Lurker Invitations Check-In, January

[Elle_p]

Hi everyone:
I just finished my yoga practice for the day. I am so glad it was a yoga day today because i was so tired when i got home and i felt like i might be getting sick.

I did not check-in here yesterday but i did Muscle Endurance which i really liked.

Laura:
I teach 5 yoga classes a week. When i am teaching i am not getting a yoga practice myself which is why i need to fit it in elsewhere. If i am teaching a beginners class i do demonstrate the asanas they are learning. Once they have learned the poses, i am always walking around and correcting or assisting the students. I know some teachers "do the class with the students" but that is not how my classes are formatted. I'm there to help the students with their practice and lead the class so my practice is done on my own time.

I struggle to fit bot my yoga practice and Cathe workouts into my day. I would love to be able to do both in one day (and have on occasion) but with my full-time job and yoga classes it gets to be a bit much. I ended up neglecting both! That's why i started alternating Cathe days and yoga days. At least this way i do something every day and it's manageable. Once i am established with this schedule i may take another look and try to add more in. Hope this helps!

Janie: Rythmic Step always gets such rave reviews. The only thing keeping me from ordering it is i really don't want the other two older workouts that come on that DVD and i can't justify buying it only for the Rythmic Step. I can't make up my mind on that one yet. Cheers to doing your 1RM testing! That seems like a lot of prep work for STS and i look forward to hearing your review on STS once you get it.

Tracy Lyn: I really want to go on vacation somewhere warm. We got dumped on with tonnes of snow on the weekend. The snow banks are taller than DH who is 6ft4". Enjoy a nice week of rest!

Ramona, Sarah, & Tracy:Hope you are all doing well!

 

[tlstot]

Good Morning to EVERYONE!

Yowza Elle! You teach A LOT of classes. Good for you! You sound like an amazing instructor, helping out the students the way you do! Good work with ME, I like that DVD. Oh and the other two workouts that come with Rhythmic Step are good ones too. Do you have any of the other Imax's, Imax 1 is just as tough. Maxium Intensity Cardio is also pretty good. I do not really care for the Hi/Low section on the DVD, but the step portion is really fun! It's a good add on or when you are short on time.

Last night I did GS Chest and Tri's and then Imax2. (LOVE IMAX 2--SO FUN!) Burned 570 cals. I am getting a little burned out on the weights though. I will be glad to take a week off!

Hope everyone has great workouts!

 

[ladubose]

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the advice Ellie, I too don't consider my classes as my work time, when I teach Pilates I am also up and down and helping the class with their body alignment, but my ski conditioning class is more like a fitness class and I am definitely in there sweating right along with the others. I am still having such a hard time trying to fit everything in for my own workouts. There is a limit to how much I can spend a day as I am sure you can relate.

With my schedule it is very hard to work with the rotations out there, which I feel like I am ready to start trying. I was sick yesterday so I didn't workout but I spent hours trying to fit some rotations into my schedule until I got so frustrated by it and stopped. I also like to do outdoor sports so that just adds a level of complexity into the whole thing.


I think I am losing the forest for the trees.....Does anyone else have any suggestions?

My week looks like this:
Mondays: teach pilates mat (intermediate} & Ski Conditioning {advanced heavy on legs & Core}

Tuesdays: teach Pilates mat (begginer/intermdediate)

Wednesdays: Teach privates in Boulder, Outdoor cardio such as a hike or mountain bike ride, personal Pilates for 1 hr

Thursday: Teach Privates at my home in the mountains

Friday:Teach privates in Boulder, Outdoor cardio such as a hike or mountain bike ride, Personal Pilates workout with friend for 1 hr

Sunday: ski with family
So I would like to snow shoe and ski once a week and lift weights 3x a week.

Any help would be appreciated. I am only home on Tuesday,Thursday, Sat
And I would like a little more cardio in there as well since I am an endomorph type and Fitness freak says 5 days of cardio are best for that body type.

Hope this isn't to long I am just feeling so stuck and can't see a way to make it work for me.

