The Road to Serious Fitness

16 weeks out: Shoulders

Faith Keith — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:28:49 +0000

Killer shoulder workout by Kattie Fleece of Fleece Fitness and Momma on the Move blog! I LOVE shoulder day and love getting shoulder workouts from people who love the muscle group – they usually go nuts with it (which is exactly what I want!).

Below is my version of her workout

Shoulders

Do 3 sets of each exercise with minimal breaks in between. 12-15 reps each.

Shoulder Press on Smith Machine @ 30 lbs.
Arnold Press @ 20 lbs.
Front Plate Raises @ 25 lbs.
Shrug to Shoulder Press @ 15 lbs. dumbbells
Upright Rows with Barbell @ 40 lbs.
Rear Delt Cable Pull @ 55 lbs.

“End with SUPERSETS to really feel the burn”

First Set (repeat 3-4 times)
- -Reverse Grip Lat Pulldown @ 85 lbs./12 reps
- -Shoulder Press with Dumbells @ 25 lbs./10 reps
Second Set (repeat 3-4 times)
- -Seated Rows on cables @ 85 lbs./12 reps
- -Lat Raises @ 10 lbs./12 reps

Woot! Great workout. Afterwards I rewarded myself with fresh spinach and green beans dropped, at the last cooking-minute, into my boiling chicken (and homemade stock).

Keepin’ it mean at the gym and clean in the kitchen! Rawr.

I Will Not Sit Idly By

Faith Keith — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:29:13 +0000

I really dislike having no plan. ”Healthy pregnancy” just isn’t cutting it for me to fill the term “Plan”. It is my goal to have a healthy baby, but that is not a plan of action. What is my “plan of action”?

I realize I am eating healthy and going to the gym regularly. But I feel like I’m winging it.

So, today I wrote out my 16 week plan (weeks remaining till due date) – all my workouts are now plotted and written! Nutrition is pretty “lifestyle” for my hubs and I now, so I did not bother writing a plan. Ah….much better…now I feel like I’m not being aimless. Might be a mind game, but hey…whatever it takes.

Head is in the game. Initiate #autobeastmode.

Sweet Cravings

Faith Keith — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:36:00 +0000

I never crave sweets, but golly…the past couple weeks I have been haunted by the sneaky urge. Once every now and then I think its good to “indulge” a little – gotta stay sane – but as a lifestyle I do try to avoid sweets.

Lately, my method to combat the cravings is to do one of the following:

Drink more water and reassess in 15 minutes
Eat handful of berries and almonds
Eat 1/2 C oatmeal with cinnamon and truvia
Gave a small non-fat, sugar free green tea latte
Eat 1/2 cup cottage cheese

Sometimes it just doesn’t cut it, so I finally buckled and baked myself a treat. Check out my clean and SWEET (and chocolate!) recipe: Chocolate-Chip Cakies, Cleaned up!

Issue# 5,798 resolved…now on to Issue #5,799: heartburn haha

23 weeks preggers

Fix Your Recipes: 5 ingredients you can switch for clean ones

Faith Keith — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:44:44 +0000

I love being creative in the kitchen and trying new recipes. The internet and the lovely Tosca Reno, author of The Eat Clean Diet, always have plenty for me to choose from. Lately, I have been having SO much fun in the kitchen converting potentially “bad” recipes into “clean” ones! <

Here are some conversion ratios I am putting into practice lately (I’ll be posting recipes soon as well):

Ingredient	Replace with (all are even exchanges unless otherwise noted)
1 C brown sugar	1 C Stevia + 1/4 C mollasses
white flour	oats or oat flour
butter	coconut oil OR peanut butter OR apple sauce
1 egg	2 egg whites
sour cream	fat free, plain, greek yogurt

Say No to Guilt

Faith Keith — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:18:08 +0000

When I eat bad, I don’t feel guilty. This is partly why I got myself overweight freshman year. HOWEVER, I think it is important NOT to feel guilty if you eat a slice of cake or dig into the bread basket.

