Bootcamp, yoga, rest & ... run!

Monday bootcamp plank!

I barely could walk when woke up Friday morning at 6:35 to go the morning bootcamp. It wasn’t the easiest training session for me, as my muscles were really not up for any kind of training, just some little voice in my head kept saying that I HAVE to train.. so I sort of did, wasn’t my best performance, but I did what I was able to do with this body at that moment. After shower I put magnesium oil to my legs, to help the recovery! ..

Thursday I thought that some yoga will do good to my already then sore legs, and headed to a yoga lesson at the Sportclub Het Eiland, also was curious how their new renovated premises look like. Yoga room was very warm, so was almost sweating just lying down on the floor, and no it was hot a hot yoga session. It was Vinyasa yoga, and for a yoga novice like myself, I didn’t really know what to expect. So it was not soft stretching session, but actually I had to work with my legs, abs, shoulders, back, etc.. and yes will go back, the instructor was nice enough to mix English and Dutch so I wasn’t totally lost when it was impossible to see what she was doing.

Oh, and when did I get these sore legs, that was on Wednesday. Wednesday evening Antwerp Bootcamp was a very “squatty”, I think I squatted around 1,75 million times, or more. It was nice small group training, as it seemed like most of the people thought the training wouldn’t take place as it was a public holiday, so only four of us showed up, including one newbie. I always like when new people join the bootcamps, sort of gives you perspective that where you have been yourself or you are impressed how well some people do even though it’s their first session. This time I saw myself in her, though I did smile more, even when it was my first bootcamp training ;) .. but I think she was overwhelmed about the intensity of the training and didn’t see any reason to be happy .. But really hope she got the endorphins after the training and will return again.

It has been very bootcampy week, on Friday morning it was my third session – was planning to do the fourth bootcamp today but my legs are still too sore for bootcamp. As said it was A LOT of squads, oh and lunges on Wednesday and quite heavy on legs in yoga, and those legs were not let “in peace” on Friday either. Also I have to assume that I really did my best in the training as my legs have taken their time to recover.. I think only time when I don’t feel super bad about having rest days, is when I really am too sore to train. Today (Sunday) has been the first day that it has been easy to move, get up from a sofa without whining, and been walking faster than a zombie.

Usually I take rest days when I don’t have time to train, or I am super ill or super sore muscles. Now my plan is to add some yoga to my schedule which I think is a very good balance with bootcamps; and the yoga in Het Eiland seem to be quite good.. Based on two sessions with two different instructors. Next week I think I will have two or three rest days, as I am going to Finland for a couple of days, and quite often I am too tired and don’t find time on the days when I fly and I have only one full day in Finland. So my flight days most probably will become rest days.

Don’t know how well people plan their weeks around trainings, and plan their rest days etc. For me it is very difficult to add a rest day on purpose, usually I plan full week of training, and let myself to take a rest day or two when I really need it or something comes up. But the most important form of rest, I take seriously, which is sleep, I try to sleep every night around 8 hours. Not always possible but most of the weeknights I manage to sleep 7.5 – 8 hours per night. That keeps my mood good and gives energy to train and work. 



Excellent remedy for sore body!



 

Plan for next week:

Monday: a 6 KM run

Tuesday: rest as flying to Finland

Wednesday: BodyPump 

Thursday: most likely another rest day

Friday: morning bootcamp

Saturday: pump session in Het Eiland

Sunday: yoga at het Eiland or Antwerp Bootcamp 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.. should start making a mealplans too.. that's on the schedule once I am back from Finland :)

 

And now I think I can head for a run!

 



Training & weight loss

I started losing weight sort of by an accident. I got a gym membership, and only thing I knew what to do there was to train with the cross trainer. I also got one free PT session as I subscribed there, but it did not really give me much, honestly cannot even recall what that short session consisted of. I started going to that gym once a day for about an hour, excluding the weekends, cross training. Then after about month or two of training, I noticed that I had lost weight. Still remember where it happened, I was visiting a friend of mine in Hamburg, and she had a scale so carefully stepped on it and noticed that I had lost 8 kg!! This happened just adding exercise to my daily routines. Although, for a seriously overweight person it is easy to lose the first 10 or so kilos.

After that, I started to be a bit more careful what I ate, no Pizza hut every week, or Kinder Bueno 5-pack in one go. Didn’t follow any particular diets, just started to eat lower kcal food in the evening, which meant a lot of soups. Also started avoiding pasta, bread & potatoes at lunch. Sport-wise added group sessions to my routines, as sudden weight loss increased my confidence to join them at the gym.  This helped me to increase the weight loss up to -20 kg. This was at the end of 2012.

