Tag Archive for workouts

THANK YOU, Weekly Workouts, and A Challenge

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First of all, THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for the feedback on my post on How I Quit Cardio.

I’ve had several people even stop me on the streets, at the gym, and via Facebook,  to tell me how much they enjoyed it. I’ll definitely be writing more posts like that in the future. Shoot me a line if there are any heavy topics you’d like me to write about. I’ve been down A LOT of roads in this health and fitness world…. FitLizzio (at) gmail (dot) com

I’m getting pretty good at this disappearing act, aren’t i? I apologize! I’m working my tail off and haven’t been finished with work until midnight on most nights. I just can’t bring myself to write after a 12-15 hour day of work. This won’t always be the case, but it is for now, so I’m going to blog when I can. I’ll try to at least get 1-2 posts per week up, but I’d rather give you guys quality posts and not just throw together a kamikaze post just to get something up.

First of all, I got to hang with this little dude last weekend. He is the coolest baby in the world. He loves to laugh, make jokes, and just be awesome. Love my nephew so much!!

He's so tough.

He’s so tough.

It was so great spending time with my family in AZ last weekend. I can’t wait until I get to go back in a few weeks! I miss them all.

Last week’s workouts:

Monday: 20 Minutes on the Stairmill – High Intensity + Bouldering – Medium Intensity

Tuesday: Full Body Workout – Medium Intensity

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Legs – High Intensity

Friday: Taught Conditioning (more on that below) + Upper Body – Medium Intensity

Saturday: Bouldering – Medium Intensity

Sunday: Legs/Shoulders/Abs – High Intensity

A pretty decent week of workouts! I was definitely pretty sore by Saturday, so I took it easy and just did some bouldering at the rock climbing gym. This was my first week back in 3 weeks, and I definitely noticed. I’m going to try to get back to my 2-3 day/week schedule again.

So I mentioned above that I taught conditioning on Friday. Long story short, an instructor didn’t show up to a class, so I jumped in and taught the conditioning portion of it…….AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!! I have never taught group exercise (just personal training) and it was a total blast. I’m definitely going to see if I can sub in every now and then. I think the people in class love/hated me, too. I’m an evil instructor, but you’ll thank me later! 😉

Here’s my plan for the coming week:

Week of Workouts

Meal Plan:

My friend and I are going to be embarking on a little challenge beginning tomorrow. I’ll be posting the details, our measurements, weight, and progress photos. We both feel like we want to work a bit harder when it comes to our diets, so we’re going in this together.

Stay tuned for more info……you’re welcome to join us!

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I’ll be back on Tuesday with the details of our little challenge.

Would you be interested in an online health challenge?

How did you navigate your Father’s Day food choices?

 

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Weekend, Filming, Workouts, Pawn Shops!

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Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! Mine was pretty low-key, but I think that was much-needed after Friday’s long day.

Friday was the 2nd filming day for the WBBC At-Home Fitness Program! We were in the sun for about 6.5 hours, did 4 workouts, and lots of other speaking footage. It was a ton of fun, but a ton of work, too! If you’re interested in the program, you can click this link to get on our waiting list. 😉

I’m a total doophus and forgot to wear sunscreen.

Ouch.

Ouch.

(Funny story about that “Kiss Me” balloon….it’s from Valentine’s day!! Charlie and I are trying to see how long it will stay inflated. Best.balloon investment.ever, if you ask me.)

The camera man and I have some very funny farmer’s tans going on!

His and Hers Sunburns

His and Hers Sunburns

I’m not trying to make light of these sunburns. It’s obviously extremely dangerous, but we were just so frazzled in the morning that we both forgot sunscreen. :-/ Live and learn.

Here are some shots from the filming:

Lizzy and Anna

Lizzy and Anna

 

Lunge

Lunge

 

Perfect Stretch

Perfect Stretch

Anyways, I’m really excited for this to come out!

After filming and working out in the sun all day, we were STARVING. We found an AWESOME little Hawaiian burger shack nearby called, Shaka Shack Burgers. AMAZING. The sweet potato fries were probably the best I’ve ever heard. SUPER GREASY and DELICIOUS haha. I ordered the Turkey Burger and it was pretty awesome too.

Saturday

Charlie and I always talk about going to pawn shops to see if we can luck out with some smokin’ deals. It’s much more difficult these days since you can find out what everything is worth on the internet. We finally decided that this was the day we would actually go look!

