I have been seeing all these work out challenges on pinterest lately and decided to try one out. After all, my little brother is getting married this summer and why wouldn’t I want to shrink a size for the wedding!?!?!
So I decided to go with the science tested 2 week cardio and strength program from Prevention.com published last November. It basically has you trade off walking 30 minutes one day and interval walking the next (Changing up the speed you walk to higher, lower, and moderate intensity throughout your walk) with 5 different strength exercises each day. I figured, it would be a hard two weeks, but I can commit to anything for a two week period! So I promised myself to follow it through and record my results.
It worked! I lost 1 .5 inches from my waist and 1 inch from my hips along with 10 pounds of weight loss in 2 weeks!
I was down a size and the smaller size fit loosely! I hope to continue this program for another few weeks.
Don't forget to take your measurements once a week! It makes all the hard work worth it!
The success in this program comes from doing slower repetitions in your strength exercises. Each exercise is done while counting 6 to 8 slow seconds. The slower reps make your muscles work harder and therefor increases your strength twice as fast. As your strength increases your muscles help you burn calories faster.
I loved that this program did not take a long time out of my day and that it wasn’t overly strenuous. You also dont need a lot of equipement to do it… in fact, all you need are some hand weights. You only walk or interval walk for 30 minutes and it takes about 15 minutes to do the strength activities. You also rest one day a week.
So here is the run down:
Day 1: Walk for 30 minutes, Strength plan A (mostly core work)
Day 2: Interval walk for 30 minutes, Strength plan B (mostly a lot of different squats with arms)
Repeat through day 6 and rest on day 7.
Start over for the 2nd week, only try to work harder by doing more reps, or pushing yourself harder on your interval walks.
So what do you eat? I didn’t do anything special for my diet during the two weeks. I just tried to make healthy choices and focus on choosing more fruits and veggies during the day. I admit that I even had chips and guacamole a couple times.
I did push myself hard during the workouts. The regular 30 minute walk was a 30 minute jog for me and the interval walk was a more of a sprint, walk, sprint walk interval. I was really busy playing outside with the boys one day and didn’t find time to officially do my strength workout so I just did the squat workouts (strength plan B) without hand weights while I was outside watching the boys slip’n slide.
Anyway, check out the site here to see the detailed instructions of the strength plans.
About Jamie Hinckley
I am a mom of three crazy boys! We love life, play hard, and ALWAYS get messy! Life is busy and full of fun, jumping, crashing, skinned knees, rough housing, torn jeans, scratches, but most of all LOVE. Yes, life is crazy. Actually its completely nuts, but I wouldn't change a thing! We love life and can't wait for our next adventure... and one day, possibly a little girl! Haha!