Robert Kennedy's Oxygen Women's Fitness

Robert Kennedy's Oxygen Women's Fitness

Love a challenge

I am first to want to complete a challenge and I love the gym as it helps me complete my challenges, there is nothing better then success and I for one would like a success everyday.

Well today one of my challenges has been completed. Since starting back at the gym I have been training a lot and building up my fitness. By using weights, strength training and various different cardio.

Today was my rowing challenge. After reading various messages on http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/member/board.htm. I came across a few ladies saying about how far they row and a few of them said doing the 10k on the rower. At the time when reading this I was only just got up to 6k, so I thought ok next week I will do the 10k.
I am happy to say that I completed the 10k in 49.14 minutes a very good time for my first go.
So now I have a weekly challenge to beat my time every week.

What goals and challenges do you enjoy or complete ?

My key to success,

Jo as now released Phase II of Operation but kick.

http://www.jagsfitnessblog.com/2010/03/operation-butt-kick-phase-2.html

Yes yes no scales.

Not long and Operation Butt kick will be coming famous, it already is on
http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk. Already the ladies are loving it.

I have now got my pictures from phase 1 and next time I promise when I have completed phase II, I will be putting my new pictures on, for you all to see OMG.

April 1st I start and good luck to all that takes part.

Well done Jo on your genius idea. Have a read everyone http://www.jagsfitnessblog.com.

Down on the scales.

I am so happy lost 4lbs, even with a bit of fluid retention on my legs.

Dont really care about the scales, but its good to see the numbers going down.

Had a great workout at the gym. Today I did 30 mins back weights, have really got the hang of the deadlifts, did 3 sets of 30kgs, 9-8,9 so very good for me, also working hard on my form.o

In my workout also did
Lat Pulldowns: 3 sets of 8 reps
T-Bar Rows: 3 sets of 8 reps
Standing Rows: 3 sets of 8 reps
Deadlifts: 3 sets of 8 reps

Also did 20 minutes on the stepper, 33 mins on cross trainer, 11 minutes hiit, oh my god so hard, but I did it and each session of my HIIT, I add a extra minute to keep pushing myself.

HIIT and the stepper really gets me sweating, which I love. When I did the stepper it was really pouring off me. So I know I have worked hard.

I heart the gym and weights.

With my clean eating 80/90% of the time and all my serious exercise, I have never felt so lean or healthy. I have been this weight before that I am now, but not so fit or healthy.

I find it so hard sitting still at home.

How do you all feel health wise and how do you combat not being able to sit still ?

Please feel free to comment, even just to say hi,

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New race

http://www.raceforlife.org/Support-race-for-life.aspx

What a great day.

Well done my sports relief 3 mile run. I beat my personal best and completed the run in 28 minutes. My personal best is 29 minutes, so really chuffed with that.

Me and hubby and Mia got to the event early. When we got there Wave D was starting their warm up and it was such a great atmosphere,babies, kids, teenagers and adults, people of all ages.

I was in Wave E, so my race was next. So i got to enjoy seeing Wave D start, watched them all run past me and took in some of the fancy dress, people were running walking, pushing buggies anavd some babies on shoulders.

Once the first lot went, we was hanging around for a little while. Then I walked to the front to the start and watched all the others runners for Wave E come down to the start line.
finish
We also had a great warm up and some entertainment from Floorless from Britains got talent. They were great and had some great moves with the dancing they did. At this point I was made deaf but all the school girls who by the way dressed as Zombies. Their screams where mad, but lovely to hear them all so excited. Was so keen to just get going but had to wait for Floorless to finish.

Two minutes to go and the celebs, came to the front too, Tim Lovejoy, Louise Redknapp, Rufus Hound and a few dancers from the west end show not sure what show though.

Started the race well. had a great run and just as I was running a long I went past Eddie Izzard who was lovely and asked how I was doing.

So I have had a good day and ended up having a lovely meal after at Ask, only a salad, but was really filling and delicious.

Hope you all had a great day. :)

Update for this week.

Just a quick update.

I have done my new plan all week and I have to say it has been really good, challenging is a understatement but I think it is just what I needed, to stop me getting bored.

Today i did Friday Legs and Saturdays Tricep ST, as I need rest day tomorrow as I am having lunch with my mother in law to be. I am doing the 3 mile sports relief run on Sunday, so I thought Saturday it would be best not to do to much.

