Listen to Your Body/ New Workout Schedule for SUMMER

Hey all!

It has been so long, I know…so much has happened, so much to tell. Between finishing my second year in college, and moving into an apartment for the summer, life has been speeding by. At any rate, I finally feel as though I have some time to breathe. This week has been a lot of firsts, but also a welcomed transition. Unfortunately, I will say that this week has really taken a toll on the amount of energy I have put into my training. Even though I have consistently trained four times this week, I can honestly say that I just haven’t has the extra push that’s normally there for me. I know most of it is physiological, but I do think that there is a good reason why my workouts have not been up to par. I am a firm believer in listening to your own body. I know that that can sound so cliche, but hear me out for a second. Your body wants to be healthy and survive. It is built into our nature, so if you are feeling extra run down, and extra tired for no particular reason, there is probably something else going on under the surface that you are not aware of. Whether it be physiologically, emotionally, or physically related, your body has its ways of telling you it’s time to rest up, or switch it up. So instead of trying to push past whatever was causing my crappy workouts, I decided to switch up my routine for the rest of the week by taking some time away from my normal HIIT. Yesterday, I did leg resistance training, and then ran a 5k, and what do you know…it was SUCH a good workout. All that to say, its ok to have weeks where you are not pushing yourself to the maximum, and it is ok to have weeks where you need to give yourself a break from your routine to do something a little different.

I am hoping next week I will be back to my normal energy levels, and since I seem to be having a little more time than normal, I thought it would be a good time to set some summer fitness goals and of course, create a challenge out of it. Last night, I was laying in bed and thinking how I always have my clients fill out a goal sheet before starting with the program. Then I realized that I haven’t done this for myself in a very long time. After promptly jotting down a few fitness goals that I want to accomplish this summer, I thought it would be nice to share them more publicly.

So here is the list of all of the process goals I want to accomplish:

• Complete 1 unassisted pull-up
• Complete 1 unassisted chin-up
• Complete 1 pistol squat unassisted
• Master a jump rope double under
• Make improvements in my flexibility- especially working towards mastering the splits
• Increase my aerobic capacity- run the mile in 6:50 or less.

After making this list, I then used these goals to create a weekly workout schedule for the next 7 weeks:

MONDAY:

• Special Exercise of the Day (SE): Pistols
• LEGS/BUTT: full body HIIT with focus on lower body burn out, Or lower body resistance training
• Stretch: Lower body
• Yoga: 15 minutes

TUESDAY:

• SE: Pull-ups
• SPRINT DAY OR STEADY STATE CARDIO: HIIT, intervals, sprint training on the track, or swimming, biking, work on 5k time ect. (this day is either for working on speed or endurance with no specific focus on a certain muscle group. Depending on how strenuous Monday’s workout was will determine what kind of exercise I do on Tuesdays.)
• Stretch: full body
• Yoga: 15 minutes

WEDNESDAY:

• SE: Chin-ups
• ARMS/BACK: Upper body resistance training circuits
• Stretch: upper body focused
• Yoga: 30 minutes (focus on flexibility of splits)

THURSDAY:

• SE: Double-unders
• HIIT: jump rope focused, or agility and speed focused HIIT
• Stretch: lower body
• Yoga: 15 minutes

FRIDAY:

• SE: Mile run as fast as possible
• ABS: Either HIIT abs, or resistance Ab circuit
• Steady state cardio, or intervals depending on the type of workout I choose for my abs.
• Stretch: abdominals
• Yoga: 15 minutes

SATURDAY:

• Long yoga session, work on splits, handstands and other stability exercises
• Rehabilitation for sore muscles: foam rolling etc.

SUNDAY:

• ACITVE REST DAY: do something recreationally active, no intense training though.

 

Alright so there you have it! This will be my training for the next 7 weeks. This coupled with a focus on my nutrition should allow me to make significant gains in my fitness. I want to utilize the free time I have to make some good progress this summer, so that when I start my junior year of college, I will already have a good base that should be easy to maintain throughout the craziness of the school year.

