Full of it? Well...not anymore

10/11/13

As promised yesterday, I will highlight the Zija detox tea in this blog post. I was skeptical at first because my first question was basically: “Is this just going to make me shit like a great dane?”. The answer is no, thankfully! Brittany had assured me of this, and I’ve learned to just listen and trust that she has my best interest at hand. 

I’ve done my own research on this too, the body lines up all sorts of shit (no pun intended) in your intestines, and unfortunately, it sits there like the inside of a fire hydrant. Gross huh? Yes. Gross. However, releasing that stuff catalyzes a more normal internal system, and eventually, weight loss. The tea is pretty good. It just tastes like green tea and it takes three or four minutes to prepare and drink before bed. You can find more information on Britt’s page and ask her about it! In the meantime, I’ve asked her to highlight a little bit here as to the “why” in all of this, and how this actually works…

Britt:

Hey Everyone! So, I'd like to highlight today some facts about fat and successful weight loss. First of all, you need to know that fat has three distinct jobs (besides making us fear putting on a bathing suit). We all know the first job, fat is the body's insulator. Second, it cushions and protects internal organs. But, many people don't realize fat's third job, which is to store toxins. It is understanding this job, which is key to successful weight loss. 

When you take in more toxins than your liver can deal with, the liver tells the body to store those toxins in a fat cell until it has time to deal with it. Your liver is an amazing organ, and it regulates most chemical levels in the blood. More than 500 vital functions have been identified with the liver. But, the liver can only do one of those 500+ functions at a time. So when you lose weight and those fat cells break down, those toxins, that the fat cell was storing, are released. Now your liver, being the extremely busy organ it is, is being bogged down. You will begin to feel sluggish and your weight loss will plateau. 

This is where Zija's Premium Tea comes in. It is a delicious blend of traditional eastern and western herbs that aids in digestion, acts as a natural laxative and diuretic, and eliminates toxins released from fat cells during weight loss. It’s the perfect way to cleanse your body and allow you to continue losing weight.

*DISCLAIMER* - I can only guarantee Zija products which have been bought through a distributor, like myself. It is actually illegal, per our contract, to sell products through any sites, such as Amazon, eBay, etc. Plus, an important part of Zija is that we are here to help guide you every step of the way if you need it. So if you're interested in learning more, please contact me!

Rest Day and Detox

10/9/2013

Another rest day. This time a full one. My body definitely needed it. As I collect my thoughts for the day, I realize that the sky is the limit for whatever I want to do with this. After this week’s crossfit and dance session, I realize that I can do anything I want. The path remains clear. Each day I feel more confident in my recovery, and more importantly, I feel more confident in my eating/drinking choices. As I sit and drink my Zija detox tea that Brittany provided me, I realize that what I’m doing now is sowing the seeds of what I will be a year from now…two years from now…5 years from now. As I reflect, which I believe to be healthy, I also realize the things I did 6 months ago now pop up in my life today. That said, I commit to making the changes necessary to achieve all of my goals. Tomorrow, I go back to my friend Pipere Smith’s kickboxing and Kettleworx class which you can see more about here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o4571uGe-4

In both classes, she displays mastery of the program as well as a pure passion for fitness. In addition, the program director, Laura Wilson, mentored me when I became a cycle instructor. She is the main person shown on the video above. There’s a lot to be said about mixing things up. For me, as I mentioned a few days ago, Kettleworx remains the perfect complement to what I’m doing with crossfit. Currently, in Indianapolis, Lifetime Fitness at 116^th street offers Kettleworx as a pilot program. Kettleworx comes in three flavors: core, cardio, and resistance. Moreover, it features a 3D component. Without going into details, it basically allows you to workout in all of your various planes of movement which remains rare for a lot of programs. In English, it allows you to work a lot of stabilizer muscles you would not normally work in addition to the larger muscle groups. You can read a really good review here: http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20131007/LIFESTYLE/310070005/Rock-bells-Kettlebell-fitness-craze-lifts-off

I highly recommend trying it, even if for crosstraining. I’m happy to go with you as well if you live in Indianapolis!  Next time we will discuss more of the Zija tea I mentioned above as well as the benefits it offers….

