More exercises & my Crossfit Experience

Hi gang,

Here is another routine you might like to try! If you're not interested in this then scroll right down and read about my CrossFit taster session!

Remember the first move from my last blog? Well this is the same but instead of curling your arm in, keep it straight, then squat back down and repeat. Note that this should be harder, I had to use a much lighter weight to keep my arm straight! 15 reps x3.

Here I lay on the floor with my arms out above my head and held onto the 7.5kg plate and lifted ituntil my arms were out in front of me. Keep arms straight, lower back down and repeat - this is harder than it looks! 15 x3.

I know this is a bad example as most people will not have one of these machines at home but if you're a gym bunny this is a good one! Make sure back is kept straight. 15 x 3

These work the hamstrings and hurt a lot more than I thought because I was actually doing them properly and slowly unlike previous aerobic dvds have taught me. Now I know it looks like the top and middle picture are the same but there is a slight difference.  To start, keep your back and bum flat on the floor, next tilt your pelvis up, then raise your bum off the ground clenching your bum. Lower back down, including the 'untilting' of the pelvis on the way. The emphasis should be on the squeezing and technique as opposed to raising your bum up as high as you can. 15 x 3.

Finally, everyone's favourite...planks! I really struggle to keep my back straight during these, but I just about managed! I did 20 seconds on my front, rest for 10 seconds, 20 seconds on my side, rest for 10 then 20 seconds on the other side then rest for a minute and repeat 3 times.

So I did these on Friday afternoon and then I headed to my free CrossFit taster session on Sunday morning. I really recommend it to anyone seriously looking to increase their fitness and strength. I knew to expect a hard workout but I was in no way prepared for what I was put through haha! 

Crossfit gyms from what I gather tend to be in industrial type areas, there are no treadmills or typical gym machines just a bunch of cool equipment that will work every single muscle in your body! So for this taster session it was just me and another couple - who looked a lot more in shape then I am. Turns out I was right on that assumption! Our trainer took us through some basic moves such as squats, pullups, box jumps, burpees, ring dips (tricep dips using gymnastic rings - and no. I could not do this, even assisted I struggled). 

After the introduction, we were set our very own WOD which had been completed by Saturday's taster session too - 5 men and 1 women who all completed the exercise in around 10-11 mins - except the woman who did hers in 12 something, did half the amount of burpee box jumps and assisted pull ups. 

So our WOD consisted of:

• Run 400m (this is outside too)
• 12 Burpee box jumps (normal burpee but once you stand up you must jump straight onto the big box in front of you. It's exceptionally tiring.
• 8 Pull ups (mine were assisted, and then more assisted and then even more assisted)

We had to do this 3 times! I was seriously holding down some vomit. I have never felt the need to throw up during exercise before but this was something I had never put my body through before and it was tough. By my last round I was doing 8 burpee box jumps and every time I went out to run, I would return to find that the trainer had kindly increased the level of assistance on my pull ups! 

So any guesses on my time? The guy in my group did it in 11, the other girl did hers in 12 and I did mine in..... 16 minutes haha! I was a little embarrassed but hey I did it, I could not have physically pushed myself any more than I did - which is something I have never said after exercise. I'm quite a casual runner, I like not exerting myself too much haha. No body there gave me any reason to feel embarrassed over this either, everyone was really nice and kept telling me I'd done well for not giving up etc. It's a nice group environment, I found it to be a little intimidating to begin with but everyone has to start somewhere. Remember that! 

You don't have to be great at the start, but you have to be great to start.

I have just signed up for my foundations course which starts on the 12th of Feb, I will not let this defeat me and I have found an exercise that is really testing me and pushing me to my limits which is what everyone needs to be their best. 

I'm currently waiting on my pull up bar and assistance band to arrive in the post so I can get practising! I cannot recommend it enough guys, look into it, get yourself to a taster session (they're free so you have nothing to lose) there's no sales pitch at the end they just tell you to book in online if you want more. 