So that’s all for this post! Im sorry if it seemed rather scattered, but I wanted to get some things off of my chest. I will be posting a more detailed post in a few days with a more detailed version of my nutrition plan, because lets be honest here, nutrition is so crucial to seeing improvements.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thursday!

SarahBeth

 

 

7 DAY HEALTHY FOOD PICTURE CHALLENGE: DAY TWO

Hey Guys!

So I pretty much fail at taking pictures of my food. I not only forgot once, but actually there were two meals that I totally forgot to take photos of. (sorry guys) One thing that I have realized so far is that I eat a lot of food that I am not even aware that I am eating. That might sound weird but I challenge you to picture every piece of food that you put into your mouth for a day and I think most of you will be surprised at how much food you eat without mentally noting.

So today I started off my day with yet another smoothie. This combination was blackberries, bananas, and water. I drank what was pictured here plus about a cup more of the smoothie that was left in the blender. I was not about to let any of this smoothie go to waste.

So for lunch, I actually met a friend at Panera and this is where I totally forgot to take a picture of my food. (oops) I was able to eat quite healthy though, which is part of the reason why I love Panera. I was able to get a half order of the Mediterranean Chicken Quinoa salad, and a cup of Vegetable Soup with pesto. I also had an apple and I drank a cup of unsweetened tea.

Later in the afternoon, my sister cut a watermelon. At first, you might be thinking,”um ok, what does that have to do with anything, Sarah.” I will have you know, that my love for watermelon might surpass the threshold for normal human enjoyment of food. I love watermelon so much that I will actually binge eat watermelon until I either cannot possibly stuff any more melon into my stomach, or I eat it all. There is not middle ground for me here. I do realize that this is probably not the healthiest habit I have, but, in the grand scheme of things, I rarely get the chance to eat watermelon, and if I had to choose watermelon to be the food that I have no control around, I’d say I’m not doing so bad. All that to say, I ate so. much. watermelon. And no, I didn’t take a picture because I was too busy eating. All in all, I’d say I ate maybe half a watermelon. Actually, even as I type out those words I realize how much I actually ate. Even though it pains me to write that, I told myself I would try my best to be honest. So in all honesty, I ate half a watermelon. It was good.

Moving on…

Because of the rather large volume of melon I consumed earlier today, I wasn’t hungry again until about 8:30.

Because of my lack of motivation to cook anything, I made myself some canned progressive chicken noodle soup, and two slices of whole wheat toast. While I understand that canned soup is not necessarily the healthiest, it did contain a lower sodium concentrate than other soups, and it was simple and easy to make.

Later tonight, was a little bit hungry again, so I ate a banana with coconut shavings on top.

So that concludes my day of eating. Hopefully tomorrow I will do a better job at actually taking pictures of the food I am about to eat. I hope that this post gives you some meals ideas, and shows you that even though I am not perfect at eating healthy, it doesn’t have to be a hard and boring task to feed yourself. I can truthfully say that ever since I started to eat larger amounts of fruit, my sweet cravings have disappeared, and I no longer feel like I am depriving myself of treats.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for Day 3 of my 7 day challenge!

SarahBeth

7 DAY HEALTHY FOOD PICTURE CHALLENGE: DAY ONE

Hey Guys!

So today I am going to share with you what I ate for the first day of the 7 Day Foodie Challenge. Basically, for this challenge, I had to take a picture of everything that I was going to eat and share it with you all in a blog post. While I was able to take a pictures of almost everything that went in my mouth, there are a few things that were not captured on camera so I will be sure to mention them at the end.

I always try to start my day off with a big class of water to hydrate myself and to get rid of that parched feeling in my mouth when I first wake up. Today I threw in some fresh mint leaves to add a little bit of flavor.  I also am a caffeine addict and can’t stop drinking coffee in the morning. I always feel 10x better after a wee bit of caffeine.

