For the sake of keeping in line with Heather’s hot legs Monday’s post…

It’s getting warmer.

I love it. I am feeling human again.

Can you smell it? Can you hear it? (Honestly, I may hurt the bird that has made his new residence right under my bedroom window. Love nature but really?) Can you feel it?

It’s Sprint time! I mean…spring time!

It is that awesome time of the year when we get outside, shake off the dust from the forced hot air heaters in our houses and live a little. YAY!! I am like a completely different person in the summer and you would think that I would move to a warmer climate but alas, I cannot. Things like bugs, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis keep me in New England so instead I just worship the warmth when it shows up briefly 4 to 5 months out of the year.

But now is the time when most of y’alls fall into the same old 3 to 5 mile run that you do every day because it helps you to “think” or “it’s the only thing that helped (notice past tense) me lose weight” or “it wipes me out (yet you haven’t lost a pound for months)” and you refuse to change or cross train because you either do not want to or you do not know how. Let me help you out with that…

Here are 2 simple ways to liven up your everyday run and add enough intensity change to get your body to respond:

Short Distance Sprint
If you have a 3 to 5 mile flat course that you run every day, change it up with sprints by adding them in the middle of your run. You can do these two ways: stop and pick an area to run a set of sprints or incorporate them into the run and they are part of the overall distance. Either way, instead of racking your brain for distance (50m, 100m, etc), do it for time. If you want to do this separate from your run, after running a 1 mile warm up, find a remote straight away and perform 9—12 sec sprints. Run 3 sprints back to back with a 30 sec rest in between and then rest a full 3 to 5 min by walking around the area slowly. Repeat that whole sequence 2 more times to complete 9 sprints in total. If you want to do this in the run, warm up the same and sprint for 12 secs but now add a min rest in between each sprint and be sure to slow down between them more than your base pace.

Longer Distance Sprint
Take the above scenario in terms of distance and terrain. Now add a bunch of “400’s” instead of “100’s” into the mix. Truly, you cannot do many of these if you do them right. In the beginning, shoot for 3—400’s, if that doesn’t make you bleed from an orifice then try 4—400’s and so on. I would incorporate these into the run—not separately—so make sure you have a good idea of what your base pace is so that you know the distinction between the speeds you are about to run at. After your warm up, you are going to run at your fastest pace JUST short of all out. This means you will not run as fast as the 100 but you will run much faster than your 5 mile pace. Do not rack your brain for distance, instead, run for 1:45 and you will be pretty close to 400m. Once you complete it, drastically slow your run down but do not go to a walk if you can help it. Stay there for 4 min and then complete the next 400. Do that one more time and finish off your run at normal pace. Your legs should feel like jello.

Get out there and get moving if you live up north. Let us know how you do, all of us are sprinters at heart here and we’d love to know how you’re doing. Have fun! Woop woop!

You have women like her posted up all over the place.

You have made up your mind.
You are fully resolved.
You’ve told your closest friends and you told your hubby he better support you.
You cut out pictures, wrote declarations, sought out support groups on the web and rid yourself of all the folks who are not headed in your direction.
You clean out the cupboards and buy your Tupperware.
You set your schedule and even buy new gym outfits.
Lastly, you have a plan…

It’s time to diet down to the body you have desired for a long time.

Whether this decision was made as a first step to competing or you just decided you wanted to be a hot body in the gym, it doesn’t matter because the outcome is all the same: a lean, chiseled body. Or so you hope. But for today, it is. You are going to achieve it because that’s not the issue here today. The issue is what happens when it goes away? Now what?

It’s unrealistic to think that you will diet for 12 weeks into the hottest body you can imagine. For most of us it takes about 6 months to achieve an end product that we are even remotely satisfied with and then even longer for us to tweak and manage. That’s a long time when you think about how disciplined you must be to get there and then how much more so to stay there but the first time around is so easy that you hardly even notice.

