Where's the Beach?

Giant Sets Our weather this week has definitely returned back to more normal-spring-like temps. Today was just downright cold after almost 90 degrees last week. We struggled to hit 60 and it was gray and dreary. Good thing my workout plan was to hit the gym. I started with a warmup on the elliptical then did giant sets for back and shoulders. I did 8 reps for each exercise and 3 sets for each giant set. GS - Back Assisted chinups Double-arm row Pullovers GS - Shoulders Overhead press Lateral raise Front raise Giant sets go by super fast, but they are no joke. I had to go down in weight for my lateral raises because my muscles were just too fatigued. Love tossing these in once in a while. Grilling Experiment We had some bok choy that needed to be used. Of course I could have gone the easy route and made up a simple stir fry. But we've really been wanting to try grilling it. Luckily, the sun did finally come out at the end of the day so it made it feel more like gri...

Early Morning Workout Today I managed to get my lazy rear out of bed at 5:10 to get my cardio workout done and over with. I did Step Blast plus abs from Step Jump and Pump . It was a good, sweaty workout. Although much more difficult at that early hour. Also didn't help that my legs are sore from yesterday and my arms don't want to straighten all the way. Excuses aside, I am simply not a morning person at all. I won't ever pretend to be either. However, I do wish I could get up and get my workouts in early every day. I feel like I have so much more free time in the evenings. Much less rushed trying to squeeze in workouts, chores, dinner, relaxing (whatever that is). What's your favorite time to workout? Another Soup With my workout done for the day, I decided to try another yoga workout from On Demand. It was a nice stretch. Would have been slightly more calming had I not had one maniac (AKA Cocker Spaniel named Maddie) barking like a maniac. After my yoga session, I...

My case of the Mondays extended into Tuesday. I am not sure what was going on, but I just couldn't seem to fully wake up all day. Just sort of felt a little mediocre with a slight headache all day and super fatigued. Of course, as I sit here to write up this blog post, I'm starting to feel achy. I'm afraid I may be coming down with something. It was a cardio day for me. Had there been a spin class after work, that's what I would have opted for. There is one at lunch that's short and intense, but that would mean asking for a longer lunch and staying late. While my boss is super flexible, I still feel bad doing that sort of thing. So I ended up reaching for Hardcore Extreme - High/Low Premix . I needed a longer cardio, higher calorie burning workout today. This one is always a good one for those two purposes. It fuses three workouts into one: 3 intervals from Lowmax, 5 intervals from Imax 3 (sandwiched between the Lowmax intervals), and topped off with kickboxing dr...

Last night Jason tackled dinner. He had found and purchased some vegan shrimp at Whole Foods a few weeks ago. I had no idea what to do with them and had been asking meat-eating friends what they did with shrimp. I was hearing pasta suggestions, grilling suggestion, even salad suggestions. We had a heavy, unhealthy lunch of pizza, so a light, brothy soup was sounding pretty good. He found a recipe on the side of the box of Thai Kitchen thin rice noodles (another item he picked up randomly) that he used as a basis for a miso, shiitake mushroom, bok choy, and "shrimp" soup. It was topped with fresh cilantro, green onions, and squirt of lime. Admittedly, he forgot to taste for the spices until the end. Nothing that a little bit of Sriracha Chili Sauce couldn't fix! It's definitely something we'll likely try again ("shrimp" or not). Today felt like a real Monday if you know what I mean. Almost impossible to peel myself out of bed. No real motivation t...