Spring Cleaning, Body edition

So not only is my plan to clean the house from North to South to East to West before Easter (which this year is March 31st!  I know right!!!)  But I am also re-re-committing myself to healthy living.  *I probably should add a couple more re-re’s on there since I’ve committed many times already.  Like I’ve said before I’m not completely unhealthy – but I do like to snack and my snacks are usually in triangular salty form…  Hee hee.

My nemesis…

I mean I can’t help myself…I say they are for HunBun but do you think that HunBun actually eats those Hint of Lime Tostitos?  Heck no…that’s all me!

Anyway.  I’ve renewed my quest for a balance of living healthy and healthy living.  I am really motivated this year to get my 2:00 goal time at my next half marathon (Disneyland in September).  I’ve been working on speed intervals on the treadmill combined with weighted & body weight exercises.  This morning I did 8 sprints at 7.0mph with 5.0mph rests between with a 7.7mph on that last one.  I did each sprint/rest at 1 min each.  My plan is to do that for a week then increase those sprint/rest times to 1.5 min and up and up until I’m running at 7.0mph for long stretches of time.  I think that gradual approach will get me used to turning my feet over faster and keeping that speed consistent.

To support my running/toning plan I’ve returned to my blended approach to eating.  I use the Tone It Up plan for both eating and exercise.  I also refer to a great book I read, S.A.S.S. Yourself Slim by Cynthia Sass, which helps with balancing each meal with healthy elements.  Both are super easy plans and don’t ask you to give up anything – which I like a lot.  Here’s what I’ve been eating the last 2 days (Oh, I didn’t take photos of the 2 handfuls of peanut M&Ms I shoved in my piehole after dinner, HA!).

Protein pancake and fresh fruit

Yesterday’s snack – blueberries & coffee

Bought something new for quick lunches…and Gluten Free to boot!

Rice & Bean Veggie bowl for Lunch

Tuesday’s breakfast. Oh yeah, that is a green pancake.

So I’m doing pretty good and feeling pretty good too.

Later today after work I’ll be doing a crafty project to get all my race bibs out of the drawer and on display.  I’ll post the finished product when it’s all done(hopefully this week  🙂  ).

Crafty project for later

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What up Wednesday!

I don’t really have a whole lot to say.  It’s been a lot of the same thing every day this week.  Waking up early to bust out an early sweat session…eating healthy meals to stay on the TIU plan…powering through a work day…zooming off to yoga…cooking dinner…trying to chill out…falling asleep.  B-O-R-I-N-G.  😦  Routine is usually what I fall into – be it eating or slogging through the day.  There are so many demands on our every waking minute that you become immune to enjoying life.

I mean who can believe that it’s already February?  I certainly can’t.  I’ve got too much to do at work, for my family, for myself that sometimes I just turn inward.  I retreat into myself – disengaging from everything on the inside while maintaining the outward appearance of full participation.  Is that a protection mechanism?  So I don’t completely drain myself?  Maybe…who knows.  Blah.  That’s usually my statement whenever I don’t want to talk or can’t talk.  🙂

Anyhoo…who signed up to read a decompression session?  Not me – so let’s move on to my favorite topic – EATING!  For all those who think eating healthy is boring and hard – you’re right.  HA!  It can be both of those things if you don’t inject a level of creativity and planning into it.  I do think that healthy eating requires a lot more prep work than not so healthy eating.  That means figuring out what you are going to eat during the week because all that healthy food tends to go bad – certainly doesn’t have the shelf life of say Hamburger Helper.  😀  You also need to cut, pack and organize your healthy eats in an easy to see and grab way.  The easier to grab – the more likely you will eat it.  I’ve learned that the hard way (hard way being throwing out hundreds of dollars of veggies that went bad because I didn’t eat it fast enough – Boot!)

Enough blah blah blahing….  on to the pictorial – Wheee!

Tuesday breakfast. Oh yeah, I eat my pancake with my hands!

Tuesday snack was a juicy pear

Tuesday Lunch – Double wrapping it!

I forgot to take a photo of my super tasty smoothie I had before yoga.  I followed a TIU recipe – Mango, Banana, Almond Milk, Coconut…whir it up and drink. 🙂

After yoga I whipped up a Mexican shrimp sauté and served it along with some lime cilantro rice.  Of course I forgot to take a picture.  More because for some reason we didn’t eat until 730pm…we’re usually done eating and kitchen cleaned by 7pm.  Not sure what happened.  So I was rushing all around and then rushed that food right down my piehole.

