Category: Workouts

How to Make a Workout Routine

Leave a comment

Hey, hi, hello internet. I’m going to add more knowledge to your collection of knowledge today. (It’s gonna be a long one, brace yourself.)

I’ve been a chubby kid my entire life. I have no idea how it feels to have a flat stomach or toned arms. I was born with rolls and they’ve never gone away. So since at least age 11 I’ve been interested in weight loss and fitness. Now, I am one of the lucky ones, I’ve never been too obsessive about my weight and I’ve never had any of the typical eating disorders. I’d say I fell into the category of: A bad relationship with food and some very mild body dysmorphia. However, I have been on the diet and exercise fad for all of my life and like most stories, mine always ended in failure giving up.

Then there was a morning in February of 2018 where I woke up and thought to myself… 

“Hey, self!”

“What up, fam?”

“Get your butt out of bed, we’re doing the thing and this time we’re gonna do it right.”

“Okay, sure, we’ll be miserable for two weeks and then order $40 worth of pizza? Wake me up in two weeks, thanks.”

“No! We’re gonna do it slow, we’re gonna change our whole thing here, and it’s gonna stick!”

“Oh. Wait, really?”

“Dude, get out of bed!”

I wish I could tell you there was some magical moment that happened or some inspiring quote that changed my life, but truly I woke up and decided to become healthy.

My tactic…

…was to start so slowly that I could trick myself into thinking I wasn’t changing anything.

I replaced one diet pepsi per day with one can of sparkling water. Yes, it was disgusting. Flavored sparkling water tastes like 10 year old Sprite that a grapefruit sneezed into. And now I’m addicted to it.

A couple weeks after that, I replaced two diet pepsi’s a day with sparkling water. (I love carbonation, so regular water wasn’t doing it for me.) And a couple months in I was able to start weaning off a few of my sparkling waters and replacing them with regular water.

It took almost a year for me to stop drinking diet pepsi every day. Don’t feel bad about yourself if you’re addicted to soda, those companies manufacture soda to be addicting. Walk before you run.

Two or three months into breaking my sody-pop addiction, once it wasn’t something I had to focus a lot of energy on, I started to do the same thing with replacing my fast-food meals or bad snacks with healthy alternatives. (I’ll do a whole other blog on how to fix your diet, so I’ll leave it at that.)

By the top of 2019…

…I was finally ready to implement going to the gym. Again, I started ridiculously slow. I bought some dumbbells and did tiny workouts twice a week in my living room. I also started a Pinterest board of weight lifting workouts; subscribed to and downloaded every fitness podcast so I could listen in the car or at work; procrastinated everything to watch way too many YouTube videos under the excuse of “doing research”.

From February to June I consumed and digested all of the knowledge that I could hold. I was still walking my dogs at a very hilly park and doing light dumbbell workouts at home, but for the most part I was learning. Now that’s what I call a slow burn.

In fact, one reason I started this 90 day expedition is because I got bored! I’m not saying I’m an expert, but I felt like there wasn’t anything more groundbreaking for me to learn until I complete my first set of big goals. I mean, after 8 months of constant research there comes a point where you have to trust yourself and do the thing.

Alright, here we go.

Amidst all my research, one thing that I thought was lacking on the world wide web was a FREE comprehensive guide on how to start weight lifting or working out at the gym in general. Not a specific quad routine, not a “do what feels best” sort of guide, not ten quick tips; I scoured the internet for someone who could tell me how to do this for myself. I, like I’m sure most people do, had to piece together bits of information from multiple sources and a couple paid subscriptions to finally get a handle on how to:

  • Start going to the gym
  • Make my own workout routines
  • Adjust my workouts accordingly to get the best results

And listen, I know this is not a big blog and I’m not a known person that anyone would take advice from, but if one person finds this and I make life a little bit easier for them, then I’ve done what I came here to do.

Also let me preface this my saying: Please don’t sue me. I’m literally no body. If you take my advice, then you’ve taken advice from a novice stranger on the internet. (How do people actually sue people for that? Geeze.)

Phase 1

If you’ve never gone to the gym, start by going to the gym. That’s it. Pick a time that works for you and challenge yourself to go to the gym for 20 minutes every day.

If you’re sleepy that day:

  • Walk around the gym and familiarize yourself with where everything is located
  • Stretch for 10 minutes and then walk on the treadmill
  • Hop in the sauna if your gym has one
  • Find a corner to sit down and drink coffee while you save Instagram workouts

It really doesn’t matter what you do for those 20 minutes as long as you’re doing it at the gym.

