Fancy Food + Weekly Moves and Grooves

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Thank you to everyone who recommended a bunch of podcasts on yesterday’s post! I’m looking forward to listening to all of them ~~and perpetuating my dependence on technology to keep me from feeling lonely~~.

I love that podcasts can make me laugh out loud. I like laughing. 😀

Since I started my internship at 3pm yesterday, I had a little bit of extra free time in the morning to make some more “fancy” food. Fancy = takes more time.

Breakfast was Frrrreeeench tooooast (said in my pitiful, wannabe-hardy French accent). I dipped Dave’s Killer Bread in a mixture of: 1 egg, a splash of 2% milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Then I plopped the battered bread into a skillet sizzling with butter.

Served with a pool of peanut butter and bananas sautéed in a little more butter. Plus the last of a plain yogurt container with more cinnamon, nutmeg, stevia (yeah, I used it) and the sweetest of mangoes.

For lunch, I had another English muffin sandwich with an egg, avocado, and goat cheese + salad + an unknown number of white cheddar Popcorners + a plum!

Around 11AM I whipped out the crockpot and almost 6 lbs of boneless pork ribs, compliments of Costco. After practically sawing off the excess fat (I left plenty on, but I took off the 2 inch strips and chunks o’ fat), I seasoned the ribs with Bobby’s rib rub and then threw them into the crockpot with some garlic and onion.

8 hours later…

Glamour shots.

You can see my first taste of the ribs on Snapchat.

For dinner I served the ribs on microwave-steamed sweet potatoes with kale sautéed in avocado oil, salt, pepper, a little maple syrup, and spicy brown mustard (<— do this!). Plus a dollop of Greek yogurt because the ribs were kinda spicyyy.

What a blesséd meal.

Since I haven’t shared my weekly moves and grooves in a couple weeks, I thought it was a good time to share again! Still keeping things pretty low impact/intensity and feeling great about it.

I’ve been working on gaining some flexibility and mobility back in some (all) of my tight joints with yoga and stretching. Physical therapy interning has me inspired to stay as mobile in my joints as possible!

Friday: Rest
Saturday: lower body barre
Sunday: 8 min abs
Monday: 60 min yoga
Tuesday: gymnastics warmup + handstands + lower body exercises
Wednesday: 3 mile walk
Thursday: 8 min abs + 60 min yoga

Hip hip hooray for Friday!

So tell me:

What did you eat for dinner last night?

Do you consider yourself flexible?

Weekly Moves and Grooves XXIV {First Run of the Spring}

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Friends!

It is truly therapeutic to be blogging right now. Thank you for being here to listen to me. I hope to be back with a post tomorrow, but just for now, here are the usual…

…!!

Sunday

jog to gym + dynamic warmup + 8 minute ab tabata + leg workout

The tabata was 10 seconds of rest/20 seconds of work:

weighted Russian twists
reverse leg lift crunches
mountain climbers
spider man planks

Leg workout:

angled leg press: 1×20 (90#), 2×7 (180#), 2×7 (200#), 2×5 (210#) // 5 plank jack burpees between each set
reverse lunges: 3×12 each leg (50#) // 12 split jack lunges between each set
pistol squats: 1×5 each leg bodyweight, 4×5 each leg (10#) // 5 burpee box jumps between each set

Ended with lots o’ stretching!

Monday

Active rest // walking and jumping around outside to keep warm during intramural softball

Tuesday

gymnastics warmup + 1000 Rep Workout from Peanut Butter Runner

Jen’s 1000 rep home workout might just be my favorite bodyweight workout ever. It’s fast-paced, has some of my favorite exercises (*ahem* burpees), and it leaves you feeling accomplished! I finished in around 35 minutes.

Wednesday

jog to the gym + dynamic warmup + upper body + stretching

For the upper body portion, I started with a 10 minute EMOM (every minute on the minute) workout:

Minutes 0-3: 5 assisted pull-ups + 10 squat jumps
Minutes 4-10: 3 assisted pull-ups + 20 jump lunges

For the pull-ups, I alternated between regular pull-up grip (palms facing away from you) and neutral grip (palms facing towards each other). I used 70# assistance to help me get up there. I don’t work on pull-ups as much as I did when I was at home, but slowly and surely I will get an unassisted pull-up again!

(My lats were so sore the next day!)

