Tag Archives: friday

Zombie Life and Good Reads

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I apologize for not posting since Monday. You see, I was attacked my a horrible stomach virus at the beginning of this week, rendering me essentially a Zombie (minus the eating human flesh part). Even as I’ve recovered from said zombie-virus, I still feel a little bit undead. Not being able to eat anything but oatmeal for 3 days really threw me for a loop too. I think my brain was starting to starve from lack of nutrients, hence the lack of posting.

But like I said, I’m on the mend, and my brain is slowly starting to function again. So in all of the time I spent this week not eating or lifting, I had plenty of spare time to do some reading. Much of this time was spent on the book Wheat Belly, which you’ll remember was one of my May goals. I’ll write a full post on this book once I’m finished, but I do have to note at this point that I’m not sure if I’m learning or being brainwashed. I think it’s a little bit of both, but honestly I’m enjoying the book so that’s all that matters. Cult be damned. As I said, I’ll elaborate later, but I just wanted to let you guys know how I’m feeling about this book that everyone raves about, now that I’m about 2/3 of the way through it.

What else have I been reading this week? Check it out below. You should read them too.

Obsessed: America’s Food Addiction — And My Own - From Mika Brzezinski on  Huffington Post. Some very thought provoking ideas here, and as it’s just an excerpt from a new book by the author, I’m excited to read more!

What Does The Term “Real Women” Really Say? Truth. ’nuff said.

Do You Really Want That Cheat Day - A great piece by Neghar Fonooni from Girls Gone Strong. Strict dieting vs. just living and eating. You make the choice!

I Used To Have A Blog Dedicated To Lying About My Eating Disorder.  Humor, brutal honesty, and some serious balls. Love this so much.

Fitness: Putting To Rest the Controversies and Confusion – A post from Moon Fitness, regarding the confusion in the fitness world and why different things work for different people.

Should You Use Scale Weight As A Measure of Success?  - A great piece from Tony Gentilcore rehashing why the scale is not usually an accurate way to measure progress.

Also, this.

wolf

With that I’m off to have a hopefully un-zombie-like weekend. Enjoy the sun folks, happy Friday!

Random Friday Thoughts

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It’s FINALLY Friday!

I swear this week has seemed like it lasted about 3 weeks… has it seemed that long to anyone else?

Anyhow, today’s post is full of random thoughts, because that seems to be my MO lately.

Random Thought #1

I haven’t done a good, well-researched nutrition post for you guys in ages. I’m working on one right now, so hopefully I’ll get it up next week! Sorry about that, I seem to be slacking a little bit. I actually have a few that I’m working on, as well as some super duper training posts that I think you’ll really enjoy. Now if only I can get them out of my brain and onto my blog… Hmm….

Yeah… Morans!

Random Thought #2

Screw the front squat. No, no, I don’t really mean that. What I really mean is, screw my right wrist and my complete lack of ability to get in a good, front-loaded barbell position. My back has actually been feeling ok (not great, but no worse either), so I’ve gone back to the back squats, because the lack of range-of-motion in my right wrist is really hindering my arm positioning for a proper front squat. Never mind the fact that wherever I place the bar on a front squat, I either feel like my clavicle is about to snap in half, my right wrist is about to break, or my deltoid is going to be ripped from it’s attachment on the acromion. Let’s just say I need a little help. Anyone have any good front-loaded barbell positioning tips?

Random Thought #3:

I am extremely sad that the swimming portion of the Olympics is over. Missy Franklin probably made me laugh and cry more than anyone this year; she’s just an incredible athlete at such a young age. What an inspiration for other young girls out there! And let’s not forget Michael Phelps (I’m pretty sure forgetting him is not humanly possible). I forced Will to watch every word of every interview with MP, saying every time… “It’s the LAST one!”, or even, “YES we have to watch his medal ceremony, because it’s the LAST time he’ll be up there for this event!” Ah, Michael Phelps, I’ll miss you and your freakishly huge wing span.

Oh, your arms span the entire lane? That’s normal.

Random Thought #4

Will graduated from PA school on Wednesday!! YAY!! I’m so proud of him — it’s been a very long 2 years of school and clinical rotations for him, so I know he’s more than relieved to be done! We had both of our families come to Boston for the ceremony, and to our house for brunch before hand. My plan was to photograph all of the food that we prepared, to show you guys, but I got so stressed about getting everything ready in time that the only thing I remembered to photograph was the fruit salad. Oh well. You’ll just have to trust me that everything came out wonderful too (especially the bacon wrapped dates with goat cheese… DROOL).

