Last Call for the Self (non) Challenge

Here it is, the final week... How did the Self Challenge hold up? It didn't seem to be nearly as challenging as it was in previous years. The workout requirements were all very manageable (when I wasn't both sick and travelling at the same time).

I finished up quite strongly (well, it's not over yet, but this week is looking good thus far).
I'm still doing way more cardio than required and I've taken to doing one Yourself! Maya cardio session with my 3 or 4 runs each week. The strength training portion is the hardest but with Maya yelling at me each time I miss a session, I've been doing alright.

I seem to have settled roughly around 157 pounds, which is fine for now although I'd be happy if I lost another 5 pounds or so.

The best result of all came during the relay last week: I ran my fastest pace yet - a 9'16" minute mile. Wheee... I'm hoping my continued training will move me along further along in that arena.

Most interesting is that although my upper body is noticeably thinner, my lower body is now larger. My hip and thigh measurements are both bigger than before, and while many pairs of slacks are quite a bit looser around the waist, some pairs are tighter around the bootay. Can that just be the muscle from all the training?

I'm trying to decide whether to give myself a challenge-free week between this program and my next (still secret) 90 day plan. I might just play it by ear this weekend. I'm already back on running training track: I have two half marathons coming up very shortly, so it's not really like I can back off of my training. Maybe it's time for me to try out the p90x???

What *Does* A Girl Need?

I've been thinking, ever since my latest Yourself! fitness evaluation, about what I need really.
According to Maya, it's upper body strength. According to my own changing body image, I need to lose about 5 pounds, an inch or so each around my waist and my hips.

Looking back at when I first started the Self Challenge, I entered my measurements:

Height: 5'9"

Weight:	161lbs
Waist circumference:	30in
Hip circumference:	41in
Left thigh:	25in
Right thigh:	25in
Run/walk a mile in:	10 min.

So let's see where I am now, after two and a half months of the challenge.

Weight: 158lbs
Waist circumference:30in
Hip circumference: 44in (um... huh? did I mismeasure this the first time?!?!)
Left thigh: 24in
Right thigh: 25.5in
Run/walk a mile in: 9:26 min.

Well now... I don't know if that qualifies as "improvement." I try to not count weight loss as improvement since it's really hard to tell, and muscle weighs more than fat. Normally I'd go with measurements, but I'm pretty sure my increased thigh size is due to all the running, since I'm a bit right-legged and that one seems to be getting bigger. My legs definitely don't look fatter - they look pretty toned and muscled.

As for the hips - who knows what's going on there?!
The only clear improvement is the faster mile. Now that's something I'm proud of.

So in the meantime, while I'm deciding what to focus my workouts on, I'm still unsure what to pick. Maya still thinks I need a stronger upper body, which may be true, but I am inclined to think I need more cardio. What to do, what to do...

Creeping Along The Self-Challenge Way

So first, I'd like to complain some more about this so-called Self "Challenge". Month 3's workout requirements are no more than Month 2's! What's up with that?
I'm still required to do one 45-min and two 35-min Cardio workouts per week, and three 25-min strength workouts. Am I missing something? The old Self Challenges used to continue to ramp up your requirements each month.

Don't even get me started on Month 3's Eating Plan - Food on the go: how to get healthful meals from McDonald's and Wendy's. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure that's useful for a lot of people, but I'm looking for more useful advice.

Now that that's out of the way, I had my third physical evaluation by Maya last night. Now, I have to admit, I wasn't really sure I was up to it. I'd just had a little bike accident on the way home. Nothing big at all, but it had me all shaken up and I wasn't in the best of mind frames.

I couldn't do the kneeling pushups she has me do for the evaluation (because I landed on my knee and it hurt), so I could only do 12 regular pushups. For the situps and squats, I could still do the maximum, so no obvious improvement there.

The only part I realized I clearly don't understand is the resting and elevated heart rate analysis. The way it works is she has me take my resting pulse then do a full two minutes of jumping jacks then measure again. This time my elevated heart rate was higher. Now is that good? Does that mean that my cardio fitness is improving? I'll have to do some more reading about that.

Our big race is coming up this weekend and I'll be tapering down my workouts this week, though should still be able to get all the Self requirements done. Soon, oh so soon, the whole thing will be over and I'll move onto my next 90 challenge. Hopefully the next one will be more interesting and possibly yield more substantial results. I guess it may have helped if I paid any attention to the food plan section, but it really just didn't suit me or my lifestyle.

With a Squawk!

So after my month 1 evaluation, having surpassed all the exercise requirements but failed the eating ones, I decided that I wasn't happy with my progress. And since I decided I'm still unlikely to follow the meal plan (although month 2's meal plan is much more reasonable - more on that soon), my solution was to switch up and supplement my cardio load.