WHAT?!

Yes, I really believe it is important to give action and purpose to the way we view our diet. I think it is important to have planned cheats. (deciding before you go to the party if you will or will not graze and how much you will eat). But you know…life sometimes catches us off guard. How we deal with the after-math is key. If you ate too much, don’t beat yourself up with thoughts of “I shouldn’t have”, instead, realize that you wish you hadn’t and formulate a game plan to help you think first next time. Sometimes reminding myself of how I felt after eating X helps me avoid it the next time.

I enjoy food. I enjoy life. If I let my guilt control how I feel then I am at risk of falling from “disciplined” into “obsessed”.

How do you handle cheats? Do you plan them in advance or perhaps have a handy rule like “only what I can fit in my hand…once!”

Injuries Are Like Sour Patch Kids

Faith Keith — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:32:17 +0000

I am called “accident prone”, to which I must say, nay! I merely have fun until it hurts!

One of my snowboarding injuries is coming back to bite me in the butt (kind of literally too)…I had broken my tailbone right off. Now that I am pregnant I supposedly get to experience back pain, but with this old injury I am nearly debilitated.

Extremely frustrating – I’m already dying to hit the gym hard (but told by doc to cut back) and now THIS… *le sigh*

On one hand…I love injuries – they are memoirs of great times, chances taken, limits pushed. On the other hand…they haunt you. The sweet then sour reality…

–

PS. check out my sister (also “a chaser of good times”). She just started blogging while she is recovering from shattering her pelvis doing a jump in the terrain park (snowboarding). Our mom, bless her heart, often told us growing up (and still does) “I wish I could just put you in a cage” or “I hope you hurry up and get married to someone tame who will knock some sense into you”
schnitfaced.wordpress.com

Staying Organized

Faith Keith — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:09:19 +0000

I have yet to encounter a fitness athlete who did not enforce organization in their life. It is simply a must to make it all happen.

—-

Laundry, cooking, dishes, cleaning….and that’s just after a full day’s work, gym, church music practice, QT, meeting up with friends. I want to make sure I have time to get it all in, but spending time with my husband is my top prio, so sometimes a few or all of these things can take the sidelines.

Of course, the next thing would be to lecture on “cutting back” or “learning to say ‘No’”, but I am going to skip all that. We’ve heard it before. We’re down to the bare necessities now, so …the question still stands…HOW DO I MAKE IT ALL WORK LIKE A WELL OILED MACHINE?!

For my personality, “systems” work best. Routines.

The Ready, Set, Go

I bought small rectangular baskets for my shelves (to organize bath products, hand towels, toilet paper, everything…)
purged my closet of items and put into categories:
- to be donated
- to be junked
- to be stored
purged my bathroom and laundry closets
- expired products that are definitely unusable
- excess items I don’t need or can be donated
purged and re-organized dressers

Stayin’ Alive

Laundry: as soon as it is done, we fold. No more leaving it for later.

Clutter Prevention: If we touch it, we trash it, deal with it, or put it aside with a definite time of when we WILL handle it. This includes mail.

Week day meals: Food prep is done on the weekends so I can whip any dinner up in about 10-20 minutes tops. Lean enchiladas, Clean stir fry, Pad Thai, ginger soy salmon, stuffed herb chicken, you name it. Things like boiling chicken in bulk and/or portioning meat (by quantity needed for a meal) help greatly reduce the stress of weeknight cooking. I keep a couple days worth in the fridge and the rest goes to freezer to be used later in the week. I only prep a week’s worth at a time so nothing ever gets freezer burn taste PLUS…no sense spending all day in the kitchen prepping a year’s worth of food . Take-out? No thank you!

We’ll see how this goes…currently on week 2 of the newly-revised organized Keith household.

How do you stay organized? Any tips you care to share?

