New Year, New Me!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

It has been 4 months since I have posted anything. In those four months I have lost everything I gained - health and fitness wise that is. Although my personal and professional life have gained so much, I cannot complain. It was a focus trade off for awhile and now I am ready to get my health and fitness back into the mix!

How about everyone else?

I assume we are all starting this new year off with some health and fitness related resolutions. I know I am! Goal right now is to lose the 15lbs I have gained by my birthday, June 1st. I came up with this goal using SMART goal setting metrics and feel confident it can be achieved. That is, it can be achieved if I go for it!

GO FOR IT!!! 

So it is I came across Ben's start your year off right Do Life Challenge! Now, Ben's challenge had everyone weighing in this week and and starting a kick-off to health journey together on Monday. Each week Ben would provide some fitness/motivation challenges for that week to help keep everyone on track. Whoever lost the most by the end of the month wins. The only problem with Ben's challenge is that to participate you chip in $10 - which is going to be used to pay for the prizes at the end.

It was here that I decided to create my own challenge and present it to my facebook group, also called Tigress Fitness, as something we could do in our group. There would be no fee, we could share each week things we accomplished - be that fat loss or a new health or fitness goal achieved. We wouldn't really be competing with each other, we would just be doing it together and cheering each other on!

Today I posted our first fitness/motivation challenge and I am cross-posting it here in case anyone who reads
this is interested in joining us.

I came up with two, you can choose one or try both! Whichever you feel you would like to do.

1. This week I will focus on getting at least 48oz (6 cups) but preferably 64oz (8 cups) of water drank per day!

-and/or-

2. This week I will focus on getting at least 20 minutes of activity but preferably 30 minutes of activity in per day. This will be activity that must get my heart rate up. If I think about exercising in "Heart Rate Zones" I will ensure the activity keeps me in the range of 3-4: meaning I can carry on a conversation but I am still reaching a point were breathing requires more of my focus.

And as a bonus challenge - I will do my activity in interval form and spend 1 to 2 out of every five minutes pushing myself to a 7-8 or 9-10 heart rate zone during that 1 to 2 minutes. At a level 7-8 you cannot talk while you are working out, you are heavily focused on the activity at hand, your breathing is intense. At a level 9-10 you are at your max, you have trouble breathing because you are reaching an anaerobic state, a minute or two can feel like a lifetime here.

Remember, healthy fat loss comes at .5 to 2 pounds per week. Some of us may see great fat loss results. Some of us may see no fat loss results. This is a challenge we are taking with ourselves, having friends here to motivate us along the way! So, at the end of the week, when you report in, find at least ONE positive thing that came out of your week to share. You will get something out of it! I promise. :)

So, if you want to join us and report in on your successes in the next post, please do! I know come Sunday I will have at least one positive thing to report. I hope you will too!

One more thing though ....

Just wanted to share a chart of Heart Rate Zones to help clarify a bit what I mean by levels 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 so you have a picture of what I mean. Everyone's level of fitness will be different so the amount of effort we each put in to reach each of these levels will be very different as well.

1-2: Is something you could do for hours without really feeling stressed, the blue recovery level.
3-4: Is something you can do for 20-30 minutes (most likely an hour) with a small amount of sweat, able to hold a conversation, still getting breathy, the pink fat burning level.
5-6: Is the lower end of the purple target heart rate zone, this level allows you to have a conversation but not very well, you are more concentrated on breathing and the activity at hand.
7-8: Is the top end of the purple target heart rate zone, this level doesn't really allow for conversation but you can still get a few words out here and there, your breathing and activity are your biggest focus.
9-10: Is the top of your game. You really cannot sustain this level for more than 1 or 2 minutes, you cannot talk at all, and you feel like you cannot breath, this is because you are in the red anaerobic training zone.

Heart rate training is one of the best ways you can achieve your goals.

If you have a heart rate monitor you can keep yourself in your target zones by keeping track of your number of beats per minute and keeping yourself in that zone. If you find yourself above the zone, then slow down or stop using your arms - below the zone speed up or add in more exercise.

If you want to monitor your heart rate by hand you can as well - but it is never very accurate. Take a 10 second pause once you have reached the highest point in the intensity level you think you should be working at. During that 10 seconds find your heart beat and count the beats per second. Multiple that by 10 and you should see the jist of the heart rate zone you are in.

I find it easiest to just use the 1-10 scale and allow myself to judge it by how I am feeling. Although, admittedly I have invested in a heart rate monitor and I did find I was never really pushing myself enough when I worked out just judging by the scale method. 

Anyway you do it, it still works! So just do it! Please? :)

~TigressSky~