Low Carb-ing at the Cape

The final week of the Faster Way To Fat Loss carb cycling program kicked off just as we were also starting our family vacation at Cape Cod. Fortunately I have a very active family who likes to workout.

Week 6 Low Carb Days - the workouts

Speed Bursts - Our Cape house is about half a mile walk to the beach, so the parking lot looked like the perfect spot to do our interval sprints. The workout for both days was sprint at 100% effort for 20 seconds, recover for 40 seconds, repeat 20 times. On day 1, one of my step daughters and mrC joined me. We did half of the sprints before the lot opened to the public (we had the wrong time), so we finished them in front of  the house. On day 2, mrC and I went earlier and did all 20 sprints at the beach ---> and I missed the box jumps part of the workout again. 

HIIT - Back at the house, we did the second part of the low carb day workouts. Day 1 was a leg workout: squats, lunges, step-ups and scissor jumps (I did jumps squats instead). Day 2 was an ab circuit: Russian twists, bicycles, leg lifts.

Low Intensity Cool Down - bike rides ---> it's nice to take the bikes for a spin and not have to worry about giant hills.

Week 6 Low Days - the meals

Monday - broke fast around 12: scrambled eggs with ham, one PB&J rice cake, turkey and Swiss rollups with a salad for lunch and chicken and green beans for dinner.

Tuesday - broke fast around 11:30: scrambled eggs with ham and two PB&J rices cakes (I was low on calories the day before) and then it was 4th of July celebration time. Chips and salsa followed by a cookout with cheeseburgers, baked, beans, and corn on the cob.

After dinner we walked to the beach to continue the celebration with a fun little Sparkler Party. 

Did you workout and celebrate?

5 Days Later - from the Cape

Hello from Cape Cod!

OOTD: hat (here), swim coverup (Athleta), flip-flops (here)

We left Hong Kong at 2:30 PM on Thursday and made it to Hartford late, late, late Thursday night/Friday morning - 1 AM EST. After getting about three hours sleep at the hotel, we picked up our rental car, loaded up our Cape house supplies, had dinner with the in-laws and then hit the road. We crossed the Bourne Bridge traffic and hassle free around 9:30 PM Friday night.

In my last blog post, I shared my low carb days workouts and meals ---> which were awesome, by the way. Here's a brief wrap of how week 5 came to an end.

The workouts 

Wednesday - at home workout because I spent the morning getting my hair colored and highlighted.

Thursday - at home workout because I had to finish packing before we left for the airport.

Friday - My workout consisted of digging through our storage unit and loading up the car with our Cape Cod supplies, including my brand new Ninja blender (Amazon link).

Saturday - the girls arrived at the Cape House bright and early, so we spent most of the day just catching up and soaking up their presence. We walked to the beach for a quick dip before dinner.

Sunday - took another easy day to recover from travel which included another trip to the beach.

The meals

Wednesday - I honestly can't remember what I ate.

Thursday (On the airplane) - I packed a GF PB&J sandwich, banana, grapes, and some chips for my dinner and then had the scrambled eggs meal for breakfast.

Friday - we grabbed a burger from a local restaurant for lunch and joined mrC's family for some GF pizza before starting our road trip.

Saturday - our bodies were still playing catch-up to our time zone hopping, but I managed some turkey and Swiss roll ups with PB&J apple cinnamon rice cakes for lunch. For dinner we fired up the grill ---> chicken breast, shrimp skewers and burgers with green beans.

The kids introduced us to a new game 😳

Sunday - (breakfast) scrambled eggs with ham and 2 PB&J rice cakes, (lunch) turkey and Swiss rollups, watermelon, and a vanilla Vega protein (great price on Amazon) smoothie, and (dinner) grilled cheeseburger, baked beans, and corn on the cob.

Smoothie in a red solo cup!

Beverages - We may have consumed some extra calories, but how can anyone resist a homemade strawberry daiquiri made by the kids?

Tomorrow is the start of the final week of FASTer Way to Fat Loss®. I'm hoping to be on top of my workouts and nutrition while we are vacationing. It will be hard, but I think I will have some extra support from the girls.

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I'm linking up with Tricia and Holly for the Weekly Wrap!

Where are you spending your 4th of July?
Ever played Cards Against Humanity?

Speed Burst Days

Low carb day in the FASTer Way to Fat Loss® means speed bursts and speed bursts are my favorite workout right now. Probably because I'm a cardio girl. I tend to gravitate more toward the workouts that are sweaty and get the heart rate going.

Week 5 Low Carb Day 1 - the workout

Speed Burst - I chose to take a Bodystep class again because I can get high intensity, intervals, and all the leg exercises like squats, lunges, step ups, and all kinds of jumps. Since there are typically 12 tracks in a class, the warm-up and cool-down are included. This class kicked my butt. Literally. I could feel myself struggling through some of the peak tracks, but later in the day I completely fell off the struggle bus and landed in bed. I think I was just dehydrated, but I felt like garbage.

Low Carb Day 1 - the meals

broke fast around noon - 3 scrambled eggs with ham, 2 PB&J rice cakes

lunch - leftover Italian chicken breast and greens beans

dinner - leftover Italian chicken breast and greens beans

snacks - handful of peanuts and half a protein bar

Low carb day 2 - the workout

Warm up - I walked about 10 minutes to the beach

Speed Burst - I chose sprint intervals for a private little Track Party-like workout. The workout was sprint at 100% effort for 20 seconds (about 100 meters) and recover for 40 (I walk around for this) seconds. Repeat 18 times. I was worried that it was going to rain, but it only sprinkled a little in the beginning. I can tell that my endurance has improved from the first set of sprints, because I didn't start to feel the leg wobble until the last 4 or 5 sprints.

