Back on the Wagon

Well, I’m back in Orlando and back to work. Remember how I kept going on and on about how California is awesome and better than everyone else? Well, I forgot to share something with you guys. While I was out on my 7 mile run in San Diego, I found out the dogs are better there too. I’m pretty sure they’re literate.

Speaking of being back to work, today I’m listening to the sweet sounds of the dude that can’t stop sighing all day long. He’s really getting in a lot of them today. Probably welcoming me back.

Seriously. You are a grown man and you sigh loudly all day long like doing your job is such a chore. I’m sure there are plenty of people that would love to take your place and would happily do the job while being annoyed silently. I do not need to hear your crap all day. Please take up eye rolling or bitching to your friends on instant messenger like the rest of us.

(source)

Anyway, enough about that.

Now that I’m back from my short vacation, I’m trying to get back to eating healthy and exercising. It is not easy. I was still working out on vacation, but that doesn’t really do me any good when I’m eating 1500 calorie meals. Which I was. Hubs was telling me he didn’t think I ate that badly, but I assured him that what he saw in this post was only the pictured things I ate. I did not include the cornbread and biscuits. Or the pie and batch of brownies my mom made that I snuggled with late night.

Last night, I did my first workout to combat the vacation bulge. This workout is from my trainer and it was a pretty good one.

We did 7 groups, but I cannot remember one of them for the life of me. I liked this workout because you only do 2 sets of everything, so the workout goes by fast and is always changing.

Also, I should just go ahead and admit that I haven’t been doing that 2 workouts a day twice a week thing like I planned. (Someone even checked up on me about that.)

(source)

I did manage it once in San Diego (spin in the morning, 2 mile hill run in the afternoon) but other than that, I’ve been a complete failure. So here’s to a fresh start. I guess the good thing about failing is you can always try again, right? Or something like that.

 

Three Things Thursday

First, I just wanted to mention that you may notice updates to the look of my blog…again (if you’re not reading by email or a reader.)  It’s still a work in progress, so if you notice anything funky – most likely I’m aware of it and will fix it. Or I have no clue what I’m doing.

Next up is the workout goodness.

Last night, hubs and I met our personal trainer for a workout that looked like this: 10 fast rounds starting at 10 repetitions each and decreasing by one rep every round until we reached 1 rep.

• weighted deep squats
• box jumps (18 inches for me, 24 inches for hubs – heh)
• push-ups
• sit-ups

We were super tired from our fitness class the day before and we still agreed the workout was a little easy for us. When we got home, I did 2.3 interval miles on the treadmill.

This morning, I got up and ran 3.25 interval miles on the treadmill (just like the ones last night) and walked .75 miles. My legs were still really fatigued from all the other workouts this week, so I probably should have taken a rest day. But I was already awake and too sweaty to go back to bed when I realized it, so I finished the workout and then played with the bunny.

Now on to today’s three things. Things I’m looking forward to.

1. Incubus is coming to Tampa! The bestie Facebooked me last night and we are already planning to buy tickets. That also means a new album is coming out. Oooh yeah.

The album comes out in July so that gives me a month to be a total creeper and learn all the lyrics. A new album also means that Brandon Boyd is back on my future husbands list. Helloooo lovah.

 2. I’m seeing 10 Years in concert in August.

They only have a few minor hit songs so most people I know have never heard of them, but I love them and have never seen them live. Everytime they come to town, they open for some band I hate so much that I can’t bring myself to buy a ticket (Disturbed, Sevendust – I’m lookin’ at you). Anyway, I’ve been seeing so many pop concerts lately, it will be nice to rock out again. 🙂

3. My birthday!

It’s not ’til Tuesday but I try to make everyone around me celebrate it for at least a week because I’m selfish like that. I’m also nice enough to share my birthday with celebrities: Prince, Bill Hader (from SNL), Liam Neeson, Dave Navaro (thanks Chris), and Anna Kournikova. I was going to keep June 7 to myself, but I felt generous. 😀

What celebrity shares your birthday?

The Eat is On

I made it to my Martial Arts Fitness class last night. The whole class was a kettle bell workout, which was fun and different. I was just bummed that I was so sore from Crossfit on Monday that I couldn’t really put a lot of effort into it. I guess doing something is better than nothing.

Today, I decided to renew my healthy eating vows.

Last night I was down in the dumps. Mostly because I’ve been eating like crap and it depresses me. After fitness class, I went to Publix and picked up a bunch of healthy snacks so I could start over today, but not before saying farewell to my unhealthy eating habits with a couple of these:

The beer. Not the eggs.

