• Day One: Yesterday’s HIIT hit  (har har) me rather hard by the end of the day. So, I thought I would begin with yoga and then see if I could run a little. Unfortunately, my son woke up in the middle of my YouTube yoga session. For my morning yoga, I found “Yoga Body Workout: Free Yoga Class (Vinyasa Yoga 45 min Class) with Lesley Fightmaster“. I really enjoyed the 25 minutes of this program that I was able to complete, plus I really like Fightmaster’s idea that “yoga should be available and free to everyone”. I totally agree and appreciate that I found her Youtube page. I was able to run as I took my son to the sitter today. It is 2km away from our house and I broke up the walk with jogging intervals to and from the sitter. Yay, I ran a little – It is better than nothing.
• Day Two: I began today with a kettlebell warm-up, another beginner kettlebell workout, and then cool-down, all from from ChichiHealthFitness. I finished my workout with this ‘Yoga for Flexiblity and Range of Motion (with Tara Stiles)’ video from LivestrongWomen. I love Youtube. I love the internet, really. It helps my family here in Germany remain in contact with our families back in the USA, allows us to watch television (KIKA, the German children’s channel can be streamed live online) and allows me to lazily mix up my workouts with various trainers to be able to work out at home, for free* (*minus the monthy internet and/or any supplies I think I may include in my workouts).
• Day Three: Here I created my own HIIT workout for the day, just 10 different exercises for thirteen minutes (50 seconds on, 10 seconds rest [there were times I do have to rest for more than the ten seconds, btw]).When I finished with my HIIT workout I completed this  20 minute yoga for flexiblity-level 1 workout from YouTube, with SaraBethYoga. I enjoyed Sara Beth because she just got right to it with her video and the 20 minutes was challenging enough, but was over before I even realized it. I would absolutely return to her videos for more workouts in the future. Combining these two workouts helped me feel really strong, limber and energized throughout the day. I think I even drank less coffee than normal, yay! (All links below should go to video tutorials for specific exercise listed)
  • 1. jumping jacks
  • 2. side-to-side squats or variation here
  • 3. traditional squats
  • 4. alternating leg lunges
  • 5. jumping jacks
  • 6. up/down plank
  • 7. plank with leg lifts
  • 8. shoulder-tap plank
  • 9. jumping jacks
  • 10. butt-kicks
  • 11. single-leg deadlifts with kettlebell, left
  • 12. single-leg deadlifts with kettlebell, right
  • 13. high knees
• Day Four: I find it crazy that some days, working out is HARD, but other days I feel like I could just keep going like Thomas the little engine that could! My hamstrings are stiff, which I was hoping to avoid by beginning to incorporate the yoga into some days workout routines. Alas, here I am. I find that whenever I exercise, even when I was in the best shape, it always felt like I could never stretch out my hammies enough. This is probably a contributing factor to my foot problems. Anyway, feeling stiff in the legs and a little tired I tried to take it easy (ha, easy!) with this HIIT Home workout for beginners, with TheBodyCoachTV. I am not going to lie to you here, I liked taking direction from TheBodyCoach here. His workout kicked my butt, but his British accent was lovely to hear. It may not be for everyone though. I cannot handle too much of the strict RP (received pronunciation) British accent. When that one is too strict it is similar to nails on a chalkboard for me. Sorry folks. At any rate, the point is that I will come back and do another workout or two from this trainer!
• Day Five: When I began this blog, I had the full intention of creating videos of all of my workouts and these workouts would be created by me from the things I have learned from fitness trainers in person and online. However in the end, I had to be honest with myself about what I could really accomplish. î contemplated creating videos of my workouts and weekly ‘diaries’ for a whole week before I realized that I would never begin to document this journey if I was going to vlog it. I was over thinking it way too much. I had already been exercising during that first week and making notes about how I felt and what not, but if I didn’t just start this blog, I never would have. So, here I am. Today I created my own HIIT session, this one for 18 minutes total (50 seconds of hard work, followed by 10 seconds of rest).  When I finished with my HIIT workout, I completed Zuska Light‘s ‘Workout 5: Beginner Kettlebell Workout‘. While this video was less than 12 minutes long, it really made my body work!
  • 1. jumping jacks
    2. squats
    3. kettle bell ‘around the world‘
    4. jumping jacks
    5. high knees
    6. high knees
    7. squats
    8. standing kettlebell tricep curls 
    9. kettlebell single-arm shoulder press, right (with left leg elevated, for extra midsection work)
    10. kettlebell single-arm shoulder press, left (with right leg elevated)
    11. standing chest flies
    12. squats
    13. side-to-side squats (see day four for link to instructional video and variations)
    14. standing kettle bell bicep curls (elevating each leg for 25 seconds, if possible)
    15. standing kettlebell tricep curls
    16. squats
    17. side-to-side squats
    18. high knees
• Day Seven:  Today I completed two workouts. My first was the ‘Fat Burning HIIT Workout‘ with TheBodyCoachTV. I needed a workout to really (really) kick my butt as I was bad yesterday, which I will explain in a moment. The second workout was a kettlebell workout. While I have been working with my kettlebells for about two weeks now, I wanted to double-check that I am using good form, so I found this beginner workout from Agatzu. While I am at it, I found this video on the ‘Kettlebell Workout: Dos and Don’ts, common mistakes‘ which was really informative and educational to ensure a safer and more effective exercise experience.
  Now I’ve got to come clean. Yesterday I took my son to the local pool. He loves (loves!) being in the water! Within about ten minutes of leaving the pool my son fell hard asleep and proceeded to sleep in his pram (stroller) for about two hours. I was starving after our pool time but didn’t want to wake my little one up. So, I went to our little mall (yes, my little German town has an American-style mall) to have Chinese for lunch and people watch. When I was pregnant I fell in love with Chinese crispy (read: fried) chicken and every now and again I enjoy it still. I bought sweet and sour chicken. It was delicious! However, within about five minutes of finishing my lunch I could feel my heart rate pick up and a headache begin to set in. YUCK. Well, I am a glutton for punishment so I also bought a chocolate pastry and milschkaffee (milk coffee aka: German latte). Within three hours I was crashed asleep on the couch. BOOM. I think it was Jennifer Aniston who once said, “Stop eating shit“, indeed Ms Aniston!

