Category Archives: workouts

From the Week

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Happy Friday, guys! It’s weird, because all week felt like either a Thursday or Friday, and now here we are and it somehow feels like the beginning of the week. It’s been a relatively low key week over on our end. I sort of love these weeks because it’s a lot more one on one time with Wes. Backing it up…

Monday: I made a batch of these Baked Breakfast Cookies on Sunday night in hopes of enjoying them for a couple of breakfasts throughout the week. So I had a couple on Monday morning, and….eh. I wasn’t super impressed by them at all. But it didn’t hurt to try, and I already had all the ingredients on hand.

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Once Wes was up and had his breakfast, I bundled him up and we walked down to the grocery store. I love doing some grocery shopping on weekday mornings, but I do NOT love the female cashiers that want to grab my son’s hands and give him germs on weekday mornings. There’s an etiquette for that, people! after some play and lunch, we bundled up again and walked down the street to the swings. Wes loved it per usual but the wind picked up and we headed home shortly after.

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For dinner, I made a super quick and easy chicken fried rice. I’m pretty impressed with the turnout considering I made the entire dish while holding Wes! (Tyler was downstairs working out and Wes decided he didn’t want to sit in his high chair any more. Pff) I recommend making fried rice from scratch rather than ordering takeout any day!

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And my latest purchase arrived in the mail: 22 Minute Hard Corps! I am so excited to get started on this, but I just have to get through a couple more weeks of T25 Beta first.

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Tuesday: I attempted to take photos of Wes for his 11 month birthday. The kid is a speedy little guy!

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After the whole ‘ordeal’ I gave him a bath (with a new aromatherapy oil I received) and he napped for almost 3 hours! We were afraid this would totally screw us come bedtime, but it didn’t! WINNING.

I intended on making loaded baked potatoes for our dinner, but I opted to chop up my sweet potato and eat it deconstructed instead. Delicious choice.

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Wednesday: I tried to make pancakes for breakfast, but only had one egg left. FAIL. I whipped up a batch of avocado protein pancakes and they tastes SO GOOD but the consistency is still a bit off. I’m hoping to play around with this a bit more because avocado and pancakes? Yes please.

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The big outing for the day was a trip to Superstore. I really only needed to get a veggie to include with dinner, but we ended up browsing the store for over an hour. Wes loves being in the cart and the store is so dang big that we didn’t look too crazy going up and down every aisle. Plus, the ladies love him 😉

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His face is so funny in that pic!

Dinner was some tortellini and zucchini. Boring, but it hit the spot.

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Thursday: I broke my 39 day anti-coffee streak. THANK GOD I DID. I initially gave it up because I was having a bit too much and was having a hard time sleeping. Now, I’m drinking it again because I’m still no longer sleeping AND I was a huge unhappy beast. Coffee saves relationships people.

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I also reintroduced my favorite Shakeology into my daily routine. Coffee + Shakeology + Fizzy water = the best triple threat ever.

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I feel better already. PHEW.

We dressed in green and played with some random green things around the house to celebrate St. Patty’s day. AND GUESS WHO DECIDED TO START CRAWLING?! I have a few videos on my phone of it, but they’re super long and probably 100% boring to anyone besides me and Tyler.

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I met up with my friend Jen once Tyler got home. She moved to Vancouver a while back and I hadn’t seen her in forever! We went to an Irish pub (duh) but there was a wait for a table and we ended up sitting outside with drinks for TWO HOURS before deciding to relocate for dinner. It was an early evening and timing worked in my favor because I caught a train/bus home without having a single minute to wait for either!

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And here we are at Friday! Forecast for this family? Lots of together time. And a Costco trip, obviously.

Weekender

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Well that went by fast! Faster than usual actually. I blame daylight savings?? And Happy Pi Day! Backing it up from the weekend:

Friday: While Wes was down for his morning nap, I did a quick T25 Beta workout then whipped up a batch of Easter M&M cookies. (balance, right?)

