Week 10

It’s a new day…a new month…a new week…and a NEW WORKOUT!  I’m so excited!  It’s also the last leg of my summer challenge so it’s do or die time here.

MONDAY:  Today is the first day of my new Fat Blaster 4 week workout.  If every day is like today, this is going to be a “blast” for sure.  Every week I will do circuits.  Mon, Wed and Fri are weight days.  Tues and Thurs are cardio days.  In the first week I will do a circuit that contains 5 sets of exercises on weight days.  Each set is a weight/cardio combo.  For instance, the first set in the circuit is dumbbell squats and high knee runs.  I take a 90 second rest between sets.  With each week, I add one new weight/cardio combo set to the circuit until the last week when I will do 8 combo sets per circuit.  The minimum goal is to get through an entire circuit at least 2 times.  Today, I did 3.  For cardio days I’ll do intervals on the treadmill that consist of jogging and sprinting….no walking.  This will be the biggest challenge for me, I think, because I have very little endurance.  The first week has 8 intervals.  By the 4th week there will be 12.

I am excited about this workout and I have high expectations of a good fat burn and nice results.  I am NOT going to sabotage my hard work with poor nutrition either.  After last month’s loss of almost all progress, I can’t afford to mess around now.

TUESDAY:  I spoke to my nephew Monday afternoon and he also believes I have suffered an injury in my right glute muscles.  He told me the name of the muscle but I don’t remember it now.  He said I should not still be sore after a week from doing that new exercise.  He believes I overworked the muscle.  So at his advice, when I went to do cardio this morning, I didn’t use the treadmill except for my 5 minute warm-up.  During warm-up, my muscle was pretty sore so I took cues from my body, like he told me to, and I used the bike today.  I’ve never used the bike at the gym before so it was a fun, new experience for me.  It was fun to lean forward and really “dig in” when it came time to “sprint.”  However, I never got my heart rate as high as I like to see it.  The highest it went was in the low 160’s.  I will likely still take it easy on Thursday and use the bike again if it’s available to give that muscle more time to heal but I think I’ll set the resistance higher on the bike.

He also told me to try jogging during the treadmill intervals but if my heart rate stays too high, I should walk instead.  The purpose of the slow jog or walk is to bring my heart rate back down to a normal level before I sprint again.  I already know I have heart rate issues and I’m sometimes sensitive to adrenalin so we’ll see how that goes.  Again, I’m not going to push it.  If my  heart rate stays too high, I will take the cue and drop down to walking instead of jogging.

WEDNESDAY:  Day 3 of my new Fat Burner workout.  I did pretty well this morning.  I pushed myself hard on all the combo sets in the circuit.  I did 3 circuits again this morning.  I was pretty spent by the time I was done.  Execution was a little easier today because I am more familiar with the routine.  The tops of my shoulders and back are still a little sore from Monday but I did the entire workout with no variations anyway.  I’m working hard not to screw up my diet, too, so I can get all the benefits possible from this last month.

THURSDAY:  Cardio again today and my butt muscle still isn’t quite right but it is getting better.  There is lots of improvement over how it felt on Sunday so I think by next Tuesday I should be ready to tear up the treadmill.  For today, I used the stationary bike again only this time, I kicked up the difficulty to 5.  Not extremely difficult but enough that I actually felt some resistance when I pedaled.  My nephew suggested making it hard enough to stand up and pedal but I wasn’t comfortable doing that so I still stayed seated but setting the resistance higher made a big difference.  This time when I got to the 30 second sprints I got my heart rate up into the 180’s.  That’s a little higher than where I’d like to be.  During the 90 second “jog” period my heart rate only came down into the 170’s….which is typically where I like it to be when I sprint.  So in contrast to  feeling like I didn’t get quite enough out of  Tuesday’s cardio workout, today I feel like maybe I got a little too much.  I was dizzy nearly half way through it and I backed off on my “jogging” speed a bit to let my heart rate settle down.  I got through it but by the 8th interval I was glad I was done.

FRIDAY:  Week One is in the books!  I think I did pretty well.  It was a little harder this morning than it was on Wednesday.  I’m not entirely sure why except this was a challenging workout and perhaps I’m still not getting enough water (ok…I know I’m not getting enough water).  Next week I will add a weight/cardio combo set to the circuit which means I will need to get up a little earlier than I have been or I won’t get all 3 circuits done.  I can’t settle for just 2.  That won’t be enough of a challenge.

I’ve done pretty well watching my diet this week, too.  The only indulgence I have allowed myself is a handful of potato chips dipped in low fat sour cream…and we’re talking like 3 or 4….not a whole bowl full.  All in all, I am happy with the way this week has gone and I hope to duplicate it again next week.