Fitness and Exercise Blog

I have to admit, it’s been awhile.

And I really mean awhile! I’ve cheated on my kettlebell. Flat out cheated. I’ve tried some workout DVDs in the meantime, walked, and even considering running. Running? You’d think I’ve forgotten the fast results and quick workout time of the kettlebell.

So it’s time to turn over a new leaf; don’t you think? It has been so long for me that I’m going to have to start at the very beginning.

Allow me to reintroduce myself – after all, I’m going to start blogging again. I’m Rachel, and kettlebells put me in the best shape ever just a couple of years ago. In the meantime, my life has gotten kind of busy.

I’m a mom of three – and two of them are two years old (can you imagine?). I’m married, I work full time, and on top of that, I thought I’d go to grad school part time, so I did.

I don’t have a lot of time, but guess what? I also don’t have any energy. Given free time, I either do more school work or sleep. I’m not exactly looking for energy – I don’t have it because my life is packed full – but I am looking for health and fitness.

When I carried twins, I stressed my back because of the sheer weight. If my memory serves me right, I was moving some furniture at work after I had my kids (I’m the type that doesn’t slow down), and I felt just a tiny twinge. By the next day, it had grown into a full blown muscle injury which would have had me flat on my back, if I didn’t have the two new babies to care for. Let me tell you, it hurt so bad that I couldn’t get up from the floor myself.

Well, moving the story along a bit, that same spot in my back bothers me almost every morning. It’s time to get up just a bit earlier each day or find some other fifteen minute segment a few times a week in my busy life and get moving again.
I’m embarrassed by how long it’s been and how out of shape I am. The kettlebell has never let me down, and I think she’s forgiving, so that’s where I’m going to start.

Happy New Year to you and yours, and may your plans also include that important resolution of health and fitness!

The Ultimate Toughman Kit

I was a bit skeptical of any kettlebell dvd labeled “Ultimate” or “Extreme”…

Extreme Kettlebell Cardio 2 DVD is the 1st one I used. The warm-up is a little longer than I’m used to, but I enjoy it. It really gets your heart rate going and prepares for what is to come.

Next I tried the 1st workout called “The Flow.” He said you can use a heavier KB since the reps are lower, so I grabbed a 24kg (which is the size I started out in KBs with over 6 years ago). It almost killed me! I dropped to a 16kg for the next 2 workout sections and one of the core workouts at the end. For a point of reference, I am 5’10”, 183lbs, have done the ROP a number of times, to include the SSST and can strict MP the 88lb kettlebell. Nothing special, but I really didn’t have a use for the 16kg bell until this DVD!

By this point, I knew the “extreme” label wasn’t hype. This DVD is tough. Heavy emphasis on cardio and strength endurance. More biased towards lower body than upper.

Likes: the menu system is simple, but functional. Just highlight the workout segment you want and hit enter on the remote. Once it finishes, you are back at the menu. Catch your breath (cough up a lung) then hit the next one you want. There is good variety, 7 KB workouts, 2 core workouts and the warm-up. An easy day would be the warm-up and any 2 workouts. Medium day; select 3-4 workouts plus warm-up. Hard day; try and do 5+ workouts plus warm up.
The workout segments are about 5-10 minutes each (I’m too busy getting smoked to time them!)

Dislikes: the sound and video quality has been mentioned. I’m all about function though, when the DVD is running and I’m following along, I don’t notice it at all. It is only an issue if you are watching on the couch…but that isn’t what this (or any KB) DVD for!

Final critique: the instructions on how to use the DVD scrolls by pretty fast. Easy for me to scan/absorb, but I have quite a bit of fitness experience. Someone newer to fitness would have to pause to take in the information.

Bottom line: a great follow-along kettlebell dvd with lots of different kettlebell exercises. You will lose weight with this one!

KAT kettlebell juggling DVD vol 1. I’ve only spent a little time on this one so far, watched it through and did 1 workout. At first, I wanted the fancier stuff likely in vol 2 &3…but it is important to get the basics down. At any rate, the KBs still catch air early on. There are over a dozen exercises on here. He recommends to pick 4 or so to work on each session.
Again, I’m finding a great use for my 16kg bell and my wife’s 2X 12kg bells. This is a lot of fun, a great addition to add variety to any routine. It is a good pure cardio workout also. You are using light bells, but for higher reps, and you don’t really notice the reps since it is so much fun and challenging.

The setting and video quality is good and the instruction is clear. There is a lot of meat here to keep you busy for a long time. The lower intensity makes it great for light days and variety days if you are going through the “Enter The Kettlebell” ROP. He goes over safety right off the bat which is of course very important for juggling KBs and a good refresher for general KB work.

No real gripes, it might have been good to add in an example of what a typical “KAT” workout would look like or a couple different 15-20 minute follow along workouts. Not a big deal though, it doesn’t take much imagination to work on 4-5 techniques for a half hour or so.