I am feeling it today! No pain, no gain.

Enjoy your week <3 I hope it's a healthy one ;)

Minnie

xxx

My attempt at exercise...

So last week I mentioned I had done some exercises at Dans so I thought I would take photo's to demonstrate :-)

Hopefully you guys will be able to do these at home if you don't have access to a gym. Ladies, hand weights can be found pretty cheap - The little white ones in some of the pictures are mine and cost me about £5. Tesco have a good deal on Kettle bells at the moment too which I find are much easier to hold. If you're a true scrimper at heart - go ahead and grab something like a bottle of water, you can even fill it with sand or stones to make it heavier.

Now I guess I'm probably obliged to give a heads up here and remind you all that I really am not qualified to be giving advice on such things, I am merely demonstrating the ways I am getting fit and if you choose to copy me you do so at your own risk!

So this move below is quite hard to demonstrate in a picture - my squat my isn't the best form here either so perhaps I will demonstrate that down the line somewhere! The idea is to squat (low!), try to get your hips lower than your knees but I think I am perhaps leaning forward more than I should be. Pick up the weight and thrust (explosively) up, pushing your hips forward and curling the weight up. Then squat back down place the weight onto the floor and repeat.

I believe these are Arnold presses...3 steps which are quite straight forward. Arms start out in front then open up so elbows are at a 90 degree angle and then extend the arms up. Come back to starting position the same way. I did these two moves back to back so 12-15 reps of each then 30 second rest and repeat x 3.

Good old leg raises... I had never done these with my hands under my bum before but it did help - usually I hurt my lower back doing these but that stopped it. Raise legs up then proceed to lift your bum higher off the ground. Lower legs and repeat. Keep this slow and controlled. I did this 15 x 3 with rests in-between.

Rows... I used a 7.5kg plate for this. It is important to keep your back straight for this. The easiest way to do this is to stand up straight holing the plate and slowly bend at the hips until your arms are down straight near your knees. Then lift the plate into your chest keeping your elbows in and repeat. I did this 15 x 3 with rests.

Single arm dead lift with shoulder rotation - I think... stand with legs shoulder width a part holding your weight up in the air. With your free hand, place it on the inside of it's opposite leg, now run your hand down that leg as far as you can whilst rotating your arm holding the weight. You can see in the picture my fingers are holding the weight facing towards me and in the second picture they are facing away.
The way I kept good form for this was to remember that when my free hand is as far down as it can go, I should be able to look up in line with my weight arm. Not very technical I know but like I said, I am no professional! Again, 15reps x 3.

I also did lots of jump lunges - which did not warrant a picture, sorry to disappoint! I chose a starting point - like facing a sofa or armchair in the room and then lunged with my right foot forward, then jump and go straight into the next lunge with your left foot forward. I had no set number for these but I did jump round in a circle until I was back facing my starting point... Do not cheat yourself by just trying to jump round super far! You're only cheating yourself. It took be around 10 lunges to get back to starting point.

So there you have it... I cannot really advise on what weights to use but it should not be too easy. If you're not struggling by the time you do your 12 or 15, the weight might not be heavy enough. 

This took me less than 30 minutes to which makes it ideal for doing at home in the evenings when maybe you can't make it out for a run or gym or whatever! No excuses here :)

I hope this has given you some ideas of more exercises you can do at home, it does not need to cost you the world to keep fit.

Much love

Minnie

xxx

It's all about food

Hello all!

Recently I blogged about the struggles that can be involved in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Today I want to discuss how to start your healthy lifestyle! Everyone has different tastes and priorities. Your diet effects every part of you, your mentality, your weight, your concentration levels and your energy levels to name a few. When considering the latter it is important to understand that different foods offer your body different things. So first things first it is important to asses you goals.

If you've never got round to setting a SMART goal - (sorry to use lame business terms but I really believe this will help) now is a good time to start. So make your goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relative (to your overall goals) and Timely - I.e set a time frame.