Wednesday’s eats were almost an exact duplicate…I think I’m falling into my rut.  Ick.  😦  But it was still tasty – so whatever, right.  🙂

Wednesday Breakfast. What else but a giant ole pancake.

Wednesday Snack: Balls!

For snack I had another pear and 2 of these awesome Apricot-Date balls.  Easy to make, although they are a little sticky to roll into balls.  YUM YUM.

Wednesday Smoothie. Kiwi, berries and spinach.

No photo of lunch…that’s because I was running late to a conference call and had to shove my wrap into my mouth as quickly as I could.  Not the best thing to do.  Also had 2 Cuties along with my lunch.  Sweet treat!

I was smart today and put some ribs in the crockpot for HunBun and the 12yo so that cooked all day and made the house smell SO GOOD!  I put some rice in the rice pot so it’d be ready for them to eat before I got home from yoga since I had to run to CVS to pick up a prescription.

Wednesday Dinner. Chicken and Kale wrap

I may eat a couple Apricot-Date balls as a treat…or have a piece of the Black Bean Brownies I just made.  Hmmmm.  Which would you pick?  😀

See ya later

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Janathon Day 10 update…and Day 11 start

What up Janathoners!  So long as you’re getting active for this first month in 2013…that’s the best thing.  🙂

Thursday, January 10th: 5-6pm Muscle & Flow

Push Up Challenge:  9 FU style!

Friday, January 11th: …nothing yet…

Push Up Challenge: 10 FU style and 20 Knees!

I’m making sure to do a little something every day.  This weekend I’m going to mentally prepare for those 2 little races noted on the right side of this post.  You see those?  Yeah, the NeverLand 5K and Tinkerbell Half are next weekend!  I will freely admit that I have not maintained my training plan.  Did not complete near the number of distance miles that I should have.  I have maintained levels of fitness by yoga’ing and circuit training – so I am hopeful that I will be carried by that and the excitement of running with thousands of others.  I will prepare myself not to be disappointed with my time…but plan on pushing myself to accomplish my goals.  No giving in here!

I enjoyed the green smoothie starter for every meal.  Certainly kept me filled up and hydrated at the same time.  I’ve been using water in the smoothies to keep them light.  Although yesterday I made a batch of date balls…must have had 25 finished balls….this morning I only had 2 balls left.  Whoops!  Guess they are a little too tasty.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy

 

Janathon Day 9…starting off on a new foot for Day 10

Yesterday I was lame on the exercise and eating front.  Boo!  😦

 Wednesday, January 9th: Firm Your Butt workout.

Push up challenge: 8 FU Push ups.  I totally forgot to do the knee ones, since I procrastinated on those and said I was doing them “later”.  Boo, #2!

I went into the office yesterday because I needed to switch out my work Blackberry.  Yes, I am still on a Blackberry for work.  It works for me – in fact works very well – when I don’t have one that sucks battery juice like it’s the sweet sweet nectar of the gods.  Well the first replacement BB could not be registered…the second replacement BB was an extremely old model that sucked battery juice like it was that sort of sweet & sour drink that you want to chug but can’t.  So yesterday’s visit to the office was to work with the super awesome ladies who always get it right.  Now I’m just waiting for the Helpdesk to call me back to set up my corporate email account so I can be productive when I’m away from my desk.

All that busyness went on past the time I wanted to leave – so I missed my Vinyasa Flex class.  Boo, #3!

I need to just face the simple fact that I am a morning exerciser.

Yesterday morning, or Janathon Day 9 – I did this Firm Your Butt workout from Self magazine.  I would love to have this workout give me this butt.  Seriously.

**This is also why I’m starting off the day with a green smoothie – because no matter how much you exercise it is really what you eat that matters.  Anyhoo…

So yesterday morning I grabbed my exercise ball and told my butt to get lost.  Let me tell you something, it is not easy to get your balance on those exercise balls.

The first exercise was not too difficult because you had really 3 touchpoints with the ground, your knee, your foot and the ball you were leaning on.  But the rest all have just 2 touchpoints – which means you have got to go slow and focus.  Your core is essential to maintaining your balance on these balls.  The “easiest” one?  Booty pop for sure.  I can booty pop my brains out – but good gravy the others required much more concentration.

