Workout Routine Change Up!

I did a post near to when I first started this blog explaining the ins and outs of my old workout routine. Although I felt like that was a good routine to start this journey off with, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall and it wasn't really benefiting me because it was purely cardio based. So I stepped it up a level and worked out a new workout routine. After doing research into different styles of workouts I wanted to make sure I had plenty of muscle building and toning exercises because it is a really good way to burn fat.

Whilst researching I also came across the Cardio Bum horror stories, and that was when I stepped up the squats and glute exercises. No one wants a cardio bum! Peachy Perfect, always. 

Below I have written out and illustrated my workout I do everyday. ( Do excuse my ever so slightly green bean looking illustrated people) 

• 30 minute run 

I go for a 30 minute HIIT, where I will do exactly what I did on the treadmill in the gym:

Ill start with a slow jog then move into HIIT:

standard run for 1 minute

sprint for 30 seconds

standard run for 1 minute

sprint for 30 seconds. 

I will do that in 10 minute intervals.

4 days a week followed by my workout routine below which I do 6 days a week:

 Non equipment exercises:

 Burpees -  20 reps

Alternating push-up plank 30 seconds

Reverse plank - 20 seconds hold, repeat 3 times.

If you cant raise your body high enough, try straight arms instead of bending them.

Mountain climbers - 30 seconds. 

2x 30 second reps

 Plank - 20 seconds hold, repeat 3 times

Plank on your front.

Medicine ball:

5kg V up- 30 reps 

Medicine squat, rise lift above head - 20 reps.

Keep back as straight as you can and keep medicine ball to chest.

Mason twist /Russian twist with medicine ball - 30 reps

If you cant lift your legs at first, keep them bent with your feet flat on the floor whilst doing the twists.

Kettle bells: 

Pass through lunges 6kg - 20 lunges

Kettle bell swings 8kg - 30 swings 

Make sure you are lifting from your legs, it is super important to bend your legs when you swing down, lifting from your back will cause your lower back to become uncomfortable and ache later on. ( trust me, I learnt the hard way. This heads up will save you the pain)

One arm kettle bell push press 4kg - 15 reps on each arm 

Kettle bell single leg deadlift 6kg - 10 reps each leg 

Squat, kettle bicep curl, rise, push above head 4kg - 20 rep

This one is similar to the medicine ball squat:

• Hold the kettle bell at the "horns" close to your chest 
• Squat down, complete a bicep curl with the kettle bell
• Rise from the squat 
• Push above head

Repeat the whole workout 2x.

Post Workout Warm Down
I then move onto warming down because I want to reduce as much ache as possible the next day. I use the app 'DailyYoga' which has a ton of cool yoga workouts tailored to what you want.

• DailyYoga

I know this workout routine wont be perfect for everyone but I wanted to put it up to show that you don't always need to pay for a gym membership to workout and to give some ideas for other routines. If you don't have kettle bells or a medicine there are a ton of exercises that you can do that can have a similar effect on your body without using equipment, do your research and put your own routine into practise! 

2 Months Off the Gym!

So its now summer and I have come home from uni for 2 months and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to get a membership at a gym near home or just use the outdoors as my gym. Due to wanting to save money for when I head back to uni after summer, I've decided to take the next 2 months off the gym and make the outdoors my gym. I did buy 2 essentials that I wanted to have during my workouts over the summer as I felt they would make it more effective to what I want to carry on achieving plus I can take them back to uni with me and use them there too!
So The first thing I bought was a 5kg medicine ball. I wanted to get one heavy enough that it challenged me but I didn't want to get one too heavy that it would make it hard for me to use effectively.
I then bought a kettle bell set that included 4 kettle bells ranging from 2kg, 4kg, 6kg and 8kg.
Both purchases were definitely worth it! they make my workout routines a whole lot more fun and challenging. I just use a simple yoga foam mat for when I do exercises that involve lying down, for added padding and comfort on my back.

