Happy Friday, Indeed!

Its FRIDAY! 🙂 And what makes Friday even better?  A three day weekend folks – yup!  Does it seem like the week before a holiday weekend are always just a little bit harder to get through for anyone else too?  Jeepers.

After a two days of solid work in the beginning, my week settled out pretty well, so I took advantage of the extra breathing room to bring myself back up to speed on the workout routine.  Like I said yesterday, I haven’t quite kicked myself back into early am running, but I’ve managed to fill my week with a workout each day.  Here’s how it turned out:

Monday: Got my butt out of bed and to a second consecutive week of Bodypump.  I really have missed starting my day with the girls in the class and the instructor.  Even though I don’t know them personally, there’s something about the motivational comments, the mutual grimaces, sighs of relief and blood pumping music that screams “best way to start a week” to me.  This was also the morning that I realized I am sadly out of practice with green smoothie makings.  Clumpy and tasteless, but it held me over until lunch.  Yikes.  Bonus?  I could walk like a normal human being afterwards.

Tuesday:  Here’s where I almost gave in.  The idea of hitting the gym after an exhausting day of work with only myself to motivate me through a simple 30 minutes of cardio.  I gave myself until after dinner to relax a bit, get back some energy from dinner and walk out that door before I could decide to “wait until tomorrow” to get back to it.  I ended up with something closer to 35 minutes (I’m a weirdo and HAVE to finish my workout on an even time and mile).   

Wednesday: Wednesday pushed myself to get out the door and a little early so I could fit in a 20 minute elliptical session before my yoga class, which felt great.  I think when its possible, I’m going to try for this more often.  Especially with a forced 1 hour stretch session afterwards.  Yoga this week had a KILLER downward dog series that if you follow me on dailymile, you’ll know had my shoulders screaming at the end.  I am in awe of anyone who considers that a rest pose.  Yow.zas.  But the core workout was great and I felt stronger than I have in weeks. 

Thursday:  Just another simple 30 minute session on the elliptical.  I’ve focused on a cardio exercise with less impact to start back up again with this week.  I want to get my body reacquainted with endurance and cardio workouts before I start filtering back in the running.  Happily, I’m starting to feel that urge to work a little harder, so I think I may incorporate some runs next week.  This go-round though, I tried out the “reverse workout” function.  5 minutes forward and 2 minutes in reverse.  It starts out ok, but 2 minutes of reverse on an elliptical can get ROUGH, especially when you up the resistance.  Rounded out the workout with a cooldown, totaling 35 minutes and 4 miles.    I topped the night off with a big bowl of bulgur wheat, grilled veggies and tofu (FINALLY). 

Friday:  The last big test of the week, the 5:45 am Bodypump+CxWorks gym class.  45 minutes of lifting and 30 minutes of core work with resistance bands and weights, etc.  First things first – I WENT.  Secondly, I think I held a plank/hover today for the longest I have ever done (with toe/knee taps mixed in!).  I kind of wanted to throw up a little afterwards.  But I’m ridic proud  of doing it.  Oh and one more thing?

(holy bad angle, batman!)

I’m getting a lot better at those smoothies…round 2 was green and delicious.  Thank you, ripe banana, thank you.

Smoothie: Almond milk, handful of spinach, flax seeds, Maca root powder, hemp protein powder, P2B Chocolate PB, a dash of vanilla and 1 bananananananana.  Werd.   (I followed with a coffee chaser 😉 )

I am happy, I am awake and kind of excited that my abs are finally coming back out to play.  So lets start the countdown for the holiday weekend, kids!  We have lots of plans for friends, cookouts, breweries and fun. 

Since we’ll be on the go a bit, I think i’m going to whip up these little beauties tonight, so we can have something healthy to enjoy with our coffee or just grab and go for the drives.   

Who’s got fun weekend plans??

xo

ps – Check out these photos from CNN.  I think numbers 3,6, 11 and 15 are my favorites.

Working on it

Staying in shape is no joke.  Getting back in shape is no joke either.

I pride myself on being fairly healthy.  Sure I have a few swings in the opposite direction every now and then, but for the most part, I’m a healthy gal.  But that doesn’t mean I can take 1.5 months off and stay “in shape”. 

After what felt like a serious roller coaster of a ride with work, I landed myself in a temporary (for now) fix that has been one of the better decisions I’ve ever made.  Which means all those other annoying little parts of my life could promptly settle themselves back into place, right?

Ha.

I am not a patient person guys.   So naturally, I wanted everything to go back to how it was.  Waking up first thing in the morning for a 5:45-6 am gym class or run, have a day of healthy nutritious snacks, a dinner I was proud of, rinse and repeat.  I loved how I felt, how my routine was, how those little things could give me a burst of endorphins. 

Having the rest of my life fall back into routine hasn’t been easy.  Jumping right back into it isn’t reasonable.  My body fights back, demands sleep, food and comfort.  It threatens to get sick and walk in waddle format for the rest of the week after a first day back to lifting.  So I’ve resorted to slowly working myself back into it.   

I started with my food.  Focusing on healthy again.  And slowly, but surely its been working.  I’m starting to crave bowls of whole grains, tofu and veggies again, (especially after a weekend at home).  Salads are once again an [almost] daily part of my routine and for breakfast this past Monday, I had a green smoothie that reminded me how horribly out of practice I am at making them. 

