Monday, monday. la laa la laa laa laaaa

Not sure if you all know that song but it sure is something you can hum along too…since I don’t know any words but Monday and La.  🙂

Janathon…Janathon…Janathon.  I didn’t get my Saturday post in within 24 hours, but that’s because I didn’t do any “exercise“.  Did a bunch of walking around the house and ran some errands – but nothing you would define as “exercise” for the day.  Bleah.

Sunday, January 13th: Ran 5.5 treadmill miles.

Push up challenge:  10 FU’s and a bunch of planks.

Who out there as an iFit enabled piece of exercise equipment?  Well ever since iFit changed their website my treadmill has not communicated at all with my iFit website.  So annoying when you pay for a service that no longer works.  I sent an email with my issues a bit ago and am waiting for the response.  I have another issue to write in about – “Unable to download workout – Error” that I got on my machine this weekend.  ARGH!

Monday, January 14th: A.M. free weights for the arms.

Push up challenge: 10 FU’s and a few chaturanga’s too.

I’m going to take a run/walk up to the Starbucks at lunch time to get 2 miles in and hitting up Vinyasa Flow this evening.

This weekend HunBun and I are headed to Disneyland so I can run the 5K and Half-Marathon.  We’re hoping the weather stays clear so the Grapevine (I5 route’s through the mountains) is easy to drive.  Last weekend they closed it down for 20 hours…and people were stuck!  No thanks!

Enjoy your Monday!

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healthy Starts

commitments

Remember my big question the other day?  You know the one about exercising more or eating less?  Well last night I committed to the exercising more.  No, it wasn’t some big committment ceremony between myself and my treadmill and free weights.

Who doesn’t want to be a unicorn?!?

It was more like I ate a bunch of crap that necessitated my commitment when the alarm went off at 5am this morning.  Burn on myelf!  🙂

So I bounced…or rolled out of bed at 5am and was in the garage by 5:07am to do a sprint workout on the treadmill.  I actually love running on the treadmill although I do think it seems a little more daunting to go faster on the treadmill than to run fast out on the streets.  I’ll see how my theory plays out on my Sunday long run.  This is what I sweated to this morning:

Modified from an Active.com article

That was my first attempt at a picmonkey graphic’y deal.  Not sure if I’m digging the background shoe picture – I may need to find something with more lights than darks to use as the backdrop.  Anyhoo.  I survived.  My legs felt really good on the sprints and I liked the fact that I could test my ability in short bursts.  Since this was my first day of speedwork I did start at a reasonable speed.  My goal is to get to a 2:00 or a wee bit below a 2:00 PR for my next Half Marathon (January 2013’s Tinkerbell in Disneyland).  I’ve improved times in every race and I really believe I can hit a sub-2:00 if I work on my speed drills, some hills for endurance and then increase the long runs, distance and speed.

I’m committed baby!

Oh yeah!

To support this increased exercise (hey I know it was just one workout – but I committed remember), I started the day off with a healthy breakfast – which is my favorite meal of the day.

I got a whole bunch of veggies & fruit servings in these beauties.

Protein pancake

• 2 egg whites (used real egg whites since I didn’t have that carton stuff)
• 1/2 a banana
• 1 Tbsp protein powder (I use vanilla rice protein powder)
• 1 Tbsp ground flax meal (Bob’s Red Mill)
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds
• Cinnamon

Mix it all up and pour into a heated non-stick pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Let it sit for 6-7 minutes until the edges pull up and you can shake the cake around when you wiggle the pan.  Flip over and cook for another 3-4 minutes.  Slide onto a plate and toss on whatever fruit you want.

Green Smoothie

• 2 cups organic raw spinach
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup frozen fruit (the lighter the fruit the greener the drink)
• 1/2 – 1 banana
• 1 Tbsp chia seeds

Blend it all up and drink it up!  Will make a lot so be prepared to sip for a while.

So now it’s worky work time.  I think I’ve got 5 conference calls today – so far…I never know if another one will get scheduled in between.

See ya later!

Cathy

What would you do?

Would you rather exercise more or eat less?

So I’ve been doing this Green Smoothie challenge that I found on vedgedout’s blog.  Now I’m only on Day 2 so it’s likely this whole idea is coming from a state of confusion brought about by my lack of salt or sugar or chips or bread or eating whatever I feel like putting in my piehole…anyhoo.