“Ultimate Tough Man Kit” bottom line? The Extreme Kettlebell 2 DVD puts the “tough” in it, the KAT kettlebell juggling I guess makes it “ultimate?” It is a challenging set that added some much needed variety to my workout program and has enough info to keep me working at it for months. Good kettlebell dvd set, I recommend it.

How much you consume vs. how much energy your burn is the most important concept for effective weight loss. There’s no getting around the 1st Law Of Thermodynamics; if you burn more energy than you take in, you will lose weight, if you burn less, energy will be stored. Beyond this, there are ways of making it even more efficient than purely calorie restriction. First I’ll cover the quantity of calories, then we’ll get into the quality and timing of calories.

As far as quantity goes, you burn about 10 times your body weight in calories just by being alive. If you actually get out of bed and move around, you’ll burn about your bodyweight times 13 or 14. To illustrate this; a 180 lb person, who is mostly sedentary (office job) would need to consume about 2340-2520 calories per day to stay the same weight (180*13 to 180*14). These numbers aren’t exact, but through experience I have found they work well. In order to lose weight, subtract 200-500 calories per day from your maintenance level. To gain weight (i.e. muscle) add 500 calories per day (and don’t forget to lift lots of heavy weights!)

Quality is the next consideration. If I were to just my maintenance level of calories per day of fast food, first, I’d be hungry still because fast food is very calorie dense. Secondly, I wouldn’t be very healthy and would be lacking in many nutrients due to the poor nutritional value of processed foods . Even if you are consuming the same total amount of calories, getting those calories from whole foods (fresh fruits, vegetables and lean meats) would be a lot healthier and lead to more effective weight loss. This will help your body get the vitamins and nutrients it needs and go a long way towards feeling satisfied. You pretty much can’t eat too many fruits and veggies.

The last consideration is timing. The last thing you want to do is have a lot of calories right before going to bed. When do we traditionally have dessert…oh yeah, at night! Japanese sumo wrestlers, known for their girth, deliberately don’t eat much during the day and have a huge meal at night in order to gain weight. So, if you skip breakfast, have a light lunch, then have a large evening meal followed by dessert you are eating like a sumo wrestler! When you consume a lot of calories at the end of the day…you don’t have any day left to burn them. As soon as you go to sleep, your metabolism slows way down and all the excess is going to get stored as fat.

The best time to have excess sugars or carbs (if you must) would be early in the day, so you have the rest of the day to burn them off. It is good to start the day with a breakfast that has a mix of protein, healthy fats (nuts, eggs), and perhaps a complex carb like whole grain bread. Have a sensible, balanced, lunch and dinner, with a healthy snack or two mixed in. A post-workout recovery meal is good, heavy on protein with some carbs like a protein shake made with yogurt. No matter what, don’t eat a lot of calories at night, or anything after around 8 pm.

When you get the quantity, quality, and timing of your calories correct, add in some effective exercise such as kettlebells, and this will make for a very effective weight loss program.

I can’t stand wasting time, especially when working out. That’s why I prefer kettlebell exercises. It always bothers me to see the typical person concerned with fat loss, idling their life away on a cardio machine for 45 minutes to an hour, especially when it doesn’t do much!

Another version is the male who is obsessed with muscle, reads all the muscle magazines, and spends 45-90 minutes lifting weights 4X per week, another hour or more per week on “cardio” and $500 a month on supplements, all for mediocre gains.
3I have never really focused on looks, just performance so my conditioning wouldn’t be a liability for me in combat. Along the way, I discovered not only some very efficient ways to build strength, endurance, and cardio (anaerobic and aerobic fitness), I found out how to do it all at once! I also learned ways of burning up to 6 times the fat of traditional cardio methods also in less time.

This is accomplished through high intensity interval training or circuit training. Dr. Tabata conducted a landmark study in 1996 where he had subjects do 8 sets of sprints on an exercise bike. The sprint intervals were 20 seconds long at max effort, followed by just 10 seconds of rest. The entire workout portion was only 4 minutes long, but in his research he found that compared to the control group riding at a steady pace for an hour, those using his protocol increased their VO2 max by more than the control group and their an-aerobic capacity was much improved. (The control group didn’t improve an-aerobically at all, never tapping into this system). Perhaps most surprising is that the sprint group showed a greater percentage increase in aerobic (traditional cardio) capacity as well!

A researcher by the name of Tremblay conducted a study of high intensity interval training similar to Tabata, but he measured fat burning. He found the interval group burned fewer calories than the traditional cardio group during the workout…but due to having an elevated metabolism for 4-6 hours later because of the high intensity, the end result is they burned up to 6 times the fat as the long, slow, distance cardio group.

