#shredmill

Bootycall: 30 day shred

M1: Meta- D and egg whites with mushroom and tomato + half a Trader Joe's apple bran muffin and half a chicken sausage

M2: Plain greek yogurt and strawberries and blueberries

M3: Cabbage salad with avocado, celery, carrot, radish, lime juice and homemade veggie burger + apple slices on the side

M4: Hard-boiled egg and TJ's trail mix packet

WO: Shredmill

The moment during the day when I look at my training calendar and see the word “Intervals” marked, I cringe.  Interval training is the bane of my existence.  Give me weight training, long runs and hills any day.  But speed work?  I dred every second leading to it.

The good news?  The results are almost instant.  Interval training is the best way to shred fat from your body (especially that stubborn belly fat!) and get you to your goal pace.  I don’t recall where I saw this nickname, but a few sites dubbed interval training “Shredmill”.  So fitting.  I researched and tried a few different types of interval training and I personally feel the two listed below are the best of the bunch.

Shredmill Workout 1 (thanks to my girls from ToneItUp!)

2 Minute Brisk Walk

4 Minutes Jog

10 Second ‘Sprint’- this can just be as fast as you can

30 Second Run (slightly faster than your Jog)

10 Second ‘Sprint’

4 Minutes Jog

2 Minute Brisk Walk

Take a breather with water if you need to

Repeat this 2-3 more times!

Shredmill Workout 2 (slightly more difficult than the one above)

First, take a post it or piece of paper and define your personal paces for the following:

Current Long Distance Pace

Goal Pace

Interval Pace (your goal pace minus 30 seconds)

5k Pace

Balls to the Wall Pace (5k pace minus 30 seconds)

Take this note with you to the SHREDmill and post it where you can see it while you’re running.

Take 3-5 minutes walking briskly to warm your muscles up.

When you’re ready, you’re going to climb the pace ladder you wrote on your note.  Starting from your Current Long Distance Pace, run at that pace for 1 minute.

Increase to speed to Goal Pace for 1 minute

Continue to increase the speed up the pace ladder each minute.

Once you’ve been going balls to the wall for a minute, go back down the ladder, decreasing your pace minute by minute.

You feel it?  Well, you aren’t done…repeat the ladder 4-5 more times!  Dig deep!

Remember, interval training is meant to kick your ass, but stick with it.  The great thing about the second interval workout is you’re always changing it up every minute.  Your body can do it, that’s not the barrier.  It’s your mind.  So you just have to tell yourself to take it a minute at a time.  Talk your self up and down that ladder, shred that fat to make you a lean mean fast machine!

I've been doing a new workout program called Tone It Up. One of my coworkers introduced it to me and it has been awesome. It's been 2 weeks now and it is really helping me to push myself harder than before. I've tried other programs, like Tracy Anderson, but this has worked for me so much better because it's something that I can just incorporate into my existing workout routine.

Their biggest thing is to set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier than normal and just do something. It doesn't have to be a crazy full-blown workout, just do something. You can take a half hour walk, you can do 30 minutes of weight training, whatever you want. It may sound like that isn't much, but it really helps you start your day right. It jump-starts your metabolism and wakes you up for the day.

They also have a monthly calendar and if you keep up with their facebook page or twitter account, they give you challenges during the week. This past Thursday's challenge was to do planks for as long as you can, 3 times. It's been really awesome having a couple of my coworkers doing this program too because we took breaks during the day and planked in the hallway. And we were laughed at, but we were laughing too!

Yesterday's challenge was to do 30 reps of a workout every hour, on the hour. And we did. And it was awesome. We got laughed at again, but hey, it made the day fly by. Emails went through the office like "Lunges. 5 minutes. BE THERE!" And we all were. It was great.

They release new workouts every Tuesday and they are KILLERS. This past Tuesday was the SHREDmill. I've done it twice this week and it is a bitch. But an awesome bitch. You feel so good when you've completed it.