Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 9

November 30, 2014

Happy Sunday night to those in California! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and a wonderful Thanksgiving for all those who celebrated. I had such a wonderful couple of days and I am sad that they are over but thankful that they happened. My lovely boyfriend flew in from Salt Lake City on Wednesday night and we drove down to the Central Valley and spend the next few days visiting his family (mine are all in Thailand) and generally having a good time. We did some shopping, saw the new Hunger Games movie and ate lots of good food. I made my first pecan pie last night and it turned out really well although the top was a bit too brown.

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 9

So, Kayla Itsines really kicks it up a notch with the workouts for week 9 of the bikini body guide. Like, it was kind of ridiculous and I only managed about 1 to 1 and a half round of the arms and legs workouts. The ab workout was comparatively easy and I managed 2 rounds of those exercises. What did I personally find hardest about the workouts? Definitely the crazy amount of plyometric moves in the leg workout and all of the push ups and mountain climber AND push up combos in the arm workout. Basically sobbed my way through the arm and leg workouts haha.

Did a 15 minute sprint HIIT workout in addition to some fast walking and was absolutely dripping in sweat. I am happy to report that although my foot was a little sore afterwards, it seems to have completely healed now. Woo hoo!

Feeling much more confident and strong 🙂

Nutrition

Hehe, sooooo Thanksgiving isn’t really a conducive environment for the most stellar nutrition. The first half of the week was fine but I definitely indulged a lot from Thursday to Sunday. But I do not mind; as you all know, my mantra is about being balanced and happy. I know that for the most part that I eat very well and mindfully so a few indulgent dinners will not hurt. All of the desserts were so good. For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to a very fancy restaurant and I had a huge lamb dish and shared some appetizers and dessert with my boyfriend and his dad. The next day we had a huge sushi dinner and the following night we had a huge Thai meal. Ahh, food coma heaven 😉

For some examples of what I have been loving to eat, click here and here 🙂

Being Happy and Balanced is what counts

That’s all from me, a short and sweet post. Love you all and thank you again for reading and caring about Honestly Fitness 🙂

What did you do for Thanksgiving?

Honestly yours,
Alice

P.S. Don’t forget to check out my Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram page 🙂

Fitness

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 7

November 9, 2014

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 7

I am once again in Salt Lake City (November is a good month) to see my lovely boyfriend and have been surprised at how well I have managed to stick to healthy eating this week. We discovered a lovely bakery that was walking distance from my boyfriend’s apartment called Emulsions & Fillings, and had to have a few cheeky macarons. My cheat meal 🙂 For any macaron lovers, I really recommend this bakery; the shell was perfectly textured and the filling was delicious. There were two different fillings – a cream filling and a fresh fruit filling, yum! Tonight we are planning on going to an Indian restaurant called Copper Bowl which was recommended to my boyfriend by a friend, so hopefully I can control myself haha. I LOVE indian food; the naan bread, creamy curries and sweet mango lassi … drool. Gets me every time. It’s the British in me 😛

Earlier on this week, I tried out a local and healthy spot in San Francisco called Blue Barn Gourmet on Polk Street. We both got salads and the portions were huge! My salad was absolutely delicious (if a bit expensive) and consisted of spring mix, smoked salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted artichokes, roasted mushrooms, pomegranate seeds, and roasted chickpeas. Hands down best salad ever. I then went next door to Project Juice and I picked up some of their new products 🙂 My favorite of the new batch is definitely the vegan cacao protein shake. So delicious and incredibly filling.
Who else has tried Blue Barn or Project Juice before?

Unfortunately I seemed to have developed a mild case of peroneal tendonitis. I was very lucky in that I seemed to get it after my Kayla Itsines legs and cardio workout this week! I was able to do my arms and abs, and abs and cardio workout although I was a little nervous about doing the abs and cardio workout since it involved jump rope and burpees which are a little harsh on the foot. Didn’t seem to cause any problems though thank goodness. I am still deciding whether I should take next week off and do some less high impact workouts to let my foot recover more and then do week 8 the following week.
Thoughts? Have any of you ever had tendonitis before? I would love your input and recommendations for a speedy recovery 🙂

Legs and cardio workout – The day before my crazy tendonitis flared up

That’s all from me! Flying back out to San Francisco bright and early tomorrow morning which always results in an early night for me. Hope you all had a wonderful week and let me know what you got up to in the comments below.

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness, Health

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 1

September 28, 2014

Today marks the end of week 1 of Kayla Itsines bikini body guide! Feels weird to say that considering I already completed the program a few months ago 😛

Kayla Itsines Round 2 – Week 1

It truly blows my mind how the exercises are still SO HARD. In all fairness, I am using an app I downloaded recently called ‘Pacer’ to keep myself accountable and not rest for too long between sets … but still. Week 1 was HARD. I would have to say that the legs workout was the hardest workout for me this week. I will always have a love/hate relationship with burpees. I absolutely love the benefits of burpees (burns a lot of calories and hits a lot of different muscle groups), but they use up an enormous amount of energy.

Lol, death by burpees – for more silly photos visit my Instagram

I am surprised at how easy it has been to follow and stick to the H.E.L.P guide. For those of you who do not know what this is, the H.E.L.P guide gives you a 7 day meal plan and a general guide to healthy eating. I did not feel at all deprived and in fact felt full of energy throughout the whole week. You eat something from every food group everyday, and I think that aspect of it helps a lot in making sure you do not feel deprived. I can still have my beloved carbs, cheese, and lattes! Lattes are so necessary as a graduate student. The only time I really deviated (i.e. ate out with a friend) was for dinner tonight, but we went to a tapas place so it was still easy to stick to having foods recommend by the H.E.L.P guide. It is pretty flexible so I can honestly go anywhere provided I can get some lean protein, vegetables and complex carbohydrates.

The BBG gets the ‘job done’

And by this I mean you get an effective and intense workout in less than 30 minutes. This is why it is so important to make sure that you are truly pushing yourself throughout the whole workout and pushing yourself to the edge. My ability to do masses of push ups have decreased but I still did as many as I could, right up until my arms gave way lol.

I am excited at how everything has been going so far and I look forward to the challenge of week 2. I weigh myself every Monday, buuut I sneakily weighed myself this morning … 4 pounds lost, eek! I am so happy but I need to not get my hopes up too much. As long as my body looks better, then that is all that matters; I try not to get too hung up by the number on the scale

How did your exercise routine go this week? Did you make sure to push yourself to the max? If you wanna give the BBG a go, you can click on the photo on my sidebar and buy the guides (affiliate link, fyi).

Honestly yours,
Alice xx

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