Janathon Day 10 started off with 9 FU push ups.  I’m planning on going to my Muscle & Flow class tonight – then going to do the Tone Your Gut workout from the same Self magazine if you’ve got the physical copy – or just clickety-click on that link up there for free.

Breakfast started with a green smoothie…and a hot cup of cinnamon & honey.

I’ve been reading about the benefits of cinnamon & honey so started to drink a “hot toddy” with those two delights in the morning.  Looks like you’re drinking reddish brown water – but tastes pretty nice.

Now I’m ready to start the day.  Only 3 conference calls on the docket today – but I’ve got a lot of thinking and writing to do so I can finish up my strategy document.  I expect some staring into space will occur.

See ya later

Cathy

So unmotivated…..UGH!

I’m hoping that as I do my Janathon Day 7 update it will motivate me to do my exercise for Janathon Day 8.  Still hoping……

Monday, January 7th: 5-6pm Vinyasa Flow class at XploreYoga

Push Up Challenge:  7 FU’s (full-on style, just so you know I’m not swearing at you acronym style) and 20 Knees.  My yoga instructor may have chaturanga’d my arms to fatigue in class because it took me a while to get my 7 FU’s in and then to maintain my baseline of 20 Knees.  Eeesh.

I watched the Biggest Loser Sunday night and Monday night.  While I love Jillian Michaels…she sure turned on the beast factor this season.  I mean I get the need to motivate people – but it became apparent that these folks were not responding to her “in your face/drill sergeant” style of motivation.  On Monday when they had their little pow-wow and she agreed to modify her approach to better suit the needs of her team I was quite surprised.  Although it didn’t help as she is now down to 2 in just 2 shows.  Super Yikes!

Sooooo… I haven’t gotten motivated yet for more exercise on Janathon Day 8.  The only thing I have done is a ton of squats while on a conference call (otherwise I’d feel like a total slug) and 8 FU pushups at around 430pm.

I really need to NOT hit the snooze bar in the morning and just get my butt into that freezing cold garage and run or circuit my way to a warm sweaty state.  I’m so lame.

Tomorrow…Day 9 I predict will be much more sweaty than Day 8.  Count on it!

See ya later

Cathy

Janathon – Day 6 (quick update)

Supposed to do 8…did 4.  BLEAH!

Sunday, January 6th: Treadmill 4 miles (SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOWWWW) and my PU (push up) challenge.  I did 7 FU (full on) PU’s and 20 knee PU’s!

Whoopie!  I did 2 more FU PU’s  than I completed Saturday so I am super jazzed about that.

I keep my arms close to the side of my body – similar to a yoga chaturanga (I posted a Lululemon link for reference).  I feel more confident in my form when I keep my arms close, it allows me to move slowly through the move and not just collapse down and then wobble my way back up.

How to Chaturanga

I do my FU push ups first because that allows me to go until fatigue – or my form gets all janky.  Plus this is what I want to improve so I’d rather have my full arm strength (what little I have) available to do these.

Once my FU form is lost I transition to my knees to do as many knee style push ups as I can (trying to maintain at least 20 since that was my baseline).

Once I get super strong…maybe I’ll do these…  Heck Yeah!

See ya later…with my Janathon Day 7 update.

Cathy

 

Happy New Year and all that stuff!

It’s been a while for sure.  I decided to take a break from practically everything binding during the holidays.  I just flopped here & there depending on how I felt or what someone in the family decided they wanted to do for the day.  It was really cold up here in Northern California (I know 30’s are not cold to many of you…but it was hecka cold to us)…so we didn’t want to spend too much time out in that cold and brisky air.

I did run a 5K on the 29th and came home with a runny nose and stuffy head for the next 2 days.  I didn’t realize how cold it was going to be waiting for our start.  Then after you heat up while running it certainly doesn’t help to stop and cool down so suddenly.  But oh well.

So I decided on my 2013 resolutions.  2012 was sort of successful….but not completely – especially the financially based resolution.  I know most folks say the best resolutions are S.M.A.R.T – Specific  Measurable  Actionable  Reasonable  and Time Bound.  Mine are sort of SMART….

