Tag Archives: Kombucha

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Fitness Friday: Hard Workouts

Thursday Workout: 3.5 miles: 37 min 14 sec, BODYPUMP!!!!

Friday Workout: TBA!

 

I got to go to a BodyPump class last night!!!!! I couldn’t make any other classes this week and it had been over a week since my last class! I planned on running 3-4 right after school at a nearby park and I got 3.5 miles in before going straight to BodyPump!

 

Look at those 8′s! Well, 8:54 and 8:47 but still fast for me. I haven’t ran outside since Sunday and had a sudden burst of energy when I started my run. I decided to really push myself and run hard for the first 2 miles. After I finished 2 miles, I walked for .25 trying to catch my breath then ran comfortably for the rest of mile 3. Then I walked half a mile to finish up the run so I could let my legs relax before BodyPump!

BODYPUMP!!!!! It kicked my butt! I forgot how hard it is when you’ve taken time off! The squat and shoulder track killed me and I was sweating up a storm. As soon as my favorite instructor put the music on in the beginning of class I instantly got excited. I LOVE this class so much. Have I mentioned how much I love BodyPump? :)   I probably won’t love it so much Friday when I’m sore from running hard and going to class. ( I wrote this post last night!)

After class I was so tired and hungry and decided to stop at the grocery store across the street for a treat. I thought I deserved it!

My favorite two flavors of Kombucha!!!! I thought I deserved a treat so I picked up a few :)

I feel like I really pushed myself Thursday night by running hard and going to BodyPump after taking time off from it. I was really proud that I could do these two workouts after such a longgggg week at work! I’m ready for some sleep this weekend!!

What workouts push you the most?

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Positive Splits

Saturday Workout: 5 miles (56:19)

I’m in a surprisingly good mood after my 5 miler this morning in 86 degree heat and POSITIVE splits. That’s right, I got increasingly slower as the heat got to me… and I’m okay with it.

A few mistakes I made this morning:

#1: Don’t sleep in – I didn’t start running until it was almost 10:30! The sun was killer the whole time and I didn’t get much shade.

#2: Don’t eat high fiber cereal for breakfast – I thought that it would just be a short 5 miler so it wouldn’t matter, but my stomach was in knots the whole time

#3: Don’t start running at your race pace for your first “long run” when you know you won’t be able to hold it the whole time – there was the problem with the positive splits. It was way too hot and I thought I felt fine at the beginning. Once I got to some hills, I ended up walking more and more as the heat got to me.

#4: Bring a cell phone in the heat – Which is more dangerous, running a 20 miler in April or a 5 miler in July? I always carried my phone with me for my long marathon training runs in March/April in case something happened. I still think this is a good idea and I carried my iPhone with me in my SPIbelt. BUT, just because I was going for a short run it was in crazy heat that I am not used to and I felt really lightheaded when I was 2 miles away from my house. I would have rather called someone to get me and finished the run on the treadmill.

I think the main reason I’m not upset at all over this run is that I know it is just the heat for me. I have always preferred running in cold weather over hot and I know as soon as the fall temperatures come I will be running so much better outside. I also know that if I would have ran this 5 miler on the treadmill I could have easily kept a 9:20 pace the whole time. I can’t wait for colder weather!

Smoothie time after my run!

My smoothie was actually a nice chocolate pink color from the raspberries. I also included a scoop of this…

OH MY GOSH! Where has this been all my life??! I see Peanut Butter & Co on a bunch of blogs and finally saw it at my grocery store. I had to decide between PB honey or PB chocolate… obviously this won. It is amazing. I want to put it in smoothies, bananas, sandwiches, everything! Obsessed.

Yesterday, I took a break from blogging to do important things… like get my hair done. :)

I LOVE my hair dresser because she is one of my friends that I graduated HS with and she is amazing.

My hair <3′s Rachel and her awesome skills. I told her we look like hair twins right here. I promise she can do way more than long blonde highlighted wavy curls :) I did get an inch or so cut because it was getting out of control and I have to get into teacher-mode in a few weeks!