A little eating background.  I don’t eat terribly every day.  I usually eat a protein pancake and fruit for breakfast and get a Starbucks Soy Misto if HunBun’s home.  I’ll have a honeycrisp apple with some nut butter for a morning snack with or without a Starbucks Soy Misto.  (If I don’t go to Starbucks I’ll make a homemade matcha green tea latte or a homemade mocha or hot tea or just some hot water with lemon (like my grandma used to – which as a kid I thought was very weird…oh no, I’m an old lady 🙂  )  Back to my eating habits.

For lunch I’ll do a couple different things like saute a bunch of veggies with Bragg’s Amino’s or make a wrap with roastbeef and stuffed with veggies and goat cheese or a nostalgic PB&J.  Depending on how full I am I’ll add a piece of fruit to round it out.  Afternoon snack (if I remember to fit this in before dinner) usually consists of a protein shake or some veggies and hummus or another piece of fruit.  Dinner is chicken and veggies or sometimes I eat what I cook for the family.  HunBun gets annoyed when I cook their food first then cook mine while they start eating – so I try to make stuff for me that’s super quick so everyone’s not done just when I put my plate down to eat.

So really I eat pretty well – normally.  Now when we go out to eat or go on vacation I do splurge a bit more.  I love mexican food and adore the chips and salsa that our local joint (La Pinata) puts on the table before our food comes.  OM-super slurptastic!  I could eat chips and salsa all day long…if it didn’t kill my healthy living goals.  I also LOVE LOVE LOVE a good dessert.  In fact I tend to look at the dessert menu BEFORE I order my meal just so I know if I should order something smaller so I can save room at the end.

Now that I’m getting older (WAH!) I do feel like I need to do more exercising or eat less calories in order to maintain the fit of my clothes and not have to buy new ones.  I did say fit of my clothes as I don’t really let the number on a scale annoy me as much as it used to (I just let it annoy me a teeny bit).  So long as my pants fit well and I don’t shriek in horror everytime I take my clothes off..I figure I’m doing OK.  Hahahaha!

So my question to HunBun this morning was “would you rather exercise more or eat less?”  His immediate answer?  “Eat Less”.  Wha?!?!

I think I’d prefer to exercise more so I can eat what I want to (in moderation of course) and enjoy being alive and being able to taste some of the wonderous Eats out there.

So I guess I answered my own question – “Exercise More“.  Which means no more hitting the snooze or “forgetting to set the alarm”.  No more weekend chill outs because the work week was “so exhausting”.  No more excusing out the need to drive to yoga.  No more taking the easy route on circuits, speed work and hill repeats.  No more thinking about what my body can do but rather letting my body DO.

So that’s me…2 months early for resolutioning.  I will be Exercising More so I can put a little more in my piehole and not angst about it.  Hahahahaha!

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

Wednesday, whaaat???

My favorite scene from one of my favorite movies sums up my bloggedy post…

I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already!  I feel like all I do now is dial in to conference calls, hang up, dial in to another call, hang up, repeat every day while sprinkling in email reading/writing.  No wonder I feel so adrift…my grounding was found by producing documents, materials, visuals…and now I’ve been so turned around with learning my new job, while keeping up with my old stuff, while making sure I spend time on my family and meeting my exercise and healthy eating goals.  No wonder I can’t tell what day of the week it is anymore.

Please don’t let it come to this!

My work space at home has shifted.  (You probably recognize this as the backdrop behind most of my lunch and snack photos – I am usually found dining al-desko quite a bit.  Sad but true)

That looks pretty organized

My filing system on display

See those dumbbells on the floor?  In order to bring some health back into my lifestyle I have taken to doing shoulder raises, standing core work and weighted squats while on conference calls.  I remember to put myself on mute so my heavy breathing doesn’t perv anyone out.  It’s working so far.  Yesterday I logged about 100 of each excercise during the course of my countless conference calls.  Woot woot!

So last week was a complete bomb in the healthy eating department, not to mention the mostly non-active lifestyle I adopted while in Oklahoma.  But this week I’ve been pretty good on the exercising front.  I went to yoga Monday night and Tuesday night, although I thought K’ten was going to kill me with all the “High Intensity” she threw in there.  I gave it my best and only took a child’s pose when the other alternative was to pass out.  🙂  I’ve also been bouncing (it’s all relative I know) out of bed when that alarm starts singing to me at 515am.  Good thing HunBun’s been going to the office early so I don’t feel too badly about waking him up – if he doesn’t have to get up I usually get a knee in the backside to get me out of bed quicker.

