High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Gymboss and a giveaway!!

If you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in fitness. If you are interested in fitness, you have probably heard of HIIT—high intensity interval training. HIIT is a format of exercise

“which you alternate short, very high intensity intervals with longer, slower intervals to recover. This type of training has been used by athletes to improve performance, but it's also been shown to benefit the average exerciser. HIIT training not only helps performance, it also improves the ability of the muscles to burn fat.”

According to Beachbody.com, HIIT gets the body’s motor going for a longer period than traditional steady-state cardio, creating an “after-burn effect.” This means that you can work out for shorter periods of time to burn the same amounts of calories.

My Body Back classes use an interval format. Not only does it help clients get great results, but it breaks exercise sets into bite sized pieces. It is easier to ask a woman, who hasn’t exercised for years, to do an exercise for 30 seconds or a minute than it is to get them to jog for 30 minutes.  My workouts involve a warmup (about 7-10 minutes) HIIT workout (40-45 minutes), ending with abs, stretching and meditation (about 10 minutes).

One of my favorite HIIT workouts uses Tabata sets.  Tabatas have you doing 20 seconds of very high intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. You repeat this for eight sets. The entire Tabata set takes four minutes. I can tell you that by the last minute, you are feeling those reps, no matter what you are doing. I have used Tabatas with squats, curls, pushups, and various high intensity cardio moves. You can use them for almost anything.

A key element of the workouts I teach is timing. If you tell someone that they will do a plank for a minute, have them do a plank for a minute. A 20 second interval for Tabata needs to be precise to be the most effective. Using a watch is sometimes unreliable. If you just watch your second hand (or numbers), then it is easy to lose track of the interval. It is difficult to help clients with form and to encourage/motivate them if you are staring at your watch. Countdown timers are good, but my watch beep isn’t loud enough to hear well over high tempo music that I like to play. Lastly, it is difficult to keep track of how many intervals have been completed, especially if you are participating in the workout. You lose some credibility if you tell them that you are going to do eight rounds and then only do seven or hit them with nine.

Enter the Gymboss. It is one of my favorite (and most necessary) tools for my workouts. I can set one or two intervals up to 99 times. It keeps track of the how many you have left so you can look at it and know exactly where you are. My clients love when I let them know where they are. “Half way there!” or “only 15 seconds left!” The beep can be long or short, soft or loud and can also vibrate (so if you really have the music up, you know the interval is over).

Not only does this little timer work for HIIT workouts, but for run/walk running plans as well. The Gymboss is super lightweight.  It clips onto just about anything. You could clip it onto a waistband and forget about it (until it beeps, of course). In fact, one of the timers is marketed specifically for Jeff Galloway’s Run/Walk/Run program.

It can also be used as a stopwatch. I used it the other day for fitness assessments for my Body Back clients. I used it for timing one mile time trials and planks. One improvement I would suggest would be the ability to save the data somehow, since I am timing more than one person at a time.

I bought a Gymboss for myself and another one for my Body Back instructor as a thank you. I love it. It is lightweight and once you figure out the instructions, it is relatively simple to use. However, I wish there was room for a “cheat sheet” because I often forget how to change it and have to do a bit of trial and error to remind myself. There are instructions printed on it to change it to a stopwatch.

You may have noticed the Gymboss ad on my sidebar. If you want to purchase a Gymboss, please click through that since I am part of their affiliate program.  But don’t buy yet! I have a couple Gymboss timers to giveaway to readers. The first timer I will give away here and the second one on my Facebook page.

To enter, the only requirement is that you are a follower.  Click on the first option below in the Rafflecopter entry form and you are in.  You can earn additional entries by tweeting, posting to Facebook or your blog (1 entry for each). Please click the options below in order to get your entry counted. I will draw a winner on Thursday, September 29 after 9 p.m.

Please click "Read More" to get to the entry form!  Thanks!!

Banner Day!!

Big things. Big. BIG Things!