Kettle Bells: £24.99
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palm-Springs-Vinyl-Kettlebell-2kg-4kg-6kg-8kg/dp/B006LTCJ8K/ref=sr_1_88?s=fitness&ie=UTF8&qid=1435241001&sr=1-88 -

Medicine Ball: £19.99
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medicine-Crossfit-Strength-Training-Kilograms/dp/B00KSDC9QW/ref=sr_1_10?s=sports&ie=UTF8&qid=1435241037&sr=1-10&keywords=5kg+medicine+ball

For my runs I just go on different routes around where I live, mainly country roads and hills because I live in a village with a ton of quiet routes to run on.

My Food Shopping Habits.

When I moved out my accommodation a few weeks ago I found all my food shopping receipts from the first half of the year at uni and my gosh it was horrendous what I was eating! ranging from buying big packets of crisps to 3 packets of biscuits and numerous ready meals and fizzy drinks. yikes what was I thinking?!

So I now do a food shop for all my long lasting foods every 3/4 weeks. e.g. sweet potatoes, tins of tuna, rice, quinoa, pasta and so on... which would be an online shop because being at uni without a car makes it difficult to get 3/4 weeks of shopping in 2 hands whilst walking home, so that's done online and then every 2 weeks ill do a fresh food shop that I do myself in the supermarket (im super picky on the state of my veggies and fruits when I buy them). A lot of people think doing 2 types of separate food shops would amount to a lot of spending, when if you do it properly it definitely doesn't amount to a lot of spending.

Before I started my huge lifestyle change I made myself cut a lot of shit out of my diet which then led to me spending less money on food shops, and it was easier that I thought it would be, not having the rubbish foods in my cupboard because I cut them completely out of my shopping lists made it a lot easier to just forget about them and not be tempted by them.
The main foods that I have cut out my regular diet are:
Bread/doughy type products.
Chocolate
Sweets/sugary treats
Crisps
Fizzy drinks.

So how do I make my fresh food last 2 weeks?
Your freezer is your new best friend.
I know buying frozen vegetables wont be as fresh and as fabulous as fresh vegetables but we are students paying £9000+ a year for Uni so buying frozen veg will be a lot cheaper and will last longer in your freezer than buying a ton of fresh veg that will probably go out of date before you can eat all of it! So most of my veg is frozen, apart from spinach and the odd salad veg that I buy. I buy fresh spinach because I love spinach cooked and uncooked, however I do eat spinach like there is no tomorrow so I don't have much of a problem with it going out of date quickly.

Another tip: if you're buying fresh veg, look at the back of the product section. Whilst working in Tesco for a bit as an online shopper I HAD to pick from the back because that is where the product with the furthest away used by date is, meaning you'll most of the time get a product with a longer used by date. Don't grab from the front they are normally nearing the end of their used by date.

My fruit that I buy varies from frozen to fresh, I buy frozen fruit for my smoothies and breakfast, like blueberries and other berries because they last for agessss! and then fresh fruit for eating on a daily basis, I do keep a lot of my fruit in the fridge as I find that normally keeps it fresh for quite a while I mainly get fruits such as apples and bananas because I find they last longer than maybe a mango would.

Top Tip On Fruit: Buying un-ripe fruits, like slightly green bananas, these will slowly ripen over time meaning they will generally last longer than buying ripe or over ripe bananas which will go squashy and gross in a shorter time!

When I am fresh food shopping I often go for the supermarkets own brand purely because of money and it is often cheaper, it may seem like an effort at the time but spending more time on comparing prices of fruit and looking for longer used by dates of the fruit will definitely be worth it in the long run.

Happy Shopping!

London Calling!

So I decided to spontaneously jump on the train to London for the day on my own to go exploring! it was super fun and could not resist going on a hunt for a supermarket called 'WholeFoods' that I had been told about before. Now anyone that knows me, knows if I could live off green juices and smoothies for the rest of my days I totally would! So I found it and walked into WholeFoods to find in front of me, a whole sections of fresh juices and smoothies. Heaven. The supermarket I would say specialises in raw, organic, and super healthy foods ranging from creating your own salads to raw protein bars! Although it is slightly on the pricey side due to the really good quality of the food and drinks they sell it is definitely my new favourite supermarket, however student life 'n' all means I'm definitely not rich enough to get my shopping regularly from there! I picked up two different green juices and a raw raspberry snack bar.
Triple Green Smoothie:
Apple
Kale
Spinach
Kiwi
Banana
Ginger
Lemon