After an hour or two of being awake, I normally get hungry enough for some food. This is actually overnight oats that I put in the fridge the night before. I chopped up an apple on top and sweetened it with a little agave nectar. I like overnight oats in the summer because its cooler than eating regular oatmeal, and it tastes almost like pudding. It might sound gross but I think its delicious.

After a long HIIT session (and a cold shower), I am absolutely famished and decide to eat the rest of my overnight oats while I cook lunch. It helps ease the ravenous hunger.

For lunch, I prepared a sweet potato in the microwave, and made a vegetable medley stir fry. The stir fry had three chopped zucchinis, a full tomato, and an entire can of chickpeas. And if you are wondering, yes, I ate all of it. Don’t doubt my hunger after a HIIT session…

Later in the afternoon, I get the munchies so I have me a lovely bunch of grapes. If we are being honest here, I probably ended up eating double the amount of grapes that are pictured here.

I normally like to try to keep things lighter for dinner, so what you see here is a salad with two different types of cabbage and some chopped carrots. It has a vinaigrette dressing made from olive oil and red wine vinegar. I ate what was pictured here plus a second bowl a little later.

Later that evening, I got a little bit hungry, so I had two handfuls of cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture so you will just have to imagine what it looks like. Other things that I ate but did not take a picture of were a few bites of a doughnut that was offered to me by my lovely mother, and a few skittles at an open house I attended. Other than that that pretty much wraps up day one of my seven day challenge. Its amazing how mindful you have to be with your food choices when you know that you have to take a picture of it. Also,  be sure to check back tomorrow if you want to see more pictures of delectable food.

See you tomorrow!

SarahBeth

JUNE FITNESS GOALS

Hey Guys!

So I was looking through some of my older posts and I tragically realized that I somehow have forgotten to make goals for March, April, AND May. Crazy right? Actually, not so crazy. Truth to be told, I have not been on my game these past few months. And by game I mean, fitness and my health has not been on the top of the to do list if ya catch my drift. Basically to sum it up simply. IVE BEEN SLACKIN. Now this isn’t to say that I have been totally falling off of the wagon and woefully submitted myself to the dark forces of junk food and sedentary lifestyle. (sorry guys I’m feeling dramatic right now) I have definitely had some good, even great days. However, I have slacked in keeping my food diary up to date, and my eating has been a little bit whacked some days. In any case, I really, really, really, really, want to get back on track and to start feeling back to my old self for longer than just a few days.

Through some carefully consideration, I have decided that the first step to making this change is by writing out my monthly goal post. Normally, if I were feeling more motivated, I would make a video for you guys so that you can listen to my beautifully awkward video ramblings. But since my family has already gone to bed for the night, and I look atrocious, I think it would be best this time around if I just stuck to making a good ol’ list.

So what do I hope to accomplish in this glorious month of summer? Well. I am so glad you asked because I have come up with 5 goals for myself that I hope to achieve by July 1st:

1. Complete a 7 day photo challenge. This is a challenge that I am completing right now and you can read about this challenge and catch all the details here.

2. Drink mostly water, black coffee, unsweetened tea, and vegan milks (almond, coconut etc.) This is something that I have recently been deviating from and I really want to clean up my beverage choices. (the daily iced coffees are bad for both the thighs and the wallet, Sarah)

3. Workout 5x per week. I’ve actually been doing pretty well at this one! I just completed my fifth workout of the week today! (I deserve a cookie right?)

4. Do two yoga session per week. This goal is because I am not very good at yoga and I hate that I am not good at yoga and whenever I am bad at something I hate it and I have to keep doing it until I am somewhat decent at it. Also I want to be more flexible which we all know is an ongoing problem for me.

5. Blog waaaaaay more. Yes, a reoccurring goal indeed. But you know what? I am home for the summer and hopefully, Lord-willing, I will have time to invest more into this blog.

So those are the five goals that I hope to achieve throughout the month of June. At the end of June/beginning of July I will hopefully have a corresponding blog post that will tell me how amazing and well I did this month. (or how awful and terrible I did, but we all know that not going to happen, right??)