First…I MADE IT!! I am a member of the Nuun Hood to Coast Relay Team. I sent in an application last week and they made the announcement this morning.  There were so many awesome applicants that they are having not one, but TWO teams of fabulous women! I have connected with several of these women already and am so excited to meet them all in person.

Second…there are 100 days left before the St. George Marathon.  Eek.  I am glad to have this HTC thing to break up the training. I am really excited about St. George and am trying to train smart this time around.  However, I want to make sure I have fun this summer.  What a great balance!  I will do a full post on my training goals for St. George soon.
Third…I finally have over 100 followers!  I feel like I have “arrived.” I still am a pretty small blog compared to some of the incredible women I will be running with, but 100 is a nice number, don’t you think?
Fourth…I signed up two clients for my next Body Back session. I am thrilled to be able to make money helping women meet their fitness goals. Look for the launch of my business website soon.  I am officially a professional Fitness Coach and it feels great!
Finally…I decided to splurge and have my house cleaned today. I used to have a regular cleaning service once upon a time.  That was in another life, when I worked and when things were financially a little more stable. Let me tell you…cleaning is NOT one of my strengths. The house feels FABULOUS today.  I don’t feel quite so guilty obsessing on the computer meeting my new teammates through Facebook and Twitter.
Happy Running…

Body Back Recap—results and revelations

I completed my Body Back program a couple of weeks ago.  As you learned from several earlier posts here, Body Back is a series of high intensity interval workouts (HIIT) accompanied by a meal plan in a supportive environment of women.

I learned some key things during this eight week journey:

* I can push myself harder than I thought I could
* I sometimes grunt when I am really digging deep.  Who knew?
* I really can make time for breakfast every day (more than just a Luna Bar)
* I.am.strong
* I can hold a plank about two minutes longer than I thought I could. I just needed to be willing to sweat and shake.
* I never stop being inspired by other women.

I am pretty fit and have been for a while. I have run five marathons, some of which needed quite a bit of mental toughness. Yet, the eight weeks of Body Back humbled me and reminded me that I have a long way to go in my fitness journey.

I found myself pushing myself harder than I have in my personal workouts in a long time.  The program made it easy to push, even on those days when I stayed up way too late and felt exhausted and not in the mood to work out.  Most of the workouts are organized into little bite sized pieces. We would do an exercise for a short duration such as a minute or two. You can do just about anything for a minute, so it allows you to push that much harder during those sixty seconds. Allison, our instructor, would give us cues, such as “only ten more seconds.” I knew that I could get a couple more pushups in or lift my knees higher for those last few seconds.

As I was digging deep in an exercise, I would catch myself grunting or making some other sort of not-so-attractive sounds. Vanity goes out the window when you are that focused. Often I would be sweating and red in the face, but didn’t care. If I did look up and see one of the other women, they were working just as hard.
The food plan was a big surprise to me. At first, it was hard to pay so much attention to my food choices. I am not a big fan of diets. Luckily, this isn’t a diet. It is a meal plan that focuses on making healthy choices.

We didn’t count calories or weigh our food or anything like that. The plan calls for a healthy breakfast (preferably with plenty of protein), a decent snack, lunch, another snack and then dinner. It is about education not deprivation. It focuses on whole foods and limiting serving sizes.  Not rocket science.
What was great was that after a while a lot of the habits stuck. Even after the program is over, I am finding myself making a nice breakfast where I used to rely solely on bars, protein drinks and coffee. During the program I cut out two of my biggest “vices”: soda and cheese. Well, I didn’t cut out cheese entirely. I still used some cheese (mostly low fat) but I did cut out the snack cheese that used to dominate my snacking. I used to eat several pieces of cheese while cooking dinner, for example. I also still try to eat healthy snacks instead of getting myself so hungry where I don’t make the best choices.

