August Week 2 Workout Recap

This was the last week before school starts. Most moms are going to be celebrating this week as their kids go back to school. At least I would be when my kids finally start to go. I guess it is bittersweet but still us mommas need a break sometimes don't we! Anyhew I made sure to really kicked my butt into gear this week. Which I am happy to announce that I DID! 

I stuck to the workouts even though they kicked my butt and I couldn't do everything but I sure worked myself. I have needs improvement on my 2 newest workouts that were added this week: Drench and Strength intervals. I am so excited to gauge my strength changes over the next couple of weeks! 

Life as a mom is keeping me pretty busy. I still haven't added running back into the mix, except for on Saturdays and I am still trying to work out a schedule with my hubs on when I can go to his gym during the week. Or hopefully soon I will be able to go back to my gym and it will be easier to do running! 

Currently I am looking into 1/2 marathon training. I am planning on, I guess kinda sorta, looking at doing a 1/2 next spring and will start my 1/2 training in November. I am going to start training for my 10k here in a few weeks so I am excited about that. Race season, here I come! I do know that I will continue to incorporate leg strengthening exercises/weight training during my training because last time I did that (in 2010) I was able to run longer without my body tiring out. So I will be in full training mode so soon! 

Oh and another thing. I was without Shakeology until Wednesday. I could definitely feel a difference in my body, energy and craving levels when I am not drinking it. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was stuff my face of sweets and pastries. Workouts were hard and not and I had to really push to get through the workout. Started drinking shakeology on Wednesday and it really takes about 3 days to get it back in your system and to get that energy kick. IT REALLY IS GREAT STUFF! Note to myself, don't run out again! 

Workout Recap: 

Sunday: Rest

Monday: PiYo Sweat

Tuesday: PiYo Hardcore on the floor

Wednesday: PiYo BUNS

Thursday: PiYo Drench

Friday: PiYo Strength Intervals (only able to do about 1/2 so sore and tired from Drench and Buns)

Life of a Busy Mommy!

This past week was CRAZY in the Allen household! It was my first full week back at teaching, last week it was only a partial teaching week. And to top it off Matt was gone for 4 DAYS! I was by myself with the 2 boys for 4 DAYS! Needless to say it got a little stressful and crazy! Both boys were missing Daddy like crazy and Mace was tired of dealing with just me. I didn't pull any hair out, the house survived and we are all in one piece but man I am so thankful that I have my hubs here to help me with the boys regularly because I need that break in the afternoon to just decompress!

It was so cute when Matt got home. Mason just wanted to hold him and hug him and didn't want to go to bed but we promised lots of playing the next day (which he did) just with daddy! Collin was cooing up a storm just to Matt when he saw him. (Matt got home around 9 pm by the way!) Collin was talking to Matt, like trying to have a conversation with him, telling him everything that he missed while he was gone,  and it was so cute!

So back to normal life now, yay! Coming up this week we have my weekly PiYo recap, Collin 3 month post (I know, already), and Running Tips and Tricks! See ya tomorrow!

Also there is still some room left in the PiYo test group! If you are interested let me know!!! Make sure you JOIN my team here!

PiYo Week 3 RE-DO

Now that I have officially redone week 3 I can talk about it! OH MY OH MY How much do I love BUNS! It was awesome! I was sore from the bowlers move for 4 days. 4 DAYS PEOPLE! I haven't been that sore from working out in forever and that is going back to my first week with my personal trainer where he literally kicked my butt and pushed me to my max to see where we start from! But yeah, I felt it like crazy in my thighs for 4 days. Then core the next day, oh boy! IT WORKED ME HARD AND GOOD!

The only workout last week I didn't do is the strength interval on Saturday. My legs were toast after still be sore from BUNS and also from my run with the training program that morning and trying to keep up with MJ! Now she is an inspiring woman who makes me want to push harder every single day! 80+ lbs down and still rocking it in the weight loss dept! LOVE HER and so glad I met her!

Anyhew I am also noticing that I am more flexible. During some after workout stretching I was able to reach further and my legs spread more apart without killing my hamstrings. I totally need my hamstrings looser! I love it when Chalene tells us to lift our tail bone or pop a hip out here or there. I feel the stretching so much more deeply.

Also this was my first week that I kept plank up during the whole routine. I only dropped onto my knees when going to Chaturanga because I am still working on getting my tricep pushup. OUCH! 

I am going into the final week of the first half of PiYo this week and super excited. I got to start it off with SWEAT last night, had to wait for the kiddos to be in bed. But after this week, it gets more difficult I assume because Define upper and lower is gone and it goes into DRENCH and SWEAT a ton! 

---Beginning August 25 I will be hosting a Exclusive PiYo test group on Facebook! Let me know if you are interested in joining my team and group!!! Leave a comment, msg me, email me or click here and click JOIN TEAM! 

