Eat for Fuel Challenge

Ah, Sunday.  I love you!  I have been going, going, going nonstop for a couple weeks and plan to take much of the day off.  I had a very hard time getting out of bed this morning and am having a hard time getting myself motivated to do much of anything lately.  I took a bit of a mental and physical break from my HM training this week as I was feeling like I was coming down with something and was just overall exhausted.

I was paging through my food journal this morning and realized that, while I my weight has been heading in the right direction (down!), I have not been hitting my calorie goals as often as I like and the foods I have been eating are not optimal.  I think this is why I have been so sluggish lately (on top of having just too much to do and too little time to sleep!).  The way I have been eating is just not going to cut it for the long term.  I haven't been too far off, but I can feel myself slipping here and there and I need to refocus myself before I let go of all control.

Since my 30th bday is officially one month (31 days) away, and my main goal is to go into my 30's as healthy as possible, I've decided to challenge myself to focus on eating foods that will healthfully fuel my body for both my everyday life and my HM training.  So, here's the plan:

31-Day Eat for Fuel Challenge

The plan is to spend the next 31 days eating 90% from the list below and in combinations that will properly fuel my body (fats + proteins + carbs + fruits/veggies).  10% of my daily calories and food intake can come from foods off the list (like coffee!).  I hope to meet my calorie goals (not over or under) 6 out of 7 days a week.  I will also be planning all of my food the night before with some flexibility built in for those times when cravings hit.

Fuel Foods:

All fruits

All veggies

Beans

Eggs

Peanut Butter (no sugar added)

Fish

Chicken or Turkey

Lentils

Quinoa
Nuts/Seeds

Oatmeal/Oats

Brown Rice

Chia and Flax

Olive Oil

Vinegar

Salsa

Spices

Yogurt

Milk

Agave

Tea

(note - I'm probably forgetting some foods and may add to this list)

Anyone up for doing this challenge with me?  I think this will be a great way to enter my 30's and am excited to be back on track.  Challenges always motivate me!

Review: Bob Harper's Ultimate Body Cardio Body DVD

Good snowy evening!  It's been a good, but busy, day!  Yesterday, I did a review of Bob Harper's Cardio Conditioning DVD that I worked through on Saturday.  Since I have been really working hard to incorporate variety into my half marathon training to avoid burnout and my body becoming too used to walking, I decided to do another workout DVD today.  Although I had only planned enough time to do a 30 minute workout, I ended up doing a 60-minuter and raced through the rest of my day.  :)

Today, I did Bob Harper's Ultimate Cardio Body DVD.  I bought this DVD at some point but have never done it (not sure why).

Note: I only completed the 60-minute workout, not the 10 minute glute challenge, so I am not reviewing the second workout.

Despite this workout starting off with insane amounts of my least favorite exercise ever, lunges, I loved this DVD!  I felt challenged, though I probably would have been better off with two sets of weights.  This is a similar problem that I had with the Cardio Conditioning DVD as I am stronger at some exercises than others (this, by the way, is my own issue, not the DVD's - just something to be aware of). 

Although this workout didn't feel that much like a traditional cardio workout, my heart was definitely pounding at certain moments.  I loved that Bob took your heart "on a roller coaster ride."  I don't usually challenge myself this way as I tend to walk at the same speed for a long period of time and this left me feeling very energized after my workout! 

Although this isn't a traditional cardio workout, it is not a low-impact workout either.  It's not as high impact as other videos (like Jillian Michael's Burn Fat Boost Metabolism, which does not use weights) but you will be jumping quite a bit, sometimes with weights in hand.  The only thing that bothered my knees was the lunges.  Bob also ends the workout with a 2-3 minute crazy cardio shot that I loved.

Finally, if nothing else, you will get a kick out of Bob Harper's socks.  He wears black shorts, black shoes, and black knee socks.  I don't normally care that much what people are wearing (especially in a DVD like this) but it had me wondering the entire time who picked that out for him.  If you make it to the cool down, you'll get to hear his joke about it.

All in all, this is an awesome workout, perfect for adding a little variety into my workout schedule!  I plan to keep this in regular rotation as I really love to kill weights, abs, and cardio in one shot, especially on busy days like today.  It's too early to tell if I'm going to be sore from this but seeing as I was sore from the Cardio Conditioning video, I likely will be from this one as well.  We'll see tomorrow morning!

Review: Bob Harper's Cardio Conditioning DVD

I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend and staying warm!  I have been trying to incorporate more free weights and strength exercises into my half marathon training.  I am trying to schedule at least 2-3 days of cross training and/or free weights into my workout plan each week.  I just feel so much stronger and I am better able to support myself when walking for long distances when I my core, arm, and leg muscles are well conditioned.

I have several workout videos that include weights (cardio + weights = 2 birds/one stone) but I usually stick with Jillian Michael's videos like Ripped in 30 or 30 Day Shred.  I was looking for a bigger (and longer) challenge yesterday so I popped in Bob Harper's Cardio Conditioning DVD.  I got this DVD about a year ago and I did the 60 minute workout a few times but never made it through the entire thing.

Yesterday, I did make it through, so I thought I'd offer a review of this workout.

This is a fairly challenging workout and definitely worked muscles that I don't exercise on a regular basis (as made obvious by slightly sore upper arms and legs this morning).  I liked this workout for several reasons:  it incorporated different exercises than I usually do (varied workouts are so important to keep my body from getting used to my workouts), it was longer than most workout videos, it didn't contain lunges (oh, how much do I hate lunges?), and I was sweating pretty good throughout the majority of this workout.  I liked that you pushed yourself for about 45-50 minutes and then went into an ab workout and started cooling down.  There is also a countdown on the screen, which is really nice to know how much longer you have to go.  I believe there is a way to turn the countdown off.

This workout probably would have been more productive to me if I had two sets of weights (one light, one heavy), but I completed the entire workout with 5 lb weights and it was fine.

Now for what I didn't like:  this workout is extremely repetitive.  If you don't like squats, kettle bell-like swings, and dead lifts (with a weird squat included in these), this is not the workout for you.  I don't think I would do this more than once every week or two because I can see myself getting very bored with this and because I tend to get lower back pain with dead lift.  I have previously done the 25 minute workout included in the video (it's more like 23 mins) and felt like it was too short and I didn't get a good workout.

All in all , this is a good DVD, and will likely land in my weekly or biweekly video rotation.

Have a happy and healthy day!