Saturday Fitness Post: Favourite fitness and health sites

I received a comment from lovely Numra A in my last Saturday Fitness post. She asked me who do I follow for my workout routine. I replied and the next comment I received was from Bright Town Girl and she found my previous reply useful. I got inspired to write today's post. Thanks girls ;)


*I got all pictures on google.*

I've already mentioned Zuzka Light, but she was my inspiration to start working out on regular basis. She does HIIT - high intense interval training, about 10 minutes up to 30 minutes per day. If you remember, I done her Zcut power cardio series this year and gave me amazing results in just one month (read a review: here).
Even though she's now charging to excess her workout's, she has few new workouts every week. She's still much cheaper than any gym membership and she does that for a living, so you can't really be angry at her :).
If you're not ready to pay for the membership, she still has 70 charge free workouts (ZWOWs - Zuzka's workout of the week) on her YouTube channel, has a lot of recipes, tips, trick and advice + she also has 3, 4 or 5 minute short workouts for busy days. I like her zen and happy persona. She's a cool chick, check her out :)

Zuzka Light website: http://www.zuzkalight.com/
Zuzka Light YT channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZuzkaLight/

My favourite health channel has to be Lean Secrets. I already mentioned her in my Favourite YouTube channels post and I'm going to mention her one billion times more. Brenda has very informative videos (why you should stop eating wheat, drinking coffee, about carb cycling ...), gives advice for fitness chicks, how to get ready for fitness, gives the best recipes, motivates you, shows you workouts, what equipment should you use, reviews fitness and health stuff ... To sum up - everything fitness and health related :).
She also has a program called Lean Secrets, which you can purchase on her website. She radiated positive energy and strength. Amazing woman.

Lean Secrets website: http://leansecrets.com/
Lean Secrets YT channel: www.youtube.com/user/leansecrets

I've been into yoga lately, because I injured my knee awhile age and I wasn't able to exercise for more than a month (miss my muscle definition!), and yoga just feels right for me right now. I found Yoga with Adriene on YouTube and I've been doing her flows and I can assure you that they're not easy. Yoga is really challenging, because you have to control every movement, finding your breath and some transitions are really hard. People who say that yoga is easy, apparently they have never tried it :).
Adriene is really sweet, funny and gives useful advice. I think you'll like her if you're into yoga.

Yoga with Adrienne YT channel: www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene/

I also follow Blogilates, but never done her workouts, since I've been doing mainly HIIT, but her workouts look challenging. I love her recipes though. She does Cheap clean eats and shows you that eating healthy doesn't have to be expensive. She's really bubbly and funny as well.

Blogilates YT channel: www.youtube.com/user/blogilates/

 

I cannot finish this fitness post without mentioning the taughest fitness trainer, Jillian Michaels. I think that everyone knows her 30 day shred exercising programme. I did them myself, but I get bored if I have to repeat the same exercise for few days in a row. Anyways, I love her story (she was a fat kid), became extremely successful, has written best selling books ... Inspirational :) You can also watch The Biggest loser on YouTube, she was one of the trainers.

Jillian Michaels website: http://www.jillianmichaels.com/fit/ 
For her workouts I just typed Jillian Michales and you can check them here: YouTube


Other sites I use for motivation are:
- my blog :P (sometimes I need to reread my own advice, recipes etc.). Shameless self-promotion :) ;
- if I'm searching for more motivation, pictures, quotes etc., I go through Pinterest (no sh*t ;)). Check out my boards: http://www.pinterest.com/booogeywoman/. I use Google for those, too ;)
- Cut and Jacked has a lot of fitness stories, interviews, recipes ... Even though those girls and guys are all bulky (and I'm not), I still find it as a great source of information. Check out their site: http://www.cutandjacked.com/
- Another site for recipes, diet tips, advice ... is Shape Magazine. http://www.shape.com/
- Tone It Up - I'm subscribed to them, but somehow I always forget to watch their videos (too many subscribtions problem). They are nice chicks, they have workout videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/ToneItUpcom


I hope you found this post useful. Tell what fitness/health sites and YouTube channels do you follow?

Thank you for reading and commenting <3

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Saturday Fitness Post: #fitfam tag

Today's Saturday Fitness post is a little bit different, because it's a tag, fitness tag. I was tagged by lovely Cantara from Gymbags and Gladrags - thank you girl! So, let's just get started ...