If I am up early I might do the 30 day shred, I will see how I am feeling in the morning.

I will make sure I do my abs exercises as they are brilliant and can really feel them working, but this might be all the cardio too.

I heart Friday, what are you all doing this weekend.

my new plan

Monday: Chest
Bench Press: 1 warm-up set of 8 reps
Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps
Dumbbell Press: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Incline Bench: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Cable Crossovers: 3 sets of 10 reps
Dumbbell Pullovers: 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Tuesday: Biceps

Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets of 8 reps
Hammer Curls: 3 sets of 12 reps
Cable Curls: 3 sets of 8 reps
Barbell Curl 21's: 3 sets of 21 reps
Get A Printable Log Of The Biceps Workout.
Printable Page PDF Document Excel Document

Wednesday: Back

Lat Pulldowns: 3 sets of 8 reps
T-Bar Rows: 3 sets of 8 reps
Standing Rows: 3 sets of 8 reps
Deadlifts: 3 sets of 8 reps

Thursday: Shoulders

Shoulder Press: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Front Raises: 3 sets of 8-10 reps
Negative Side Raises: 3 sets of 6 reps
Cable Side Raises: 3 sets of 8 reps

Friday: Legs

Squats: 3 sets of 8 reps
Seated Leg Curls: 3 sets of 8 reps
Adductors/Abductors: 3 sets of 8 reps
Standing Straight Leg Cable Kickbacks: 3 sets of 8 reps
Calf Raises: 3 sets of 20 reps
Lunges: 3 sets of 20 reps

Saturday: Triceps

Skull Crushers: 3 sets of 10 reps
Rope Extensions: 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Rope Pushdowns: 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Dips: 3 sets of 8 reps
Kickbacks: 3 sets of 8 reps


Everyday Abs!

Flutter Kicks: 1 set of 300 reps
Leg Raises: 3 sets of 12 reps
Reverse Crunches: 3 sets of 10 reps
Hanging Leg Raises: 3 sets of 8-10 reps

Also cardio and 30 day shred.

Say no to the scales

I read this on WLR, added by JAG

As a personal trainer I’m constantly warning people that the scales are an evil contraption designed to make us feel bad about ourselves and so “diet clubs” can look down on you and say “have you been cheating” to make you feel even worse!

I constantly tell people over and over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet how many of you cannot break the ritual of hoping on the scales every day. Do your self a favour and throw the scales in the bin or my favorite, give them to someone you don’t like! If you can’t bring yourself to do either of those then you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that can influence its readings. When you factor in things like water retention, glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, fluctuations in your body weight is normal. The bathroom scale should not be looked upon as your sole guide of success or failure. Once you understand more about how the body works, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Your body is made up of approximately 60% water. Daily fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a panic if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two things that can influence water retention are water consumption and salt intake. As strange as it may sound, the less water that you drink, the more of it your body retains! If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto its water supplies, possibly causing the number on the scale to creep upward. So if you are thirsty, drink up as you are already dehydrated!

Excessive amounts of salt (sodium) in our diet can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. As a guide, we should only eating between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium per day, so it can be easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance, its in nearly everything you eat and drink. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That is why, when it comes to nutrition I recommend sticking to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, frozen meals and anything that comes packaged in a box.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. As with general water retention, pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking lots of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

The body stores carbohydrates as glycogen. Think of glycogen as the fuel tank for daily living. Some of this glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and for every gram of glycogen stored the body stores approximately 4 grams of water. This can add up to 3-4 pounds of water weight when its stored. Your glycogen supplies, along with the stored water, will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. When this happens our weight will drop on the scales but its only temporarily because as soon as we eat a meal containing carbohydrates the body will fill the glycogen fuel tank along with storing water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight fluctuations of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, however I can imagine they would make the weekly weigh-in at the diet club frustrating, something I’m sure they don’t tell you about!

People also tend to forget the actual weight of the food that we eat on a daily basis will affect the number on the scale. So eating a big meal along with any drinks before hopping on the scale is only going to result in a higher reading. The 5 pounds you put on right after eating a huge meal with drinks is not fat, it’s the weight of the food and will be gone in several hours when the body has finished digesting it. For this reason, it’s a good idea to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink.

