Often referred to as “after-burn”, EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. It is the actual amount of energy (calories) that the body continues to burn post-exercise.

I speak often about high intensity interval training (HIIT) on Catapult Fitness Blog. HIIT is done by alternating brief periods or high intensity work (85% or more) with a brief recovery period. HIIT is an example of an anaerobic exercise, which means that an inadequate amount of oxygen is being delivered to working muscles during the course of the exercise.

When inadequate oxygen is available lactic acid is produced.

So, I was watching the hockey game last night (L.A. Kings (yea!) 6-0 plastering of the Columbus Blue Jackets), when all of a sudden, Marathon (my new pet) jumped up and made a beeline for the underbrush. Something had spooked the crap out of him. Poor fellow.

Here’s the deal. The Los Angeles Marathon sent their official “Final Race Instructions” email. Anyone who has not grown up or lived in L.A. for a while might be a little intimidated. Some of the gems:

• “You must wear your Bib on the front of your shirt and leave the B-Tag attached to your bib.

In exactly 4 weeks, I’ll be in Jamaica! That is way exciting, but also makes me sad that I only have 4 weeks left to work on my body shape. Eek! That is pretty much zero time, considering how slow I have been at losing. And it’s also scary because there is stuff going on every weekend until we leave that will make it hard to lose weight. My upcoming plans include a fancy anniversary dinner, wedding cake, a going away party, a game night, a baby shower, sweet tomatoes buffet dinner (hello blueberry muffin overdose), renaissance festival, and Easter.

I got in about 35 minutes of weights work after my first post today. I think part of the reason I want to do P90X is to have a program to follow and I know I’m not training the wrong muscles at a time or whatever. I like doing a little of everything and just doing weights every other day instead of one body part every day because I can do it faster and get more done overall, and then I know I’m not accidentally working the same muscle 2 days in a row.

Thank goodness the cold weather seems to be over! Of course, since it’s so warm today, that means rain is going to be visiting for the next few days, probably ruining my chance of walking with mom tomorrow. But I am SO glad to see no more lows of 40s appearing in the 10-day forecast. Hopefully we’re done with that for the season. I would like my plants to grow back now, please!

Alrighty. Yesterday ended out ok, no nuts again, but I did have 110 calories of chocolate caramels AND some sf pudding, which is more than I should have done.

Today was a bit of a ‘Meh’ day. I’m feeling really despondent and unmotivated with my mission. I need to find that fiery spark that fueled me only a few weeks ago.
It’s funny, but when we are on fire like that, we really can’t imagine being any other way. We think, “This is it! I’m REALLY doing it this time!! There’s no turning back now!!” So where is the turning point, and why does it repeatedly sneak up on us?
I haven’t lost it. My motivation is low but i really need to dig deep.

I didn’t blog last night for two reasons.
1. We were out late after seeing Alice In Wonderland at the pictures [Awesome movie!] And…
2. My cals were like, doubled, because of a really,really stupid mistake!
My food yesterday was great. And because i knew we were going to the movies, i went to the supermarket to buy some healthy nibblies so i didn’t have the movie popcorn, but could still mindless “movie eat” that we have to do, y’know?
So i bought some sugar snap peas, some lite butter microwave popcorn, and some soy snacks.

Okay – I made it to week 2. Some of the things that I will be thinking about and doing this week:

• Taking it eas(ier): I’ll be maintaining intensity but cutting back on volume.  Last night I pulled off 6 miles at an average pace of 9:28. My longest run will be this weekend at 8 miles. Nothing else over 6 for the week. Sunday’s run will be in the two mile range. I could get used to this.
• Eating: I’ll be putting a little greater emphasis on carbs this week. But – I’m not going overboard!

I’ve been watching a repeat of the 2009 Alpine Skiing World Cup on Universal Sports this evening and found it absolutely amazing how Lindsey Vonn is able to obliterate the competition.

Mind you, while she won the overall 2009 World Cup, she actually only placed first in 2 downhills last year — Lake Louise, Canada and the race I just watched in Are, Sweden (the last downhill event of 2009). The race in Are, Sweden was the start of good things for Lindsey who to date has won 6 downhill events in 2010, not including her Olympic Gold.

I’ve been more than curious in regards to what Lindsey’s workout entails and after a bit of digging came across this video:

A note of caution: Unstable surface training is risky business if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Once again I have insomnia but I swear I heard something that woke me up at 1:30am and now I can’t get back to sleep.
I am struggling with the whole blog thing. Since I consistently (and some would say constantly) do Twitter and Facebook for Ingles Markets it seems to be just one more layer of busyness that I might not need to add. Yet it also occurs to me that within blogging I would be able to write more than just those 140 characters in the Twitter block.