So as I blabbed on and on about blogging Rachel gave me hair products to review! Free hair products???? Yes :)

Love Wella products and I can’t wait to actually use professional shampoo/conditioner at home.  I’ll admit, I’ll pay to get my hair done but I don’t always spend the $ for shampoo/conditioner at home.  This will be a nice treat for my hair :)   I’ll let you know how I like using the Shampoo, Conditioner, Deep-conditioner, and finishing spray when I wash my hair today! Yes, I’m still sitting in my sweaty nastiness from running.  Maybe a little hair tutorial should be in the works for how I curl my hair? It is really easy and I get comments on it when I post a curled hair picture. I tend to curl it more than straighten because I think it is faster and it always looks good and almost the same the next day if I don’t wash it.

Oh yeah, still obsessed with this stuff. Thanks for introducing me to this expensive tea habit Jen :)

#1 favorite is the ginger flavor. It is amazing. Liked cranberry and #2 favorite would have to be Katalyst Kombucha’s berry flavor.

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Guacamole Salad

Wednesday Workout: 20 minute yoga, abs
Yesterday I had meeting/stuff all day with the rest of my music department at school and I have another day of meeting-ish stuff today.  It is nice seeing the other teachers and being in the air conditioning!! It was almost 100 yesterday and is supposed to be 100 today and tomorrow! Crazy! After watching Barefoot Contessa on Food Network on Tuesday (she’s my favorite) I wanted to make her Guacamole Salad for dinner.  I went to the grocery store after school and braved the heat for a yellow pepper, red onion, avocado, black beans and grape tomatoes.

 

Ina’s Guacamole Salad

 

Ingredients

  • 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
  • 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and 1/2-inch diced
  • 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 cup small diced red onion
  • 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno peppers, seeded (2 peppers)
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
  • 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2 limes)
  • 1/4 cup good olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
  • 2 ripe Hass avocados, seeded, peeled, and 1/2-inch diced

Directions

Place the tomatoes, yellow pepper, black beans, red onion, jalapeno peppers, and lime zest in a large bowl. Whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper and pour over the vegetables. Toss well.

Just before you’re ready to serve the salad, fold the avocados into the salad. Check the seasoning and serve at room temperature.

 

My salad! It was SO good and really easy. I will definitely make this again and maybe add corn and another kind of pepper to the next one! I also made Ina style shrimp by throwing them on a baking sheet and drizzling with olive oil, salt and pepper and in 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes. Seriously easy and always perfect.

After dinner and my Kombucha :) I did some abs and yoga in front of the TV (Yankees game!) to get a workout in because I did not feel like getting on the treadmill or going outside in 95 degree heat.

My yoga mat :) From Target and I love how cute it is!

I followed something very similar to this for my TV yoga session and added in some warrior poses. I love how they open up my hips and stretch me out. I’m a little sore from Pump Tuesday night because I only did it once the week before! I’m looking forward to going to the new release again this Saturday :)

Oh yeah, I’ve been eating my overnight oats for breakfast the past few days! They fill me up SO much and I bought  different type of organic quick oats yesterday to try out soon. The oats in this picture are 1/4 cup = 150 calories (which I think is great). The new ones are 1/2 cup = 150 calories! I can’t imagine eating 1/2 a cup of oats because I’m always stuffed!

Have a good day!!

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What ever happened to Pilates?

Wednesday Workout: 30 min. abs class, 1 hr spin class

I taught music lessons from 9:30-12:00 today and was happy to finish a little earlier today and relax. On my way home, I stopped at our local health food store that I went into for the first time a few weeks ago.


