Lauren Brooks Fitness

I have been flucuating on my body fat scale this past week. Getting a bit frustrated, I have been averaging about a 21.6% body fat. I consider this way too high for my own personal standards. My weight of 115 is great, but the body fat is telling me I need to start working a bit harder. BUT I have a big question running in my mind.  Does breastfeeding hold on to that last bit of fat I am trying to shed? I am fitting in to all my pre pregnancy clothes but I want my super lean look back! Most people say breastfeeding helps you lose weight. Which initially I agree with. I am definitely not trying to make excuses, but I think nursing causes you to hold on to a certain amount of fat. Back in the days in order for the baby to survive when the food was scarce, I believe the mother was designed to hold on to a certain amount of fat, to make sure milk could still be produced for the survival of the baby. I have spoken to many many women who breastfed and said they dropped about...

Absolutely! No matter how great of a trainer you are you can always learn from having a trainer yourself. If you are in the training business, you will know it is hard to find the time and motivation to train yourself after training people all day long. Even if you just get 2 or 3 sessions here and there from a respectable trainer it will drive your motivation back up and help you revamp your own training. After I had my baby I luckily was able to lose all my weight by 6 weeks with plain old nutrition. After I got the clearance to start working out at 6 weeks I slowly started working out again. It was very humbling going in to a gym and lifting 50% of what I use to lift. My goal was to put some muscle back on and get my strength back. I managed to gain a little strength back but I wanted something more. It was hard to juggle my time with my daughter and working again. I needed an appointment with someone and did not want to think for once. So after some thought I decided to get ...

This morning I decided to invite a couple friends over to do a little workout in my backyard. Some of them have been asking me to show them how to do kettlebells so I though this would be fun. It was 6 of us total and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I had some good music going and the sun came out for a little while. Since I was lacking equipment I put together a circuit for 6 and everyone was winded by the end. Most of the group was new to kettlebells so I kept it as simple as possible Warmed up with Good Mornings and Light Swings 1 minute on 1 minute off 3 sets in this order Kettlebell Tricep Push-ups Medicine Ball Twists No handed TGU's Clean and Squat Skateboard Back Lunges (Yoana Snideman taught me these) They are AMAZING!! Swings Stretched

It's been 2 and a 1/2 months now since I have had my baby. Now that I am feeling myself again I felt the need to share an activity with my husband other than watching tv, eating, and taking care of our baby. We took walks together with the stroller, but that got old pretty fast. Since my husband prefers sports I had to think of something we can do together. I don't think he would have much fun if we played basketball together, since he is really good. So I have convinced my husband to start playing tennis with me. Neither of us are very good, but it's something that the two of us can share together. And when we travel it's something you can do all over the world. I don't know how many times I hear complaints from different people that they don't do any activities with their spouse or significant other, except eat and watch tv. I feel every relationship should try and share something together that they can do outside. Since my husband and I have such differ...

My workouts have been pretty sporadic these past couple days. That is why I have not been posting. Here is my short workout I did today. Very simple but my shoulders were shaking at the end. All done with 26 pounder kettlebells Suitcase Deadlift 12 x 3 KB Push Ups 10 x 3 (barely made it to 10) Snatches 10 on each side x 3 (feeling the forearms swell) Rest and repeated 3 times. Pretty tired after that but I managed to get through this next sequence. Baby started crying towards the end so I did not get a chance to do more. Squat and Press 5 on each side x 3 Swings 20 x 3 Now I can empathize with my clients about how the forearms get a bit tender. I guess I am just not use to having the kettlebell rest on my arm like that. I remember I built up a little tolerance several years ago. So I guess I have to do that again. Even though I felt my form was better than average. I do feel stronger. I can now use the 12kg with most of the exercises ...