PiYo Test Group

Ok, you have all seen me post about PiYo over the last few weeks! What do you think? Would you want to try it out too??? Guess what!?! You can! I'm going to be hosting an exclusive (meaning like 5 people only) PiYo test group in 2 weeks through Facebook!!!

~What is PiYo? It is a fusion between Pilates and Yoga while being a cardio work out. You are always moving so you are burning calories all the time!

~What benefit will I get from PiYo? A sweating cardio workout, every time! flexibility, flexibility and more flexibility!

~Can it really help me? Sure can. Are you a runner like me? Well it will help to loosen up your almost always tight hamstrings. It will strengthen your core  and it will give you the strength workout using your own body weight that we need to make us stronger.

~I have bad knees or wrists can I still do this? YES! Every move has a modification to it. You wrists will get stronger every week, I had weak wrists before and they are doing great!

~Can I actually lose weight? YES YOU CAN! Because it is a cardio workout you are burning a ton of calories. AND When you pair it with Shakeology you will lose even more, plus combat those cravings and get all the vitamins you need in a day!

~I don't have time to work out. YES YOU DO! Most of the workouts are 25 min or less! You don't need hours worth of exercise because of the power moves you are doing and you are constantly moving (you can drop to a rest position at any time to recover thought) so you are burning a ton of calories!

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! PiYO is AMAZING! I love it. It is a ton of fun and as a nursing mother I have had no back pain since about a week into the program because my core is tightening up. I have been more flexible and my hamstrings are not as tight as they were. My muscles have been sore though because I am working them but seriously this is a great workout. I am on my 4th week this week and will have pictures posted next week, but I am losing more and more inches every week! I feel better in my clothing! Please think about this, let me know if you have any questions because this program is truly awesome! Click here for more info on PiYo and send me an email with more questions or to reserve your spot! connectthedotsginger@gmail.com

PiYo Week 3

This week got away from me. Life got in the way. And that is okay! Life happens. Crappy things in life happen and we all have to deal with it. But the thing is not to give up. It is to keep going. So for me, I am going to re-do Week 3 in PiYo because I missed 2 brand new workouts. I did my normal ones, the Define upper and Lower that I have done every week but I didn't get a chance to do Buns, Core or Strength Intervals. So WEEK 3 Re-Do will be up next week.

The big thing though, I AM NOT GIVING UP! I AM STILL DOING THIS! So If you are interested in reading about the week 3 workout for PiYo, come back next week!

Interested in trying out PiYo? Click here!

PiYo Week 2

I just finished my second full week of PiYo Monday! YEA for working out 7 days last week. 6 days were PiYo! I am sure feeling it though this past week. This is the week where my body was screaming at me to stop because it was working so hard. I pushed myself a little harder and tried to stick the positions longer. My arms were shaking, my legs were shaking and I have gotten better with some of the exercises. I have learned to modify them to fit my body while still getting a great workout.

My shoulders though are super weak! I had to drop my arms quite a bit this week to let them rest for just a second. But when I felt that need to drop them I held it 2 seconds longer just to strengthen them and show my body who is boss! So my goal for this week is to keep my arms up longer, to strengthen my shoulders more. Also to spend more time in a regular plank. I tried each day to try holding a plank position at least 1 time. Time to increase it to 2. (Maybe this is the real reason why my shoulders are so SORE!)

Core was AMAZING! BY THE WAY! I really enjoyed the core workout. And I felt it the next day in my obliques, just below my ribs. It was amazing but OUCH! So I really look forward to doing core 2 TIMES this coming week, plus we throw in BUNS!

Adding a new section this week with showing how much weight I have lost and inches lost. I will do this ever 2 weeks.

Weight Lost: 0
Inches Lost: 6.25

BTW!!! Today, JULY 31 is the LAST day to get the PiYo Challenge Pack at a discounted sales price plus you will get a free EXTRA CD! CLICK HERE TO GET IT TODAY!

Shakeology, I LOVE YOU!

 

So I am convinced, truly convinced, that this stuff is MAGIC! It's been 2 weeks that I have been on Shakeology and I LOVE IT! Here's why:

I have lost 2.5 lbs in 2 weeks. I am not starving at all! I FEEL GREAT! I don't have to take a nap anymore during the day because I have energy to get me through the day. I don't crave candy, sugar, sweets, or salty foods. I have had an increase in my milk production (not that you are going to start producing milk if you drank it, but I am getting the things my body needs to make more beneficial milk for my little guy!) And I feel like I am cheating on my "diet" because I get to have a yummy chocolate shake!