Next I worked on getting back to the gym and balancing that with some sleep.  This one took some effort, and I’m still not back to my 3 a week classes, but I’ve made it back to Monday Body Pump for the past 2 weeks.  The first week was ROUGH.  Moving hurt for a good week afterwards.  But this week, I was just a little tight – nothing I couldn’t handle.  Thankfully no movement was impaired after this session.   So I felt good about adding in Yoga last night and tomorrow night round 2 of Body Pump. 

The hardest part about all of this, has been losing a lot of my cardio endurance.  It really has reminded me how this stuff is not to be taken for granted.  Its also reminded me how much we’re programmed to enjoy not doing anything and can easily justify taking just one more day to prepare yourself.  Tuesday night I had finally had enough of the excuses and the guilt afterwards.  And pushed myself to get back to the gym, despite a long day at work.  35 minutes of elliptical later, I was satisfied – but also sad.   I used to think “35 minutes, ok a short little workout” and now I was trying to figure out how to occupy myself for that long. 

Out of all of this though, there have been some good things.  For instance, I’ve realized mentally that I don’t like how it feels to be lazy, especially after knowing how it feels to be in pretty darn good shape.  I know what I prefer and I know the kind of hard work and dedication it takes to achieve that.  For awhile, my goals were driven by successfully running races, a 5k, a 10k, a half marathon.  I even started out for running a full marathon early this summer, but just couldn’t find the motivation to do it.  Needless to say, I won’t be running it this year.  But what I did do, is find a different reason for that drive, which I think is a bit more important.  I still think I’d like to run a marathon, its still on my bucket list. But when I do it, the race won’t be my sole motivation for getting out to the gym or hitting the pavement.   I think I figured I’d get to this point eventually, I’m just glad I have.

So yeah.  Cheers to all those folks who have decided to change their life for the healthier and have found a way to keep it up.  You’re pretty darn awesome, because its pretty darn hard.

xo

ps – College Football tonight!!!!! Who else is doing a little happy dance?

Simple nights

Here’s what Monday and Tuesday night have looked like for us:

Simple, easy to prepare meals, that still offered the comfort of a home cooked meal.  My guilty conscious reared its head though and I made sure to have some veggies for each night.  Mushrooms up top and some saute’d golden zukes down below (shout out to the hubs for perfecting the vegan grilled cheese).   Perfect for those nights where you’re not motivated to cook and have a list of things you want to get done before you go to bed.

Tonight isn’t going to be any different.  I threw together some ingredients for a chipotle sweet potato chili in the crockpot this morning before I left for work.  I won’t even have to cook my dinner tonight.

xo

Will blog for coffee

Yesterday was a crazy mix of weird, that didn’t add up to “bad day” but “weird day” or rather, “weird day, with a distinct lack of coffee”.

This morning, the fun continues.  I seem to have woken up with a hangover, having not drank last night.  I repeat.  The only fluid that touched my lips last night was water.   In all honesty, I think its the start of a migraine.  So its a steady regiment of aleve, water and caffeine for me.  So while I’m nursing myself back to health, enjoy some of these things that have been keeping me busy outside of work 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQkBeOisNM0

Some Nights, by Fun.  This song is so catchy – I catch myself humming it to myself.  Can’t say  I care for the music video, but the song is worth a listen.

 

source

I’m sure all of us are starting to look ahead to the fall in some shape or form, either dreading it or looking forward to it.  When we were home this weekend, my MIL had out candy corn (!!!)  So I’ve been on pinterest during my down time checking out some fall appropriate treats and decorations.  These cookies are darling and while I have no illusions of my turkeys turning out ANYTHING like above, we’ll just call it “rustic” then lament about how artists are never appreciated in their time 😉  We may end up with sugarcookies with a flat outline of a turkey, ala 5 year old drawing talent too.  My dad would be so proud…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTqkjk5ioec

Another song for you, this one is J’adore Hardcore, by Scooter.  Despite my slightly off  tilt Monday yesterday, it started off the best way possible.  Back to body pump for my early AM weight sesh.  One of my favorite parts about working out, especially in a big group setting, is the loud music that makes you feel bad ass.  This song stuck with me all day and its so great for lifting. 

Finally – my friend sent me a link yesterday that talked about a new kind of push up (click here to read it).  They call it a Reverse Pushup.  Its worth the look and a try.  We both tried it last night and agreed that it was mostly awkward to do.  For me it was the reverse part that was the hardest, but I think I wasn’t quite at the right “butt in the air” angle, now that I look at it again.  They were fun though, and now that I know they exist, I don’t think I’d mind rotating them into the random pushup lineup. 

Goals for today:  Nurse away a headache, work work work! (Deadlines are approaching), cardio.  If I can hit that trifecta, I’ll be happy.

How does everyone else’s Tuesday look?

xo

Katie learns to cook: substitute teacher

I’m up in Lancaster this weekend celebrating a very important birthday of my favorite 1 year old girl. 

In my absence i’ve brought in a substitute teacher.  He assures me he’s been preparing all week for today’s post. Enjoy!