{"id":18799,"date":"2011-06-08T08:49:06","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T15:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=18799"},"modified":"2011-06-08T08:49:06","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T15:49:06","slug":"is-the-juice-worth-the-squeeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=18799","title":{"rendered":"Is The Juice Worth The Squeeze?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am not the perfect person. Sure I workout a lot, I eat right 90% of the time, I try to look at my body in a positive way. Most of the time I am happy with how I’m doing. Tuesday was not one of those days. I was feeling “chubby” and like nothing<\/em> looked good on me. The reflection I saw in the mirror made me feel like my stomach was a bit bigger than it was last week. Rationally I told myself there’s no way I gained five pounds in a week. It sure as hell felt like it though!<\/p>\n

Michael asked me if I was having anxiety about going scale-free for the summer. I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe part of me was having some anxiety and I just didn’t realize it, maybe it was hormonal. Who knows?<\/p>\n

I went to the gym after work and felt like it was a struggle. First, I remembered why I hated wearing the specific shirt I had on because it kept riding up on me while I ran on the treadmill. Grrr. It was one of those days.<\/em> Despite feeling crabby and moody I had a good run. My body felt good, it had been over a week since I’d run (I wanted to take a break) and I had great<\/strong> stamina…But for some reason I was STRUGGLING to get my heart rate up. The treadmill speed was fast, I was even doing some interval hills, yet I was struggling to keep my heart rate in my target zone. What the hell?<\/em> It started to feel like a pain in the butt. I thought “Why am I having to spend MORE time on the treadmill to burn the same amount of calories as before?”<\/p>\n

That’s the tricky thing with fitness. The more FIT you are, the harder it is to get your heart rate up. Things get EASIER the fitter you are. <\/span><\/strong>The same thing happened with my swimming. It used to be a struggle; I used to feel like my heart was going to explode out of my chest but as I got better at swimming and as I lost more weight the easier it was. I wasn’t burning a lot of calories anymore. I wasn’t struggling, my chest felt normal and my heart rate wasn’t spiking with every lap I did. Now when I swim it’s a struggle to get my heart over 135. This is normal. This is fitness.<\/strong> But it’s still frustrating.<\/p>\n

I ran almost an extra half mile Tuesday night to try and get my heart rate up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAfter my run I did some weight lifting. I mainly use the plated machines now. Every once in awhile I’ll go back to the old “easy” machines and give those a try but they are too easy now. I’ve had to almost double the amount of weights I previous did on those easy machines! I still prefer the plated weights and the free weights but it’s nice to check in and see my progress once in awhile.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI may not be burning the same amount of calories as I previously did, but I’m making progress in other ways: like lifting more weight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo is the juice worth the squeeze?<\/em><\/strong> Do I need to start extending my already long workouts in order to burn the same amount of calories and get my heart rate up? Or do I switch up my routine so much that I have to work out harder–but not as long? There has to be a happy medium here so that I can still get a decent workout but not feel like I’m wasting my time.<\/p>\n

LONG boring cardio = boredom. Weight lifting breaks up that monotony for me and helps keep the workouts fresh. Is there another option to the long boring workout? Remember: I hate taking classes so that’s not my preferred method to switch things up.<\/p>\n

Maybe this won’t even be an issue once summer comes? I see a lot of long bike rides every weekend I can and if I’m also commuting to work by bike, that’s got to get in some good workouts without worrying about my HR.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nGym Stats:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Time: 1:35<\/strong>
\nCalories Burned: 650<\/strong>
\nAverage HR: 127! BOO!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I spent about 15 minutes of that doing my stretches and then escaped home. I was extra hungry too. Michael made fresh guacamole to go with dinner (just what I was craving too).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFresh avocados, lots and lots of minced garlic, chopped jalapenos, chopped tomato, Worcestershire sauce and pepper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nMichael grilled up chicken thighs seasoned with spicy Mexican spices. I made us salads with peppers, tomatoes, olives, jalapenos and beans.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nChicken thighs always turn out delicious, although for this particular dish it’s rather difficult to eat. Next time we’ll cut the meat off the bone and top the salad with it. I added sour cream and the guacamole to the top. Good stuff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThis is one of my new favorite dinners. It’s so good!<\/p>\n

QUESTION: So what do you do when your workouts are too easy?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not the perfect person. Sure I workout a lot, I eat right 90% of the time, I try to look at my body in a positive way. Most of the time I am happy with how I’m doing. Tuesday was not one of those days. I was feeling “chubby” and like nothing looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[336,44,55,1621,2754,315,2372,101,104,122,123,152,154,167,168,169,319,2778,201,2625,224,277,299,301],"tags":[8770,3536,8627,3533,3532,3535,3443,8707,3534,1507,1178],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/IMG_7498.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18799"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18821,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions\/18821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}