Personal Goals

March’s Goal – Exercise with Turbulance Training

So, each month I try to pick a new goal to work on. January was the 30 Day Fat Loss Quickie program. February was all about re-vamping our nutrition and cutting out the diet soda. And March is back to excercise. Think of it as “Move It March!”

Specifically, my goal for March is to do the 4 week Turbulance Training Beginner Total Torso Training program.  This is a beginner bodyweight program from fitness trainer Craig Ballantyne that really works on strengthing your abs and core muscles.  Which for me, with my back issues, is essential to keeping my back pain at bay.

I’ve followed Craig for a couple years now, and really like his approach, so I’m going to commit to this 4 week program.  The program is supposed to be followed three days a week, in this pattern:

Day 1 – Workout A

Day 2 – light exercise day

Day 3 – Workout B

Day 4 – Light exercise day

Day 5 – Workout C plus interval cardio

Day 6 – light exercise

Day 7 – light exercise plus Grocery planning, shopping, and prep.

Each workout is supposed to be about 45 minutes, so not too bad time wise.

Equipment wise, the TT Beginner Total Torso Training program only needs a exercise/stability ball, some dumbells, and a bench, or something to use as a bench. So I’ve got all that covered, and all ready to go.

For my light exercise days, I just plan on doing fun activities with the kids, taking walks, playing tennis, gardening, and if I can get my bike fixed or replaced, heading out on some neighborhood bike rides.  One of my big motivators is to just get out and have fun with the kids, so I’m working that in.

Also, baseball season started for my 10 yo son, which means I’m spending 2 hours at a time at a baseball practice waiting. So I like to use that time to walk  around the fields and listen to audio books or podcasts on my iPod. So more built-in opportunities to Move It!

So, I’m starting the Turbulance Training program on Friday, March 5th, just because schedule wise that makes it work for me. So, so my workout days will be Fridays, Sundays, and Tuesdays. And my plan and prepare days are Thursday, which is a day I’m usually home all day and the day before pay day and my grocery shopping time. So that should work out. It’s already on the schedule

Thank you as always for your support!  Please let me know how I can support your weight loss or fitness goals for March.

…Shannon

January’s Exercise Goal

In thinking through how I want to reach my major goal milestones, (i.e., buy new clothes in the next size down, and lose 8 pounds a month from now until the conference in April), I decided I needed to really focus on one exercise program to give me structure and to be able to plan by.

Normally I’m prefer something that doesn’t tie me down too much, but I’m commited and want to see results. So, while I have and like the Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds program, I have found that  my schedule (and kids) does not allow me to focus on exercise by myself for any extended period of time.

If it doesn’t involve the kids, then my tops is 10 to 15 minutes. 

For months I’ve been following Scott Tousignant of Fat Loss Quickie Home Office Workouts, Craig Ballentyne of Turbulance Training, and Valerie Waters of Red Carpet Ready, so I’ve been thinking about which to choose. I really like what I’ve seen from each of these trainers, and they all have training products that don’t need much for equipment and can be done pretty much anywhere.

But in the end, I decided that for January I’ll be doing Scott Tousignant’s Fat Loss Quickie program.  I bought this back in September when I first started following Scott’s Free 30 Day Home Office Challenge, but never fully followed it – just incorporated aspects of it.

The Fat Loss Quickie program is geared especially for those of us who are home all day, who are parents and running home-based businesses or are working from home.  The work outs are short (10 minutes) and use little equipment (just an exercise ball, and something for weights).

But for me a major plus of doing this particular program right now is the fact that Scott includes motivational audio and video into the Fat Loss Quickie program, so I can work on not only my health goals, but also the mind-set changes that I need to make to meet both my health goals this year but also my business goals for the year.

I really feel the pull to start out the year strong – both for this big weight loss goal, but also for my business goals. And I’m  hoping that by doing the Fat Loss Quickie program here in January, I’ll get a little extra edge, physcially and mentally for going forward this year.

So, the program is 30 days long. Today was day 1 for me. So 29 days left to go.