If you make hard-boiled eggs while drinking beer, that makes the beer healthy. That’s fact and you can’t argue with fact. I may have also had a few of my special margaritas. And a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich. And some Cocoa Pebbles. And some Munchies Snack Mix. I needed to say goodbye properly.

Hopefully this time will be different and I’ll stick to my goals because unlike the times before, I have a goal date: July 16th. That’s our Taekwondo school’s yearly beach day. Beach day means I’ll be wearing a bathing suit in front of people I know. People like this: 

 

Do you see a trend there? They are all already hot and they will be in bikinis. If I want to stand within 20 feet of them, I’ll need to catch up. So, now I start Operation: Be-Hot-By-July-16-Otherwise-I-Will-Pretend-I-Don’t-Know-Any-Of-Those-Three-Ladies-At-The-Beach.

Here’s the plan:

• Eat fewer sweets. I won’t cut them out all together because that would never work for me. But I will try to avoid things like this:

That’s the menu for Tenders here in Orlando. I want to go to that place so bad just for the dessert menu. I hear you can bring in any dessert you want and they will FRY IT FOR YOU. I’m going to bring in a ladel of frosting.

• Eat more protein. Hard-boiled eggs. Check.
• Eat more fats. I tend to eat foods really low in fat and they don’t fill me up. Hubs suggested I eat more fats. Frosting has a lot of fat, right?
• Keep up my current strength training plan. Even when marathon training starts, I want to strength train 3 days a week. I can tell I have gotten stronger in the past couple months just from Crossfit. Now, if the fat would kindly move off my muscles, I’ll be able to see it.
• Drink less diet drinks and use less Splenda. I would say “quit diet drinks and Splenda” but I know that will never happen. Staying away from cupcakes and cookies is stressful enough.
• Eat less peanut butter. I know it’s good for you, but I tend to go overboard with my peanut butter consumption. Also, my best friend mentioned to me today that peanut butter might be the cause of my stomach problems. I’ve had stomach problems for about a year now which is when I started eating more PB. She’s started eating more PB in the past month and has had the same problem for a month. Coincidence? Maybe. But you never know, so I’ll try it out. Right after I finish this jar of peanut butter.
• Cook something new and healthy. I don’t know what it will be, but I’m going to try to cook something that is not brownies.

This weekend will already present my first challenge. I’m going to the Electric Daisy Carnival. That’s two 10-hour days with carnival food all around me. I plan on bringing a few healthy snacks (hopefully they let me in with them) and eating a larger meal before I arrive.

What’s your #1 healthy eating habit?

P.S. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you that comment regularly. You know who you are! I love reading your comments and they truly make my day.  🙂   /sappy

Rollin' with da Foamies

Last night’s workout with the personal trainer (Michael) wasn’t weights at all. He likes to change things up at the last minute and devise workouts that last 10 minutes but make you feel like dying for 3 days. Last night’s workout was done as quickly as possible and looked like this:

• 21 pull-ups
• 21 thrusters
• 15 pull-ups
• 15 thrusters
• 9 pull-ups
• 9 thrusters

Thrusters look like this, except, we used a regular barbell.

The workout took me 8.5 minutes. And hubs said I looked like I was going to DIE during it. Well, I felt like I was going to die. Today, it’s hard to touch my hair.

After the workout, Michael felt bad that the workout was so short, so he asked us if we wanted to do squats and lunges. If you know anything about me, know this – I will not say no and look like a wuss to a personal trainer. So, we stayed.

Hubs and I each did 4 sets of 30 lunges and 30 squats. I did mine first and while hubs was doing his, I used a foam roller for the first time.

Holy crap those hurt! Michael told me I need to stretch in general but that I really need to stretch my calves and foam roll them often because they have a lot of knots. He also said that he noticed my running gait was odd. < —– Does not like hearing this

When I got home, I immediately bought a high-density foam roller online, which was the same one I used at the gym.

Michael was showing me the difference between the one I bought and some other cheaper varities that bow easily or lose their shape, so I’m glad I spent a little extra money to get a really nice one. Well, as nice as a stick of foam can get at least.

The foam roller comes with a free online 80 minute workout video. An 80 minute foam roller video? Is there really that much to do with a piece of cylindrical foam? Aren’t those like pornos anyway? You’re never gonna watch the whole thing because you’re done after 15 minutes.

Not that I would know.

In other news, registration opened for the inaugural St. Pete Rock n Roll Half Marathon on February 12^th.

