I Tabata, You Tabata, We All Tabata Too!

I know everyone at some point in their weight loss journey, sees a plateau.  As it stands right now, I have no idea if I am even in a plateau or not but I am up again this week.  Mind you, it was only 0.4 lbs but it was still a gain.  I am trying to keep my eyes on the prize since I only have 20 lbs to go and keep reminding myself of the bigger picture that I have lost 122 lbs to date! I have inspired my husband to start working out and eating better and he has actually stuck with it for more than a few weeks! My clothes are continuing to get bigger on me and I actually fit into a smaller size today.  A size 13 skirt! I don't ever remember wearing a size 13 growing up and I definitely know I haven't as an adult. Yay! That definitely tells me that the inches are still coming off even though the scale isn't moving much.

And yesterday came the latest NSV in our house.  My daughters (ages 5.5 and 3.5) wanted to go for a walk, even after being outside all afternoon, after dinner to a local park.  They "jogged" the whole way there, like mom has started doing on a semi regular basis. 

And as my 5 year old is starting to fall asleep in bed, she tells me that the jogging made her tired.  I told her that I knew and that it was ok to be tired after jogging.  That it was a good tired. I hope they want to do it more! Its all Anya could do to keep up to Natalia (and even myself walking LOL) but she did it and did it on the way home too!




Friday I decided to amp up my workouts and started Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Not feeling too bad today after doing it three times now but I am sure feeling it in my chest muscles and my biceps.  They are sore but in a good way!  I also came across a form of training called the Tabata method.  It is known as High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short. 


From Wikipedia


High-intensity interval training (HIIT) or sprint interval training is an exercise strategy that is intended to improve performance with short training sessions. HIIT is a form of cardio which is beneficial to burning fat in a short and intense workout. Usual HIIT sessions may vary from 9–20 minutes. The original protocol set a 2:1 ratio for work to recovery periods. For example, a runner would alternate 15-20 seconds of hard sprinting with 10 seconds of jogging or walking.


It has me intrigued enough that I am going to try it on a couple of areas that I know I need extra help with.  My triceps, thighs and abs have been neglected a bit and I am going to show them some love by incorporating some Tabata into my workouts. I am in the process of researching the best moves for those areas to get them toned.


I have a potluck dinner to go to tomorrow night for a year end celebration for some Guide leaders.  I volunteered to bring some dessert (hey that way I KNOW I will be able to eat some) so I am going to share the recipe here. I haven't tried it yet but I hear it is fabulous!

Orange Dream Cheesecake

1/3 cup honeymaid graham cracker crumbs

2/3 cup boiling water

1 pkg Jello no sugar orange jelly powder

1 cup fat free cottage cheese

1 pkg (250 g) Philidelphia light cream cheese

1 1/3 cups thawed cool whip

Sprinkle crumbs into 9" springform pan

Add boiling water to jello, disolve.  Cool 5 min Pour into blender. Add cottage and cream cheese. Blend. Pour into large bowl. 

Gently stir in cool whip. Pour into pan.

Refridgerate 4 hours.

12 servings @ 2 pts each.

Any flavour of jelly powder would work for this.

And a bonus recipe that was shared at my last Weight Watchers meeting.

Carrot muffins

3/4 cup skim milk

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 egg whites

1/2 cup grated apple

1/2 cup grated carrot

1 tbsp oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup wheat bran

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup flour

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Beat milk, syrup, oil and egg whites til smooth. Stir in carrot and apple. Combine dry ingredients. Stir into milk mixture. Bake at 375* for 18 - 20 mins.

Yields 12 muffins at 2 pts each.