Another Personal Training Update

Tonight’s exercise was much easier, though still no picnic. After my usual warm-ups, my trainer got out this stool and had me step up on it with one foot, then hold it stable as I pulled the other foot up, lifted my knee all the way up, then dropped that foot back down, and lifted my arms while stepping back down from the stool. You’re supposed to do it really fast, one rep after another on each side. Other new exercises include assisted tricep dips on the same machine I used for assisted pull-ups, and then my new least favorite … I don’t even know what to call it, but it makes me feel like a camel. You bend all the way down, walk your hands out into a push-up position, then keep your legs straight as you walk your legs up to your hands, then walk your hands back out … basically you’re somewhat like a human inchworm. I also did an exercise she had me do in my first session that I had since forgotten about – standing push-ups, where you lean forward with your hands on a low bar (I think about waist-level when standing straight up).

I bought lots of fresh ingredients today and I’m hoping to make some delicious spicy turkey chili either tomorrow or Sunday. I bought lean ground turkey, kidney beans, and some fresh dried New Mexico chile peppers. I’ll see what else I can throw in there and get it simmering on the stove soon, then make portions for all of next week. But first we really need a chopping knife and a good mortar and pestle! I’m hoping to start cooking a little more; I’m quite desperate to remake some more of the recipes we learned from the sweet lady in Cozumel a couple months ago. That was good food with 98 percent fresh ingredients.

Nutrition Tip of the Day: I know a lot of people don’t like cottage cheese, but if you do or even if you only like to eat it with fruit, check out Breakstone’s Cottage Doubles. This is a new product that I was pleased to sample for free through Kraft’s First Taste program. (Sign up for First Taste right here, and get coupons to try new products for FREE as well as money-saving coupons to pass to your friends.) It’s delicious! You get a 100 calorie serving of lowfat cottage cheese and fruit topping in each container. You can get a four-pack of little containers (think yogurt containers) with the fruit already mixed in, or get a bigger container with the fruit in a separate section so that you can mix it in yourself. I am in LOVE with these things. My favorite flavors are Apple Cinnamon, Pineapple, and Mango, but there are many more.

Bonus Nutrition Tip: If you are craving a crunchy salty snack and tempted to grab some chips, make some fresh jicama slices instead! Jicama, also called yambean, is a root vegetable that’s in a lot of Mexican as well as Asian recipes. In Cozumel, the most excellent home-cooking expert Josefina showed us how to eat a typical Mexican jicama snack: cut raw jicama slices and brush them with lime juice, then sprinkle them with chili powder. And that’s it – that’s all you do! Crunch on a plate of those rather than some potato chips and you are golden! Jicama works with many other wonderful recipes too.

Personal Training Update

My personal trainer whipped my behind tonight. I feel like I got one of the best workouts I’ve had in a REALLY long time, and certainly way better than I could’ve done by myself. I told her I like that she doesn’t take any crap but in truth she’s not a Jillian Michaels-type or anything, just clearly not the type to take a lot of whining. And that’s good, because if she let me stop when I wanted to, I would have quit a lot sooner. Tomorrow night will be more of the same as I had back-to-back appointments scheduled. Suddenly I am glad that my sister and I picked *this* Saturday for a pampering day at the spa!

Here are the exercises my trainer has me doing:

35 minutes of cardio, five times per week (elliptical – I started off burning just 200 calories per session but am now up to 250 as I’ve increased the speed and intensity. I think I’m ready to do far more than just 35 minutes now)
Warm up kicks – flexing foot and slowly kicking leg straight out ahead of me
Warm up marches with high knee lifts
Jumping jacks
Burpees
Squats (most recently, she added a 15 pound kettle bell to this exercise – I have to hold it up as I squat)
Pull-ups (with an assist machine)
Overhead raises with 10 pound dumbbells
Walking lunges
Mountain climbers
Crunches with legs raised
Reverse crunches (I think that’s what you call them – I do them with a machine where I stand with back pressed against a cushion on the machine, then grab the overhead rails, hang from them like I’m about to do pull-ups, and then just lift my knees up to my abs over and over)
Cool-down stretches

I have to say that out of all of these, mountain climbers and burpees are my least favorite. There are others we have done, but these are the ones we’ve done the most and sometimes I think they’re out to get me. Proper form is essential for all exercise (which is where the trainer comes in very helpfully) and doing them the correct way is not easy (for me). Because I hate them so much, I am determined to beat these exercises and show them how well I can in fact do them … jerks.

And here is the diet she has me on:

Overall: Low-fat, low-carb, high-protein, emphasis on fresh (and non-starchy) produce, lean protein, nonfat dairy
-Lots and lots of water!
-Typical breakfast is egg whites and a vegetable (I like to scramble egg whites with fresh spinach leaves and throw in some chili powder!)
-Typical lunch is lean protein such as baked, broiled or boiled chicken breast with Mrs. Dash or herb seasoning, or ground turkey chili, and a vegetable
-Typical dinner is salad with low-fat dressing, slivered almonds, fruits and veggies
-Couple of snacks a day, such as: nonfat Greek yogurt, nonfat cottage cheese with fruit, cut-up green bell pepper slices, handful of almonds
-Protein shakes etc. are fine as long as they don’t become the main source of nutrition and don’t have a lot of sugar
-No: starch (corn, potatoes, cauliflower, rice, etc.), fast food, breaded/fried foods, foods cooked with a lot of oil, sugary foods, added salt, non-lean cuts of meat
-Very minimal alcohol and bagged or boxed (in other words, processed) foods, breads/pasta/rice
-Grocery shopping is mainly done on the outer sections of the store (where the fresh foods are 🙂
-Never go a few hours without eating something!
-Cheating on weekends is allowed. This isn’t a license to eat like a pig, I can just treat myself to things I normally avoid during the week – for example, although normally I can destroy a bag of parmesan Goldfish with the best of them, I will have to limit myself to one serving
-As I start working out more and burning more calories, and get used to eating healthy fresh foods again, I can begin to “cheat” even more!
-Make a shopping list, get what I need, and get out!
-Prepare weekday meals on Sunday (e.g., broiling chicken breasts, chopping veggies, cooking up the turkey) and store in baggies in the fridge for easy grab-and-go.

So far it is definitely taking a major adjustment and while I’ve improved greatly, I have not been a saint by any means. Currently we have a bad habit of not grocery shopping on a regular basis which has go to stop as it leads to desperate delivery orders (usually when certain half-starved Puerto Ricans come home from a hard day’s work ready to destroy a meal, and end up targeting a large pizza or innocent carton of Chinese fried rice).

If you’re curious to see what a mountain climber looks like, here it is (after a Budweiser commercial):Mountain Climbers want to destroy you