Source: Pinterest.

1. Why and when did you start your blog?
I started my blog 2 years and a half ago in cold February 2011. Friends encouraged me to start blogging, because they were asking me all the time about healthy foods and beauty. What a better way to share my knowledge and tips than with a blog. Now that people say I motivate them and inspire them, it keeps me going! I'm blessed with the best readers!

2. Do you feel like having a blog has helped you stay accountable and motivated?
I would have to say yes. I feel like when you say something publicly you'll be more likely to do it and when I post my fitness progress, people expect you to see a difference. Same goes for makeup. Participating in weekly makeup tag and doing FOTD posts keeps me motivated to try new techniques and getting out my comfort zone.

3. What are your overall goals when it comes to health and fitness?
I want to become the healthiest and strongest version of myself. I want to look back and see how far I've come. I want to inspire people and be able to help them. I was overweight almost my whole life and I was a really ill child - now I'm not anymore! Once you're in control of your body, you can achieve everything in life. Also, with healthy body comes healthy mind, it's all one. And I would like to become more flexible :)

4. Who are your "fitspirations", if any?
I'll have to say fitness trainers that have overcome their problems with healthy lifestyle - Zuzana Light and Jillian Michaels for example. And I secretly admire body builders and any fitness person in general really. Miryah Scott is also one of the biggest fitspirations.

5. How often do you work out?
Every day I do HIITs, because they are super intense and short, muscles recover quite fast. But of course I know how to listen to my body, so I take a day off if I feel like I need to and maybe go for a walk and sometimes no workout is the best workout. If I don't workout, I make sure my diet is clean, which is even more important than workout itself.

6. Do you take supplements?
Currently no. I just ran out of Spirulina tablets and these were the only one I've been taking lately.

Source: my computer. I have no idea where I got this picture!

7. What would be your advice for someone who wants to lose weight but is lacking motivation?
I have plenty of tips and recommendations on my blog! I have tips and trick for beginners HERE. I even covered some excuses people make: HERE. About fitness goals and motivation: HERE.
Now I just realized I need sections in my blog, don't I?

8. What's your favourite part of #fitfam?
Motivation, inspiration and it's extremely encouraging. It's always nice to see real people with real results, it's amazing to motivate each other and keep us going.

9. Do you set little goals for yourself and give yourself rewards when you reach them?
Yes, I set a goal, such as: no sugar for one month, do 100 squats every day for a week etc ... and I usually don't award myself or I buy myself some new fitness clothes if I feel like it ;). But there's not finish line in fitness and health. There's always room for improvement and you have to be consistent. You can't eat super clean for one month and forget about it the other month. It's a life long journey.

10. What has been the hardest part of your weightloss journey so far?
Staying motivated. Some days I still think to myself: "meh, why would I workout or eat that today? I can start brand new tomorrow" etc. Yes, I am still a human and make excuses, even though I know how to move forward - I look myself in the mirror and I see I'm still not there where I want to be, or that my clothes don't fit me any better. Or I become lazy with food preparation and get sick and tired of eating the same things. I was actually thinking about writing a cook book to give more options to other people and myself! What do you think? :)
Oh and also, organization. I am the worst when it comes to this, even though I always say that organization is key to healthy lifestyle. I'm still working on that!

Source: Pinterest.

11. Do you prefer to do set workouts like Insanity, 30 Day Shred, TurboFire, Tone it Up etc. or do you like making up your own workouts?
I've done only 30 day shred, but haven't done full 30 days. I've been loyal to Zuzana Light from when she was still at Bodyrock.tv. Now that I've been workingout for 3 years, I can put together a really challenging and intense workout on my own. And you've guessed that right - I swear in my head, because I'm the the one who put it together :).
I like to keep my workout routine fresh, so I don't get bored of it, that's why I like hiits so much.


I hope you liked this tag! I really enjoyed answering these questions!
I don't have any specific people to tag, but if you're into fitness and health, you are more welcome to do answer the questions!

ZCUT Power Cardio DVDs review

Today's review is a little bit different, because it's health and fitness related, but I hope you like it anyways. I've been following Zuzana Light for many years now. I respect her and been doing her workouts almost on daily basis. So I decided to order her ZCUT Power Cardio Series DVDs, she released in March if I'm not mistaken. I knew I needed to include more cardio, I just didn't find a fun and short way to do it. Zuzana reads my mind ;)

3 DVDs + calendar

DVD set comes with 3 DVDs and easy to follow 30 day calendar poster for first month. Each DVD has 4 workouts, warm up routine, cool down & stretching routine and ab bonus workout. So that equals 12 different cardio workouts total, 1 ab workout, which is the same on all 3 DVDs, same goes for warm up and stretching after a workout.

