Workout Skeds

So how is everyone sleeping?? Happy to hear so many of you are up for a sleep challenge! So here’s how it’s going to work: make a concerted effort to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night (or, really, whatever works for you, this is a general number), keep track of your hours, then I’ll ask for the hours on Monday. I’ll then take all the comments from those who participated and draw a random winner and some them something fun! So you’re not reeeeally winning based on total hours of sleep, I just want to know you tried!

I also want to add how thoroughly impressed I am that so many of my readers already get close to 8 hours of sleep a night. I used to be one of those people who could sleep 10 hours a night no problem (actually, I did for a month the semester my professors went on strike…) Somewhere along the way it became a lot more difficult to sleep in, especially past that 7am mark. Ugh.

I unplugged by 9:30 last night and had my lights out by 9:50. I then woke up naturally at 5:25am – five minutes before my alarm! This morning I did some upper-body weight lifting and cardio intervals at the gym. Usually, my upper-body day is a heavy weight day, but today I went down in weights to focus on my form.

Started with elliptical sprint intervals for my warm-up. I’ve been playing around with recovery time, and have a routine now that’s a booty-kicker.

 

Minutes	Level	Effort
3	10	Easy
2	14	Easy
1	18	Sprint
2	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
1.5	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
1	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
0.5	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
1	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
1.5	14	Recovery
1	18	Sprint
2	14	Recovery

Back

Exercise	Reps	Weight
Wide-grip lat pulldown	12	45 lbs
Seated cable row	12	40 lbs
Wide-grip lat pulldown	8	55 lbs
Seated cable row	8	50 lbs
Wide-grip lat pulldown	6	65 lbs
Seated cable row	6	60 lbs
Wide-grip lat pulldown	10	45 lbs
Seated cable row	10	40 lbs

Chest

Exercise	Reps	Weight
Dumbbell bench press	12	17.5 lb dumbbells
Standing cable fly	12	10 lbs each hand
Dumbbell bench press	8	20 lb dumbbells
Standing cable fly	8	12.5 lbs each hand
Dumbbell bench press	6	22.5 lb dumbbells
Standing cable fly	6	15 lbs each hand
Dumbbell bench press	10	17.5 lb dumbbells
Standing cable fly	10	10 lbs each hand

Shoulders

Exercise	Reps	Weight
Arnold press	12	12.5 lb dumbbells
Barbell upright row	12	20 lb barbell
Arnold press	8	15 lb dumbbells
Barbell upright row	8	20 lb barbell
Arnold press	6	17.5 lb dumbbells
Barbell upright row	6	30 lb barbell
Arnold press	10	12.5 lb dumbbells
Barbell upright row	10	20 lb barbell

Biceps – Alternating Sets

Exercise	Reps	Weight	Sets
Barbell bicep curl	12	20 lbs	3
Incline curl	12	10 lb dumbbells	3

Triceps – Alternating Sets

Exercise	Reps	Weight	Sets
Skull crusher	12	20 lbs	3
Forward tricep extension	12	20 lbs	3

Finished off with 10 minutes on the stepmill and a 90 second plank. My personal training coach is an anti-crunch person much like myself. I’ve always been of the belief that you stabilize yourself with your abs in all your weight lifting moves, so hurting your back by doing a gazillion crunches isn’t really helping the cause. But I do think it’s important to have a strong core, and a little plank work never hurts ;)

Also, I have to add that I was analyzing the form of those around me in the weight area (no one at my gym is safe now!). Surprisingly, the people in the free-weight area were near-perfect, but there were some serious offenders on the cable machines! Oh gosh. It’s actually scary to see how people move with the cable pulleys and have no control over the movement. One guy was definitely hurting his shoulder doing tricep pushdowns, which shouldn’t be the case at all.

Okay, okay, rambling over. Photos!

I remembered my iced coffee this morning. Bonus.

Cottage cheese, yogurt, protein powder, maple extract, cinnamon, frozen berries, cashew butter, Grape Nuts. Got that?

It’s my favourite breakfast these days :)

Cherry dark chocolate protein bars are on the outs.

I have a fun new batch setting in the fridge as I type. Think marshmallow squares ;)

Gigantor salad for lunch.

Same mix as last night! Except with my fave new dressing – watered down hummus.

And I maaay have picked up a little treat so I can have lunch desserts at the office.

I ate two, gotta get the most out of that bag!

They’re no Mini Eggs, but still okay. What is it about Mini Eggs that makes them so magical??

