Today was a lot of fun. Judy got a spa treatment at this really luxurious spa/gym, and she took me along. I got to go swimming in the most amazing pool...
And the place was empty so I had it all to myself. It was amazing.
After that, we had a disappointing lunch (the food here has been a mixed bag) and we did a little shopping. Now I’m watching Uruguay play Germany for 3rd place in the World Cup.
Workout Journal:
- Nothing much. Leisurely swimming and about 40 minutes of brisk walking. The gym here isn’t open on Saturdays or Sundays.
Diet Journal:
- Breakfast: coffee with cream, 2 hard-boiled eggs, and a bowl of this amazing fruit salad.
- Lunch: that disappointing salad. I think the dressing had sugar in it, and the salad was drenched in it.
- Dinner: Taco salad, without the tacos! Very tasty...I also made guacomole, which turned out ok. Drank sparkling water.
- Dessert: 2 squares of dark chocolate with almonds, 2.5 glasses of wine, and a 2 bowls of fruit salad. It’s Saturday.
The Knot just emailed me a reminder that Mike's and my wedding is only 9 months away! :-) Very exciting, so much left to do...
Anyways, down to business.
Workout Journal:
- Warm-up: 15 minute walk to the gym, 3 minutes of jumping rope
- Squats: 1 set of 12 bodyweight. I’m usually pretty good at form but I realized today that mine is pretty crummy, or that I’m very weak when I actually do them correctly. So I did 3 sets of 12 with a bar that probably weighed about 20 lbs, and it was always difficult on the bottom, getting just past 90 degrees.
-Bench press: 3 sets of 12 reps with the olympic bar, touching the bar to my chest at the bottom. I tried to keep my time between sets to 60 seconds, but after the second set, I took 5 minutes to recover. I wouldn’t have been able to do the 3rd set otherwise.
I intended to do more but I was pretty wiped after those two exercises. I’m going to have to kick it up a notch next week, for sure. My mother, the personal trainer, is going to send me some workouts because I completely lack the creativity to come up with them on my own.
When I was researching what I could do to squat more weight and with better form, I came across the Box Squat. Here’s Dave Tate (who’s apparently an expert -- a fitness guru, even -- he was quoted on many, many websites) explaining how and what to do:
Obviously, I would start with no weight, then go up to very little weight. In another video, he suggests you start at a doable height (so that you’re going back far enough and also not dropping at the end) then gradually lower the box.
Anyways, I thought it was interesting. Squats are such an amazing exercise, I want to make sure I’m going them correctly.
Food Journal:
- Breakfast: Nil. Wasn’t really intentional but I went to the gym so I didn’t eat anything beforehand. Even though people say you shouldn’t skip breakfast, or meals, paleo diets often encourage intermittent fasting (or IF) to mimic life in the wild (cavemen and women didn’t always sit down for meals at 9, 12, and 6 because they didn’t always know where the meal would come from). It has benefits. You can read about them here. (I love, love, love this website: Mark’s Daily Apple.)
- Lunch: 2 hard-boiled eggs, part of an avocado (it was mostly bad, unfortunately), and a banana. Coffee with cream.
- Snack: More coffee. With cream.
- Dinner: My advisor went and got some really fun ingredients from the fancy market. We had hamburgers wrapped in bacon, with some melted goat cheese on top, as well as some sauteed mushrooms and onions. Then, on the side, some steamed sugar snap peas with a little butter. Delish!
- After dinner: Decaf coffee with cream. (Maybe I drink too much coffee?) Also, I was craving chocolate so I had 4 of those dark chocolate truffles that are still sitting around the kitchen. But no wine, at least. I just brushed my teeth, so I’m done for the night!
*Note: I will start taking photos of my food soon, but I don’t really want to look like a wierdo in front of my advisor.
Today was a fairly productive work day, comparatively, which was needed. I didn’t make it to the gym, but I walked a lot. It’s a pretty long walk to and from work, even with public transit. And this was definitely the best part of my walk:
The Swedes are usually very good at English, but something about that window seems a bit off!
I also went on an hour and 45 minute brisk walk with my academic advisor, who’s also my roommate. (It’s actually working out incredibly well.) Stockholm is really quite breathtaking, especially in the evening, because the sun sets very slowly and casts all these wonderful rays of light on the water. This is probably the most beautiful picture I’ve taken here so far:
But enough about Stockholm...here’s what happened today:
Workout Journal:
A lot of walking (see above). My hamstrings are slightly sore from deadlifting and so is my back from the chin-ups. But the soreness is definitely not too bad.