Ever since I'd gotten the Nike+ attachment for my iPod, my only cardio has been running. But since my running rarely involves sprints or cardio bursts, I've decided that it isn't enough to make me lose weight. So where did I turn in this time of need? To Maya, of course.

Instead of skipping her cardio workouts now, I've decided that I will supplement my 4-5 days of running a week with one intense 45-minute cardio workout with Maya. (This actually ends up being around 35-40 minutes of cardio, because she always adds some weight work at the end).

Maya tiptoes me into the workout with some really easy stuff: step touching, marching in place... Fortunately, this part only lasts about 3 minutes, then she moves into alternating sequences with jumping jacks, fast shuffles (I used to have to do those for tennis lessons) and various squat jacks, kick jacks, double jacks... any kind of jumping jack you could possibly desire, and then my favourite: The Karate Kick with Squat. Except that whenever she says it, it sounds like she's saying "with squawk" and having done a couple of years of Tae Kwon Do, I'm just dying to let loose and squawk out loud with each kick. But then I might disturb our neighbors and we really do love our new house...

I had my second Yourself! evaluation today and found that nothing had really changed, except that I was now able to do 20 pushups without stopping (compared to 15 when I started) and while Maya thinks that my focus should still be upper body strength, I decided to ignore her and switch my focus to cardio.

Now let's watch that kick my fitness plans into shape.

Oh, and then I leave for almost two weeks of travel tomorrow so that completely changes everything in my workout routine anyway. So much for that plan. My new focus will be: how to remain on target even while travelling. I'll let you know how that goes.

Bring it, now!

Having said it to the tune of "y'all come back, now!", Maya just didn't really inspire the bringing it feeling I was hoping for. Not that that didn't mean she was doing all she could to take it from me, whether I'd brought it or not.

Much like Teetering Tamsen, Maya had me doing some yoga moves for my core workout this week that had me flailing about, grabbing on to the nearest bit of furniture and desperately trying to keep my balance. Tamsen and I were complaining to each other and realized that we were having trouble with the very same move (the half moon pose, I believe) - which was fascinating, because that meant that our very different workout programs seem to have quite a bit of overlap.

It would be interesting once our 90 days are through to swap workouts for a week and see how we do on the other.

Self Challenge - Week 2 in Review

Requirements:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts
2 x 25 minute strength workouts

What I actually did:
3 x cardio workouts: 125, 40, 45 & 152 minutes, all running.
3 x Yourself Fitness workouts: 45 minutes of upper-body, 30 minutes of lower body, 45 minutes of core and 30 minutes of flexibility

Food-Wise:
Didn't keep the journal - again. I've been researching how to create healthful balanced meals, and writing about it for fitfare.net, but that's about it.

My workouts were quite over the basic requirements. For the cardio, that was merely because I couldn't complete my long run over the weekend and had to do it on Monday, but then kept my next 13-miler on Sunday, so that adds a lot of extra time that would normally have been broken up over two weeks.

As for the strength, having Maya to push me through my workouts has been much more interesting than the Self strength workouts, so it's kept me showing up again and again. Clearly, this is great when I'm home, but when I'm travelling, which I'll be doing a lot of this spring, things get a bit trickier.

How am I doing? I'm not having trouble completing the basic requirements, don't think I've lost any weight (nor would I expect to this soon), I still can't complete one of those blasted narrow-arm push ups, and Maya tells me the session after next is going to be a fitness evaluation. Oh my!

You Sound Like My Date Last Night...

That's what Maya said to me last night, when I told her (or rather selected as a response when she asked how I was doing) "You're lucky I'm here." Maya, my personal trainer. My Playstation2 virtual personal trainer.

Yourself! Fitness has been the perfect solution to the lack of inspiration provided to me by the Self Challenge. The way I see it, the Self Challenge offers a great log to keep track of the number of workouts I've been doing, and some good preliminary motivation with its requirements: keeping me on track for at least two 25-min strength workouts a week and three 30-min cardio. However, its offerings in terms of strength workouts are quite slim. In fact, just one offering really: one measly confusing little 25 minutes strength workout. And not a very good one, at that.

But I digress. When you first put on Maya, she greets you and puts you through a personal fitness evaluation. This consists of entering all the general stats, height, weight, age, gender and resting heart rate, then a fitness test: 2 minutes of jumping jacks (waaaay harder than I thought it would be! My calves started cramping a bit at 30 seconds!), take your heart rate again, then as many as you can do (up to a set maximum) of the following: Sit ups, push ups, and squats.

I was able to complete the maximum of sit ups (60) and squats (50) but only 15 out of the 40 max push ups. Finally, there was a little flexibility test, where sitting on the ground with your legs out in front of you, you walk your hands towards your feet on the floor and see how far you can go. I'm pretty flexible.