You are willing to go through anything the first time around. The pounds magically fall off; your will is stronger than an ox. It is a fun process for lack of a better word and it is so rewarding. Kill yourself in the gym? The mirror reflects it. On point with your diet? The scale smiles back at you. Compliments are flying like the planes at the Southwest hub. Everybody has something to say about how you look. You think you’ve hit the jackpot. You’ve GOT this. You know what you’re doing even if no one else does. Why does everyone think this is so hard? You begin to give advice because you just keep losing a pound every 3 to 6 days—clearly you know what you’re doing so all must benefit. In fact, you begin to entertain thoughts of being a trainer because all you need to know is how to eat clean and workout just the right way and you can get everybody to lose weight and look good. Why is the world heavy?

Then you make goal. You look awesome. You can hang out here forever as far as you’re concerned. But there’s trouble in paradise. You have cravings. You’re exhausted. You’re actually pretty crabby and mean most of the time. You’re not sure when that started but you notice it. You’ve been sneaking bites of things here and there. Things you didn’t even like before you started dieting now appeal to you. Things like donuts, chips, ice cream, and peanut butter and so on. Everything smells good. You have dreams of particular foods. You have little injuries cropping up here and there. Eventually, you need a mini break. Your goal has come and gone and you can’t hold on to your sanity much longer. You let go. You head into a murky thing that we’ll define today as an offseason. Your diet opens up, your exercise is pulled back some because you couldn’t keep up that pace anymore and you begin to eat a bit more and live a bit more. By no means did you go back to who you were before you became ‘clean living girl’. We’re talking about a gain here of maybe 4 to 8 pounds. Nothing huge. But it was enough of a gain that the compliments stopped. Your lines are gone. And your head is swooning in complete alarm.

Is everyone laughing at me?
Do they think that I am fat?
I feel like a fraud.
I can’t go to my gym, everyone will know that I’ve gained.

So after about 3 to 5 weeks of unraveling you “get yourself together” and decide to that you need to get rid of those 4 to 8 pounds that you put on. You know how to do this since it was so easy before so you’ll just do it. So you start trying to lose that weight by doing exactly what you did before. No more, no less. And guess what? It doesn’t work. You don’t lose a pound.

WHAT??!!

Ok, hold on: Cardio? Check. Lifting? Check. Clean? Check. Supplements? Check. What gives then?

The Second Time Around
If you are signed up for my updates you know that I handle the meatier topics via email. This is no different. Next week I will tell you all about the pitfalls of trying to get lean after getting lean. It’s not easy and you cannot do what you did before or you end up just doing more of it. If you know of any girls right now doing more than an hour of cardio/day to maintain their physique, this is for them. More cardio, more dieting or more depravation is not the answer. You must get smarter or you will run yourself into the ground. That’s the first concern.

The second concern is your psychological well being. Read Kas’ post on Tuesday if you have not already and you’ll see what I mean. Being lean and losing it for a time—even if only slightly—can wreck shop in your mind. It can make you a holy hot mess. We need to address that.

Are you ready for a fun journey? Sign up for the email updates from me and you’ll be in the loop. Tomorrow marks the last day of keeping the bum lifted while running a half marathon. Stay tuned for that wrap up. In the mean time, if you were once lean and you want it back, hang tight because we have your number here at jodiojo & co. If you have any questions regarding this topic, feel free to ask them below or hit me up at Jodi@trans4mationstation.com. Talk soon!

Before I delve into the annoying world of fitness, I need to laugh about how many folks were taken aback by my snow shoeing!haha  I promise that if I do it I will tell you all about it.  Yes, I know it is cold out there and yes, I know I hate the cold.  But I will give it a go all in the name of fitness and I will report back as soon as possible with details…hehe.

As for whatever you are doing in the gym right now—knock it off!

Honestly, if you troll around the web long enough and begin to read all the training articles out there, no matter what you are doing right now (and it could be the latest and greatest thing) you are doing it ALL wrong and you are awful just for breathing.  In fact, you are a fitness waste that is destined to spend the rest of your life behind the times in leotards and Richard Simmons shorts.  Why you got up this morning is beyond belief—give it up, you suck.

I have no idea how this is supposed to motivate me to want to try whatever it is that they are pushing but this seems to be the norm for so many fitness folk that I am almost wondering if it really is an effective way of marketing one’s self.  Maybe I will try it next week in a post.  I’ll tell you about the newest thing out there and how you are less than human because you don’t know how to do it and not only that, you are archaic because what you are doing is SUCH a waste of time (yes, because working out is silly—whatever) and why aren’t you more efficient and why haven’t you burned 700 cals in 10 min. and then *continued* to burn cals for at least another 20 hours while maximizing your potential to sell real estate to pigmies in Africa who are recovering the best unknown workout recovery secret…(pant, pant, pant).  When did fitness become this full of overbearing folks with heinous agendas? OY!

