Weight Watchers and Weekly Workouts

Good Wednesday Morning Everyone!

I have decided to dub Wednesdays "Weight Watchers and Weekly Workout Wednesdays" from now on. Or from now until...I don't feel like doing it anymore.

So here's our Workouts for the Week (since WW Weigh-in is on Wednesdays, a 'week' will be considered Thursday - Wednesday):

• Saturday: Memphis Civitan 5K. 3.1 Miles in 31:48


• Monday: Sprint Workout at the Gym, followed by Cocktail Dress Arms (<--arm portion only, with 75 sit ups)


• Wednesday: 4.5 mile run with Bex and Kristi

And that's it. Three measly little work-outs this week. I need to be more focused and get to a point where working out 5-6 days a week is the norm. All with time, though, all with time.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the HIIT (<---High Intensity Interval Training) that I did on Monday. Back in my half-marathon-and-triathlon-training days, I would do at least one HIIT treadmill workout per week, usually lasting about an hour.

I read a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Gina, the other day and decided that I needed some HIIT back in my life. After a weekend of stuffing myself with wedding cake, pizza, and vodka tonics, I needed a serious sweat asap.

Gina is a certified personal trainer so I look up to her as a fitness role model. In her post, she mentioned that it is not necessary to do long HIIT workouts...20-30 minutes is all you really need.

So here is what I did (sorry for this weird format, blogger is giving me issues):

Speed/ Time

4 mph / 0:00 - 1:30
6 / 1:30 - 2:30
4 / 2:30 - 4:00
6.5 /4:00 - 5:00
4 / 5:00 - 6:30
7 / 6:30 - 7:30
4 / 7:30 - 9:00
7.5 / 9:00 - 10:00
4 / 10:00 - 11:30
8 / 11:30 - 12:30
4 / 12:30 - 14:00
8.5 / 14.00 - 15:00
4 / 15:00 - 16:30
8 / 16:30 - 17:30
4 / 17:30 - 19:00
7.5 / 19:00 - 20:00
4 / 20:00 - 21:30
7 / 21:30 - 22:30
4 / 22:30 - 24:00
6.5 / 24:00 - 25:00
4 / 25:00 - 26:30
6 / 26:30 - 27:30
4 / 27:30 - 29:00
8.5 / 29:00 - 30:00
cool down 30:00 - 35:00
*total distance: 3.5 miles*

You'll notice this is a walk for 1:30 minutes, run for 1 minute. Obviously these times and speeds can be varied to fit your fitness level and time constraints. For me, 8.5 miles per hour is very fast, and it's all I can do to get to 1 minute. For someone like Skinny Runner, she would probably do her 'sprints' at like 12 miles per hour!

The possibilities with HIIT are endless...you can do it with other cardio besides running of course. You could do bike or even elliptical...going as fast and as hard as possible for 30 seconds, followed by an easy pace for 1 minutes. Or, doing mountain climbers for 1 minute, then walking in place for 1:30 minutes. Again, you can alter this to whatever tickles your HIIT fancy.

I personally love the interval training because you work up an amazing sweat in a very short amount of time. So bring an extra face when you do these. Cause you'll sweat your face off.

Here are some other resources for HIIT training:

The Fitnessista
Peanut Butter Fingers
TurboFire

This morning Bex and Kristi met at my house and we started together. They were planning to do 3.5 miles and I had an ambitious 4.5 in mind. I finished my 4.5 miles with no walks breaks in 49:30. This is a 10:57 mile...just shy of 11 minutes (<---my goal in life to stay under an 11 minute mile forever and ever amen), so I was *sort-of* happy with it.

What I was really happy with was the distance because I seriously cannot tell you the last time I ran over 3.5 miles. So today was a milestone for me.

After our run I chugged no less than 2, 493 gallons of water while Reba licked by shins until I yelled at her to stop. Then I made an amazing smoothie for breakfast!! Warning: crappy iPhone pics ahead

• 1 cup frozen blueberries


• 1 frozen banana-lama-ding-dong


• 1 heaping handful of fresh spinach


• 
  
  1 1/2 cups of vanilla soy milk
  Smoothie Success!!! It was really delicious and ugly in color...the making of a wonderful smoothie! In case you're wondering, this smoothie has 6 WW points+ in it. I know that sounds kind of high for a smoothie, but you are getting two servings of fruit, a serving of vegetables, and a serving of dairy (by WW standards, soy milk does count towards a dairy product) all in this one smoothie.

We are on a blueberry kick at our house...I just had to share this cutsie-patootsie video of Lilly sharing her blueberries with Uncle Tom:


I love Lilly's face in this when I say, "Reba's crying." So concerned.

Weight Watchers Update:

Just got back from weigh-in and I'm down 2.5 pounds! Current weight is 162.5. This is SO encouraging to me, after not losing anything last week. Seeing a change on the scale, and feeling a change in my body (I'm a little sore after that arm workout on Monday!) makes me feel like my old self again! Love it. I know once I can see my weight in the 150's I'll feel even more motivated.

Weekly Goals:

• Get in at least 4 workouts including 1 HIIT workout, and 2 strength workouts


• Lost 2 pounds


• Count points every day


• Limit alcohol intake to two days: Wine Club on Wednesday night, and one weekend night.

BIKINI WEEK HERE I COME! :)