Wednesday Workout: 8 Minute AMRAP Circuits

September 16, 2015September 17, 20153 Comments

Hello! I’m so happy to have more time to blog this week because I’ve been doing some good workouts that are totally share-worthy. Although it can be hard to fit everything in during busy/stressful times (hello, moving!), doing my best to stay consistent with my workouts is something that’s really important to me. They may not be the longest or most intense, but even 15-20 minutes of just bodyweight exercises is better than nothing, and sometimes exactly what I need. I have to be careful of not over-doing it with workouts during stressful times because working out is a stress on the body, but less-intense, bodyweight workouts are generally doing me more good than harm. My fellow Boston blogger friend, Stephanie, wrote a really great blog post talking about this exact thing: The Stress-Fitness Balance. All too often workouts are the first thing that gets pushed aside in stressful, busy times, but her post is a good reminder on how to gauge your stress levels and figure out if maybe a quickie workout might be exactly what you need to relieve some stress and get a clear head.

Which is a perfect segway into this workout! For those of you who are feeling short on time these days, this workout has the option of being as short as 8 minutes or as long as 24-32 minutes. Each circuit is an 8 minute AMRAP (As many rounds as possible- while keeping good form, of course!) consisting of a lower body move, cardio, upper body move and core move. Choose a challenging weight so that you’re not whipping through the reps- I promise you’ll feel it 😉 I think I ended up getting through 3-3.5 rounds in the 8 minutes.

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Eats as of late (Part III)

September 15, 2015September 14, 20151 Comment

Good morning! I was scrolling through the pictures on my phone trying to delete some and realized it’s been a hot minute since I’ve shared my recent eats with you- April, to be exact! While we haven’t been cooking very much lately, we did have some great home cooked meals throughout the summer, as well as meals out at restaurants, and thought it would be fun to share them. If you missed parts I & II, you can find them here:

Eats as of Late
Eats as of Late (Part II)

Summer fruits- I always love fruit, but it tastes so much better in the summer when it’s in season. Making up a fruit salad at the beginning of the week made for a great snack!

Sunday morning pancakes- Always healthy, always delicious. I can’t wait until we are settled in our new kitchen so this tradition can return.

Pizza, pizza and more pizza. My girlfriends got together at Brewers Fork and then I made pizza for book club and when I was home in Maine one weekend.

Seafood was another thing I couldn’t get enough of this summer. We at oysters often (below are from Island Creek Oyster Bar) and at least a few lobster rolls (from the Popponesset Inn)!

Stuffed peppers made a few appearances. Standard and deconstructed

Eggs were always a regular on the menu for us! Over easy or sunny side up are my favorites, but this quiche was also really good

Summer grilling! We made lots of burgers and other grill-able items like these skewers

Sometimes I just cooked up chicken, veggies & quinoa as they were easy to eat throughout the week

This Loaded Quinoa Salad was a big hit- on its own and as a side dish

A few Mexican dinners were also a big hit. The top pic is from Mija Boston and the bottom is from Angela’s Café

Lots of these types of snacks for Cape weekends

This delicious Chicken & Veggie Zoodle Scampi Dish was fantastic!

Ice cream- lots and lots of ice cream (black raspberry with rainbow jimmies every.single.time)

Phew! How about that! What was your favorite thing to eat this summer? Do you eat fruit seasonally? Did you eat out a lot this summer?

Craving Normalcy

September 14, 2015September 14, 20154 Comments

Hi B2B friends! I’ve missed you! While we are not anywhere near being fully unpacked and settled, we are starting to feel somewhat better than we did last week, that’s for sure! And, we finally have a kitchen sink! Might not sound like much, but washing dishes in the bathroom sink or shower for a week was getting a little old 😉 (still waiting on the back splash, so excuse that!)