Also, can we all just take a moment and realize that half of the year is gone already…(?!?!) So let’s put our best effort forward and resist all of the cookies and ice creams and make huge leaps in our fitness gains.

Ok, that’s all for today! Make sure to check back tomorrow if you want to see what I eat today in a beautiful delectable display of pictures.

Stay Healthy!

SarahBeth

Where have I been?! Update on Life, Future Plans, and Fitness Goals!

Hey Guys!

Ok, so I know that I have been a little AWOL recently. Actually, scratch that. I have been extremely AWOL. I want to apologize for not blogging in so long. Chances are, if you have been reading my previous posts at all you will know that my spring semester started and while I tried to stick to my schedule the best that I could, it was definitely more than I can handle. So that leaves me here in the middle of April, trying to get back into the habit of blogging. I will try and stick to my three post per week goal, because this is something that I love doing and it is a great way for me to relax or de-stress from the other things going on in my life.

So what has exactly been going on? Other than school, which has consumed its fair amount of attention these past few weeks,I have been crazy busy applying for summer jobs. (insert cheering here) This summer I plan on hopefully becoming a personal trainer. Its insane yet surreal that I am finally getting to apply my skills, and help other people with their fitness goals. I remember when I first decided I wanted to become a personal trainer. I was 16 years old, had only been working out consistently for a year, and I had very little knowledge about other forms of exercise other than plyometric/HIIT training. Even though my original goal was to become certified as soon as I was old enough, (18 years old) It took me an additional two years to fully accomplish this goal. But you know what, I don’t even care, I am finally able to put my skills to use! Nothing feels better than to know that dreams can become a reality. I say this in hopes that I may be able to encourage some of my readers who are struggling with their goals. Whether it is fitness and health related, academic, career, or personal goals, I just wanted to say that if you are willing to work for it and push through the rough patches, it will totally be worth it in the end.

Speaking of goals, the time has now come for me to update you guys on my personal fitness goals. Overall, I have been able to keep a decent regular workout schedule. I have to say that it has been an improvement since the last time I reassessed my fitness journey. Although I have to admit, Spring break through me off my game a little bit, however, I kind of planned it that way since I really just wanted to take some time to relax. One area that I desperately need to work on however, is my flexibility. I don’t know why this is such a problem for me to take 10 minutes out of my evening routine to stretch. At any rate, I think I might start an actual challenge for daily stretching. (future post hint hint) In terms of my diet, It has stayed relatively clean, which I am proud of myself for. Contrary to popular opinion, I find eating clean at college is actually easier than when I am at home. Maybe it is the readily available healthy food at each meal, or maybe its due to the fact that I just want to watch Netflix and eat when I am on break. (Because who doesn’t) Whatever the reason, I am proud of my progress and I hope I can set some good habits that I can maintain over the summer.

Also, I wanted to say that I have been reading up on the raw vegan diet recently. I find it fascinating that these people eat so many fruits and vegetables, like 15 bananas a day sort of quantities, yet still remain fit and healthy looking. I will probably never actually go raw vegan. Partly because I don’t have the quantities of food available to me and partly because I have a soft spot for bacon. But I think I want to incorporate more raw fruits and veggies into my diet. I sometimes find myself gravitating towards a very high protein fat heavy diet, with a lot of meat, peanut butter, and heavenly trail mixes. While I am not saying that these are strictly bad foods, these foods easily will crowd out any stomach space for veggies and fruits. My goal is to put a heavier emphasis on making veggies and fruits the base of every meal, and protein, fat, and starchy carbs as complements.

Alright, well if you have made it this far in this post, you deserve a medal of achievement. Basically, I just wanted to give you guys an update of what has been going on and to apologize for not blogging in several months! I plan on having a new post out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (thats the goal at least) As I said earlier, I love blogging and It makes me rather sad when I get out of the habit of doing so. So let’s not be sad, Ok?

See you all soon!

SarahBeth

I shall now leave you with a lovely car selfie. Enjoy my face.