Afterwards, we headed to the mall in hopes of exchanging some socks my parents sent to Wes for a larger size. They didn’t have any, so I’ll just have to hold on to them until we make it to a different location! We did a quick lap around the mall then headed home.

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It was a pretty uneventful day, and we didn’t do much except hang around the house for the remainder of the afternoon.

Dinner was a quick meal of chicken burrito bowls (we forgot to put CHEESE on them. WHO DOES THAT!) then Susie came over for a girls night beer tasting. We each contributed 3 beers, but we only opened 3….and didn’t even finish them! I feel like such an old lady sometimes.

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Saturday: Here’s some exciting news- I spent the morning doing laundry! Actually, I took a nice bath first then got some laundry done. And Wes helped us make the bed 🙂

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After lunch we headed out to check out some flooring options to redo the main level of the house. We think we’ve narrowed it down to a particular one, but it might not get done RIGHT away. That’s ok, it was nice to get out of the house and Wes loved sitting in all the different shopping carts! And snacks. Snacks are always fun.

Oh, and I was dead set on getting a nutella donut from Tims while we were out. Mmm, so good! I haven’t had one of those since the day Wes was born- aka: the day I most deserved a donut.

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We ordered pizza for dinner and watched The Other Guy and Concussion before going to bed.

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Sunday: After my beloved BAE breakfast, I took Wes for a nice long morning walk. It was early enough that there was still a nip in the air, so he got nice and cozy before we headed out.

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He managed to fall asleep while we were out and I successfully got him in the entryway of the house (in the stroller!) and he stayed asleep for about 45 minutes.

A little afternoon play time to be had:

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Then we decided to try to go to a nearby provincial park for a long walk. Once we got there though it was way too windy, so we tried heading to another park. Same problem…WIND! Almost immediately after we strapped Wes back into the car he passed out and we ended up driving out to Airdrie to check out some show homes. There were some really nice ones, but then there were also a lot of overpriced homes that didn’t even have nice finishes. Womp.

Wes was a trooper for the FOUR HOURS we were out, and even stayed all smiles for the rest of the evening! He ate a humungous dinner, splashed the heck out of us during his bath, then easily went down at 7:40pm.

Unfortunately for me, since we were out so long during the day and Wes didn’t have a proper nap in his crib, I still had to take the doggies out for a long walk and do my workout afterwards. I hate to admit it but I think I’m becoming a morning worker-outer! Nothing better than just getting it done first thing.

Speaking of workouts, I just wanted to share a photo I posted on Instagram. I really have to attribute a lot of my post-baby body success to my two favorite programs: T25 and 21 day fix EXTREME . Both programs enabled me to get in great workouts in under 30 minutes and there is no better feeling than the feeling of accomplishment- especially when I can see these results AND I feel like a million bucks.

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If you’re interested in learning more about these or any other programs, please feel free to email me! jennifer(dot)l(dot)linton(at)gmail(dot)com

Before heading to bed, I whipped up a batch of baked breakfast protein cookies. I’m really hoping they turned out..and if they do, I’ll make sure to share the recipe!

How was your weekend??

From the Week

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Woohoo for Friday! Forecast for this weekend: chores and sleep. Sleep sleep sleep. Some stuff that happened this week:

Monday: We started off the day nice and early with a  stroll to the library. Gotta love nice weather that allows for us to get some fresh air! We picked a little corner and got some books and just hung out for a while. There were some other kiddos there too, but they sounded a bit destructive otherwise I would have had Wes try to mingle.

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We left a while later with a ton of new books to enjoy at home. I even checked one out for myself!

Then I got a huge surprise in the mail. Tyler ordered me a professional light tent set! I am entirely too excited to use this (and it’s WAY better than the light box I constructed myself. I know a few of you were asking how I made it, but it was so crappy that you’re now spared the instructions. haha).

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I already have it set up on a table in the basement and it’s just waiting for its first victim! 🙂

The weather was all too sunny, so I decided to take Wes for another stroll around the neighborhood. This time in the wagon! He just sat there pretty content and checking everything out.

