I Gots Me Some Strong Boobies!

Howdy fellow bloggies! :D I hope you all are having great Tuesdays. Mine was pretty standard, but good. 


I started the day with a lovely bowl of oats/dried fruit/All the Whey cake batter protein powder and an egg white/veggie sausage omelet. Yum! One of these days I will get better about the whole food picture thing. It would be helpful if I had a nice camera though. The one I have is very basic and takes food pictures for crap. Moving on....


Then I spent most of the day playing with my baby girl. She is still fighting the congestion junk and I wanted to keep her out of the gym daycare again. We headed to the doctor this afternoon to check and be sure she wasn't getting any sort of ear infection from her recurring snot issues. Luckily, she isn't. The doc just said "it's that time of year". Thanks. So insightful. I am hoping so hard that she wakes up better tomorrow. I miss going to the gym in the morning!


I did still get my workout in today by going this afternoon/early evening. Had a decent enough workout. I trained chest and shoulders and did some stepmill madness. Hit a PR on barbell bench, or at least post baby PR since I can't really remember what I was lifting before then. I was hoping for a PR on incline dumbbell bench too, but I still can't get those dang 40's up! GAR! I know I could get 4-5 reps out of it if I could only get them up to start. Yea, yea, yea. Ask someone for a spot. I'll see if I reach that point, but for the time being I don't really know/like/trust many of the people at this new gym. I like the gym, just haven't really buddied with any of the fellow members. I also was a little bummed with my shoulders weight. Before I did shoulders with legs and was getting 30's for overhead presses. Today since they were done after working my chest some I could notice the fatigue and was only able to get 25's. Overall, though, I liked having solely legs yesterday and will keep my split this way. 


Bummer about having to makeup my workout this afternoon was I didn't get the chance to decorate our tree like I hoped. It's (not really) beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house. *tear* Thank goodness for holiday music to satisfy my festive mood. I WILL get that tree decorated tomorrow. Okay, I guess that is enough of my rambling for tonight ;) Time to wait for So You Think You Can Dance or The Biggest Loser to come on. I prefer not to watch Obama and just read about his speeches. 


Recap Day 4
Cardio = 30 min Stepmill
Fat Burner Level 12
Training = Chest/Shoulders
BB Bench = 75# x 12, 85# x 10, 95# x 8, 100# x 6, 105# (!!) x 5
Incline DB Bench = 35's x 8 x 4 sets
Cable Crossover = 17.5#/side x 8 x 3 sets
Overhead DB Press = 25's x 8 x 4 sets
Side Lateral Cable Raise = 7.5#/side x 8 x 3 sets


Diet = healthy, balanced, good portions - check!
Water = 3.5 Liters


Prayer/Devotional Time = check! Being more regular with this is SO making a difference. Tomorrow, though, I need to be sure my devotional time includes some preparing for Sunday's class lesson and discussion. 

Excuses are Easy, Resolve is Rewarding

Today started off a bit on the unexpected side. Well, not totally unexpected, but not what I was hoping for. After waking up, getting dressed in my gym wear, downing my pre-workout NO Xplode shake (which, for the record, works well but tastes nasty in lemonade flavor), and being pumped to keep rolling with my "better habits" motivation....found a sick, super congested, coughing baby girl in her crib when I went to get her up. *sigh* My poor girl!! She has been battling off and on congestion for a few weeks. Without fail, 2 days a week she is snotty and fussy. We do the humidifier, saline spray, sucking the junk out, juice/fluids bit and then she is fine and back to normal. Only for it to return a week later. Well. Hmmmm? What to do? I can tell you what I did would have done in the past few weeks - use it as an excuse to not be able to get in my workout and laze around and boredom snack all day. Easy, peasy, right???


NO!!!! Well, yes. It would be easy. No, I would not have been happy and would have felt disappointed in myself for taking the easy way out. Now, now, now. Don't fret. I did not pack up my sick baby and head to the gym anyways to pass germs to other innocent children. I snuggled and played with my happy, albeit sick, sweetheart. Then, when she went down for her nap, I headed down to the basement and did some cardio. I pulled out an old Cathe DVD I haven't done in quite some time - IMAX 2. This workout totally and completely kicked my butt....and sent my heart racing. It's 10 step intervals with lots of plyometric drills. It was fun, effective, and passed by super fast. See a clip and description of the workout HERE.

