Adding Strength Training to Your Workouts

Adding more strength training to your workout routine can be as simple as doing a few bodyweight exercises like pushups and tricep dips. Focusing on strength exercises for the arms and back seems intuitive for me personally, since I mostly do high impact cardio to begin with which already works the legs.

I alternate and do one set of pushups and then one set of tricep dips on the floor for two sets of 25 repetitions each. For a total of 50 pushups and 50 tricep dips. If you can't do 25 reps at a time, then start at a number you can do while still having good form, still alternate between pushups and tricep dips, but increase the number of sets or the number of reps over time.

Once you're doing so many pushups and tricep dips in a row that you're getting bored, you can do harder variations of those exercises by using a stable coffee table or chair to put your feet on for pushups or hold onto with your hands for tricep dips.

In November and December, I stopped doing two a days and just worked out longer by adding bodyweight and abdominal exercises, or HIIT routines to the end of my cardio workouts. I, also, dropped down to only working out 4-5 days a week since I was busy with holiday activities.

Different workouts I did in November and December:

Fast Paced Aerobics

Fast Paced Aerobics

Low Impact Aerobics

Low Impact Aerobics

Step Aerobics (yeah, that's Cher)

HIIT

HIIT

Memes That Perfectly Express My Weight Loss Journey

I've been on the never ending diet the past two years. This one still manages to make me laugh.

This one fits as well.

Getting Through the Holiday Season While Working Out and Dieting

Ah, November and December, where months are spent celebrating and being merry and the time of year when diets go completely off the rails. It’s a difficult time to keep to our diet and exercise goals, but there are a few changes a person can make so we can get through the long holiday season relatively unscathed. Because it would be nice to not completely blow all our health and weight loss goals, especially if you’ve made some great gains the previous year.

One of the things I started doing in November was food prepping. It can be a difficult thing to get into. There’s a lot of planning, shopping, and cooking that a person has to do, but it makes it a lot easier to just eat what’s in the fridge rather than the temptations that are everywhere during the holidays. Heavy rich foods that tempt even the most stalwart of us because “it’s just the holidays, anyways” can be a convincing excuse.

Meal prepping involves preparing all the food in a single day that a person needs for the next 5 days. I actually make yogurt (for me) and bread (for my spouse) one day, then the next day I make food for our meals so it was kind of split into two days. So yeah, both my days off during the week are spent cooking.

In general I don’t eat baked goods, deserts, or ice-cream as part of my weight loss regimen. Oh, how I miss you ice-cream. But during this time of year, I’m extra disciplined about not snacking at night.

Breakfast was ¾ cup homemade yogurt with a teaspoon of granola and a teaspoon of hemp hearts, and ½ cup of oats with ½ a cup of plain almond milk and berries for overnight oats. Lunch was hummus with carrots and celery, or tomato and mushroom omelet over rice with steamed vegetables. Dinner were such things as ginger chicken over rice with a large serving of steamed cabbage, or stir fried beef with peppers over rice. For dinners, I just made sure to practice excellent portion control and included extra servings of steamed vegetables with each meal like broccoli, cabbage, or cauliflower, when I prepped my meals into those black meal prep containers (I prefer the two split compartment ones). You don’t even have to order the containers online anymore, they sale large stacks of them at Walmart for reasonable prices.

Being so regimented with eating the majority of the month gave me the freedom to have those indulgences on days when treats were all around at work, or the week after Thanksgiving or Christmas when delicious high calorie leftovers were everywhere.

By New Year’s Eve I had only gained two pounds while still being able to feel like I got to enjoy the holiday season with plenty of indulgences.

Double Workouts or Two A Days

Back in September I posted how I was considering doubling workouts or doing two a days. I did end up adding a second workout 2 or 3 days a week, to the aerobic YouTube video that is pretty much standing ab workout that I did everyday. So for September and October I did a forty-five minute aerobic workout 7 days a week, plus HIIT/Tabata/strength exercises 2-3 days a week. And I did my usual gym routine once in a while.

The aerobic workouts were completely low impact, you're barely shuffling your legs around for 95% of the video, but it works your core the entire time. After the first two times I did the workout my husband said, "I think I can actually see changes from your workout in just a couple of days."

But after the first two weeks of doing 9 or 10 workouts a week he was shocked. "That workout is completely transformative. It has transformed your body. I can see it in your back and your core."

I wasn't dieting or counting calories at that time, so my energy level was up. I felt great doing the extra workouts, and on top of that I was eating super healthy and eating plenty of food. Breakfast was typically summer rolls with shrimp and pork, and fruit and berries. Lunch was usually stir-fry with rice or a curried udon noodle dish with vegetables and tofu. Dinner was a free for all depending on whether it was my husband or I cooking. I just made sure to eat a little protein with every meal.

I didn't miss any workouts in September and October. The routine was fresh and new and I super enjoyed what I was doing, so it didn't really feel like an effort to get through the daily workouts.

I lost lots of fat in my back, stomach, and arms, they got noticeably smaller. Legs stayed the same since I ran a lot before this and they were already strong, but I did notice I no longer got side cramps at all. Probably due to building up core strength to a great extant.

Here's a list of those workouts I was doing in September and October:

Low Impact Aerobics (This was my go to daily workout)

For the workouts below, I did 4 videos 2-3 times a week plus a stretching video. So, about a 20 minute workout.

Cardio Blast

HIIT

HIIT

Strength Training (I used a 10 pound medicine ball.)

Tabata

Tabata

Tabata

Fast Paced Tabata