I do like them a lot.  I have some health…some wealth…and some well-being going on.  They are all things that are hard to wiggle out of – which is excellent for me but also things that I need to pay attention to.  I’ll do a 6 month review to see how far I’ve come.  🙂

I did join the Janathon as a way to stay motivated at the start of the year.  Of course I failed on the first day…not doing the exercise but more the blogging after it.  So I’m going to catch up right now!

Tuesday, January 1st: Took a 2 mile walk with the HunBun to Starbucks.

Wednesday, January 2nd: 1 hour Vinyasa Flex class with Elise at XploreYoga.

Thursday, January 3rd: 30 min treadmill intervals & 20 min arms circuit.

So I’m going great for the Janathon AND resolution #1.  I do have to go to the grocery today for some milk and cold cuts for 12yo’s lunch and breakfasts…but not really buying a whole lot else – so that hits resolution #2.  I’ve also acknowledged myself at the end of the last 2 days – so ka-pow #3!

Whew!  Now to translate all this productivity and accomplishment to the work day.

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

Back…with a new word!

I know right?!?  That’s what my 10yo would say and I find most appropriate here.  Long break again where I just didn’t find a moment to log in and jot stuff down.  So let’s catch up shall we?

It wasn’t a Staycation it was a Projecation

So last week HunBun and I took time off from work to do a bunch of stuff that we had procrastinated long enough on.  You know how you do “around the house projects” and then look back and say “why didn’t we do that last year (or 2 years ago)?”  Yeah, that’s us.  So with the wonky weather in the Bay Area, CA last week we decided that it was going to be filled with long awaited projects – Whee!  Bleah!

The weather was a major decider in what we dd every day.  So with Monday being projected as rain-free, we decided to tackle the dirt square by the front door.  Now it hasn’t always been a dirt square, but over time the plants got all janky and we moved the big tree that was the focal point…so that gradually it became that uneven dirt/rock spot RIGHT WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE!  It irritated HunBun to his last nerve…so we decided to do this.

Now that’s a welcome

We planted 3 palms and then covered the dirt with some landscaping river rocks.  We have to get taller pots for the 3 plants we’ll have in the back right under the window.  The current plants are in shorter pots and we need some height change for effect.  Thanks HGTV!

We should have kept going on the other side of the door where we have a rectangle planting area under the other window.  But this project took us about 4.5 hours and we were hecka tired from lugging rocks and placing them.

Then the rain came….

So when it was cold and wet outside we spent the days inside doing everyone’s favorite maintenance activity – touch up painting – YAH!  You know those projects where you can’t tell you did anything?  That’s what touch up painting is.  I mean I guess the crown and base looks shinier…and we don’t have those random pencil/scuff/chip spots in the hallway, office, master bedroom, master bathroom, front bathroom, laundry room.  But really you can’t tell that we spent 2.5 days doing touch up painting.  Well except in the laundry room where the door and casing went from a yellowish straight from Home Depot color to a crisp clean white.  And in the hallway where we unfortunately, for us, used a different paint finish on the touch ups and can now see blops of color here and there.  UGH.  We’ll have to re-touch the hall when we do the front room where the Christmas tree is since both rooms are the same gray color.  I don’t have any pictures for you…since it’d look like I was just showing you pictures of every room in our house.  🙂

So my new word, projecation is really because we did a whole bunch of projects while on our “vacation” or “staycation” as they call it now since we didn’t go anywhere.  Well projecation can cause some provocation of mini arguments and irritations.  Too much together time?  No more like two people who like to do things a certain way and expect the other to be a mind reader to know exactly what we’re going to do as soon as we decide to do it.  Nothing major…just a bunch of long loud breathing and forced quiet to calm down.  🙂  I’m sure any of us in a relationship totally gets it.

Sweats

I did a couple of runs and circuits during the projecation.  Nothing too jazzy or exciting.  Just used my interval clock and did a bunch of random things until sweat started dripping all over. 

I did get to 2 yoga classes during the week.  My favorite Monday night Vinyasa Flow class from 5-6pm then did a new class Xplore Yoga just added – Wednesday night Vinyasa Flex from 5-6pm.  I liked the new class a lot.  Building up some flexibility and the instructor was fantastic.  Xplore also added a new class on Friday night – Crossflow, a blend of cross fit and yoga.  I wasn’t able to get to the class because 12yo had his first band concert.

Yes.  That is my 12yo.  Currently taller than me and I’m 5’10”!  They had the church sanctuary decorated with white christmas trees in groups of 3.  It was really beautiful and the concert was lovely too.  HA!