Here’s my deal…  Workout.  Now.  That’s it.  I don’t care what you do, just break a sweat.  If you decide that your cardio for the day is going to be laundry and you walk up and down 2 flights of stairs with a laundry basket about 8 times, so be it!  If you think shop lifting in Walmart is the way to go and then being chased through the parking lot by undercover cops for cardio is appealing, just wear a heart rate monitor—it’s all I ask.  Say you decide to live on the edge and go for something new so you take up swimming…indoors…in the fountain at the center of the Burlington Mall…and you find a lot of change…GOOD!  Buy some new workout gear with it!  I don’t care what you do as long as you do something!!

If you want to split hairs and talk about optimizing and etc, save that for when you’re feeling perfect.  There’s about 2 weeks out of the year when we feel that way.  The rest of the time we’re just trying to get it done and hope that nothing gets in our way lest we don’t make it to the gym that day.  YKWIM?  So I’m here to cut some slack for you folk out there who are feeling like you are not doing all that you can because you keep reading how you are doing it all wrong:  tell them to go blow it out their backside and start counting everything under the sun as a workout including yelling in traffic, pacing because you have to go to the bathroom and running out of time! 

Stand up for yourself and don’t get bullied by these crazy exercise folks!  Almost started feeling bad about myself because I worked out for an hour today…what a waste of my time.  I could have worked out for 7 min. and maintained a high EPOC for 23 hours and then dropped 10 pounds before breakfast!   Instead I chose to “make myself fatter” by doing a complex or 2 and finishing out with some cardio…SHEESH!  Who knew?

Whatever you choose to do, I am glad you are doing something!  Feel free to let us know about it if it is something unique.  Have fun!:o)

The clocks have been pushed back, it’s colder in the morning, it’s dark out at 4pm in the afternoon…HELP! I’m losing my workout mojo again!

Honestly, I loathe the winter time.  If I could move to Florida (and know that when I came home from work my house wasn’t blown away in a hurricane or taken over by flying cockroaches) I honestly would.  I would love to be able to work out outside all the time.  I love the sound of nature, the difficulty of an outdoor workout and the freedom from the time ticker on a cardio machine.  But alas, I live in New England and it is that time of year again.  It is time for me to become creative and find something that gets me going when I don’t want to do anything but curl up in a ball on the couch with a Snuggie (no, I don’t own one yet but I am obsessed)! 

One of the most successful things that I have found to work for me is to change my cardio based on the seasons—or at least time intervals of weeks.  This helps tremendously and keeps me from getting in a cardio rut.  If you have the luxury of being able to do this—do it! 

Right now it is windy and unpredictable so my workouts have moved to the street where I will either bike now or hill walk.  I live in the hilliest area of my city and I love it.  In the summer it was all about field workouts and track workouts because the grass was conducive to direction change (no leaves on the ground) and great traction.  The winter is now upon us almost and I am considering my next outdoor adventure:  snow shoeing.  Yes…snow shoeing. 

I have never done it but I am really looking forward to trying it.  Not sure if I am going to or not, but it is a definite possibility.  I want to stay outside.  I am not a long distance runner—I am a sprinter by DNA—so that’s not really appealing to me and biking becomes dangerous once the snow falls.  So I am left with no choice other than to become really creative with my cardio if I want to stay outside for the majority of my workouts. 

Now if you know me you know that this is going to last until the first real cold day and then I’ll be over it faster than you can say 9-10 cardio!  Then I’ll hunker down to a nice kettlebell workout or a heavy complex and use that for cardio til it thaws out. 

No matter what your weapon of choice is, find something that brings out the kid in you.  Nothing stresses me out more than looking into the eyes of the drones on the elliptical machines in the gym who have been sucked into the land of mindless cardio.  There has to be more to life than that and I am punking you right now to find it.  Man up and get out there and find a great cardio alternative!…and then come back and share!  WOOP WOOP!:o)