20120809-213501.jpg

Random Thought #5

In case anyone’s curious how my workouts have been going lately, I’ll tell you now that they’ve been all over the place. After a couple of weeks out of the weight room entirely (but not without workouts, don’t worry!), I’m back in it to win it. Here’s a little looksie at my leg day on Thursday:

Dynamic warmup to start, of course, followed by some back squat warm up sets, and then the following:

Back Squats 4×5, 1×4
1A: Barbell reverse lunges 3×7 ea leg
1B: Elevated SL pelvic thrusts 3×6 ea leg
2A: Trap Bar deadlift 3×8
2B: Inverse Rows 2×6, 1×5
Glute Ham Raises 3×8
3A: KB double arm swings 3×20
3B: Weighted Walking Lunges 2×40

And all of this was followed by a boat load of foam rolling and stretching of course! Also, I shouldn’t mention this, because it’s embarrassing, but I will anyway: I woke up yesterday (Thursday) SO convinced it was Monday, I proceeded to do the above workout in the weight room without even thinking about it. It wasn’t until about 3 pm that I realized I had already done a heavy squat day… on Monday… my normal squat day. DOH! Oh well, double squat days in one week won’t kill me, right? Although I am awfully sore today.

Yeah, that happened. Major brain moment over here. Maybe the top picture is pretty accurate after all?

Have you ever gone an entire day thinking it was the wrong day?  Will you miss Michael Phelps next time the Olympics come around? 

Inspiration(?) and Good Reads

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Uninspired

Un-in-spired: adjective. not inspired; not creative or spirited; dull or ordinary

While I don’t think anyone that knows me would classify my as dull or ordinary, I am feeling rather uninspired on this beautiful Friday.

No, it’s not Writer’s Block. You should see the amount of drafts I have started and the ideas floating around in my head (actually I’m glad you cant see the ideas floating around in my head). I have plenty of things to write about. Coming up with material is not the problem, it’s finding inspiration to make it readable, to make it worth Your while, to make it good excellent.

For some reason, I’m sitting here with not an ounce of inspiration. So instead of leaving you with some uninspired drivel, I’m giving you a few good reads that I’ve found lately! Posts from folks who have had better luck finding inspiration than myself. Hopefully after this weekend I’ll be back with something that’ll just blow your mind.

That’s right, some of that good shit.

Until then, read these!

4 More Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Kettlebells. - A catchy title and even better post about Kettlebells, from Tom Basson.

Is It Ok To Feel Attractive - From the Figure Feminist. A must read for all you ladies out there.

Stop Weighing on the Scale - From Nia Shanks. This one goes handily with the link above, and is another must read for all you ladies… Especially the scale addicts! (Pay special attention to the before and after picture about halfway through the article)

A Tale of 10 Chin Ups - From Kristen over at StrengthSwag. My girl worked her ass off to reach one of her goals…and lived to tell about it!

Can You Be Overweight and Healthy? - Found this one on Spark People, and it has some excellent points. Read it and mull it over because I have a post coming out soon about this very topic!

And now that you’ve read all of these, please go and do this:

Try this once in awhile.

Also don’t forget about this week’s fitness challenge!! Get outside, get creative, and do a playground workout. There’s no better way to creep out some kids and their nannies than doing bulgarian split squats off the end of the slide! :)  Make sure to send me pictures/descriptions of the exercises you come up with by Sunday evening so that I can include them in a workout post next week. 

And now, I’m off to the beach! Have a wonderful and healthy weekend everyone! 

Fun Facts Friday

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Today is the perfect day for a Fun Facts post. A) Because it’s Friday, and B) Because my girl Meg over at A Dash of Meg has so graciously nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award!

