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Weekending: Wedding Venue Hunting, Oaktoberfest 5K & a Baby Shower

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Good morning! Hope you all had a great weekend- ours was BUSY, but all in all a good one- picture heavy recap for you today 🙂

  • Post run foam rolling- one of those things I know I SHOULD do more of, but rarely do…

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  • My friend Ashley got me a ring cozy which is going to be amazing I already know it! Thanks, girl!

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  • Friday lunch: scrambled eggs, kale, butternut squash & goat cheese- SO good.

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  • Post work drinks at Buff’s Pub with my sister- now that she works in Watertown and I live in Watertown it’s so easy to get together!

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  • RM’s commute home was over an hour (from Boston, mind you), so I promised him some wine- we both prefer white but have so much red I figured I should open some. This was delicious! We drank it on Saturday with our steak dinner, too.

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  • En route to Maine to look at a few wedding venues! Trying to stay organized, although it’s not going very well so far 😉

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  • Tested out my new Kitchen Aid mixer- the verdict? LOVE it! I made cookies and muffins and then mashed potatoes for Shepherd’s Pie.

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  • We grabbed some stead at Whole Foods and RM grilled for us on Saturday night- it was delicious!

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  • OAKtoberfest- it was COLD, but fun getting to chat with Athena and Missy before the race. I must’ve been running extra fast because of the cold weather because I got a new PR and came in 3rd for my age group- couldn’t believe it! I didn’t even get to hang around after the race because I had to rush home to shower and get ready to head back to Maine to look at another venue. I literally finished the race and kept running home- ended up covering 4.4 miles!

 

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  • En route to day #2 of wedding venue hunting!

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  • After looking at another venue, I headed to Hampton for my friend Kia’s baby shower- it was a jack n’ jill baby shower at a brewery and it was so fun! Food was great, beers were delicious and it was great seeing my favorite girls!

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  • Once I got home I quickly threw together a healthified Shepherd’s Pie- ground turkey, kale, frozen veggies topped with mashed sweet potatoes. yum!

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Questions for you: How was your weekend? Do anything fun outside? Any tips for venue hunting and keeping costs down? Or, what would your one tip be for planning a wedding?

Sometimes being healthy is…

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… getting up early to squeeze in a quick workout before a busy day

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… deciding to skip a workout because friends are getting together for a spur of the moment thing

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… meeting up with people a little late so you can get in a quick workout first OR choosing to do a workout together instead

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… spending hours meal prepping for the week

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… skipping meal prep to spend time with friends/family/significant other

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… going out for pizza and beers on a random Tuesday night

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… going for a long walk instead of the more intense workout you originally planned

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… trying something new

… taking a break for no other reason besides “I don’t feel like it”. In other words, “efff it!”

Just a little reminder that being healthy isn’t just about eating well and working out. There is so much more to being healthy than those things and sometimes the “unhealthy” option is the healthiest option you can choose (and I say “unhealthy” as a lack of better words- I don’t think any of these things are unhealthy when done in moderate amounts. Anything done in excess and to extreme is not good for you). We all tend to be too hard on ourselves, always wanting to push to do more and be better, but sometimes doing absolutely nothing is exactly what we really need.

Earlier this week I was just not feeling right. Normally I would push through it and workout, but this time I listened and told myself it was a better idea for me to go for a walk instead. I’m not always good at this, but I am really trying to improve because I know that adding wedding planning to an already busy day to day life is going to mean some things are going to have to take a back seat. Whether it be a workout or a blog post, there will absolutely be times when something has got to give. And that is totally OK.

So next time you’re faced with the question of what’s the “healthy” option- take a look at the surrounding influences- how your day has been, how your workouts have been lately, thinking about what you really want to do and then go with it. A day making the “less healthy” choice isn’t going to set you back and can be a really great thing.

Questions for you: When’s the last time you made a less-healthy decision that ended up being the healthiest decision for you at that time? When’s the last time you cut back on a workout or task in favor of something less stressful on the body?

Wednesday Workout: Combo Exercise->Upper Body->Core ->Cardio– Total Body Blast

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Hello! How’s your week going so far? Normally on Monday mornings I try to wake up and go for a run before I start work so that my lunch break and after work can be spent for meal prep and blogging, however, that doesn’t always happen so sometimes I end up doing it on my lunch break or after work. In other words, Mondays are usually my running days, but with the darker and cooler mornings, getting up and out the door for a run before work is not as easy as it was over the summer when it was super sunny and warm 😉

That’s where this workout came from, though, so I’ll chalk that up as a win! I had all intentions of running last Monday morning since I had lunch break and after work plans, but it was still pretty dark and chilly and I wasn’t in the mood to try and find where I put my colder weather running gear so I decided to do something in the apartment. I threw this workout together quickly, but was pleased with how it turned out! I was actually a little sore the next day and was super sweaty after I finished.

Total body blast circuits

The way it works, is each set has a combo (lower & upper body) move, upper body move, core move and cardio blast. If you’re short on time, you could pick a few sets instead of doing all of them. All of the non-cardio exercises should be repeated for a total of 3 times before throwing in the 2minute cardio blast.

Most of these exercises are pretty common on B2B, but if you have questions on any of them don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments!

Questions for you: Do you still run in the dark and cold weather? Do you have equipment at home so that you don’t have to go to the gym?

