15 | August | 2013 | Daily Moves and Grooves

Hey guys!

I hope you had a lovely Thursday!

I forgot to ask–how do you like the new banner up top? I thought it would be nice to make my own to give the website a little personal flava.

Mine has gone by really fast, but it’s felt like a nice balance between work and relaxation. We went to a nice Mass at noon for the feast of the Assumption, and then it was lunch time for me!

Chicken sandwich, carrots, apple, and creamy sriracha dip

I just improvised for that sriracha dip since I wanted something creamy to go with the sorta dry sandwich. It’s just one plain Laughing Cow wedge mixed with about a teaspoon or so of sriracha. Did the trick!

My legs are SORE from yesterday’s workout, so this fabulous tool came to the rescue:

The Grid foam roller AKA cylinder of pain and joy.

My mom bought the Grid foam roller on sale from Groupon, and it is awesome. The grooves all over the foam roller (hence, “the grid”) help to really massage deeeep into the muscle tissues. It can hurt a lot when you’re sore, but the next day, my muscles feel so much better. I might want to even try foam rolling before workouts more often, since it seems to do wonders for Paige (look at #3 in her post).

The whole thing is supposed to be like a hand– the small squares simulate finger tips, the long rectangles simulate fingers, and the largest squares simulate palms. I’m not sure it feels like a hand, but I think it’s better off that way… I don’t want really want to think of hands rolling out my legs. Freak-ay.

Here’s a great infographic on foam rolling in case you’re not familiar with it!

Moves

After discussing our two gym options, I decided to stick with our previous gym, while my mom is still deciding which gym she’d like to join.

I focused on upper body today since I’m waddling like a penguin. After 20 minutes on the elliptical to shake out them legs and some painful stretching, I did Julie’s upper body superset workout with some slight changes.

Training upper body has always been a challenge for me, so keeping up with short rests in supersets was tough! I ended with some core work.

Dinner

Doesn’t look all that appealing, but it was delicious!

Lots o’ leftover grilled chicken, tofu, and onions on spinach + avocado toast with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Avocado toast is so, so good. If you have not tried it yet, you must! I think I sing a happy avocado toast song in my head every time I make it. (I did post an Instagram photo of avocado toast yesterday. So yes, I did have it again tonight. 😀 )

I’ll rummage through the kitchen for snacks later. Heh heh.

See you tomorrow! I think I’ll be going on a hike with Ben. Woohoo!

So tell me: Have you ever foam rolled before? If so, do you like it? Are you a fan of training upper body? Do you like avocado toast?

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Good morning!

For any Catholics out there, Happy Feast of the Assumption! “Who is this that comes forth like the dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as resplendent as the sun?” –Song 6:10

Yesterday felt like quite a productive day! I made a to-do list on the Reminders app on my iPhone (love that app) to map out my general duties for the day. If I don’t make a list, I end up pondering things I could/should/would do and often end up getting distracted…with blogs.

Although I still did spend quite a bit (…a lot) of time looking at blogs anyway (procrastination is the death of me), my list kept me on track for the most part. There’s just something about checking off another task on your list. With school sneaking up on me, I feel like there is so much more to do all the time!

It’s really not necessary for me to put breakfast, lunch, and dinner on there. But more things checked off = greater sense of accomplishment.

Moves

My mom and I went to the gym together last night for the first time in about three weeks! We tried a new gym (for a free first-time trial) that is a lot cheaper than our previous one, but we’re still weighing the pros and cons of each gym before we make any commitment. We decided that the ability to get in a good workout, convenience, and price are our main priorities. Either way, we both got our sweat on!

While mom did the Zumba class, I explored the main area of the gym. I started with 20 minutes on the elliptical and then hit the weights for a leg workout! (Click on the links to see demos of the exercises)

3 rounds of each superset:

15 single leg deadlifts (each leg) + 20 surfer jumps

15 Bulgarian split squats (each leg) + 20 jump lunges

30 second one-leg weighted bridge (each leg) + 10 pushup burpees with tuck jump

My legs were trembling! I probably took longer breaks than a superset entails…eh, it’s ok. As always, thanks be to God for the gift of exercise anyhow!

Then I wandered around dabbling with machines that I usually don’t use while I waited for my mom–the stair master, assisted pull-up machine, rowing machine, and some others.

During this time, I learned two things:

1) I have to look at my feet while using the stair master. Otherwise, I step too far and my shoes get stuck in the hinges. Rockin’.

2) Rowing is legit.

I’m not sure what I’ll do today. I guess it depends on whether we join this new gym or not!

Breakfast

The temperatures are dropping slowly but surely in many states it seems, and New York is no different! Thus, hot oatmeal feels much more appropriate than when I ate it in 80 degree Florida heat. Weather doesn’t keep me from my oats. 😉