Start Now. {Day 13 of 1KO21}

You can tell I've been going nutty with the kickboxing lately -- and hey, I'm loving it. If I can't use these arms for another week, I'll keep kicking and jumping and wall-squatting. My quads are on FIRE lately. 

I'm titling this post START NOW because it's in alignment with what I want to focus on (in addition to creating my new habits) for the rest of 2011. Don't put off your goals until tomorrow, until next Monday, until the first of the year. Do something NOW. And have that attitude every dang day. EVERY DANG DAY! 

Stop making excuses, stop creating regret. Be thankful that you CAN move and sweat and improve your overall health and well-being. Shame on any of us for complaining about a workout. We should be grateful that we CAN and that we have the ability to do ANYTHING. 

I got all down when I found out I couldn't use my upper body for workouts and then Carla snapped me out of it, and here I am getting all creative with my lower body workouts and cardio in the mean time. Make fitness fun.....I'm telling you, it's all about attitude. Don't DREAD your workouts, make them the highlight of your day- when do you GET to workout? Come on!! 

What is better than putting on a pair of jeans and having them be a bit too loose? And what's worse than going to get dressed and having all of your clothes make a muffin-top and then you feel like a lazy sloth? I'd rather feel proud of myself than annoyed with myself. 

Make yourself proud. START NOW.

Here is my ramble-on-a-thon sweaty vlog from earlier today. Yup- I kicked about 450 calories worth of a** today. 

Also I talk about some older Taebo workouts that ARE on DVD in this vlog so here is the link for Amazon.com: CLICK HERE.

Also CLICK HERE for the Ultimate Upper/Lower Body. And lastly, here is the Taebo 2, Advanced: CLICK HERE. 

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you eat Thanksgiving Dinner EARLY or LATE?

I'm Still Working IT! (Day 9 of 1KO21)

Hey Kittens!! How is your week going? You know my week started off hectic when I didn't even post Monday Manjoyment! What's UP with that!! I'm still kicking butt in my 1KO21 Challenge of doing a workout 6x week, no matter what I can fit in, no matter what my challenges are....Yesterday I had my first physical therapy appointment at 10am and I WORKED OUT BEFOREHAND!! WOOOOOO!!

I've been trying to focus on what I CAN do with this shoulder limitation and not what I can't do. So, I can do cardio and lower body. Let's crush it with cardio and lower body. I've been totally getting back into my old school Taebo. Y'all, what does it tell you that I first did Taebo when I still had a VCR like 12 years ago and I still love doing it?? 

I can't wait to become BFF with Billy Blanks. One of my FitFluential Ambassadors Leah like has worked out with him and such. I've touched HER so that automatically makes me BFF's by default with Billy. And he's following me on Twitter as is his amazing daughter Shellie so I'm pretty sure we're all BFFs. 

I love Taebo. Anyway, so my first therapy was them testing my shoulder to find out what part of it was jacked. 

So it is my Teres Minor and Teres Major muscles that are all jacked up. And here is what is funny or interesting. Yesterday they did exercises and showed me what I have to do at home for movement. She said avoid doing upper body even cardio like the punching in Taebo. ;-( Sad face. But, I'll obey because I want to get better. Then they did about 10 minutes of ultrasound therapy. Tonight, they did different moves and then ultrasound therapy and she said we have to work on the upper back muscles because that is where I am weaker (y'all, I have NOT been focused on training my back as much--!!! and it is weaker now...which she said has an effect on these muscles because they overcompensate). So how interesting is that? I have to slowly build up my back muscles while we repair my shoulder so that I'm strong EVERYWHERE in the upper body and then can train effectively, evenly.

I find this all incredibly interesting. That said...it's been a long day. I had calls from 10-4pm, then 4-5pm therapy then a call at 5pm-6pm and now I'm putting this blog up here and going to ice my shoulder. ;-) See you tomorrow! WOOOOO! I'm on the way! I'm on the way! Therapy 4x a week and then we are close to being better!! Here is my vlog from the other day, with a funny story I forgot to share earlier from my LA trip....

Now that I'm listening to this, this vlog is from last week, sorry. But it's still a story I had to share. I'll be back with fresh goods tomorrow. ;-)

GOSH I can't wait to LIFT again!!! DANG!!

Check.

Walking Lunges. Check. Stationary Lunges. Check. Squats. Check. Kickboxing. Check.

Workout on a Saturday AFTER I'd gone to a relaxing breakfast at a cute-as-a-button-restaurant with my mommy and had some scrumptious Eggs Benedict and MAYBE a bite or two of these bad boys, CHECK!

Red Velvet Pancakes. Holy Caloric Meltdown. That's not butter on the top. That's FROSTING. We both had several bites but there was more than 1/2 left on the plate- it was just THAT SWEET. But.....this is another moment where I can share, that New-Zen-Mindful-But-Not-Psycho-Kelly is back. I planned to have breakfast at this place and knew full well that I'd indulge in Eggs Benedict, and then I had some of these Tastetastic Delights. But- I didn't feel guilty about eating, and then decide to blow the whole day by "making this a cheat day", and trying to fit in all the bad food I can into one day. 

WHO HAS DONE THIS?

**Please note. A "cheat day" concept works for a LOT of people. This post is NOT to say it's a bad idea. I'm simply sharing how my mindset was distorting the concept and thus it doesn't necessarily work for me.**

When I'd done this in the past, I'd also likely not workout that day. Heck, why not pig out AND be lazy?? See-- that's how BAD my mindset was in the recent past. I was ENJOYING the fitness journey as I have for most of my adult life. Everything had essentially become a punishment- my "diet" and my training, so NOT doing it was a RELEASE and doing it was a punishment, whether I conciously thought of it that way or not. That's why it was easier to be more often "OFF" than "ON". 