How My Workouts Will Change to Get “Wedding Ready”

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Got ya! If you guys know me, you probably know that I’m not likely to adopt some crazy workout routine or diet to get “wedding ready”. In fact, I don’t really think there’s such a thing as “wedding ready”. If RM and I were to get married tomorrow, I would be perfectly happy with how I look and feel, but that’s because each day I strive to workout and eat in ways that make me feel good. That’s always the ultimate goal. Why? Because it’s achievable and sustainable. It’s a doable thing every day that has just become a part of me.

I have a hard time when people go on crazy diets and workout routines in order to prepare for something: wedding, vacation, reunion, birthday, etc. While they may get the results they want for the specific event they were working for, the chances of those results lasting after the event has come and gone are not very likely. Why? Because what they’ve been following was probably very strict and a huge change from how they were living prior to that so it was probably a hard adjustment. They likely got through it because they had an end date in mind, which is where I struggle with any of those diets or workout routines that last 14 days or 30 days or something like that. If you know you only have to do something for X amount of time, what’s likely getting you through that time is knowing you can go back to “normal” once that timeframe is over. Right? I know that’s how it would be for me if I ever did something like the Whole30 or something else like that.

Rather, I believe in lifestyle changes. Starting with small, achievable changes that you can sustain for a long as you want to. Once you master that, you pick something else to change and soon enough, you will have made lifestyle changes that don’t have an end date. You learn to appreciate the way you feel and look and learn to really love fueling your body with real foods and working out in ways that make you feel strong and powerful.

With that said, it’s safe to assume I am going to carry on with “business as usual” when it comes to my diet and exercise in preparation for the wedding. Because, again, I’m not “preparing” for the wedding. I am very happy with how I look and feel as a result of my current “diet” (by diet, I mean what I eat on a day to day basis) and workout routine. Sure, we’ve been eating out a lot more and eating things we don’t normally eat (hello, moving and not having a fully functioning kitchen for so long!), but that’s only temporary. Last week we had time to do lots of meal prep and had a fridge stocked with various cooked veggies and meats all week, making it easy to make healthy choices.

On the workout front, I have been teaching a lot more lately which means my own workouts have fallen a bit by the wayside. I haven’t been going to the gym for my own workouts and let me tell you- I miss lifting heavy things!! But again, I know that I will get back to that soon enough, so I am trying to focus on embracing all of the newness of our engagement and celebrations right now. I’m always looking to try new workouts and formats, so just as I usually do, throughout the next year I’m sure I’ll be trying lots of new things- taking you all along for the ride. I may do some “wedding-themed” workouts here and there, but I can assure you I will not be doing anything drastically different on the workout OR diet front leading up to the wedding!

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I’d love to hear from you guys, though! Do you like to follow “quick fix” diet or workout plans or do you prefer to make lifestyle changes? Did you do a crazy diet or workout plan before your wedding or another big event? When do you feel your best?

 

Living with a guy- 2 week check-in

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Hello! As most of you probably know by know, my boyfriend (RM) and I moved in together exactly 2 weeks ago. I honestly had no idea what to think of living with a boyfriend since it was my first time. I was a little nervous, but those nerves went away as soon as we had our first night together in the apartment. I should preface this “check in” by saying that although we didn’t officially live together, I did spend probably 5 nights a week at his place and we’ve been on multiple weekend getaways and things like that, so my transition may have been a little easier than others. Still, regardless of how prepared we were for the change, change is change and can cause nerves at the beginning or leading up to said change.

The high level verdict? LOVING IT! We laugh all the time when we talk about how seamless that part of the move has been. The first night in a new place or with a new roommate can always feel a little weird, but I have to say- I felt NONE of that. It all just felt normal and right, which, in the midst of all the kitchen renovation chaos, was a really welcomed feeling 😉

When we get together with other people or talk to people in our offices, the topic of conversation generally goes like this:

  1. How did the move go?
  2. How is it living with RM/Monique?

Although the move wasn’t the easiest thing (just because we’ve been dealing with renovations), living together has been FUN. I joke that we’ve only fought once, which I consider a big win! And, the fight was only because I got mad that he conveniently went to his mother’s house to “drop a chair off”, which just happened to be at dinner time when his nephew and brother and SIL would be there while I stayed home and peeled layers of nasty contact paper out of the cabinets… I was not a happy camper, but after that little tiff we’ve been smooth sailing!

I think one of the best parts about moving in together is always knowing that we share a “home base”. There’s no more worrying about schedules that don’t align or packing up and living out of bags. We get up, go to work and regardless of what happens after work we know we are both coming home to the same house and that’s a really awesome feeling. RM said it best in a text when he said it feels like a calmness has come over the relationship.  I couldn’t agree with that statement more! I was so tired of packing up my breakfast, lunch, work clothes and gym clothes and being the ultimate bag lady. It was exhausting! And figuring out who was going to cook and if I needed to bring my own food over… there’s just none of that anymore and it’s great!

So far, I don’t think I’ve annoyed him that much and he hasn’t really annoyed me. I’m sure that will change soon enough, but for now we are happily living in the honeymoon romantic bliss as a result of the new move. We both pull our own weight around the house and work really well together on tasks, projects and general every day things so even once we are out of the honeymoon stage I think we are still going to have a lot of fun living together.

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I’d love to hear from you guys, though, if you live with or have lived with a significant other- what was the easiest part of that transition? Hardest part? Do you annoy your sig. other or get annoyed by them? How do you delegate chores like laundry and taking out the trash and grocery shopping?