I'm currently not working, due to a work layoff. They are usually not long, a few weeks or so. The good news is that I get to go to Kris' Pilates class! It's usually held when I'm working. Kris is not only my trainer but the person who introduced me to Beachbody. Little did I know when I asked her to help increase my endurance and stamina for my races, she had already done P90X, INSANITY and Chalean Extreme, to name a few of the TBB workouts she's done. The woman knows a few things about endurance and stamina!
After her class, I went for a bike ride. The weather was a perfect fall day. I live in an area that has rolling hills and not a great deal of traffic, out in the country. It's a beautiful place to run, bike and live.
The TBB workout I am currently doing is Chalean Extreme. I picked it because I wanted what she advertised "to get lean". I've always been heavy and am working on dropping the fat. I thought this would be a great "off season" way to work on building my muscles and losing the body fat. I'm suppose to be on week 3 of the Burn Circuit, but I "thought" I had tweaked my knee and the doctor told me to take a few days off. Then she said I could try to go for a bike ride, but "take it easy". Kris shot that idea down by saying, "you can't take it easy, better to stay off it for a week", so I stayed off the bike <sigh>. So, I did the 2nd week of Chalean Extreme but only working upper body. Then I repeated the entire 2nd week as listed. It's a 5 day/week program, which gives me 2 rest days, which is just too much time on my hands! So, I jumped on my bike and went 13 miles. Just because it's beautiful out right now and I love to bike as often as I can! Today would have been one of Chalene's "rest" days.
And I said "I thought I tweaked my knee" because it seems that there is nothing mechanically wrong with it. It turns out the muscles along the side of my leg are tight, up into my hip and are "pulling" on my knee and that's causing pain. Pilates is helping it quite a bit. Hmm, wonder if I can get the doctor to give me a note that says I "have" to take Pilates twice/week for my health.....maybe, you never know!
Since I'm still not at my goal weight, I'm following Chalene's food program pretty much as she has it laid out. The one exception is that I am drinking shakeology for lunch. I started drinking it a couple months ago. I have already felt a huge difference in my energy level and just how it makes me feel. And the weight loss claims? Well, at the end of June I was 187 and my body fat was about 31%. This morning I weighed in at 172 and 27% body fat. I'd say it works. I was dropping weight before I started drinking it but I was always hungry and running out of energy. And as a result, my weight loss was very sloooooow. This has solved those problems. I drank it for a month before my race in August and could feel the difference from my race earlier this summer. I'll talk more about the ingredients in shakeology in the future. It's an amazing drink and the folks who developed it are even more amazing!
Tomorrow is my real rest day. I know how important rest days are, that's when the body repairs all that "breaking down" I've done to it. Sometimes I feel I should be doing "something" on my rest day. But I do think that your body needs that time to truly rest. I work out hard, most of the time, and can tell when I need to take more than one rest day. It happens.
At the present time, I'm not really "training" for a race. However, I am "training" for the TBB transformation. And the worst that can happen is that I get into really good shape, using Chalean Extreme and shakeology and don't win any of the prizes. But since I'll be getting into shape, there really isn't really any way for me to lose, you know?
Woohoo! Go you!
ReplyDeleteHey, try a foam roller for that knee issue. I use mine all the time and that's exactly what I use it for, lol!