2016 Reflections

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Last year, I wrote a similar post and as I reviewed it this year, I realized it was a really nice way remember all of the highlights from the previous year.  While it seems as though 2016 was not the year for many people (according to FB & Insta….), I have to say that 2016 was pretty awesome for me.

We had our engagement photos with the amazing Janelle. I hosted my first blogger event at the Social. I got to work with New Balance and check out MyStryde.  My mom & sister threw me the most beautiful bridal shower. My birthday was lowkey, but I got to teach a class and then RM took me out to Committee, which is one of my new favorite Boston restaurants. My sister & friends also threw me an incredibly fun bachelorette party in Portland, Maine. We kicked off summer by spending a few nights on the Cape over Memorial Day Weekend, soaking up the great weather. In June, I said “no” to a lot of commitments in order to help keep me sane during my last month before the wedding. In July, we got married, which was the best, most amazing day of my entire life. The entire weekend went off without a hitch and we both talk frequently about how we wish we could relive it over and over again. Spending the week after the wedding decompressing on the Cape and just soaking in married life was perfect. We welcomed our beautiful new niece, who is the best! We also went to Annapolis for my cousin’s wedding. I went to Maine for a few nights and my parents came down in August to celebrate their birthday. We got bikes and really enjoyed biking around our neighborhood and all the way into East Boston once.  September was busy, but really fun. I kicked off 2+ weeks of travel with my bestie, Jessi’s, bachelorette weekend and then from there pretty much went right to the airport to kick off our 16 day honeymoon throughout the Amalfi Coast. We spent time in Naples, Ischia, Sorrento, Pompeii and Positano and it was probably the best trip we’ve ever taken. After falling in love with a sweet little stray kitten in Positano, we got ourself a kitten, sweet little Francesca. I ran the OAKtoberfest 5K and PR’d by nearly a minute (around 22:30 for my final time). RM took a leap of faith and left his job to start his own company- and I couldn’t be more proud of him for this! Shortly after we got back we took the train to Brooklyn for my sister-in-law’s engagement party and Thanksgiving was spent with both my family and then RM’s family, which was the best of both worlds! We went to the Seaport tree lighting and then a 30th birthday party. Oh yeah, speaking of Seaport Sweat, that was the best experience ever! I got to teach so many outdoor fitness classes with the best live DJ and got to meet so many wonderful new people through it- thanks Sherri! I also passed the BoxFIIT certification and have been teaching Bags&Beats since June which has been a blast- more to come in 2017 for sure! In December we celebrated my sister’s birthday and then RM’s birthday and then also Christmas! Finally, we went to Florida for my besties wedding and NYE.

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I know I’m probably missing so many other amazing things, but those were the moments the stood out the most. So basically, it was a pretty freaking amazing year and I can only hope 2017 is half as good!

Thank you guys for following along. I know I haven’t blogged as frequently as I used to, but I’ve realized that I’d rather LIVE my life rather than just blog about it 😉 I do have plans to start a newsletter, so I hope you’ll sign up for that.

Five on Friday {1.6.17}

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Good morning! Happy first week of 2017 🙂 Anyone else feel like it was a little tough getting back into the swing of things after the holidays? This week was one of those weeks where it made my brain hurt, lol. BUT, it’s Friday and my company party is tonight which I’m excited about! I also got us a room at the Boston Harbor Hotel (where the party is) as a way to celebrate 6 months of marriage. Can you believe it’s been that long?!

  • Planet Fitness January Deal- From January 1 through January 11, Planet Fitness is offering new memberships for a $1 enrollment fee and then $10 a month with no commitment, so if you’re looking for a new, but affordable gym option, you should check out Planet Fitness! Their new Watertown location is really awesome and I can’t believe you could go there for only $10 a month!
  • How to Stop Feeling Guilty– RM sent me this article which I found really interesting. I’m one who feels guilty about way too much. Catholic guilt, we joke. But, something I’m working on is letting go of some of that guilt (along with the need to strive for perfection) so this was a great read.
  • The Melting Broth- Dig Inn is introducing a new menu item this year called the  Melting Broth, which is similar in ingredient quality to the  market bowl, but with a homemade vegetarian broth made from no waste ingredients (those parts of the vegetables we tend to discard for no good reason – they’re full of vitamins). I absolutely love the sounds of this and can’t wait to go try one!

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  • New Spin Bike- As I’ve mentioned, over the holidays I bought a used Schwinn spin bike from The Handle-Bar spin studio and I have to say, we are both becoming pretty obsessed with it. For one, it’s SO EASY to get in a quick sweat sesh, and two, it doesn’t take up a lot of space and is so portable. We are looking to expand our at home gym options/equipment and this was the perfect way to start.

  • Kickboxing Bootcamp– You guys! Next Wednesday (1/11) I am hosting my FIRST MoveWith event at Janji on Newbury Street. It’s a 45 minute kickboxing bootcamp that starts at 6:30pm and I would absolutely LOVE it if some of you would attend if you’re able 🙂 If you’ve been to my kickboxing classes or Seaport Sweat classes, then you’ll know exactly what to expect- cardio kickboxing to start and then finishing with some traditional bootcamp exercises/circuits. I think it’s going to be a blast! Feel free to share with friends and click here to sign up!

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And that does it for me. Besides my company holiday party our weekend looks to be fairly low key which I am REALLY excited about. I feel like we’ve been on the go & traveling so much lately! I hope all of you have a great weekend- I’ll be back next week 🙂

Questions for you: How was your first week back to work/regular life? Have you been to Dig Inn before? Have you ever taken any MoveWith classes at Janji?

