Lauren Brooks Fitness

First I want to start off with a positive note. I feel extremely lucky to have a home to come back to. My heart goes out to all those who lost their homes and valuables in the fire. It is hard to feel sorry for myself when people have it so much worse. This has been an eye opener this week. It really puts things in to perspective. On Monday Oct 22nd, I woke up smelling smoke at 6:00a.m. I looked outside and there was ashes falling and a red haze in the sky. I immediately turned on the TV and on every station there was BREAKING NEWS wild fires. I phoned my friend Laura that lives 10 minutes from me. She had been evacuated at 5 a.m. from her home. It then occured to me that I better start thinking about what is important to me. I knew as long as I have my family including my 2 cats, that is all I would need. I got a knock on my door as I was sitting there in shock. It was my neighbor from across the street inviting me over to their home so we can breathe cleaner air. They have ...

We were getting really excited to start Ben's program last week. Then I had to rush him to the emergency room at 6 a.m. Now that he is off the Prednisone he is much more vulnerable for painful flair ups. I personally think we have gotten a little too comfortable with our eating and need to go back to a strict Ulcerative Colitis friendly diet. We don't know what the exact cause of the flair ups are. If we knew we wouldn't keep having this problem. The pain is so unbearable that he required pain medicine 4 times stronger than Morphine, which is called Dilauded. Once things settle down I will continue to post. My daughter hasn't been sleeping well either for the past several weeks. At 3 a.m. she decides that she needs me! With no sleep and high stress, it's very hard to stay above water. My body has finally said ENOUGH! My lowered immune system from everything going on, finally gave in to a virus. With that being said, I do not workout when I am sick. Once I build...

Those who have been with me from the start with my blogging will remember that my husband was suffering from severe stomach problems that landed him in the emergency room over 15 times and admitted in the hospital 3 times. I would like to announce that he finally got off the steroids that the doctors put him on. The prednione (steroid) may have saved him but also came with a whole list of horrible side effects we had to deal with. So I am now becoming a very happy women seeing my husbands health start to improve almost drug free. Since working out for him has not been an option for longer than I can remember, I am now giving him a challenge. I told him last night that if he did just 20-30 minutes a day of kettlebell workouts, 5 times a week his health and physique would improve dramatically. I am talking about a transformation. Of course proper nutrition would be part of it as well. We would take pictures, measurements, log everything to keep him on track. You would think sinc...

Today I was determined to do a little kettlebells and some other bodyweight exercises. Just needed my baby to take her morning nap. I decided to warm up with an 8 minute walk around the neighborhood. Just enough time to get her to sleep. Once I got home I knew it was just a matter of time until she would wake up. I needed to hurry up and get my workout done. Here it is. Explosive Push Ups 10 Jump Pull Ups (just using my tippie toes) 4 One Leg Explosive Box Squat (18 inch box) 10/10 on each leg Snatches with 12kg 20/20 Went through each exercise with little to no rest. After Snatches rested 1 minute and repeated 3 times. Felt great after this. The best thing is this took about 20 minutes to do. I could have been done but since she was still asleep I decided to use the extra time. Lying Hip Rotations 10x Wheel Roll Outs 12x Medicine Ball Twists 30x Did 2 sets and then she woke u...

Today was my interval training day. I had planned to do kettlebell swings and snatches. My baby needed my full attention this morning and was resisting her nap. I knew my plan of swinging bells was not going to happen. Instead of just not doing anything, which many times happens, I had to be flexible and figure out another way. Those who have babies will know that putting them in a stroller will usually put them to sleep. So I decided to kill two birds in one stone. I put Lyla in the jogger, grabbed my stopwatch, and left the house. Lyla fell asleep within 5 minutes and I was then ready to expel some energy. I wanted to run fast but only for a minute at a time. I decided to do 1 minute intervals of running and fast walking for about 35 minutes. Pushing a stroller and running up the hills were just as challenging on my heart as swings and snatches . I have never been one to love running long distances. I somehow completed a half marathon before, but don't have any intentions o...

I am going to start implementing a system to keep me more well rounded with my exercises. As much as I believe you should only have a few goals at a time, I am not going to be competing in anything anytime soon. So for me to be well rounded it's important for me to work weekly on explosive strength, maximal strength, interval training, endurance training, isometrics, and more. Unless someone is training for a specific strength competition or a marathon, I am starting to change my views on training. We all know our bodies will adapt to the same type of training. Today my workout was dedicated to strength. It took about 30 minutes to complete. Rested 45-60 seconds in between exercises to be fresh for each set. Always made sure there was 2 reps left in the bank. Practice needs to be perfect! Next time I will add weight to the double squats since 8 reps is high for a strength workout. A1 Ring Pull ups 3 reps 4 sets A2 Double Front Squ...

Just wanted to share this magazine with you guys. I enjoy the nutrition/recipes articles that come out of this magazine as well as the fun and unique exercises that are shared. I believe you can try a free sample issue. I am glad I was able to be apart of this.. The picture on the front is me doing a clean and jerk. There are some better looking pics of me inside the issue. 8-) To get to the actual site you must go to http://www.cathletics.com/. It's on my links section as well if you click on Performance Menu. Enjoy!