Then I did:

3×12 alternating side and front shoulder raises // 15 tricep dips between each set

After trying a few more random exercises to see what else my body was feelin’, I decided that I just needed to stretch, so that’s what I did for the rest of my time at the gym. Flexibility has been on the back burner recently, but I need to change that! Not only do I want to maintain a little bit of the dancer flexibility in me, but I also want to make sure I can prevent injury through mobility and flexibility.

Thursday

4.31 mile run

WHAT. I ran again!? First run of the spring, folks! It was a “hot” 43F here in Boston in the morning, so I took advantage of the beautiful temperature to go for a run by the Charles River.

I must admit, I loved the run. I turned on the RunKeeper app, but didn’t check it at all during my run, and I think that’s why I loved it so much—I didn’t feel any pressure to keep a certain pace. I just ran for about 40 minutes and enjoyed the peaceful morning and fresh air. I ended up running 4.31 miles with an average 9:10 pace. I’ll take it!

Friday

Active rest

I did 4 sets of 20 air squats, 20 pushups, 20 sit-ups, and 10 burpees throughout the day.

Saturday

12 minute burpee workout + random exercises throughout the day

Yesterday was a long day of homework for me (and it was also blizzarding outside— yay spring), so I did a quick and intense workout in the morning and then took study breaks to do some more plyometrics, pushups, and burpees.

___________________________________________

Cheers to another week ahead! And happy Palm Sunday/Holy Week to those celebrating!

Trying to count the blessings rather than the paragraphs of my essay I still need to write. BANE OF EXISTENCE x100000.

So tell me:

Do you ever run without a Garmin or app telling you your pace?

Did you have active rest days this week?

Weekly Moves and Grooves X {Bodyweight Pyramid Workout}

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Hello!

Before anything else, I must announce the second winner of the Arctic Zero voucher giveaway! I completely forgot that there should be two winners, not just one. My apologies. 😐 The second random winner is… David!

Congrats, David! Shoot me an email at dailymovesandgrooves [at] gmail [dot] com !

Now onto this week’s workouts! There’s a new bodyweight workout in there that I want to share with you all!

Sunday

5 min. row warmup + Julianna’s lower body and ab workout

I wanted to switch up my lower body workout this week so that I wasn’t just doing the usual pistol squats and hamstring curls. Julianna’s workout came to the rescue! Those plank jack burpees are secret quad killers, let me tell ya.

Monday

7 min. jump rope warmup + bodyweight pyramid workout + 1 min. high plank + 1 min. low plank

Hooray for outdoor workouts! It was a gorgeous day on Monday, so I took advantage by working out outside by the river at the “jungle gym” area.

I came up with a pyramid workout before heading out, and it was a fun and challenging one!

I went down, up, and back down the pyramid (not repeating the 50 lunges at the turn around). It took about 25 minutes to complete!

Tuesday

20 min. elliptical + 10 min. treadmill + stretching/mobility

On the elliptical (level 10 incline the whole time):

5 min. level 10 resistance
5 min. level 12 resistance
2.5 min. level 13
2.5 min. level 14
5 min. level 12

On the treadmill: starting at speed 6.5, increased one notch every minute throughout the ten minutes and finished with a sprint.

I was debating with myself for the whole 20 minutes on the elliptical whether I should throw running into my workout or no, but I obviously bit the bullet and just did it. I’m planning on putting together a post about my thoughts on running. It’s a complicated relationship.

My body was crying for a stretch, so that’s exactly what I wanted to focus on this day. Holy smokes, I need to stretch more! Yoga once a week is not gonna cut it. I need to embrace my inner physical-therapist-to-be.

Wednesday

5 min. row + shoulder mobility + 100 burpee workout from Lori and Michelle

My shoulders were also wicked tight, so I did some stretching and drills with a light bar. It felt glooooorious. And then I tightened up my shoulders all over again with the burpee workout. At least they were limber during the workout! I finished the 100 burpees in 10:40. I love that there are four variations of burpees to keep things interesting!

Thursday

Yoga {rest}

Friday

5 min. row + 5 rounds of Jess’ 1000 rep workout + a heck of a lot of dancing at the Halloween party

That 1000 rep workout is no freakin’ joke. If you’re pretty wiped after two rounds, that’s when you know. Jess is iron woman, and even she says that this is a super tough one. I used a 35# DB instead of a kettlebell and a 20# DB for the single-arm thrusters.

Then came the evening when I danced my huge grandma booty off at the Catholic center Halloween party. It was insanely fun!