I knew what I was going there for…

I had the Bliss-Berry flavor before, but tried Katalyst’s Ginger Devotion today and it was delicious. This is turning into an expensive tea habit. BUT, it is the same price as a Sheet’s frozen soy chocolate mint mocha (and a lot less calories!) and much healthier.  Every once in awhile should be okay! It is strange how the first time I tried this tea I didn’t really like it, but now I think it is amazing and love the taste of it! I ended up spending 15 minutes talking to the owner of this health store today about the kombucha. She said they used to sell the GT brand but since it is from California, they were always racing to make sure it didn’t expire before it was sold at the store.  This brand is based out of Maine and is easier for the store to keep. I told her I think it tastes just as good as the other brand!

I also picked up two more of these :)   I really like the honey PB flavor but just can’t bring myself to buy an entire container when I still have that nasty Target one and a full jar of yummy PB I need to finish!

Pilates!

How did I forget about pilates while I’m on this cross-training kick to make me a stronger runner? I thought about this today when I saw a guest blogger on The Fitnessista. Cassey @ Blogilates is this amazing and gorgeous pilates instructor that posts all kinds of awesome videos on her blog!! Like she wrote about, I also got on a pilates kick when Windsor Pilates commercials were shown all the time (early 2000′s I think?) I bought this dvd and a few others from Target and fell in love with Jennifer Kries’s videos!


This woman is seriously flexible and has a perfect body.

I did these videos all the time in high school when I was a cheerleader :) It helped with my flexibility soooo much and made my core feel so strong. Why did I stop? I loved pilates!

In the past year or two I’ve picked up a few yoga dvds…

None of these videos are as great as the ones on YogaDownload.com

After I started running 2 years ago, all I heard about was yoga and how it was so great for runners…and it is! But why did I forget about pilates? It also has great benefits for runners, but it seems like so many bloggers practice yoga.  I was SO happy to find Cassey’s blog today to remind me that I should bring it back.  I will only stick with workouts that I truly enjoy.  That being said, I did another spin class tonight and didn’t like it. My foot cramped up big time (weird??) and I got off the bike, filled up my water bottle and walked around until it felt better.  I’m sure spinning will go away after the summer and I’m okay with that.  I know it’s great for my body, but I just don’t enjoy it that much.  I’m sure it will be something that I do every once in awhile once the school year starts up again, but I’m okay with not going every week.

I can’t help it… I LOVE running (even though running and I had a bit of a fight over the weekend), BodyPump, yoga and I really liked pilates in the past so it is making a come back!!

What are your favorite workouts??

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Yum Yum Kombucha!

Thursday Workout: 3 mile run on TM (27 min 40 sec) and BodyPump Class

Mile 1: 9:27, Mile 2: 9:11, Mile 3: 9:02

I was VERY happy with my treadmill workout tonight! My friend Kim was coming to BodyPump class with me by using one of my guest passes.  I wanted to get 3 miles in before she got to the gym, so I pushed myself at the end to finish in time!

BodyPump was awesome tonight and I am really loving my Thursday night instructor. She looks better than the BodyPump poster girls and she really motivates me…(to have muscles like her’s!)

 

We tried to get a nice bathroom pic before class :)

Made a shake after class with a scoop of this and 1/2 a scoop of chocolate protein! Hopefully I will feel much better tomorrow and my recent soreness was because I wasn’t taking recovery shakes!

Earlier today, my Mom and I went on a few errands!

I always wanted to stop in this Health food store and we did today!

I found Justin’s nut butters! I see these on so many blogs and was very excited to find the peanut and almond butter! I got the sample packets to try out before I decide which jar I want to buy. (They are kinda expensive…around $11 a jar) I also tried the dark chocolate peanut butter cups…so good!

Chocolate-covered sunflower seeds! mmmm

Then I found this little beauty… Katalyst Kombucha-Bliss-Berry! My mom and I split this tea and it was SO GOOD! I tried another Kombucha before and I could barely get it down it was so strong.  Mom wasn’t sold on it, but I LOVED this tea!!!!!!

Raspberries from the local orchard!!

My lunch! I was so hungry I threw beans, strawberries, egg and more into a salad!

Getting ready to go to dinner with my parents and Colby. MY FAVORITE MEXICAN RESTAURANTTTTT :)