Creamy Greens Chlorella:
Avocado
Banana
Spinach
Apple
Lime
Chlorella

There aren't many Stores in the UK as it is originally an American Store but I really hope they open some more in the UK! Check out their website for more info about them! 
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/

I then on my way home probably stupidly decided to walk down Oxford Street, not realising that there was fab Nike store that I caught a glimpse of  and then was drawn into!
I know I have said in a previous blog about being a student and not needing the best branded clothing for working out and I still 100% stick by that, but it is always nice to treat yourself now and again, I didn't go crazy and had to find a lot of will power not to spend a ton of money because I LOVED it all. I did pick up a new top and new leggings to add to my ever growing workout clothes collection. The top was £18 and the leggings were £30 and for Nike that's a pretty good find, looking online for Nike leggings, a lot of them come up with prices ranging from £60-£80 so I was pretty pleased with my finds and the quality of the clothes is super good!
http://www.nike.com/gb/en_gb/

Being Healthy On A Night Out? Ew.

There is no such thing as staying healthy on a night out as a student, because let's face it (as much as I love my green smoothies) standing drinking one whilst your friends drink their body weight in Jäger bombs WOULDN'T BE FUN. However there are some things that you could do that would make you feel less guilty. So how I look at it is I use the nights out as my cheat days because I'm consuming alcohol containing ridiculous amounts of calories, instead of eating cheat food for a day I'll have cheat drinks on a night out and eat super clean the during the day before a night out. You get my drift... I don't go out every week purely because I'm a broke ass student half the time and for some sections throughout the year I'll be focusing on my health and fitness so I won't allow myself to go out (boring I know, but work hard now and play hard later and all that). When I do go out I have some tips on making it work for me and maybe with you too. EARLY HOUR CRAVINGS Being students and stumbling home at 5-6 am after a night out through a street filled with shitty takeaway food that seem like heaven at the time, everyone gets cravings for it. I'm no exception cheesy chips all the way! BUT that's where I draw the line. Chips. I don't get burgers, pizzas, kebabs because I know I will gain nothing from it and I've gotten used to not having bready/doughy type carbs in my diet, but because I'm a student, and always starvin' marvin' after a night out I limit myself to chips (don't get the cheese on top, you can get through it...DONT DO IT). This all depends of course on the money I have left which is normally none. Next tip... COOK SOMETHING BEFORE Honestly, the amount of times I've thought about how future Shan is going to feel in situations. So during the day before your wild night out, quickly cook up some pasta with sauce or a jacket potato and put it in a container in the fridge ready for your slightly intoxicated 6am arrival to your fridge to find your self thanking your past self for thinking of you in a time of need. Pros to this? Saves you money, it won't have half the greasy shit you could intake in a takeaway on the way home AND your stomach is content (using the word 'content' loosely depending on how long you'll spend laying by the toilet for the next few hours getting rid of the 'good time' that is alcohol). DANCING On a night out when I've gotten to the stage of drinking when I don't know some people's names (we've all been there) you will not stop me dancing until they play the last song. Love. It. This can also be a super way to burn some of the calories you're pouring into your body through drinking, ITS A WIN WIN, drink more? Dance more! WAHEEEY! EAT CLEAN DURING THE DAY So chances are you're not going to want to work out or do any type of exercise the day after a night out (or like me, even move from bed unless the word food is mentioned) SO what I do is, eat super clean during the day and do a good workout during the day before the night out. If you're busy, start a couple of days earlier, eat super clean for a couple of days, it's worth it. THE DREADED HANGOVER I don't think there is ever a solid cure for hangovers it's just enduring it. However there are some things that can help. On a night out while your bladder is getting full but your mind is telling you to not 'break the seal' because you'll be back and forth weeing all night, this is the main way your body is going to lose potassium, now I'm no body nutritionist/scientist whatever, but potassium is needed for your body to function properly and if you're alcohol weeing all night you'll be losing a lot of potassium. So that hangover is basically your body trying to get all your bodily levels back to normal. Bananas are a smashing source of potassium so have a 1 or 2 bananas on your bedside table for when you wake up as they can help ease the symptoms of a hangover. WATER
Everyone says it but it's so true, drink plenty of water before you go to sleep. The alcohol will have made you super dehydrated which will cause your hangover headaches, I make sure I drink 2 glasses of water before I sleep and have a glass of water ready for me when I wake up. But it's down to your own body so drink as much water as is comfortable for you. So they are some of the pointers I use on a night out, it's just based on what I am comfortable with and how I see things for my own body it's nothing professional or based on scientific facts of food and life, just a few handy tips. I'm going to do another one of these kind of posts a couple of weeks before freshers week in September on how I'm going to stick to my routine and keep my strict mind set, although I'm not a fresher any more this coming year, I will for sure be having one hell of a week pretending I still am a fresher because fresher life sounds better than 2nd year life!

