NEWSLoni Works It Out: Adios, Pizza!
Nov. 13 2009, Published 12:32 p.m. ET
Welcome to the second installment of “Loni Works It Out,” where OK!’s Beauty and Health Editor Loni Albert chronicles her trials and travails as she attempts to slim down like a superstar. Follow her here on OKmagazine.com every week and on her Twitter page!
It’s 5:45 a.m. when my alarm goes off. Outside the sky is black and it’s pouring and freezing and miserable. On any other day I would roll back over and bury myself beneath the covers, wake up two hours later, throw on a forgiving a-line black dress, and tell myself that tomorrow I will go to the gym. Or maybe, this weekend. But in reality, we all know how that goes.
But not today. Today, I cringe, mumble a few obscenities, slide my ginormous gym bag over my shoulder (seriously, you have to see this thing — it's ridiculous), throw on my sneakers and head to the gym.
But it’s not just any old gym! It’s DavidBartonGym, the fitness mecca that boasts a celebrity clientele of Hollywood’s hottest bodies including Pink, Gwen Stefani, and Cindy Crawford, so it seemed like the obvious choice for me to execute my celeb-style slim down plan.
David Barton himself, the body sculpting, rock 'n’ roll, creative genius with approximately zero percent body fat, took one look at me (okay, it was like, a few looks and a brief conversation that involved feeling my not so buff biceps) and knew exactly how to begin my transformation. He set me up with Trainer Bill and got me working up a sweat in no time.
Trainer Bill, aka Bill Lagaret, is a native of Hawaii and a former Marine. He’s obsessed with saying “Power Up!” and is incredibly chipper and hyper when I am hardly half awake because apparently that’s what exercise does to people. He’s funny and quirky and he’s confident that in no time I’ll be looking “fierce” (his word, not mine). Here’s what my very first week at the gym looked like. We did 3 sets of 15 reps for pretty much everything.
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CHECK OUT PICS OF ME WORKING OUT WITH TRAINER BILL!
Here's how it all goes down:
MONDAY — CARDIO
Sprints
TUESDAY — ARMS, CHEST, ABS
Bicep Curls
Tricep Extensions
Chest Press
Push Ups
Crunches
Reverse Crunches
WEDNESDAY — BACK, LEGS, ABS
Back Extensions
Walking Lunges
Squats
Donkey Kicks
Double Crunches
THURSDAY — CARDIO
Sprints
FRIDAY — LEGS, ABS
Deadlifts
Squats
Walking Lunges
Crunches
Reverse Crunches
Double Crunches
On cardio days I work out on my own and follow a sprinting program that David and Bill designed for me. It goes by really quick — especially if you’re rockin' out to some Green Day or Foo Fighters! — and despite my assumption that sprinting was a gym synonym for torture, I find it to be really invigorating and maybe even (dare I say it?) fun. You can adjust this to go longer, shorter, faster, or slower according to your needs and abilities.
The Intro Sprinting Program:
Warm up for 5 minutes at 4.4 MPH
Run 30 seconds at 5.0 MPH
Walk 90 seconds at 3.4 MPH
Run 30 seconds at 5.5 MPH
Walk 90 seconds at 3.4 MPH
I continue doing this until I reach 7.5 MPH and then repeat the program again but this time start at 7.5 MPH sprints and work down to 5.0.
Since I’ve been hitting the gym, I realized the importance of not cutting myself short. If I’m getting out of bed and putting myself through these workouts, I have to make it count. No one really knows when I’ve hit the max to my strength or my endurance except me, so I am doing everything I can to not wimp out and to dig really deep—pushing out the extra 2 reps when I would normally stop, lifting more weight than I would ever have attempted before. If I’m going to do this, I’m doing it for real because if I cheat I’m really only cheating myself. Like it or not, no one can make this happen but me.
If you have any questions hit me up on Twitter @LoniWorksItOut and I’ll answer anything — promise! Next week I’m adding in the nutrition element so be sure to check back in. Good-bye chocolate... good-bye pizza... It’s been fun...