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We had leftovers for dinner and spent the remainder of the evening just hanging out. This guy is really starting to enjoy his bath time and gets super giggly throwing all of this toys out of his basket over and over again.

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Tuesday: I checked the monitor before getting out of bed to get Wes and he was sitting up! Oh man, he’s just minutes away from crawling and I am just not ready for that yet!

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We met up with Alison and her kiddos at the zoo. Just my luck Wes fell asleep about 5 minutes before we got there. And of course he woke up when I tried to transfer him into the Bob. There was no one at the zoo and we whizzed through almost the entire park in about an hour before heading home. Then, Wes fell asleep AGAIN five minutes before we got home. Same thing happened and he woke up when I took him out.

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I attempted getting him down for a nap a couple of times before he FINALLY fell asleep around 2pm. He slept for 2 hours, but he was so out of whack that he woke up SUPER grumpy and stayed that way until bed time. Boo.

The only thing keeping him somewhat entertained was trying to pull himself up on the step. Or maybe he was doing a yoga pose? Who knows. Babies are weird.

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The grump took a lot of my time and energy that dinner was easy peasy: chicken, cous cous, and spicy roasted potatoes.

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Wednesday: After a yummy pancake breakfast, Wes and I walked to Safeway for a grocery run then browsed around a few other stores in the shopping center before heading home. The early morning air + an exciting WesOnWheels session tuckered him out for a good, long nap!

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I seriously love taking advantage of this crazy good weather, so we headed over to a different shopping center after lunch and walked around for a bit. (Picking up a few necessities, of course. Dang it, even going for walks causes me to spend money!) Before heading home, I ran the car through the car wash and Wes was amazed.

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Oh- and we had a delicious dinner! I made Crockpot Minestrone Soup (+ added chicken). I also made a cake. The cake is already gone. Never leave me home alone with a cake. Full disclosure: Tyler did help eat it.

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It’s funny that the day after Wes has a ‘grump day’ he tends to be extremely happy. Case in point:

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All smiles the whole day! His lack of afternoon naps lately have caused him to zone out pretty early which has been a pretty nice treat for me and Tyler.

Thursday: No morning outing for us. It was entirely too windy to go for a walk, so we played with EVERY toy in the house and hopped from room to room to keep it interesting. After lunch, I tried to take some photos of Wes with Layla (wearing some of his latest goodies from our Wee Nation box) but it was a HUGE no go. Mr Grump did not want to wear his hat. Or sit still. I was seriously considering a glass of wine at that point.

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Even his non smiley photos are adorable!

We got out of the house and went to the dollar store, Walmart (strictly to stockpile on Easter candy before it sells out), and Michaels. I just realized that I’ve been on the same tank of gas for 3 weeks now. Woohoo!

When we got home, Wes pulled out his personalized plank (A gift from his aunt, uncle and cousin for Christmas) and was mesmerized by it for almost 2 hours. Seriously, a piece of wood is that interesting.

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We had naked dinner (Ok, just Wes. Tyler and I kept our clothes on) and bedtime came early once again.

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Workouts from the week: Week 1 of Beta from Focus T25 and a 45 minute walk the the doggies each night.

Phew, I am exhausted! But I am so happy with the amount of out-of-the-house time Wes and I had this week. Here’s to hoping the weekend is just as nice!

PS: *Shoutout to all you readers that never comment* I’d love to hear from ya! That said, I dare you to comment below! You can tell me a joke or something random from your week or a new recipe you’ve come across that you think I should try!

[Fitness] Talk

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Hi guys! So I thought I should elaborate a little bit on this whole Beachbody Coach thing I told you about last Friday that I’m now doing. Sorry in advance, it’s wordy!

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not gonna lie, I’m pretty stoked about these abs. Especially since they’re better now than they were pre-baby!