Mentality Over Physicality

In this blog post I really want to talk about how I have kept the right mind set for the past 4/5 months in sticking with working out 6 times a week and improving my general lifestyle.

For a pretty competitive person that hates quitting or failing I am surprised its taken me this long to get my shit together and stick at this new, much better lifestyle but I’m finally there and sticking to it because of how much better I feel now.

So the major point that I have noticed is for me it is definitely my mentality over my physicality, since going to the gym I can quite happily say my body will do most things I push it to do, but its the mind set that you’re in that is the most important, by far!

I’ve tried numerous times in the past to diet, exercise and all that jazz but looking back now I definitely did not have the right mind set in making sure I reach my goals and that ultimately made me fail in keeping up the diet and exercise. ( I hate failing).

What was the thing that kick started your new lifestyle? 

If I am being totally honest, the boredom I had of my degree. Yes, I am paying £90000 a year for a degree that I am quite bored of BUT I came to uni to get a degree and that is what I am going to leave with. I do Graphic Design, so there is a lot sitting on your arse all day in the studio in front of the computer or sketchbook and I was so bored of not doing something physically active with my days. SO off I went to the gym one evening and came out feeling so much better! not only does exercise make your fitter and healthier but it can help clear your mind of all the unnecessary shit, which is what that evening did and I have been going 6 days a week ever since because I love the refreshing feeling after. 

In my previous blog post I explained how I fit time for the gym with going to uni every day too. ( My Morning Workout Routine)

After cracking down on myself to get my butt to the gym 6 days a week I then went onto dealing with my lifestyle and my key word for this change is 

STRICT!

I am uber strict on myself, not as much as I was at the beginning of this journey because my body has adjusted. To change my sleeping routine and eating routine I had to make sure I stuck to it. So from going to sleep at 2/3ish in the morning and getting up at 8 for uni (wild one, yes I know), I had the big change of making sure I was trying to get to sleep by 10pm each night, it was not easy but I kept at it and now I have a much better sleeping routine getting 8 hours of sleep a night and I am not tired during the day.

Eating routines were not as hard to change, two of the major changes I made was cutting snacking out completely and replacing it with drinking water and not eating after 6:30pm until the morning for breakfast which can be challenging but I occupied myself with either going to see friends for the evening or doing work until l went to sleep to keep my mind off having that cheeky mid evening snack (don’t do it)

Being in the studio all day at uni with Cost Cutter just over the road also made it very easy to snack throughout the day and just generally buy shit foods due to boredom and just generally being sociable with others in the studio often turned to eating. As well as filling myself with crap I was spending ridiculous amounts of money each day on food, and looking back I can see how horrendous it looks on my bank statements (sorry HSBC x)

I managed to cut that whole shabang out my day pretty abruptly due to being very strict on myself and felt a lot better for it knowing my money was better in my bank and not CostCutters pockets.

so yeah thats kinda how all this came about, im going to do another blog post on how I eat when I have uni all day and don’t have time to go home and use the food in the cupboard instead of spending money and things like that. 

My general advice after doing it myself and changing my whole lifestyle is be mega strict, if you feel like you cant maybe get a friend of a family member to help you out/keep reminding you of what you want, because I promise you will feel 100% better. Its probably not the most appealing thing to do as a student but for myself it is definitely what I wanted/needed to make me happier, not that I was unhappy before but I definitely feel happier now rather than before.

Lunch And Dinner Routine

So for lunch and dinner I tend to swap the norm routine of having a quick small lunch and a meal for dinner, I like to have a meal for lunch and a small dinner because I sleep better when I don’t have a really full stomach from a meal and I feel less bloated.

