My mom works with a woman who also owns a fitness studio in Chanhassen called Bring It Studios. She mentioned a new fitness program to my mom who then mentioned it to me. Peak 10 is a metabolic circuit training program that targets people who have been going to the gym regularly who want to tone up or lose more weight. I had been waffling between trying cross fit or something intense like that as my next fitness step and this Peak 10 popped up at the perfect time. It is a program created by a woman in California and this is the first time it's being offered in Minnesota (as far as I know).
I did my fitness test on Sunday. It was a half hour where we counted our reps for 10 different exercises. We will see how we improve in 8 weeks based on this initial test. It was not easy. There were a couple of things I was able to do well because of my training- fence hoppers, ankle grabbers, prisoner squats- but they were mostly hard and put me to the test right away. Afterwards I felt great- worn out and sweaty but great. Yesterday and today, my back is killing me. I think this is due to one exercise called side outs that I don't think I did 100% correctly but I think it also used muscles in ways I wasn't totally used to.
My first full class is tonight. The Peak 10 founder created a week one meal plan follow. Erin, my instructor, told us we didn't have to do it but I anted to get the full experience so last night I bought a million vegetables and cooked my meals for today. It took more time than I expected. I hope to figure that out this week so cooking my meals isn't such a hassle because I don't have time in my busy schedule to waste.
Along with this program I have purchased a device called Lark Life which is a wristband that tracks my steps, records meals and monitors how I sleep. It's a cool device. It took me a week to finally figure out how the sleep function worked but I got it right yesterday and it was worth it. Apparently I woke up 13 times last night (whether that's true or I just moved around is a good question). It syncs with my iPhone and lets me know when I haven't been active for a while so I get up and walk around the clinic. Last night at 10:30 I was still up and it chimed at me to remind me it was time for bed. When I'm at work I hook it in a belt loop on my pants because I move my arms around a lot and last week it mistook that for far more steps than I knew I actually took. When I work out I put it back on my wrist. It is fun to know my step count every day and I'm excited to see how this sleep function really works.
I'm excited to start tonight but nervous because I have no idea what we will do (besides so many exercises with practically no rest). The good news is that I am determined to slim down some more, tone up and "win" this for myself.
I plan to blog each week of this 8 week experience. Here is what I've learned so far:
1. Chocolate yogurt is delicious. It may not sound like it would be but I read about it on some website and found it at Whole Foods last night. It's called Stonyfield Farms Chocolate Underground. It is vanilla yogurt with chocolate on the bottom that you mix in. So good. I will be buying more.
2. I had to cook chicken last night and as soon as I put it on the pan I remembered my George Foreman. Duh! I will be digging that out for the rest of the week to cook healthier chicken.
3. Make good choices. I had cocoa krispies for breakfast. It was within my allowed calorie range but it definitely did not fill me up. I plan to keep on track with healthy breakfasts, other meals and snacks that will be good for me and hopefully keep me from grazing or snacking on other crap.
4. Water is my new best friend! I've always loved ice cold water but now I'm extra serious about drinking a ton of it.
That's all for now. Here are a bunch of links if you're interested in anything I mentioned. Also in this post is a picture I took of my starting info after our test. The next Peak 10 class will start in April. Stay on top of it if you're interested because I guess a lot of people in the Twin Cities are taking notice and my class is totally full with more people than they were expecting.
Peak 10 info: http://breakthrufitness.com/programs/peak-10/
Bring It Studios: http://www.bringitstudios.net
Lark wristband: http://lark.com/products/larklife/experience
