Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

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Recently, my friend Terry Gleason and I had an opportunity to interview Dr. Michael Klaper, who is a pioneer in plant based medicine.

I've been building up to 200 crunches. I was doing the Greater Waterbury YMCA ab challenge last month and the last day of the challenge stopped at 160 crunches. I thought to myself,, I'd like to do an even 200 of them. So I kept going, increasing 5 per day until I reached 200 today.

In addition, I'm doing their other ab challenge, a planking challenge. It's five different kinds of planks, increasing by 5 seconds each day. There's only 2 days left of this challenge. Today, I held the planks for 50 seconds each.

I just completed the Greater Waterbury YMCA ab challenge, a 30 day challenge where you increase the number of crunches, leg raises and planks by increments of 5. The last day of the challenge meant I had to do 160 crunches, 64 leg raises and a 2 minute, 35 second plank! As you can imagine, it was not easy.

So was it worth it? Definitely! My abs feel a lot tighter, despite having a pouch of loose skin. I can see some muscle there, so I know my abs are strong. I never imagined being able to do this many crunches, but that's the purpose of these challenges, to accomplish goals and increase your fitness level.

My friend took some photos of my work out at the gym this past weekend. I wanted to see if there was any progress visible from all the hard work, with five days a week of strength training!

I think my arms are developing nicely. In fact, I'm surprised how the triceps are starting to show. The skin has tightened a lot in my arms and I feel so much stronger.

At the beginning of the month, I decided to do a 30 day plank challenge. The goal is by the end of the month to hold a plank for 5 minutes. For those that aren't familiar with the plank, the basic plank exercise is a way to improve core strength and stability. You begin in a plank position with your forearms and toes on the floor while your torso is straight. The body in a straight line with no sagging. The abs are being held in as if they are waiting for a punch.

It's difficult to hold the position for a long time because you are really engaging your abs. The longest I've gone is three minutes non stop. I want to get to five minutes because I think it will further strengthen my core and tighten my abs. It won't be easy, but my hope is by the end of the challenge, I'll get to five minutes.