I have the day off today and went with my sister to her gym (its the local fancy pants one) to do some of their short high intensity classes.  We turned up and did a quick 1km warm up run on the treadmill then began our Zuu class.  What can I tell you about the Zuu class?  My sister had explained it to me and quite frankly it sounded more than a bit bonkers but she is super fit and was raving on about it so I thought why not give it a go?  It is a class for Virgin Active gyms designed by Nathan Helberg, an Australian fitness guru and human movement expert. It is high intensity interval training using primal moves – push, pull, bend, twist, squat, lunge and locomotion in a unique 20 minute workout (though our class went on for longer than this). The gym explains that ZUU’s combined strength and energy class creates an exhilarating full body workout that blasts on average 300 calories in 20 minutes. Have fun being a bear or iguana – discover your inner beast.  I am not entirely sure I discovered my inner beast though the class was hilarious and actually really hard.  We did the following:

• Frog Squats: we bent our knees, keeping our feet flat on the floor, getting really low, with hands together (as if in prayer – for it to finish as my legs were on fire) squatting up and down quickly
• Bear Crawls: with our bums in the air, hands and feet on the ground, crawl forwards and then backwards
• Iguana: is basically the plank position which I thought yes I am good at this then he said to move alternate hands and feet forwards – impossibly difficult!
• Cobra: again a variation of plank where you stay very low in the plank position and then move your arms in the press up position almost side to side like the head of a cobra
• There was another like a snake where we were in the bear crawl position and then you drop your head to the floor then chest and then up again – not that dissimilar to the caterpillar you may see someone do at a drunken party but more focussed and without the booze

Don’t get me wrong I felt like a massive idiot – I forgot to mention the class is in part of the main gym and not a separate studio and as mortifying as that sounds not many people seemed to bat an eyelid at this strange class.  Even when he had us in a push up position with feet on the mirror then walking up the mirror in this position followed by a bear crawl – nothing to see here, just your usual exercise class.

I can see why my sister likes it you absolutely know you’ve done a workout and it is fun!  And harsh – it is done as a group so if any one person stops you all start again – no pressure and no wimping out!

After this short class we had some time to kill so went on the power plates – I thought you stood on these machines and it jiggled everything you don’t want to jiggle and somehow this is good for you?  How wrong I was as my sister came over with kettle bells and we did indeed jiggle but started doing sit ups moving the kettle bells from side to side and mountain climbers on this machine.  It did make me giggle and slightly dizzy and I had to stop talking as I sounded like Chewbacca from Star Wars from the vibrations!

Next up was the kettle bell class – full on go go go non stop kettle bell exercises which today focussed on legs.  Lunges, swings, sit ups, dead lifts – you name it we packed it in to this class.

I finished with a 2k run on the treadmill after an instructor showed me how to use the trx equipment they have which had me fascinated – it was like a climbing frame with body resistance pulleys and handles – would not look out of place in the Fifty Shades of Grey red room of pain.  I won’t lie I was slightly sad to leave the fancy pants gym – every time my sister has a guest pass I shall take advantage until I can justify the fancy pants monthly membership fee!

Now I am off on my bike!  Taking exercising advantage on my day off – bike ride with my friend Minnie whose birthday it is today – Happy Birthday lady – and also who recently completed a sportive and came 3rd out of all the women – Minnie the Machine! Bravo lady!!

So periodically we have a fitness challenge at my work.  Completely optional though usually brings out the competitive side in some of us though not naming any names (cough cough Danielle and Patrick).

It is simple and straightforward with some rules and it basically works by a points system for various forms of exercising.

I would never take part in this over the years as my exercise ranged from walking to the station and back for work, walking from the sofa to the kitchen at home and walking around Tesco to do my weekly shop, maybe retail shopping, but you get the gist – exercising was not my thing so putting in to this would be pointless (literally) and embarrassing.  However, one year my beautiful bestie, Nicole, took part and took to the water with her swimming and won!  Much like my husband, Nicole, has lost a sh*t ton of weight and looks amazing and is another inspiration.

I finally took part and although I didn’t come anywhere near winning I was in the top half and so have taken part ever since.  Last year when getting into the cycling and training I only bloody won it!  In the last one my friend from work, Danielle, and I were neck and neck and swapped from 1st to 2nd and suddenly from nowhere we were pipped to the top post by Patrick (slightly suspect final bout of points but we are not sore losers – much).