After that, Makenzie & I had lunch and put on some music to dance around the living room. That girl loves to shake her booty. She quite likes the Black Eyed Peas song "Boom Boom Boom" (not sure if that's the right name). During her afternoon nap, I did a bit more reading, chatted online with a good friend, and did my daily devotional Bible reading. You would think the day would die down there, huh?

NOPE! Once hubs got home, I was off to the gym. That's right. My workout plan was to do legs and some cardio today. I am a determined lady right now and had to get my leg session in dagnabit. Can I just say how happy I am that I did? WOW! I killed, I mean killed, my legs. I got my squat weight back up. I was shaking at the end. And all with a much shorter and effective workout. After that, it was home to gobble up some dinner (steamed chicken spring rolls, sugar snap peas) and type this up while chilling on the couch. Another rewarding day, thanks to my resolve. Here's to day 3!

RECAP - DAY 3
Training = Legs
*warm up first*
1) BB Squat - 95# x15, 115# x10, 125# x8 x2sets, 135# (!!!!) x7, 135# x5
2) Bulgarian Split Squat - 20's x 12 x 2sets, 25's x 10, 30's x 8
3A) Walking Lunge w/ Pulses @ Bottom - 20's x 10/leg x 3sets
3B) Leg Extension - 85# x 10 x 3sets

Cardio = Cathe IMAX 2 DVD

Diet = Healthy, balanced, and delicious
Water = 4 Liters + a cup of decaf peppermint tea I'm about to enjoy

Time with God = Prayer time and Bible time. I can definitely tell a difference in my approach to situations, happiness, life in general with more focused time spent with God. I would like to extend this part of my challenge to others as well. Even just 15 minutes of time spent with God is amazing and refreshing. And if that's not in your beliefs, then meditation or something similar could work for you :) Do you take time for daily prayer or meditation? Does it make a difference for YOU?

Hoppin' on the Bandwagon

The holiday self-challenge bandwagon, that is. As I mentioned yesterday, I want to get back into my better habits since I have allowed many things to throw me a bit off track the past few weeks. I don't have very specific, measurable goals. Simply to make each day count. I consider my body to be my temple given to me by God and I know I need to honor my body. Heck, how can I not, when considering what all has been given to me so graciously by Him? So each day I want to eat well and be active. The holidays are a notorious time for over-indulgence and I will not deny that many, many times I have succumbed. I don't want to do that this year. Yes, I plan to enjoy, but I have to keep things in check. This is my Day 2 of my "Better Habits" self-challenge. And this is a challenge that will not end. It is not for X amount of weeks or until I reach X weight or something arbitrary like that. It is a continued desire to living a healthy and balanced lifestyle. 

Anyone care to hop on with me?? :)

Today was an atypical Sunday. Normally, a large part of our Sundays involves church. I lead group discussion for a Sunday school group called The Goodlife at 9:30 and we go to the sermon at 11:00. We didn't make it to church at all today because Makenzie was pretty under the weather this morning (this girl has a stuffy head that just won't quit!). Since we weren't having class due to the holiday, we decided it would be best to hang back and let the baby girl rest.

So, what was today like? Did I care for myself and fulfill my better habits? YEP! I started the day with a cardio session in our basement. Cathe's LowMax DVD fit the bill for that. It was a great way to start the day and a fabulous cardio session. Better habit #1...check! Normally, Sundays are also a day of rest for me, but since I took Wed-Fri off of workouts with the holidays I knew I could handle fitting something in today. Then, I ate a delicious breakfast of Kashi blueberry waffles with some sugar free syrup, strawberries, and a egg white omelet with peppers/onions/veggie sausage/lf cheese. Along with my breakfast, I spent some quality time with my all time favorite book - The Bible. It is amazing how no matter how many times you read through it, there is always something special to get out of it every single time. Better habit #2...check!!

The remainder of the day was low key. I spent a fair amount of time snuggling my sweetie pie - minus the trip to chasing her from the stairs, which she has figured out how to climb now. I also tutored the neighborhood kid and read some of my current book (An Isolated Incident by Susan Sloan - so good and one of my favorites that I am re-reading). Now, it is about time to cook up some dinner. I will be making some sauteed zucchini, squash, and onions to toss with some Italian turkey sausage, light tomato sauce, and a small serving of whole wheat pasta. So Better Habit #3 will be a check! Balanced, healthy meals have most certainly filled my belly today.

Check, check, check!! I like those days. Now, if only those checks could be deposited at the bank. ;)