Challenges in America

I dragged my heavy laptop through all 9 states of my American trip with the intention of updating this blog whilst traveling. Unfortunately, an update was not meant to be. Between eating 5 meals a day, sightseeing and meeting family and friends, there wasn't a lot of time to sit down and focus on a blog post. Honestly, I think I was a little too ambitious with my challenges while traveling as well. I managed to do pretty well on my water drinking challenge, an jump rope challenge, but it was really difficult to get 8fit in.

The sky is so blue in America!

Hard to find the Reuben around all this pastrami...

Just chillin... on a tree!

Chicago

So far so good on the water challenge! I've been hitting at least 2L of water a day. It's funny... the more water I drink, the thirstier I seem to get. I think my body has adapted to drinking so little water over time that it had sort of accepted it. Now that I'm giving it more water, it just wants more and more! In a silly way, I miss not having to use the bathroom as often... but I guess my health is worth it!

Just kept refilling this 1L bottle on the road!

While driving it was useful to use this cup with a straw! Much safer! Also... I drink water a lot faster when I'm using a straw!

Jumping rope has actually been really fun! The first day I walked out of my hostel in Charleston at 6am and did all 100 jumps in one go without having to stop at all. Most days I was waking up early to get my jumps in before the day really got going. It has definitely gotten significantly more difficult as the month has gone on, and I had taken a couple days break with the flight and the jet lag... but I can do this! Today was a rest day on the calendar but I got 600 jumps in. Tomorrow I'll continue!

Getting your jumps in and watching the sun rise... there are worse ways to start you day!

Even got the boyfriend in on the jump rope action sometimes!

Now that I'm home in Korea the weather is crazy humid... even late at night and in the evening. I remembered that  my jump rope came with these balls that would simulate using a full rope. It's difficult to jump rope in the house with a full rope because I don't have very high ceilings, but these ball ropes have worked out really well for jumping in the house!

Expect my next entry to come in a lot let time than this one did! Until then!

The End of the July Challenge and What's up for August

Final Thoughts on July

Splits

I'm going to be honest. It didn't go well. I know I said last week that I was going to get back into the splits stretches but it just didn't happen. When I look back on it, I think I had 2 problems. The first one is, like I said, I have never really enjoyed stretching. So, finding the motivation to do it was a lot more difficult. The 2nd thing is, I would always leave the stretches until the evening, but towards the end of the month I started to get really busy and by the time I was home and had time to do the stretches, I was tired. Not really good excuses, but there you have it! Even though I sorta dropped the ball on the stretches towards the end, my flexibility has improved a lot! I can touch the ground from a standing position, which I could never do before. I can also kick up a lot higher in my cardio workouts than I used to be able to. So, I'm going to call it a small victory!

Ripped in 30

I finished week 4 of "Ripped" strong! I managed to get 6 workouts in in my last week. I started out pretty strong, and finished stronger so I was pretty happy about that! Week 3 was difficult. Really difficult. And fun, in a challenging way! However, even though Week 4 was also challenging, the step up from Week 3 to Week 4 was far easier than the step up from Week 2 to Week 3. All in all, I really enjoyed Week 4! You can really see everything that you worked for paying! My squats were lower and stronger. I could use heavier weights for a lot of the exercises. Also, my stamina for cardio was a lot better!

Also! The night before my last workout, I got less than 2 hours of sleep. Despite that, the fact that I  worked out in the morning, I was able to hit my last workout pretty hard! But, Bilbo was less into it than usual...

One final thought about 'Ripped in 30.' I know a lot of people are concerned about the space needed to do a workout at home. This workout series is a great one if you only have a limited amount of space.

This is where I workout!

August Challenge

Hello from Texas! It's layover time here in Dallas. I'm on route to Charleston, S. Carolina, which is where my epic 2 week road trip begins! I'm going to be in 6 states (not including the ones that are just driven through) in the next 2 weeks. I'm also going to be spending a lot of time in a car and a lot of time eating delicious local food. While traveling, it's tempting to disregard all exercise and diet projects... at least, I've always done it that way in the past! But, this time, I was determined to think of things I could do while traveling. So... for August, 3 challenges!

Challenge 1: Drink Water! I'm terrible at drinking water! So terrible in fact, that friend in the past have questioned how I'm still alive. There was a point in my life when I would only drink about a dixie-sized cup of water a day. I have improved from that, but I still don't drink enough. My water challenge is going to be, to drink at least 2 liters of water every day!

Challenge 2: Jump Rope Challenge! I'm going to do a 30 day jump rope challenge. Jump ropes are easily transportable, and I don't need a lot of room to jump rope. Jumping rope is also a crazy good cardio exercise. 

This is the jump rope challenge I've decided to do!

And, this is the jump rope I bought!

Challenge 3: 8fit! I downloaded an app called 8fit last month at the recommendation of a friend. Some days, last month when I was feeling a bit more ambitious, I did an 8fit workout along with the Jillian workouts I was doing. Most of the workouts are under 15 minutes and you can choose the level that you workout at. I know that I'm going to be traveling and moving around a lot. So, I'm going to start doing 8fit only 3 days a week, and when I return to Korea, I'll increase that to 5 days a week!

Until next time!