Tired

10/8/2013

Today is a rest day. My body still screams “I’m tired dude!” from Monday morning’s workout. As much as working out and eating right remains the core of this entire project, rest, and I mean true REST, jumps up there in terms of importance. 

Several ideas exist, however, for what “rest” really means. For some, it means complete inactivity. For others though, it just means less intense. I believe in taking a full break for a day a week, not really b/c I’m tired per se, but it’s good for ME to reset my thoughts and daily chores without the distraction of working out. Others believe it just means going back to a skeleton program where you do a workout, but at extremely low intensity as well as something that differs from your current regimen. 

So, for example, my dance extravaganza last night, while definitely not ‘easy’ either in terms of cardio or in dexterity, could be considered “recovery” or active recovery. Today, I only swam on my Vasatrainer for about 10 minutes, or what would normally be around 600 yards or so, but I tired quickly, so I just laid down with my dogs :-)

Not much to discuss today…just that Rest remains tantamount to the success of what we’re trying to do here.  Here’s an article that I found that challenges the need for rest mentality. It makes sense to me, although I do feel everyone is different too. I will see how it works for me and go from there.

http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/29_05_What_About_Recovery.pdf

Heaven and Hell

10/7/2013

Today was heaven and hell combined. I awoke at 4:45 a.m. for a crossfit class at 5:45, after spending the weekend at my ten year law school reunion. Needless to say, I did look up the workout the night before at midnight and I dreaded every minute preparing for it. 

As you can tell already, I form habits and stick to them…I took the dogs for their exercise, got ready, and yawning the entire time, headed to the gym. I knew I had another 10-20 pounds or so in my legs from Friday, and I didn’t feel sore, so that is where I set my benchmark. As predicted, I pumped 315 pounds on my squat. It actually wasn’t that bad either. To this day, with the exception of Friday, my maximum ever was 215. That’s a 100 pound jump in less than a month. Needless to say, my strength keeps jumping off the charts. 

We did our workout after that which consisted of 30 pull-ups (assisted), 30 box jumps, 30 front squats, and a mile run. My back still doesn’t like the jarring, so I rowed 2000 meters instead in about 9 minutes or so. After that workout, the soreness set in that I didn’t have on Friday. I felt lethargic the entire day. However, true to what I’ve been taught, it’s always good to exercise again, albeit with different exercises….which leads me to the next item on my journey: hip hop dance. 

It’s an amazing workout and the perfect movement to continue to work my muscles actively, while still allowing them to recover. A video of the finished routine after an hour of work can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10100400035093308&l=3444799408172383475

A friend of mine from Dance Kaleidoscope teaches the class on Monday nights, and it will undoubtedly become part of my regular routine. It’s a lot of fun, but challenging in a much different way. Very much like my friend, Pipere’s, Kettleworx and kickboxing class…it’s a welcome change, and it works the heart rate for sure.  In summation, today’s post is about mixing it up….it’s worth exploring in my opinion because you may just fall into something you really enjoy. 

Long Day

10/2/2013

Today was a LONG day…lots of driving back from my 10 year law school reunion. It’s a good thing I planned my cheat “day” (i.e. 24 hour period) to align with my reunion  I’ll spare the details, but I actually didn’t ‘cheat’ too much at first… I actually had a protein shake in the morning and then a good sandwich after that for lunch. 

As of now, what I’ve been doing on the actual ‘cheating’ portion is try to spike my sugar intake so my body doesn’t plateau with the lack of bad sugars and bad carbs/grains during the week (check out www.fourhourbody.com for more details on Tim Ferries’s “slow carb” lifestyle). Basically, in this program, you don’t eliminate carbs, rather you just get them from good sources (i.e vegetables etc), but once a week, you do just go for it. The rationale behind it remains simple:  just like with weightlifting, you pleateau…same for working out in your cardio zone…you plateau and achieve aerobic efficiency. The same applies to eating. That said, you don’t necessarily have to go completely overboard by any means on cheat day, but the point is to shock the body a little bit. Brittany isn't too fond of this approach and says, at some point, you should move to cheating better than you did before. Go ahead and eat the mac and cheese, but opt for the Annie's brand that has no preservatives or artificial food colorings instead of the store brand, chemical laden kind (Check out Fit W Britt's list of Things to Avoid at All Costs). Anyway, I think the main point here is that I don’t really feel like cheating all that much and just going for it anymore, which is a good thing. It means that my taste buds continue to change to the good stuff, thereby allowing me to get to my goals faster. Brittany says, you have to remember, this is a lifestyle, not a diet, so making too many changes all at once may sabotage your journey. Instead of quitting your fav junk foods cold turkey, phase them out, or find healthier versions of them, so you don't totally derail your progress. 