Tracy great job on Imax, I can't wait to get those!
Off to do 4DS LIS with Shoulders & Core and maybe if I am feeling well enough a quick snow-shoe.
Laura

 

[Elle_p]

Hi Everyone,
I'm planning on attempting Step, Jump, and Pump in about half an hour.

Tracy: Thanks for your comments on The Rythmic Step DVD. I'm sure i'll eventually cave and get it. I have IMAX 3 but haven't attempted it yet (I will soon!!!). I hear a lot of good things about IMAX 2 around here as well.

Laura: From my own experience, i would say don't get too concerned with sticking to a specific rotation. With your kind of schedule it may get too overwhelming. Fit in your activity where you can. If you want to do weights 3X per week then why not plan that when you are home on TUES/THURS/SAT? It seems like you have a great mix of different activities going on throughout the week. I think you are on the right track.

Janie, Ramona, Sarah, and Tracy: I hope you are having a great day

 

[janiejoey]

Good Evening everyone,

Did some 1RM's for my strength workout today. Also did and modified "Aerobic Yoga" with Ganga White and Tracey Rich. Is was not easy.

Elle, How was SJ&P. Love that one. If you purchase Rhythmic Step You won't regret having IMAX or MIC. All are very different from one another. Intense and challenging, but OH so worth it.

Laura, I'm impressed with your pilates instructing. You do look overloaded, but if there is a will there is a way. I know it's tough. Just do what you can.

Tracy Lynn, Your are so inspiring me with all the calories you are burning left and right. Good for You!

Take care everyone, and have a good evening,

Janie

 

[tlstot]

Good Mornin' Girls!

Last night I did GS-Shoulders, ME-Lower Body, and then Rhythmic Step. I burned 660 cals in about an hour and half. So pretty happy with that!

2 days and I will be in MEXICO!! I cannot wait!

Janie-you must have quite the DVD collection! I am jealous!

Elle-S,J & P, is super fun! I haven't done that one in a while! I hope you had fun with it!

Laura- WOW! You are busy. Ya, for right now I wouldn't worry about a specific rotation. Just try to fit in workouts when you can.

 

[ladubose]

Good Morning Not so Lurkey Lurkers!
Thanks Janie for getting this check-in going, it is really great to be able to check in with all of you
Tracy Lynn I will be thinking of you on the Beach in Mexico, you must definitely feel bathing suit confident with all those great work outs you have been getting in lately. Nothing like baring some flesh for motivation, huh? Maybe I need to plan a trip to Mexico to get my butt in gear! LOL!
Ellie how do you like SJP? It is on my wish list, but waiting to have a little more money before purchasing it , you know after the holidays things are a little more tight...

Istill have this bad caugh, yesterday my heart rate went through the roof on 4DS LIS, way higher than normal and I had very little pep. I took a walk with my 9 month old Great Pyrenees Puppy, who is absolutely huge!
I am not sure about today I may do another 4DS or just take it easy depending on how I feel. I hate getting under the weather when it is so nice outdoors!

 

[tlstot]

Good Morning! Were kinda dying here girls!

Anyway, Last night I did GS back and bi's and then Step fit from Cathe's Cardio Hits. I burned around 530 cals.

I am soo excited for MEXICO!!! I will post pics when I return.

Lara- Take care of that cough girl!

Tootles, til next week!

 

[janiejoey]

Good Mornin,

Tracy Lynn, Enjoy Mexico, see ya when you get back next week! I'm fortunate in owning all of Cathe's DVD's and then lots of other instructors as well.

Laura, Hoping soon you will feel better, (darn those colds anyway). They can sure make you feel sick. Take it easy on your workouts this week and try to recover quickly.

Going shopping for clean diet foods. Will also stop at the worlds largest bead place called Shipwreck. I want to make a beautiful read necklace. (just because) Will be doing RS when I get home.

I've been listening to the news and reading it on the internet. Sure is getting scary.

See yas, Shadowpup, Elle, Ramona, Sarah and Tracy. How are you all doing? Working out and all that stuff?