We can take these concepts (intervals with high intensity and short rest periods) and combine them with weights. Now we have a way of increasing strength, strength-endurance, cardio and anaerobic capacity, along with superior fat burning, all in one 15-45 minute (max) workout!

While you can do this with anything (or nothing, just bodyweight), kettlebells and kettlebell exercises lend themselves to this style of training perfectly. Kettlebells are very compact and the handle lends itself to high rep, full body exercises, that would be hard to do with dumbbells of a similar weight (without taking out your knees). The kettlebells build incredible grip strength in addition to developing killer cardio, raw strength and burning the fat.

Bottom line: buy kettlebells, try out some interval training, and reap the rewards of greater results in less time!

Well, I was down 4.5 lbs and even did well on Thanksgiving! I did a hard kettlebell workout in the morning so that the excess calories I ate would be put to good use building muscle. Also, I timed it with my overeating day for the week. The problem is, I also had after-hours duty at work and as an insurance adjuster during a winter storm…that is kinda high stress and many additional hours.

So…I haven’t been eating very healthy the last few days. That’s OK. Most people at this point feel like failures and give up (then balloon back up!). Weight loss and healthy living is a lifetime thing, sometimes it is going great, other times not so much. So, this week, I’ll get back in the swing of things with my diet and kettlebell exercises as things slow down some. No real harm, I’m still at a net loss from where I started. That’s progress, and continued progress is all that matters.

I decided to make today my “overeating” day for the week since there is a Thanksgiving potluck at Church. I mentioned before the importance of overeating once per week so your metabolism doesn’t go into a starvation mode and slow way down. It only makes sense to pair that up with when you know you will overeat anyway!

I didn’t stop there though…since I’m going to consume between 500-1000 calories over my diet allotment today, I also gave those calories something to do. Yesterday, I did a high volume kettlebell weight workout. This will allow me to use some of these extra cals. as recovery from the heavy lifting.

Thursday (Thanksgiving) will be my next overeating day, so you can be sure I am going to do more high volume, heavy weight kettlebell exercises that morning as well!

My progress so far is I am down 4lbs in a week. That probably isn’t 4lbs of fat though, and I don’t get too hung up on the exact weight. I just weigh myself 1X week and look for continued progress.

Okay, today was my 1st day on my diet. So, I’m supposed to be at 2158 cals. per day. Not an exact science either so 2100-2300 is OK. Anyway, the “Lose It” app will take any calories burned from exercise that day and add them to my total of what I can eat. I think what I’ll do on kettlebell exercise days is just have a protein shake recovery drink (~300 cals) and call it good.

As far as nutrition goes…here are some general guidelines: Avoid fried foods, sugars (I’m mainly talking about deserts and sugary drinks, there is some sugar in almost everything). High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is particularly bad. Also, fatty meats esp. pork. Alcohol is also just empty calories (about 7 cals. per gram). This one is hard for me, especially because I love micro brews and the hops in beer tends to lead to extra belly fat on top of the extra cals. My plan is to have no beer except on my overeating day and no more than 2 drinks the rest of the week. Hard alcohol isn’t too bad at about 80-100 cals per 1.5oz. So my Rum and Coke Zero is a ~100 cal drink. The beer I like to drink would be 175-225 cals.

Foods to emphasize: fresh vegetables, fruits, lean meats, eggs, good fats like olive oil, coconut oil, nuts. It is important to also have 1 day per week where you eat as much as you want (within reason), about 500-1000 cals more than your diet amount. Don’t force feed, just eat what you like. This will keep your metabolism from going into “starvation” mode and slowing way down. A pound of fat is over 3,000 calories…so 500-1000 extra 1X per week isn’t gonna de-rail your progress anyway considering the 6 days of reduced intake plus exercise.

Today I was at about 2,000 calories total. I had too much fat (2 eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast just to get started, beef stroganoff for dinner). I was a little hungry all day, but not too bad. Not a workout day either, I did trot up 7 flights of stairs at work and did some exercises on 4 of the landings just to get moving though.

Nutrition is my weak point, I need to emphasize more fresh veggies…I always used to make up for poor nutrition with high intensity workouts. I’m looking for a better balance.

For way more outstanding info on nutrition and weight loss, I highly recommend you get The Truth About Abs by Mike Geary, it covers everything I’ve touched on here and waaaay more!

Well, life caught up with me between the twins, the wife, the 6 yo daughter, getting back to my job and other obligations. I haven’t workout out in 2 months and put on some weight. Now I’m feeling crappy and it is time to get back in shape (and I’ll bring you along for the ride if you want).

