Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Karen! Great job sister! I love that you brought food with you for post workout! If you haven't eating
Within 2 hours of hitting the gym, try adding a small snack
Before you head out. Something like a tablespoon or two
Of pumpkin seeds and some grapes or baby carrots and hummus. Will give you a bit
Of those nice carbs and protein to fuel you up!

As Robert said, I love the connections everyone is making and I'm just loving being a part of
Your process. As I've said before, don't look at the journey in its entirety just focus on taking the next step because you are doing so great and everyday is a step
Closer to your goal!

Stay fabulous! Xoxo

Today I ended up helping my friend give her house a thorough cleaning and decided to let the 4 hours I spent doing that count as my workout for the day (plus bowling tonight). Cleaning involved stretching, reaching, balancing, climbing, squatting, etc.

Excited to stay on track this weekend!

People often overlook physical labor as exercise. You've heard me say this a bunch of times when giving talks on tour...."What is exercise? Does that mean running on a treadmill or throwing weights around in a gym? It could be. But exercise is dancing, playing basketball, enjoying a game of soccer in the park with friends, going for a bike ride with your family, or working on a farm. Exercise should be fun and means so many different things to different people."

Glad you had a productive day! How did you do in bowling? Did you get any strikes?

Have an awesome weekend!

Thanks, you guys, for all the cheerleading and motivation! It's invaluable! <3

Today I did Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 exercise program at my friend's workout room in her complex.

Warm-up:
Sun Salutations
Kicking Toe Touches
Side Stretches
Trunk Twists
Barrel Rolls
Arm Circles

Air Squats - 40
Push-ups (incline) - 20
Flutter Kicks - 50
Squat Thrusts - 15
Lunges - 10
Dips - 20
Plank - 1 min.
Jumping Jacks - 50
Downward Dogs/Child's Pose - 5 rounds
V-ups - 13
Mountain Climbers (incline) - 25

Bonus: 20 minutes on eliptical, intervals setting.

Can you believe that it was actually ME that suggested we do 20 bonus cardio minutes at the end of our workout? Whoa.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal and fruit

Lunch:
Green smoothie

Dinner:
Salad with rice, beans, tempeh, and salsa

Snacks:
Primal Strip
Popcorn (airpopped, yay!)
Cutie Clementines

OH, AND...!! I had two friends today tell me that I'm "looking good!" SWEET!

I'm impressed!

Looking Good! I'm really pleased with your dedication, enthusiasm and consistency. Sounds like an awesome workout and knowing you're working out with one of your best friends reminds me of my workouts with Jordan, one of my best friends and the guy who got me into bodybuilding. I'll see him tomorrow for a workout here in Portland.

Great work with your journal. I always enjoy all the updates. All the very best with your upcoming training. Way to push it and have the ambition to add the extra cardio. So awesome! High Ten!

Get some rest. Thank you for all of your outstanding work!

-RC

I was back at the gym today. If you can believe it, I actually woke up anxious to go to the gym. Whodathunk that would ever happen?!? Haha! It may not ever happen again, but it happened today, by golly!

I put in a fair amount of time doing some stretches. I didn't hurry them today, as I sometimes do (or skip alltogether). I put some calming music on my iPod and just let myself relax while I stretched, which felt great. Then I got to it:

Stairclimber: 20 min @ 60 steps/min, 77 floors. I leaned on the machine a lot, though, and had to take a few 30 second breaks, so that felt pretty lame.

Eliptical (the "gazelle" one I really like!) : 3 min. warm-up, then 40 min on heart rate setting, which increased resistance (only from 1 to 4. I hope to increase the resistance manually to go higher next time.) 3.75 miles. I kept reminding myself to keep my arms high and engaged on the handles. My favorite band, Blue October, helped me dig deep and power through!

Treadmill: 30 min @ 3.0 mph, 3.0 incline. 1.5 miles

Breakfast:
Grapefruit
Oatmeal with walnuts and fruit

Pre-workout:
Primal Strip
Vega Energizer

Post-workout:
Vega Vibrancy bar

Lunch (late):
Salad with garbanzo beans & tofu

Snacks while watching the Broncos beat the Steelers!:
Freeze-dried strawberries/bananas
Some baked sweet potato slices with ketchup
A few chips with guacamole

Dinner:
Green protein smoothie

I ate too many calories today. Boo. I'll do better tomorrow.

Hi Karen! You've got an impressive journal going here. Definitely inspiring me to get my butt back into the gym! Have a great week!

Great work, Karen!

I love reading your journal and I can sense your enthusiasm for such things as your improvements, your favorite exercises, your football team's success because they have a higher being on their side, and beans!

Awesome to see your progress, your enthusiasm and your dedication. I'm very impressed and proud of you.

Looking forward to exercising with you soon!

RC

KAREN! You're doing so amazing! I love reading your journal and seeing you put into practice the things we've been talking about! I'm so pumped for you and encouraged by your progress! You made it through the first weekend with great success. The momentum you're building will make the consistency easier and easier. It's like learning to ride a bike and you're parent let's ago and - then you're half way down the road on your own!

I'm excited for another week getting to talk even more! Have a wonderful Monday!

xo

Well look at you GO! This is terrific, I can only imagine how proud you must feel.

Question for you, what is a primal strip?

Cheers!

I didn't feel like going to the gym today; just didn't have the mental energy and thought about taking the day off. BUT, I realized that I was perfectly capable today and know there will be some other day when I'll want the rest even more than I wanted it today, so I went anyway. Just didn't push it as long today. I did a really easy 5 minute warm-up on the eliptical, followed by 40 minutes of increasing resistance, starting at 4 and then increasing it by 4 after every couple of songs on my iPod. Got up to resistance level 16, and then gradually lowered it back down, eventually to 6, throughout the last 10 minutes or so.

Breakfast:
Green Smoothie with Vega WFHO and flax

Lunch:
Kabocha Squash and Adzuki Beans

Dinner:
Tostadas - corn tortillas, black beans, lettuce, salsa, avocado (I was inspired by yesterday's contest winner! Hahaha!)

Snacks:
Radishes
Orange
Cutie Clementines

I'm hoping to get an early enough start tomorrow to make it to a spin/lift class at the gym. We'll see if I can get my butt in gear early enough!

Nice work! Way to get yourself there by looking at the big picture and knowing where you want to be in the future and recognizing the work ethic and dedication it takes to get there.

Awesome stuff!

Thanks for all your continued work. It is outstanding! We're up to just about 200 people who are part of this New You for the New Year program.

In about 3.5 weeks we'll be updating our "training journal" with workouts detailing how many boxes we packaged and shipped out each day. I imagine it will take an entire week based on the detail and quality we'll put into each prize package.

Have a great night!

PS, note to Carolina, a Primal Strip is a vegan tofu/seitan jerky strip. They come in all kinds of flavors and are quite good. They're found at some healthfood stores, some mainstream stores and pretty much at all vegan food stores.

www.primalspiritfoods.com

Thanks for sharing the Primal Strip info for Carolina, RC! I just remembered that and came to post it, but you already did!

Robert and Karen, thanks! I'll keep my eye out for them, they do sound good.

Rest day. Feeling kind of off-kilter. Spent 15 minutes "dancing" around the living room and did a few crunches and push-ups.

Breakfast: green smoothie with Vega and flax

Lunch: black bean soup and soy yogurt

Dinner: salad and a rice/bean/tempeh/veggie dish I made, which was pretty damn delicious, if I do say so myself.

Snacks: whole wheat crackers, radishes, airpopped popcorn