On my first day, I did a plank for 2:36. I decided that I wanted to set a goal to hold it for five minutes.  I told the group.  On the last day, I thought to myself that three minutes was probably a more reasonable expectation. Before we started, a few of the girls said to me, “so, Lisa…you ready to do this for five minutes?”  Busted.  Now I have been called out.  After about two minutes, it started to get difficult.  I looked up to the other woman, Angela,  attempting five minutes and she was going strong.  After a while, everyone but the two of us were cheering us on.  At four minutes, I said to Angela, “we can do anything for a minute, right?”  My entire body was shaking, sweat was dripping down my face.  We hit five minutes and kept going.  I made it to 5:38!!! (and so did Angela, btw).  I never would have done it alone. The women surrounding me pushed me forward to not only reach my goal, but surpass it.  I have found that surrounding myself with supportive women can help me do anything from running my first marathon to dealing with the stresses of being a wife and mother.

The class was everything I had hoped it would be. The women in the class had fantastic results as well.  We had a woman as young as seventeen and grandmothers in their fifties. The lowest improvement was 11% and the highest was 51%. Improvements took into account weight loss and strength.  The highest weight loss was close to 16 pounds (2 pounds a week is about as much as I would be comfortable having clients lose).  One woman improved her run from 12:39 to just over 9 minutes!  Another went from 11:45 to under 9 minutes.  This was done without any running training, just strength and added ability to push themselves. Average overall improvement among all nine women was 28.4%.  Average weight loss was 9.64 pounds.  Not bad for an eight week program!

So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are my results:

starting weight: 128.2 (definitely in the healthy range, so my goal was not weight loss.  However, that is at the higher end of my feel-good-about-myself weight)
ending weight: 121.2 (I feel great! Most of my “mommy pooch” is gone!) 5% loss


starting 1 mile run: 6:44  (*the course was actually just under a mile.  My time was closer to 7 minutes.)
ending 1 mile run: 6:26 (4% improvement) 

starting plank: 2:38
ending plank: 5:38 (125% improvement!!)

starting side bridge/plank: 1:13
ending side bridge/plank: 1:31 (25% improvement)

starting push ups in 1 minute: 14
ending push ups in 1 minute: 23 (39% improvement)

starting sit ups in 1 minute: 20 (full, military-style sit ups)
ending sit ups in 1 minute: 22 (9% improvement—I think the plank took it out of me)

starting bicep curls with 10 pound weights in each hand for 1 minute: 23
ending bicep curls with 10 pound weights in each hand for 1 minute: 37 (38% improvement)

beginning squats in 1 minute: 47
ending squats in 1 minute: 61 (23% improvement)

My measurements (bust, waist, hips, thigh) decreased by an average of 3.5%.  My overall improvement was 24%.

Before

After

My own class began today and I am so excited to see what these women accomplish. I hope to inspire them as much as I know they will inspire me.

Body Back week two—a real struggle

This was a tough week for me.  I had a very difficult time keeping to a structured meal plan.  Life really got in the way.  Isn’t that the way it goes?

My first test came on Sunday night, really the end of last week, if you are looking at my Body Back cycle.  We went to a good friend’s for dinner.  The dinner (chosen by her three-year-old son, in honor of his birthday) was pizza.  When Stacey remembered my “diet” she offered to make me a special salad.  I didn’t want her to go to trouble. Besides…I’m NOT on a “diet.”  My goal for this program is not to lose weight*.  So why can’t I eat with my friends?  There is no reason.  So I did.  I also enjoyed a beer.  See how slippery the slope can be?
An interesting thing occurred at home that night.  We were watching television and I suddenly had a sweet tooth.  I have a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in my pantry that sounded so good.  I had already had a bad night in terms of eating.  What is one more handful of chocolate?  It wouldn’t be that many calories, right?  I decided to have a handful of raw almonds instead.  My urge for chocolate went away.  I really learned a lot about the mental aspect of “dieting.”  Once you fall off the wagon, it is so easy to justify falling off all the way.  The key is looking at each choice individually that comes your way. 

