You know what, I almost forgot to make a green smoothie this morning? Actually, I thought I had leftover smoothie from yesterday (I was wrong.) I strolled out to the garden and picked some greens, about eight large leaves. I’m a morning and a night person. I guess you could say I’m a perky morning person. When I worked in the corporate setting it drove people nuts. I’m fully charged as soon as my eyes open in the morning.
Anyway back to the smoothie this smoothie isn’t sweet. It consisted of kale, tomato, celery, cucumbers, and nori (type of seaweed.) I called this my meal in a cup. It’s filling, highly nutritious, and low calorie. Greens are a great energy boost. I’ve always had a lot of energy, but I found that simply upping my dosage of greens made me soar. I’ve found that smoothies that incorporate greens or ginger are a great way to start a workout.
I’m getting ready to go to the gym this morning. My daughter is hanging with her grandparents. I’ve already completed two articles for one of my clients, and now I’m off to meet my buddy D to start my workout.
I drink sweet and non sweet vegan smoothies throughout each day. If you want to check out the types of green smoothies I make check out my smoothies on my vegan recipe website. I’ll write more on why it’s important to include bitters into your daily diet in a later post.
Question: What are you eating for breakfast? What workouts are you doing today?
Posted on January 11th, 2008 in Vegan Fitness by Vegan Momma
Wednesday when I was leaving the sauna a man approached me and introduced himself. We started chatting. I see R in the gym often. I usually see him in the sauna. I’m impressed with the intensity of his workouts. This is a man who began overweight, and now he is in bodybuilder form. I respect the fact that he didn’t use excuses to keep him from achieving his goals. He just did it. People like him inspire me to do more with my workouts. When we ended our conversation he told me I had a “perfect body.”
What is a perfect body? Heck I don’t know. I think I got what he meant. One of my goals is to compete and this year I’m focusing on turning that dream into a reality. My body is starting to look great for competition. Guess what? There is nothing wrong with being confident in your abilities. I believe we all need self confidence.
The excuses that kept me from focusing on figure competition were flimsy pathetic and I’m not going to use them again.Sure I’ve always been above average when it came to how my body looked physically. I worked at it. It definitely wasn’t magic. Over the past few months I’ve kicked up my exercise workouts. I’m kicking it up several notches. I know what I want, and I know what it takes to achieve those goals. I’m willing to put in the time. Whether I work out at the gym or work out at home I can still receive an excellent workout. Not only will I see improvements with my physique it also enhances my health. Guess what? There are still areas I want to improve even if it isn’t obvious to others.
Fitness: December Improvements
Muscle gains (bigger biceps, more definition in back, legs)
Increased definition in my arms and legs
Increased definition in my abs
Increase in weight lifting
I’m not using any supplementation or increasing the amount of protein I’ve been adding into my diet. However I’m still gaining muscle, and this body is vegan powered, baby! ;-) We don’t need as much protein as we think, and consuming protein to gain muscle mass is a myth. However, I’ve been flooding my system with whole foods, raw fruit and vegetable juices and smoothies, and I’m taking adequate time to rest. The amount of rest needed depends on the person. My body is fine on three to five hours of sleep.
My Thoughts
Chatting with R made me realize that even though I’m trying to achieve a goal, competing in a figure competition, I still need to appreciate where I am now. It’s also important to remember that we all do things at a different pace. Don’t compare yourself to others. Set reasonable goals that you can achieve once they’ve been attained, kick it up a notch. If you got sidetracked think of what is holding you back. Make appropriate changes. Pick yourself up and keep exercising.
Question: Regarding your exercise routine, what gains have you made?
I haven’t posted an exercise update in a little while but no worries I haven’t been slipping. I just haven’t had the time. As I worked out Monday on the arm curl machine I received a wonderful surprise. I jumped up 15 pounds about a week ago I wasn’t able to lift 70 pounds three times and now I was pulling the weight up without struggling. I banged out my 15 reps and took a breather. I was happy.
Exercise Is Important
I’m moving at an even faster pace with my work and personal life realizing how imperative it is now more than ever to stay on top I’m wisely making sure exercise is in that pile. It’s something that we all need to make time for. Although my daughter is only four years old she knows the importance of physical fitness I’ve taught her and she sees the benefits of mommy working out. I can keep up with her some of her friends parents cannot.
Their kids play with my daughter and me, and their parents sit and watch. A few of them have told me, “Opal I wish I could do what you do but I don’t have the time.” My reply, is “make that time!” Even when I worked outside of the home traveling constantly I realized the importance of working out, and I made sure I did it even if it meant working out at home for a few minutes or working out in the hotel room. You have only one body stop abusing it. People make excuses for everything what many fail to realize is they are hurting themselves, and perhaps those they care about.
Benefits of Exercise
Exercise is a great stress reliever - numerous studies have been conducted on this topic. When my life becomes even busier I always make sure I get some type of exercise into my life.