Today for lunch I am having a portion of white rice and chilli with a mixed salad.

I found this image that probably best describes how I eat my meals from the dude in the green. It goes with the saying “eat like a king at breakfast, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.”

Mid Morning Smoothie Recipie

1 handful of ice 
1 handful of strawberries 
1 banana 
1 handful of frozen blackberries 
Adding water is optional for a smoother blend

Take A Break And Eat Lunch!

I see so many students walking around campus eating their lunch on the go, it’s so worth taking 15 mins out of your working day to just sit and eat lunch. It’ll sit better in your stomach because your body can digest it easier and it gives your body a quick rest before an afternoon of work.

Breakfast Option

I like to mix it up a little bit and change up how I eat what my body needs so I decided to warm my blueberries up to make like a blueberry coulée that I put on top of natural yoghurt and a banana.

Meal Prep!

Meal prepping a yawn but fab in the long run!

Recently I’ve been more focusing on what I’m putting into my meals and how much of each food component makes up my meals.

Meal prepping is super fab but super boring (in my own opinion) I’m not a fan of standing in the kitchen waiting for food to cook because I could be doing something so much more interesting like seeing how many ‘keepy uppies’ I can do with a football (I’ll let you know when that works out for me). SO when I stumbled across all these cool gym dudes Instagramming their pictures of meal prepping I WANTED TO GIVE IT A WHIRL.

At first I was just cooking my meal for the next day using what I had for dinner the night before, which was working well for me then I decided to step it up another level. Cooked all my meals for the week in one evening and BAMM. Every other evening I can spend practising my keepy uppies. Yes.

ALSO, this is a super way for students to be able to take their pre prepped meals to uni with them, this means they know exactly what they’re eating plus keeping that well earned (maybe) moneys in their pocket and not the shop across the roads pocket.

Saturday Morning Breakfast

So the gym opens a little later on a Saturday which means I get a lay in and can spend more time on my breakfast.
Today I’ve put together:
1 poached egg
2 slices of roasted sweet potato
½ an avocado and ½ a tomato mashed together
Handful of spinach

A lot of people have bread instead of sweet potato but because I’ve totally cut bread out my daily diet I didn’t have any so I opted for sweet potato which works just as well

All Things Green...

Anyone that knows me, will know how much I love my smoothies and juices esp green ones, so this is the average green smoothie I normally make at home.

I use the Breville Blender which at first was a total impulse buy but has definitely become a worthy impulse buy, it’s super awesome and not expensive. I got mine off amazon for £22 but they usually range from £20-£35 depending on the type you get mine is the Blend-Active Personal Blender. It’s so easy and convenient, the bottle it’s all blended in is the same bottle you can drink it from, you just change the lid from the blade blender lid to the drink lid, with very little washing up (always a bonus for a student).

In this smoothie, I have put in:
1 handful of spinach
2 table spoons of low fat natural yoghurt
Half an avocado
Handful of ice cubes
1 Apple

It’s not the sweetest of smoothies so you could add lemon juice or honey for sweetness but I prefer mine unsweetened.

The smoothies can also be quite stodgy so I sometimes add either skimmed milk or water to loosen the mixture to make it blend better into a smoothie.

You can put anything in a smoothie and make your own recipes I try to make at least 2 or 3 of these type of smoothies a week because it’s a fab way of getting the greens in your body in a different form to just eating them in meals.

Breville Blend-Active Personal Blender - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breville-Blend-Active-Personal-Blender-White/dp/B00DGLUW4E

Mid Transformation Post

Still have a way to go to get to my goal but I’m uber happy with my transformation so far, nothing wrong with a lil motivation.

My Morning Workout Routine

Yep, you did just read that I, a student, gets up in the morning and goes to the gym. From October to December last year I didn’t even know what the morning looked like as I had a horrendous sleeping pattern of going to sleep in the early hours and sleeping most of the day. Which looking back now is something I’m not happy I did but hey ho, it’s all one big journey.

But when I decided to change my lifestyle I was reading a ton of articles on what is the ‘best’ time to workout. Different articles said different things but my personal conclusion is whenever is best for you. At first I tried doing my workouts at different times during the day starting with evenings, as well as the gym being busy I was realising I was lacking in motivation due to being at uni all day and ended up just wanting to go home to bed.

