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What a difference a banana makes

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And the right frame of mind.

Today, in the 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge, I had a tough 15 minute workout. This workout is the same as Day 4, a day where I thought I had surely killed myself.

I read the Day 4 workout after Day 3 when I went to set my Gymboss. I freaked out at the thought of doing a 15 minute workout with 9 sets of swings. I thought about it all day long.

When I started the work out on Day 4, the first two sets of swings were crap. Because all I could think about was how I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I didn’t want to fail. And by not wanting to so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I almost did.

I finished the workout and promptly threw up.

But I didn’t feel like I deserved mad respect. I felt sick to my stomach all day long, with a blinding headache. When I went to bed that night I prayed that God would let me wake up in the morning. I never want to feel like that again.

I thought a lot about why I ended up feeling that way. We drank an extra large amount of coffee that day before we went for our walk because we got up earlier. I’m not typically an eat before you workout kind of gal so I went into the workout with all that coffee, my system further emptied out by our morning walk, and the sure thought that I would not be able to do this workout.

I think I bottomed out. My blood sugar just went through the floor.

I saw a couple of days ago that the Day 4 workout was going to repeat today. I told David, “I am not going to think about this and let it get into my head”.  And I didn’t.

Because of how badly I felt after Day 4, I wanted to be sure to eat something before I trained today. An early morning google search of just what I should eat turned up a lot of fruit related suggestions. I have been trying to stay away from fruit and focus more on veggies, meat, and nuts so many of the options we didn’t have in the house. But over and over again, I saw the banana as a suggestion. We have bananas.

When David isn’t being

He’s being

I grabbed four Brazil nuts before our walk and, when I got home, I had a banana while I was grabbing my Gymboss, water and kettlebell.

Wow! What a difference a banana makes. My workout was AWESOME! I felt so happy to feel so good.

When I passed the halfway mark, still feeling strong, I thought, “This is why I’m doing this challenge. This is what it’s all about.”

So I’m super excited that I don’t have to pray to stay alive today. I’m thrilled to have had a great workout and to get past Day 8 of the Challenge! 🙂

21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge – Day 1

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I’m so excited to have finally been able to start the 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge. If you remember, back in August, I went to DSD in Tulsa to learn proper kettlebell swing form. I had read that it’s the very best full body exercise. As I was planning to move to Saudi at the time, I wasn’t sure what the gym situation was going to be when we arrived and I knew, if I brought a kettlebell, I could still work out no matter where I was.

Jaime taught me the swing and other things important to being strong. I love being strong! I knew it was important to get the form down correctly because I’m sure it would be pretty easy to really hurt yourself if you did the swings wrong.

I found the 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge and then, after reading through it, I realized I needed the Gymboss which Jaime had recommended that I get. The Gymboss measures intervals and also has a stopwatch function that is handy.

I finally got the Gymboss in the mail the day before I left for Texas for a week to watch Lauri and Laurence. I’m now home and rested and just finished day one of the 21 day challenge.

The first order of business was to figure out how to set the Gymboss. I’m hopeless with reading instructions. I’m more of a hands-on kinda gal. The video they have on their website is terrifically helpful!

My Gymboss is pink. 🙂

Now I was ready to start. I got my middle sized kettlebell. She is 12 kgs or around 26 1/2 pounds. 26.4554715 pounds to be exact. This is the kettlebell I use most often at this point.

I have a smaller and a larger one, too.

The intervals were 30 seconds swinging with proper form followed by 60 seconds of active rest. Jaime told me that I need to keep moving on the rest intervals so I don’t freak my heart out and cause it to stop. (He was more technical than that but that’s the general idea.)

I did the workout fully! And it was a good one. I focused on really squeezing my glutes and thrusting my hips at the top. This makes the swinging easier since all of the power comes from your hips.

I averaged around 18 swings per 30 seconds.

I parked her badly after the fifth set.

Big dumb mistake: I didn’t bring water out with me. I guess I thought that since the workout was only 10 minutes long I wouldn’t need it but it sure would have been nice to have it at the rest break after the second set and probably every one after that.

Ahhhh live and learn.

Anyway, I’m super excited about this workout challenge and look forward to seeing how it goes! 🙂