Then if you’re feeling more energetic on a particular day:

  • Put your treadmill on an incline and walk
  • Pick a machine that you know how to use and do 10 reps on a very low weight (I don’t usually recommend machines, but I’ll get there.)
  • Pick a different cardio machine and try to challenge yourself for 10 minutes

My point is, make a habit of going to the gym.

 

Phase 2

Make yourself a beginner weightlifting routine. This is going to take a minute to sort out, so commit an evening to yourself and really figure this out.

  1. Decide on a stretch flow that you like; it doesn’t have to be complicated or lengthy, just stretch all your big muscles until you feel slightly more flexible than when you started. I have a secluded part of my gym with a wall that I can put my butt towards when I stretch so I don’t worry about people looking at my booty.
  2. Decide if you’re going to do an upper body day or lower body day and then choose three exercises from the following body parts:

Upper Body Day:
Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Rear Delts, Upper Back, and/or Chest

Lower Body Day:
Quads, Butt, Hips, Inner Thighs, Calves, and/or Lower Back

If you’re as neurotic as I am then you’ll already have a bunch of weightlifting videos, pinterest pins, and instagram posts to pull from for these body parts, but if not then google it! Type into your search bar: “Free weight shoulder workouts” and you’ll be met with all the oily, orange, muscle people that you never asked for but who know how to lift heavy things.

How you’re going to structure your workout:

1. Stretch: 3 to 5 minutes

2. Aerobic Warm-Up: 5 to 10 minutes (i.e. walking on the treadmill or yoga; anything that gets your heart rate going while also letting you focus on breathing)

3. Weight Lifting: 3 sets of 10 reps per exercise

Example Upper Body Day:
3×10 Cable Machine Tricep Pull-Downs
3×10 Dumbbell Bicep Curls
3×10 Lateral Pull-Downs

4. Cardio: 10 minutes (optional, but I like to add in an inclined walk on the treadmill to round out my workout)

5. Cool Down: 5 minutes of stretching / walking

A couple notes before we move on:
  • Don’t skip your stretching or warm-up! Just don’t.
  • If you’re going to use machines, stick to the ones that aren’t rigid. Go for the Cable Machine or the Lateral Pull-Down Machine that has the swingy bar, not the metal beams; Unless you’re trying to body build, you don’t need to isolate specific muscles. If you want to tone your body focus on types of weight training that forces you to use other parts of your body for stability. If you’re confused on this, just opt for free weights, they’re probably better any.
  • When picking the amount of weight for each exercise, use this rule of thumb: Pick a weight that is easy enough that you can do all 10 reps but difficult enough that you’re making an involuntary weird face by the 9th and 10th rep.

This is how I structure all my workouts.

As for a split, I like to workout 5 to 6 days a week and I never do the same day twice in a row. I go back and forth between upper and lower body days and usually switch up the actual lifts that I do each time, too. Sometimes I throw in full days of cardio if my muscles are feeling extra sore. Listen to your body and don’t push yourself too hard. Personally, I’d rather go too slow and take an extra month to reach my goal than go too hard and injure myself and have to start from square one once I’m healed.

That being said, when you’re ready to kick it up a notch…

 

Phase 3

This is where I was when I decided to do this 90 day challenge for myself. I was nailing all my workouts and stalling in weight loss and getting bored. If you’re here, try amping things up.

> Use compound movements instead of working on one body part. That is, instead of doing a Bicep Curl try doing a Hammer Curl into a Dumbbell Overhead Press. It’s still one movement but it’s a little more intricate, requires more stability and thus more muscles activating, and works your biceps, triceps, and your shoulders.

> Add a HIIT routine into the mix. (Or crossfit or a workout class if you’re brave enough, but I’m personally not there yet)

> Make some new, baby, fitness goals that align with the main goal you’re still working towards.

For example, my main goal is to lose fat, but I’ve decided that I’m going to start running. I’ve always been too heavy and (too ignorant about running form) to run without injuring my lower back or knees. Well, that was 30 pounds ago. So now my little tiny baby goal is to do interval jogging as my cardio at least twice a week. It’s still pushing me towards my main goal, but it’s something smaller that I can check the box off of every week and feel like I’m progressing more quickly. It’s essentially a distraction from my main goal.

> Add supplements to your routine! Don’t go overboard, but give half a scoop of pre-workout a try or drink a protein powder shake after you workout. I’ve been loving BCAAs for extra hydration (and flavor) during my warmup.

See what works for you, see what challenges your body, and take it slow.

If I could travel back in time this is all the stuff that I would tell my younger self. I’ve been gathering all of this information in my brain-place for years and if public school taught me anything it’s that I should regurgitate that information back into the universe in my own words.