AB circuit - I totally meant to do this when I got back to the apartment, but I completely forgot until now as I write this post. I was supposed to do: russian twists, bicycles, crunches and leg lifts. To my credit, I did most of these or similar in Bodystep. So I can say that I did them early, haha!

LISS - Walked home up the hill ---> kept my heart rate in the fat burning zone.

Low carb day 2 - the meals

broke fast at 11:00 - 3 scrambled eggs with ham, 2 PB&J rice cakes

lunch - wasn't hungry today and I had a little getting ready for vacation fun at the nail salon 👇🏻

PS - wearing my Oofos to the salon = happy legs

dinner - leftover Italian chicken breast, green beans and salad

snack - mini chocolate bar, celery and hummus


Have you ever experienced post-workout dehydration symptoms?

Carb Cycling Week 4: Feeling Strong and Sports Bra Squad

This round of FASTer Way to Fat Loss® seems to be flying by. This past week was about strength. It was about more than physical strength. It was about finding out that I'm stronger than I think.

Here's a quick look at the week 4 workouts:

Monday - Burned some serious calories at Bodystep for my speed burst workout

Tuesday - Sprinting on the treadmill and an ab circuit

Wednesday - Full body strength training with supersets

Thursday - 24-hour fast ---> longest fast so far!

Friday - More strength training supersets and ab circuit

Saturday - Training Day Calories - Leg Day - the workout

Warm up - Since I had to run for 10 minutes, I joined the National Sports Bra Squad Day fun. This was a day for all women to ditch their tops and go for a run. I don't usually run in my sports bra (although I did pick this one because I thought it would look good solo), it just feels taboo, but I'm glad that I did it (even if it was only for 10 minutes). I only saw a few people who were out walking and even though it didn't seem like they paid any attention to me, I felt powerful when I was finished. My goal is to do it again and again, until it doesn't feel taboo anymore.

Strength training - It was leg day. I'm trying hard to build up muscles and get rid of flab, so I'm cautiously adding weight to my exercises. My knee doesn't make this part easy. The challenge is trying to make sure my good leg is not picking up slack from my bad leg. I add in a few single leg reps when I can, but I've read conflicting opinions on doing that. The finishers are tough and squeeze the last bit of energy out of me: curtsey lunges, side lunges, jump squats, and jump lunges ---> I do a modified version of jump lunges.

Cool down - Even though jumping on a bus sounded good, I walked (about 15 minutes) back to the apartment.

Sunday - Low Calorie Day - active recovery - the workout

I joined my local ladies SUP group out on the water for about 45 minutes. It was windy and the water was rough, so it was harder (and scarier) than I like. I could feel my core and leg muscles tightening up because I was paddling like mad to get back to shore and trying to stay balanced. I'm so happy that I didn't fall in. There were jellies out there again.

This week was about feeling strong. I feel strong when I increase my weights during strength training. I feel strong when I can finish my sprints without wobbly legs. I feel strong when I can fast for 22 hours. I feel strong when I can ditch my shirt and join the #SportsBraSquad.

Instead of listing all my meals, I'm just sharing my favorite foods from the weekend:

Protein smoothie

Sweet potato tots

What makes you feel strong?
Favorite eats from your weekend?

If you're thinking about joining FASTer Way to Fat Loss®, use my link to join and start carb cycling with me!

Linking up with Tricia and Holly for the Weekly Wrap!

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Five Friday Favorites

The countdown to our annual family vacation in the USA is picking up speed! The good news is that we are less than one week from our departure. The bad news is that getting things organized is distracting me a little from blogging.

To make up for a couple missed FWTFL posts, I'm breaking it down into Friday Favorites:

1) Running - I'm loving the fact that I can now add running as an official option for my strength training warm up. It's a short little run, but I can do it without intervals. I've seriously come to appreciate all the small running moments because last year I thought my running days were o-ver. So, these little runs are super exciting for me right now!

2) Supersets - Strength training days are all about these lately and I love it (I talked about them in this post). My workout feels like it takes half the time, but my muscles feel like I was working out for hours! I'm also loving that the weight I'm using on the leg extension machine is not bothering my knee. Crossing my fingers that my quad muscle is getting stronger in that leg to help my knee even more.

3) 24-Hour Fast - The goal of a one day fast is to make it at least 18 hours, but 24 hours if you can. I started my fast at 6PM on Tuesday, after I enjoyed my last meal of the day, and made it to 22 hours. I broke my fast a little after 4PM on Thursday with a snack while I was making my favorite buffalo chicken quinoa dinner. This was my longest and best fasting day so far. If you haven't tried intermittent fasting, here is a great video from Yuri Elkaim, the author of The All-Day Fat Burning Diet:





And if you've been wanting to sign up for the FASTer Way To Fat Loss program, use my link to join and start carb cycling with me! 

4) National Smoothie Day - I did not have a smoothie on Wednesday (June 21) because I was out of spinach and Greek yogurt. I did make an acai bowl today for a belated National Smoothie Day celebration. I happened to find acai super green pre-made packs at our local Just Green shop, so I whipped up a bowl for me and a bowl for mrC. Today's toppings were granola, almond butter and goji berries. I'm still working out how to get the consistency just right, but this was my best one so far.

5) MY new dress - As in designed by me! I took a dress design that I like to a tailor in Shenzhen to have a new dress made. I picked out the fabric and told her what I liked. She did all the work and I'm thrilled with the final result. This dress is all about comfort, which is 100% me.

Other OOTD details sunglasses (here), shoes (here) and purse (here)

What are you loving this week?

I'm linking up with Lacey and Meranda and Rachel for the Friday Five 2.0!

And also with Nicole for the Fit & Fashionable Friday link-up