Afternoon snack was something different:

Mini bagels! Two of them are only 160 calories, and I stuffed a little Yves veggie ham in there for a protein boost.

For some reason I was super excited to make this for dinner tonight:

 
Smoked salmon omelette. Maple smoked salmon to be exact. Ohman, I can’t make any of the local sugar bush events this year :( I lovelovelove anything maple!

Speaking of my insatiable sweet tooth, more chocolate followed dinner.

President’s Choice European Dark. It’s okay. I’m a Lindt girl.

Oh! And before I forget, Janetha asked me if I have a workout schedule. The answer to that is no, but I do tend to do the same things. This is what it generally looks like:

Monday: 60 minute spin class
Tuesday: Heavy upper-body weight lifting with HIIT
Wednesday: 50-60 minutes running
Thursday: Rest day or cardio machines (not treadmill)
Friday: Full-body lifting, medium weights
Saturday: Cardio class (like step) or cardio machines (if I miss a class)
Sunday: rest day

Really, the only things that typically stay the same are Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, and sometimes I’ll swap out a DVD on Fridays if I’m out late the night before. I try to balance it out so my arms and legs get to rest a little in-between workouts. While I only have two lifting workouts, my cardio machine and cardio class days always involve a little resistance training. However, it seems what with travel and life, I can’t seem to stick to just one schedule! I’m notorious for changing up proper training schedules. Actually, I don’t think I even followed one for my triathlon :\ Meh, I like to fly by the seat of my pants ;)

 

Question of the Day: Do you follow a workout schedule or take it day by day? My schedule gets a little more complicated in the summer when I try to coincide my outdoor runs and biking with the unreliable weather. Maybe I’ll try running in the rain this summer. Maybe. :P

The Saturday Chill

Happy weekend all! My cheeks are permanently red from all the nice comments on my new ‘do. If only I had a hair dresser to style it for me everyday ;) And might I add, taking emo face shots is a lot harder to do with a DSLR!

So I totally fell asleep watching the Real World last night. I was wiped! Was still up at the usual time today (6am) but at least it gave me some lazy time before step class. Pre-step breakfast: candy oats. 

 
I am an adult, just with the tastebuds of a child.

• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1/2 scoop chocolate whey protein powder
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• 1 tbsp marshmallow fluff
• M&Ms

Step was fab!! First time there since before Christmas!! I felt a little more lost than I normally do, but it was still a fun way to work up a sweat. Maybe a Saturday morning ritual in the making?

Yoga class was immediately after in the same studio and I wanted to stay sooo badly!! But my tummy was having none of it – it wanted food! Next time I will bring a snack to eat in between ;)

Instead I came home and had a homemade protein bar.

I opted for a fancy lunch since I was actually home to make one…

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Mini turkey meatloaf with reduced sugar ketchup.

Mashed cauliflower (with laughing cow cheese, pepper, and garlic powder)

Roasted brussel sprouts. They were the frozen variety though, nothing beats the fresh stuff.

The stellar eats continued with probably one of the best new bars I’ve had in a long time: Honeybar Sweet & Salty flavour. 

Honeybar is a Canadian company that makes natural bars with minimal ingredients. Check these out:

Not bad, right? Even the stats are good – 8g protein, 3g fibre and only 17g carbs. High fat – 16g – but that’s actually preferred for me!

The taste? Amazing. The bar had a light “candy-like” coating over it that gave it a wonderful chewy texture. The addition of the of the crisp brown rice was nice with the peanuts. It tasted like I was eating a candy bar, but without the yucky ingredients. Just the good stuff, straight up :)

This afternoon I got to visit a good friend who just had a baby!! It was so weird to hear her talk about how mommyhood has already changed her. While I declined to hold the little one, I can’t help but turn to mush around babies. It’s their little fists. They get me every time.

I came home to yet another giant salad. I had a lot of greens in the house this week. Eaten out of a giant casserole dish, right Bekah? ;)

 

• spinach
• romaine
• zucchini
• onions
• green pepper
• pickles
• olives
• roasted soy nuts
• grilled turkey breast
• balsamic vinaigrette
• parmesan cheese

N-O-M. Another killer combo. I guess there are worse kicks to be on ;) I just gotta balance out all the M&Ms and marshmallow fluff!!

Dessert/evening snack was another notable one.

1/2 cup cottage cheese, 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tbsp almond butter, stevia to taste, all blended up. It was so decadent. Well, as decadent and chocolate cottage cheese can get anyways.

