About Tonya the Blogger...

Why a fitness blog?

That's a great question.

First off, I am a busy teacher mom. I'm always toting kids to volleyball or cheer practice or trying to accompany my husband as arm candy to some event. If I can find the time to devote to fitness, anyone can. Seriously.

Second, I want to help people. I think that becoming the best version of YOU that you can is critical.  But, my personal journey to fitness didn't come from me being unhappy with me. I wasn't "happy" with how I looked, but I wasn't depressed or sad about it. I would have preferred to not shop in the plus size department, and I am super happy now to not have to purchase a size 22.  My main reason ended up being health-related. I found out I was pre-diabetic. My numbers were not good. And, my grandma was an insulin-dependent diabetic. So, this wasn't something I could mess around with. But, motivating myself was HARD. Really hard!

Let's take a minute and look at me... here's a picture of me in 2010 at Christmas.

Yeah, all 250 pounds of me! Geesh!

I worked very hard that year food journaling, counting carbs, and exercising. I couldn't find the hours in a day so eventually I started exercising in the morning to knock it out before my body knew what was happening. And, now, I have tried to find ways to motivate myself to work in exercise creatively.

So, I hope this blog helps to encourage those struggling with weight or just feeling better about their bodies. 

You CAN Find Time to Get Fit!

So, a huge pet peeve of mine is when people say that they don't have time to exercise. I'm a mom of two and for the last 7 years, I have made time for exercise nearly every day. As of right now, I do that before school (so, I get up at 5:20 and hit the treadmill at 5:30) and maybe 2-3 times a week, I try to do something else in the evening, like weights or taking a walk outside.

Everyone has an excuse. But, if something is important to you, you'll make time. When I found out I was pre-diabetic years ago, I didn't have a choice but to become more active. Don't wait until something crazy like that happens to make time for YOU!

Cycling in My Living Room!

A few months ago, my husband brought our stationary bike upstairs so he can use that in the mornings to exercise. I generally just use the treadmill or do some free weights, but I remembered the GCN YouTube channel and felt maybe it was time to toss on the ol' heart rate monitor and see what kind of stats I could get on the bike! So, here's  HIIT workout-- 25 minutes!



It was a very good workout. It didn't take too long to get my heart rate up to a good zone and it sustained it for most of the workout. I'm a sweaty mess, so that's always a good sign! Here are my stats. I give the workout 2 thumbs up!  I do wish that there was some scenery to watch during the ride (it's just the instructor or the people in the class online along with cues on the screen regarding cadence and effort level) but overall, not bad for less than half an hour.

Drumming to Sia - cardio stats

Here are my stats from the song. 126 bpm from complete rest... I'm pretty happy with that. If you try it, bounce as much as you can. Be firm with your sticks,  and sink deep in your squat. Make it count!

Cardio Drumming...my experiment.

I recently attended a cardio drumming class in town. It was interesting and very appealing to different levels of fitness. For me, I had a lot of fun. Since I have an aerobic ball, I set mine up on a crate in the living room and used two small trash cans on the side that I picked up for less than a buck at Walmart. I did buy some actual wooden drum sticks online for about $5.

When I attended the class, it didn't seem to really get my heart rate up. But I did not have my heart rate monitor on that day. So today, I create a playlist on YouTube of some cardio drumming videos that were online and let it run continuously while I had my heart rate monitor on. These were some that I thought were not too complicated to learn and that weren't too easy when it came to cardio. Bear in mind that I really try to get into it and squat deep and make big arm motions when I do these activities.

Cardio Drumming playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTMnu3as_aGb5kFMAyNbKBnejMj4wOKCP

My results...

You can see that my average heart rate was nothing great. 105 is not at all where I like to be. However you can definitely see where each song changed and how quickly my heart rate would come down in between songs. So my goal over the next week is to find a few popular songs and try to create some more difficult and more heart-pumping routines on my own.

It is a lot of fun though and I do want to mention that time really does pass quickly when you are doing cardio drumming exercises. And a stepwise, if you are counting your steps, it counted me as just over two miles in about 28 minutes so that's not too bad.

Lean Machines-10 minute interval training (YouTube Review)

Today, I decided to do a short interval workout before hitting the treadmill. I found these two guys, called the Lean Machines, and decided to give their workout a try. It's basically 30 seconds of high knees alternated with another exercise. The first three rounds it is high knees/squat thrusts, second round is high knees/jump squats, and final round is high knees/burpees (no pushup). Since there is no "true down time" in this workout between reps (high knees is not really rest!) it is pretty hard core.

Starting from resting heart rate, my average heart rate for the duration was 145 bpm, which is pretty good for a 10 minute burst workout. Obviously, with these specific exercises, you might need to be in decent shape to get started and you must be able to handle jumping (this isn't real knee friendly).

But, if you need something quick to do, it seemed to go pretty fast! If you are new to this stuff, my advice would be just to NOT stop moving. Even if you get tired. Walk/jog in place if you can't do the exercises full out, but just don't stand still or sit. Great for a good sweat!

Good luck!
Video-->  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MPZ6X_14xg

Monique St. Pierre Circuit Burnout

Review

I got a great deal on a DVD fitness system, Circuit Burnout, Monique St. Pierre on Amazon for less than $18 with free shipping on my Amazon Prime. Tonight, I decided to try the Total Body DVD. This is a roughly 25 minute video that includes a short warmup and cooldown and a 5 minute bonus round (called the SuperSet) as well. All total, my workout tracked on my heart rate monitor as 29:09. I like to keep my workouts between 20-30 minutes, so this worked perfectly. 

Here's my official stats. Good calorie burn as it was intervals. Average heart rate was 123 and max was 159. I would have liked a higher average, but with the warmup being pretty low key, it wasn't surprising. It took a little bit to get the heart rate up.

The workout was total body, so very much a mixture of things ranging from weights to abs to jumping. A few of the moves I remember include.... curls to shoulder press, plank rows, diamond jumps, ski lunges, and several others. I despised the abs... but I guess that's because it's probably my absolute weakest feature. There was a little bit of jumping at times, though not for very long. They did have a gal doing modifications throughout the video, though.

After the workout... always like seeing some sweat dropping off my hair! :)

I felt like this was a decent workout. Some of the in between times were too long and I felt the need to run in place or do jumping jacks to try to keep my heart rate from dipping too terribly. We'll see how the other 4 DVDs are!

NOTE: The Amazon reviews mention the video quality not being the best. It's true that it probably wasn't filmed in a high dollar studio. The microphone isn't perfect, but the trainer is motivating and this first DVD didn't have any issues for me. However, I don't run it off the DVDs... I have a program I bought called WinX DVD Ripper Platinum that I use to pull the video off the DVDs so I can put it on my tablet that doesn't have a DVD player. There was no skipping or issues for me. But, yes, the quality is not excellent. :)