And to acknowledge her nomination, here are the rules:

1. Link back to the blogger who nominated you
2. Paste the award image anywhere on your blog
3. Share seven facts about yourself
4. Nominate other blogs you enjoy for this award
5. Post a comment on your nominees’ blogs to let them know of their nomination

 So here, ladies and gentlemen, in no specific order, are seven facts about myself that you’re dying to know:
1. I was born in Bermuda. My parents were stationed there in the Navy, so that’s where I spent the first year of my life. Unfortunately I don’t posess some sort of freak-of-nature memory so I don’t remember a thing about it. You know that First Class song that goes “Beach Baby Beach Baby there on the sand, from July til the end of September..” Well, rumor has it, I like to pretend that’s about me.
I was born at #4. Paget. Home sweet home. 
2. I once had a fish named Johnny Damon. He was a lovely fish, and I treated him well. Then one day, the real Johnny Damon left the Red Sox to head to the Yankees for a bigger paycheck, and shortly after that, JD the fish died. (I had NO hand in his death, I swear. It was the cosmic forces at work) Can someone forward this on to Johnny Damon so that he can know that his decision to make more money ended a beautiful life? Side note: I also cried the day Nomar got traded back in 2004. I’m not talking just “tearing up” here. I’m talking real tears. Nomar, I still love you.
The lovable idiot before he turned to the Dark Side. And killed my fish. 
3. I took private Flute lessons from age 6 until I was 18. Yes, I was a floutist. No, I do not play anymore. Yes, I was damn good. Band geeks unite!
4. I was born with club feet. And I had braces on my legs, which caused me to army crawl instead of regular crawl, dragging those little braced-legs behind me like a weird seal or something. (Picture Forrest Gump as a baby here). I still have the scars on my shins to prove it, although I REALLY wish I had some pictures of myself in those things!  I’m conscious not to be pigeon toed while walking, but if I’m sitting and not paying attention, my feet almost always still curl in towards eachother. Once a club foot, always a club foot.

You wish you had this in common with young Forrest.
5. My default face is horrible. You know what I’m talking about. The face that you make naturally when you’re not doing anything, not thinking anything, not expressing emotions in any way. Your default face. Well mine is a mixture of raging-bitch and total-confusion. I’ve had people tell me that I look extremely angry and also that I look lost (must be the blonde hair). So if you ever see me in real life, and I look like a mega-bitch or as if I’m lost, chances are that neither are true. It’s just my default face. In all reality though, I’m a very happy person! So I apologize in advance if I give you the stink-eye.
6. I went skydiving for my 28th birthday. And I’m dying to do it again!! It was the most exhilerating experience, and one that is very hard to describe in words. I will say though, that the only scary part is the plane ride up (and that moment standing at the open door before you jump, when you are 100% convinced that this is the end) Once you jump though, it’s all puppies and unicorns. It’s hard to describe, but the free fall doesn’t even feel like falling, it feels like floating. There is nothing like it, and I can’t wait to do it again!
Pure fashion right here. And fancy hats too! 
7. I may or may not believe in ghosts. Call me crazy, but whatever you want to call it — ghosts, spirits, paranormal activity — I believe in it. Although I’m a science-y person, I don’t believe that science can explain everything, especially not some of the stories and accounts I’ve heard from close friends.  (I also may or may not believe that True Blood and The Walking Dead are true life, and that there are most certainly vampires and zombies everywhere.) Just saying.
So there you have it. For better or for worse, you now know me a just a little bit better.
And now for the blogs that I nominate!
1. Kristen over at NoDramama –My Seester! She’s one funny lady :)
2. Kristen at StrengthSwag - Because she’s badass, and we’re taking over the world together.
3. Kristin at Which Way Is Hollywood - A dear friend of mine who puts up some great posts that will make you smile on a long day!
(Apparently I have a thing for the name Kristen/Kristin?)
4. Kristi at Sweetly Fit - Because she posts a TON of great recipes!
5. Sable at Squat Like A Lady - Because she’s Sable. Enough said. And she’s training for her first figure competition, and watching her progress is awesome!
6. Melanie over at Beautifully Nutty - Because she’s sweet and positive, and posts some great recipes!
7. Nicole at Pumps and Iron - Because she mixes it up with fashion and fitness, two things I love. Her fashion posts are always beautiful!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
Have you ever been sky diving? Do you have any pets named after famous people? Do you believe in the paranormal?

Five Foods Friday

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To celebrate this lovely day we call Friday, today I’m going to bring you 5 foods that I’ve been loving lately.

Most healthy, some not so healthy, but all delicious nonetheless. So I just had to share!

Here goes…

1. Life Alive Adventurer Bowl. Last Sunday evening, Will and I were both starving, yet also both feeling too exhausted to even think about cooking. We don’t get takeout very often, but this was just one of those days. We decided to go with a local vegetarian restaurant seeing as we both felt like we needed a fresh, clean, healthy meal to cap of the weekend.

