Vacations over..

Here we go:

Weight For giggles, aka why people need to stop freaking over 1lb variations:
8am: 168.2 (On Waking)
6pm: 167.2 (Post Fast)
8pm: 166.0 (Post Workout)

Supplements:
Fish oil, Prograde metabolism, Saffron, 6000 iU D3 supp (docs orders), Multi 

Fast: - Not strict but good enough for me.
8am - 12pm: 2 cups of coffee w/Creamer, 32oz water. (60 cals)
12pm: 1 yoplait light yoghurt (100cals)
3pm: 1 cup of coffee w/creamer, 64oz water (30cals)

Pre-Workout Snack:
6pm: 1 Prograde Craver (180cals)

TL;DR Workout: 21 mins - 464 swings. (see below for more complicated breakdown) 

Dinner Post Workout:
8.30pm: 1 Can of Amy's Vegetable & Barley soup (140cals)
Pad Thai with Chicken and Sausage. (no clue)

Pad thai was leftovers. maybe 1.5oz dry rice noodles. 1/2lb'ish of meat. Onion, bell pepper, lime juice and a healthy dose of sesame oil. (meat mix was a leftover from day before, I don't usually put cajun sausage in my thai food. It worked out pretty damn good though.) 

There might be something else before bed, probably just a decaf coffee though. 

Workout:
This was first run through so a bit fluffy. It's the 12 minute workout at the end of the DVD I have been raving about. I tried to do it twice. Didn't make it all the way through the second time around.

Tracy's pacing is 10 swings per 15 seconds. Speed swings are 12 swings per 15 seconds. This pacing makes up most of the entire workout. Each set as listed below took 1 minute to complete including it's rest component. 

15 seconds work, 15 seconds rest: (W15/R15)
Set 1) 10 2h swings / Rest / 10 transfers / Rest
Set 2) 12 2h speed swings / Rest / 10 transfers / Rest

30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest: (W30/R30)
Set 3) 10 2h swings / 10 transfers / Rest
Set 4) 12 2h speed swings / 10 transfers / Rest
Set 5) 10 transfers / 12 2h speed swings / Rest

Working into rest component. Each set is 1 minute, the 1h swing portion takes 30 seconds exactly, the 2h swings are working into the rest period. 
Set 6) 10 swing transfers (30s work, 30s rest)
Set 7) 10 swing transfers + 2 2h swings
Set 8) (5 1h swings left / 5 1h swings Right) x 2 + 4 2h swings
Set 9) (5 1h swings left / 5 1h swings Right) x 2 + 6 2h swings
Set 10) 10 1h swings Left / 10 1h swings Right + 8 2h swings
Set 11) 10 1h swings Left / 10 1h swings Right + 10 2h swings (45s work, 15s rest)
Set 12) 10 2h swings (15s work, 45s rest)

Total: 12 mins, 266 swings. 

Transfers are when you switch hands, ie:
1h swing up with left hand, switch hands at top of swing and come down in right hand. 
Swing transfers are a 1h swing + 1 transfer (1 rep made up of 2 swings)

Just to explain my possibly cryptic notation here: 
(5 1h swings left / 5 1h swings Right) x 2 + 4 2h swings
is 5 swings left, 5 swings right, 5 swings left, 5 swings right, 4 2h swings - rest.

Some of this info is for you guys, the rest is for own remembrance later while I figure out a standard of notation for myself.  It might look complicated but it really does distract you from the workout. 

I do know that while the Rif's might be able to walk in and make it up as they go along I will have to plan mine out beforehand to start off. Half the time I can't remember what set I'm on unless I'm making scratch notes on a pad as I finish each set. 

Ended up resting about 5 mins and then repeating up to Set 9. I was losing the 1h swings on my left side at that point.

Swinging it TracyStyle

Watching and re-watching Tracy Reifkind's new DVD: Programming the Kettlebell Swing this week. Absolutely love it so far. I also highly recommend checking out her blog for some awesome recipes :)

The DVD is a workshop they did in San Francisco so I've just been following along with a bit of what was done in the class while I re-watch it hoping things slowly sink in.

The biggest thing I have gotten so far (and this is just the tip of the iceberg) is the pacing she teaches.  I'll be setting up some proper workouts for Friday but this evenings following along resulted in 400 2 handed swings with my 20lb bell in about 40 minutes. Not great cardio wise but it's easing my hands into it. I got a bit further Monday night which explains the sore abs.

Gardening... aka working miracles

My absence has been due to my Mum coming over for the last 10 days to help clean up the chaos that was our garden. I have the blackest thumb around unless it's a weed and quite frankly gardening is one of my least favourite chores. Especially in the Louisiana heat.

We spent 6 days of constant cutting, clearing, hauling and laying down mulch. It's nothing special but it should be easy to maintain over the winter and even I should have a hard time killing it. We weren't going for much more than providing a blank slate for prospective gardeners or a should look prettier in a few months, easy to maintain for the non gardener. If we are still here in spring I'll most likely brighten it up with some bedding plants. 

I didn't get too sore thankfully but I did go to bed early every night absolutely shattered. 

This is what we accomplished in 6 days. 

There are a couple of oak trees growing in on the right there that were not fun to remove. And there was a bramble that has gotten itself all through the Wisteria and Azaleas that is responsible for a lot of scratches and rude words. The Azaleas are all coming up as they are pretty much dead. I still have to finish off cleaning up the bed to the right. We made pretty good progress though. The front of the house was our main goal and what took up most of our time. 

Just to give you some idea, the bird bath you see below is actually under all the weeds in the picture above. Mum had also cut some of the ivy stuff before we thought to grab the camera and it was actually growing pretty thickly up the centre post of the car port. 

You can see the bigger pics here: Taming the Garden

We then spent the weekend in hot springs hiking around 6 miles of Garven's Woodland Garden trails, climbing 15 flights of stairs up to the top of the mountain tower and then hiking around town shopping. I am exhausted.