I was telling a girlfriend of mine about my no sugar, no alcohol plan for February and she suggested I try a free app called ‘Noom Coach‘ to help me track what I eat and to encourage me to keep on keepin’ on. This darn app showed me just how full of calories my lunch was, which ruined my calorie intake for the day (according to the App). I basically unknowingly ate about 1000 calories for lunch. No wonder I crashed so hard in the afternoon! This food log is different from others I have tried as it doesn’t seem focused on pre-made meals or fast food, although it is an option to choose, which for me is a plus. As I mentioned, this app is free but offers an upgrade for an ‘individualized coach’ which I may or may not do. We’ll see.

Here is the proof of my hard work, can you see a difference yet? Let me tell you, I can feel it!

My inspiration this week is music, specifically Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis.  This guy is from the Northwest (Seattle) and has been pretty open about his (Mackelmore’s) struggles with addiction and all the stuff life throws at him. While I am not as up (current) on music as I used to be, in part because I live in Germany and I have a kid, when The Heist came out, I fell in love! The first single I heard was “Same Love“, which felt like revaluation being broadcast across the world. I played that song LOUD, whenever I could. Then, once I purchased the whole album, I found I couldn’t help but move and think!

How cool is Mackelmore? Here is a long (1:07:29) interview between Hot97 (Seattle radio station) DJs and Mackelmore about race, society, rap and life in general.

and for a good listen, in case you haven’t heard “Can’t Hold Us” as I feel like I am breaking through myself!

See you next week to wrap up this month!