Eating’s been much better too.  Here’s a little montage of the last couple days of food…I wish I took a picture of dinner last night, it was super colorful and tasty.  Flick through flip book style…

Chicken Salad veggie pocket #2

Chicken Salad pocket #3 split its backside

Protein pancake with blueberries

Coconut Mango smoothie

Lo-cal version of a Pumpkin Spice Latte

Snack time

Overall doing much better than last week…for which I give myself a pat on the head (my arms are a little sore to reach for my back).

Now that you’re all caught up on my super jazzy life I’m sure you’re motivated to go do stuff too.

Anyway – back to work now that lunch break is over.

See ya later!

Cathy

Move it…it’s Monday

This post is really for me…telling myself to move it.  I’ve been MIA on the bloggedy front and really it’s because I’ve changed jobs and that turned my whole schedule completely on its head which meant I lost my head.

In addition to getting a whole new squad in a whole new area of the business that I do not know; I still have all of my previous work.  So needless to say I am running a little bit looney.

With the switch I am having to load balance prior work with new work so, like always, the easiest person to ask to “give a little” is yourself.  Which means I haven’t been to yoga in 3 weeks…failed on the last 2 weeks of my training plan…ate sorta OK and worked way too haphazardly.

I had to travel to Oklahoma, Monday through Thursday of last week to support a previously scheduled meeting.  Oklahoma was fine…that trip always requires a plane switch so I did the Denver route there and back.  Eating while in OKC was completely not healthy.  I had big old portions, not as many fruits and veggies as I should have, full size candy bars during the meeting and totally did not use MyFitnessPal to track my food/exercise.  BLEAH!  I did drink a TON of water…but we only had those mini bottles in the cooler so I felt like a hog grabbing one every 30 minutes.  Good thing everyone else supplemented their water intake with Dr. Pepper‘s, Cokes, Sprites, and all other bubbly drinks.

One of my dinners in OKC

 

Exercise went the way of my food choices – completely unmindful.  I had the best intentions because I’ve been doing a good job about waking up early and then hitting my body weight circuits.  I packed 3 exercise outfits for each of the days and figured out what I’d do if the hotel gym didn’t have enough treadmills for users.  How much exercise did I do while in OKC – ABSOLUTELY ZERO!  You could have found me sitting in my bed eating pilfered full size candy bars from the meeting or eating dried fruit (while somewhat healthy, not in the volume I was consuming) or eating the chocolate chip cookies provided in the hotel lobby.  SUPER BLEAH!!!

The weirdest part was I didn’t even have any emotions to this super fail and I think it’s because I’m the only one who is impacted by the fail.  No one else sees or feels the impact of my poor eating and exercising choices except me.  When I came home I just told HunBun this week sucked and I was getting back on my plan (which I did).  I didn’t even realize the “non-event” last week was until I wrote this down.  I guess in the past I have over emphasized things to the point where I have a ridiculous response to something like this.  I mean I am disappointed that I didn’t stick to my plan like I normally do when on work trips…but its almost like I realized that even with a 1 week fail I hadn’t ruined anything.  It can be fixed.  I can get back on my plan.  I can start by waking up early and getting my booty moving and feeding my body what I should be.

So that’s what I did.  After getting home at 845pm Thursday night I got myself out of bed at 5am Friday morning and hopped on the treadmill.  Then I focused on eating whole foods – no processed foods – with a focus on tons of veggies and protein.

Breakfast: Egg White Veggie Scramble

Big ol’ salad with smoked salmon

Veggie pocket with Chicken Salad

So not to say “problem solved”…more like “problem mitigated”.  I did really well Friday and Saturday…then ate some veggie chips on Sunday from Sunflower/Sprouts….followed by a small handful of chocolate covered almonds/cranberries with 2 slices of Supreme pizza from Safeway (what are you gonna do when you can get a family size pizza for $7.99!).  Hahahaha!

Sorry so wordy…with very little pictures.  But I just wanted you to know where I was….how I’ve been…and how I will be.  🙂

So if you ever feel like you failed, look at it without any filters and move on.  Life’s too short to waste on woulda-coulda-shoulda‘s.

