Tag: workout

Wednesday Workout: 4th of July Workout!

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I wanted to pop in and provide you with a fun, festive & fast-but effective- workout that you can squeeze in no matter what your 4th of July plans are! There are no weights required, but you can feel free to use them for the squats if you want. I tried to make the moves as festive as I could, but my creative juices were not flowing as well as I would have liked… oh well! I think this is going to be the perfect little workout to do before heading to the parade tomorrow 🙂 I hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July!

4th of July Workout

They Call it “Hotlanta” for a Reason!

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Hey friends! We’re almost through the work week! When I travel, I am always thrown off on my days, but I think I feel like today is Thursday! I got back from Atlanta around 10:30 last night and was so happy to get into bed. My flight home was less than desirable-the guy in front of me reclined his seat ALL the way and the girl next to me smelled like BO, but tried to mask it with abundance amounts of perfume. Yuck!

Tuesday morning, I got up and worked out before I started my short morning of working from home and then my long afternoon of traveling and working from the hotel. I did 2 rounds of one of my “go-to” no equipment workouts (Got 20 Minutes? workout, to be exact) and 2 rounds of the “15X10” workout that Athena posted on Instagram earlier this week (minus the 10 mins of cardio). Phew! For some reason, this workout killed me. I blame it on the fact that I am not used to working out first thing in the morning 😉

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The flight was productive; I got some blog posts drafted and wrote an article for work. Once I got to my hotel room, I worked until about 6:30 and then spent an hour on some trainings for the YMCA before I called it quits and headed down to the bar for a wine and dinner. While enjoying my wine (Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc- my fav!), I wrote up some kickboxing routines/combos. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about them and it has been keeping me up, so I figured if I wrote them down, it would help (which, it did. Between that and the wine I slept like a baby 😉 ).

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I got the fish tacos for dinner, which were a bit of a disappointment. The menu read “blackened tilapia”, but they came out as fried nuggets of tilapia. Whomp,whomp. I ate all the greens and picked at the nuggets, but they were SO fried that they were dry. Regardless, the bar was a fun place to spend a few hours. It was packed by the time I left, and they even had a live guitarist!

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Ok, let’s talk about “Hotlanta”… holy moly you guys. The HUMIDITY was unreal! I got up yesterday morning to workout before meeting my coworker at the client site and figured that 7am was a fine time to run. I grabbed the hotel running map (how cool is it that the hotel provides these?! Such a great way to promote healthy living even when you’re on the road!) and felt like I walked into a wall of humidity as soon as I walked outside.

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30 LONG minutes and 3 miles later, I finally walked back into the hotel. It was certainly the most humbling run I think I have ever had. I physically couldn’t run at my normal pace or go than a few minutes without stopping. I felt like I had never worked out a day in my life. It was awful, but also a good reminder to appreciate all of the good runs and workouts that I sometimes take for granted. The bell boy handled me this as soon as I walked in and I couldn’t have been happier!

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Now that’s some service! I finished off my workout in the hotel gym. They had Reebok Core Boards which made me SO happy! There is a Reebok Core Board class at my YMCA in Maine and I LOVE it! I played around on that and then did lots of core stuff including stability ball planks and stability ball v-sits (Athena I love these!!) before calling it a day.

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I showered, got suited up and headed to breakfast, which was AWESOME!!! Ok, so I have an issue with buffets. My issue isn’t eating too much, but rather with GETTING too much. I get so excited over all of the options: fruit, yogurt, granola, cereal, muffins, toast, eggs, potatoes, etc. that I want ALL of it. Or at least a bit of all of it. At least I was eating by myself so I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone!

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We were in meetings until about 3pm when we grabbed a cab and headed to the airport. I was traveling with my manager, who is awesome. We grabbed an early dinner and drinks and before you knew it, I was back home! I am working from home today and tomorrow, which is a nice treat.

I hope my BSC’ers had a good class last night! So excited to be back tonight! Hoping the kickboxing routine I made up while having cocktails at the bar turns out to be suitable for teaching 😉

Questions for you: Humidity- can you run or workout in it? When you travel, do you still make time to workout? Favorite “on the road” healthy trick?