We drove to Hollywood and went to a few different pawn shops. There was definitely some interesting stuff in them, but ultimately, we walked away empty handed. We ALMOST got a really killer deal on a vintage microphone, but alas, it didn’t work. Womp, womp.

We finished around 4:30pm and decided to go to the Arclight to see Neighbors.

Neighbors_(2013)_PosterThis movie definitely had some hilarious moments, but overall, I’d give it a 7. Probably best to wait for it to come out on DVD, which nowadays should be about 2 weeks! Haha. (Remember when you used to have to wait MONTHS AND MONTHS for a movie to come out just for RENTAL….buying it was like a year. Crazy how times have changed.)

We finished off the night by making dinner, baking cookies (YUM) and watching Dexter.

Sunday

I woke up earlier than Charlie and started cleaning the house. Eventually he joined me and then we headed to the gym for a workout. We did the following supersets (weights/reps are mine…Charlie is stronger than me and did more weight plus higher box jumps):

Superset #1:

4 Sets of

-Medicine Ball Thrusters (16 lb ball x 15 reps)

-DB Push Ups w/ Rotation (10 lb DBs x 8 reps)

Superset #2:

4 Sets of

Heavy Deadlifts (139 lbs x 10 reps)

Burpee-Pull Ups (bw x 5 reps)

Superset #3:

2 Sets of

DB Shoulder Press (25lb DBs x 8 reps)

Box Jumps (24 inc. x 10 reps)

 

Charlie also helped me work on my form for box jumps. I was doing the 24 inch box, which I’ve done many times before, but my form wasn’t great. With the tips he gave me, I’m ready to tackle the tall 30 inch box. Just need to get some cajones, that’s all!

Some fun slo-mo videos of us!

That’s all I’ve got today! I’ll be back tomorrow morning with my workout plans for the week!

 

Have you ever been to a pawn shop?

Ever found a REALLY cool steal while at a pawn shop?

 

 

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My Weekend and Workouts to Try!

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Good morning friends! Here’s to a great and productive week!

I had a pretty great weekend. It was a mix of work/relaxation, but that was just what needed to happen. I have a lot on my plate and sometimes taking a Saturday to get some work done makes me much less stressed out. I have a hard time taking a break when there is SO much to do. Hoping this lightens my week a bit.

Even still, I was able to get a lot of work done and STILL just relax.

Listen to this! Friday night, as we were driving home from our friend’s house, we saw this:

fire

This was a CRAZY fire with tons of explosions. I was freaking out. They finally got it under control, but holy cow it was massive! That is definitely the biggest fire I’ve ever seen. I have a new respect for fire fighters for SURE. I was about a 1/2 mile away from this and it was scary even from afar. I can’t imagine having to go right into it! Thankfully, I don’t think anyone was hurt.

 

Last week’s workouts: 

Wednesday: Since Tuesday was spent filming, I took it a bit easy on Wednesday. I walked on the treadmill for about 20 minutes just to shake my muscles out. I was pretty sore and tired, but it felt good to move a little bit. Sneak peek below!

push up

Thursday: I was planning to take a boxing class, but things changed and I ended up just doing a full body workout. I felt REALLY GOOD in this workout. I ended up doing supersets of the following:

-Deadlifts & Chin Ups (4 supersets and 1 extra set of deadlifts)

-DB Shoulder Press & KB Swings (3 supersets)

-DB Step Ups & Jumping Step Ups (one leg at a time, meaning I did 15 DB step ups and went right into 15 Jumping step ups before moving on to my other leg. It is definitely a leg BURNER) (2 supersets)

Friday: Crossfit- We’re prepping to do Murph at the end of the month, so the workout we did was geared towards working up to that. We did:

20 min. AMRAP

400m Run

10 Pull Ups

20 Push Ups

30 Squats

I made it through 2 rounds and 5 additional pull ups. Killer!!!

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: Chest & Legs w/ Charlie

We did:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 reps

KB Goblet Squats

KB Swings

Barbell Bench Press

It was a great workout and took us exactly 32 minutes!

Fitness Plan for May 5 – May 11

Today: Bouldering + HIIT

Tuesday: Boxing

Wednesday: Full Body Heavy Lift

Thursday: Bouldering

Friday: Filming Workouts again…

Saturday: REST

Sunday: Hike

As always, that’s the plan, but we will see how the week goes!

When it comes to fitness, what do you consider yourself?

Beginner? Moderate Fitness? Fitness Freak? Athlete?