Eats

On Saturday I did the Dr. Oz 3 day cleanse, where all you do is drink 4 smoothies a day.  It’s pretty easy to stick to and the smoothies did fill me up and kept me satisfied.  I didn’t do the epsom salt bath every night though, not sure what impact that would have on the detoxifying.  It must have worked because by the 3rd day my tongue felt perpetually coated with guck.  It was probably the easiest “cleanse” or “deprivation” style diet I’ve ever tried.  I call it a deprivation diet because you deprive yourself of certain types of food.  So on the last smoothie of the last day – I quit.  I know right!  Well the reason I quit was because I made this tasty delight:

Easy Dinner

4 ingredients (+ salt & pepper): Red potatoes, Hilshire Farms Hardwood Smoked Chicken Sausage, Leeks, Fuji Apple.  Instructions:  1) Slice everything up – the potatoes, leeks and apple into thin slices for quick cooking.  2) Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to pan and saute the red potatoes until almost cooked through.  3) Add the chicken sausage to get a nice brown color and warmed through as the sausage is pre-cooked.  4) Add the leeks and apples at the same time and cook for another 5-6 minutes until the apples and leeks start to soften.  EAT!

It smelled so good and I really wanted something warm and hearty to eat instead of another cold veggie smoothie.  So I said goodbye to Dr. Oz and hello to warm delicious food that I could chew.  🙂  This dish was a big hit and as soon as I posted it to my FB I got a bunch of questions from family about what I made and how to cook it up.  Winning!

My other eats since Monday have been my norm, protein pancakes and wraps.

I forgot the banana

Cukes & Carrots for snack

Roast Beef wrap

Then last night 12yo and I headed to the Westfield mall down in Santa Clara for this:

Oh yeah!

Althleta opened up a new store and I got an invite to the grand opening.  .  So I asked HunBun if he wanted to go.  He said “uh, no”.  So I asked 12yo and he said “Sure”.  Don’t you love kids?  I appreciated it because that meant we could blaze down in the car pool lane since we’d be heading toward San Jose at 5pm – smack in the middle of commute traffic.  Sweet!

We got a parking in the first row we turned down – Winning!  Then did a quick search for the store, since we got there at 530 and the invite said the opening was from 6-8pm.  Well once we found the store we saw that they were letting the invitees in the doors.  So instead of heading to the food court 12yo agreed to go in to the store.  😉  It’s like a healthier candy store!  They offered some little bites and wine/sparking water as you roamed the racks…which made it difficult to try things on.  Good thing I had an extra pair of hands….which meant that he drank up my sparking water.  LOL

I found some cute new winter running gear that I can’t wait to sweat on:

Sweet new gear

Goody bag with purchase

After enduring my shopping activity – which included 12yo holding my purse, belt and sweater at different points as I tried on 3 tops; we headed up to the food court to find something to eat for dinner.  He got a sushi platter and I got Chicken Pad Thai.  It was so much food that he and I shared my Pad Thai with some left over for his school lunch today.  It was really tasty…but next time I’d order without the protein.

Food court Pad Thai

We grabbed a hot drink from Starbucks and headed home.

It was a great week off from work and hopefully I’m back in the routine – early wake ups to exercise, blog, work, yoga, cook, chill, sleep – Repeat.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy

Life 10. Blog 0.

A knockout can be characterized by temporary unconsciousness. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes.  Life won…even with bonus rounds, overtime and extra innings.   I can’t believe, well actually I can believe, that my last post was waaaaaaaay back on Friday the 16th of November.  She-oot!  That was a long time ago.  And no, I was not unconscious as the free image next to this introductory paragraph indicate.  Rather I was caught up in the rush of a 3 day work week before the Thanksgiving holiday followed by a planned 5 day stay-cation.  Of course in those 3 days before the holiday a whole bunch of work stuff had to get taken care of – both anticipated and unanticipated.  Which resulted in no yoga attendance for the last week and a half.  😦  Boot!  In addition to no bloggedy blog posting.  Double Boot! 😦  😦   It’s not like I didn’t want to (yoga or blog) – but after spending all day in front of a computer for long work hours I took great pleasure in turning off both computers (the work one and the home one) after I stopped working.  Plus the boys were out of school for the holiday week and I wanted to spend some time with them before I said “you can stay up if you want but I’m going to bed” everynight at 9pm.  Super killjoy I know.  10yo usually responded by going to bed too…while 12yo put himself to bed around 930-10pm.  He doesn’t stay up too late – lucky for me.