I “confessed” my less-than-optimal pizza-and-beer choice to Allison, my Body Back coach, on Tuesday morning.  She was supportive and non-judgmental.  We discussed the rest of my food journal.  I was very good the rest of the week.

Which leads me to this week.  The Body Back class was great.  It was high intensity and I really pushed myself.  I don’t think I could push myself like that without other women around me.  You just can’t dig that deep in front of a DVD. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I have ever worked out at that level on a regular basis and it feels good.

After class, I made some oatmeal for breakfast, but only ate a couple of bites.  I had no appetite.  Strange, considering I probably burned 1000 calories an hour earlier.  I made a protein smoothie instead and drank that instead. I didn’t eat the rest of the day.  I had no appetite. I wasn’t sure if I had overdone it in my workout or if I was sick.  I went to bed at 8:30 and felt the same all the next day.*  Yup, I had some sort of virus that hung on for several days.  Yuck.

Have you ever felt just “icky?”  I know many moms know the feeling, because it was how I felt when I was pregnant.** So when I tried to get myself to eat, the only things that I felt like I could choke down were “comfort foods.”  I made my spinach and egg white scramble, but added a little country gravy made from an envelope.  At one point I broke down and ate some Trader Joe’s Mini Tacos.  Hey… they are whole grain, right?  FAIL.

I have been feeling better the past couple of days. So you would think that my eating has been better.  It has been a crazy, crazy few days.  I do not have time to plan meals and eat five times a day. We are moving on Saturday.  We are moving from one house to another one five houses down. It is not a long way, but I still have to pack up the entire house, rent a truck, get people to help etc. etc.  Oh… and in the middle of all this, my daughter turns five.  Have you ever tried to postpone birthday activities for a five-year-old?  This girl has asked me how many days ‘till her birthday since Christmas. The party is the night before our move.  What was I thinking??

So week two was tough because of my health and energy.  Next week will be a challenge because of my schedule.  I hope that tomorrow’s workout will give me a ton of energy to attack my to-do list.

I know that these two weeks will make me a better Body Back (and running) coach. I will have clients who have similar issues. We are all faced with dinners with few choices. We all get sick while trying to get fit and eat right. We need to find ways to manage our lives so we don’t sink too far into the comfort food and don’t get too far off track. Most of my clients will be mothers, so crazy schedules are guaranteed.  I will definitely be able to relate to my clients and help them through these struggles. I will help them move on from the less-than-optimal choices and not dwell on them.

Wish me luck keeping on track over the next week.

*Thank goodness for Jamba Juice! It was really the only thing that sounded the least bit appetizing for a day and a half.
**I am NOT pregnant.  My 7-year-old son felt the same way for a couple of days.


postscript: Karen's comment made me realize that I should probably explain my motives regarding this program. The program is designed to show real results in eight weeks. As I prepare to offer this to clients, I wanted to commit to the program fully to see what kind of results I could get. The main reason I was feeling guilty for pizza etc. is that I didn't even last a full week into the program before faltering.  Of course enjoying a slice of pizza is fine! What is life if we can't enjoy ourselves. It is all about moderation. However, if someone is trying to see measurable results, it should be avoided during the eight week program. I learned a real lesson and the last thing I want to do is send the message that it is not ok to indulge every once in a while. The long term results of the program will be overall healthier eating, but it takes a short term commitment.

Body Back—week one nearly complete

Here are my thoughts on my first week of Body Back.
1) Thursday was our first high intensity workout.  It was a nine station circuit that took standard exercises to a new level.  For example, we didn’t do just a regular plank, we did a one-legged plank.
 
Another example is doing arm exercises on a balance ball with 25 pound weights.  The “skull crushers” and “flies” not only killed my arms, but used my core as well. 
My heart rate zoomed and I was sweating quite a bit.  As I was digging deep to push myself for the two minute intervals, I looked around me and was inspired by the other women doing the same thing.