So I hadn't lost any weight since 3 weeks postpartum. I actually gained weight because my milk came in and stabilized, so I was stuck at 3 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight for this pregnancy for 5 weeks. I know that doesn't seem so bad, but I have some weight to lose and I want to do it in a healthy way so that I can still provide the food that my son needs. It is really hard to find that line of eating too little and eating too much. But I have finally found it and it is with drinking a meal replacement shake! I don't know about you but have you ever done Slim-fast? I have. I have done it with tons of exercise, without exercise, and just to help maintain. Well with Slim-fast I was always starving. I felt hungry because I wasn't getting everything that my body needed. And about 1 time every 2 weeks I would binge on sugars and things that my body needed to replenish itself. No joke, but I have not had the urge to go binge eating in the last 2 weeks. I don't crave sugar or sweets or salty things anymore. (THAT IS HUGE FOR ME!) I crave clean food. Simple food. Chicken, eggs, fruit, butternut squash soup with amazing spices in it that I don't know what they are cause we get them from our favorite Afghan restaurant but it is clean food! I still can't eat salads, they make me gag, but I can eat other veggies and I plan on adding kale to my shakes this week to get more of the yummy goodness in my body.

~LOVE This commercial with Tony Horton!~

Matt, my husband, has been on Shakeology for the past week and he is enjoying it too. He has lost 5 lbs! SAY WHAT!?! I am so jealous! This is a guy who has been complaining for over a year because he couldn't lose weight and was too close a number he didn't ever want to be near and has now lost 5 lbs in 2 full weeks! SO UNFAIR! But, here's why. He is eating clean food. He is exercising hard everyday or almost everyday, doing an hour of cardio or weight training or cardio and weight training. He is eating the right portions too. but he also is eating pizza, and popcorn on a regular basis. He doesn't crave it he just likes to eat it and he is still losing weight! SO UNFAIR, I say again! So combining Shakeology with some serious exercise is a must!

That's 2 of us drinking Shakeology a day. We are not eating out as much and saving money and that is how we can afford to do this. Our purse strings are pretty tight right now because we are trying to sell our other house and that means we are paying 2 mortgages. My families health is so important that to me that we are making this work. If you really want to commit to yourself and lose the weight you find a way to make it happen. That's all it comes down to. Anyone can do this you just have to commit to it.

The stuff is awesome, I love it and am so glad that my friend Janet told me about it. If you have any questions about it, leave a comment, send me an email, just contact me because it really is that amazing and I can help you get it!

QOTD: Have you ever tried another kind of meal replacement? Have you heard of Shakeology before? 

Day 1- Piyo

Today marks my day 1 of doing Piyo by Beachbody! And started Shakeology. I'm a little nervous to say the least. To commit to 60 days doesn't seem like a lot but it really is. And for someone who has lost a lot of their strength, yeah I'm a little nervous.

Can you believe that a lot of my strength is gone! It is a really funny thing. Right after you have a baby, any strength you had in your arms, legs and core are just GONE! I have no idea why (except for the core, being stretched as much as it was, I get that one.) But arms and legs so weird. So I have a lot of strength to build up in my legs and arms over the next 6 weeks.

What I'm looking forward to most, is my core strength. I have never really worked on core strength and I keep hearing over and over how great it is to work on for runners. We need a stable core for proper running stance. But I have a little extra fluff in my tummy from both kids and I am looking forward to that going down a bit!

So here we go! I will have a weekly recap of how it is going so stay tuned!

It All Begins...Tomorrow

Here we go! The beginning of my in home exercise program begins tomorrow with Piyo by Beachbody! My friend Janet told me about Piyo after I mentioned that wanted to take yoga and pilates at the gym when I go back. So why not combine the two together, right? Since I can't go back to the gym anytime soon I had to take matters into my own hands and so here we have it.

I am part of a support group and I am super excited to do this challenge program with a ton of other people. Have you ever been part of an exercise support group??? Do you wanna join one with me. Even if you aren't doing a "beach body" specific DVD we could still work together to get fit together. Let me know if you are interested in just needing daily motivation to get fit and go take that walk or what not!

On top of the DVD I am going to be trying out Shakeology. It is a meal replacement shake that you drink 1 time a day. It has more than 70 super nutritious ingredients and only costs about $4 a day. If you were to buy all the ingredients to match what is in the shake at the store than you would be spending about $42 A DAY! And for a busy mommy of 2 now not having to think, "What am I going to have for lunch today?" is priceless! Most people replace their breakfast, but I love my 2 eggs and oatmeal for breakfast too much to give up and I eat a very healthy breakfast in the first place. It is lunch that I struggle with! So please let me know if you are interested in a hassle free meal replacement shake that increases your energy, stops cravings and is a MOMMY PROOF easy option to help you lose weight!

Stay tuned here and check back OFTEN to see my progress and see how it is going! First goal is to make it through 1 week, then 2 weeks and so forth. Small goals to reach the bigger one!

Again if you are interested in more info about this challenge group or Shakeology let me know at my email!