Once this is done, Maya gives you her suggestion for what your focus could be. For me, she shockingly suggested an Upper Body Strength focus, but I then had the option to change, if I so desired, to Weight Loss, Cardio, Core Strength, Lower Body Strength or Flexibility. I decided to go with her suggestion.

Next, she showed me the week plan, and suggested I work out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 45 minutes at a time. However, this part too was completely customizable. Again, I stayed with her suggestions. Finally, she offers you a full meal plan for a suggested daily calorie total.

Once this phase is done, you can go to your workout or you can go visit the meditation garden (a lovely garden scene where Maya leads you through a 20-minute or so yoga routine). On any given day, you can go with the recommended workout for that day or change it to any other type. You also get to choose your music and workout space and whether or not you have any equipment available (your choices are free weights, balance ball, step and something else that I can't seem to recall).

I have yet to try the yoga, but I've done several workouts with Maya: Core, Lower Body, Upper Body and Flexibility. They're great! They change frequently, and Maya is tough! Although she always asks how difficult a workout was and I've definitely noticed a fine tuning process. After I bitched about how hard the military narrow armed push ups were (as in, I couldn't even complete one), she has me back at regular positioned girlie push-ups. And that's about all I can handle... For now, at least.

Coming up next: Week 2 in review!

Self Challenge - Week 1 in Review

I finished week 1 of 12 of the Self Challenge, and I have to admit, I'm still a bit meh about it.

Requirements:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts
2 x 25 minute strength workouts

What I actually did:
3 x 30 minute cardio workouts (only because I flaked out on my 2 hour Sunday run, which means that this week will be off the charts, since I did it on Monday instead)
2 x 25 minute strength workouts (the self challenge one)
1 x 60 minute Pilates session
1 x 30 minute Yourself Fitness upper body workout

Food-Wise:
Didn't keep the journal - My "food plan" has me eating: about 450 calories for breakfast, 400 calories for lunch, a calcium snack of 100 calories, another 550 calories for dinner and a 120-calorie treat - so 1620 a day, which doesn't seem like enough to me.

I tried to make sure I had about 450 for breakfast, then the rest of my day is usually a mystery, though I have been cutting down on the amount of alcohol in the evenings (to cut those unnecessary calories... except for when they were necessary, and then I didn't cut them.)

My second attempt at the Self Challenge Month 1 Strength Workout was only slightly less frustrating. I did make it through the entire thing this time, but was still a bit annoyed at it. I also tried to do the mp3 walkthrough this time but I'm pretty sure it miscounted the reps and it also wouldn't let me pause it. Which was annoying.

I'm not sure I'll do it again since I have my Yourself! fitness program now and therefore have someone to walk me through all my exercises and count down for me. I'm lazy that way.

It's the Final Countdown

First, I'd like to apologize for the cheesy 80s title reference, but hey, growing up in Tunisia, that song was very important to me as I jumped around my bedroom, singing along to it. Which sort of counts as a cardio workout, so that almost excuses the use of the title. Almost.

More importantly, the time is almost here: 5 days till the Self Challenge begins. I figured I'd take these moments to reflect upon what the challenge promises, how it works and my current workout program.

The Self Body Makeover has 3 parts: Cardio, Strength and Nutrition. Back when it first started, it had 4, including a flexibility section. I'm not sure why they got rid of that, it was something I was (and probably still am) desperately in need of. The website doesn't say much about what the program entails this year (that is to say, beyond the promise of getting a great bikini-ready body... colour me skeptical: Really? bikini-ready in 3 months? That does seem like a bit of a stretch. I was merely going for "happier in my one-piece")

Last year, the way it worked was there was an online log where you could keep track of every workout you did, and it would tell you when you'd fulfilled that week's goals. The first month had a 3 cardio, 3 strength workouts requirement, and that was slowly increased
over the next two months. Then there was the food diary where you were supposed to log everything you ate. Yeah, I never did that part more than once or twice and have trouble believing I will keep track of that this year, but I'll try.

Lately, I've already been working out quite a bit, so it won't be difficult for me to fulfill the initial requirements. I've been running 3-4 times a week, for at least 30 minutes and occasionally as much as two and a half hours. I've been doing occasional strength workouts, about one or two a week, so that is something that the challenge should helpfully improve upon.

And remember how I said I didn't have a Playstation 2 for the Yourself Fitness program? Well, since I wrote that, I was so kindly bequeathed a Playstation 2 and ordered the program, although I probably won't have it to start until several weeks into the challenge.

My goal ultimately really is to look good in a bathing suit as well as in my wedding dress, since I'm getting married this summer, and going on a fun beach trip with our family and wedding party. But I'm also training for a half marathon or two and Tamsen and I are doing this crazy, intense relay. I'm looking forward to the challenge going live this coming Monday and hope to have others join me! Are you ready?