These are the sources of more or less all of my knowledge:

(And these are all people and accounts I legitimately follow and love. There is no filler that I popped in to make a longer list. I told you I’m obsessed.)

YouTube:

  • Whitney Simmons
  • Heidi Somers
  • Blogilates
  • Mari Fitness
  • Jordan Shrinks
  • MissRemiAshten
  • Nikki Blackketter
  • Love Sweat Fitness

Instagram: (The best place to find new workouts, imho)

  • julia_terpak
  • buffbunny
  • whitneyysimmons
  • noexcuses.fitlife
  • atighteru
  • mytrainercarmen
  • lisafiitt

Podcasts:

  • Fitness Matter with Pahla B
  • Chasing Excellence
  • Dishing Up Nutrition
  • Cut the Fat Weight Loss Podcast
  • TRAINED by Nike

 

Okay cool, so I basically just wrote an E-Book. Sorry for the wordiness, friends. You’re welcome for filling some of your knowledge gaps, internet.

IMG_20190221_192946

Bonus Tip: Get yourself a workout buddy as cute as this.

Clarification

Leave a comment

Let me clarify.

I was thinking about yesterday’s blog all day long. I feel like it came across that I was telling you to pick the most efficient way to ONLY lose weight and to stop doing all other types of exercise. Which I know a lot of people interpret as “only do cardio”.

Now, I do more cardio and aerobic exercise than I was doing when I was trying to meet all of my big goals at the same time, but

I still weight train!

I love weight lifting. Keep in mind people, weight training is a great way to lose fat! Of course that’s still helping me gain little baby muscles, but that progress won’t be as prominent.

The shift I made was to weight train less often and less intensely to focus on losing weight instead of building muscles. I started to do more HIIT type weight lifting and compound movements instead of trying to tear down and build up one specific muscle.

Remember at the beginning of this 90 day adventure when I said that I split upper body and lower body days instead of specific body parts? Well that’s the reason!

If I do an “upper body” day as opposed to a “shoulder” day then I can incorporate some ab workouts or some compound tricep / bicep / back / shoulder movements or I can do plank modifications for a HIIT routine; I’m not limited to only shoulder movements.

I always used to think:

  • You walk on an inclined treadmill and use the elliptical to lose fat
  • You dead lift and do bicep curls as heavy as you can to gain muscle

And there was no in between.

But honestly, as long as you’re moving in a way that gets your heart rate up, it’ll help you lose weight. It’s really that simple. The other day I folded laundry so fast that I counted it as a workout warm-up. Seriously. It was that intense.

I’ll put together a workout for the blog sometime soon. (It won’t involve laundry.)

img_20191203_100745

Taking a mental health day from work and this is my current situation. ❤

Pick your Goal

Leave a comment

I don’t have a whole lot to say this morning. Maybe it’s my commitment to this 90 days or maybe it’s a detrimental personality trait that I want to get a blog up today anyway, regardless of the length or quality. Hmm. But this is actually something that’s on my mind a lot…

…So I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really hopped on that pod-trend. And one podcast in particular that I like to listen to while I’m at the gym is the “Let’s Run” Podcast by Pahla B Fitness. (She recently changed the name, so now it’s “Fitness Matters” if you’re looking for it.) Now I feel like her YouTube channel and her podcast is geared more towards the older crowd, 40 years and above, but she is one of the most inspiring podcasters that I’ve found.

The reason I bring her up though is because she has the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard but she is perilously realistic with the advice she chooses to give. One thing that I heard from her at the very beginning of my initial weight loss odyssey was essentially:

If you want many different things, such as to lose weight and gain muscle and run a 5K, you have to pick one at a time or you won’t be able to efficiently or fully accomplish any of them.

(Disclaimer: I know that is in a cool little quote box, but that is not a direct quote from her, it’s just my paraphrasing.)

You can see how alarming this would be to a dabbler such as myself. When she was talking about this she used those three specific goal examples and I happen to actually want all three of those things! At that time in my life I was

  • doing tons of cardio to drop the pounds,
  • weightlifting for an hour 5 days a week to gain those muscles,
  • and incorporating interval running a couple evenings a week to teach myself how to properly run any distance at all.

I’m not saying I took her word as gospel, but I was a teensy bit crushed.

Make no mistake I was definitely seeing results but I was also exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally, too. I knew deep down in my multitasker’s heart that it wasn’t sustainable. So I decided that Pahla was the excuse I would give myself to focus on weight loss instead of a bunch of different things.

I don’t know if I’m seeing better results yet but I do feel like I can sustain this lifestyle now for as long as it takes to be completely satisfied. I don’t feel like all my goals are a race to the finish line anymore (haha, pun!).

