GRITPlyo

So, I tried GRIT Plyo once again today and I found it... exhausting. In a good way. I had totally forgotten how it felt to really go until you can't go any further, huffing and puffing making it through an exercise. And the feeling afterwards.
So, GRIT Plyo is basically a HIIT (high intensity interval training), you boost your heart rate and then let your cardiovascular system recover for a moment just to get your heart pumping again. And as the name says, it includes plyometrics, meaning fast production of energy (e.g. jumping). I actually intended to do a Body Combat class afterwards, but there just wasn't any power left in me. The high intensity part means going to your physical boundaries and beyond and a relatively small group means extra attention from the instructor, who not only corrects your posture/pose (in my case he advised me to drop my hip a little so I had to engage my core a little more), but also encourages you to go harder and spurs you on, and not only a little; the instructor today motivated me by almost "carrying" me through one especially challenging workout. He stood in front of me and did the last few reps with me and just kept on talking to me, telling me how many reps, how well I was actually doing and so on.
I still have to try GRIT Strength and GRIT Cardio (but GRIT Cardio isn't yet available at our gym), but I did enjoy Plyo. Well, there's enjoy and then there's enjoy, I enjoyed it someone loving to test out boundaries loves the feeling of having to throw up any minute (because of exhaustion) and pushing through it. Just when you think, "whoa, I'm real fit these days!", you got to try something new. It might be that it changes your perspective because I realised that my body is fit and adapted to the disciplines you're doing. My body can do hours of Body Combat and Body Pump, it doesn't mind 1-2 hrs running, it loves poledancing and thaiboxing... but HIIT is a whole new world for it. Oh, and I'm so going to conquer this, too! Harhar :D

P.S.: should you want to try out GRIT Plyo, I'd really advise you to use shoes that absorb shock better than my new shoes (my Asics have absolutely no damping). I suppose running shoes would be best since they are designed to act as damper. Otherwise you'll feel a lot of the jumping in your joints and lower back, at least that's what I realised.

I've been quiet for a while now...

...due to my job and training and more training and friends and... life in general.

I've been working out like crazy the last few weeks, I'm talking about 2 hours a day, six days a week. I'm starting to show some (more) muscle (especially my shoulders start to look real toned), but since I've been working out so much there has been some adjusting to eating. I realised that there is no way that I can stay on a very low carb diet. It just doesn't work for my body. After a few days I start hitting walls; like "not being able to raise my arms feeling faint all the time" -walls. So I added a little carbs. And realised that those were a little too much carbs. So I had to figure out what amount of carbs to eat to keep me going. And when to eat. I realised that timing was essential, too. Oh, and then there's ice cream. I've been eating quite a lot of ice cream during the last few weeks, so I've bulked up, but didn't really tone down. Gnah. And next week my mom is coming for a visit and this means eating out almost all of the time and cutting down on my workouts. Let's see how that works for me.

But I got new training shoes today - and OMG, do I love them!!! They are Asics Mattflex2 -wrestling shoes, but I wear them to the gym because... well, I just tried them on, because they looked cool and I didn't want to take them off any more. They fit perfectly and felt like being barefoot only with a little support in the right places. I LOVE them. Let's see how they will do during training. :)

Shopping List

So, my roommate and I decided that we'd give the new and improved 7-Day-Slimdown by Tone it Up a go. It's not some kind of wonder diet or anything, just a method to either get you back on track with your eating or get you in shape for an event. We're doing it to get our eating in check once again, because with all the heat, ice cream and stuff have been getting the better of us and with this you don't have to think about what you're actually eating. It's easy, effective and - most importantly - healthy. You're mostly eating vegetables and lean protein, so there's no secret as to why you're losing weight. No refined sugar, no simple carbs, actually no starchy carbs for a week. Plus you're cutting a lot of dairy products, too, which helps with bloated stomachs and so on.

Here's what my shopping cart looked like today:

and this was the grocery list:

almond butter, apples, apple juice, asparagus, bananas, bellpeppers, berries, blueberries, broccoli, cayenne pepper, chicken, cucumber, eggs, frozen veggies, grapefruit, hummus, leafy greens, mushrooms, pollock, soyy milk, spinach, stevia, tomatoes, tuna, turkey. seems healthy? at least it did to the couple behind me, who started talking about my shopping carts contents. :)