I train with the mindset of an athlete, but in reality, I’m probably at a moderate to advanced fitness level. I know this, but keeping the athlete mindset definitely helps me push myself.  

 

 

 

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Workout Plan 3/31 – 4/5 + Why I Work on Sundays

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A brand new week and the closing of a month! How has March treated everyone?

Mine was pretty good:

–I worked out a lot

–I visited family in AZ (Twice!)

–The earth in SoCal moved a lot! (got another one on Friday night!)

–I watched a lot of Dexter and did other random things

i-hate-mondays

 

Why I Work on Sundays 

For most people, the weekend is a time to relax and catch up on life outside of work. I agree to a certain extent (although I find myself working whenever I’m not being occupied with something else) but also reserve Sunday afternoons for work.

Most of you probably think I’m crazy. Sunday evenings are a time to relax, watch TV, do something fun, etc. I try to squeeze all of that in on Saturdays and Sunday mornings.

Here is why I like to work on Sunday afternoons: 

– It gives me a chance to get ahead. Why put off to tomorrow what I can do today? My Mondays are usually overloaded with meetings and to-dos, so getting a little bit ahead with things that I can do the day before is helpful.

-My phone and e-mail aren’t blowing up. Guys, I carry two cell phones and have about 5 different e-mail addresses. I’m your typical LA girl who’s talking on one cell phone while texting/e-mailing on another. It’s sad and I’m not proud of it, but for now, it’s what I’ve got to do. I love my work and jobs (although sometimes overwhelming and stressful) so for now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sunday evenings, my phone is SILENT. No e-mails (not even junk e-mails), no phone calls, and very few text messages. I can work on something and not get sidetracked, pulled away by something more important, or be completely unfocused. There is a zen about being able to work when everything is quiet.

-I feel accomplished and ready for the week ahead. Getting into “work-mode” the night before helps make my Mondays less stressful. It gets my head back in the “hustle” state of mind and allows for Monday morning to be that much less of an “oh my gosh i have 5 million things to do RIGHT NOW” kind of morning.

So there you have it. Working on Sunday afternoons doesn’t make sense for some people that don’t have jobs that require almost 24/7 attention, and it just isn’t for everybody. Some people would rather just start back up on Monday, and that’s totally fine. My brain just can’t handle it and I feel much more sane getting some things done early.

With that said…..

Workout Plan for the Week

Monday: Full Body Workout + Climb

Tuesday: Boxing

Wednesday: HIIT + Climb

Thursday: CrossFit + Full Body Functional

Friday: Climb

Saturday: Full Body Workout OR Hike

Sunday: Rest

What is your fitness plan for the week?

Do you work on the weekends? 

Do you like what you do?

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Vacation Help and Random AZ Photos

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It’s that time of the year where the hype of New Year’s is over, spring is upon us (although here in L.A. I’m pretty sure spring is still sprung from last year) and everyone is starting to think about vacations. Is it just me?!

Dana Point circa....2007?

Dana Point circa….2007?

My birthday is on Monday. My birthday was always around Spring Break when I was in school, so maybe that’s why I think of vacations. Who knows! Regardless, I was thinking about where I want to go on my next vacation. I do light traveling throughout the year, but sometime this year, I want to take a REAL vacation. Like, longer than a weekend and not to my hometown. I feel like there are SO many places that I want to go, so it’s been hard to narrow it down. Thoughts so far: Seattle, Cabo San Lucas (been there but want to go back), Alaska, Washington D.C/New York, or Chicago (I have family there). HELP ME PICK  A VACATION SPOT!

Okay, moving on...this week has been a whirlwind. I drove back to L.A. from Phoenix on Tuesday. I was actually making AMAZING time until I hit this

Lovely Los Angeles Traffic

Lovely Los Angeles Traffic

I definitely knew I was home…

Tuesday’s workout at my old stomping grounds was awessssooommmmmeee. I did some heavy squats, push-ups with dumbbells and a rotation, chin-ups, walking lunges with a barbell, kettlebell swings, and snatches. My glutes are definitely feeling the soreness from it! I always like to kick my ass (literally) right before a long car ride. It makes it easier to sit in a car for 6 hours.

Other random pictures from my trip back to AZ

Lux Cafe Central

Lux Cafe Central

Tuesday morning we stopped by Lux Cafe in Phoenix. My dad is always going on about it, so I finally tried it. The verdict? In the words of Chris Farley…It.. was… AWESOME! The coffee was realllly good and the egg white sandwich I got was even better! I devoured it in .9384 seconds as seen below.

