Oh YEA.
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 04:36PM 14 Comments 
Hey Kids! How has your day been? Mine- pretty good. Although right now I am $#&%@&%)@&% annoyed because my work computer is doing some nasty stuff and costing me TIME! I'm rebooting a trillion times and having our awesome IT guy help me. What a waste. Anyway, while that's resetting for the 80th time, I am giving you some love.
This morning's workout was KILLAH. I did P90X Shoulders & Arms plus (!) Cathe HIIT 40/20. Whoa. Um yea. For those of you like me that had only done Cathe HIIT 30/30- this IS indeed a step UP. It is IMO significantly harder. She uses the step a LOT more and the jumps are HIGH. This is good, don't get me wrong, but just understand, if 30/30 is a killer workout, this is super killer.
Here is a peek at Cathe's HIIT:
One move I loathe, and I avoid are burpees. Part of this people is that chicks with BOOBS like me, I'm just gonna say it. Burpees are annoying. You end up bouncing all over the dang place. So when Cathe or Shaun T does Burpees, I'm doing sprints up and down my stairs. I'm not dealing with that stuff. I don't have time to be stuffing myself down back into my bra, OK?? April- do you see why women like ME envy women like YOU??
Also, went to use my Polar HRM and it wasn't picking up my pulse. I had that issue off and on before with those things and it really annoys me. What is the use of something if it won't WORK?? I don't have TIME to adjust and readjust!!! Anyone have a recommendation? Oh wait! @ChaleneJohnson has the BodyBugg thing, I think I may have to look into this. Anyone? Anyone??
This will be our QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you use a HRM? If so, what brand? Tell me what to get because the Polar (and I bought an expensive one- it was about $150 if I recall) isn't doing it for me.
I'd like to thank Shantel for sharing this recipe in the comments;
Almond Pumpkin Butter Brownies:
Ingredients:
1 cup almond butter
¾ cup mashed pumpkin or other squash, canned or steamed
1 egg
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp baking soda
Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix well. Pour into a greased 8 x 8 in pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Serves 8.
I got the recipe here:
http://thisprimallife.com/2009/10/primal-almond-butter-pumpkin-brownies-only-5-ingredients/
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Reader Comments (14)
I just did a few burpees for ya ;)
See you soon!
My husband had bought a bodybugg and wore it for a few weeks and hated the website that it uses. I got the GoWear Fit and it's the same thing but the website is different. It's great! We returned the bodybugg and got my husband a GoWear Fit too.
Stacey as the BB and she seems to be doing ok. She will confirm though that the website is kinda crappy.
I have the Polar HRM but I never use it. It just hangs in my gym and collects dust.
I do burpees all the time. I design/run boot camp classes 4X a week. I usually lead up to the burpees by telling my class, "There are things far, far worse than mountain climbers... it's burpee time!" When we do mountain climbers after the burpees, everyone is relieved. LOL, mind over matter!
I am wearing a Body Bugg these days - actually it is a GoWear Fit. It is made by the SAME manufacturer and is the same in every way. I got it for Christmas and it is my favorite toy. With it I discovered that my "Body Boot Camp" class burns 600+ calories per hour - and I usually go for 75 - 80 minutes (but part of that is about 10-12 minutes of cooldown/stretching). I love it - with some major exceptions...
It doesn't recognize ellipticals very well - or cycling. You can be busting your butt on a Stairmaster and it won't record it as "vigorous activity." Hardcore circuit training usually records as "moderate activity" when it's vigorous as all hell! I spoke to tech support about this and it is a known issue - they tell you if you leave the device off for a certain amount of time you can log those things manually. Well, I take issue with that! I bought the thing so it would figure this stuff out for me. I'm not going to spend my life running on the treadmill, I like variety.
I was content in my size 6 jeans forever and I decided that I want to get figure competion lean. This thing is definitely helping - I've lost 11.25 inches since January 1! You set goals for how much vigorous exercise you want per day, how much moderate, how many steps, how many calories you want to burn. There are satisfying little allerts on the display when you meet these goals. I personally like to get all of my goals me bright and early in the morning. I guess I should mention here that if you are uber Type A like me, this device will make you a bit crazy!