First, take stock of where I am, get some initial stats and slowly start a fitness routine. I was doing mostly bodyweight stuff before, now I’m gonna get back to the kettlebell. Last Sunday at my National Guard drill, I did my first workout in a long time. After a joint mobility warm up, I did a peripheral heart action circuit consisting of 2 different groups of 4 exercises. 1st group: Dumb bell chest press, ab wheel, pull ups, dumb bell step up to bench. 2nd group: Barbell snatch, knee raises, barbell squats, wood chopper w/ medicine ball. I did the first group of 4 exercises back to back (no rest between them), then rested for 30 sec. and repeated for 3 sets. Rest 1 minute, then switched to the second group and did the same thing.

Total workout time about 20 minutes for a full body strength, endurance and anaerobic cardio workout, I was trashed (and sore for a few days…) I followed that a few days later with an easy day of joint mobility and a few Turkish Get Ups and a set of 50 kettlebell swings. I ended the week by doing the Iron Core Kettlebell workout DVD with my 24kg kettlebell. It was kinda hard, which is sad, I used to do that with my 32kg bell.

As far as nutrition goes, I am just establishing my initial numbers and tracking calories for a week with no changes yet. My initial stats are 5’10″ tall, 197 lbs, and 16.9% body fat (ugh…). What’s important is consistency: I will measure myself on my bathroom scale at the same time (morning for me) wearing the same thing. Body fat was done with my digital calipers. It will do you no good to weigh yourself one day at home, then the next week at the gym, just be consistent so you know when you are making progress.

Finally, I computed my calorie target for when I start my diet. I calculated my basal metabolic rate (how many cals. you burn just being alive) by multiplying my body weight times 10. 197X10 = 1970 cals. Then times an activity factor which is usually 1.4 for sedentary people (office jobs etc.) I am using the pre-loaded formulas in the “Lose it” app for my iPhone which I wrote about here: http://fitnessexerciseblog.com/?p=66

Anyway, 1970X1.4 = 2,758 calories. This is an estimate of how many calories per day would maintain my current weight. In order to lose, I need to cut this obviously. The “Lose It” app spit out 2156 cals/day to lose 1 lb per week. If you don’t have the app, just subtract about 500 cals per day for your target. Men don’t go below 1600 cals per day, women stay above 1200.

I’ve been keeping track for 6 days now, I’ve been averaging roughly 2700-2900/day (hence, the weight gain). Though, just the act of keeping score will cause you to likely eat less on its own for psychological reasons. Stay tuned as I continue detailing my kettlebell exercises and go into more detail on how I’m going to tweak my diet plan.

I was what seemed like a thousand miles from nowhere in the middle of Afghanistan, during a major battle…

…with nothing but my M-4 carbine and a kettlebell to keep me company! It was the battle of Panjwaii (I’m sure I spelled that wrong) in the early fall of 2006, Kandahar Province, and I was an embedded trainer mentoring a commando unit of the Afghan Army. One NCO and I were at a defensive blocking position along with about 30 Afghan soldiers for weeks with nothing but our HMMWV, our rucksacks, some MREs…and my kettlebell.

Luckily, the expected Taliban hordes did not return to the area after being driven out by our brave Canadian allies, U.S. air power and a healthy dose of the U.S. Marine Corps! Since the enemy wasn’t going to provide the entertainment, I stayed occupied my using my kettlebell to stay in shape. I brought the 50lb kettlebell because I knew it was a great, portable, fitness device that I could have with me anywhere in the world (even if I endured odd looks as I lugged it around!)

Should you buy kettlebells for all your fitness needs? If you do, you will certainly get results However, the most important thing is that you take action and do something positive to change your current fitness levels. Whether you purchase kettlebells or not, the important thing is that you start and effective and high intensity fitness program now, to get results. Kettlebells do have a lot of advantages as they are very size efficient, great for cardio and endurance, as well as strength training and adaptable to literally hundreds of different exercises.

Kettlebells are much more cost-effective than dumb bells as you only really need to purchase one kettlebell to start with, not a whole kettlebell set. One kettlebell can last for a year plus, before you need another one. The single 50lb kettlebell I took to Afghanistan served as my complete gym for the entire deployment and I greatly improved my overall strength and conditioning with only this tool.

What excuses are standing between you and your weight loss or fitness goals? “I don’t have time, it’s my thyroid, I don’t know what to do, I can’t afford it.” In spite of any excuses, the buck stops with you and you alone are responsible for any positive change in your life. Working out can be fast if it is effective. An intense 10 minutes is plenty. A few sets of body weight exercises and some jump rope is a fast and effective workout and you don’t need anything except some floor space and motivation. A small dietary change like ditching the sweets can lead to significant weight loss.

Everyone can get in shape, lose weight and be healthy, there are no excuses. In my case, had the Taliban come rolling down the road, I had to be ready to fight them. You never know when life will throw challenges at you, should you find yourself in a crisis, your fitness level may mean the difference between life and death.

Quick update for you today:
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