A week's rest every 8-12 weeks?

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Permalink Reply by Kim on March 8, 2010 at 4:37am

I would love to see some feedback on this as well. I was thinking I might workout real hard for 6 weeks and then take 1-2 weeks and do only Pilates twice a week for an hour each time, Yoga twice a week for an hour each time and Core exercises twice a week for 30 minutes each time. Since I wouldn't be doing an cardio or heavy weights, I thought it may be a good time to really clean out my system with a really strict "get ripped" diet. For example, breakfast - oatmeal or eggs, lunch - tuna/chicken/turkey sandwich or grilled chicken and sweet potato, snack - cottage cheese mixed with fruit or All Fruit or yogurt or have vegetables and salsa or turkey meatballs, dinner - fish or chicken with a lot of veggies, snack - Greek yogurt or fruit or frozen all fruit bars or cottage cheese and fruit or light Myoplex or yogurt and fruit. I got this idea from the book, "Muscle Chow".

I would follow the menu above for no more than two weeks and then go back to my regular plan. During my six weeks of hard training I follow recipes from Abs Diet, Body for Life (Eating for Life cookbook), Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, Muscle Chow, and Eat Clean by Tosca Reno. I have 6 meals a day consisting of breakfast, smoothie, lunch, snack, dinner and evening dessert, all the recipes I use come from the books mentioned above. I workout 6 days a week, 1-2 hours a day. My exercises consist of Jari (I have all of her workouts), Cathe gym style and Hiit, weight dvds from discount workouts, treadmill, stationary bike, step aerobics, Denise Austin boot camp, Jillian Michaels "Banish the Fat Boost the Metabolism, and taebo.

When I am at a social event is where I have trouble. I was thinking if I follow a 1 plate/1 single dessert rule, I should be fine. It's not like we have a lot of events we go to anyway. I would eat 1 plate of regular food - no seconds and portion control, but eat anything I want and choose 1 single serving of dessert.

What do all of you think of this plan? Any suggestions on how it could be improved?

Kim

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Permalink Reply by Jari Love on March 8, 2010 at 1:50pm

Hi Megan,

Yes, I do have periods of rest. It's a great way to make sure that your body doesn't plateau. You'll notice in the Ripped Rotation Guides, the 4th week of each rotation option is a lighter week. This is meant to be more of a recovery week so that when you get back at it full swing, your body is well-rested and more surprised by the higher intensity. If you are always working at high intensities, your body will simply adapt and you won't see the results you are looking for. During weeks of recovery, I usually do low intensity runs or walks but nothing extremely vigorous. I may do a few weight workouts but only using light weights. I find that the next week I have a ton of energy and can really up the ante!

Hope this helps,

Jari

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Permalink Reply by Terri Maverick on March 9, 2010 at 2:29pm

Thanks, Jari. This is soooo good to know. You're such a wealth of information.


Terri

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Permalink Reply by Megan Alderton on March 9, 2010 at 5:01pm

Thank you for taking the time to answer me, Jari! I'm sure your schedule is jammed packed. The info does help. It's just hard for me to realize that sometimes less is more. I find it difficult to take some time off without feeling guilty or even just doing lighter intensity for awhile. Mainly I suppose because I find it so hard to watch what I eat. I find myself dipping into the junk that my boyfriend and daughter can indulge in and not gain an ounce. Anyway, it makes sense what you said and I will try to follow this.

By the way, where would I find the Ripped Rotation guide you mentioned above? I would love some suggestions on how to rotate all the Ripped DVDs and some exercises to do in between.

Thanks a million Jari! We love you!

Megan

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Permalink Reply by Jari Love on March 10, 2010 at 12:15pm

Hi Megan - I'm glad that was helpful! All of my products, including the Ripped Rotation Guides can be found at www.jarilove.com :)

Thanks for your support!

Jari

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