In order to store one pound of fat we need to eat 3500 calories above our daily caloric needs. So if you take the above example, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, you would have to eat a massive 17,500 calories. This is highly unlikely, and in fact it’s probably not humanly possible(but please don’t try to prove me wrong!). So if the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, relax, as it’s most likely increased water weight, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Bear in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule also works in reverse. If our goal is to lose one pound of fat you will need to burn an extra 3,500 calories more than you take eat. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. So when you follow a severely low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings me to the scale’s sneakiest lie. The scale doesn’t just weigh fat; in fact it only tells you how heavy you are under gravity at that moment. So when you hope on the scale what it collectively weighs your muscles, bones, water, internal organs, in fact everything that is you. Losing weight and losing fat are two different things and in fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). With that in mind, if you have been on a restrictive diet and lost a lot of weight in a short period of time then you have probably lost a lot of muscle tissue. Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns on a daily basis, even while you are sat reading this. That’s one of the reasons why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is painfully counting points and who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue. Also if you are losing a lot of weight by crash dieting and not exercising and therefore by sacrificing muscle tissue you will not get the body transformation results you desire. You will just end up a smaller version of yourself. Or as one of my clients recently put it, a smaller fat person!

If you were to compare your muscles and fat to gold and feathers with one pound of fat being a big lumpy bag of feathers, and one pound of muscle as a small but extremely valuable piece of gold. Our goal would then be to get rid of the lumpy feathers and replace it with as much gold as possible. So in effect we would weigh exactly the same the only problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue (gold) and how much is fat (feathers).

Skin-fold calipers, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing and bioelectrical impedance are all methods we can use to measure our body composition to discern whether we are losing (or gaining) fat and muscle and while none of these methods are 100% accurate, they offer a better way of measuring our bodies changes than the scale.

Now if the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently electrocuted doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry, one of the best measurement tool of all is a simple tape measure and your very own eyes. If the tape is showing that you have lost inches, your clothes fit better and the person looking back at you in the mirror is a leaner, fitter more confident person who isn’t bound by different coloured days then surly that is a better judge of your success than the lies from the bathroom scale.

Do yourself a favour and buy yourself a big hammer and introduce it to the springy, beady eyed lying menace, not only will you release a lot of built up tension but you will feel better for it, (just be sure to wear the correct safety clothing)!

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

This is so true and why I do not have any scales, and only will weigh in once a month.

I am a wuss,

I do not like scary films, hate blood and guts.

I dont mind being a scare cat,but blood and guts is pointless.

What film do you all like.

I love cheese and romcoms, hee hee, I am girly sometimes.

Days has been good and my princess really likes her new nursery she starts in April, she is so grown up and goes to school full time in September.

I am back

After no laptop for 3 days, now back on line. My food has been quite good but was unable to do my on line diary so roughly know I have sort of stuck to calories, but not 100% sure. I did do a large workout on Friday which earner me nearly 1500 calories.

But being back on line I feel so much better. My battery on my food scale has gone today, so have to get a new battery tomorrow. Now back on track with recording my food.

I am suffering with TOTM so not feeling to good, it also feels worst because it has been delayed. On well only once a month so I will survive, but does really knock you side ways and normally I can control my chocolate cravings, but this time of month my hormones make it so much harder.

This weekend I have my two kids, Luke normally lives with his Dad, but as it is Mothers Day on Sunday its nice to have him with me, but omg it is madness the kids get on like a house on fire.We went the park today and had so much fun, so we all had a great day, both the kids are tired so they are off to bed now, bless them.

So as its mothers day and I have Luke I have taken the weekend off the gym. I really do miss it, but I know my session on Monday will be really good after all the rest my muscles have had.

What is everyone up to this weekend? How do you all deal with cravings?

Moods/scales & keeping motivated

Well today has been good.

Have been good with exercise and food.

Have a new training plan for my legs, but still a bit loss when training my legs. So must investigate further what exercises I can do. My legs are looking very slim. Have always liked my legs and I know once the warmer weather is out I will show them off with pride.

My tummy my problem area, but getting flatter each day. Have been told will be the last place to flatten, how comes it the first place us ladies put on the weight.

Have been eating every few hours, so no longer hungry and listen to my body and have my healthy treats so no more binging.