Circuit Training Mix Master Style

I know my last post said something about blogging about the circuit workouts that I’ve been doing.  Hope you weren’t holding your breath or anything – otherwise I’d be feeling pretty terribly about myself right about now.  I’ll try to whip up a graphic with the circuits I’ve been doing because I’d like to repeat a couple of them myself.  I make it super easy for me to remember and also completely different every time so I don’t get bored AND my muscles pay attention.  🙂

A couple essentials.

• An interval timer.  I use a free one on my iPad that lets me set up whatever amounts of time I want for Warm Ups, High/Low Interval Cycles, Repeats, Number of Cycles, Rest Times (between cycles) and Cool Downs.

• Dumb bells in a range of weights.  I have a set of 3lb’ers, 5lb’ers and 15lb’ers.  If I want to bust it all Mr. America style I can always use HunBuns 25lb’ers (Uh, never).
• Kettle bells.  I have a 5lb one and a 10lb one I got in a Jillian Michaels workout set I bought a while back.
• A towel.  I work out in the garage so I like to put a towel down on the rubber mat for me to lie on or put my hands/elbows on when I do planks.  Otherwise I’d have to sweep every morning – bleah!
• A bench.  I do bent over tricep rows on the wooden bench we have in the garage so that we can sit down while putting on our shoes.
• A weight bench.  I do chest presses lying on HunBun’s weight bench.
• A step.  I use the steps that go from the garage to the laundry room to do toe taps or “box jumps” (or rather “step jumps” HA! )
• A big space.  I move around a lot so I make sure there’s nothing I can fall over or step on as I “plyo” my way to healthy living.  🙂
• Randoms: Jump rope and stretchy bands (I can’t remember what their real name is, but it’s those rubber tubes that sometimes come with handles on the end that you can stand on or tie to door knobs to increase resistance)

So once you’ve got your slick little home gym set up you can start making up a circuit for the morning/afternoon/night or whenever you feel like getting a little (a lot) sweaty.

I start with whatever warm up time I want – depending on how I feel.  That can be 1 minute of jumping jacks to 10 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bike.  You can do whatever you want to get your body warmed up.   Then I usually do 2 repeats of 12 (high/low) intervals with 1 minute (high) and 10 seconds (low) and a 30 second rest between repeats.  That’s a 29:30 circuit work out that I end with 1 minute of cool down.  You can change the time for any of these to suit your needs – be creative to keep your excitement up!

I do as many of the exercise as I can within the 1 minute high interval time frame and use the 10 seconds to grab dumb bells or position my towel on the ground or get whatever extra doo-dah or space I need.  I try to plan out what I want to work – legs, arms, core, a mix and then select exercises that work those areas.  So now you know where I spend my time, here’s what I use to fill it up with.  Use your DJ skills and mix-master your way to a totally unique circuit:

Pick whatever you want from:

• Jumping Jacks, High Knees, Butt Kicks, Toe Taps (on the step), Skaters, Box Jumps (on the step), Jump Squats
• Planks, Side Planks (each side gets 1 minute), Elbow Planks, Up/Down Planks, One-legged Plans (each side gets 1 minute), Side Planks with “Thread the Needle” or rib grab or whatever call it when you grab your side rib with the opposite hand (each side gets 1 minute).
• Dumb bells or Kettle Bells: Bicep curls (each side gets 1 minute), Deadlifts, Shoulder Raises, Chest Press, Hammer Curl to Shoulder Press, Shoulder Press, Single Arm Row (each side gets 1 minute), Bent Over Row, Weighted Squat, Weighted Lunges, Push Ups
• Squats, Lunges (each side gets 1 minute), Walking Lunges, Side Lunges, Jump Lunges, Single Leg Deadlifts, Mountain Climbers, Burpees, Plank Jacks
• Whatever exercise you see in a magazine, on a tv show, on a fitness video, or read on a blog.

And that’s how I keep it interesting and fit a really nice workout into a 30-50 minute window.   Hope that was worth the wait.  🙂

So how’d life get 10 and this little bloggedy blog get a big fat goose egg?  Well here’s a photo montage for the past 10 days (or why life scored a perfect 10).