Food Journal:
Breakfast: Coffee with cream and a banana.
Lunch: Salad with tiny shrimps. Apple for dessert. Sparkling water to drink.
Snack: Another apple. (There’s all this free fruit at the office -- it’s amazing!)
Dinner: Same thing as yesterday: the other rotisserie chicken leg & and my cauliflower wonderfulness. It was pretty good, even though it was nuked.
Dessert: I kept it to 1 glass of red wine tonight
Also, I'm waiting with bated breath to hear where LeBron's going. I'm afraid he's going to say Miami, but I'm praying he stays in Cleveland...
I have lots to do today so I’m going to make this one short and sweet and all about accountability.
Workout Journal: Wednesday
Warm-up: We walked quickly to the gym, which is probably a little less than a mile from our apartment. (Side note: It’s funny here in Stockholm because you actually where street shoes to the gym, leave those at the door in a little cubby, then put your gym shoes on inside the gym. I find gyms in the US are much less picky about their floors.) I then jumped rope for about three minutes, which is a lot harder than I remember it being in grade school.
Deadlift: 3 sets of 12 reps with the olympic bar, concentrating on form. (Still it wasn’t too difficult or satisfying.) Waited 60 seconds between reps.
Assisted chin-ups: 3 sets of 8 reps. I set the machine on 16 (1 to 20, with 1 being the hardest), which is much more help that I would have liked. Still, it was difficult for me. Waited 60 seconds between reps.
I then went back and did one more set of 12 deadlifts, getting the bar up to about 70 lbs. It was much more difficult and satisfying.
After leaving the gym, I think we probably walked around for another hour, trying to figure out a boat trip to an island in the archipalego
Food Journal: Wednesday
Breakfast: Coffee and cream. Kinda pathetic but I woke up late.
Lunch: Salad with crayfish, salmon, and balsamic vinaigrette. Water to drink.
Snacks: about 1/2 cup of pistachios, before they’ve been shelled.
Dinner: Rotisserie chicken from the store (the leg and thigh), then instead of the store-bought veggies, I bought a head of cauliflower, steamed it, and added butter, salt, and a little sour cream. I love cauliflower.
After dinner: This is where I fell off the wagon a bit. I had 3 small squares of dark chocolate with almonds (not too bad) but then I also have 3 of these small dark chocolate truffles that are lying around the house (which they shouldn’t be be). And 3 glasses of red wine as I surfed the web, talked to friends and family on Skype, and finished a wonderful, fascinating non-fiction book called The Wisdom of Whores, by Elizabeth Pisani, about the AIDS epidemic.
I find after dinner to be the hardest time to stick with eating right. I’m going to try to start brushing my teeth about an hour after dinner to see if that helps. One glass of red wine is probably good for the heart, but three just loads down your liver and prevents it from burning fat. I should know better.
I've been fascinated lately with the idea that a) diet is far more important than exercise when trying to lose weight, and b) working out for a shorter amount of time at a high intensity does much more for your body than so-called "chronic cardio" (e.g. running for an hour on a treadmill every day...we've all seen those guys/gals at the gym running faithfully every day, yet still have a tire hanging around their middles).
I am currently in Stockholm, Sweden, doing academic research until August 1st, so that has made working towards my fitness goals more challenging. (I'm currently an MS candidate in Epidemiology at OSU.) I was doing high intensity, bodyweight exercises for the last week or so; however, my friend and I just joined a gym last Monday, so I can start adding on weight!
Before I joined the gym, I probably did the following 5 times in about 10 days: a circuit of 10 bodyweight squats, 5 push-ups (modified by doing them off of a park bench-seat), and 20 jumping jacks. Repeat as many times as you can for 15 minutes. I got through 11 circuits.
Now that I have a gym, my new workout template is here at Gym Junkies (more or less).
The basic idea is to use high-intensity, compound exercises (i.e. exercises that use several muscle groups at once, such as squats and deadlifts) to build muscle mass, which will in turn burn fat.
So here is my (admittedly imperfect) Workout Journal for Monday:
5 minute warm-up on recumbent bike
12 bodyweight squats, followed by 3 sets of 12 squats with a weighted bar (since it was in kilograms, I'm not quite sure how heavy it was...I'm guessing 20 lbs)
3 sets of 12 shoulder presses with the same weighted bar
I only rested 60 seconds between each set for the whole workout, keeping my heart rate up
Then I had time to kill waiting for my friend, so I did some plank poses
I know it doesn't seem like a lot, but supposedly it's enough. Plus, I don't really want to be completely out of commission because I overdid it. Instead, I was slightly sore the next day. Now it's Wednesday, and I have another workout tonight. I'll report back on that, as well as my Food Journal for the day.