A bit out of sorts as worried about money, but for once I have not dealt with it with food. Eating is not going to solve my problems, it will just make things worst.

I have just been looking on WWW.weightlossresources.com and I have been reading the weigh in thread, people are so caught up on the scales and seeing the numbers going down, they dont seem to see the scales do not make you healthy or show how well and healthy you look.

I have read about people that weigh in each day, so they can control their weight and the way they are eating, this help them to keep motivated and keep to the diet.

I have to confess I have done the daily weigh in and the weekly weigh in, but it effected me so much before when I was trying to loss weight.So this time I wanted to change my eating to be healthy. No I don't want to diet, I want to eat clean allow myself some treats when I want to, not when the scales tell me too, I want to be in control and not the scales. The scales can effect your daily or weekly mood.

I weigh in once a month this helps me keep on track of how I am doing.

I have my goal dress hanging up so this is my motivation instead and looking at my lovely red dress does help my mood to, The red dress says you can do it and you will be wearing me soon.

If I can do it you all can. Little changes, will make all the difference.

Eat less, move more people, that is all you need.

TaraFitness.com

TaraFitness.com

Comment of the day

Be innovative! Dont just copy what other people have done b4! To follow someone elses style is 2 limit yourself! Showcase YOUR OWN talent!! :-)

Size 14 clothes bite the dust.

I am happy to say, I no longer have to wear size 14 clothes any more. I have been a size 14 for the last year and a half, now I have sorted myself out with my food and exercise I am now a size 12. Well depending on the shop.

But nice to know I no longer have to buy 14.

So now I have to train hard so I can once again wear my size 10's. I was a size 10 when my son was a year old, but once I got to my goal weigh of 9.3 I feel pregnant with my daughter. Once I had my daughter I did loss some weigh but once I stopped breast feeding all the weight and some more went on. I have been up and down for about 3 years on a constant yo yo, due to a break up, depression and leaving my family home and all the ups and down go with it all.

So its nice to know that with the size 14 gone and the yo yo disappearing I get closer to my goal of size 10. I know once I get to my goal it wont really matter about the scales, its the clothes and my fitness that really matters.

To fail is to stop trying so every day I am going to be the best I can in every possible way.

Tonight dinner,

Was lovely spag bowl, very tasty and very clean. Only down side is run out of wholemeal pasta so had normal, so not as clean as I would like, DH eat all of his with his home made garlic bread

DH was twice as big as mine. Will add pic and recipe tomorrow.

Looking forward to the gym tomorrow for my full body workout. If DH not working I will get some extra time too.

Also meeting my friend tomorrow for a bit of shopping.

Thank you to my two new followers, was so excited when I saw you both on here.

Feeling Yucky

So no exercise today, I might have over done it the last few days.

My DD was sick last night and I dont feel so clever today.

When I feel rough I normally exercise but just cant face it today. So something must be wrong, hopefully I be better for tomorrow as I have the gym planned tomorrow and want to do a full body weights workout.

Going to check out www.bodybuilders.com to look for a new routine. With weights always mixing it up as I can bore quite quickly.

Food is good today, making a lovely spag bowl for dinner, going to make a clean, unprocessed version.

fitness day.

Have deleted my first post and starting again.

Today has been a great day. Have been to the gym and done my weights, killed my arms and cross trainer then finished off with a run on the treadmill.

Had extra energy today and more time as hubby was looking after the princess so did a nice swim, an hour and did 60 lengths of the pool.

So a good fitness day but can feel the DOMS trying to start.

Take Away

My hubby wanted me to have a treat with him, he is a fan of take aways and me very rarely now.

So we had Chicken Tikka Masala, special fried rice and half a naan each and onion bhaji.

I always weigh everything, if I dont feel guilty and like to know how many calories I am having and like to fill in my online diary at www.weightlossresources.co.uk

I worked the meal out as 850 calorie, wow yes a lot but I have done loads of exercise so have the calories to use, nice to have a treat too, but now my belly is hurting, so not such a treat really eh.

Going to look into making my own healthy and if poss clean eating curry. I will let you know how I get on.

My loss so far.

Well with the help of Weight Loss Resources.com. Also the lovely JAG and all the girls, so far I have lost 20lbs on the 24/02/10, so doing really well.

Operation Butt Kick is still going strong and the last three week push is on.

Will update pics soon and show you all my progress.