In this final installment of our sexy arms series we’re going to look at how do we get those deltoids in tip top shape. Yes i know deltoids are technically shoulder muscles, but since we’ve worked on the biceps and triceps we can’t have our deltoids looking all shabby.

Once again we turn to YouTube for a little instruction:

1. Alternating Dumbbell Raises

2. Alternating Lateral Dumbbell Raises

3. Cable Lateral Raises

4. Ball Push-Ups

In part one of our “Sexy Arms” series we showed you how to get those triceps in shape. However it doesn’t do you any good to have sexy triceps if your biceps are lacking. So this week we’re going to turn to YouTube once again to demonstrate the bes biceps exercises for women:

1. Barbell Curls

2. Dumbbell Curl

3. Cable Curls

4. EZ Bar Curls

I’m all about having sexy, sleek arms. Once upon a time in my life (definitely not now) had sleek, toned arms. Not to muscular. No waving flags. They were just right. So today we’re going to look at the best triceps exercises for women and we’re going to use YouTube to show you how they’re done:

1. Triceps Dips

2. Dumbbell Triceps Extensions

3. The Skull Crusher

4. Close Grip Push Ups

Winter time can be hell on a running/walking workout if you’re used to working out outside. And for those of you ladies with hair concerns, the wetness of the winter time ain’t exactly encouraging you to go exercising outdoors either.

I’m always really impressed when I see the pics of Ms. Tracy running around out there in the snow. Lord knows it couldn’t be me. It hits 40 degrees ’round here (I’m in Florida) I”m like, “Hmm…looks like I’ll be jumping rope today.” The cold on my native Floridian behind is no joke.

So that brings me to today’s post – a walking workout on a treadmill that will ahve you burning 2000 calories – becasue the best way to avoid those winter workout blues is to get thee on treadmill. Be it one at home or in the gym, the treadmill is a great way to avoid freezing your bullocks off in the name of staying fit.

Here’s the workout from Fitness Magazine:

Monday

* Power walk: 30 minutes
* Strength-train: 20 minutes

Total: 50 minutes

Tuesday

* Warm up: Walk easily, then briskly: 3 minutes
* Power walk: 2 minutes
* Run fast (but don’t sprint): 2 minutes
* Repeat Steps 1 & 2: 10 times
* Cool down: Walk easily: 2 minutes

Total: 45 minutes

Wednesday

* Warm Up: Walk easily: 5 minutes
* Do your favorite strength-training move: 12 reps
* Power walk at 4% to 6% incline: 3 minutes
* Repeat Steps 1 & 2: 6 times
* Cool down: Walk easily: 5 minutes

Total: 40 minutes

For the rest of the week’s workout keep reading.

“I just don’t have the time to workout,” wails any woman who isn’t looking to sweat out her hair, or sweat at all.

Well I say – get over yourself – the do and be re-did and a little sweat never hurt anyone. Following is a no excuses, no equipment necessary 20 Minute At Home Workout, that even the most coach potato of couch potatoes can cut their teeth on. Enjoy!

THE NO-EQUIPMENT-NECESSARY WORKOUT

1. BODY-WEIGHT SQUAT (legs) Put your hands on your hips or fold them over your chest (1a). From a standing position, feet about shoulder-width apart, squat down until both knees reach 90 degrees (1b). As you lower yourself, keep your lower back slightly arched, head up, and stick your glutes out as if you were going to sit in a chair. Also, be sure that your knees aren’t out past your toes as you descend–if they are, you’re not moving your glutes back far enough on the descent. Once you reach the bottom position, flex through your quads, hamstrings and glutes to power yourself back up to a standing position and repeat.

2. SIDE-TO-SIDE LUNGE (legs) With your hands on your hips, assume a comfortable stance, feet shoulder-width apart, head up and torso erect (2a). From there, step with your right leg straight out to your side, as deep as you can go without moving your left foot. Plant your right foot and bend your right knee to 90 degrees (2b). Then, flexing the muscles of your thigh, push yourself back up to a standing position and repeat the movement with your left leg. Alternate side to side in this fashion until you’ve completed 10 reps per leg.

This is done without a chair but the basic move is the same

3. INVERTED PUSH-UP (shoulders) Place your feet on a chair and your hands out in front of you at shoulder-width. Without moving your feet, creep your hands backward until your body is bent almost 90 degrees and your head is facing the floor. Press up until your arms are straight–you should resemble an inverted V (3a)–then slowly lower your head toward the floor until your arms are almost bent 90 degrees (3b) and repeat.

