Friday, June 21, 2013

HIIT Training/Tabata Workout

As I'm sure many of you already know, HIIT (also known as high intensity interval training) workouts are really popular. There are plenty of classes, DVDs, and web videos that show you how to do several different exercises very quickly in short bursts of time. HIIT workouts have lots of perks. For example, they rev your metabolism to keep you burning calories for hours after your workout. These workouts burn fat and calories while simultaneously building muscle. Muscle burns more calories than fat, even when you're not working out, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn during low intensity, everyday activities.

Recently, I've discovered tabata, one type of HIIT exercise. During a tabata workout, you do one exercise, push-ups, for example, at your maximum effort for twenty seconds, then you have ten seconds of rest. You repeat this cycle of twenty seconds on/ten seconds off with the same exercise eight times. In just those four minutes of exercise, you can burn up to 600 calories.  Sounds easy enough, right? Well, I can tell you first hand, that a tabata workout is no walk in the park. The first time I tried doing a tabata, I died after about the fourth circuit of the first move. I definitely needed the motivation from my friend, Selena to get through it. It was pretty difficult. Tabata definitely kicked my butt and I left the gym feeling sore but so accomplished. It was totally worth the sweat and effort.

Tabata is also a crazy great workout to do at home because you can choose to do moves that don't require weights or other equipment. You can do entire tabata workout using only your body weight and it would still be super effective! I made up my own tabata workout and did it in my basement. By the time I was done, my legs felt like jell-o and I couldn't lift my arms. The next day, I was super duper sore but I knew that my workout had been good. Here's



Here's the workout I did. Give it a shot and let me know what you think! :)

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Fresh Mango-Strawberry Salad

Today was a very busy day. My grandparents came over this morning to spend the day with my family and support my sister, who graduated from the 8th grade this afternoon. I'm so proud of her and I'm really excited to see how she enjoys high school but at the same time, it's so weird to think that my cute little sis' is going to be a high-school kid next year. She can't possibly be growing up that quickly, right? Anyways, after her graduation, everyone came back to our house for lunch and socialization before heading to my mom's and my soccer game. Needless to say, it was a pretty busy day.

As I have said plenty of times already, this summer is my "get-your-butt-in-gear" summer. So far I'm doing a pretty good job eating healthy and getting in at least a little bit of exercise everyday. I hope to post a new workout soon. Today for lunch I decided I was sick of my usual cup of non-fat greek yogurt and wasn't feeling much like eating greasy cook-out food, so I experimented a little bit and came up with this amazingly light and tasty salad that left me full until dinner.

Ingredients:

Handful fresh spinach (no stems)
Handful green leaf lettuce
1/2 mango cubed
4-6 strawberries sliced
1/4 tomato chopped
1 tbsp. Craisins
2 tbsp. Walden's Non-fat Raspberry Vinaigrette
*Optional: sliced raw almond or other nut

Directions:

I think it's pretty self explanatory but basically you just chop up all the fruit, add all the ingredients into a bowl and toss until you have tasty, summery salad!

This salad tasted like summer and instantly made me feel happier and more energetic. I still have a lot of fruit and greens left over so I'll be having plenty of salads for quite a while! Yum!