I'll attack this post in two parts, explaining the chosen title of my blog.
Paleo
I've been blessed with a mother who has chosen to take health and fitness very seriously. She's a renaissance woman and had tried many careers: lawyer, English teacher, actress. But after a (thankfully minor) cancer diagnosis circa 2003, she decided to do everything she could to be healthy. This eventually led her down the Paleo Path, and I have (luckily!) been inundated with mountains of supporting evidence ever since. She has since become a personal trainer and is currently training in the Anat Baniel Method, which does amazing things for adults and children with physical limitations.
This is a short video of how my mother came to learn about Anat's program!
Elle est si charmante, n'est-ce pas?
(For more info, you can find a video of Anat working with a child with a brachial plexus injury here, or go to Anat Baniel's official website.)
Anyways, back to yours truly. Over the years, I've made various attempts to stick with the Paleo diet, and have become a fairly competent weight lifter (i.e. I understand good form pretty well). But as I stated in my previous post, I've not adhered to either part of that equation consistently. I expect that I will post some before and after photos once I'm sure I have something after that's worth showing!
Bride
I met my fiance, Mike, through a mutual friend in February 2009, and we started dating the following April. We had actually gone to the same high school, and vaguely each knew who the other was, but we were not in the same year (he's a year younger than me). I quickly realized that he was the funniest, sweetest, most amazing guy I'd ever met. We basically became inseparable over the course of the next year, and we got engaged this past March (although I think we had already figured out we were meant for each other months before). Here's a photo:
Aren't we cute? I love him so much!
Anyways, I'm looking forward to the big day but I also want to be able to look back on my photos and think that I looked beautiful and healthy!
Hello everyone! I've started this blog to document my journey towards health and fitness. By writing all of this down and sharing it with the world (or, at least, whoever reads it), I’m hoping that I'll do a better job of sticking with it. I do have a specific weight loss/fitness goal: to be able to fit in to my size 6 wedding dress (which, if you know anything about the sizing at David's Bridal, is really more like a 4). To give a point of reference, I would have fit much better into a 10, but since the dress was on sale, my choices were between a 6 and a 14. I chose the 6.
Conveniently, this goal comes with a very hard deadline: April 9, 2011. (My wedding day!) And lest I forget, theknot.com informs me that my big day is exactly 277 days away from today. Duly noted.
A little background on me: I was skinny growing up, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it's probably better than growing up heavy, but a curse because back then I would eat whatever I wanted, and it never caught up with me. That is, until these last few years. I'm probably 20 lbs heavier than when I started college. (And though I probably did gain a few curves in college, the girls certainly do not weigh 20 pounds on their own!) I've been trying to become Paleo, in fits and starts, for probably the last three or four years. But I haven't been able to stick with it. School, work, school and work, parties, holidays – there is always an excuse for me not to see it through. But I’m quite literally starting a new part of my life, and this body is the only one I’m ever going to have. It will hopefully see my future hubby and me through many happy years, through children and grandchildren. And I’m going to do whatever I can to increase the length and quality of my life. What is Paleo, you might ask? It's based on the idea that the age of agriculture is just a blip in our species' history, and that our bodies were not meant to consume grains or sugar, let alone cheese from a can. Our bodies cannot process them correctly. A Paleo diet emphasizes eating meat, poultry, fish, healthy fats (e.g. butter and omega 3-fatty acids), and lots of veggies and fruits. Some eat dairy, but others do not (more about this later). Another reason I've started this blog is that I wanted to create more Paleo websites for women, both so we have access to more resources, and to combat the craziness that passes for diet advice on the web. A word of warning: I fully expect that I will both extol the virtues of the Paleo diet as well as document my own successes and failures adhering to it. In other words, I’m not perfect. So here are a few websites that I find particularly helpful: For general reference:Mark's Daily Apple For awesome recipes:Girl Gone Primal And most recently: Gym Junkies (Sometimes his posts are only geared towards men, but most of it is applicable to both sexes.) I used to love to go to a blog called the IF Life, but it seems to be undergoing some serious maintenance at the moment. If you google "IF Life" you may find it. If not, I will post when it seems to have returned.
So that is my brief introduction. I'll talk a little bit more about my life in the next post.