Friday Things! All sorts of random things…

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Hi friends! Happy Friday! and long weekend… the best kind of weekend, right?! What do you have planned this weekend?? Unfortunately, I am not going to Figawi, but now that I have seen the weekend weather, I am not as sad about that decision! I am teaching kickboxing tomorrow morning at the YMCA and then my sister, chuck (aka her cat, Charlie) and I will make the trek north. Our family always hosts the Memorial Day BBQ and our friends, the Mahoney’s, always host the 4th of July BBQ (because they have a pool and pool parties are the best!), so I am looking forward to helping my parents host a little get together!

Unfortunately, I don’t have the day off today, so let’s get right to the post so I can get back to work 😉 (I wrote this on my lunch break, so no worries!)

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On Wednesday, Danielle came to my UXF class and then we met up with Amy at Redbones for some delicious, cheap BBQ… can’t get better than that!

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I got lunch from Bee’s Knees yesterday. Bee’s Knees recently opened up a location in Fort Point directly across the street from the entrance into my building for work. I immediately fell in love with it. Literally, if I could design a store, it would be Bee’s Knees. They have all sorts of weird, quirky, “granola” type items that they sell and as a foodie and health nut, I love it! Oh, and they have a nice wine and beer selection, too- told you it was the perfect store!

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(I got this on sourdough because I learned on Sunday that if you can’t order whole wheat or Ezekiel, order sourdough since it’s much easier for our body to break down)

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I had my butt handed to me when I took a Core Fusion Cardio class at Exhale Spa. Seriously, I despise mountain climbers because I struggle so much with them (my shoulders burn!!) and we did enough for a lifetime. But still, I left that class with a smile! I even took one of the moves and brought it to UXF:

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1-legged walk out push-ups. Love!

Speaking of more moves that I have loved bringing into class this week, I learned this beauty from Celeste at the Wellness By The Water Retreat.

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Run the plank!!! so fun.

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My dad’s emails literally crack me up! What is even more funny, is that he doesn’t comment ON my blog posts, but rather, he sends me an email with his comment. So funny.

023Deep Knee Bends= the new way to refer to squats. Wadda ya think of that?! I love it.

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Speaking of Jess, she just sent out her first newsletter, featuring yours truly! As I have mentioned before, Jess and I have partnered together to create “Mommy’s Moves” which will be a series of short, but effective workouts with busy mom’s in mind. This one is just 7 minutes, including my intro, warm up and cool down, and I don’t care how busy you are, you have 7 minutes to dedicate to your health and fitness! Click on this link to check it out. If there are any new mom’s out there reading my blog that have ideas of what they would like to see in a quick workout, please shoot me an email or leave a suggestion in the comments section!

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Look what arrived on our doorstep this morning!

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My sister and I splurged and purchased Jack Rogers for the summer. I absolutely love the ones I bought, but I think they are a smidge too small:(

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This is why I don’t shop online; I like instant gratification so when I order something and it doesn’t fit, it is REALLY disappointing:(

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Try this circuit 4 times through!

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Ok, one more thing. JP sent me this from http://whatshouldwecallme.tumblr.com/post/51016946731/when-i-take-on-too-many-things-at-once. Hahaha totally me!

Phew! I think that is it? If you’re around for kickboxing tomorrow morning, please come! It will be the best way to kick off your long holiday weekend 🙂

Questions for you: What’s the best thing you’ve done or seen this week? Do you own Jack Rogers? Are you a fan of online shopping? Ever been to Bee’s Knees or Redbones?

Wednesday Workout: 6 Moves Circuit + 2 Focus Moves

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Hey everyone! I am trying to get you a workout and a recipe every Wednesday… let’s see how long I can keep it up! As I’ve mentioned, last week I went to one of my favorite instructor’s boot camp class at the Wellington BSC. I love her because she is a super tough instructor, but not tough just because we do the same move for a million reps, but rather, because she is always bringing in fun, new moves and is always changing it up!

Since I loved the class so much (and it totally kicked my butt!!), I decided to take the general format and bring it to my UXF Burn class at the Central Square BSC. I changed up some of the moves, but otherwise, it was pretty much the same!

