Week in Review: Fitness Totals

Greetings fellow fitness seekers & weight loss bloggers -- my favorite peeps! Since I was able to get my ass up EARLY to do my walk and get my ChaLEAN session in, I can actually post my totals for the week today.

My week got off on a challenging, sour note but I was able to snap myself out of it mid-week and I am grateful that I was able to pull it off. I normally do the ChaLEAN work outs on alternate days to give my body a rest, but because of not doing them early in the week, the only way I could fit them in was to do them Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Not only did I do it, but I also did the ab burner workout those three days too-- it is only 10-minutes but it is KILLER and doing it three days added another 30-minutes to my weekly totals, which are as follows:

Walking: 3 hrs & 45 minutes

ChaLEAN Extreme - 1 hr & 45 minutes

Gym (heavy weights) - 1 hr & 5 minutes

Ab Burner - 30 minutes

So I kicked ass with a total of 6 hrs and 25 minutes of exercise! Yeah baby!

Once again, walking represents the lion's share of my exercise time. This might change in the winter months, as my neighborhood is extremely hilly and once the snow and ice arrives it will be treacherous trying to walk around here. I don't mind the cold so much as I grew up here and can bundle up and deal with it-- but falling on my ass whilst trying to get up a steep hill that has iced over is not my idea of fun. During the winter I'll probably go back to using my cardio DVDs a lot-- which is what I was doing in the beginning.

I am glad that I pushed myself this week to bring my totals back up -- I am a little sore but I would rather be a little sore than to have the psychological impact of not achieving my goals two weeks in a row. A bad day or a bad week is one thing, but if you let it go on it quickly becomes a pattern and each day will have you acting and thinking in a way that gets you farther and farther away from who you want to be. No thank you, been there, done that!

I cannot allow negativity to take over. I simply cannot let frustration and other negatives cause me to abandon my efforts as I have done in the past. During weeks that are tougher, like this one was, I have to rededicate myself to my goals daily -- sometimes more.

Today marked the last day for the ChaLEAN Burn circuits. Starting this week, I move on to the next 4-week phase which is called the push phase. The way that the ChaLEAN program works is, for the first month, called the Burn Phase, you learn proper form for lifting weights and executing moves such as squats, lunges, sumo squats and dead lifts. You use weights that are heavy enough that you can't get past 10 or 12 reps.

The exercises in the burn phase really killed me the first two weeks as everything that she has you do works more than one muscle group at a time. For instance you do dead lifts with posterior fly, lunge with core rotation, bench press with leg lower, squat with side bend, etc.

My knees used to hurt when I tried to do lunges and squats. I realized through these DVDs that I was doing it wrong. Reading something in a book -- even with photos, is not as good as having someone not only show you, but walk you through it again and again.

This has been like having a personal trainer in my living room so I am glad that I spent the money on this program. The exercises are tough but it is amazing how quickly your body rises to the occasion and gets stronger.

So for the first month, you do the Burn circuits. There are three workouts and you do each one once a week and add some cardio on the alternate days. There is also a dvd with two ab workouts, one that is 10 minutes and one that is 20.

In the second phase, the Push Phase, which I start this week, you change to exercises that only work one body part at a time, but you go heavier, so that 6-8 reps is the most you can manage. Again, there are three workouts and you alternate days with cardio and throw in the ab workouts when you want. I'll be starting this on Monday and as it is something new, I will probably go back to being sore again for awhile, but this is a good thing.

After 4 weeks in the Push Phase, I will start the final phase, which they call the Lean Phase-- which is the toughest phase. This has you doing moves that work your upper & lower body and core all at the same time, and using heavier weights than you would have been able to do in the beginning. These sessions burn a lot of calories and this final month of the program is supposedly where most people see the most dramatic fat loss.

Anyway, I am excited to be starting the next phase on Monday! Watch out everyone, Chickzilla is emerging. LOL

Dh and I may try to fit in a hike this weekend and if we do, I will take some pics of the autumn foliage and post them here. I hope that you're having a fantabulous weekend! Be good to you!