My overalls objective is to get fit, healthy and into the best shape of my life. To achieve this I have set smaller goals like being able to complete 5 full unassisted pull ups in 3 months. I know to do this I need to be working particular muscles in my body and giving myself the correct food to fuel these work outs... I want to lose my stomach fat by my holiday in June... Same rules apply!

Try setting some of your own - breaking them down will make your goals more attainable and fine tune just what you need to do to get there. Write them down and keep them somewhere safe. I've just made myself a motivation board!

For some of you your goals might be purely aesthetic, you might want your clothes to fit a bit better or see the number drop on the scales, but not care so much for the health aspect - which I do not condone but each to their own.

Everyone's goals are different and choosing what foods to eat can be challenging especially when there are so many different lifestyle choices available today! In this blog I'm going to briefly mention some of the most popular diets available and my understanding of them. Please note, unfortunately I do not have a degree in nutrition and this is all my understanding from the ridiculous amount of time I have spent reading up on these things. I'm also going to go through what I eat on an average day in order to meet my goals. I hope it helps and inspires some of you to drop the processed junk and start eating real food!

So here is what I think are the most popular diets of today. First up

Paleo - or, the caveman diet.
This diet is usually promoted as high protein, low carb, low gi and high in fibre. It believes that although wholemeal foods are high in fibre, the body is better at digesting fibre and gets much more nutrients from that found in vegetables. Legumes (beans and oddly peanuts) are banned from this diet, no dairy, no potatoes and obviously no processed foods.
The premise of the diet is that for thousands of years man lived on the hunter gatherer diet before luxuries such as beans and baking things like bread were invented. Therefore our digestive system works best with these foods.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the 80/10/10 diet.

I learnt about this from following people on Instagram and their pictures are enough to make you consider it! (Pictures from @lonijane & @801010athlete). This diet is high carb low protein and gets its name from the dietary rules, 80% should come from fruit (and veg) 10% from protein and 10% from fats - such as coconut oil, avocados...These guys eat a tonne of fruit, I've seen photos of 6 banana lunches, the bottom right photo is a 12 banana and 12 medjool date smoothie, these guys are not under nourished. However they are in Hawaii and Oz where sitting on a beach in the sun eating fruit is a mere dream to my reality of cold rural Essex.




Vegans
Vegans believe in eating no produce from animals. No meat, no dairy, no honey, nothing with gelatine or anything even a tiny bit animal related! This typically means diets are very high in fibres from sources such as vegetables, fruit, wholemeal pastas, bread, brown rice. But you should all already know this from reading my last blog ;)

Raw Food diet
The raw food diet needs no explanation! Food is not cooked which often means meals are high in fruit and vegetables. There are ways around this - for example certain meats and fish can be eaten raw and some dairy foods are available un-pasteurised.

Raw Vegans
Again, straight forward, combine the last two and you have raw vegans who essentially eat a lot of fruit and veg! A bit like the 80/10/10 but I think less emphasis on keeping tabs on the quantities of where your food comes from. For example a raw vegan might wish to eat a tonne of veg rather than 80% fruit... This might not sounds like much fun but there are amazing options out there for you. I picked up this amazing pudding from wholefoods last week. It was SO chocolatey and it felt like I was eating the most indulgent pudding of all time! Guilt free!

The reason diets like this are becoming so popular is because there is research to suggest that acidic diets are more likely to cause problems such as cancer. I touched on this in my vegan blog, most fruits and veggies are alkaline (even lemon and limes when they enter our system) but meats and animal produce are typically acidic.
On top of this, food compounds change when they are cooked so the theory is the more food is cooked, the less nutritional value and the more carcinogens are added. This is why coconut oil is so popular. It has a really high 'smoke point' whereby it doesn't alter on a high temperature.
Have you ever seen the worlds youngest looking women? YouTube her! She is old and looks amazing, her husband - who does not follow the same diet, does not, she only eats nuts and veg and drinks her own rain water! Extreme I know but she looks amaze balls.