2) I’m glad the first workout is behind me.  I was nervous and excited about it.  It has been a while since I have been able to focus on a workout that is just for me.  I’m not getting certified, I’m not instructing, I’m just focusing on pushing myself to get as fit as I can be.

3) I’ve never really dieted, so I’m not used to paying that much attention to what I eat.  The Body Back meal plan is not a diet, per se, but a structured way of eating healthy.  It is really just common sense.  The focus is eating food “close to the source.”  It eliminates most processed food.  There is no calorie counting, no food weighing, no checking carb content etc.  Other than fresh, unprocessed food, we eat breakfast (more than my normal Luna Bar), snack, lunch, snack, dinner.

The downside is that I am suddenly obsessed with food.  It seems like once I am done eating one meal/snack, I am thinking about the next one.  Grabbing convenience foods takes so much less time!   The best thing to do is plan all meals in advance at the beginning of the week.  I haven’t figured out that part yet.

4) It doesn’t help the food obsession that adding high intensity workouts tends to rev my metabolism which makes me super hungry.  This also happens to me at the beginning of a marathon training cycle.  Even though there are built in snacks, I am pretty sure I am eating a bit more than the prescribed serving sizes.  I’m sure that my body will start getting used to the change in exercise.

5) I am proud to say that I have made healthy choices all week,* I haven’t had soda all week, which is a huge accomplishment for me.  Soda is my main vice.  I love Diet Pepsi Vanilla and Diet Pepsi Lime.  Instead, I am drinking lots and lots of water**. I am adding things like fruit and mint leaves to make it a little more interesting. Sparkling water helps a bit with the soda cravings as well.  I also have a weakness for sour candy.  My kids know this.  In fact, whenever they have some sort of sour candy (Sweettarts etc.) they always have to give Mommy a “tax.”  My son won some Sour Patch Kids this week at a contest at school.  He offered his “Mommy Tax” and much to both of our surprise, I said “no thank you.” Ack!!  I know that a couple yummy candies aren’t going to hurt me.  In fact, weight loss is not my goal,so a few extra calories might be good. But I figure if I am going to do this thing, I’m going to do it right.

I started this as a learning experience, but I am really looking forward to seeing how I move forward in my own fitness journey.
_________________________________________________________
Oh, and on the running front, I had two great runs this weekend.  I am so lucky to live here!  I was able to run in the trails yesterday and at the beach today.  Yesterday, I ran with my regular running group.  After Kelly and Kim turned back for mommy duties and Rod and Jeff took off ahead of us, Joan and I went on our own little adventure.  She showed me a way to a “secret” little road the led under the toll road toward Irvine Lake.  It was peaceful and relaxing thirteen miles.

Today, I met Alissa, who was in town for a family wedding.  We met at the beach.  Since she lives in Arizona, she doesn’t get a chance to run along the ocean very often.  We ran eight miles together and chatted the entire time.  I barely noticed the great scenery for the wonderful conversation.  We kept it at a conversational pace.  The first couple of miles seemed like a struggle, but I fell into a nice groove and we ran at a nice 9:30 pace.  We enjoyed a Jamba Juice smoothie together afterwards and chatted some more.   I love how this blog has brought me together with friends who enjoy running as much as I do.

Happy Running...


*except for some microwave popcorn last night with the kids while watching a movie.
**I have not, however, given up caffeine.  The lack of soda reduces my caffeine intake, but I still have my Zip Fizz before workouts and an occasional coffee (unfortunately, with a bit of creamer).  I’m not that good.

Body Back session #1—the journey begins

I few weeks ago, I was certified to teach a great results-based workout program called Body Back. The class was intense while being super inspiring. It was also a wake up call that my fitness could use a little tweaking.  I want to be stronger. I want to set an example for my clients (and be able to keep up with them!).