Janie

 

[cldonadio]

Hello

Hey,

I was told about this by Elle (thanks). I started my workout manager and nutrition program last week. I really want to tone up this year but also make sure i am the healthiest I can be. Today I will be doing kickboxing. Can't wait for STS.

 

[ladubose]

Good Morning !
Welcome Cldonadio:Have fun with your kickboxing I think I will do 4DS Kickboxing and heavy legs today.. Are you using the Cathe's nutrition site? I read that you lost 40lbs! That is amazing I want to lose 20-30lbs myself!
Janie:I am still a little under the weather, took yesterday off completely but will try and work out today & see how I feel. Good Job on the clean eating. I really need to get ontop of my diet. I read on this forum somewhere that you can't out exercise a bad diet, which is exactly what I have been trying to do for over a year now. My commitment this year is to address that weak link.

Hi to Elle, Romana andSarah, I hope you are still at it!
I was curious how many of us are getting STS?

 

[janiejoey]

Good Evening,

Cldonadio, Welcome Aboard! It's always nice to have another member. I too want to be healthy. Congratulations on losing 40 pounds. That's awesome! It takes a lot of hard work doesn't it?

Ladubose, Were you able to work out today. Take it easy and get better soon. Eating has always been a downer for me. I always eat too much. Trying to get a handle on it this year though.

See the rest of ya tomorrow,

Janie

 

[Elle_p]

Hi Ladies,
I'm here! Sorry, I could not check-in yesterday. For Christmas i bought my mom tickets to Dirty Dancing so yesterday we went.

So, to catch up i ended up trying the "Step & weights circuit" premix of SJP on Tuesday after i checked in here. I found the premix a bit choppy so next time i'll just do it as is. I still got a great workout and i liked a lot of the music on that one.

Yesterday (Wed) i did not do yoga because i was at the theatre but i weighed myself in the morning and the scale is down another 1.4lbs *woo-hoo!*

Tonight i left work at 7:30pm and when i got home i made sure to not give myself the option of not doing anything. I was debating on what workout to do but wasn't really motivated. Finally, i just had to snap to it and tell myself it doesn't matter what i do, just DO SOMETHING. Anything is better then nothing. I ended up doing the LoMAX All step premix. By the 3rd combo i felt really energized and ended up having a good time. This is so much better than feeling guilty over missing a workout for no good reason.

LAURA:
Hope you feel better soon! Keep up the great work. It's good to take time off when you are sick and recover so you can get better quickly rather than burn out.

Cldonadio: Welcome aboard. I'm glad you came by. I'm finding the check-in and blogging are a big help in staying motivated. Everyone here has been so encouraging and inspiring.

Janie: You mentioned doing a yoga workout with Ganga White & Tracy Rich a couple of days ago. They are great instructors. I have one of their workouts on VHS and you reminded me i should dust it off because it's really good.

I hope everyone else is still on track and doing well.

See you all tomorrow.

 

[janiejoey]

Good Mornin,

Just got done with Total Body Sculpting using as heavy weights as I could. I used 5's and 8's. It was a good workout for me. I'm thinking about doing yoga tonight before dinner.

Elle, How was Dirty Dancing? I saw it when Patrick Swazye played in the movie. Love the movie. Good for you on deciding what exercise to do. It's hard sometimes to get motivated. I do as you, just do it.

Hi to all who follows and have a great day.

Janie

 

[ladubose]

Good Morning!

Yesterday is a long day for me in Boulder, but I had a great Intermediate Reformer workout with two other Pilates instructors that targeted the whole body. My inner thighs were burning from the heavy leg work on the 4DS Kickboxing.

I am feeling better, still not 100% but definitely on the mend. Today I am thinking of doing the Higher intensity Step + all upper body weights premix on 4DS. I am going to need to update my DVD library soon!
Ellie:You are such an inspiration, it is so hard for me to work out at night! I admire you for getting it done, Sometimes the hardest part is just starting!
Janie: Good job on the Total Body Sculpting and going heavy! have you done all your 1RM tests? I read about it last night and thinking of doing it. Did you use the print out? When is the new soft ware on WM coming out? The problem is that I don't know all the exercises by name
Tracy LynnThinking of you on the beach! It is snowing here right now & COLD!