Here’s a bit of my fitness backstory: I grew up playing sports years round. Soccer, basketball, horseback riding, karate, track… you name it, I did it. I was always active. If it was organized sports then I was swimming in our pool or playing street hockey out front. I was fortunate enough to be recruited to play volleyball in college which started off great, but with a change in coaching, quickly spiralled down and out of control. I soon became the most inactive I had ever been (also partially blaming college parties/studying/blah blah blah) and broke my foot during my Junior year season which launched me up to nearly 200 pounds. WHAAAT. It’s hard to even think about it now because I was in such a crap place in life.

I made it through college and immediately moved into my own apartment just outside of Boston. A new working-girl lifestyle left me pretty exhausted, but I started spending my free time at the apartment complex gym. In fact, I preferred going there to unwind and would often forego social engagements so that I could watch the Real Housewives of Orange County on the treadmill.

After a year, I moved to a different apartment and joined the YMCA that was down the road. I started attending various classes after work and quickly became addicted to making sure I went every single day. I loved it! (and it was starting to show in my clothes too) One of my favorite instructors? Athena!

Before I knew it, I was taking classes to become a fitness instructor myself. I was so excited to be able to share my love of fitness with others! And then I took the ACSM cPT exam and was a certified personal trainer. Ahh, so exciting. I was looking forward to potentially making this a career rather than a part-time job (outside of my finance full-time job).

But then, I met Tyler. And within 6 months I moved to Canada to marry him. I applied for my permanent residency and couldn’t work for the duration of my application being processed. I tried volunteering at the YMCA’s here in Calgary, but there were so many obstacles that I just couldn’t get over (given my legal status), so it really through my hopes  of getting into fitness full-time for a loop.

I wound up getting another financial position once my residency was approved, and was only a member of a local gym- I was so bored with it. SO BORED. I was randomly introduced to Beachbody through a work challenge and bought Focus T25.  I fell in love with the change up + I loved that they were only 25 minute workouts that were kicking my butt!

About a month after I bought the program, I found out I was pregnant and continued to do modified workouts from T25 (plus a variety of other prenatal workouts). Four weeks post partum I jumped back into T25. Since Wes was born in April 2015, I have tried 21 day fix, 21 day fix EXTREME, and Insanity.

I came to realize that I had fallen in love with Beahbody programs. Not only because they were quick, but because they could be done at home with the baby (or anywhere), and they were EFFECTIVE. [please refer to above photo]

And unlike before, I was pushing myself to properly complete these workouts. I only have so much time while Wes naps to squeeze in a workout, so I better do it RIGHT. My health isn’t just for me, it’s for him. He’s a big boy, and I need to stay on top of my game if I want to carry him around all the time 😉

I’m now in the best shape of my life. I don’t think the scale properly reflects ‘fitness’ but I am 60ish pounds lighter than my heaviest weight. I am more mindful of what I eat. (I still drink beer and eat cake). And I am the happiest I’ve ever been. This just reminded me of a time in college I went to the mall with friends and we went into a jeans store. They were all trying on jeans and I realized I couldn’t even fit into the largest size. Insert huge crying emoji and a bottle of vodka.

Then there’s the Shakeology. It came with the first challenge pack I bought and I fell in love with it. I found it to be so worth it to keep my energy up, curb my crazy chocolate cravings, and to keep me satisfied. I was breastfeeding Wes when I first tried Shakeology and it really helped in so many ways (that’s a whole other novel to tell!)

It only made sense for me to become a Beachbody coach so that I could help motivate others. I’m still pretty active outside of these programs- walking, hiking, hot yoga, spin, etc.- but I have Beachbody to thank for allowing me to be this fit. Sound corny? Yeah, kinda. But it’s actually pretty darn true.

I am really looking forward to the opportunity to work with people (maybe even you?!! wink wink) because I know how hard it can be to be in a fitness rut. I will be your buddy from day 1 and help you get to your happy place 🙂

If you have any questions or want more info, please feel free to email me at jennifer(dot)l(dot)linton(at)gmail(dot)com