And so this week it began again!  I have started strong with a 10k run, three spin classes and a 1km swim.  I found this pic, which I love as I just adore Dolly Parton and also because it is probably similar to what I look like in my spin class…..why are you laughing?

Spin tonight with Emma was brilliant – Ministry of Sound music – loud and fast and such a good workout!  Made even funnier with the lovely man, who I have mentioned before, who makes the sex noises wearing the shortest pair of shorts possible for a man to wear in public.  Amazing!  It is like he works out and his inner porn star moan comes out by accident (to be fair in those shorts we are lucky it was only the porn star moan that came out!)

Back to the fitness challenge, I am not in the lead as Danielle has been running her little legs off (she used to be a runner) and swimming up a storm (she used to be a swimmer) and so I need to claim some points back on the bike (she didn’t used to be a cyclist).

It is good fun, a little challenge at work amongst friends and will help with my weight loss journey too – win win!

As you know I have two favourite instructors at my gym, Chris and Emma, but there was another brilliant instructor who sadly left but has set up his own personal training company, Jack, and after hearing glowing reviews from friends that had attended his class on Thursday night I booked myself on.

I was to meet with friends on my single speed bike and head to the park where the class is held.  One problem – my single speed still had a puncture from when I last used it to ride to the gym for circuit class.  I have never changed my own puncture but decided that Thursday before leaving I would do so.  Clearly I underestimated how useless I am.  After having a meltdown of massive proportions (totally out of character for me of course) when I found it impossible to get the tyre off the wheel and get the levers under the tyre at all, I decided with only 10 minutes to get changed and round to Sophie and Hugh that I would just ride my road bike so went to get changed and came back down to find my son had changed the inner tube and was inflating the tyre – bless him.  And of course shame on me!

Off to the park we set and the class was amazing!  This was us loving it!

Jack is brilliant and turned up with all sorts of equipment, so we warmed up then paired off and started on the stations completing 100 reps between the pairs.  There were the following stations:

• abs – crunches and v crunches
• sprints
• burpees
• deadlifts
• sandbag squat and throwing
• battle ropes and squats
• boxing
• kettlebell swings
• hitting the tyre with the sledgehammer

The battle ropes and sledgehammer on the tyre were by far my favourites – so much fun even if i did, on a couple of occasions, manage somehow to miss the tyre – honestly its a wonder I didn’t injure myself of whack Sophie when swinging that thing around!

And so when it was time to go to the burpee station (as you know I loathe burpees but Sophie loves them) we moved on all smiles.  Mine were false smiles.

Although I did not get to the full 50 burpees I did 44 and Sophie did 56 but to be fair (to me) that is so good for me as usually I will go to plank instead but I didn’t! I still hate them with a passion though.

At the end with 5 mins to go we ended up planking (this I can do) which ended with Sophie and Lisa planking and Minnie and I crawling underneath them and then Sophie, Lisa and I planking and Minnie crawling under Lisa, over me and then under Sophie – who said exercise can’t be fun?!

Had a lovely 40 mile bike ride yesterday with another friend, Lisa, who after the ride decided I should change my own puncture and before I know it the tyre was deflated and off the bike and I was giving it a go.  Job done.  I am making it sound more simple than it was as the tyre was practically welded on and so Lisa did share my pain with my meltdown earlier in the week.  When I got home I explained this to him indoors who was fairly confident that he could change it in a flash but then found out we were right and it turned out the tyre was stuck but with a bit of his chromo strength was changed again.

This morning started with a morning run with Sophie, Brett and April dog. This was my first run since my off on the bike and although my leg is still bruised and painful it is miles better and I managed the 5k park loop.  I would like to say it was effortless but running requires all of my effort.  We must have looked like the 3 most unsociable people running in silence.  Cannot talk, breathe and run at the same time it takes all my effort to run without dying – I’m beginning to think my workouts are tailored more toward not dying than squeezing into a swimming costume this summer.  New sports bra on and all good after some slight strap adjustments in the park (could have looked a tad bit dodgy) and as per usual women will understand this getting out of the thing post run when all sweaty is about the same level of difficulty as Ross in Friends getting his leather pants back up!

