Just waiting for my plane.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Question: are you an aisle person or a window person (I’m not even going to ask about the middle seat because no one is a middle seat person.)
Monthly Archives: January 2013
Wednesday W’s
What I ate:
My parents and I returned to Rock Hill Bakehouse for a late lunch. I guess since its my last full day in New York I can tolerate both lunch and dinner with them today (oh and I can’t wait to tell you about dinner, even though we haven’t even had it yet!!) Anyways, this Bakehouse always has such delicious daily specials
I opted for the salad special- with a cup of the vegan split pea soup. Bother we’re so delicious and I am now incredibly full and burping raw onions.
Wedding:
Chose the hotels for our wedding. One of them wanted us to block 30 rooms! I was all ‘helllllls no.’ I talked to the curator of the property where we are having the ceremony/reception and she recommended 2 particular hotels that offer a free shuttle and great discounted rates since they often get wedding guests from their particular property. Doesn’t hurt that both are within about a mile of the location as well!
I was wandering the house as I was speaking to various hotels on the phone and I came across this little gem:
That would be me when I was about 3 years old. The daughter of friends of my parents was getting married in Beverly Hills and I just so happened to be an adorable blonde-haired little girl that they knew! Lucky me. My resources mom tells me the guy she married (who I was totally afraid of because he was so muscle-y) owns a ton of Gold’s Gyms throughout Southern California now. Had I not recently moved to Canada, I would so be on the phone with him inquiring about personal training jobs. Could you imagine? Training rich, tan people in California? Ugh. I can’t think of it because its making me mad jealous.
Workout:
Oh yes, this is a great workout. I don’t know why, knock on wood, but lately I have been in love with my workouts. This is partly because of Best Body Bootcamp, part because of the new home equipment I have acquired over the past few months, and part because of my mentality towards each workout.
For the strength portion of today’s workout, I slightly modified some moves from BBB. The idea for the circuit was to run the clock for 15 minutes and get as many rounds of 3 exercises in as you can. I don’t want to give away the moves (it wouldn’t be fair to all the hard work Tina does with the program. If you’re interested though, click the link above to find out when you can sign up for the next round!) but the 3 exercises in each round focused on lower body and chest/shoulders. After completing the first round, I danced around to loosen up for a few minutes, the got right into round 2 for another 15 minutes of 3 different exercises.
The schedule also planned for some cardio intervals. I haven’t really been loving the gym here for my cardio workouts, and I have exhausted the option of using my parent’s treadmill everyday, so I changed this to my own AWESOME cardio bit:
You see that? I did Tabatas! (Tabatas are 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times for a total of 4 minutes.) In the above picture, I alternated between two moves for each tabata. I also hopped on the treadmill for a quick 1/4 mile run before getting into the next tabata. All these, combined with the strength circuits really kicked my tush. And I loved it.
Edited to note: I actually subbed the 1/4 mi sprints with 10 stair runs between each tabata set. More sweat, more work! That’s what happens when you post about your workout before you actually do it! Never again, Jen. Never again.
And now, I leave you with Weird:
Stuffed rhino head
My 4th grade self.
Question: What exercises do you currently have on heavy rotation in your workouts?
Armed and Ready
I have a mish mash of things to talk about. I could make this one long cohesive post, but I’m not the best at transitional writing. Or any writing for that matter.
Last night I made a BOMB ASS chicken salad. I didn’t really follow a recipe, nor did I really track the amounts of the ingredients I used, but I’m still gonna share the goods.
I used shredded chicken (boneless chicken breasts and chicken broth in the crockpot on high for four hours and shredded with 2 forks), red grapes, cashews, celery, mayo, plain Greek yogurt, spicy brown mustard, lemon juice, white vinegar, salt, and pepper.
It was super yummy and I couldn’t stop ‘mmmmm-ing’ with each bite. Something similar to this might make its way into my Super Bowl menu this Sunday…
This morning, my mom and I went to Target for some random items, then headed over to the nail salon for some pedicures. Not gonna lie, the last time I got a pedicure was when I was in New York in August. I’m not really one to splurge on pampering (at least not on a regular basis) so it’s nice to sit in a sweet massage chair while someone rubs my feet and legs with lotion. note: I specifically sat in the tub before heading out so that I could shave up to my knees. Gross, I know. But hairy legs at a pedicure is even more gross.
Also note, the massage chair at this particular salon is no joke. It kneads and chops and rolls and vibrates and does everything you could possibly imagine. With my back still being sore from my Saturday workout, it was pure bliss.
I had picked up a new shade of Essie nail polish from Target, so as soon as I got home, I slapped that shade on! (It’s called Armed and ready!!) My mom is convinced it’s grey, but it’s a deep green with a slight shimmer. I love it.
Today’s workout for Best Body Bootcamp focused on cardio, but I wasn’t really feeling it. Instead, I took inspiration from the deck of cards workout I did this last weekend with Ashley and Athena. I chose to do one cardio/more challenging ‘deck’ and another slightly easier strength ‘deck’. I got my grey gear on and was ready to sweat!
Round One:
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Jump Squats
Frog Jumps:
Start in plank position.
Squeezing your abs, ‘jump’ your feet as close to your hands as you can, with your feet landing wider than your hand position.
In a fluid motion, kick your feet back into plank position. and that’s 1!
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Arnold Press
Glute Squeeze:
Start laying on your stomach, with your knees wide and bent and your heels touching in the air.
Squeezing your glutes, and keeping your heels together and knees wide, attempt to raise your heels in the air (think of squeezing enough to get your knees off the ground)
Return to start position. That’s 1!
(Like the sweet demo pics? I had my mom take them in the basement. Super pimp setup down there.)