Fit Pregnancy: Month 4

Faith Keith — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:19:59 +0000

Welp, that wraps up month 4! I’m up eight pounds and feeling amazing. Gym and the local running trails have been really great to me, but my doc did have to tell me to scrub back a bit on intensity. I have the wonderful privilege of having a doctor who is VERY familiar with the bodybuilding world because her husband competes! I am very open with her about my workouts and diet because I want to do what’s best for my baby. This week apparently I pushed too hard. (I guess blacking out should have been my sign to stop, but…like an idiot, I kept going.)

Nutrition. My doc advised that I have a small meal/snack before my workout to help with dizziness, but ALSO told me that post-workout I should replace some calories burned. So cottage cheese + apple slices have been a new go-to.

Second Trimester [Meal Plan and Workouts]

Faith Keith — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:24 +0000

[Meal Plan Sample]

Meal 1: Green Smoothie: (3-4 cups spinach, 1 scoop vanilla protein (or 1/2 C greek yogurt), 1 cup frozen berries or mixed fruit, 1/2 banana, 1 1/2 cup water)
Meal 2: 1 Cup Greek yogurt with sliced almonds (about 8-10 almonds) + berries if I needed something sweet
Meal 3: Chicken Salad in whole wheat 1/2 pita (with sliced avocado, bean sprouts, pickle bits and peppers)
Meal 4: 1 Cup fat free cottage cheese and a small apple (you could sub the apple for wheat thins OR Apple slices with 1 Tbsp All-natural peanut butter)
Meal 5:4-5 Egg whites with veggies
Meal 6: Fish and steamed veggies (or sometimes boiled as a soup)

[Workouts]

I got back to running 5ks and am running one nearly every Saturday! My week typically looks like this:

Monday: Legs
Tuesday: Back/shoulders/chest + light cardio (short jog, elliptical, bike, stairmill, or walking)
Wednesday: Arms + Run (for distance)
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Full Body + light cardio (short jog, elliptical, bike, stairmill, or walking)
Saturday: 5k Race

ENERGY!!!! [full week of workout routines]

Faith Keith — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:49:35 +0000

What will I do with all this new energy?!

: *GASP* I'll go to the gym!!!

Rawr. Workout like a pregnant lady, what! ^__^ This was/is my week of workouts this week. 16 weeks and it feels SO. GREAT. to be back at the gym and killing it. My diet is pretty awesome too now that I have less food aversions. Sa-weeeeet!

Monday – Legs
Smith machine warm up squats light weight or no weight. 2 x50.
3×15 squats medium weight
3×15 leg extensions superset with standing lunges 15 ea. side.
3×20 Seated leg curls
3×20 leg extensions
3×15 bench step ups with weight..15 each leg.
5 x30 calves (raises)
Do 10 minutes of abs after the end of workout utilizing machines and crunches.
Total of 250 reps.

Tuesday – Shoulders, back and chest
Circuit 1: 3×15 Smith machine shoulder press (1 set light for warm up)
Pull ups 3×15 (assisted)
Push ups 3×20
Bent over dbell fliees 4x 20
Circuit 2:
Lateral dbell raise 3×15
Wide grip pull downs 3×15
Upright row 3×15
Rear delt rope pulls 3×20
End of workout do 50 pushups

Wednesday – Arms
Circuit 1: dbell curls drop set 12lbs. for 15 reps, 10lbs. for 15 reps then 8lbs for 25 reps. right into dbell skull crushers 3×20 superset with bench dips 3×30. repeat these 3x through.
Circuit 2: Triceps cable push downs 4×15 Bicep curls 4×15
Crossover pushups 4x 10 each way

Thursday – Legs
Stationary squats 50 reps
Walking lunges 3×60 steps regular, diagnol and double.
Bench Step ups 3×15
Lateral side squats 3×15
Lunges with back foot on bench 3×30.
Straight leg dead lifts 3×25
Leg curls 3×25

Friday: Total body day!

Saturday: 5k Race

Sunday: REST, oh sweet, blessed rest day!