Twas an egg sandwich from heaven

Twas an egg sandwich from heaven

It had fire roasted tomatoes, egg whites, and cheese on an english muffin. Best egg sandwich of my life right there. Worst looking photo of my life right there. Balance, people.

We also made a pit stop at See’s candy. My dad’s girlfriend introduced me to their Butterscotch lollipops this weekend. Let’s just say it’s a new addiction. The bright side is that they are only 80 calories and take about 30 minutes to eat just one. Therefore, I deem them the PERFECT treat.

Samples? Yes, please!

Samples? Yes, please!

I’ve been working like crazy since I got back and haven’t had a ton of time to blog, but I AM planning on shooting some videos for the blog in the next week….so I ask you this…

What would you like to see in my fitness videos?

Specific Exercises? Full Workouts? Certain body part focused workouts? How To’s on form?

Let me know in the comments please!!

 

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Gotta Tabata

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The title of this post highlights the thoughts in my head yesterday morning. I woke up and decided to get my workout done right away so I could get started on some work and not worry about it. I had a lot of things to do, and knew I needed to get my workout out of the way early. At some point in this conversation in my head (don’t act like you don’t do this!!) I said, “Well, I guess I gotta tabata!” And then I laughed to myself like a dork.

Since I was up in the mountains yesterday, I knew my workout would be done indoors. Totally fine by me! Sometimes my bodyweight-only workouts get me sweating more than the ones at the gym! Not belonging to a gym is NO excuse.

So what is Tabata? Well, it’s debatable. HOWEVER, the widely known version of Tabata in the fitness world goes like this:

1. Pick any exercises you want!

2. Find a Tabata timer like the one here.

3. Typical settings should give you 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, and 8 cycles. (Of course you can do more of less cycles if you’d like and you can add and subtract time as well, but this is the standard).

4. GET IT!

Here’s what I did. Since each cycle takes exactly 4 minutes, this workout took me just 20 minutes to do. And it kicked my bootayyy! I encourage you to try this! Use these exercises, or any exercises of your choosing!

gottatabata

 

**Always check with a doctor before starting a new fitness program

Questions of the Day:

Have you ever Tabata’d? What do you think of it?

 

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Workout Plan + Weekend Pics

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Traveling always makes me lose track of the days and times. This weekend, I was in Arizona spending time with my family. I’m here until Tuesday, but I’m feeling like I have no sense of anything! Strange how that is.

Thursday was spent driving, so I took it as a rest day and left it at that. By Friday, I was itching for a workout. I didn’t have much time, so I created my own workout in my dad’s living room.

5 Rounds of: 

-10 Squats

-5 Push Ups

-10 Jump Squats

-15 V-Ups

-10 Jumping Lunges

Afterwards, I did 3 sets of:

-15 Wide Stance Squats (holding my laptop bag filled with cans of beans as a weight!!)

-10 Burpees

This workout took me about 15 or 20 minutes and was the perfect heart rate boost/sweat sesh. You really can get a great workout ANYWHERE!

On Saturday morning, the boyfriend and I headed to the gym for a workout. We did a mixture of Deadlifts, Pull Ups, Glute Kicks on the Reverse Hyper, and DB Military Press. We finished off with a burner using the sled. It was pretty killer and we were both WIPED afterwards.

Workout Plan for the Week: 

Monday: Home Workout (Probably similar to what I did Friday)

Tuesday: Full Body Workout at the gym

Wednesday: CrossFit + Rock Climbing

Thursday: Heavy Lift + Boxing

Friday: 15 min. HIIT + Rock Climbing

Saturday: CrossFit

Sunday: Hike

This is tentative and likely will fluctuate a little bit, but it’s where I’m starting.

And for your viewing pleasure, some photos from the last few days!

AZ Sunrise

AZ Sunrise

 

 

My little bro and I :-)

My little bro and I 🙂

Country Car on a Country Road

Country Car on a Country Road

 

Beautiful Mountain Scenery

Beautiful Mountain Scenery

 

My babe and I in the mountains!

My babe and I in the mountains!

Feeling thankful this weekend for the people in my life. Life is a crazy road and lately it has been testing me, but I’m just taking things one day at a time and making sure I take care of myself. Eating healthy, working out, working hard, and enjoying the moments.

Question of the Day: 

What are you MOST thankful for?

What are some ways you “slow it down” when you’re feeling overwhelmed?