And that’s the thing about goals, health goals in particular: I enjoy working towards something! I’ve found that the times my anxiety flares up the most is when I lose my intention for things. (To be fair that’s a chicken and egg situation because I don’t know which of those causes the other.) So why do I feel like all of my fitness goals need to be finished immediately?

Full honesty here:

To wrap up this blog all nice and neatly I was trying to think of other examples of non-health goals that I have that I don’t feel like need to accomplish as quickly as possible and apparently I don’t have any. My brain has informed me that all of my ambitions on a very tight schedule. Cool. No wonder I’m a collection of procrastination and nervous energy wrapped in skin. Love that.

img_20191129_174355

We’re all works in progress anyway. No one really knows what they’re doing.

I am the elderly. 3 / 90

Leave a comment

Good morning, internet! (I re-read my first two posts and realized that it’s kind of rude to only say good morning to myself and not anyone reading this, so hey hi hello.)

In case it wasn’t glaringly obvious yet: I’ve never daily blogged before.

I watch a lot of vloggers on YouTube so I get the idea, but this is still very foreign to me so I’m not sure what to write about. For now, until I really get into the groove, this 90 day daily blog will serve as more of a journal for me and my weird, incoherent, stream-of-conscious style thoughts. (Welcome to my brain.)

So anyway, when I said yesterday that I was exhausted, I truly was exhausted. I tried to work on my novel a while right after work (Yeah, definitely did NOT write 50,000 words in November) but once that space heater is on in my office I feel like a little cuddled burrito and I had to go to bed lest I fall asleep at my desk.

I went to bed at 7:00pm, y’all. That is not okay.

Going to bed at 7pm is acceptable for three types of people:

  1. infants
  2. elderly
  3. college students who juggle 15 credit hours, a part-time job, and a social life and only have the time to sleep scheduled in their planner for a few non-party hours every two days.

But I digress.

Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty bright eyed here at six in the morning today. I think that if I do go to the gym I’ll take it easier, though. My problem (in life, just my main problem altogether) is that I jump head first into big projects or goals and don’t take the time to adjust for the long term. Does anyone else do that? I get so excited about what I want to do and end up going too hard for about a week and then burning out physically. It’s not my excitement that dies, it’s literally my lack of human function because I’m not used to going to hard! It’s frustrating.

I should do a full break-down of my workouts soon. Hmm… I’ll work on that for an upcoming post.

Typically I do about 3 minutes stretching, a 5 minute aerobic warm-up, 4 to 5 weight training exercises (I use an upper body / lower body split, not individual body part days), and 10 to 15 minutes of cardio depending how long I took doing my weights. I aim for being at the gym an hour maximum. If I do go today I will stick to 10 minutes on the stationary bike and maybe a couple upper body lifts.

As for yesterday, I definitely ate that Mexican food and it was delicious. Hey, I’ve got wiggle room in my “healthy eating” goal, I’m still on track! Let a girl enjoy her chori pollo!

In all seriousness, it is super important to take all things in moderation. If you deprive yourself of everything that you want, even when you’re on a “diet”, then you’ll crave it more and more and you run the risk of letting yourself fall into a binge mindset. Binge sounds like a scary word: It may not be anything dramatic, but when you allow yourself to finally indulge after being too strict it may be at the cost of 2,500 calories of Wendy’s in one sitting. (Can you tell that I’ve been there? It’s not as hard to get that many calories at Wendy’s as you may think.)

I am certainly not an expert, but I lost 40lbs pretty recently after being the chubby kid my entire life it was not by being a hard ass to myself about my diet.

What I’ve learned, really just this year, is that even on a diet and even trying to lose weight if you listen to what your body needs it will be more willing to compromise with you. Does your body crave ice cream? Give it a couple bites of ice cream! Maybe make it a healthier option that’s still tasty and satisfying (I HIGHLY recommend Halo Top, oh my God…), but give it some ice cream. And then when you have broccoli and plain chicken breast planned for your next meal it won’t seem so terrible and your body will be like “Ugh, fine I guess” instead of throwing a temper tantrum about wanting carbs.

All I’m saying is cut your body some slack and your body will cut you some slack back.

Your body is just out here trying to survive, it’s not the enemy, it doesn’t know that you want to fit into a size 8 or run a marathon for funzies (hobby runners my true idols). So be a little nicer to it. Explain your goals to your body kindly and with your actions, because I’ve tried yelling and cursing at mine and I don’t think it speaks English.

*Steps down from soapbox*
*Takes a bow*
img_20191110_103455

And that’s the tea… Oolong and citrus is actually this tea, but this post was the *tea* because I’m still cool and young and I don’t go to bed at 7pm every night. You get it. Okay.