See ya later

Cathy

**By the way, I should be back on track for posting on this bloggedy blog although I am making some changes.  Getting a little more focus going on..learning as I go Peeps, learning as I go.    🙂

 

Move it…it’s Monday!

Morning Sweats

This morning I upped my reps for my Superset workout that I did last week.  The superset is from my virtual training plan from Tina Reale with Best Body Fitness.  I started with a 5 min stationary cycle then hit the supersets. I had sweat dripping all over the place!

I can’t believe how incredibly weak my upper body is.  To do the 25 pushups I had to do an incline pushup instead of regular style.  So I did it using my stationary cycle seat “diamond” push up style.

Hey I guess the best thing about having weak arms is I’ll be able to tell when I gained some muscle strength…cause I’ll actually be able to do the darn pushups!  Bwahahahaha.  🙂

Morning Eats

I had cinnamon spice instant oatmeal with blueberries & sunbutter again.

Instant Oats..less the papaya today

No papaya this morning though.  I was full until 1130am when I stopped and had a tiny gala apple and a “melted dole whip” smoothie.  I added vanilla protein powder for a “creamy” taste…I’ll have to add only 1/2 Tbsp instead of a full one – too much vanilla flavor for a Dole Whip.

Melted Dole Whip, take 2

That kept me going until after my 2nd conference call of the day.  They were spaced oddly today – cutting through my normal eating hours (snack & lunch) but I did pretty well.

Lunch al-desko

For lunch I made a roast beef pita pocket with hummus, spinach and goat cheese.  Tasty!  Also ate some blue corn chips I picked up from Trader Joe’s.  Blue corn chips are more substantial than the regular Tostitos chips we usually buy.  I think with the blue chips you could actually stick to the posted serving size (of 11 chips) because they are thicker and require more chewing action.

All you need for a RB pocket

I’m gonna eat you!

No pictures of the blue chips…I ate them too quickly and threw the bag away.  Didn’t want to dumpster dive like I usually do when I remember to take photos after the fact.  I have another bag of spicy blue corn chips – I’ll photo those, Deal? 🙂

I’ve gotta pack for a quick work trip to Kansas City…aren’t I lucky?!?  Although we get to wear jeans, wahoo, so I don’t have to worry so much about which pair of black dress pants I’m bringing – HA!   I think I will make a fashion statement by wearing those printed jeans I bought on my birthday buy-obration.

See ya later!

Cathy

 

 

Work Meeting – Day 2

 

Starting the day right

I got used!

 

 I kept my pinky promise and actually used my running shoes and exercise clothes on this work trip! Wahoo!  The Hampton totally improved their workout room…switching from 1 treadmill, 1 eliptical (that was never plugged in) and 1 bike to 3 fancy new treadmills with tvs, 1 elliptical, 1 bike, an array of dumbells (the kind you lift, bwahaha) and some kind of “Bowflex‘ish” looking contraption (very scary).  Tuesday morning I got up at 515am and I did a 20 minute hills workout on the treadmill and did some dumbell lifting to get my Linda Hamilton dream arms.  This morning I got up again at 515am and I did some speed intervals on the treadmill then did plank rotations up in my room.  I was dripping sweat balls all over the floor…yeah!

Dinner with the Ann girl

Lucky me, Ann was at the Hampton tonight and we met up for dinnah!  We were feeling adventurous (all relative I understand…) so went to Pho99 to eat.  Instead of pho we tried something different – photos below.  Ann had a Sapporo (ICHIBAN!) I had a lychee hot tea – so fruit’alicious!  We shared an appetizer – Mini Pork Bao with dipping sauce then our main dishes arrived (thank you Maxwell for your recommendations)!  Ann had Noodles with Chicken and I had Chicken Curry.  So yummy!  Of course Ann and I can’t go out to eat without having something sweet at the end and this place delivered the most fantastic sweet to end our dinner with – a Mango Bamba.  After our first bites we were like “OMG!”…mango…passion fruit…white chocolate…  so many flavors!  When we walked out we decided that next time we’d just order appetizers and dessert again.  🙂

Enjoy the foodie pics!

See ya later

Cathy

Ann’s Noodles & Chicken and our Mini Pork Bao appetizer

Chicken Curry with Brown Rice

Mango Bamba…was the taste BOMB!