6 moves circuit + 2 focus moves

The idea was that you keep the 2 focus moves (focus/core moves because they are full body exercises that get your heart rate up without having to do cardio) at 60 seconds each as your starting point. The whole class stays together for these. For the circuit moves, people were able to go more at their own pace. I did make 2 of the rounds be 30 second intervals for the 6 moves instead of 15 reps to keep everyone together, but for the last round, I timed them to see how quickly people could finish. Congrats to Graciella for finishing first!! 🙂

Here are some notes on the moves:

  • Heavy weighted squats- we used a barbell here (like in BodyPump) and I encouraged people to go much heavier than normal!
  • Deadlifts- we used the same barbell for these as we did for squats
  • Squats w/weighted chest push: hold 1 weight (or a medicine ball!) with both hands at chest height. As you squat down, push your arms out to a full extended position. As you rise up from your squat, pull your arms back in. This is great for your shoulders and chest!
  • Frogger Burpees: take 1 big jump forward, and then bring yourself down into a REAL burpee, meaning your whole body is on the ground. Push yourself up, jump to turn around, and do a big frogger jump back to your spot (and then go right into the burpee). Holy sky-rocketed heart rate from these!

To finish off class, we did an Ab Tabata consisting of the following 2 moves: Mountain Climbers and Plank Jacks. I also threw in some more of my favorite ab moves (leg lefts, in and outs, swimmers, etc.). And then, because I wasn’t ready to quit just yet, I made them do a “Power Blast”, to leave class energized and awake! Our Power Blast was a sumo squat straddling the bench, and then jumping both feet up onto the bench- 20 reps. I wanted to do Donkey Kicks over the bench, but we ran out of time:(

I hope you like this workout! Let me know if you need clarification on any of the moves! I am totally loving REAL burpees lately, so class members, take that as a warning 😉

Questions for you! What moves are you loving right now? What is your “go-to” hard class to attend? Ever done a frogger burpee?

Mother’s Day Recap

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Hey everyone! I know it’s a little late to be posting a Mother’s Day recap, but better late than never, right? Even though my sister wasn’t home to celebrate Mother’s Day with us, mom, dad and I still had a great day!

We decided to not rush around to make it to the 9AM mass and went to the 11AM instead. Since we were planning to have a brunch and didn’t want to eat at 3pm, we did all the prep work for the meal prior to church.  Dad got the potatoes and onions going, mom pre-cooked the sausage and I got all the ingredients together for the mini Quiche’s.

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After church, mom and I went to the grocery store quickly and then came home, popped some bubbly and got to work on the getting the brunch together.

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Mom FINALLY let me give her the rest of her Mother’s Day present. I am really bad at surprises and keeping things from people. As soon as I buy something for someone, I want to tell them about it or give it to them. Mom, on the other hand, likes to wait. So, I waited. From Friday to Sunday. Even after a couple of wines I still couldn’t get her to give in and open it! Alas, Sunday came and she said it was time!

When I was in NYC, we went to Chelsea Market and to the Chelsea Wine Vault. As soon as I saw this “wine tote” I knew I had to get it for mom. Mom and her friends go to the beach at least a couple of times a week in the summer and always bring wine or champagne. They try to be discreet by using Dasani bottles for their wine, but I think we all know that’s not discreet at all. Neither is this, but it’s pretty darn cute!

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Brunch was absolutely delicious!! As much as I love breakfast and breakfast foods, I never take the time to make really delicious breakfasts, so Sunday was a nice treat!

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YUM! We had lots of leftovers, so after we finished, I helped mom pack them up, aka I packed up stuff I wanted to take home with me:) I love when I get to go “grocery shopping” at my parents house! Also, to all my fellow organizers out there (ahem, Athena), I have to show you my parents Tupperware closet. Yes, you read that correctly, they have a closet for all of their Tupperware. I am SO jealous!

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One day, maybe I’ll be able to have one of those. Talk about making it easy to “grab n’ go!”

That about sums up the day! The sun did come out in the afternoon which was a nice surprise. Mom sat outside and read and I joined her out there while I did some arms and core workouts! I packed up to leave around 4:45 and was greeted with an apartment that did not have hot water. Lovely. Oh well. Could’ve been worse!

Questions for you: Are you super organized when it comes to putting away Tupperware and pots and other things like that? Favorite beach beverage?