I’ll start this off by saying that I am not a vegetarian, in any sense of the word. I love chicken, steaks, burgers, fish… you name the animal, and I’ll probably eat it. (Well, within reason).  So when Will suggested this restaurant, I was hesitant at first, but honestly too tired to suggest anything else.

What I ordered was the Adventurer, and it was a delicious bowl full of heaven, for lack of a better description.

Ok ok, I guess I’ll give you the actual description: Corn, Beets, Broccoli, dark greens, shredded cheddar, tofu, and tamari almonds over quinoa and brown rice, all in a Sesame Ginger sauce.

Talk about a combination of foods that were meant to be together!  If you live in the Boston area, check out Life Alive Cafe, in Central Square, Cambridge. It is all vegetarian, but even for you meat lovers, the flavor combinations and heartiness of their meals more than makes up for the lack of meat. I will definitely be heading back there to try more of their awesomeness!

2. Smoothies! I know, I know, this goes without saying, but I’ve been making an awful lot of them lately. Three that I’ve been making loving are:

Peanut Butter/Banana (Or a Jimmy Carter)

Almond Milk

1 Banana

1 Tbs Peanut Butter

1 Scoop protein powder

Little bit of greek yogurt to thicken

Strawberries and Cream

Almond Milk

1 Banana

Frozen Strawberries

Fage 2% Plain Greek Yogurt

1 Scoop unflavored protein powder

(Usually I’ll add some Kale into this for some green goodness!)

Cherry Chocolate

Almond Milk

Plain 2% Greek Yogurt

1 C frozen cherries

1 Banana

1 Tbs unflavored protein powder

1 Tbs cocoa powder

YUM. This one is my favorite for now!

Smoothies. SO simple and easy, yet so good, filling, and nutritious.

3. Garlicky Smashed Potatoes

I saw a recipe somewhere (but sorry I can’t for the life of me remember where I found it) for a little bit of a twist on baked/roasted potatoes and thought I would give it a try.  Basically, what you need to do is boil small round potatoes (any of the small varieties will work) until they are soft. Place them on a cooking sheet, and smash each one with a potato masher so that it flattens (almost like a cookie). Brush them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and any herbs or seasonings you like, and bake them in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.  I tweaked the recipe a little bit and added in 3 cloves of crushed garlic to the olive oil before brushing over the potatoes, which honestly was probably the best thing I could have done. For a great, fast, easy alternative to your basic mashed potatoes, try these…but be careful, they’re addictive!

4. Farm Fresh Eggs

We picked up some delicious farm fresh eggs from the farmers market last weekend, and I have been loving them scrambled, over easy, and on some open faced breakfast sandwiches. It really is amazing how much better eggs are when they come from a local farm and from free range chickens. And I won’t get into the ethical and health benefits in this post, but that’s definitely something to take into consideration too.

Eggs overhard on an Ezekial English Muffin…One of my favorite recent breakfasts!

5. Frozen Yogurt of course!! Now that it’s officially warm outside, my cravings for FroYo have increased exponentially. I actually had been craving FroYo so much over the past two weeks that I had it for dinner the other night. Frozen Yogurt for dinner? YES. And it was Damn good.

This is a recycled pic, not my actual dinner the other night…But you get the idea. 

I’m a huge believer in everything in moderation, and within that is the belief that if every once in a while you want to fulfill a meal with something that’s maybe not the best choice, hey that’s ok!! I did end up having to have a protein filled snack later on because my FroYo dinner didn’t really pack a protein punch (no surprise there). My absolute favorite place to go is BerryLine, which is a Boston based company and in my opinion has the best quality of the “tart” type of FroYo in the Boston area, with some absolutely amazing choices for toppings. YUM-O.

So those are some of my favorite foods lately…As I said before, some are healthy, and some are not so much, but even the less healthy options are not that bad for you when consumed in moderation!

Now I’m off for an errands and packing filled weekend because I’m leaving for Europe on Monday!!!! I’ll be back for one last post before I go, don’t worry.

Happy Friday!

What foods have you been loving lately? Do you normally go to vegetarian restaurants? Do you shop at farmers markets and do you find it important to buy farm fresh, organic eggs? How do you like your FroYo?