Exercise enhances your circulation
Exercise keeps the lymph nodes moving - they lymphatic system supports every system in your body. Our bodies have more lymph fluid than blood. It cleanses our cells and takes away waste. Guess what, the lymph nodes only work when we are in motion. If you spend long hours at your desk or you follow a sedentary lifestyle. Unless you are physically unable to do so, it’s time you get off your butt and do something to get your lymph in motion. We all have excuses why we cannot do something. Quit making them.
Exercise boosts my metabolism
Exercise burns fat and builds muscle - I’m a big fan of interval training.
Exercise improves your immune system - There have been a lot of studies conducted on this one also. It can stop common ailments in their tracks or it can make your recovery time from sickness a lot faster.
What Do I Eat
I don’t take any supplements. I eat a wide variety of whole foods (mainly raw.) I juice a lot, and make sure I get plenty of healthy greens into my daily intake. I make a lot of blended salads. Blended salads are exactly what they sound like salads added to the blender, with a little water, and blended. It’s a savory drink. I love it.
The more I continue to work out with D the more I’m trying to think of ways I can finally squeeze in a competition. Perhaps the reason I wasn’t able to get one in before was because I wasn’t trying hard enough? Sure, I’m one busy lady but I strongly believe almost anything is possible you just might need to be creative. There are a few people at my gym that are gearing up for competition. I can always tell based on the workouts they are doing, and I must admit I’m slightly envious I want that to be me. Eventually that will be I.
Now that I have a workout partner I’ll most likely start taking pictures again. It’s an excellent way to track my progress.
Yesterday I worked on back, abs, and calves and I did cardio. Today I’ll do 30 minutes of cardio and have a leg workout. My workouts are under an hour naturally when I work out with D they are longer since we both are working out.
Although I much prefer doing exercises outside the gym, I realize that I cannot always do this so I just do it. You don’t have to work out in the gym to get a good workout, but you do need to exercise. If you haven’t worked out in a while, I would suggest you follow up with your health care provider before starting any type of exercise routine. You don’t want to overdo it.
Yesterday I worked out alone D had an appointment. I’m definitely reaping the benefits of having someone who is as serious about working out as I am, but occasionally it’s nice working out alone also. For one thing, workouts precede a lot faster. I’m finished in 45 minutes. I haven’t been a fan of two to three-hour workouts for years, and I’ve found that I can fulfill the same results working out a lot less.
My Exercise Workout: Abs, Calves, Glutes, and Back
Yesterday’s workout focused on Abs, glutes, calves, and back. I was still feeling sore from my biceps and triceps workout a few days ago and thought I would take it easy on those muscles.
Ab Workout
I worked out on the ab isolator machine and I did stomach crunches.
Glutes Isolator Machine
This is an excellent exercise for your glutes. During your exercise focus on what you are doing once you extend your leg contract your glute muscles slowly return to the starting position. I usually go light on this machine anywhere from 40 - 75 pounds. It depends on what I’m trying to accomplish. I did 6 sets of these 15 reps each set. With my last set, I worked to muscle failure. I upped the weight, squeezed out as many reps as I could, lowered the weight by five pounds worked to failure, and so on.
Pull Up
This is an excellent exercise for you back. I used to consider this one of my most challenging exercises. When I was a child, I had a sport accident. The result was I couldn’t straighten my left arm completely. It was only noticeable during some type of workouts, like this one. I found it challenging to do these exercises. It was partially due to my arm injury also due to the fact that I told myself I couldn’t do them because of this injury. Your mind is powerful remember. You can convince yourself of a lot of things that aren’t necessarily true. Occasionally we need to change our thought process. I did. I could do this exercise.
Crosstrainer - Calves
I began and ended my exercise workout with time on the crosstrainer. I usually don’t stay on it long, no more than fifteen minutes. It bores me, and I would much prefer running outside however with the colder months I mix it up. I run track and use the crosstrainer.
Since I was focusing on my calves yesterday, I ran on tiptoe the entire time that I was on the cross trainer. I actually held onto the bars. The only time I hold onto the bars is when I’m focusing on my calves. I leaned my body forward to increase the intensity of my calves workout. My incline was set at the highest (it’s always at this level) 20. I did interval training on this machine. It didn’t take me long to start sweating.
Since I wanted to receive the maximum benefit from this exercise, I focused on what I was doing contracting my calf muscles as my leg was in the down position. I’ve been focusing on what I do as I exercise for several years so now it’s a habit. I’ve noticed improvements since doing this. I always mix it up and run forwards and backwards on this machine. It’s an excellent cardio workout. I choose manual when I’m on the machine simply because I like creating my personalized exercise workout when I’m on this machine.
Time To Pull Out The Tape Measure
I rarely hop on the scale or take measurements, but looking in the mirror (something I rarely do) I notice that my waist looks smaller. The last time I measured, about a year ago, I had a 24″ waist. It will be interesting to see what the tape reveals. Also, my legs are starting to look different. I’m thinking that maybe I should start measuring myself and keeping a file. I’ve been wanting to start taking pictures of the various areas I’m targeting during my workout training. I’ll put that on my “to do” list.
Cayenne: A Natural Pain Reliever?