You get a workout breakdown before an actual workout, so you know exactly what are you doing. Zuzana before real time workout, shows an explains you proper form and how many reps you have to make. Now that I already know the warm up routine, I usually watch explanation part whilst I warm up ;).

Warm up routine is dynamic, nothing like a warm up I was used to do before, but it's effective. I usually already start sweating doing it. Cool down and stretching routine is usually my best part, rolling on the floor, sweaty and sticky ;)

Last side of 1st DVD.

Now to the actual workouts ...
Like I said, there are 12 workouts, mainly cardio, but they are amazing strength wise as well, so you won't lose your muscles while doing cardio. You have different types of workouts:

• time challenge workouts: have to complete all exercises and reps in shortest amount of time. You write it down in calendar and try to finish faster next time doing it;
• interval training: they have no rest in between. You do one exercise for 30 or 40 seconds, then move to next one until time is up;
• tabata training: it's basically interval training, but you have 10 seconds rest in between exercises;
• as many rounds as possible (amrap): 10 minutes countdown. You have to push really hard and try to finish as many rounds as possible.

All workouts take around 12 minutes. The shortest workout is the first one, my record was 7 minutes 53 seconds, the longest workout took me 15 minutes 50 seconds. With warm up and cool down all together lasts around 20 - 25 minutes. And that's all what you need to do for workout in a day! I was thinking which workout I love most, but I just couldn't decide which one to pick! I like them all equally, even though I swear in my head a little while doing them! ;)

Calendar is easy to follow.

Best part? All workouts are REAL TIME, so you can follow along with her or you can try to do better than her or you could do them on your own. I've noticed that I push harder if I see her pushing hard along with me, and I always try to be few reps before her ;). You see her doing workouts with struggle. She starts doing push ups from her knees, or complains how it hurts ... She makes it real! That's why I love her. And her form is perfection. I think that's her trade mark - excellent form.

Another best part :P is that all workouts are BODY WEIGHT - no equipment needed. You basically need only a chair (couch will do too ;)) and stack of books (or imaginary object :P) to jump over it.

She wasn't in her best shape when she filmed these DVDs if you compare her to how she looks now. I think these makes her even more amazing, because that means her workouts and diet tips work.

Whole calendar.

The calendar that came with the DVDs is easy to follow, you have written which workout to do on certain day and you have 7 skinny tips total written on active rest days. You can do ab bonus workouts on these day, or do one of her ZWOWs (you can find them on her YT channel: here) or go for a walk, do yoga ... Or take day off to recover - listen to your body. Underneath the schedule you have before and after photo spot, so you can compare them at the end of the month and you can write down you stats for each week - weight, waist, arm, leg. I also measured my hips, calves and bust line.

Zuzana also followed first month calendar and did video for each day, you can find her videos with tips on her YouTube channel: here.

 
Do I recommend ZCUT Power Cardio DVD series?
YES, YES, YES. I bet some of the workouts are more intense than Insanity workouts! I recommend them to all who want to lose fat/weight and don't have a lot of time to workout. They are easy to travel with, you don't need Internet connection + they come in environment friendly packaging.

Price? $15,95 + p&p = it was around 20€, which I think it's reasonable price. I received the package in about 2 weeks. You can buy them on Amazon: HERE.

Oh, and I almost forgot to share my results for first month!
I weighted myself even though this is not my prefered method, but I lost 2,5 kgs, I've seen most changes around my belly, muffin tops are smaller and I lost some fat on my back. Legs are the most stubborn part of my body, fat wise :D. I lost 3 cms in my waist, 1 cm in my arm, 2 cms in my leg and 0,5 cms in my left calf. I'm impressed to be honest. My diet was as always: did my best to eat clean, gluten free vegetarian diet.

I didn't take first picture topless, I just covered my bra :D
From left to right: 1st day of Zcut, 1 month after, 1st day of Zcut, 1 month after.

Have you heard of Zuzka Light before? Do you follow her? Will you buy these DVDs? What kind of cardio routine do you do?