- Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Upper body weights, abs
- Tuesday/Thursday: 20 minutes of cardio, 20-30 minutes lower body
- Saturday: 20-40 minutes cardio
- Sunday: rest
After my brother's wedding in September, I took 2 weeks off from working out. I was sick of my routine after doing the same thing for years. I also didn't feel well, and I wanted my body to rest. I realized that I didn't feel like going back to my old routine. After my break, I decided to try other forms of strength training that used my body weight, such as push ups and planks. For the first time in years, I did Pilates.
I still did Pilates every once in a while on Xfinity On Demand, but the videos are not very good. I found Blogilates while doing a Google search for free online videos, and I did those every once in a while too when I moved to the city last year. I found some of the workouts to be so hard that I got frustrated and stopped. When I realized back in September that I needed a new challenge, though, I jumped head-first into Blogilates.
I love being able to work out in the privacy of my own apartment and on my own schedule.
If you're thinking about trying Blogilates and have never done Pilates before, try taking a few classes with an instructor first or do Cassey's beginner classes. Most Blogilates videos are what I like to call "fitness Pilates" classes, meaning that you're constantly moving the entire time and do difficult moves to exhaustion. You need to know the basics to avoid injury. There are also lunges, push ups, squats, burpees, and other moves that are not necessarily specific to Pilates. If you want a challenge, though, I can't recommend this highly enough!
Although I named my blog "The Little Jogger", it's evident that I don't do much jogging. I got injured soon after I started blogging, and the rest is history. I still want to run a half marathon one of these days, so I'm not giving up yet.
Anyway, I don't think I ever mentioned that I was a cardio queen when I was in college. I used to go on the elliptical for an hour every day, 6-7 days a week (plus 30 minutes of weight machines). Although I was in awesome shape and could go out and run 6 miles like it was nothing, my need to exercise consumed me. I was addicted. If I had to skip a day, I panicked. I thought I would pack on weight unless I stuck exactly to my regimen. It wasn't healthy.
I fell away from long cardio workouts towards the end of college. I went through many phases where I just didn't want to do it at all. I think I was mentally scarred from my cardio addiction, and I just didn't enjoy it anymore. Since I started grad school, most of my elliptical and treadmill sessions have been 20 minutes at a time. Then, a few weeks, ago, something happened. I was on my parents' elliptical machine for 30 minutes, and I didn't want to get off. Before I knew it, I had worked out for an hour. I did it a few separate times after that, and I enjoyed it just as much. I realized that I'm starting to love long workouts again. This is great for my long-distance running goals, and I know now that I don't have to do it every single day in order to maintain my weight. I also don't have the time for that, but that's another story.
Here's what my workout schedule looks like right now:
Monday/Friday: BLOGILATES upper body or weights/abs for 45 minutes
Tuesday/Thursday: 30 min elliptical/20-30 minutes lower body BLOGILATES
Wednesday: 45 min full-body BLOGILATES
Saturday: 1 hour elliptical
Sunday: REST
My new school schedule comes into full swing the week of February 11 with rotations two times a week and classes the other days, so I'm going to have to cut back when it gets crazy. I'm VERY okay with that. That's the difference between the Crazy Cardio Jenny and the Jenny I am now. I feel a billion times better when I exercise, but getting enough sleep and having time to do everything else is also important.
I finally got around to setting up my own My Fitness Pal account and logging my food and exercise on it every day. I do it for two reasons. First, I want to see how many calories I'm eating a day in addition to my ratios of carbs/protein/fat and then how well I'm doing with my vitamins and minerals. My Fitness Pal does an excellent job of showing all of this to me on the iPhone app. It's also excellent motivation to eat healthier. Second, I need to get better at estimating calorie amounts in foods. It's the nature of my career, right? This is a great way for me to practice. I'm not sure how long I'm going to do this, but I'm enjoying learning for now.
If you want a super-easy and free way to track your food intake, set up an account! It just takes a few minutes, and you can log in on either your computer or smart phone. The food database seems to have everything, which makes searching for food very easy. You can type "Chobani Strawberry Greek Yogurt" into it, and it will find it and give you all of the nutrient info. You can also enter your own recipes into your account and store it. One of the best parts of using your smart phone is that you can instantly scan the bar code of any food that you buy, and it will bring up the nutritional information. It's pretty awesome.
I keep all of my info private, but you can join groups and forums to keep you motivated if that's something that you want.
That's all for now! Here's to a happy, healthy year!