4. PUSH-UP (chest) Place your hands a little wider than your shoulders, put your toes on the floor, feet and legs together, and raise up into an arms-extended position (4a). Slowly lower yourself until your chest just touches the floor (4b), return to the starting position and repeat. As you lower yourself, concentrate on feeling the stretch in your chest, and flex on the way up rather than using a quick piston action to finish your set.

5. CLOSE-GRIP PUSH-UP (triceps) Do these the same as you do the regular push-ups, except bring your hands closer so that your thumbs and index fingers form a triangle beneath your chest (5a). As you descend, your elbows will point outward; once your chest comes in light contact with your hands (5b), slowly return to the starting position and repeat.

6. LYING TORSO RAISE (lower back) Lie facedown on the floor and place your hands loosely behind your neck (6a). Slowly raise your upper body until your chest is a few inches off the floor (6b). You should feel your lumbar spine and lower-back muscles contracting as you rise up. Hold the top position for a two-second count, slowly return to the starting position and repeat.

7. WEIGHTLESS CONCENTRATION CURL (biceps) Standing, grasp your left wrist with your right hand (7a). Apply pressure with the hand as you slowly and deliberately curl your left arm (7b). Once your elbow is fully bent, give your biceps an extra squeeze and hold for a second before slowly lowering. Complete all reps for one side before switching arms. Since you don’t have the benefits of a weight, you need to do this exercise in a controlled fashion–focus on keeping your working biceps fully engaged throughout each rep, and apply some challenging pressure with that nonworking hand.

8. CRUNCH (abs) Lie faceup, your knees bent and feet on the floor. Keep your hands behind your head (8a)–avoid the temptation to pull on your head as you tire. Curl your torso as you bring your shoulder blades up a few inches (8b), squeeze your abs, and then slowly return to the starting position. To keep the pressure on, don’t spend more than a second in the “down” position; the longer your shoulder blades are off the floor, the more work your abs must do.

From our resident personal trainer Casper:

am a member over at bodybuilding.com forums and have been for about ten years. I really use the place as a reference guide as it is a wealth of information. Well there is also a member there who I have seen in and out of the forums and she goes by the name of chickentuna. I won’t lie, I have checked out her pics on more than one occasion, but I never actually checked out her web page. It seems that everyone has a page or a blog or whatever. As much as you may like someone there are only so many hours in a day and you just can’t be friends with everyone. Well this morning as I was taking my 10 minutes of internet time to check email, print out my news for the day (I just print and go) I stopped by bodybuilding.com and caught out of the corner of my eye the word chickentuna and her website so I took a couple of extra minutes to check it out.

Getting right down to it, she makes a ton of sense and I wish I would have dropped by sooner. She has a no B.S. approach (which I prefer) She explains what it is that she does to look the way she wants to, and bluntly explains that this probably isn’t for you…. BUT if it is for you, its probably gonna suck real bad. She keeps her diet very simple and leads a disciplined lifestyle. In her site she has a list of foods which I thought was very sensible and as she calls it “plain food” Given the list of things that she eats I could come up with tons of different meals but as she says herself she doesn’t cook, so if you can cook thats all the more stuff you can do with it.

If for nothing else the site is motivational, and really is worth the look. I love the rant page she has and the last paragraph “lucky”  is priceless.

Her page is http://www.bunklers.com/

and her progress pictures over at bodybuilding.com are Here

You can do it!!!

Hey All!!

Soooo, how are we all doing on our little challenge eh?  New Year’s is just around the corner, let’s get to tonin’!   LOL!!

Me?  MMM…wellll….exercise-wise, I’m doing great!  I’ve been running at least 10 miles a day, and I got in 3 strength training sessions for the first week!

Food wise – I suck!  Still haven’t gotten back to tracking and I don’t know what the problem is!  I have plenty of tracking pamphlets, and I even bought a nice new food diary in case I needed extra room and I wanted to do the Food/Feelings thing.  But truthfully, I can’t be bothered with it!  The only deduction that I can make is that I am exercising so much I have subconsciously tricked myself into thinking that it doesn’t matter what I eat.  And I do admit that after a seven mile morning run, I do treat myself to a second chocolate caramel latte…  Bad Tracy!!!

The scale showed no change, which doesn’t surprise me…between the muscle and the extra food , everything balanced out.  But (note to self here) I must must must get back on track!!  177 keeps me 20 lbs from 100 lbs lost and 24 pounds away from my Weight Watcher goal…so I need to get crackin!

