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New Total Body Workout Rotation & Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Soup

Trying Start
Today was one of those days when things just seem to be going against you. It started off relatively ok. I even got to work early. I'll blame it all on the rain for what happened during lunch though. Jason and I need to get our passports ASAP. When we go to visit our friends in Seattle at the end of next month, they want to go up to Canada since we didn't get to do that during our last visit.

So, it's raining and yuck. Jason thinks maybe the lines at the Post Office for passports will be short. I had all the paperwork ready. The photos and ID stuff was at the house though. I didn't know he was going to want to go at like 10:30, but he did. I had a last minute fire to put out on a project then I rushed out. I realized the new umbrella I spent 13 bucks on yesterday was a tiny POS! It was pouring down, my feet were wet, my pants wet all by the time I crossed the street to Jason's office. And the kicker...I had forgot the paperwork on my desk.

So, back across the street, back up to the 10th floor then start all over again. When we got home, I ran upstairs to grab socks and new shoes then out the door. Oh, new shoes because not only were they soaked, but I stepped in mushy dog poop kindly left on the walkway. Nice. So, back to the Post Office just in time to be told that they were not going to take any more applications until after lunch (12:30). Speaking of lunch, I had intended on eating mine at around 11 at the office. So back at home, I had to just wait on Jason with a grumbling tummy and a super grumpy attitude.

Total Body Rotation Take 3
Anyway...I did grab my gym bag and set up a new weight rotation to start. It's based on the 8-week total body rotation I've done before. The first half is more building and the second half is more cutting/leaning. I am going to do the first half twice through before moving to the cutting phase. So this is going to give me a 12-week weight rotation.

The idea is that weeks 1 and 2 are the same exercises and reps/sets, but week 1 is straight set and week 2 is done as supersets increasing the weights 1.25-2%. Then weeks 3 and 4 it's the same set up, only you use different exercises. It's really fun because it goes quickly, it doesn't get boring or repetitive, and it keeps you building up the weights.

It's normally supposed to be done with 1-2 exercises per muscle group 3 x a week. But I am taking 2 days where I add extra legs and one day that is upper only. I have done it as originally prescribed before, but didn't have very good results with my legs. The last time I did this, I changed up how I did legs and saw much better results. If you want to see the original set up, check out this article total-body training method by Chad Waterbury

Enough of that...Today started with the following straight sets done as 3x5:

Push ups - warm up set of 24
Chest fly into chest press
Underhand barbell row
Squats
Stiff legged deadlifts
Hammer curls
Double-arm overhead triceps extension
Static lunges
Upright rows

I also added on some abs exercises and some elliptical time (10 to warm up and 15 to end).

Too Easy
Dinner tonight was super simple as it was mostly already made for me. I used the rest of the Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce from my pre-race dinner to make a Sweet Potato and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Soup. All I did was take the leftover sauce, add it into a sauce pan with no-salt vegetable broth (to desired consistency) and let it heat through.

I also made some grilled "cheese" sandwiches with almond cheese, spinach, roasted red bell peppers, and artichoke hearts. This is a grown-up version of grilled cheese with tomato soup if you ask me. Most definitely something you could serve to guests and they'd feel special.

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