When I asked my friend, Anne (who is a Body Back instructor in San Diego) for advice, she encouraged me to take an 8-week session from someone else first. She said that I can get better results for my clients learning more than a one-day certification can provide. I agree. So I am taking Body Back!*  This is something I am doing for myself as well as my future clients.

The first session was yesterday. It was the assessment session.  We did a weigh-in and measurements.  We also did as many each in a minute of sit-ups, pushups, bicep curls, and squats.  We also had a one mile time trial* and did a plank as long as we could. I had similar results to my assessment at my certification session (some results were better, other worse). Even though it wasn’t technically a workout, I was pretty tired by the end and I am a little sore today.
  
It was a great session and I am looking forward to going through this journey with some amazing women.  I can already see that one of the women in the session is going to push me.  She smoked me on the run and she and I both did the plank for 2 1/2 minutes.  After we were done with the planks, I said, “five minutes by the end of this?”  She nodded in approval.  I think we have a mutual goal.
I know this is mostly a running blog, but for the next eight weeks, I will be also writing about my Body Back journey.

Happy Running…(or whatever workout you might be doing) 

*I am enjoying Body Back in Yorba Linda from the fabulous Allison and Kelli.
**My mile run was my fastest mile EVER.  I ran a 6:44!  Then I spoke to not one, but two other women who also ran their fastest mile ever.  When I got home, I measured it on Daily Mile’s satellite view and it looks like we actually ran around .96 miles, which is a 7 minute mile.  It is still not too shabby!  The key is that we will run the exact same route in 8 weeks to measure our improvement.  I will be extremely happy if I improve that time at all!

You don’t need a gym

I watched this week’s episode of The Biggest Loser where one team was “locked out” of the gym.  I was annoyed when Jillian Michaels whined and complained about this twist.  She kept saying how much of a disadvantage it is not to have a gym.  Meanwhile, her team [spoiler alert] smoked the other team in the weigh-in.

I know a lot of the histrionics are for television, but I would prefer the message being that you don’t need a gym or gym equipment to get in a good workout.  Why do you need a treadmill when you have beautiful weather outside?  Why do you need weights when you have your own body weight and resistance bands?  Gyms and weights make working out more convenient, but it doesn’t define what you can accomplish.

I attended training last weekend to become certified in a program called   Body Back.  It is a results-based “bootcamp” style class that uses high intensity interval training (HIIT).  The instructor basically killed us all day long and we didn’t use a single exercise machine.  The only equipment we used were resistance bands, ten pound dumbbells, and bosu balls.  Our first workout was done outside and was the hardest workout I have ever done.  We did sprinting and plyometrics for cardio, including a killer sprint up a steep hill.  We did pullups, pushups, one-legged deep dips, and arm exercises using resistance bands.

The second workout of the day involved rounds of alternating cardio, strength and core exercises.  The only equipment we used was a set of resistance bands.  I was pushed so hard I was actually brought to tears.  The tears were not tears of pain or frustration, but a spontaneous cathartic release.  I know it sounds super corny, but the emotional release was very intense and surprising.  Heck, I didn’t even cry when I finished my first marathon.  This physical and emotional breakthrough was done without a gym.

The last workout was a circuit.  It included things like bicep curls, mountain climbers, oblique crunches, ladder sprints, squats, burpies on a bosu ball, chest flies, skull crushers, and jumping jacks.  By the end of the last station, my tank was empty. I was sore for several days and never stepped inside a traditional gym.

I am always inspired by The Biggest Loser and admire how they can change lives with a gym or without.  I am hoping that this class will allow me to change lives in my own small way.  My friend, Heather, has participated in the program in San Diego and has lost over 20 pounds!  This woman ran five half marathons over two years and couldn’t lose those last few pounds of baby weight and was able to do it with an eight week fitness and nutrition program.  I am looking forward to my own clients’ success stories.

Between coaching runners and fitness training, I think I am well on my way to a new career in helping women reach their fitness and weight-loss goals.