Your Target Heart Rate Zone

When performing cardiovascular exercise, your heart rate should be maintained within your target heart rate zone (calculated below) for a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of 60 minutes for at least 3-5 days a week to achieved a maximum cardiovascular benefit. 

Cardiovascular interval training is one of the best ways to keep your heart rate within your target heart rate zone for an extended period of time. It also allows you to burn the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time.

Weight loss is achieved when the # of calories you expend is greater than the # of calories you consume. By creating a daily deficit of 500-1000 calories, you can lose 1-2 pounds per week. For example, if your body requires 3000 calories per day just to stay the same weight, then by eating 250 calories less per day and by burning 250 calories through exercise each day(for a total deficit of 500 calories/day), you can achieve a 1 pound weight loss in one week.

Believe it or not, that is not hard to do. Replace calorie filled drinks with water and you are halfway there! Eat fruit for you snacks instead of calorie filled processed snacks and you are even closer.

Here is how you determine your target heart rate zone:

Max Heart Rate = 220-Your Age:
      Max Heart Rate = 220 - 34 = 186 bpm


Target Heart Rate (Lower) = Max Heart Rate x (70%):
      Target Heart Rate(lower) = 186 x (.70) = 130bpm

Target Heart Rate (Upper) = Max Heart Rate x (85%):
      Target Heart Rate (Upper) = 186 x (.85) = 158bpm

My Target Heart Rate Range = 130bpm-158bpm

So my heart rate should stay up in the 130-158 beats per minute range the entire time I am exercising. Make it easy on yourself and figure out your 15 second count so you take up less time checking your heart rate while exercising. Better yet, get a heart rate monitor!

A New Beginning

I have returned! My husband and I were away for a long weekend and its taken some time to get back on track with my blog. I must admit, I have some guilt. Vacations usually throw me off of my workout schedule and this vacation was no different! I am happy to tell you that I did not lose any ground, but sad to say I did not gain any ground either. No matter, that week is  but a blip on the radar and I am back! I have already begun my workout program again.

Today was interval cardio day since I taught my boot camp this morning. I love workouts like that because you burn a LOT of calories and workout all of your muscle groups in one session. tomorrow I am planning to rest and the following day will be more interval cardio or a circuit weight training day. I like to keep my options open in case I am not in the mood for a particular workout that day. The important thing for me (and that keeps me in the game)  is knowing that I only get to rest one day between workouts, then there are no excuses for the following day. Its a good rule to follow...."Never go two days without working out". If you keep an every other day approach to fitness its easier to stay on your program. After all, fitness isn't something you do to get fit and then you stop.........healthy living requires a  LIFESTYLE change that includes adopting habits that will keep you on track year round. Its ok to take breaks, its ok to have a bad day or even a bad week, but knowing that your goal is to be healthy consistently is the key to actually being consistent.

One other rule that I love to follow is the "Don't Drink Your Calories" Rule. If you are trying to lose weight, this rule is very important. Ever wonder how your weight sneaks up on you so quickly? Take a look at what you are drinking. Chances are, you are taking in far more calories than your body can burn because of those drinks. So one or two here and there......not a big deal. Drinking calorie filled drinks like soda, juice, coffee drinks, shakes, beer, wine, etc. EVERY DAY will add on the calories like nothing else. Keep track of your eating AND drinking habits for a week and you'll see what I am talking about. There is a calorie log on my website for you to use if you'd like to give it a try.

Rest Day, Weigh-In, and Cheat Day

I love rest day!! Especially when it falls on the third day of my new workout plan! I enjoyed every minute of  rest day. Tomorrow I'll be teaching boot camp which will help me get my scheduled cardio-interval training workout in for the day.

I am going to make a habit of weighing in once a week.  (In reality I'll be weighing in every day, which is a bad habit of mine...... and one that can be discouraging at times.) So every Friday I'll report any weight lost or gained and why I think i lost or gained for that particular week. So far for this week I am down 2 pounds. That surprised me considering I haven't been working that hard at it yet. However, it does go to show you how important a healthy eating plan is to your weightloss goals.