Then I moved to Antwerp, met my boyfriend and many other great people, which for a while cut down the time I was able to train and increased the amount of wine I consumed per week. Luckily, my weight remained around the same level +/-3 kg, until I fell with my bike in autumn 2014.

I fell with my bike onto my shoulder, and it broke, which meant I couldn’t really train for a while. And since I was in a bit of pain, it meant I NEED pizza, and we ate countless times Dominos pizzas! So that my weight went up around 5-6 kg. With a help of physiotherapy, I started to dare to use my shoulder again, and slowly started to jog a bit and in the spring of 2015 I hired a PT who brought my training up to a new level. I never thought that I was in that bad shape, as I felt after the training sessions with him. Remember when I had problems to get off the tram after the training, or walk in fact. However, I love that kind of pain; you feel that you have done something.

Now last two years I have trained with my PT, and joined bootcamps which are similar to the PT sessions except no 100% attention to me, but shared attention (read: you can cheat a bit :P). This is in addition to gym group sessions and jogging.

Hmm.. A lot of about training and my idea was to write how lazy I was last week.. As I see it laziness when I only go for a run, no group sessions, bootcamps or personal training, just putting my running shoes on and heading outside for a 5.5 k run. It is sort of an easy option, just like when I started training and went to the gym to do cross training – easy and safe. Nobody pushing you. Well I did go to BodyPump lesson on Sunday, so now I have slightly sore legs at least, and today I have it the plan to go to the bootcamp.

Oh and back to my weight, it hasn’t really dropped anymore, but varies +/-5 kg.. I wish one could lose weight just by training.. Food is key, and so difficult! Usually I manage to eat better when I keep track of everything I eat. Which gives me an idea, I will start again as of tomorrow, a food diary in Instagram! #jennysfooddiary

From Saturday's jog with Maroun :)
I so can pose :D

Introduction

Recently been thinking of things that I enjoy in my life (in addition to my dear boyfriend of course), and came up with the following: training, good coffee, arts & crafts and photography. I also enjoy writing, despite it’s not my strongest skill especially in English, but if you ever tried to write in Finnish you understand why I use English. Therefore I thought to combine these five areas of my life and start writing a new blog. Oh and almost forgot.. food! I love food too :D .. And trying to learn to enjoy cooking

Firstly I enjoy training, despite sometimes it feels bit difficult to leave our dear soft sofa to do some training, but 99% of the time I get myself going and end up having around 5 – 6 hours of training per week. When I started actively training around 2012, I went to the gym and did what felt safe at the time; cross trainer. I spent around an hour per day at the gym cross training, now would find that super boring but that was my way of entering to the scary world of gyms. Somehow when you don't look the part of a gym trainer, it becomes a bit of a stress to start going to there. Eventually you do realise that everyone there is to train, and not judge each other what they do and how they look.

After going to the gym almost daily (to do the cross training) for about half a year or so I finally was convinced that I can join group lessons. Which still are part of my weekly training routines. Although the biggest victory to me in sports was to notice  that I can run! I found it so amazing that I was able to run, made me so happy! Always before that, I thought that it was impossible for a girl size like me to run, but hey it was NOT impossible! Since then my running has decreased, but I have added bootcamp training and occasional PT sessions to my schedule, not to forget biking to work every now and then.

In addition to training I love spending time in cafes that sell goooooood coffee. My absolute favourite thing to do weekend mornings, is to stroll to our local café, Café Mundi in Antwerp, and have a cappuccino. Sometimes accompanied with a croissant or a toasted dark bread with egg and crispy bacon. Last weekend just had cappuccino as I try to be bit more careful what I eat, so cooked our breakfasts at home, keeping it low-carb. Although the whole weekend wasn’t so low-carb – but at least the breakfasts were.

Then to my no. three hobby; arts and crafts. I like to think of myself as an artistic person despite that kind of fights against with my profession, but I am sure one can be good with numbers and able to draw, paint, knit and crochet. Have to say this part of my life haven’t got much attention recently, but usually when the weather gets colder I like to start a new knitting project, some I manage to finish some remains in the basket to be finished from years back. When thinking of it, my sketch book is also collecting dust in the bookshelf, maybe should let it to breath a bit..

Last but not least photography, or should I say Instagramming. Really enjoy taking pics and modifying them on Instagram, using my mobile phone. I also have a “big” Nikon camera as well, but never really properly learned to use it.  

...If you want to take a look at my account in Instagram my username is “jenlinvi”.

Jenny