6 Week Challenge - Update #1

So yesterday was definitely a blast... A lot of fun and struggles, and I am so glad I have my boyfriend to share these type of days with him.

I would like to take some time to talk about my boyfriend's teacher actually. She was in a hit-and-run on Friday and passed away yesterday afternoon after being in a coma.
Please like and share the Facebook Page, and there's a website coming soon so look out for it. We're looking to find out who the driver was! Any information helps.

Now, it's time to explain the crazy day we had yesterday!

We woke up at 12PM... Yes, I know! Super late risers. I wrote the blog post about our workout plan. When I got that done, we took a trip to Tropical Smoothie and had our "pre-workout" meal. I had an Acai Berry Boost, and Alvaro had the Muscle Blaster. We then headed home, and I started off my workout!

Alvaro had me start on the stationary bike where I did High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It was crazy hard, especially since I used to always be lazy on stationary bikes. I was leaning forward, sprinting, slowing down, going fast, sprinting, slowing down, all on cue. By the time I was done, my legs were shaking and I was feeling the burrrrn.

From there, I crawled my way upstairs (just kidding, my boyfriend's too tough of a trainer to let me REST for even five seconds... haha). He started showing me this circuit of workouts he picked out from Women's Health. It KILLED me. I could not get through the first set of most of the workouts... I honestly completed this in like an hour, it was horrendous. We settled for less sets and less time for the next day. The workout consisted of the following:

• 3 sets of planks with leg lifts (fail)
  • 2 mins on
  • 45 sec break
• Stability Ball Pike (epic fail)
  • 4 sets of 10
  • 30 sec break
• Inverted hamstring (ehh)
  • 4 sets of 15(per leg)
  • 45 sec break
• Stability Bal Hamstring curl (only thing I could do!)
  • 4 sets of 20
  • 45 sec break

From there, I did my favorite workout: YOGA <3
I did 20 minutes of Janet Stone on my iphone. I did Yoga for Flexibility to stretch my muscles a bit.

Theeen, it was Alvaro's turn to have a killer workout *evil laugh*

Alvaro started off with Yoga for Scoliosis, which ended up being really quick. So we went to the LA Fitness by my house... Problem #1: This gym had an absolutely horrible vibe. We went in, walked around, and left. Horrible. It was full anyways, none of the free weights were empty. So we decided to gym hop in this order: Porky's Gym, YouFit, the LA Fitness by his house. 

Porky's Gym ended up the winner. We walked in, got a tour, and ended up getting the day to workout for free. We're planning on checking out YouFit and the other LA Fitness next time, but Porky's was really enjoyable. All the free weights we needed were free, the vibe was wonderful and relaxing and focused, and the people there were very nice.

We used the StrongLifts 5x5 Program App on the iPhone to track his workout. It told us to start with this:

• Squats - 45lbs
• Bench Press - 45lbs
• Barbell Rows - 65lbs

Alvaro ended up doing this:

• Squats - 65lbs
• Bench Press - 65lbs
• Barbell Rows - 60lbs

The Squats went well, and he was able to keep a good form and not have any back pains from the scoliosis. The Bench Press was perfect. Now, the Barbell Rows became our problem #2: Picking up the bar, and holding it bent down, shown in the video of how to do it properly... It was just too much strain on his back. We decided for him to squat and pick up the bar with minimal bending of his back. Then he stands straight, holding the bar, and bends his back forwards as much as he can. Then he bends his knees a little (he had a problem with hitting his knees against the bar as well), and did the barbell rows in that position. It went well after the first set. It was a bit frustrating because you can just see how painful it is and the video had such a low bending forward squat. But I think the position he's been doing will get better and better until he can bend forward that much without arching his back. Hopefully yoga helps with this too. In the end, he did all the reps and sets with the exception of the first barbell row. We left pretty content with the gym and both of our workouts.

Time for food:

Problem #3: We pigged out, and didn't reach our goals at all.
Alvaro wanted to reach about 300g of protein, and only got to 160g. Now we know how much more to include for his diet.
I wanted to have the least amount of fat in my diet, but I realized that a cuban dinner will definitely not allow that. I'm happy with the amount of protein I had though, just need to find a different dinner to have for sure.

We hope to keep track of our diet a lot better than we did today, and make sure we eat what we need to and keep the fatty foods out.

I really can't wait until the coming days! Let us know your opinion on what we did and keep checking back for our progress. Thank you for reading :)

Love you all.

Kat <3