Tag: exercise

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness New York sports Weight

Light Strength Training at Crunch Gym

It’s been raining but I still made it to Crunch to work out with Frank.  We had another light strength workout in deference to my bad knee.  My warm ups comprised running sideways back and forth.  We then did a series of modified inchworms; modified planks, leg extensions [using the wall]; and standing abductions.  As I enter my workouts into the SparkPeople.com fitness tracker, I can see how much less I do at Crunch but I don’t mind as I’m feeling really tired and it’s about as much as I want to do today.  It’s still 100 percent more than I would do without Frank. 🙂

Nutritionally, I am staying within the recommended calorie range for my BMR.  Breakfast included my favorite fruit protein shake.  Dinner included a lovely spinach and feta cheese salad.  My weight continues to creep down.  Hooray! 

 

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness Injuries New York sports Weight

Kickboxing with John Salgado

Despite the rain, I made it to the gym this afternoon. My knee was especially creaky today so we tried some modified one-leg-squat exercises. I did the easiest variation:  John had me sit on a chair, extend one leg and arms in front and stand up on one leg.  I then sat down on the chair while standing on one leg.  I still had to support the weak knee but it’s a start to try to rebuild leg strength.

Here’s a video link demonstrating the modified one-leg-squat exercises from eHow.com:


How to Do a Chair Pistol Lower Body Exercise — powered by ehow
 
 

Other exercises with the resistance bands for today included:

You can find other Resistance Band exercise suggestions at:

We rounded out today with punching and kicking combos on the bag.

I’ve tried to continue eating healthily- breakfast included a fruit protein shake so I had a kick start with protein and fiber;  other meals included vegetables.

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness Kickboxing New York sports

Healthy Eating and Walking

So the thought for today is to eat better and continue exercising.  It’s a lovely day so I did a 3.7 mile loop of the park this afternoon.  As for healthy eating, I like the advice of: Prospect Park Preserve

  • cutting out junk food, processed foods, sugars…[including the dreaded High Fructose Corn Syrup]
  • eating more colorful and fresh foods
  • eating in moderation [drinking more water as I might be thirsty rather than hungry]

I found a nice web page called Healthy Eating Easy Tips for Planning a Healthy Diet and Sticking To It from Helpguide.com that provides some common sense advice.

I had a weird diet day today.  I slept in this morning so ate fewer meals.  I’m not sure how that ranks in the BMR [Basal Metabolic Rate] calculation.  Given my 3-5 days/week of moderate exercise activity, I can eat about 2150 calories each day.  The Fat2FitRadio.com calculation is described as:

The chart shows the number of calories that you should eat on a daily basis to reach your goal weight. At Fat 2 Fit Radio we advocate eating like the thin, healthy person that you want to become. The calorie levels …create that all important caloric deficit that is required to get you to your goal weight in a safe manner. Once you reach your goal weight, you will continue eating the same number of calories for the rest of your life to maintain that weight. You’ll never be on a diet again.

Based on how much activity you do on an average day, the [calculation provides] the number of calories that you will be able to eat at your goal weight. If you start eating those calories right now (eating like the thinner you), you will eventually become that thinner person.

Given that I woke up late today, I only ate 2 meals and consumed approximately 650  calories today….. is that bad? I don’t know….

Optimum Nutrition - 100% Nat Oats & Whey ChocolateAlso,  the Helpguide.com article mentioned that we should avoid sugars in any form.  My breakfast this morning comprised a fruit shake made from frozen mangoes, Zico Coconut Water, and Optimum Nutrition – 100% Natural Oats & Whey Chocolate.  The Optimum Nutrition protein drink is very tasty.  The label says, however, that it contains 8 g of Sugars in the form of honey powder and evaporated cane juice powder.  I’m guessing that is not good news but I’m very fond of it.  The Livestrong.com site has an article titled Health Risks of High Fructose Corn Syrup that sums up many of the concerns about High Fructose Corn Syrup [HFCS].  Among other things, it notes that the human body process regular sugars differently than HFCS.

A couple of excerpts from the Health Risks of High Fructose Corn Syrup article:

The human body does not process HFCS the same way it processes sugar. Fructose requires a different metabolic pathway than other carbohydrates because it skips glycolysis, or normal carbohydrate metabolism. Because of this, fructose is an unregulated source of “acetyl CoA,” or the starting material for fatty acid synthesis. Furthermore, by ingesting HFCS, a vicious cycle can ensue. This is because eating HFCS can increase the feelings of hunger.

Liver Disease & Metabolic Syndrome
Metabolic syndrome is a combination of conditions that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Metabolic syndrome includes elevated insulin levels, excess body fat, abnormal cholesterol levels and increased blood pressure. The journal, “Hepatology” noted in June 2010, “The rising incidence of obesity and diabetes coincides with a marked increase in fructose consumption and is higher in individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.” Furthermore, fructose consumption is a contributing environmental risk factor for increased fibrosis of the liver.

