Day Five

Today I felt stronger than yesterday.  I was a bit fatigued, but I just kept it slow and steady and I reached another mountain top.  This is my second mountain top this week!

We started out today with cardio as usual.  This morning's cardio was Cardio Kick Boxing.  Another circuit cardio training and strengthening workout.  It was fun, I can really punch hard!  We had a shadow boxing, abs and the works.

Then we had breakfast, yogurt and granola parfait.

Immediately following we had an exercise design class and talked about how to maintain our fitness level after this experience.  I learned the importance of continuing to shock your body.  Exercise design should include a mixture of aerobic, anaerobic, circuit/cross-training, and flexibility.  What do each of those mean?

• Aerobic means cardio or anything that is heart rate intensive.  For example: boxing, hiking, biking, Zumba, walking (3.5mph or faster or uphill), running etc.
• Anaerobic means resistance training and strengthening.  For example: resistance band training, weight lifting
• Circuit/Cross training is a combination of aerobic and anaerobic.  For example: bootcamps, interval training, etc. 
• Flexibility is yoga and other forms of stretching that increase your range of movement

It is important to incorporate 2-3 of each type of exercise into your plan every week.  For weight loss, we should be exercising 5 times per week, at least 60 minutes per day.  For more optimal results 80 minutes per day is better.  

Oftentimes men lift too many weights and don't do enough cardio, and women do the opposite and don't include enough strength training.  Both are needed for results.  More muscle burns more fat when you're in the cardio zone.

Okay that's it for my free lesson.

After the class we had another extreme boot camp on the lawn.  There were different stations such as chest pull, punching bag drag, rope lifting, stability ball knee crunches, and pulling your partner across the field with resistance bands.  The last one I mention was a challenging one.  The more your partner pulled back on the resistance, the more you had to push to get across the field.  During my second go round, I asked the trainer to run with me so I could try to push a little harder.  And I ran instead of walked across with him trying to pull me back.  It was really tough, but I felt really good to complete it.  I feel like I'm getting much stronger.

After boot camp we had lunch then went to Whole Foods for healthy grocery shopping tips.  Jessica, the nutritionist, brought us through each isle and talked about the harms of preservatives, what to look for on the label, and many other tips.  For example:

• all natural peanut butter is more healthy than skippy or peter pan.  
• Not all protein bars are created equal, they are often high in sugar.  I.e. Zone bars have 15g of sugar, which is equal to a bowl of frosted flakes.  Think Thin and Jay Bar are some of the healthier protein bars in whole foods.  
• You should not consume more than 7 grams of sugar in one serving of anything, therefore we have to beware of sugar levels in cereals, salad dressing, and lots of other things.  You should have a good protein to carbohydrate ratio in all foods you eat, at the very least 4 carbs to every 1 protein.  We should always add protein to carbs to make us feel full faster.
• In cereal, Kashi is a good choice, but beware of Go Lean brand that is high in sugar, most are over 7g
• Uncured bacon is the most healthy if you can't go for turkey bacon
• Look for food/meat without nitrate, ask for nitrate free deli meat
• The serving size for deli meat is 2 oz. so ask for a precut 2 ounces so you know how many slices per serving before they slab them all on there
• The more orange a cheese is the more processed it is, that is why mozzarella string cheese is one of the healthiest
• Whole grain is best in pastas, breads, pitas, crackers, etc.
• Canned foods are high in sodium, look for low sodium canned foods and soups
• Soda expands the stomach and makes you eat more, if you must have soda have Zevia made with a non-sugar sweetener
• Agave nectar is a nice replacement for maple syrup
• Arrowhead Mills Buckwheat, or other whole wheat pancakes are a good substitute for regular pancakes, and you can add protein powder in the pancake mix to get closer to your carb protein ratio
• Look for yogurt that has less than 12-15 grams of sugar, if you don't like Greek yogurt that has protein, add protein powder to your yogurt.  Avoid flavored yogurt and add Truvia and your own fruit to flavor.  Same with oatmeal, and steel-cut is the best
• Udos Oil and Flaxseed oil are good for arthritis 

Ok that's the end of the second free lesson.

After the supermarket run we went on our final workout of the day, the double peak challenge.  It wasn't  a hike exactly because the road was paved, but it was uphill the entire way.  A steep steep hill!

This is a bad picture of the hill I came up, of what was behind me.

 This is a photo of what was in front of me:

 And this is a picture of the view from up there

It was amazing, I'm starting to see why people love California so much.

And then I reached the mountaintop!  Or the top of the double peak.  And saw this: 

And it was worth the climb.

After this climb, we returned back for dinner of an appetizer salad and turkey, sweet potatoes and mixed vegetables.