You can bet your sweet cheeks I’ll be running that. It’s 2 weeks before the Gasparilla Half Marathon in Tampa, but I’ll still run them both. I love that Gasparilla race so much and want to make sure the race knows I can run it without pooping during the whole thing. < —- likes to proof herself to races with imaginary personalities 

Tonight, I have my Martial Arts Fitness class. Hopefully, I can get a run in too because that -59 Weight Watchers points might be in the -70’s now. Maybe this can be a new challenge for me? To see just how negative I can go. Last time I was on WW, I made it to -105 which I thought was quite the New Year’s Eve accomplishment.

Have you run any Rock n Roll races yet? (I’m running my first two this year: Rock n Roll Savannah (full) in November and Vegas (half) in December. Fun!)

Do you have a foam roller? And if so, would you use it to roll pizza dough if you couldn’t find anything else?

Pooped

Workout: Crossfit (1 hour and 16 painful minutes)

Tonight’s workout looked like this:

• 1 mile run “as fast as you can.”  Translation = 9:00 pace
• 100 jumping pull-ups
• 200 push-ups (chest to ground)
• 300 low squats
• 1 mile run “as fast as you can”   Translation = 13:00 pace

After our first mile run, the hubs and I did our jumping pull-ups. We started with a consecutive 25. As they got harder, we alternated and did 10 each until we reached 100.

The push-ups were the hardest and took the most time. After an initial 20 or so, I had to take the push-ups 5 at a time to get through them. Hubs did his manly style and I did mine with my knees on a cushion. The cushion is harder than just having your knees on the floor because it forces your chest to meet the ground first instead of your hips, so more effort is exerted from your chest.

Though still challenging, the squats were the easiest part for me. What’s not easy? Running a mile after doing 300 of them. Running felt super weird afterwards for at least half a mile. Just as I was picking up some speed and feeling better, the mile was done. Buuuut I was ok with that because I was seriously pooped.

As I look into my crystal ball, I see a prediction:

I was planning on posting about running gear tonight, but I’d rather put some more thought into it first. I am incapable of thought after that workout. 🙂

Now I’m going to give the DVR a little love. I am so backed up on shows because “life” is getting in the way. So rude.

What are you watching tonight?

Today is Not My Day

(last night’s) Workout: Martial arts fitness class (45 min) and then a 2 mile run outside

Hubs ran the 2 miles with me.  **pigs are flying**  To say he hates running is an understatement. But during the run, he suggested we do sprints. WTF?

After we got home, I pulled the dead weeds in the flower bed and cut the dead palm fronds off our baby palm tree in front of the house.

That flower bed is ready for some new plants this weekend and I’m oddly excited about it. That’s what happens when you’re 34. You get excited about plants.

By the way, it’s SO much easier to pull dead weeds than live ones. All you peeps that like to garden should have clued me in!

This morning was a total cluster. Since I woke up 2 hours early and couldn’t get back to sleep yesterday morning, it only makes sense that the alarm didn’t go off and I overslept this morning. I didn’t take a shower so I would have more time to take care of the bunny.

She’s so high-maintenance.

After bunny duty, I weighed myself and found that I gained another .6 lbs on top of the 1lb from the weekend.

Then, I broke a glass trying to find the right attachment for our hand-held Dyson. 

After cleaning up shards of glass and getting ready for work, I packed my lunch. I looked in the fridge for the jelly for about 10 minutes. I swear I saw it in there but couldn’t find it. So, I texted the hubs to pick some up at the store since he was stopping for snacks before work anyway. When I got to work, I found that I had already packed the jelly in my lunch bag.

Major short term memory fail.

And finally, the pictures on my camera normally save onto my computer as “Picture,” “Picture 1,” “Picture 2,” and so on. Today, they are all saving as “Salad,” “Salad 1,” “Salad 2″…

If I get fired today and the IT department spreads rumors that I have 18 “salad” pictures on my computer, you know why.

Tonight, the hubs and I have a weights workout with our personal trainer. Maybe I can get in a run afterwards if he focuses on upper body. *fingers crossed*

Marathon training starts for me in 17 days (eek!), so next up will be a running gear post. 🙂

The Woe is Me Post

(last night’s) Workout: Crossfit (30 min) and a 2.5 mile run on the treadmill (10:00 pace)
(this morning’s) Workout:  2.5 mile run on the treadmill (10:00 pace)

Just typing “2.5 mile run” makes me sad because I’m always running half marathons. I feel like I’m not trying hard enough. But oh well, there you have it. Those are my runs. Everything else has been strength training (including an outside workout on Saturday similar to this one that still has my forearms and shoulders hurting today.)