 

I wish I had more fun things to report, but it was a pretty chill day! It’s actually 9:30pm and I’m headed to bed. Sometimes, sleep is more important than a gal’s reputation, ya know? ;) How bout some fun questions!

1. What was the best thing you ate today? Mine was tied between the turkey meatloaf and Honeybar.

2 Do you have kids? Do you want them? Tell me about it! I’m still iffy about having babies at this point. I’ve always had my heart set on getting foster children when I get older. I feel like I’ve been through enough hardships that I could really help some kid out there get on the right path again…

 

Sunday is kitchen day ‘round these parts. See ya tomorrow with some recipes! :D

Job-a-holic

TGIF!! Well, TGIAF. You see, I can legitimately say that now. I work a Mon-Fri job ;) For anyone who may be new, I used to work every Sat & Sun from 5am-1pm. It was lame.

In other (bad) news, my personal training classes next weekend got cancelled. Insert GIANT sad face here :(

In some ways, I think it’s just life’s way of straightening things out for me. Which is kinda weird, and starting to freak me out a little! I was scheduled to do a three-day course next weekend, then write my exam Feb 7. My original plan was to work at Starbucks till I got word I passed my exam and found work in a gym.

Then, I got offered this new job working communications at my old university until April 30. The next possible PT course runs for two weekends at the end of March, with the exam written on April 16. This is actually a better timeline for me! Again, I’m bummed to have to put it off, but weirded out that things are being all “serendipitous” again.

I’ll say it again – life works in mysterious ways!

Today is my “day off” from working out. Getting up at 6:30 opposed to 5:30 felt like such a treat! It called for a treat of a breakfast…

Custard oats in jar. Topped with candy marshmallow fluff and M&Ms.

The best thing about OIAJ is that you get peanut butter in every bite. I always find myself scraping around the edges for maximum nut butter coating.
 

I remember April saying she weighed one of her nut butter jars before and after putting oats in it – and discovered there was three tablespoons worth of nut butter in there! Truth is, I suck at saving any at the bottom, so my jars are already pretty bare by the time I get to them.

Work was busybusy today!! I’m realizing it’s going to take up a lot of my time…I ended up bringing my laptop home tonight so I can tie up all the loose ends leftover from today. On the bright side, I’m really starting to warm up to my coworkers – good crowd!

I’ve been craving a giant salad for a couple days now, so I finally gave in tonight! (no worries, the chocolate cravings are still existent too).

• LOTS of spinach
• red onion
• mushrooms
• green pepper
• tomato
• olives
• boiled egg
• grilled turkey breast (seasoned in the Kirkland no-salt stuff)
• balsamic vinaigrette

So simple, SO good. Hit the spot.

I came home to yet another bloggie gift today!! I flipped out when I opened it.

 
Some of Deb’s famous nut butters!!! EEEEeee!!! Thank you so much Deb!! Definitely worth the wait ;)

The nut butters include roasted sunflower seed butter (sunflower seeds), spiced hole mole (peanuts, dark cocoa powder, instant coffee, chipotle powder) and spice nutella aka The OMG OMG OMG (roasted hazelnuts, dark cocoa powder, stevia, cinnamon, cardamom).

I’ve stuck my finger in all of them and they are uh-mazing. I see some wasas with hole mole on it as my nighttime snack ;)

 

So remember back in the day (ahem, November) when I was all worried about how working at Starbucks would affect my usual eating and workout routine? Well, now I’m getting the same way about working my first office job! It’s like I’ve gone from one extreme to another. Running around at the Bucks all day, to sitting on my bum writing all day. At least when I worked at the radio station, it was a good mix of the two.

I can say that I feel really good about my eats this week. My working hours are conducive to a good eating schedule for me. My office has no temptations (minus that chocolate covered cherry I ate today) and I always pack nutritious meals and snacks.

But I’m tired. Getting up so early to workout this week has been more of a challenge than usual. Doing it after work is not much of an option for me. Especially if I have to stay late at work, bring work home, or just lead some sort of a normal existence.

Anyways, like all things, it will take getting used to. This is only my first week! I’ll get settled into my new routine. But gosh, this is technically my third job in just over a month. I’m starting to feel it!!

 

Question of the Day: Are you a creature of habit? Or are you a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of person? I’m actually more of the latter. I like not having a structured plan for myself. I purposely drive different routes every day, change the order I do things in the morning, etc. But at the same time, I do crave some form of stability!