2016 Holiday Season Recap

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Last night I went home directly after work so that I could try and get some of the blog posts in my head into my computer. Although I’ve tried to keep my weekend/holiday/life recaps to a minimum, I’ve realized that it makes me happy to share them because along with B2B {hopefully} being a resource for you when it comes to workouts and things like that, it’s also a bit of a diary for me. I love looking back on old blog posts to see what I was up to- the ultimate trip down memory lane!

With that said, we had such a great holiday season that I wanted to share a bit about it!

The celebrations started on the 23rd as that’s RM’s birthday. This year we went to Hopsters and made beer! I’ll share a full recap on that soon, but for now just know it was such a fun experience!

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Next up was Christmas Eve. I had to teach in the morning and it was an absolute blast!! It was a decent crowd considering the holiday, and lots of people sported the red, white and green color scheme which made for one happy instructor 🙂

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Later that day I got a massage and then RM and I hit up Buff’s for a little quiet time before the craziness of Christmas Eve/Christmas started.

This year we went to RM’s mother’s house for Christmas Eve, which was a wonderful experience! As his family is from Italy, we had quite the feast consisting of fried calamari & smelts, Ahi tuna, stuffed quahogs, pasta with lobster, breaded shrimp, seafood salad with octopus, calamari, shrimp, etc. and baccala. Oh, and chocolate molten cake for dessert 😉 It was all as incredible as it sounds!

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It was so fun waking up at home on Christmas morning, especially as our first Christmas as a married couple! We went to Church and then hit the road to Maine to spend Christmas night with my family. We opened presents and drank wine and had a really nice roast chicken meal- it was a fun new-to-us tradition!

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Once we got back to MA, we had a few days of “normalcy” before heading to Florida to celebrate Jessi and Chuck’s wedding. Overall, it was such an awesome trip! The wedding was at The VInoy in St. Petersburg and we opted to rent an Air BNB instead, which worked out perfectly as it was only 2 blocks from the hotel. I was asked to do a reading at the wedding, which was such an honor! I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

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Dress courtesy of Best Dressed!

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Some of us opted to stay through NYE so after brunch RM and I went for a walk then laid poolside with my friends for most of the day. NYE was relatively lowkey as we just hung out at the hotel bar. New Years Day was the most perfect weather and luckily we had a later flight so we got to catch some more sun. And then before we knew it, it was time to go home 😦 I can’t wait until Jessi is back from her honeymoon so we can recap the wedding because it was so wonderful- everything about it couldn’t have been more perfect!

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Phew! What a great holiday season, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to get back to a more normal (to me) lifestyle which includes less drinking and eating out and more making food at home and going to bed at 10pm 😉

I hope all of you had a great end to 2016 and are kicking off 2017 feeling good! I can’t wait to recap 2016- it was quite an amazing year for us 🙂

Wednesday Workout: 15 Minute AMRAP DB Blast

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Good morning! It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, huh? With RM’s birthday, Christmas, Florida and then NYE, I was more than ready for a break from anything other than those things. I have the intentions of recapping the wedding and our Florida mini vacation as well as reflect on 2016, but for now, a workout will have to do 😉

As you’ve probably seen on Instagram, right before Christmas I bought us a spin bike. The Handle-Bar spin studio was selling some of their older bikes for an incredible deal so I had to jump on it. RM was a bit reluctant at first, but now that it’s in our place and all cleaned up, he’s almost as excited as I am. It’s perfect because it doesn’t take up a lot of space, it can be moved around easily and it’s another thing that saves me from needing to go to the gym since I can get some cardio in without even having to leave the house 🙂

This workout started with about 20 minutes of spinning, using the first 6 songs on the song list below:

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Once that was over, I did the following 15 minute AMRAP using just a set of dumbbells:

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Few notes:

  • Man-maker- hold a weight on each hand and squat until the weights come to the ground. From there, jump back and do 1 push-up. A true man-maker means you’ll do a row on each arm, but I skipped that part so after the push-up I just jumped my feet back in to a low squat position, stood up and did an overhead press.
  • Bicep curl -> bend side arm raise- You’ll do the top part of a bicep curl, so start at a 90* arm bend and curl up to your shoulders. When you get back down to 90*, lift your elbows up so that the upper part of your arms are parallel to the ground and your forearms are parallel to each other. Bring them back down and start over.
  • Reverse lunge with OH weight- you’ll just hold a weight overhead while you do reverse lunges.

I gave myself 15 seconds between rounds because the 5 man-makers back to back left me compromising form so I took the 15 seconds to catch my breath and make sure my form was not compromised.

This was such a fun workout- and a perfect way to kick off my workouts of 2017!

Questions for you: What was your first workout of 2017? Do you have any at home cardio equipment? What’s your favorite workout song right now?

Wednesday Workout: 32 Minute Full Body DB Tabata Workout

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Good morning! I know I keep saying this, but how is it Christmas this weekend?! Time is tight this week, but I wanted to pop in and share a quickie workout I did the other morning before work. During busy seasons, it’s not uncommon for workouts to be the first thing to skip, right? But, it doesn’t have to be if you prioritize it as part of your day’s agenda and focus on shorter, more effective “quickie” workouts, as I like to call them.  For me this week, it meant getting up before work to squeeze in my workout. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- tabata format is generally my workout format of choice when I’m short on time and want an effective workout.

This one only requires a set of dumbbells, so it’s really easy to do right in the comforts of your own home! I kept the exercises simple, too, so it’s less to think about which is nice if you do it first thing when you’re still half asleep 😉

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The way this works is you’ll do each a & b exercise 4 times within each tabata round. If any of these exercises don’t work for you, feel free to change them up! Please let me know if you have any questions 🙂

Questions for you: Have your workouts changed throughout the holiday season? Do you like to workout at home?