Don’t we all wish we could eat massive amounts of chocolate and pasta and not gain a single pound? To that slim proportion of lucky ladies who can, I tip my hat to you. But for the rest of us girls out there, we must work for our bodies.
You have to understand, I come from an Italian household where our two major food groups are pasta and dairy (and by dairy I mean mostly CHEESE!). My mom’s first question when I walk through the door is always “Are you hungry? I made you food!” and proceeds to list the seven-course meal that awaits me.
I realized that, yes, I could hide my love-handles under massive layers of clothing in winter, but spring is coming up (5 weeks to be exact!) and this means I must bid farewell to the handles of love and step into a new curvy bikini bod. Or so I hope.
Challenge ACCEPTED!
Fortunately, I have a friend who works at a gym (I’d even be so bold to call him my personal trainer) who is also body-conscious, so we set up a Monday and Wednesday workout regime, at noon, in the CU Fieldhouse. For the past month and a half, he’s been working me so hard but he never makes me give up, and I think that what everyone needs for a successful workout: a partner who believes in you, and helps you believe in yourself. Believing is doing: I did things this past month I never thought I’d be capable of doing if it wasn’t for him pushing me to the limit.
We’d start with a 1500m jog around the track. We’d time it and eventually get faster and faster. No breaks. Bringing a stopwatch I find made us push harder to get that extra meter in because it felt like we were being observed (the Hawthorne effect at work, for all you academics.)
Then, we head on into one of the unoccupied fields and do floor exercises.
Elbows to knees — 15 on each side. Strengthens the core, butt and legs.
Sideways plank — 30 second hold for each side. For those love handles!
Count with your legs — This is hard! With hands under your butt, use abs and legs to trace out the numbers from 1 to 15.
Bicycle—lift upper body a bit and ‘pedal’ with your legs as if you were on a bike for 30 seconds.
And then the standard 15 sit-ups and push-ups.
When we’re done these, it’s SPRINTS TIME!
I follow him as we walk one lap around half the field, then jog one lap and at the last bend you SPRINT like FORREST GUMP! We do 5 reps of this. Take a water break. Repeat the floor exercises and then another 5 reps of the sprinting exercise. It really helps with conditioning the heart-rate so you gain stamina as well as speed (and training the muscles just toned.) Changing up the different workout regimes as oppose to just jogging around the track really helps me get motivated.
By the end of the workout, my body aches so good! I feel accomplished and ready to tackle the day- especially when I need to sprint to catch the O-Train. And maybe I can fix up my diet a little bit by ignoring my mother’s pleas to eat… but that’s a story for another time.
ciaoxo,
LIZRD
Credits:
Model — Carolyn Partyka