiz takers fit into one of five categories: competitor, explorer, individualist, joiner, and perfect partner.

(You can take the activity profile quiz if you are a subscriber to Weight Watchers eTools. Otherwise, take the poll to choose your exercise type.)

Well, it turns out I’m an (drum roll, please)…Individualist!

I can see that. Working out is a time for me to clear my thoughts. Also if I’m exercising with friends I’m more likely to socialize than get a great workout. I know my limitations!

As for the suggested workouts, some I’m already doing like hiking, walking, yoga and strength training. But some suggestions intrigued me: biking, hitting balls at a driving range, water workouts (suggest exercises for the pool), and inline skating.

The last time I rode a bike?  About 20 years ago.  Now I did buy a bike in 2010. Where’s that bike now? Sitting in a shed. How sad. Maybe this fall I get back on that horse.

There’s a pool and driving range near out house. Perhaps a couple of times a month I try swimming and hitting golf balls. It certainly breaks up the monotony of walking and yoga everyday.

As for inline skating, all I can say is “Yikes!”  I’d say that’s a big, fat no for now. Until I master the bike, no way in hell I’m getting on skates.  Now that doesn’t mean never. Maybe it’s something to try next spring.

 

 

The Ultimate Workout

2 Comments

I’m always looking for the best workout equipment. Well, I think I found the holy grail of all exercise machines. What do you think?