Still curious about who is getting STS.....

 

[Shadowpup]

Back! For a whole week!

Hi all, I'm back from a pretty intense set of meetings plus the usual air-travel-in-winter challenges! It's great to be home.

For workouts, I had to get creative. Half of the time I was at a hotel where the workout room didn't open til 8am, and closed at 10pm. But my businss meetings started at 6am and continued with no breaks until about 11!!! That's 11 PM not AM. Sheesh. But, here's what I did:

* Mon: hike at home (then headed off to destination 1)
* Tues, Wed: Both days Cathe 4DS, kickbox (then off to destination 2 Wed night)
* Thurs: walked to meeting in the dark ... about 40 minutes
* Friday: walked again to meetings, then airport to begin return, did about 30 minutes of concourse walking to get the blood flowing. Exercised PATIENCE on the airline industry, since it is not their fault that weather caused my plane to be cancelled. Got in late, so didn't do any evening workout
* Sat: slept in Used the hotel elliptical plus cardio coach 4 for the first time! I'm so glad that I read the postings here about that, because it was a truly intense, enjoyable working; I'd been burned out on ellipticals, so this is the first time I've enjoyed using them in about a year. Continued to exercise patience as the last leg of the flight still didn't take me where I belonged ... but got home, and did the timesaver of GymStyle biceps to get loosened up.
* Sun/today: got up, discovered it snowed rather than being sunny as expected, and that the horse water pipes had frozen, and so spent about an hour and a half clearing the driveway and stacking wood, while my saint of a husband stood with a heater over the pipes to thaw them out. Brrr! I also did a few kettlebell passes to keep warm, watching the heater to make sure nothing caught on fire, when he had to take a break.

Tonight I want to do something lower body, strength training, since I have not done that since last weekend. Leaner Legs? Gym Style Legs? Power Hour? Slow and Heavy? Hmm...

It's challenging around here, but at least I will be home all week, and am thoroughly looking forward to it.

Elle: thanks for mentioning LoMax! I have that, and haven't taken the time yet to learn the steps. Might be a good time to start. What a good example you are setting for us by refusing to make "no workout" an option!

Ladubose: I'm getting STS - still leaning towards the six month rotation Cathe mentioned, starting early in Feb between trips.

Janie: sounds like you're doing terrific with your workouts, too!

Cldonadio: Welcome! I'm one of those who is in and out so much, but I post here when I can. It's been great to have this as a resource and inspiration (thanks again, Janie, for setting it up).

Tracy Lynn: the beach? I clearly missed a key post back there, and will have to look back a bit. I'm glad at least one of us is warm

Laura: so sensible, taking time to get healthy

 

[twinkletoes129]

Hey fellow outed lurkers I'd love to come "OUT" and join you! I live in Toronto, Canada. Hey Elle_p, I'm a fellow Torontonian and I subscribe to your blog which I really enjoy! Nice to know another Cathe and yoga fan in Toronto. Anyway, thank you Janie for starting this Check In. That's such a great idea for us shy lurkers and newbies here! You all are an inspiration!

I LOVE Cathe's step and weights and my goal is to lose fat, build muscle, increase my cardio power and endurance and be consistent with my workouts. I'm slim and mostly ecto with a bit of endo so it will be a challenge to bulk which I'd love to do but for me the key is consistency and lifting heavy. I would love to tweak my body composition and look like an athlete or maybe an Oxygen model. One can dream. LOL! I'm just getting over a cold and after almost a full week off, yesterday I did Cardio Fusion up to the second BM2 power circuit. I'm still working up to doing the whole thing. That's the nice thing about Cathe is that there is so much room to grow! And today I did a gym workout for back, triceps and legs (light leg work on machines as I have knee issues which is a drag as doing heavy leg workouts are my all out favourite, esp. Cathe leg workouts). I was a bit lightheaded between sets even though I'm almost over this cold. But I did a good job considering. Oh yeah, I also preordered STS and I'm looking forward to doing it too! I'm also thinking of doing the 6 month rotation, I also like the idea of doing the workouts for 2 weeks in a row before moving on.