As far as your heart rate monitor, did you change the battery in the strap lately? Also, lick the sensors on the strap before putting it on. They make a gel substance to put on there that helps transmit the signal but spit works pretty good. It needs to be moist to transmit. Once you start sweating it is usually not a problem. I use a Garmin 310xt. Probably not practical for your type of workouts.
Socks - Under Armor - White socks have been "out" for a while. Go with black low Under Armors. Almost all under Armor workout stuff is good.
I don't crave sweets. I eat so many gels when training and racing that I really don't like sugary food. I do drink a lot of alcohol which has sugar...
Shantel I am going to check out the GoWearFit right now, thank you!! ;-)
April, you work those burpees girl! Gimme 20~~~
Glynis, do you mean that the GoWearFit isn't actually measuring your heart rate?? That worries me, I mean the cool thing about the Polar is that my MAP results (metabolic assessment profile) were dumped into the monitor, and it measures how fast my heart is beating and based on my data, how many calories I am personally burning, not "the average person". Hmmm
Atltri- my trainer Jay did tell me to wet the band. However, you are right, I think I need to change the battery too. I'll do that today.
What gels are you talking about?
It is measuring your heart rate, but it also has technology similar to the Wii which measures movement. It measures a bunch of areas including motion, heat flux and skin temperature and then has algorithms programmed in that figure out the METS, steps taken, etc, etc. Things like the elliptical and Stairmaster confuse it because the motion is different and may seem slower...so the calorie burn will come out correct due to your heart rate and heat flux, but then the motion sensor doesn't sense the type of motion it has the proper algorithms for what you're doing ... and WHAM! It screws up the moderate/vigorous activity reading (and the resulting lovely bar graph). Sooooo...the calorie burn will show that you kicked butt yet the graph will show moderate exercise where you know darn well it was vigorous. Some mathematical formula governs how these things are averaged together and that is what shows up on your Activity Monitor, the web page you get when you sync your GoWear Fit on the computer.
It also measures sleep duration and efficiency. This is always interesting for me because I apparently am a lighter sleeper than I thought and I sleep less than I thought (and still feel fine).
There are articles on the site bodymedia.com explaining why heart rate alone isn't the best gauge of caloric expenditure (and of course why adding all these other sensors presents a more accurate picture). I can think of one instance - hormones during PMS (is it increased progesterone? I'll have to look this up again) cause your heart rate to become lower than it normally is. You can do the same kick butt workout but your heart rate won't get as high as when you are ovulating.
Still, in talking to tech support, it definitely can short change you in calorie computation when you're riding a bicycle, the elliptical or climbing the Stairmaster. It also can short change you when circuit training. Shoveling snow this morning it declared that 36 minutes were moderate activy and 3 minutes were vigorous.
Our local news station did a comparison of BioTrainer ($39.95) to the BodyBugg and found that the clip on device was almost as accurate.... My daughter wants to try it out, so I'm getting her the BioTrainer and I'll clip it on my body one day and compare the results I get between the two.
Hmm. I'm tempted to try it, but in the mean time I am getting the battery fixed on my Polar HRM.
Thorlos is a great sock.
Pam, thanks I am going to check them out. I am in DIRE need of socks. How sad is that? LOL
Kelly I have to tell the whites of your eyes are soo white! How do you do that? I need to get my eye makeup sorted, suddenly I am just not happy with it! HELP!
I love the look of Otomix! I should try their pants! You look great woman! I wish I was going to the Arnold! Have FUN!
Tea, I so wish you could be going to the Arnold! As for my eyes being white, no idea...good amounts of sleep?? I don't wear glasses or contacts? ;-)
Otomix pants and tops ROCK!!! Love them big time. High quality stuff.
Burpees...yay..burpees
That is what we say in Crossfit when we have to do like 3 rounds of running, then kettle bell THEN EFFIN burpees.
I effin hate burpees but nothing gets the heart rate higher for me and my small boobins. I can see your plight though...
Hey, did you say you would be at SXSW in austin??
www.austinbabs.blogspot.com
Cheers
Babs
Hey Babs- yes I'll be at SXSW 3/11-17!
;-)