I rested from working out yesterday and today because I worked out pretty hard this past week, and especially on Friday. I ended up squatting 300 pounds on the squat rack which is a tremendous amount of weight, but I felt completely fine. I followed that up with 76 standard air squats (no weight), 76 pushups, 76 hollow rocks (ab work), and 76 lunges, along with a half mile run. Despite really working my legs this week both at crossfit and Kettleworx, I still had juice in my legs. I attribute this directly to the work Brittany has me doing with the food intake and making sure I get the right stuff at the right time. Tomorrow’s workout will be fun…crossfit in the morning…and then hip hop dance class in the evening. This could be interesting…..

Another Day

Today started off much the same as any other day: wake up…feed the dogs…take them for their walk. I’ve learned to relish in these walks b/c they allow me to meditate and zone out for a bit. Moreover, it allows me to collect my thoughts as far as my goals for the day whether it be for work, eating, working out…you name it. This afternoon’s workout looks pretty rough, but it will be worth it. Everything in me wants to skip it, but I won’t. I head out of town early tomorrow morning for my ten year law school reunion. It’s amazing how much has changed since 2003 and also how many different athletic and fitness ventures I’ve jumped into since then. I’ll share more of that later this next week. Anyway, here’s what the workout looks like for today. It’s strikingly different than Kettleworx or Kickboxing…

Back Squat 2-2-2-2-2 (2 rep max)

Chipper
76 Air Squats
76 Push Ups
76 Hollow rocks
76 Lunges
800m run

It promises to be a bruiser. Anyhow, I’ve fueled my body pretty well the past couple of days, but as you notice, there’s a fair amount of larger muscle groups in this workout (legs/hamstrings, chest, quads…), so it will be important to focus on what I put into my body after the workout. Earlier this week I mentioned I’d share some food tips that I’ve learned. Here’s one that’s really helped me. As most of you know, I do use protein shakes, shakeology and JaiSeed being a couple. Brittany (Fit W Britt) will also be giving me some of Zija's Prime90 shake to try. You can learn more about myshakeology.com/theninja.  Often times we need an extra boost of protein without having the time to prepare a high protein meal such as eggs or chicken or turkey. As a result, a quick fix that takes me about 45 seconds to do in my Vitamix (www.vitamix.com) is shake mix, ice, a handful of berries, and a smattering of nuts like almonds, brazil nuts, hemp seed, and cashews. The vitamix liquefies everything, so it’s easy to drink. In a nutshell, no pun intended, I’ve now greatly increased my good protein intake, coupled with the good fats, without going overboard on protein in a way that my body can’t process it.  Tomorrow is cheat day, so we’ll see how that goes…stay tuned for more food tips this weekend…

Easy Peasy

10/3/2013

Today started off easy – a nice walk in the light rain at 5:30 am with my dogs to get them their exercise, daily meditation, and then off to work. In between crossfit days, I’ve been trying out a class called Kettleworx that my friend Pipere Smith teaches at Lifetime Fitness. She’s a great instructor at several disciplines and this is no exception. Kettleworx is the brain child of another instructor named Laura Wilson whom I’ve respected for some time. She mentored me when I went thru my cycling class instructor training. Anyway, the workout combines natural resistance as well as weights, but in the style of a crossfit class, the movements create an interval effect with the heart rate, thereby allowing for more calories to be burned while building muscle. It’s a nice and needed change from Crossfit. I also take Pipere’s kickboxing class before mainly because I’m absolutely terrible at it. Eatingwise, I’ve stuck to some really tasty recipes I came across a few weeks ago. I’ll tell more about that tomorrow….