 

[Elle_p]

Hi Everyone,
It's been a stressful weekend. Not really a weekend at all since i worked Saturday and Sunday after i finished my yoga classes.
Here's a quick recap:

Friday: Horrible day at work. I got home late and was very emotional and tired. I ended up skipping my yoga workout to watch Pineapple Express. It ended up making me laugh so i'm glad i decided to relax and watch a movie. I feel no guilt for skipping yoga.

Saturday: Went into work after my yoga classes. Decided to indulge in a Lick's Nature burger & onion rings (no feelings of guilt over that either!) No suprise did not feel like working out when i got home. I decided to try the cardio only premix of Body Max2. I did not really like the premix but at least i did something.

Sunday: Went into work after my yoga class. I had the urge to get fast food on the way home (i was sooo hungry!) I thought it through and picked up some vegetarian maki rolls and miso soup as a healthier alternative to Lick's or falafel. I did another hour and 15 minutes of work at home. I really did not want to workout so i decided to just do Basic Step. I added one more riser than i normally use which made it more challenging.

As you can see when i have a really busy day and i'm tired i really don't want to workout. Normally, i would skip out and tell myself i can start fresh Monday, next week, next month etc...In an effort to break that pattern i am making an effort to do somethiing, anything, as opposed to nothing. So far it's working since i did not skip out yesterday or today.

LAURA: I'm not planning on getting STS. I know myself enough to know i would not use it the way it was intended. This probably would not give me good results. All that 1RM testing seems daunting as well. Right now, i know i would not be into it. Glad to hear you are feeling better!

Shadowpup: Welcome back. I think you are the inspiring one finding time to work out while travelling. I'm also impressed that you worked out after getting home. I'm attempting to break old patterns where i would skip a workout if i just arrived home after a trip telling myself i will get back on track tomorrow. Well done getting in activity where you could!

Hi To everyone else. I hope you all had a good weekend!

 

[Elle_p]

Hey twinkletoes129,
Welcome! This check-in and the whole blogging thing have really helped to keep me motivated and inspired. I also want to increase my lean muscle mass and lose some body fat so i guess we are in the right place for that.
I look forward to getting to know you and hearing about your progress.

 

[janiejoey]

Good mornin,

Reading all these fine messages and drinking Joe at the same time. Also wondering what workout to do other than Total Body Sculpting. My Joey wants to do that one, so perhaps he may win out. If we do it though, we will use heavier weight and do the premix for twice around. I'll let you know. Right after this, he has set our the hot tub outside for me to soak in for a while.

Twinkletoes, How nice to meet you and Welcome Aboard. One of these days Joey (my hubby) and I will visit Canada. Perhaps one day the Butchart Gardens, it's a dream of mine.

Elle, Sorry you had to work the whole weekend. Consider Friday as your rest day, Sat. and Sun you did great. YOU WORKED OUT! Very good self control. You are doing great breaking your old pattern. I'm very proud of you for doing that.

Shadowpup, I'm so glad to hear you are back for a longer time this time. It's always nice to hear from you and what you have been doing. You've been very created with your workouts. I don't know how you do the workouts the way you do, but I have to tell you, I too am inspired by that. That is a challenge! Can't wait to see how you do on your workouts this week without any interuptions. Did you decide yet, what you are going to do tonite?

Ladubose, Yesterday sounded like an intense workout. Glad you are feeling better. I have several pages from the printout left to do on the 1RM's, and getting closer to finishing. Not sure and just a guess, but the new WM should be up late this week I think. The exercises have numbers on the pages samples plus what they are called. I use testing the 1RM as part of my weight training for the day.

Hi to all that follows, and wondering how ya all are fairing.

Janie