What did I do about the muscle pain I was receiving? I added cayenne to my juice. Cayenne contains capsaicn which is a natural pain reliever. Cayenne has been used for centuries for a variety of different ailments such as poor circulation, heart disease, infertility, headaches, sore throats, muscle pain.
If you were to come to my house you wouldn’t find any over the counter medication in medicine cabinet ” the medicines” I use are natural and can be found in the whole foods I eat, the variety of essential oils I use, and the herbs I have growing in planters throughout my house and the dried herbs I have stored in glass containers to heal myself naturally. I haven’t taken an over the counter drug in years. In our society I have found that many people take over the counter medications without really researching the ingredients that go into the product. I research everything.
Exercise: Finding The Time
Is it hard for me to squeeze an exercise workout into my weekly schedule? Yes. I’m as busy as the next person. I’m a business owner (I easily work seventy hours per week), I’m in school full-time working on my Masters; I’m a single homeschooling parent with one daughter. It can be challenging however knowing the importance of exercise and how it can improve my overall health I make it a point to add it into my weekly routine. I exercise at least five times weekly. It’s not always at the gym I can receive an excellent workout at home.
I’ll be working out alone again today. I mainly workout out with D, Monday - Wednesday. Today’s exercise workout will focus on legs, biceps, and triceps. I’ll need a spotter for my squats, but there is always someone around in the free weights room that is more than willing to help out.
I admit I’m a fitness addict. I consider it one of my healthy addictions. Come to think of it I don’t have many unhealthy addictions? However there are some days when I don’t feel like making the trek to Bally’s Total Fitness. Yesterday happened to be one of those days. I really didn’t want to work out at the gym. I would have preferred to stay at home and get in a good workout; however, since I’ve decided that I want to go back to how I used to be and get five workouts in at the gym I brushed aside my excuses got my rear in gear and started and got the heck out of dodge aka home. It has been snowing for about an hour when I finally left.
Bootie Stories
I remember this song by Sir Mix A Lot. I heard it a lot when I was younger. Alright so I’ve never had a problem with a round butt. When I was a child and was developing all over the place I remember my snatched a few of my outfits and told me I could not wear them anymore. Her reasoning? My butt was getting too round. I was around twelve, and she didn’t want anyone looking there. During my teenage years I picked up some interesting names like thunderbutt you know butt so powerful that thunder strikes every time you walk past, Onion butt, round butt like an onion, and “muscle bootie” that name kind of stuck and I still hear it today. Yeah, that’s what I like being given a nickname about a particular body part.
Glutes Workout
One thing I think is important during your workout is to concentrate on the actual exercises that you are doing. I really focus on my muscles and what areas I’m supposed to be working on during the entire routine. If you don’t know what you should be doing pick up a good book. If you are still unsure bring it to the gym with you or ask someone when you are there. I have seen people bring these types of books, and I’ve also had people ask me how to use a piece of equipment correctly.
Glutes Isolater Machine
I usually don’t work directly on my gluts I work on them indirectly when I’m doing squats, cross trainer, or leg extensions; however, Bally’s recently brought in new equipment this summer and they have a Glut machine.Yesterday I walked over to it and decided to try it out. Be attentive to the video above and if you have one in your gym give it a try. It not only works your glutes it effective works your hamstrings also. When you are doing this exercise concentrates on the motion and make sure
Stretch your leg back, concentrating on fully extending your leg
When your leg is fully stretched squeeze your glute muscles
Slowly bring the weight back to the starting position
Repeat
Lying Leg Curls
Yesterday I moved onto one of my favorite pieces of equipment the lying leg curls. Alright, I really don’t like this exercise but it’s one of the best hamstring workouts I do. I’m always feeling the burn on this machine. My workouts are intense so I don’t take breaks between sets however I will hop on another piece of equipment and give that particular muscle a break.Again focus on the range of motion during your exercise. Once you have made the curl squeeze and slowly lower back to the starting position.I also did squats and hack squats yesterday. I’ll be heading back into the gym this morning.
One of the frustrations I have encountered as a vegan was finding products such as weight gloves and weight belts that weren’t leather. As a vegan I quickly learned how dependent we are on animal products. It is found in almost everything. I had to look a long time before I found anything locally. However, online is a different story there are many online stores that cater to the vegan athlete.
Shoes are better depending on where you go however at times that can be a nightmare also. I have a few pairs of tennis shoes. One pair is strictly for running. I have a pair I use for cross-training. I also use a weight lifting shoe (it looks like a tennis boot) that I wear when I’m working out heavy with free weights.Over the years, a few of my friends/family has asked me to make videos of my workouts and maybe some day I will, but you do need another person to be there to tape the video. I also hate being in the spotlight. I’d rather be behind the camera.
[tags]fitness, vegan fitness, glutes workout, lying leg curls[/tags]
You know what, I almost forgot to make a green smoothie this morning? Actually, I thought I had leftover smoothie from yesterday (I was wrong.) I strolled out to the garden and picked some greens, about eight large leaves. I’m a morning and a night person. I guess you could say I’m a perky morning person. When I worked in the corporate setting it drove people nuts. I’m fully charged as soon as my eyes open in the morning.