Ouch!

Met back up with my trainer this weekend to work on a lower body routine and I’m STILL having trouble walking :( But I love it! :)

He has me doing-

3×15 lunges w/8LBS

3X15 ball crunches

3×15 ball hamstring curls

3×15 ball hipups

3×15 ball squats w/5LBS

3×15 bar lunge

3×15 reverse crunches

The squats were actually intended to be done alone but for some reason I was having trouble staying in correct form–so we added the ball and it felt much better! Hopefully I’ll be able to lose the ball soon and manage the squats on my own–always different when someone is critiquing but better than doing them wrong, right?!

Tonight I did 45 minutes of cardio-

20 min Stairs

25 min Treadmill

THIS month will be 1 year that I’m SMOKE FREEEEEE! Can you believe it? I can’t tell you how motivating it is to think about during my workouts, so amazing!

Anyway, after the gym I cooked some veggies-Squash-Zucchini-Onions-Mushrooms

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And I’ve seirously had this INTENSE craving for sweet potato fries the past 2 weeks! Unfort I didn’t have enough time to make the fries BUT I was able to throw one in the microwave for a few minutes and it completely satisfied the craving!

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YUM!

My cocktail for the evening-

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Was a glass of Emergen-C to fight off a cold I may or may not be getting…just in case! Please don’t get sick, please don’t get sick!!!

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OK! I am going to publish this post, get BACK to writing my paper, listen to The Bachelor in the background (guilty pleasure) and then get ready for bed!

Night! :)

How do YOU deal with Stress?

I’ve been on this healthy journey for almost a year now–next month will mark my 1 year anniversary of quitting smoking and turning my life around. But I guess I didn’t consider all aspects of a healthy lifestyle. Of course everyone suffers from stress at times in their life, it’s only normal! However, it’s what you do to deal with it that really matters, and I guess I haven’t really been dealing with it at all because I started to let it effect my health.

My new goal is to RELAX! Sounds easy, right?!?! One would think so, but unfortunately the older I get the harder it seems to be for me to take it easy in general, and especially on myself. I’m constantly on the go and always feeing like I need to please everyone around me–I get lost in it all sometimes and forget that I need time to focus on me as well and figure out what truly makes me happy.

When I sit here and think about it, I see myself in a great place! I’m back in school and finally starting to see some light of the end of the tunnel, I have a great job with wonderful opportunites, I have a wonderful Boo, some amazing people who I can always count on,  the best Dad, I have my health and hopefully a great future ahead of me!

So I’m going to focus on the good. I’m going to BREATHE. I’m going to savor the moments I have with the people I love and ENJOY my life instead of just living it to get to the next day. I’m going to accept that I will encounter MANY stressful situations in my life, I will DEAL with them in a way that I’m hoping I learn to do. I will continue working hard to get to where I want to be but take away the pressure that I put on myself. And ummm did I mention BREATHE?

What do YOU do to deal with stress? Do you let it get to you TOO much?

Moving on-I started seeing a trainer at the gym on the weekends who pretty much rocks and makes me feel like I’ve spent hours in the gym. We’re slowly building a plan for me as I start incorporating weights into my workouts again. So far I have a great upper body plan that I can work on and it’s challenging because I have pretty weak arms to begin with.

So at the gym I did 40 minutes of cardio-

20 min Stairs  

20 min Treadmill

My upper body workout will consist of-

3×15 Chest Press

3×15 Back Row

3×15 tricep kickbacks

3×15 V-Curls Biceps

3×10 Tricep Walk

3×15 barbell pushups (these are to eventually get me doing the real thing)

3×15 barbell bullups

Sounds easy enough, right? GAHHHHH!

This weekend is lower body….wish me luck!

After the gym I wasn’t really too hungry so I roasted some veggies

Broccoli-Brussels Sprouts-Cauliflower and ate it with a Golden Corn Vita Top-

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These Vita Tops are deeeelish and only 100 calories! This one tasted like corn bread which I absolutely LOVE and was only 100 calories!

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And to satisfy my sweet tooth I had a few chocolate covered almonds from Tierra Farm-

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I have to limit myself with these–I could eat almonds ALL day!

Well it’s off to bed I go! Hope everyone is having a great stress-free week! :)

Back to School. Back to School.

I’m aliiiiive :) Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while! I guess you know what that means…..school has officially begun!

Most of my classes are done online since I work full time; however, I AM taking 1 night class this semester! (Oh joy) Actually, we met on Tuesday and it seems like it’ll be a very laid back class with some interesting topics. The dreaded class is going to be Behavioral Statistics-

:( Me and math…we just DON’T get along but I’ve avoided it long enough….it’s time for me to finally get it over with! It’s such a tease though, I mean look at this book-

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SO cute, right?!? But I know what’s inside…and it’s NOT pretty! Wish me luck!

Since this was the 1st week of classes I’ve been running around like a crazy person to class meetings, the book store, etc.–and this RAIN? Gah don’t get me started on that! Not only has getting ready for school been crazy but Iwent from a contractor to full time employee at work (YAY) and have been going to orientations and such for that as well–just a crazy week all around! I made it to the gym Mon and Wed night for some long cardio sessions and the other nights, including tonight, have been me and good ol’ Exercise TV OnDemand, with my good friend Jackie!

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YES I took a picture of my TV but just look at her! If that’s not motivation, then I don’t know what is?! Tonight I did her lower body workout with a bit of cardio worked in and followed that with her new ab video which works my core like CRAZY, love it! I also tried to make use of the ball and my weights that were collecting dust in the corner-

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Well I’m going to go sip on some tea, look over some homework and then head off to bed. Yay for tomorrow being Friday!

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I’ll have some more exciting posts this weekend, sorry for the boring pics, I just wanted to give a quick little update on this busy week!

Oh and since I DO live in San Diego and it’s a part of this blog, I can’t get away without saying how sad we are for the Chargers loss. Well….I’m not exactly the biggest football fan BUT I did try to have team spirit and even got yogurt the night before the game in Charger colors!!!

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There’s always next season!

Stay dry!