I would like to say that looking at the size 8 pants that I want to wear and the ever so snugness of the size 10’s are making me rally…..but quite honestly they are not.  My 12’s fit very nicely – almost too nice!  I’m looking pretty dang luscious lately!!

I know that no matter how much I change, I will never be a rail thin person – it is not in my genetic make up.  And truthfully, even as a little girl, I have always wanted to look like this:

and this:

and hell why not:

Cuuuurvvy ladies, soft and beautiful and sessy! But could tear you a new one if she had to… and the truth is, that with the right wig and a little adjusting girdle wise, I am there already!   Brick….Houuuse!

So that may be subconsciously putting a monkey wrench in my challenge.  With the exception of Nigella, who is a healthy 14-16 (yes you are!), all of these women probably fall into the 8-12 range.   And while there is nothing wrong with loving your curves (which I truly do!!) I must press on !

Why – because I set a goal and I am going to see it thru!  If I dont like what I see, I can always change.  But I doubt it, I have loved everything , every change, every challenge so far!

Next week – write, write, write!!  Starting Monday (this weekend is girly weekend with hotel, drinks and good food, sorry) it’s weigh, measure, and write!  I can do it!!

Til next time!!

New Look for Fall!

Hello Everybody!!

It’s been much too long since I have posted last, and for that I am truly sorry!  I missed you all, but Ms.  Tracy has been quite busy!

Since my last post I have:  run a 5K, 10K and am training for a half marathon.  Then a full marathon but that is not until Spring so I have some time.  I have purchased two more pairs of running shoes, a really expensive UnderArmor cold weather running suit, a couple more wigs, finally got some man-action from the dating site that is employed, has all his teeth, not married and not a jerk, and managed to get and get over the flu.

In the course of all this, I also managed to gain, then lose, then gain again – 10 pounds!  Hopefully some of this is muscle, tho truthfully I know that some of it is Halloween candy and peanut butter (sigh) banana graham crackers. Oh and KFC.  And not following my Weight Watchers program like I should cuz dammit I run almost 12 miles every friggin day PLUS strength train every other day and after ALL THAT if I can’t have an occasional (read: every day) four piece extra crispy wing dinner then life is just not worth living…….

Um..yeah..so…I’m gonna pretty much sh*tcan the month of October for the challenge and ask for a do-over starting fresh in November.  I got it all planned out.  I got a gift subscription sent to me from Henry (I guess he got tired of answering my questions) for Runner’s Magazine.  They also sent me a Runner’s Log Book.  I hate starting at the middle or end of anything, so November 1st is my date for the first entry!   Right now, the entries will look sorta like this:

7:00 am – 7 mi run – easy pace (1 hr 45 min)

9am-4pm – Work, eat, play, run errands, buy more running stuff, get some love, fight with someone, blog, facebook, watch food network and cry…

5pm - 6:30pm – Strength training or second 5 mi run

On the upside, I have lost some inches here and there :

Waist – 35 – down one inch

hips – 38 – down one inch

bust – 39 – down two inches

upper arm – 12 – down one inch

upper thigh – 20 – down one inch

calf – 15 – down one inch

So……something is working, I would just like to get my passion for doing things in an orderly fashion back.  Too much cheating here and there, I think that I am getting bored with the routine.  But you know what, cheating is getting boring too!  Granted, I still love food and can see myself very easily falling back into the spiral of overeating, but instead of filling a void with food, I am now just eating to get it over with, almost mechanical eating.   

So in a way, I am getting over food – I am even starting to dread the holidays!  The thought of wasting a perfect day off preparing all that food when I c0uld be running or visiting w/friends or anything but attending an all out eat fest annoys me.  You know, I could make it fun and have a “Chopped” challenge with my sis-in-law – 30 minutes to whip up a Holiday meal with dates, chicken thighs, soy sauce and oatmeal cookies!  Yess!!!!…….Nah, those wet blankets would never go for it…..

Anyhoo, I also gave myself a wig makeover.  I found that folks couldn’t see my cheekbones and chin with the longer wigs, so I got a lighter, shorter low mainenence look for fall!   Oh, I almost forgot the new “spacesuit”!  This literally stops traffic – I am either that hot or I need to get a sports bra…..

Great to be back – Next post, some new friends, Why Mr. Casper is in trouble, and why Food Network is straight up Porn for Dieters!

You Can Do it!!