So I switched it up and tried going during my lunch break at uni, which wasn’t too bad but when I had finished I was knackered and didn’t fancy going back to uni to do more work in the afternoon and again I then switched it up!

MORNINGSSSS!!
By far the best time of the day for me personally, at first getting into a routine of getting up at 6am to go to the gym for 7am and be back and showered before uni at 9am was quite tricky as my body wasn’t used to it but I powered through and now LOVE getting up early. To make sure my body would merge into this routine I was very strict at first of what time I went to sleep, it would be around 10-10:30 just so my body could get enough sleep to get up early. Making sure I got at least 8 hours sleep each night.

When my body started to get used to my new routine it was a lot easier and I had a lot more energy to start the day.

My Workout Routine:
At the moment because I’m mostly focusing on losing weight, I mainly focus on cardio in the gym. And loads of people say you need to mix it up with weights and stuff like that as well but so far my body is reacting well to cardio so I’m sticking with that for now. I mainly use 2 machines which are the cross trainer and treadmill.
Cross trainer: 45 minutes interval training, I will do a warm up then I will go on to doing:
2 minutes intense-1 minute cool-1minute intense-1minute cool-2minutes intense and repeat for 45 minutes. Raising your heart rate in small burst with intervals is a proven way to burn those calories and seems to be working for me!

I then head over to the treadmill and I’ll a lot of the time do a HIIT workout, which will start off as a fast paced walk, then a jog, then a standard run for 1 minute then a sprint for 50 seconds and back to a standard run for 1 minutes and sprint again for 50 seconds, I will repeat the run-sprint workout for 15 minutes.

My favourite type of workout is definitely a HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout, although it’s pretty tough and tiring depending on the level you push yourself to, You feel amazing after.

And that is about all I do at the gym at the moment, 1 hour of cardio a day is definitely enough to burn those unwanted calories and release the good toxins for your body.

When I go on to using other equipment at the gym to tone up after I’ve got to my weight goal I’ll update on my next gym routine

Protein shake lovin’…

So this isn’t an essential thing you need in your life to achieve fitness goals but I wanted to give it a go. It is not the cheapest either, I paid £19.49 for 1.45kg on the MyProtein website which is quite a lot and it lasts well.

I didn’t want to get protein powder to build muscles or anything like that so I went with the impact diet type. After doing research because I had no clue about the ingredients or anything about it I decided to give it a go.

This type of protein powder is whey protein, which is fab in helping with weight loss and increasing metabolism. Overall is boosts metabolism and reduces appetite to reduce snacking between a meals.

I have my protein shake after the gym using skimmed milk instead of water because I think it tastes better. And then I may have one mid afternoon to stop cravings for eating crap before dinner.

I’ve been drinking these shakes for a month and a bit now and I’m finding it is helping me so much, with stopping cravings and generally having more energy after a workout.

Pre gym breakfast:

Sainsbury’s own blueberry whole grain wheats
Sainsbury’s own Greek yoghurt
1 banana
Handful of blue berries
Honey.

If I don’t have all these ingredients I’ll just have the blueberry whole grain wheats with skimmed milk 

My skin Routine After The Gym…

Neutrogena are my ultimate pals at the moment, along with drinking a ton more water each day, using their daily scrub and face wash has helped level my skin out so much.

I use Boots tea tree nose strips every couple of weeks to clear my nose of any deep blocked paws or surface spots.

Every morning after the gym I’ll jump in the shower and use the daily scrub and massage it into my face especially concentrating on problem areas on my face and will massage it in for about 3 minutes (one song length that I have blasting whilst in the shower) then I will wash it off and apply the facial wash and repeat the face massage for one song length.

When I’m out the shower there’s nothing better than smelling like a strawberry soufflé for the rest of the day so I either use Body Shop body butter or Soap & Glory body butter to keep my skin feeling smooth.

Now for the big shout out to the number 1 helper of keeping my skin clear….water.
I try to make sure I drink at least 5 bottles a day and the results have been incredible for my skin. So I definitely recommend!

I drink filtered water because the water that comes out the tap doesn’t look to appetising in this city, but my £7 water filter jug from Wilkinsons is doing the job!