You might already know I’m taking a break from running. I think the break is making me lazier because the urge to run still hasn’t returned like I thought it would.

• Today is exactly one month since my last half marathon which also happens to be my last run of any distance over 3.3 miles.
• Today is exactly 25 days until marathon training starts.
• Today is the day I start worrying that my love for running isn’t coming back. I know…

While I was out picking up lunch today, I saw at least 4 people running outside. Who decides to run at noon in Florida? It doesn’t even make sense to me. The news repeatedly described the weather today as “dangerously hot,” so I think the best idea is to go running when the sun is directly overhead and temperatures are the highest.

If I see one of those runners pass out, I’ll make sure to stop my car and tell them how good my air conditioner feels and then I’ll place a water bottle juuuust out of their reach.  (Sheesh, I’m so snippy today!)

Speaking of lunch, I got my second favorite salad today – grilled turkey salad from Pita Pita. I asked for a “crap ton” of pickles. That is the exact terminology I used. Crap ton. I got 17 of them. (Oh, I counted alright.)

Next time I’m going to have to specify that crap ton > 17. Now I’m going to have to cut them in half and pretend I have 34.

I also had a shot of wheatgrass at lunch. I can’t wait to see what it will do to my internal organs.

 

What’s your favorite thing to load up on salads? (For me, pickles and beets…but not on the same salad. I found that out this weekend.)

I just complained about my running, other people’s running, and pickles. Now, you complain about something in the comments. Go ahead. Get it off your chest. (Just don’t complain about my blog because I’ll cry and then complain about it.)

Pleasantly Surprised

(last night’s) Workout: Martial arts fitness class (45 min), plus a 1 mile run after class

My hubs is on a workout rampage. Every now and then, he gives up exercising his thumbs playing Street Fighter and wants to work out like a maniac. Now is one of those times. So, the mile run invite after class that hubs usually pretends he didn’t hear, he said yes to. That works for me, because I will gladly add that mile to my 1000 miles in 2011 challenge.

After our workout, a smoothie was had (by me) and we watched a couple of shows on the DVR, including Chuck. I didn’t cry during the show this week, so I’ll consider that a win.

After giving the DVR some love, we wiped all the dust off the coffee table and found this little treasure from Netflix:

Good thing I’ve been paying for that to sit on my coffee table for a month and a half. My movie watching has been lacking lately, so I was ready to let the DVR rest and fire up the Blu-ray.

Honestly, I didn’t really want to see Kick-Ass but heard from most people that it was good, so I decided to give it a try. It’s just that kid from Superbad annoys the crap out of me and I wasn’t sure I could handle a movie staring him.

Am I the only one that had no clue this movie is rated R and super violent? I thought I was going to watch another Scott Pilgrim and realized that wasn’t the case 20 minutes in when the F-bombs started flying.

Everything about the movie trailer and even the poster made me think it was a kid’s movie.

Even though the movie was nothing like what I expected, I liked it…A LOT. The little girl in the movie reminded me of Natalie Portman in The Professional.

What can I say? I like an ass-kicking 11-year old.

Hubs liked the movie enough to proclaim he was going to buy it. Oh, and I teared up a little in the movie which didn’t surprise me since I also cried the first time I saw Speed. I think that nicely made up for the episode of Chuck I didn’t cry in. A day isn’t a day without crying over something insignificant.

 

After the movie, Pants started acting cute as usual. Great thing about bunnies = they are perfectly happy in a box with some newspaper.

If kids were this way, maybe I’d have some already.

Now I’m trying to decide if I should give blood today. The blood mobile is going to be outside of my work but I really haven’t eaten enough to justify it. However, it’s always fun weighing yourself the day after. One pound is one pound, people. Even if it lasts for a day.

Do you give blood? (This is terrible, but I hate needles, so I only do it for the free cholesterol tests. I know. I’m going to hell.)

What movie have you watched recently that you didn’t think you would like but ended up loving? (Kick-Ass for me, but I also thought I would hate The Iron Giant and The Last Samurai and loved those too.)

Do I Look Like a Genie?

(last night’s) Workout: Ran outside 4.5 miles

I was a little too busy to blog my Monday Mini Miracles last night (there’s always next week), but I did get a run in with personal trainer #1 (Linda). We met at Lake Underhill Park, which has work out stations set up along the path around the lake.