It takes a combination of both exercise and healthy eating to create LASTING weightloss. You can just do one or the other, but once you are done with your "diet" or done with your "6 week workout", you'll go back to your old habits and that weight will creep right back on. To make it stick you HAVE to make a lifestyle change. That means incorporating healthy eating habits and regular exercise into your weekly routine FOR LIFE.

I love food. I love to eat, and I love to eat things that taste good. One thing I have learned is that I can be strict only to a certain point. I have to have a cheat day. So Sundays are going to be my cheat day. I am going to eat and drink whatever I want on Sundays. Its a good way for me to remind my body that it is not starving (which in turn keeps it from wanting to store fat) and to fill some cravings I have been having during the week. Its also a nice reward for all of the hard work I have been doing during the week.

Tomorrow will be my last post until Monday. I'll have much to share when I return! See you tomorrow!

Day 2- The Workout

Day 2 is now behind me.....Whew! Lots of temptations today. It was a struggle to stick to my eating plan. I broke a rule and bought some things for the girls lunches that tempted me all day long. Not a good idea when you are in the beginning stages of a new eating plan!! Obviously I am a slow learner. Here is what I learned. 21 Cheetos contains 160 calories. 160!! And let me tell you, after you eat 21 cheetos, you are NOT full. Not even a little bit. But I was bound and determined to eat my 1 serving of Cheetos (hence the bizarre 21 number). At first I thought it said 12, so I ate 12 and was very discouraged. Then I reread the nutritional information part and realized that 12 was actually 21...and so I of course ate the extra 9 cheetos to make up the difference. I was still discouraged because I was still hungry.....what a  waste of calories. I would have been much more satisfied for much longer had I eaten an apple and a piece of string cheese.....or anything else. Enough with the cheetos, I learned my lesson.

I started my workout today which was the original intention for this post. Today I did a core workout. The plan is to  ease myself into this new workout regimen (sp?).

Here was my workout:

25 crunches on the body ball
15 pike ups w/ body ball
1  minute plank w/ alternating leg raise
30 second side plank
30 second back plank
15 back hyperextensions
20 straight legged crunches
Repeat 2x's

Here is what I intend to do each week:

Monday: Total Body Weight Training
Tuesday:Cardio Interval Training/Abs
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday:Cardio Interval Training/Abs
Friday:Total Body Weight Training
Saturday: Cardio Interval Training/Abs
Sunday: Rest

Each day that I workout I will share my workout with you. I like to change it up constantly so that a) I don't get bored; and b) my body does not get used to what I am doing. Changing up my workout keeps my muscles guessing and helps me get good results FASTER. I'm all about efficient and effective workouts!

For those of you that are dying to know what I ate today, here is my food log for today:

9/22	Description		Calories
Breakfast	ww english muffin, 1 tbsp ras. Preserve, 8 oz. oj, 1 egg		350
Snack	sugar snap peas/ 2 tbsp hummus		100
Lunch	wrap (ww tortilla, 4 slices ham, 1/2 slice cheese, fresh spinach, tomato)		270
Snack	21 cheetos(160)/ 1 apple(70)		230
Dinner	bourbon Salmon/brown rice/steamed squash		531
Snack	1/2 c. slow churned oreo ice cream w/ 1/2 banana		200
Total			1681

At 1681 I went over my daily goal of 1600, but only by 81. My ab workout countered that 81 so all in all, I am feeling pretty good about the day! See you tomorrow!

Day 1 Complete-My final Thoughts

Success! I made it through my first day of my new eating plan. All in all, it went way better than I expected. I managed to stay under my daily calorie goal of 1600 calories and I can honestly say that I was not hungry. Looking at the list below, it doesn't appear that I ate very much, and in reality, it wasn't a large quantity of food. The trick here was that I did not let myself get hungry. I ate my meals and snacks when they were scheduled and it kept my hunger at bay. Looking back, If I could do anything different, I would eat more fruits and vegetables. I get full faster and stay full longer when I eat them. My problem today was that I did not go grocery shopping until late in the day and therefore did not have a lot of fresh food on hand. Tomorrow I am going to discuss my workout plan. (Today I did not exercise). More about that tomorrow. Here is the final count for today(you will have to click on the title of this blog to be able to see the calorie totals if they do not show up below:

9/21	Description				Calories
Breakfast	quaker instant brown sugar oatmeal				160
Snack	yoplait light lemon cream pie yogurt				110
Lunch	pita sandwich  (ww pita, 4 slices ham, slice cheese, fresh spinach, tomato)				300
Snack	sugar snap peas/ 2 tbsp hummus				100
Dinner	4 oz. pork tenderloin, 2 wheat yest roll, glass wine, sugar snap peas				360
Snack	1 c. slow churned oreo ice cream w/ one banana				365
Total					1395

Hunger-A Diet Sabotager Exposed

The fastest way to sabotage any healthy eating plan is to let yourself get hungry! Think back to a time when you were really, really hungry. For me that was yesterday just before lunchtime. I had breakfast but no snack and lunchtime was closing in. I was ravenous! I don't know about you, but when I am hungry and I have options in front of me.......the ONLY things that look especially tempting are foods that are fried, smothered in sauce, or covered in cheese. In those moments, I am not tempted by a salad, some carrot sticks or a piece of grilled chicken. Those foods couldn't be furthest from my mind! Now, had I done what I was supposed to and eaten a healthy and satisfying snack between breakfast and lunch, I would have entered lunchtime with my wits about me. But as you learned in an earlier post, when hunger takes over, all rational thought flies right out the window!

So, from this day forward, in order for me to stick to my eating plan, I am going to abide by the rules that I suggest my clients follow. I WILL NOT allow myself to get hungry!!!!!  Here is a glimpse of what my 1600 calorie day will look like:

7:30am Breakfast- 400 calories (eggs, oatmeal, fresh fruit, whole wheat english muffins, protein shake)
10:00am Snack - 100 calories(lowfat yogurt, string cheese and fruit, almonds and fruit, peanut butter and banana)
12:00pm Lunch - 400 calories(whole wheat wrap with deli meat and loaded with veggies, salads with veggies and lean meats, peanut butter and banana on a whole wheat wrap or whole wheat english muffin)
3:00pm Snack 100 calories(see above)
6:00pm Dinner -500 calories(brown rice or whole wheat pasta, lean grilled fish, chicken or meat, steamed veggies sprinkled liberally with cajun seasoning)
7:00pm Snack -100 calories(see above but add hot chocolate, small bowl of cereal, 1/2 c. low fat ice cream w/ lots of fruit)

I like to make sure that I eat a protein a fat and a carb at each snack or meal. That gives my body all of the necessary energy sources to pull from so that it can do its job effectively. Food is fuel! Pick the right ones and you can optimize your body's performance.

You can track your calories if you visit the tools page on my website ( www.LoriDoster.com ) and print out a calorie log. Writing it down makes ALL the difference!

Later I will share my workout plan. Have a great day!

Day 1-The Plan

Good Morning! Welcome to day one of operation "find my six pack". So far so good. Last night I went to http://my.apexfitness.com/vip/content/fitness_calculators.php and used their calculator to determine what my daily calorie needs are.  Based on my height, weight, age, gender and daily activity, the calculator determined that I should consume 2100 calories/day to stay exactly the same weight I am right now.  If I reduce that number by 500 calories/day to 1600calories/day , I will be able to acheive a minimum of a 1 pound/ week weight loss. At that rate, I would lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. Now, If I added exercise to that mix, that would accelerate my weightloss goals even more quickly.

I am two hours into my day and I've had my bowl of oatmeal, 1 egg and glass of water. Thats 230 calories towards my daily calorie goal of 1600 calories. Breakfast by far has to be the most important meal if you are starting any new eating or exercise plan. I will NEVER skip breakfast, doing so would slow down my metabolism and encourage my body to STORE fat. And I don't know about you, but I want to do everything in my power to DISCOURAGE fat storage. Eating breakfast is the first step to doing just that. And not just any breakfast will do, whole grains (whole wheat breads, oats, etc.), lean sources of protein (peanut butter, eggs, low fat milk, low calorie yogurt) and fruit are your best bet.

I have to run for now, I'll update you more on my plan later tdoay!