Our weekend was a mix of unpacking/organizing/renovating, but we did get together with family which is always nice. Friday afternoon my friend Jessi was in the area so she stopped by for some Prosecco. Later, RM’s brother, sister in law and nephew came over for pizza and vino. We got the pizza from Max & Leo’s, which is just a short walk from our apartment. I have to say, East Boston has pretty much nailed the pizza game, but Max & Leo’s may have them beat! This pizza was outstanding!

Saturday we got up and I went for a 4.5 mile run before we hit the road to spend the day in Maine with some family. My mom had some of her siblings in town which is always fun! We went to the beach in Wells and then went to dinner at Billy’s Chowder House.

Sunday was spent making a major dent in some renovations- I sanded the pantry- which is quite a workout- and then RM did a layer of primer on the cabinets while I cleaned and primed all the draws.

It feels so good to make some progress with the rest of our move. While the living room is coming along and the bedrooms are mostly set up, we still have a long way to go until we are fully settled in!

I’ll say this- moving is stressful to begin with. Moving 2 people with fully furnished apartments into 1 combined apartment is stressful. Doing both of those things AND living a midst a kitchen renovation is stressful X 3 🙂

As I said last week, my goal during this whole move has been to stay calm, understanding and to try and stay up-beat/positive. I’ve only had one minor meltdown, so I think that’s pretty good! I’ve got a lot less stress than RM since he’s not only managing all of the renovation work at our new apartment, but also a complete gut renovation in a unit back in East Boston and getting new tenants into both of our old units. Even though we are both very similar in our abilities to handle stress and change, I feel like staying positive this time around is the least I can do- two of us stomping around frustrated and stressed is just not going to help anyone or anything 😉

All in all, though, even with all the chaos and no sense of normalcy, we’ve been having a lot of fun living together. We’ve both talked about how it feels so good to have one home base that we share. We may be stressed and tired, but at least we are going through it together. Going for a walk to Starbucks in the morning and figuring out where we want to put stuff has been so fun! And, little by little we are making strides towards normalcy- we both like to have food prepped and ways to eat healthy food at home rather than going out, so making it a priority to even have a few key kitchen items unpacked has really helped.

I hope all of you had a great weekend and have a good week! For those of you in the Boston area, I’m subbing for Athena on Tuesday morning at 6am at the Oak Square YMCA- would love to see some familiar faces!! I’m looking for suggestions on what to teach, too!

Questions for you: How do you handle stress? Do you go with the flow or stress over change and lack of normalcy? What did you do this weekend? Have you ever done home renovations?

Weekending: Moving & Labor Day Weekend Edition

September 8, 2015September 7, 201513 Comments

Well, here we are- Labor Day has come and gone. RM and I were talking about how while we can’t believe summer is on its way out, summer actually didn’t feel incredibly short. We didn’t have a lot of weekend plans, weddings or travel this summer so we were able to take advantage of many weekends on the Cape and a few in Maine which was different than last summer. I also don’t remember a time when I went to the beach as much as I did this year. Whether just scooting over to Constitution Beach in East Boston or going to the Cape or Wells Beach in Maine, we did some serious beaching!

Last weekend’s long weekend started on Thursday when it was move day for me. While I don’t like packing and unpacking, the actual physical act of moving doesn’t bother me- I look at it as another workout!

I had never hired movers before and although I had a slightly argumentative phone call with the owner at one point, things ended up going very smoothly. Thanks to a recommendation by Stephanie, I hired Secure Movers and was impressed not only with their rates, but also with their speed. We (yes, I helped move boxes down my stairs and into the truck), were able to completely load up the truck, drive to Watertown and unload the truck in just under 2 hours. I call that a success!

After they left, I spent some time getting the extra bedroom set up, grabbed lunch at the local Whole Foods (and an ice cream at the Market Basket in Chelsea- was totally craving one!) and then headed back to my apartment to clean.

When all was said and done, I walked over 26K steps and climbed 100 flights of stairs. I honestly don’t remember the last time I felt so physically, mentally and emotionally drained. Even though I am so excited about our move, it was a weird feeling to be moving out of my last “single girl” apartment.

