Unless you change how you are,you will always have what you’ve got. Jim Rohn

Yesterday was a tough day for me.  For the last few nights the baby has been gassy – so he cries and cries and I feel so terrible because there is not much I can do besides massage him, give him medicine and put a warm compress on his tummy to relieve the pain. I usually sleep around 12 or 1am and end up waking at 4 or 5am to tend to him.

SO – I definitely don’t get much sleep in the rest department. I also have errands and work stuff I do on a daily basis, which makes me additionally tired.

Yesterday I was falling asleep with the baby around 5:30pm but knew I wanted to take a kickboxing class at 6pm.  As much as I didn’t want to get up – I did….but when I got all ready to go, I realized the class didn’t start until 7pm! Ugh! I could’ve had at least another hour to rest. Instead, I grabbed my dog and went on a good walk with him. Afterwards, I was warmed up to actually train…and so I did!

I went to my kickboxing class – and to be honest, it was hard! I have to admit that I don’t make it look hard…but my heart was racing the entire time. This was my 3rd class since I started training. Both times before I wanted to leave early from fatigue…but I didn’t!

This time however, I decided that I would do 30 minutes of kickboxing and 30 minutes of resistance training.  I told myself I’d start weight training this week and haven’t done it yet – so…I’m happy that I performed low weight and high reps on my back, shoulders and abs yesterday.

HOWEVER! I am sore! And I don’t have much energy from lack of rest. My goal is to one day feed Christian at 530am and then go to train (as I’ve always been more of a morning exerciser). That hasn’t happened yet!

I am starting to feel tons of soreness from exercise now – in places I haven’t felt in a very long time. While it’s great…soreness still sorta sucks

I’m happy to see that my muscle is still there when I throw my punches and kicks during class – I get a lot of koodles from other women who last saw me with a big belly trying to kick one foot of the floor! My diet has been ’so so’…I’m hard on myself so I know I could always do better!

My goal this week is to:
- drink more water
- eat more frequently
- work on my core
- rest whenever I can

this was taken a couple weeks ago – Christian is almost 4 weeks here.

interesting!
–

Mental Fatigue Can Affect Physical Endurance

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2009) — When participants performed a mentally fatiguing task prior to a difficult exercise test, they reached exhaustion more quickly than when they did the same exercise when mentally rested, a new study finds.

The study also found that mental fatigue did not cause the heart or muscles to perform any differently. Instead, our “perceived effort” determines when we reach exhaustion. The researchers said the next step is to look at the brain to find out exactly why people with mental fatigue perceive exercise to be more difficult.

Samuele M. Marcora, Walter Staiano and Victoria Manning of Bangor University, Wales, the United Kingdom, did the study, “Mental fatigue impairs physical performance in humans.” The study will appear in the March print edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology. The American Physiological Society published the study.

The study

The 16 participants rode a stationary bicycle to exhaustion under two conditions: once when they were mentally fatigued and once when they were mentally rested. The trials took place in the laboratory on different days. The participants got the same amount of sleep, drank the same amount and had the same meal before each of the sessions.

The mental fatigue sessions began with a challenging 90-minute mental task that required close attention, memory, quick reaction and an ability to inhibit a response. After undergoing this session, participants reported being tired and lacking energy. The control session consisted of watching neutral documentaries for 90 minutes and was not mentally fatiguing.

After each of the 90-minute sessions – mentally fatiguing or non-fatiguing – the participants did an intense bout of exercise on a stationary bicycle. They rode until exhaustion, defined as the point when they could not maintain a cadence of at least 60 revolutions per minute for more than five seconds.  read the full study here.

don’t let fatigue Affect you!

“The successful always has a number of projects planned, to which he looks forward. Anyone of them could change the course of his life overnight.” –Mark Caine

Fitness Motivation:
What are you looking forward to?
Are you looking forward to getting stronger at your next kickboxing class?
Are you excited to try out your new recipe for protein bars?
Are you thinking ahead -
about all the great things that are in store for you??
Are you planning? preparing? thinking?
Are you excited!?
Be excited about the workouts, meals and days you have ahead of you…
afterall -
You are becoming a new person!

wow! Check Julia Louis-Dreyfus out at 48!

Here are some excerpts of her interview:

Eat smarter, not less
Like many women, Julia is constantly searching for the middle ground between indulgence and discipline when it comes to maintaining her weight. “Some people have it easier than others,” she says. “Unfortunately, I have to work at not being fat. I’m always trying different things to see what sticks.”

Her everyday strategy- Have breakfast. “It’s hard for me to eat in the morning,” says Julia. “But I recently discovered something I love: two eggs fried in olive oil and a slice of whole-wheat toast with honey. It tastes so good, and I don’t get crazy-hungry before lunch—that’s when I start to make bad food choices. I’ve found the key to healthy eating is finding foods you really like. That way you don’t feel ripped off when you can’t have a fattening doughnut or whatever you’re craving.”

Her green twist- Buy local. “I love vegetables— I should be a vegetarian, and I feel guilty saying I’m not,” says Julia. “But I like meat and chicken. So I buy organic foods whenever they’re available and shop at my local farmers’ market whenever I can. There’s something cozy about it. It’s a very friendly environment; you get to know the farmers. Plus, it’s better for the earth because the food is grown nearby, not flown in from some faraway place like South America.” Like her Seinfeld character, Elaine, Julia is a big fan of the BIG salad. “I eat them at least once if not twice a day,” she says. “My current favorite is arugula with some Parmigiano-Reggiano and either olive oil and fresh lemon juice or a sesame-ginger vinaigrette.”

—-

Here are her thoughts on EXERCISE!

Think positively about exercise
Despite her sweet tooth, Julia’s weight stays consistent because she makes working out a priority. “In a perfect world, I’d do it five times a week,” she says. “Honestly, though, it’s less than that. But if I go a few days without exercise, I always come back to it. I find I actually crave it. It makes a huge difference in terms of my metabolism and keeping my weight steady.” And is it true that exercise can enhance your love life? “Of course libido is affected by activity,” says Julia. “When my husband and I started dating, we played tennis together…a lot. It was very romantic.”

Her everyday strategy- Adapt your workout to your needs. When time is tight, Julia multitasks by jumping on her elliptical machine at home and watching TV. “It’s a very efficient way of fitting in exercise,” she says. “When I can, I try to go for a four-mile run. I love to break a sweat. If I’ve gotten in a huge run, I feel like I’ve really done an effective workout.”

Her green twist-Get back to nature. A few times a week, Julia hitsone of the state parks in
her area and goes hiking for an hour or two. “There’s something about the ritual of moving forward along a trail, pausing every now and then to look at the view or smell a flower,” she says. “It’s a physical escape as well as a mental one.” It’s also a family tradition she’s hoping to pass along to her kids. “When I was a little girl, my mother would say, ‘We’re going on a nature walk.’ And I would recoil because I hated doing that kind of thing,” recalls Julia. “Now I love it, but when I mention hiking to my own kids, they’re like, ‘Ugh!’ I’m hoping for a residual effect with them, though, and that by the time they’re my age, they’ll love going on nature walks as much as I do.”

Get the full interview and pictures in Shape Magazine at a store near you!