Fast forward to now, where y'all know I'm FINALLY living with a new mantra and a lot of my old (good) habits and attitudes from years ago. So- I got dressed in my workout clothes before going to the restaurant, and then I came home and did my kick butt workout! 

I started with some old school TAEBO!

I had this image as my wallpaper for so long. In the early Taebo videos (YEA THEY WERE ON VHS TAPES!! OMG!) Shellie Blanks, Billy's daughter had the coolest short haircut ever. I actually had my hair this short WAY back in my twenties. Let me tell you something, I OWNED IT. I always see girls with killer fab short hair and think they look SO AWESOME but I can't go back there...SUCH A PAIN to grow out!! Do you have a killer short haircut? Did you ever? Do you miss it? 

 

Seriously. First of all, I think Victoria Beckham- that is her BEST LOOK. I'm sure she got soooo sick of it but I think no one rocked that do like her. And Ashley Judd- she looks WAY better in short hair I think than in long hair. And Linda Evangelista almost makes me want to have her as my sister wife if she wasn't such a egomaniac douchebag. (Think: JNL who seems to take I LOVE MYSELF pills every morning OMG). 

Wow. I went WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY OFF TOPIC. Shocking. 

Anyway, I did some Old School Taebo and then the LEGS premix from Cathe's Muscle Max DVD. The legs premix was only 23 minutes so my whole workout was about 55 minutes and burned 438 calories. BOOYA! 

Here's a little sample from an older Taebo, but it shows Shellie doing some of my favorite Taebo moves and she's just SO DANG PRECIOUS. 

And because I love Cathe so much and because Jessica told me about this workout, I am seeing THIS as one of my next purchases from Collage Video:

And now, I am beat. My workout was great. I had a nice healthy lunch after my workout- tuna salad on lettuce with a small baked potato and lo-fat Ranch, and old favorite of mine. I'm pleasantly full. YUM.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What are your plans this weekend? Going out or staying in? (it's snowing here today a little bit, WTH!!) 

Arms on FIRE! WOOT!

I love Cathe Friedrich. LOVE LOVE LOVE her. OMG. I babble on about her in my vlog below- because way back when I first started working out, I was doing Taebo only. Yea, back in the old school days when Billy Blanks Taebo Advanced LIVE VHS tapes were the bomb yo. Then I found out about The Firm- probably from seeing one of their early infomercials. 

Anyone remember this?

Wow. That's a whole lotta blush on Barbie for a workout! But, in all seriousness, aside from the "I Wanna Be a Dancer" leotards and nude panty hose + legwarmers, these early workouts were KILLER. Susan (forgetting her last name at the moment) was throwing it DOWN back then. That's when I first discovered Tracie Long. (BTW I was going to share with you a video clip of the early workouts but for some reason OMG THIS KILLS ME WHEN PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW TO LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROMOTE THEIR PRODUCT- DON'T DISABLE EMBEDDING!! HELLO FREE PUBLICITY!! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION NICKELBACK?? OMG Anna Benson, the creator of these original killer workouts has all the video clips with embedding disabled. Look them up by clicking here if you wish- and beware- full-frontal 80's Lycra, legwarmers and men in short shorts flashbacks WILL APPEAR. And yes, I am writing to Anna to ask her to let me HELP HER.) Tracie Long went on to create her own business with her own DVDS that are really different than the mainstream step or "toning" workouts you'd see years ago. 

Somewhere along the way, The Firm became Cheese.Com. All the really good tough instructors left and then they had a bunch of bobbleheaded Valley Girls in more pastel colors doing workouts on extremely strange new gadgets. They kept coming out with new equipment and it got really annoying- I think that's how they lost the love. That's when I discovered Cathe via some forums online. Yea FORUMS. I shudder when I type that. So 90's haha. If you haven't tried Cathe's workouts you are missing out. She is hard core and has SOOOO many different versions of both "CARDIO" (HIIT, Kickboxing, MMA, step, plyo, you name it) and Weight Training, you will never get bored. And granted, you need a nice home gym set up with heavy weights and ideally a barbell set and some bands, but you'll feel like you have a trainer there. And hello- she CLEARLY knows what she's doing:

This morning, I warmed up with a little bit of RevAbs and yummy Brett Hoebel, my future ex-boyfriend. 

He is Mantastic. Yes, he does indeed say "DJ" during the workouts, but it works, because he also grunts a lot, and well, let's be honest, he's like Brazilian or Latino or a fusion of both of them. Whatever it is IT WORKS FOR ME. He passes the bark test ok?

Moving on, I did about 10-15 minutes of RevAbs just to get moving and get my heart rate up. Then I did an oldie of Cathe's- Muscle Max. But, I did a premix of Upper Body only. Holy Cow. I burned UP my upper body. Shoulders, Chest, Back, Triceps and Biceps. Overall, it was a 400 calorie burner and I stopped at an hour. Remember, I'm focusing on NOT OVERDOING IT. No more Over-training. No more always aiming for 1000 calorie burns. 

She also had us using the bands for that "bonus burn". This is the time during the workout that I'm screaming obscenities at the screen:

Oh Check it out! Cathe Friedrich UNDERSTANDS that the smart thing to do with social media is to allow sharing of your content! DUH! 

Sorry if I get a little passionate about marketing and social....I just want peeps to GET IT! HELP ME HELP YOU ANNA! 

QUESTION OF THE DAY: for those of you working out from home, what are your favorite workout DVDs and how did you find out about them?