Random Eats over the last 10 days…

Can you believe I didn’t take any photos of Thanksgiving dinner?  Super Fail.

Nitro Turkey 10K Thanksgiving Morning!

I did a 10K the morning of Thanksgiving up at Point Pinole near Richmond.  It was so cold I couldn’t feel my toes for the first mile or so…then my fingers felt numb I was freaking out.  I need to invest in some pocket warmers for next year.  Brazen Racing is awesome!  Check them out if you’re in the Bay Area!  Of course I had to eat my It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich – even after I told myself not to.  Oh well.  🙂    Maybe our energetic Scrabble rounds at Thanksgiving dinner wore off the calories in that tasty treat!

Quarry Turkey 10K the Saturday after Thanksgiving!

Early Saturday morning I was back in the cold for the Quarry Turkey 10K over in Quarry Lakes, Fremont CA.  I again wished I had some pocket warmers for my toes as those digits were like ice cubes when I started running.  I kept my pace up and didn’t stop running!  I was super stoked that I kept my legs moving even when my brain was trying to figure out ways to convince them to slow down or take a break.  I was greeted at the end with a high five from the dad pushing the running stoller (wha???) and with HunBun’s parents meeting me at the finish line.  Super awesome surprise!  So after another It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich (what can I do they’re there all the time) they drove me home where I took a hot shower….AAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhh!  🙂

After all that busy’ness, HunBun and I are taking the week off to putz around.

How we started the first 2 days of vacation…mmmmm!

Tomorrow some super storm is supposed to roll into or ONto the Bay Area so we’ll see what HunBun and I get done around the house.  I’ll have to photo the front landscaping project we accomplished yesterday and post it up.  I have to say it looks down right lovely.  🙂

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday already?

This week so far has been unsuccessful in the balancing of healthy living and living healthy.  I have eaten all kinds of random things for breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner.  Call it laziness or lack of motivation or whatever – I am just not feeling up to it lately.

The thing that sucks about eating crappily?  Is that you feel crappy right after that bite is on its way down after you swallow.  It’s already gone past the point of return and now it’s just on its way to sit heavily in my tummy while I wonder why I am choosing to eat these dumb things.  Good thing there isn’t any Halloween candy in the house anymore (except smarties and tootsie pop lollipops – bleah) otherwise you would only see empty chocolate candy wrappers in the garbage.

I did wake up and exercise Monday and Tuesday morning but last night I was so tired that I fell asleep at 730.  You want to know how I know I fell asleep at 730?  Because my iPad wacked me in the chin at 730!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  I had fallen asleep scrolling around on Pinterest and that iPad just fell forward and bopped me a good one.

So I put the iPad away and settled in to watch The Voice, falling asleep somewhere in the middle of Christina & Ceelo’s performance…but catching the end…then waking up while Carson took 5 minutes to announce one name of who was still in.  Then finally falling asleep asleep because next thing I knew the alarm went off at 5am today.

I promptly pushed the snooze 3 times…until HunBun comes walking over and asks if I’m getting up.  I said “I don’t know why I’m so tired”.  He said “I know, you were freaking me out, talking in your sleep all night long and snoring”.  Hahahahahahaha!

So I don’t know what’s the deal.  But I do know that I didn’t work out this morning and set an intention to take a quick run at lunch time – so we’ll see if that happens.  I started the day with 4 pieces of cranberry holiday toast with PB on it and 1 giant holiday grape.

The best thing to do with the Holiday Grapes, besides just eating them right off the clump, is to make Holiday Grape Salad.  HGS is a concoction of cream cheese, sour cream, white sugar, vanilla extract, Holiday Grapes all swirled together then topped with a brown sugar & chopped pecan sprinkle.  Oh so good!

photo by run for your life

I usually make a big bowl of this for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We put some aside before everyone starts eating otherwise there is never any leftovers.

How’d I get on this tangent?  So anyhoo… Beats me why I’m off my normal routine.  Might be the holiday slump…where you know the year is ending but can’t believe the year is ending and didn’t do everything you had hoped to do.  Or it might be that I’ve been go-go-go with work, family, exercise and my body is telling me “hold up girl”.  Who knows, I’m no nutritionist, dietician, health expert or Dr.

I guess the only thing to do is look forward and do what I do…bounce back.   I’m sure it’ll get better after this release.  🙂  Thanks Bloggy readers…

See ya later

Cathy