Similar to before, I did the number of reps per face value, 10 reps for face cards and 11 for aces. The entire round took me about 23 minutes.
I then did a 1 mile incline on the walk before getting a jump on Round 2 which looked like this:
And another 1 mile incline walk to finish up.
That’s about all I have for now. Let me know if you need further explanation of those dumb exercise pics I posted!
Question:What’s your favorite way to eat chicken? Got any recipes you’d like to share?!!
Worth Mentioning
Well, it’s Monday. I’d say its back to the grind, but that’s not really the case…. for me anyways. It won’t be back to the grind until I’m home in Calgary where I have my routine with the pup, etc. And especially when I’m back to my usual eating habits! This isn’t technically a vacation, so I don’t think it’s ok that I have gained 5 pounds (not important in the overall scheme of life, but very important for the wedding dress fitting). Until then, it is what it is!
So…some things worth mentioning:
-check out Athena’s recap of this past weekend. She did a way better job than I did.
-have you heard of Vine?
It’s an app that is similar to Instagram, except with 6 second videos! I recently joined, so if you find yourself on Vine, make sure to follow me!!
-I had a bowl of oats this morning for the first time in almost a year! I topped it with a bit of brown sugar, cinnamon, wild bluebs, and walnuts. Accompanied with a couple cups of strong coffee, and I was super satisfied.
I think I was reluctant to get back into oats because they are usually calorie dense with all the add-ins, but I knew I needed some of the nutrients in addition to the staying power!
– Today’s strength workout was courtesy of Best Body Bootcamp. I only slightly modified it to make it look like this:
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Round 1 (to be continuously repeated for 15 minutes)
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Single leg dead lifts, L and R (12)
Plank w/row (12)
Standing oblique crunch with knee raise and overhead press (12)
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Round 2 (to be continuously repeated for 15 minutes)
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Gliding reverse lunge (12)
Dead lift with row (12)
Cross body curl (12)
I made my own cardio intervals to be done on the treadmill. It looked like this:
And since its snowing cats and dogs, I’m hoping to get back on the treadmill tonight to walk while I watch Biggest Loser!
– I got an email from Citizenship and Immigration Canada today that said I have passed the initial assessment for my permanent resident application! Such good, happy news. I can’t even begin to explain to you the frustration, tears, and anticipation Tyler and I have he’d over all of this. (The tears were min, obviously. Boys don’t cry)
-because of the above mentioned bullet point, there is current a bottle of prosecco in the fridge.
-my Nike+ Fuelband broke last week. Apparently, you are not supposed to charge them through a wall outlet. It’s only supposed to be charged through a device that had a time chip. But, since Nike doesn’t tell you that, you kill it, and then wind up talking to customer service for an hour attempting to troubleshoot only to have to have a replacement sent. Run on sentence? Yes. Frustrated? Heck yes.
-mama is making a Wacky cake. Yay!
Fitness Friends Weekend!
Well hello there.
The weekend is winding down, so I thought I’d sit and push through a post via my iPad. Since the last time I checked in, my Boston gym friends Athena and Ashley drive out to stay with me for the weekend. I had so much fun. And I think they did too. I seriously just really loved having a healthy dose of girl time- filled with good food, drinks, a workout, and fitness talk (my secret favorite indulgence).
Once they arrived Friday afternoon, we headed over to Davidson’s for some food and drinks. We split nachos and I had a bison burger (I keep wanting to ‘moo’ when I say Burger, but since it’s a bison..I’m a little lost as to what noise to make. Ok wait, I just googled it- YUP I’m making this noise and this face every time I say Bison. From now on.)
Saturday, we went to the gym. Obviously! I didn’t take any pictures, so…..sorry. But Athena did and she will probably post them on her blog soon! We chose to do 2 ROUNDS of the deck of cards workout. For the first round, we designated the following:
Diamonds: push-ups
Clubs: burpees
Spades: reverse crunches
Hearts: weighted squats
I shuffled the deck, then got to flipping. For each card, we would do that number of reps for the designated suit. 10 reps for Jacks, Queens, and Kings; 11 reps for Aces. (If you do the math, that’s 94 total reps for EACH move.) 52 cards later- we were only halfway through our workout.
After a quick break, we broke into round 2. For that, we switched the exercises:
Diamonds: tricep dips
Hearts: kettle bell swings
Clubs: jump pliés
Spades: V-ups
We were sweaty. We were shaking. We were tired. we were happy to be done. Phew!
Sidenote: just the day before- Friday, before the girls came- I had done Workout C for this phase of Best Body Bootcamp. It was an endurance strength workout which had us doing super sets of exercises repeatedly until we reached 100 reps for each- then we would move onto the next superset. It included weighted squats, lunges and push-ups (among several other exercises), so I was already feeling the burn by the time we did our two deck of card workouts!
Late lunch was at Rock Hill Bakehouse. One of my favorite lunch places to hit up when I am back home. Vegetarian black bean chili and a spinach salad.
Last night, we had my parents drive us down to Saratoga. (Responsible adults, since we knew we would be drinking!!) We stopped into Cantina. There were a few rounds if Pomegranate margaritas first…..then dinner. and another round.
And the only photo I got of the three of us:
We managed to stay there for a bit, but did go to another bar were I had two of the best beers ever.
After the girls left today, I managed to have a nice salad plate topped with eggs, some melon, AND-although being incredibly sore from yesterday’s workout- I used my ‘off’ day from workouts as an active rest day and walked 4.5 miles on the treadmill.
That’s all I have for now! I wrote this entire post with the towel still on my head, so on top of nearly my entire body being sore, my neck is as well!
I hope you all had a great weekend!
Question: have you ever done the deck of cards workout? If so, what exercises did you do?
nutcaseinpoint 