Well Casper is back with an eye opening look at the American way life – from someone who is American, but no loner calls the US home:

Well after a much needed vacation (been three years already) I have had some thoughts. My wife finally convinced me to go “home” whatever that is. I was opting for taking a trip to Thailand or India or Dublin or Greece or Argentina or Cape Town or some other great place I have not yet seen… but the winning argument was that my folks have never seen the baby and hadn’t seen the oldest since she was a baby.

So while I was back home I could not believe how overweight people are. Consistently I was counting 8 out of 10 people were over weight, 2 of which were grossly obese. My wife didn’t even believe my decleration until I said check it out for yourself. then she really started to look and was like ” Wow your right ”

I understand that typically asian people tend to be ectomorphs but this isn’t always the case just look at sumo wrestlers and the people who frequent McDonalds (not kidding… if you want to see a fat Japanese person go to McD’s) The one difference I have to say though is that the diet we eat here in Japan is drastically different. Lots of veggies, lots of raw fish, a little beef, a little chicken, a little tofu and a small bowl of rice with every meal. The food here has not been mass produced by agribusinesses using NPK and GMO. While “Certified Organic” is not as big of a deal here, a lot of the food here is organic anyways, there just isn’t a great need to get certified.

Now for the hard truth. I kinda did crude experiment. I am a pretty lean person, after a fight Iwill take a week or two off of training. Not totally off but I give my body some time to recoup. So I will put on two or three pounds. Not really a big deal. So while home on vacation I pretty much said I am just gonna relax. I am not gonna hesitate on moms good ole apple pie, baklava, brownies, and pecan pie. Or my sisters cheesecake ( she also makes a mean bowl of mashed potatoes), or my dads grillin two full cows. I decided I am gonna actually have a real vacation and just let the discipline slide. I’m not going to mention the Mead and Beer my family makes.

The hard truth is that American food has caused me to gain 17 lbs in 6 WEEKS!!!!!!!

Now this doesn’t matter to me because already back into training for the last week I have lost 5 lbs. Now that jet lag is over I can actually train unhindered. The fact is the American way of life will KILL you. I can’t see it any other way. Pay attention to what your putting into your body. You can do it!

Lacking the money to reach your fitness goals? The recession has been hard on everyone, especially black women. Fitness equipment manufacturers, fitness clubs and the rest of the fitness industry hasn’t been immune to the downturn either. Because of the recession fitness equipment sales are down as are fitness club memberships are down for the first time in 20 years. Americans just aren’t willing to spend the money on keeping fit like they once were:

Economic hard times have Americans downsizing their workout equipment, trimming their workout budgets, and shifting their workout venues, according to a sporting goods industry survey.

“The fitness industry was not immune from the effects of a tough economy,” said Tom Cove, president of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA), a global organization which conducted the poll.

SGMA represents over 1,000 sports manufacturers, retailers and marketers around the world. They have published their study, Tracking the Fitness Movement, for 10 years.

The 2009 edition puts U.S. wholesale sales of fitness gear and equipment sold for use in home, clubs and institutions, at $4.2 billion in 2008, down from $4.7 billion the year before.

So how do you manage to keep your workout going when your pockets are lighter? Very easily actually. Follow these simple tips and you’ll be burning the fat and saving money:

1. Join the YMCA – YMCA memberships are based on your income and are significantly lower than traditional gym memberships. Their facilities are right on par with for profit fitness clubs and the YMCA also has many free and low cost fitness/nutritional and sports activities. It’s also great if you have a family as there are many activities for kids and the whole family to enjoy.

2. Hit the Park – I live in the city with the largest park system in the country and I’ve been making full use of them. Walking, running, even strength training in local parks is a great way t get you workout on without spending any money. It’s also nice to be out in the elements enjoying the fresh hair. Fall is upon us so make sure you have the proper gear to keep warm as your’re exercising outside.

3. Invest in Dumbells, an Exercise Ball and Exercise Mat – If you have dumbells, an exercise ball and a workout mat you have all you need to get in a good workout for little money. Whatever weight machine you used in the gym, you can mimic with the aforementioned fitness equipment.

4. Break Out the Workout DVD’s – It’s time to dust off those old Jane Fonda or Donna Richardson workout dvd’s. It may seem a little corner to go bouncing around your living room with spnadexed, leg warmered, head band wearing fitness gurus of the 80’s and 90’s, but hey – burning calories is burning calories. If you currently don’t own any workout dvd’s you can get them for cheap on Amazon.

While the recession is has been difficult for many black women, we shouldn’t allow it to derail out fitness goals. If you’re serious about getting fit their is a way to make it happen without a fitness club membership, home fitness equipment or without breaking the bank in the general.