Work hard, play hard. My friend makes fun of me for talking about how I can’t do much else except work Monday-Wednesday and how my fun and chores are done Thursday-Sunday, because, “everyone has a job, Alisonnnn.” But I’m new to this and I am TIRED by 8pm when I get home! My friend Zoe and I have also started a 90-ish-day fasting “program” (for lack of a better term) inspired by something called Fiat 90. It’s a list of sacrifices/fasts leading up to Lent and including Lent. It’s not solely focused on food fasting, but more so on life and prayer habits. Zoe and I are doing a ~modified~ Fiat 90 to more feasibly fit our current lives while still challenging ourselves.

(One snack per day means only one snack in addition to my normal three meals! And fasting on Friday is just Lenten fasting — one normal meal and two smaller meals that do not add up to the big meal. By no means is this fasting related to my health choices… I would not fast from food for any reason except for spiritual growth and intentionality.)

Also, we are allowing ourselves to break the fasts on Sundays — the Lord’s Day and a mini Easter every time.

So since we’re working hard and fasting hard during the week, we are playing hard on the weekends and feasting hard on Sundays 🙂 Here is how the weekend went.

Moves. It is difficult for me to work out at the end of my long work days Monday-Wednesday, so I relish the time I get to move and groove Thursday through Sunday.

Thursday: Upper body focused / functional training day

• 3 pull-ups, 3×5 pull-up negatives
• Circuit x3 (8 devil presses, 8 bent over dumbbell rows to deadlift, 10 wall balls, 30 sec double unders)
• Circuit x3 (10 TRX pike pushups, 5 TRX rollouts + 5 TRX tricep extensions [x3], 5 toes to bar)
• Circuit x3 (10 bent over curl bar rows, 10 bottoms up KB presses each arm, 10 lateral DB raises)
• Row sprints as fast as possible! (20 sec on / 40 sec recovery x10)

Friday: BKBX Athletics Class. This class was more intense than I was expecting given the advertisement of this class being about “metabolic recovery.” It consisted of a lot timed circuits including variations on single leg deadlifts, dumbbell snatches, bear crawls, box jumps, split squats, dead hangs, and slider planks. Then FAST burpees between each circuit.

Saturday: Rest because my pecs and lats had never been so sore in my life (or so it seemed).

Sunday: Leggies!

• Increasing weight back squats until 5×3 and then 1×3 and 4×5 1.5 squats (burrrrrn)
• 5×3 pistol squats each leg
• 3×10 kneel to squat jumps

Simple but took lots of rest and my legs were still SHAKING by the end.

Salsa dancing. My friends Celine and Domenica invited me to come salsa dancing with them on Friday night, and I thoroughly enjoyed the spicy moves and grooves as a fun social and physical activity. It was CROWDED, but we had a blast. Besides actually dancing, watching people who are better than us is really entertaining. Fun fact: I learned how to do several types of ballroom and Latin partner dances when I was in middle school when my parents attended lessons.

Perfect. Ben, Casey, John and I went to Yume Wo Katare for ramen and dream sharing. We all finished everything in our bowls, warranting a “perfect” score from the restaurant *bows*.

A truly restorative Sunday. Throughout school, I have been pretty terrible at actually resting on Sundays due to constant studying. But now that I have a little less work to do on weekends, I have more wiggle room to have a truly restorative Sunday, and for that I am very grateful. Yesterday included a workout, Mass, lunch and dessert with friends, hanging out by a fireplace, and drinking hot cocoa. It was a beautiful time that made me feel refreshed for the next few days of hard work again!

Happy Monday, friends! If you have MLK Day off in the United States, enjoy!

So tell me:

Do you find it difficult to have truly restorative weekends / days off? Why or why not?

What was the most fun thing you did this weekend?

Have you ever been to dance lessons/a dance club?