Read the entire article at: http://www.livestrong.com/article/259181-heath-risks-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup/?utm_source=popslideshow&utm_medium=a1

..and, yes, I remembered to log my nutrition and exercise into SparkPeople.com site .  I’ve been less consistent about logging into the Self.com Diet Club as it’s more cumbersome.

 

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness Kickboxing New York sports

Finishing the Week with Core Exercises and Kick Boxing

I’ve gone to the gym 5 days in a row!!! It’s been years since that’s happened [as I’ve explained to my husband, I’m much better about researching exercise than doing exercise.]

Lots of stability ball exercises today, including:

  1. Crunches with Stability Ball
  2. Bridges on Stability Ball
  3. Push Ups on the Stability Ball
  4. Back Extension with Stability Ball
  5. Pendulum with Stability Ball
  6. Crunches on Stability Ball While Tossing Medicine Ball
  7. Superman on the Stability Ball

We finished up with:

  1. Punching Drills on the Bag
  2. Stretching After Strength Training

You can find descriptions of the Stability Ball exercises on SparkPeople.com’s Fitness Pages.

So, it’s the end of a successful week. Where does that leave us?  I want to go back to basics.  The pod-casts [see my Nutrition and Weight Loss Guidance page] that I enjoy so much and SparkPeople.com agree that setting real and measurable goals is very important to losing weight.  Both advise that you write down why you want to lose weight or get fit, and why the hard work and effort to accomplish your goal is worth it. Fat2FitRadio.com especially stress coming up with realistic weight loss goals.

Here’s an excerpt from the Fat2FitRadio.com Goal Setting Page:

Here are some ballpark figures that I worked out for a weight loss of 50 lbs.

5’5″ woman, 30 years old who exercises lightly (BMR x 1.375)

175 lbs – 2165 calories per day
125 lbs – 1850 calories per day

…

5’10″ man, 30 years old who exercises lightly (BMR x 1.375)

225 lbs – 2950 calories per day
175 lbs – 2550 calories per day

…

 

It is clear that diets don’t work because as soon as people go off of a diet, they start eating like they did before the diet. The best approach is to know your goal weight and then figure out how many calories per day you will need to eat to maintain that goal weight.

Start to eat your “maintenance” calories at the start of your weight loss. If you eat like a thinner person, you become that thinner person. You will gradually lose the weight and never feel deprived along the way. It’s not a sexy weight loss plan, but it works in the long term.

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Exercise Fitness Kickboxing New York sports

Strength Training at Crunch Gym

Looking at yesterday’s workout, it is clear that I haven’t been working as hard as I should when I am at Crunch. I felt ashamed at the amount of my whining. 🙁  So, this morning I told Frank that I needed to be pushed harder.woman lifting weights cartoon

Taking it to heart, Frank had me doing lateral pull-downs, rows, and bicep exercises with much heavier weights.  I had to do knuckle push ups [modified because I was on my knees] and modified jumping jacks [no jumping] with two pound weights.  The knuckle push ups are supposed to help strengthen my wrists and my forearms –  both of which should help with kickboxing as well.

All in all, I think we accomplished a great deal more today.  Excellent!

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Calories Exercise Fitness Injuries sports

Limited Strength Training at Crunch Gym

I went to see Frank, my trainer at the local Crunch gym, this morning to restart my training program.  Because of my knee issues and the time I’ve been away, we took it really easy.

  • Warm up was 5 sets of lateral runs and some stretches

My work out comprised 3 sets of the following:

  • 1 minute of rope pulley machine – pulling down
  • 1 minute of rope pulley machine – pulling up
  • 20 modified inchworm exercises [just going forward and going back to stand up]
  • traditional lateral pull down machine
  • traditional row machine
  • Dumbbell Lateral Raises [to the side, moving across to the front and then back down to hips; reverse order for next set]
  • side leg raises

I’m incapable of moving my knee to a 90 degree angle with any weight so squats and lunges are out of the question for the time being.

Here’s a good video example:


I tried the SparkPeople.com Trivia game – it asks about health and exercise questions.

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness Injuries Kickboxing New York Reference Links sports

Kickboxing Training with John Salgado

I thought I should say that John Salgado is my trainer and has been with me for years.  John is great– he never yells at me but always pushes me past my whining.  🙂

John Salgado, CPT, Kickboxing Trainer, Inner G Training
John Salgado, professional MMA Fighter, CPT, Kickboxing Trainer, Inner G Training

John is a professional MMA Fighter and runs Inner G Training in New York.  He also trains other professional MMA fighters.  I’ve never attended any of his actual classes [let’s face it, I don’t like group activities] but they look impressive.  We tend to do strength exercises using the Tabata method and then some cardio kickboxing with pads and punching bags.  I’m guessing that my workouts most closely resemble his Cardio Combat classes but I ‘ve never asked him.  Our cool downs focus on QiGong.  [I’ve included links to some QiGong videos and exercises you can try on my Weight Loss and Nutrition Guidance/Exercises page.] All together, it makes for a high calorie workout.

