Training plan and healthy feast review
I thought it would be a good idea to a bit of a round up of how my last 6 week training plan has gone and how I found my week of healthy feasting and ‘set back week’.
Instead of my usual workouts I dropped the intensity and the overall workout time as well as skipping one workout altogether and having an extra ‘active’ rest day, i.e. just 20 minutes of yoga. The aim of the set back week is to give my body and mind a bit of a break to help prevent burnout and so I can get back into it with renewed enthusiasm. This has definitely worked for me, I was raring to go yesterday! I’ve started on a new phase from Female Body Breakthrough with new exercises, heavier weights and less reps on some exercises plus I’ve increased my speed on the treadmill.
I also found that my week of healthy feasting worked very well too. I aimed to focus on whole simple foods and avoid caffeine and refined sugar. I loved the comments you left on my WIAW post from last week about sugar and stevia (which I was also avoiding). Your comments really made me think about things. What I’ve discovered this week is that most of my smoothies really don’t need any further sweetener added, stevia or otherwise. I think I’d become an ‘automatic’ sweetener and had started to add stevia without tasting for sweetness first. I had the most amazing chocolate cherry beet green smoothie on Sunday night with no sweetener what so ever and it tasted fab, so rich and deeply chocolaty. My hunger has been fairly staple although I did have a proper snack fest on Saturday! I’ve also discovered some new fave snacks and meals last week – raw granola with tahini and raisins, frozen raspberries with nut milk and raw granola and a salad topping of nutritional yeast, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds – yum!
I have to say I have missed my coffee! I didn’t really experience any caffeine withdrawal symptoms even though I’ve also avoided green tea for most of the week – not particularly intentionally I’ve just had plenty of peppermint on the go! I think I enjoy the ritual of coffee making and the taste more than a ‘need’ for the caffeine hit which I’m happy about. Saying that, I can’t wait to hit Starbucks at the weekend!
This mornings glorious cinnamon and hazelnut coffee!
I have experienced a couple of ‘detox’ type symptoms in tiredness at the start of the week and I also got a massive spot after not having any spots for months! Towards the end of the week the tiredness lifted and I definitely had more mental clarity. Overall I really enjoyed taking a week to step back from my workouts a little, eat a bit simpler and be kinder to myself. Its definitely something I’m going to start doing every couple of months. I don’t think I’ll be using stevia as much as usual now that I’m more used to less sweet things.
I think the last 6 weeks has gone really well. I’ve kept to my ‘less than 1 hour a day’ workout rule and have enjoyed having a little more focus on strength training. I definitely feel like I’m keeping my fitness up, getting stronger and enjoying myself :-) My weight has also been pretty staple – I think I’m going to try and only weigh myself once every 6 weeks now to keep an eye on things. The scales are evil and I’m sick of them, but that’s all for another post me thinks!
I’m starting a fresh training plan for the next 6 weeks which is pretty similar to my last training plan but doing the new strength routine, increasing my speeds and levels on the gym machines and changing up my interval sessions. I’m going to try and continue my weekend outdoor run for as long as I can into the winter before I have to move it on to the treadmill. I’m continuing with ‘anything goes Thursday’ as I found it was a fun way to keep things interesting and varied!
Do you workout to a plan? Do you like to change up your workouts on a regular basis? How do you measure your progress if that’s one of your aims?
Instead of my usual workouts I dropped the intensity and the overall workout time as well as skipping one workout altogether and having an extra ‘active’ rest day, i.e. just 20 minutes of yoga. The aim of the set back week is to give my body and mind a bit of a break to help prevent burnout and so I can get back into it with renewed enthusiasm. This has definitely worked for me, I was raring to go yesterday! I’ve started on a new phase from Female Body Breakthrough with new exercises, heavier weights and less reps on some exercises plus I’ve increased my speed on the treadmill.
I also found that my week of healthy feasting worked very well too. I aimed to focus on whole simple foods and avoid caffeine and refined sugar. I loved the comments you left on my WIAW post from last week about sugar and stevia (which I was also avoiding). Your comments really made me think about things. What I’ve discovered this week is that most of my smoothies really don’t need any further sweetener added, stevia or otherwise. I think I’d become an ‘automatic’ sweetener and had started to add stevia without tasting for sweetness first. I had the most amazing chocolate cherry beet green smoothie on Sunday night with no sweetener what so ever and it tasted fab, so rich and deeply chocolaty. My hunger has been fairly staple although I did have a proper snack fest on Saturday! I’ve also discovered some new fave snacks and meals last week – raw granola with tahini and raisins, frozen raspberries with nut milk and raw granola and a salad topping of nutritional yeast, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds – yum!
I have to say I have missed my coffee! I didn’t really experience any caffeine withdrawal symptoms even though I’ve also avoided green tea for most of the week – not particularly intentionally I’ve just had plenty of peppermint on the go! I think I enjoy the ritual of coffee making and the taste more than a ‘need’ for the caffeine hit which I’m happy about. Saying that, I can’t wait to hit Starbucks at the weekend!
This mornings glorious cinnamon and hazelnut coffee!I have experienced a couple of ‘detox’ type symptoms in tiredness at the start of the week and I also got a massive spot after not having any spots for months! Towards the end of the week the tiredness lifted and I definitely had more mental clarity. Overall I really enjoyed taking a week to step back from my workouts a little, eat a bit simpler and be kinder to myself. Its definitely something I’m going to start doing every couple of months. I don’t think I’ll be using stevia as much as usual now that I’m more used to less sweet things.
I think the last 6 weeks has gone really well. I’ve kept to my ‘less than 1 hour a day’ workout rule and have enjoyed having a little more focus on strength training. I definitely feel like I’m keeping my fitness up, getting stronger and enjoying myself :-) My weight has also been pretty staple – I think I’m going to try and only weigh myself once every 6 weeks now to keep an eye on things. The scales are evil and I’m sick of them, but that’s all for another post me thinks!
I’m starting a fresh training plan for the next 6 weeks which is pretty similar to my last training plan but doing the new strength routine, increasing my speeds and levels on the gym machines and changing up my interval sessions. I’m going to try and continue my weekend outdoor run for as long as I can into the winter before I have to move it on to the treadmill. I’m continuing with ‘anything goes Thursday’ as I found it was a fun way to keep things interesting and varied!
Do you workout to a plan? Do you like to change up your workouts on a regular basis? How do you measure your progress if that’s one of your aims?
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healthy feast,
training plan
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