It never gets easier! You just get stronger!  Off to the farm shop for me for more fruit and veg and to juice this afternoon!

You can’t out exercise a bad diet!  Unfortunately I love my food….really love my food – cooking it, eating it, making it for other people (if I am overweight I will make others as well ha ha).  On my way to work I will have pretty much already decided what I will be having for lunch and when people say oh I forgot to eat I think they must be a special kind of stupid – I plan my entire day around eating!

I was trying to think of foods I can snack on that are healthy and low in calories.  The joys of being on a diet!  There is a reason the word die is in diet.  It is even worse if you are trying to eat whilst on the go, your options can be limited to……. eating the napkin, straw or maybe ice? Tempting……..not.

But seriously I was looking for snacks in particular for up to 200 calories and found some interesting options. It is funny (and also hugely depressing) to see a quick visual for the equivalent of the same calorie amount:

I have found, for me, planning what I will eat and recording it is the best thing that works though everyone is different.  I also never do food shopping when hungry otherwise I may come home the proud owner of aisle 4!  I have an app on my phone called My Fitness Pal and it’s great.  I go for a new high score every day – winning! I’m joking of course.  It’s so easy to use (I am not that bright and I have it nailed).  You can add your details, how much you weigh, goal weight and it sets a target of calories per day and off you go.  You can log your food and drink either by searching in the foods already listed in their database (I have only found a few not in there) or literally scan the barcode of the item you are eating/drinking.  It will then add the calories (I think of them as yummy points) etc and deduct from your daily amount.

You can also add your exercising in the app too and it tells you an approximate amount of calories burnt.  Although exercising would be so much more rewarding if the calories screamed while you burned them!

It’s quite interesting to find certain foods are high in salt, carbs, protein etc. Not everything you see labelled as low fat is in fact what it seems and very often when you see the words fat free or low fat you should sometimes think of the words chemical shit storm instead.

A funny way of looking at exercising and calories could be this:

But seriously do not reward yourself with food – you are not a dog!

I am now on day 7 of my new 30 day ab challenge – Dear Abs, I may not see you, but I feel you brewing something serious and I cannot wait to finally meet you!

I treated myself to a new toy – the Nutri Bullet Pro.

I have heard amazing things and thought I would give it a go and it got the seal of approval from him indoors.  We cleared a space on the kitchen side – if you are anything like me then once it gets put in a cupboard that is where it will live out its ever increasing dusty days.

Included in the bundle were two recipe books, which we started flicking through eagerly and then off we set to our local farm shop to fill up on fruit and veg remembering none of the recipes and filling our basket aimlessly with anything and everything.

Back at home we began with our first attempt – as I said no recipe followed (that would be far too easy) just started chopping and peeling and adopted a bung it all in approach.  This was the before:

And this was the result:

The machine is vicious – it would obliterate anything in a matter of seconds.  Now I am not going to sugar coat it I realise it does not look overly appealing, however, it was really tasty! Though you could definitely taste the celery so we are on a bit of a work out how to sweeten the juice as I would prefer not a glass of liquidized celery – call me crazy.

Him indoors came home from work the following day with a bag full of washable small plastic bottles and the idea that we would juice juice juice and can fill the bottles and take to work and have on the go.  To my surprise the following day as we set off for work I had a little bottle of juice sat there waiting for me that he had made and it was good!  (Food always tastes better when someone else makes it ha ha).  It contained banana, plum, apple, orange, pineapple and pink grapefruit juice.  Will be making that one again (or he can).

A friend of ours, who is a keen advocate of this gadget has given some tips and added to our inventory is now chia seeds, goji berries, almond butter and unsweetened almond milk.

According to the recipe book you can also make dips and all sorts in it so the possibilities are endless.

He ended up buying berries galore last night and I came home to a really yummy juice made of blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, banana, pineapple and orange juice – what a good wife he is!  Although he has reminded me I should only be drinking one of these a day as it is high in natural sugar.

If you have a nutri bullet share some recipe ideas please and thank you otherwise I am going to juice all of my delicious organic fruit and vegetables…..then just add vodka……don’t judge me.