I’ll be blogging this for accountability reasons, though I’m not sure yet how often I’ll post updates, but I have already started taking notes for today.  Feel free to post a comment giving me a virtual “kick in the rear” to help me stay accountable.  In fact, please do.

2010 is a good year. It’s a year of breaking free, and getting healthy and fit.
Enjoy it!

…Shannon

P.S. If you’d like to get a taste of Scott’s Fat Loss Quickie program, I recommend trying out his FREE 30 Day Home Office Fitness Challenge videos and posts. I was just watching Day 21 again today, for some alternate exercises for people with  knee problems. Totally worth the watching and hey…it’s free!

Goal: Exercise Every Day – Day 6

Ever have a day that just want to “do over”? Well that was today for me. I’m trying to move to a new schedule, where I’m working in early morning before the kids get up instead of in the middle of the night after they go to bed. This was the first day and it did NOT go well.  

It’s day 6 of my 7 day goal to exercise every day or at least 5 of the 7 days, and well…it would just be better to pretend this day didn’t exist and start again fresh tomorrow.

I managed to salvage the day from a work perspective, and did okay on food. But the only exercise I got in was a short version of my morning stretches and a short version of my evening stretches. The rest of the day was a wash as far as movement and exercise goes.

Tomorrow is another day… the last day of this 7 day goal. And time for my weekly update. So tomorrow, we’ll see if the exercise I did get in this week has made a difference in the scale.  Until then, I’m just going to chalk this day up to a learning experience and start again tomorrow.

Hope you had a better day!

…Shannon

Goal: Exercise Every Day – Day 5

My goal this week was to exercise every day or at least 5 of the 7 days between my Tuesday Weekly Updates, and today was Day 5 (Sunday). And already I see I’m going to have to work on making exercise a habit some more. It’s been really easy to let the execise slide. But I did get some in:

In the morning I did about  about 2 minutes of knee lifts, side steps, marching in place while my 5 yo daughter watched some show on Smile of a Child. The music was kind of catchy and it made it easier to do. After that I did my morning stretches and core exercises.

Later while I was brushing my teeth I did some toe taps on the step down to our bathroom, and oddly enough it actually made me brush a little longer, and helped motivate me to get going on to the next thing I had to do (but didn’t want to).

The rest of the day was pretty slow, sitting in a chair working on finances (not my favorite activity). The only other thing I got worked in was about 10 minutes of “at home walking”, again while my daughters were watching something on Smile of a Child.

And I finished the day with only 2 or 3 of my normal evening stretches.

I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t get going more, but am glad I got something in.

Goal: Exercise Every Day – Day 4

Well, it’s the end of Day 4 (Saturday) of this week’s goal to exercise every day, or at least 5  of the 7 days between my Tuesday Weekly Updates. It wasn’t stellar, but I did exercise. So I can claim success

I started my morning with my usual morning stretches on the exercise ball and a couple core exercises.  And aside from running a few errands (which then I usually part towards the back of the parking lot so I can walk a little more), most of the afternoon was spent sitting.

My iPod keeps exercise from being boring!

Around 5:30 pm I decided that I better do something exercise wise, so I grabbed my iPod and headed for the treadmill intending on walking for the full 1 hour of a teleseminar I wanted to listen to.

But unfortunately, my leg wasn’t cooperating today and I could only do 6 minutes. (For whatever reason walking on the treadmill bothers my hip and leg more than walking outside; not sure why.)

But I was determined to get my exercise in today, so I headed upstairs, still listening to the teleseminar on my iPod, and sat on the exercise ball. Bounced. Did some roll-outs (which works the abs and gluts!). And stretched afterwards. 

After the teleseminar was over I started watching  a movie with my 12 yo daughter, so in all I ended up doing some sort of exercise or stretch on the exercise ball for over an hour and half.

I was pretty disappointed about not getting my walk in, sitting on the ball sometimes just seems too easy, but I am thankful that I was able to do something despite the problem with my leg.

Tomorrow’s another day – only three more to go until Tuesday.