Vacation Workouts

I was determined to work out while on vacation.  This would be relatively easy for someone staying in a hotel or even a big city.  Most hotels have gyms and pools and if you were in a city, you could find a gym and classes of all kinds.  I, however, was in neither a hotel or a city.  I was in a small Inn in northern Michigan and had to be creative.


Prior to vacation, I found some online workouts- BodyRocktv and Zuzana Light's Z Wow.  Basically, they both provide daily workouts that you can do at home with little or no equipment- and they are fast.  I decided to try these out while out of town.  While some of their workouts are equipment free, some are not, and I was interesting in adding some resistance.
I already had a handy little "gym" at home.  

You can see, I have resistance bands of all types, 10 lb dumbbells, a weighted jump rope and a stability ball. Before vacation, I wanted to get a few more items.  I wanted a kettle ball, a medicine ball and these little balance pod things.  


I checked out a number of stores looking for a kettle ball and a medicine ball (I ordered the balance pods from Amazon).  I was blown away by the prices.  A 15 lb kettle ball was $40.00 at Target, and Dicks, Dunhams and Sports Authority were no better.  The best price I could find for a 10 lb medicine ball was $30.00.  This just was not going to cut it.


I decided it was time to check out the fitness girl's secret shopping weapon.  The one-two punch of Marshals and TJ Maxx.  Besides having fantastic workout clothes "for cheap", sometimes you can find great deals on equipment.  And that little excursion  payed off.  I got the exact 10 lb medicine ball that Target sells for $30 for $12.00 and a 15 lb Kettle Ball for $14.00.  I was thrilled, though I was kicking myself for not going there first.  (And I spend a bunch of money on clothes while there...oh well)

So, this is what I took with me on vacation (remember- we drove in our van, makes it easy to take this much crap): 
15 lb Kettleball
10 lb medicine ball
weighted jump rope
yoga mat
foam roller
Adjustable resistance tubes with handles
Resistance Bands-vary in resistance
Ankle resistance bands
2 stability /balance pods

I'm not going to go over all of my workouts in detail- but here's a summary
Sat: Travel day- off
Sunday: 5 K run plus strength 
Monday: Jump Rope Intervals- I made this up and really liked it!
Tuesday: Z Wow 6 plus 3 mi bike ride
Wednesday: 5 k race (more on that later)

Thursday: Z Wow 9 plus strength and 10 min warm up

Friday: Z Wow 8 plus strength and 10 min warm up

Saturday: Travel day- off


The Z wow workouts were much harder than they looked.  I did them in our tiny room, which went from this:

To this:

I was dripping with sweat by the end of these workouts. The fact that it was in the mid 80s and I was working out without air conditioning probably contributed to the sweat factor- still, these were good, quick workouts.


Me before:

Me after. Lasted about 1 minute before I was down to a sports bra.  A look I would never, ever sport in public!

Gross.

If you get a chance to check these sites out, be warned, they are overly...how do I put it...."sexy".  Especially bodyrock.  Not a big deal to me, but sometimes it gets ridiculous and I can't help but say "really?".  "Really?":  


The big issue with these workouts are that they cannot be downloaded. Since we were without internet access, this was a problem.  I came up with a workable solution.  Before vacation, I chose the workouts I would do and I used my phone to take a picture of the workout list and then took video of Zuzana showing how to do each exercise.  I'm glad I did this, because some moves were pretty complicated at first.  

Here's a photo of the video being played on my phone...crazy. 

I ended up sticking with Zuzana's workouts, since I had all of the equipment she uses.  A lot of the bodyrock workouts use a sandbag and/or an Ugi Ball(stay tuned, I will be posting about these items in the next couple of weeks)


All and all, I am really proud of myself for working out while on vacation.  I really had limited free time and it would've been so easy to skip the workouts.  I mean, I had so many excuses not to work out- the weather (the days were very hot and humid, except the jump rope day- that was rain), no time, no place to work out, etc.  


I've already said that I'm a big fan of the food at Camp Arcadia. In the past, I've often gained about 5 lbs.  That is in one week!  This year I did gain a little, but just 1 lb.  I managed this by only eating dessert/sweets 3 times all week (a sweet is offered at every. single. meal.), having only one splurge meal (pulled pork nachos and beer with two of my SILs) and trying to not eat carbs after 3 pm.  I loaded up on protein (I even brought my personal blender and protein powder, cheese sticks and hard boiled eggs), fresh fruit and veggies and tried to avoid creamy/high fat stuff.  It really worked out and wasn't too hard. 


Side note: Packing fitness clothes.  I loved my solution for packing and storing my fitness clothes (if I do say so myself..).  Each outfit is rolled-up and secured with a headband or hair elastic. Easy!

 Then I just stored it all in a basket under the bunk bed.