Thankfully, dinner and wine at Kelly’s Pub (awesome local joint in EB) made me feel muuuuuch better and I slept like a baby that night.

Friday morning I worked from RM’s apartment for a half day and then fit in a quickie workout, which actually left me sore for a few days! I ran 1.5 miles and then did this tabata workout, which I still really loved! We went to the new apartment to do some stuff and then grabbed dinner at Jeveli’s before heading south for a weekend at the Cape.

(Ashley P- finally opened the bottle of La Crema that you gave me a long time ago! I always save my “nice” bottles of wine and figured moving was a great time to crack it open!)

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing- both at the house and on the beach! We had a delicious dinner on Saturday night consisting of burgers, hot dogs, chicken, sausage, rice, salad and corn on the cob.

Sunday morning I fit in another quickie workout: run 1 mile, 4 tabata rounds (squats & lunges, push-ups & jabs, high knees & squat jacks, side dips & standing crunches), run 1 mile. Short and sweet! We attempted a day trip to Martha’s Vinyard, but logistically it didn’t work out so we ended up just heading back to Craigville Beach.

It was the perfect beach day, but unfortunately I only made it in the water once because I got stung by a jelly fish… TWICE! Hurt so freaking bad! Roberto later got stung on his neck- it was weird! I used to think that going to the beach was such a process: packing the bags, chairs, lotion, lunches, drinks, etc., but this summer we have nailed the process and can get ready and on the beach in no time! For lunch on Sunday and Monday, we opted for “wrapless wraps”- something I think we are going to do a lot more of! Basically, we used the turkey as the “wrap”, then layered cheese, hummus and spinach and rolled it up. I also put rice in mine and Roberto put pickles in his.

Really enjoyed this “healthier” and “lighter” lunch option!

For dinner, we stopped in at Baxters in Hyannis for a drink and then had dinner at Tugboats.

Monday morning I went for a 3 mile jog before an earlier beach day.

We contemplated heading back to Boston early, but the weather was just too perfect to not take advantage of it. One more beach day was well worth the traffic on the way home!

All in all it was a really fantastic weekend, and perfect timing since last week was stressful and this week likely won’t be much different. I really focused on being present in the moment and soaking in all the goodness that the weekend brought rather than stressing about all that we have to do this week. Such a simple change in perspective really made all the difference in the world. I don’t like living in limbo and chaos, but I’m really working on not having any expectations for the rest of the move and kitchen renovations and just letting things be. If we have to eat out every night- so be it. If we don’t have a kitchen sink for a while and have to wash veggies in the bathroom- it’s only temporary. If I drink wine every night and break my “rule”, who cares! This sort of mentality doesn’t happen naturally for me, but I realize it will make the next few weeks a whole lot better if I do it!

I hope all of you had a great long weekend, too! And for those of you with recent moves, I feel your pain! I’m not sure how much I’ll be blogging this week because on top of moving I am teaching on Wednesday and subbing on Thursday (6:30pm cardio kickboxing- Wellington BSC), but I’ll pop in when I can 🙂

Questions for you: Did you grill this past weekend? Did you go to any Labor Day Parties? Do you prefer the beach, lake or pool? Was this summer busy for you or did you have time to relax?

Wednesday Workout: 24 Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout

September 2, 2015September 1, 20152 Comments

Hello! I’m popping in quickly to share a workout I did in a one-on-one training session with one of my bootcampers last week (Hi, Kerri!). She specifically told me to post it because it sufficiently kicked her butt in less than a half hour- and with our busy schedules these days, who doesn’t want that?! I am all about short, but effective workouts and this one satisfies both of those things. Even better? It can be done anywhere since it requires no equipment- no excuses 😉

The way it works is I picked 2 strength moves in each set and tried to compliment those with the tabata cardio rounds. You’ll do the strength moves for 30 seconds each and 2 rounds then you’ll do the tabata cardio (20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest X8 rounds= total of 4 minutes).

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