 

We ran 3 laps and stopped at 5 of the different stations for each lap. If you look real hard, you can see them.

 

So, we did 3 sets of 25 log jumps, 25 step-ups, 15 pull-ups, 20 push-ups, and 15 dips during the run. Then we did an extra lap at the end because we like to torture ourselves like that.

Working out with Linda is fun. She’ll tell you she’s been too busy to work out for a month, that her lower back “hurts from NOT working out,” and that she has “lost a lot of strength.” Then she’ll bust out 10 man pull-ups right in front of you and wonder why you can’t do it too.

Incidentally, cats from the neighborhood gather and often stare at me while I’m doing pull-ups too.

Then Linda offered to help me with assisted pull-ups, but I will not have a 5 foot tall Vietnamese woman lifting up my 5’9″ ass up in public. Linda is STRONG and can do it no problem, but I’m sure that would shame my family in some way.

 

We had a great workout and I’ll get to see her again on Saturday. It will be one of the last times this month before school starts up again for her and she’ll be too busy to mold me into the Adonis she has been trying to make me for the past 3 years.

Here’s a bit of random news:

1.  When I got into work today, I was told by a friend that at first glance, she thought I was dressed like a genie.

I only dress like a genie on Thursdays, so this was upsetting. Maybe I should rethink the green-on-green action I have going right now.

2.  I tried a sip of Wheatgrass yesterday for the first time. That stuff tastes like licking a lawn.

3.  I’m on Day 8 of being back on Weight Watchers, and everything is going well so far. I keep finding new differences between the regular Points plan and the PointsPlus plan that are very interesting.

4. My goal to run less and do more strength training is going well too. I’m really loving all the strength training lately, but my run last night makes me feel like I might be starting from scratch when marathon training starts in one month.

HOLY CRAP.

ONE MONTH. Marathon training starts.

I’m kinda freaking out a little bit, but it looks normal since I’m dressed like a genie.

Missing Old Friends

Workout: Ran on treadmill 2.1 miles, walked .5 miles

It was hard to wake up this morning. Normally, I don’t want to get out of bed for a short run but today I almost couldn’t. My run started at a 12:00 pace and I worked up to a 9:41 pace. I didn’t have much more than 2 miles in me and I’m certainly not waking up more than a half hour early for a workout unless I paid for it. Or maybe if the house is burning, I will run out of it. Maybe.

After the workout, breakfast looked exactly like this plus a banana…

The Magic Bullet turned that into this…

It’s not much to look at but I assure you my taste buds thought a Friday night party was going on in my mouth. (That didn’t sound right, but you know what I mean, you perv.)

Last night, the hubs and I went to our martial arts fitness class. He didn’t want to be in the picture. Psh. I don’t need him. I will take 80 pictures of myself thank you.

When we get to class, we have to scan in. Please enjoy the highly professional picture on my scan card.

There’s an all-ages Taekwondo class right before the fitness class. Yesterday, little munchkins were sparring in full gear.

Baby sparring gear is hilarious and these kids like kicking the crap out of each other. That’s fun to watch. Entertainment while stretching for class.

Not everyone was in class that said they would be, but I won’t mention any names (Ale*Jason*Sheila). Sheila is our normal instructor. This is her.

(Picture stolen from Facebook)

She looks sweet, but she’s a badass that will make you feel like a little girly-man. And when she skips class because she’s “tired,” she gets her face on my blog! (You’re next, Jason and Ale)

We left class a little early because our friend RT was in town. Hubs was a groomsman in RT’s wedding four years ago, but RT moved to Ohio shortly after. We’ve only seen him a couple times since he moved, which sucked because he is definitely one of the hub’s closest friends. 

RT is literally one of the funniest muthers I have ever met. Fun fact about RT: He used to do stand up comedy.

Last night, I found out that RT has run a 5k, 10k, half marathon, and his first FULL marathon 3 weeks ago. He is a running junkie now, so I’m trying to convince him to do the Las Vegas Rock n Roll with me and Michelle.  Hubs was thrilled with our constant running conversation. He LOVED it!  <—-sarcasm

RT insisted on using the zoom. This worried me at first but I think it turned out alright.

It was awesome seeing RT again and I think he’ll be in town more often this year because the only crappier state than Florida is Ohio of work.

I’m just kidding all of you Ohio people. We all know Missouri is the worst.

How many states or countries have you lived in? (I’ve live in 2. Illinois and Florida. I’d like to expand that in the next 10 years.)
How many have you visited?  (Not including layovers in airports, I’ve visited 15: California, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Hawaii.)