Wednesday 1 April 2015

Day 1

Day 1 of my post-baby body transformation at F45 Training at South Melbourne.

I booked myself into the afternoon session, which allows me time to squeeze in a workout on my day off, I mean, miss 2 is at childcare so I only have miss 6mths with me. I can only hope she'll either sleep through the session or remain entertained by watching me, potentially laugh at me exercising. Plenty of toys packed and playmat. Check.

I finally get to the "gym" after a morning full of domestimated jobs and cleaning up after #2under2.

There are clean heart rate monitors we strap on located on the table next to the complementary fruits and snacks which are kindly made available post workout. This again is something Michael, the manager here at F45 training South Melbourne believes in, eating immediately after exercising to help fuel the body. Another interesting thing he has mentioned is not to focus so much on food, because during the workout if you are in the #RedZone (aka 90% ^ of your max heart rate) you will burn carbs and post workout fat. So what you do and eat after your 45mins of F45 training you will burn fat. Chocolate post workout??

Michael welcomes us all and makes sure we're connected to the system by correctly positioning our heart heart monitors. This allows us to keep track of how hard we're pushing ourselves. I have also ask biophysics guru Michael what his thoughts are on the #FitBit. I'll fill you in on his response next time.

We're all connected and ready to start our functional training (HIIT).

It seems F45 Training model is based on three programs; "Romans" which is a resistance body weight training much slower, hard to keep the heart rate up unless you actually have good technique, "Athletica" which is speed training high heart rate % and "Hollywood" which is offered on weekends, and is a combination and hugely popular class from what I've been told.

Today is Athletica. Speed training. This will test where my exercise level is at!

We start with our warm up. 30 seconds of bum kicks and arms up, we hit the floor do some (what miss 2 would call) rolley pollies, then 6 girlie push ups and 20 mountain climbers x2 followed by 8 squat jumps. Our heart rates are slowly on the rise. Ready to start our 45min workout. On a side note - everyone seems to be too busy these days for anything and everything! Health professionals say all you need is 30mins exercise a day, but if you want to lose weight, "tone" or body transformation you really do need to work hard and keep that heart rate up for 45mins.

And so our 45mins workout start.

It's all a bluuurr. I remember doing man-eaters? Squat jumps, skipping, plyometrics?? And plenty of other exercises. Mind is fogging up. All I can say is I burned almost 400 cals by staying in the orange zone (80-89%) most of the workout and reaching #RedZone 93% a few times. I worked hard and tried not to allow my body rest too long between exercises. Seriously, how is "rest" possible during our 10sec break of Athletica and going over to see miss 6mths?

Thinking of a salad with "good fats" for lunch. Mmm... smoked salmon, goats cheese, hallumi, avo. Is this what fat burning does to you, crave good fats?

Day 1 completed. Now to do the grocery shopping.

Measuring Up.

Measuring Up. 

It has now ticked over 6 months since I had my second baby, allowing sufficient time for my body to ease into postnatal recovery, particularly considering I had two children in 21 months.

E
ven though I strongly believe that we as women should ♡ our new body; pre-baby, pregnancy and post-baby; I feel I can still do this by living my core self values:
  1. Promoting good healthy lifestyle habits by exercising and eating well; 
  2. The best role model for my daughters; and  
  3. Being strong and have self love.
I noticed a new *gym* opened down the road from us, literally 300m from our door step! I emphasise gym, because in my opinion, this facility is more than the traditional gym we've all learned to know (or dread?) over the years. The style of training is Functional which is a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). F45 Training South Melbourne manager, Michael has qualifications in ever area of health and fitness with a strong interest in biophysics. He has kindly offered to take my measurements during my 60 days Body Transformation. So here are my skin fold measurements, and they will again be taken at the 4-week and 8-week mark.

Biceps -6
Triceps -12
Subscapular -9
Supraspinale (aka muffin top!) -8

Not sure what all the measurement mean exactly but they do equate to 23.8% Body Fat. 

60 days to go... let the transformation start!