Whatever you think of these diets, note that they ALL have one thing in common. There is NO PROCESSED FOODS. All these diets revolve around fresh foods, there's a reason for that guys. All your rubbish processed food, - low fat and low cal included, is full of shit. Hidden sugars, salts, chemicals, sweeteners etc. etc.
Sugary foods make your blood sugar levels peak and troph all day long leaving you feeling tired and constantly having to top up your sugar buzz. Not ideal! Now I bet I know what you're thinking 'I can't afford to eat fresh' all I can say to you sir, it's up to you to choose your priorities. If you can afford to smoke, go out boozing, for meals, getting takeaways and buying any junk food at all then you can afford to buy fresh food! The decision is yours. I understand you don't want to become a recluse! So everything in moderation.

Try swapping your current snacks for high protein snacks which will fill you for longer:
Nuts, good quality beef jerky, apple with a 1tbsp of peanut or almond butter, Greek yoghurt and berries.

Now I don't know what the rules are on popcorn, I have no idea whether its considered processed or not? But my boyfriend kindly gave me a popcorn machine for Christmas :) it pops the corn using heat and air, no oil or anything so it's so low in calories and I love it. I melt 1tbsp of peanut butter and pour it over some popcorn and have it as a snack pretty much every day!

So if I were to compare my diet to any of the above I would say I'm a less extreme Paleo. My diet is high protein and sort of low carb. I'm avoiding all processed foods (with the exception of the occasional corn tortilla & Greek yoghurt) I'm not eating any refined carbs such as bread, pasta, white rice. On top of that I'm avoiding potatoes but I cannot say no to kidney beans and black beans! I'll talk you through a typical day:

For breakfast I make a protein shake using 'Elle True Diet' vanilla whey protein. I blend this with one frozen banana, unsweetened almond milk and a big handful of spinach or kale. People always react at the last bit but I guarantee you cannot taste it, not even a little bit, especially with the addition of protein powder. It tastes like vanilla milkshake and has the same texture because of the frozen banana. Sometimes I add chia seeds or flaxseeds if I need some more fibre.

I have a morning snack and an afternoon snack which is usually a bit of fruit and some popcorn with peanut butter, or a graze box :) got to have a little something something you enjoy every day right?

For lunch I either have fresh soup - I always check the ingredients, or I have chilli. Most weeks I cook up a huge batch of chilli. I can't get enough of the stuff! Mince, kidney or black beans, loads of tomatoes and veg and chilli, what's not to love! Sometimes I only use 250g of lean mince beef and double the quantities of chopped toms and veg :) I split it into about 6 portions at 300g each. Preparation is key to not crumbling and buying a manky sandwich on your lunch!

For dinner I usually stir fry lean quick cook steak or chicken with peppers, sugar snap peas, baby corn and asparagus - unfortunately I hate leafy things so I can't buy perfectly good stir fry packs with ready prepped veg. I add soy sauce and lemon juice, tonight I actually added some peanut butter to make it a bit like chicken satay. Alternatively I stick to Mexican food because I can add loads of spices and it never gets old :) if I'm feeling meat free is in need I do quesadillas with corn tortillas, peppers, onions, black beans a maybe a bit of tobasco cheese if I think I've earned it! Fajita tray bakes are super easy too, pour spices over chicken, onions, peppers and roast! Serve up with fresh salsa and jalapeños.

This diet suits my goals because I'm trying to drop fat and build muscle but admittedly my digestion is not as good as it was when I was vegan... Nor does my skin like it as much! But I am feeling the effects on my body and for now that is my priority. I know I need to tweak it to up my fibre intake and I will do this over time. It's all about listening to your body and knowing what works for you! There are no secrets or magic tricks just science and good food!

So think about your goals, discover what foods will fuel your goals and I can assure you that with persistence, you will reach your goals. It's that simple!

Minnie
Xxx


P.S. If you have any questions, just ask!