John always recommends rolling my legs out with a foam roller to help alleviate my knee issues.

Qigong is an ancient Eastern practice of whole-body healing, accomplished by way of postures, movement, and breathing rituals intended to release the bodies flow of chi.  The Livestrong.com site has some QiGong exercises you can try.  Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/19110-qigong-breathing-exercises/

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Calories Diet Entertainment Exercise Fitness New York sports Staten Island Yankees

Diet Club With Self Magazine

Icing and some trigger point massage seems to have helped a bit with the sore forearms.  I will continue tonight to see if I can get back to a pain free state.

I signed up for the Self.com Diet Club.  They provide a possible 16 strength and plyometric exercises and a cardio plan. You’re supposed to do the exercises three times a week.  The trainer on the online videos is from SparkPeople.com.  The idea is to exercise as part of a community and to track it online everyday so that you are more aware of your daily food and exercise decisions as well as more accountable.  I’m not that community minded but am giving it a go.

The exercises I did today were:

Hotdog
Regular Hotdog w. ketchup, roll, no mayo – 315 calories
  • Rotating Sculptor- 5 lb weights
  • Bottoms Up- 3 lb weights
  • Reshaping Reach – 10 lb weights
  • Biceps Balancer – 10 lb weights
  • Step Off It – 3 lb weights
  • Rear Raiser
  • Wide High Knee

As I am careful of my knees, I decided to avoid the plyometric exercises for the time being.

 We are heading off to the Staten Island Yankees game tonight with All-You-Can-Eat tickets again.  I’m pretty sure that I saw an article saying hot dogs are a better junk food choice.

I will try to at some without the bun… That should save some calories. LOL

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Calories Diet Entertainment Exercise Fitness Kickboxing New York sports Staten Island Yankees

Trigger Point Massage for Forearm Pain From Overuse

My husband and I walked a bit in the park today [he went to the gym without me as my knees are still achy.]  My issue for the day relates to sore forearms from my kickboxing work out on Thursday afternoon.

I haven’t done a kickboxing session since the end of March when I hurt my hand and began a serious bout of traveling!  While it was great fun to be back [and a serious surprise that I was still conscious at the end of the hour] I have been incredibly sore.  My shoulders and forearms have not recovered from my trainer’s tabata rounds of push up and pull up exercises.

All the podcasts I’ve listened to so far agree that strength exercises are best.  Of course they also agree that 90 percent of weight loss is determined by diet and nutrition rather than exercise.  I am easing my way into better nutrition.  As I mentioned previously, I will start by avoiding high fructose corn syrup. 🙂   That’s harder than you’d think as we are attending a Staten Island Yankees game with All-You-Can-Eat tickets.

In the interim, I have just ordered Clair Davies’ The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief, Second Edition from Amazon.com.  I hope that I can begin to work on getting the kinks out of my legs and arms without having to go to a massage therapist.  I decided to use a small racquetball rather than purchasing any massage equipment; the foot log that I purchased a while ago may also come in handy.

I found an article online called Trigger Point Massage. Simple Self-Help for Chronic Pain  by Christian Lemburg, that seems to cover the basic points. 

Trigger Point Rules
1. Trigger points are small, localized muscle cramps that feel like hard lumps or knots in your muscles.
2. Trigger points arise at predictable places in the muscle and cause predictable patterns of referred pain.
3. Trigger points hurt like hell when pressed, and referred pain may be felt, according to the characteristic pattern for that trigger point.
4. Trigger points can be treated by massage.
5. Massage with short, slow strokes in one direction, applying deep pressure.
6. When massaging, use your elbow, your knee, your knuckles, or a ball instead of your fingers. Use a ball between your body and a wall or the floor to reach hard spots.

Read the entire article:  http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/37_05_trigger_points.pdf

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Calories Diet Exercise Fitness Kickboxing New York Reference Links sports

Suggested Calorie Intake

According to the Fat2FitRadio.com page, my suggested calorie intake is pretty generous.  Very generous compared to what my trainer tells me I should be eating.  It’s clear that my diet is really poor but baby steps is where I am starting.  My first resolution is to cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup from my diet.

Activity Level    Daily Calories

  • Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job)   1664
  • Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1907
  • Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2150
  • Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2393
  • Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2635

Based on how much activity you do on an average day, the calories in the right column will be the number of calories that you will be able to eat at your goal weight. If you start eating those calories right now (eating like the thinner you), you will eventually become that thinner person. As you get closer to your goal weight, your weight loss will start to slow down. It is OK to eat a few hundred calories less per day (200-300) to speed up your weight loss at this point.