I originally began my fitness journey with the wrong goals in mind. I wanted the sexy bikini body with the flat tummy and nicely toned legs. But when I began working out, and realized just how difficult it is, I realized that instead of focusing on looking good, I needed to being feeling good, and the results would follow.
I began to worry about not being able to keep up with my tour group in Israel because I could hardly scale the local hill here: Mt. Finlayson. Agreed, it is somewhat of a difficult hike, I still rather hoped I would do better. After a five minute ascent I was sweating bullets, my heart was pounding and my legs felt like they were about to fall off. That is when I changed my mind frame. Instead, my goal became “to get fit” not “to get fit-looking”. I don’t care if I still have thunder-thighs (well, I do care a little), as long as those thunder-thighs are able to take me up a hill without dying.
2 weeks ago I began to make preparations, and I am continuing until I leave on the 9th. I have so far hiked Mt. Finlayson twice and am planning to do it again this weekend for the last time (each time it gets a little easier). I have also gone on jogs. AND FINALLY, and most IMPORTANTLY of all, I have been doing continuous videos from Blogilates! I love Cassie, and her channel on YouTube! She challenges people in so many ways, and is right there with you doing the exercises. Stop buying those useless Pilates tapes that you’re only going to do once, just go on YouTube! Cassie puts out new videos weekly, has great nutrition plans and is an extremely encouraging person!
PS Totally didn’t mean this to seem like I’m selling something!
Here is what my week looks like:
Sunday – Hike Mt. Finlayson
Monday – Do the pop-Pilates arm workout:
Get ready to cry, my arms hurt for 5 days straight!!! Make sure to stretch them and drink lots of water!
Tuesday – Go for a jog around my house, I only ran about 4km before my asthma kicked in, but even a little bit of cardio is good for you. Adidas has this awesome free app which uses the GPS in your phone to keep track of your progress and you can even set up your weekly running routine and everything:
Wednesday – Do one of Cassies’s Pop-pilates HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) videos. Over the past few weeks she has been putting out the “bikini blaster” videos that I’ve been following religiously.
Thursday – This is my day off, often because I get called into work and usually tutor in the evening, so unfortunately I don’t have any time to work out, and I’m usually too tired anyways. Always good to have at least one day off in the week to let your muscles regenerate!
Friday – I will push myself and do another Bikini Blaster video AND either target my arms, my thighs or my abs with another pilates video.
Saturday – I like to do things in the nature, and outside, so I will allow myself Saturday to be an “easy” workout day, where I’ll go on a 10km walk around our lake, or walk around downtown, or maybe a leisurely swim at the pool. Nothing too intense.
That’s IT! That simple. You don’t have to follow this routine EXACTLY, but I want to make as many people as possible aware about this awesome AMAZING woman who lives in California and does free fitness videos for us to try on YouTube.
Her website is here:http://www.blogilates.com/
Her YouTube channels are here:http://www.youtube.com/user/blogilates/videos and here:http://www.youtube.com/user/BlogilatesTV/videos