The December Challenge Group Results are in!

Happy Tuesday y'all!  Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Can you believe it? This month has absolutely flown by.  I really feel like since I had my daughter, time passes so much more quickly than it did before.  Or maybe it's just a sign I'm getting older. Either way,  this month has gone crazy fast!  

My 21-Day Challenge Group finished up on Sunday, and my ladies did AMAZING!  Even with the craziness of the holidays, everyone lost pounds and inches and are going into the holiday healthier and stronger!  We had a great time and will be taking a super short break for Christmas and then the next Challenge group will start just after the first of the year!  I am having so much fun coaching my challengers.  Being a coach is such a rewarding job! I've gotten some great feedback from my challengers lately that has me smiling from ear to ear and totally jazzed up for the New Year!  We've got great things in store for January, February, and March so stay tuned!

Today was Day 2 of TurboFire. I am so sore!  Yesterday I completed Fire 30 and today was my first ever HIIT workout, HIIT 15.  Have you ever done a HIIT workout? HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training.  It's the type of workout where you go as hard as you can for a short period of time (in this case it was 30-45 seconds), take a short break, and then repeat.  It's a really effective way to workout, but should be used in moderation. You've got to make sure to allow enough time in between HIIT workouts to let your body recover, so you don't injure yourself.  A HIIT workout, when done correctly, creates, what Chalene Johnson calls, the afterburn effect.  What she means is that HIIT workouts significantly increase your metabolism in a short period of time and then your body maintains that higher metabolism for a longer time after your workout than in a normal cardio session.  An increased metabolism equals more calories burned every minute, and we all know we've got to burn more calories than we are consuming to lose weight.

My Polar heart rate monitor bit the dust yesterday, I've been looking for a new activity tracker for awhile -- one that I can wear 24/7 and tracks everything, including my sleep.  I was hoping to get one for Christmas, but I think I want to go with the new FitBit that's coming out after the first of the year, the Charge HR.  I've never fully understood how the activity trackers, including all the previous FitBits could be accurate without monitoring your heartrate, so I was really excited to see that the new FitBit was going to incorporate a heart rate monitor (using your wrist, so no annoying band around your chest!).  What activity tracker do you all use?  I'd be interested to hear what you like and don't like about the different options out there!