Sunday, April 17, 2011

One Reason Why I Love the Blogging Community

A few hours ago I really wanted a slice of cake. My sweet tooth has been rearing it's head for the past day or so and my pecan cracker with dark chocolate almond butter fix was not cutting it. Since it was dinner time, I decided to make a Hawaiian Pizza using this recipe that I have been all but living off for the last few days. It works very well for those days when you have little time to prepare a well rounded meal. The first two times I made it was under conditions of extreme hunger so they were quickly devoured. Today I waited long enough to snap a pic :-).

Hawaiian Pizza
The cure for my sweet tooth came from these Amazeballz. Gina (the fitnessista) swears by them and I must agree with her. They definitely taste like cookie dough and provided the baked goods taste I was craving without all the sugar. Another quick and easy winning recipe.

Amazeball!
If it were not for these and other health and fitness bloggers, this weight loss journey could have been a lot harder. I am always copying tasty healthy recipes into my OneNote program for easy referencing. This recipe for Maple Glazed Salmon changed my life. It makes a yummy dinner with veges on the side in less than 15 minutes. Check out the Resources page for more websites with great recipes.

Something to read: 101 Revolutionary Ways to be Healthy (scroll over each one for a description or view the full list here.) My favorite is #16: "Learn the skills Healthy, fit people have learned how to be healthy. Learn those skills, practice them, and you’ll be healthy, too." What's your favorite?




Quote of the Day

Source
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." – John Quincy Adams


Thursday, April 14, 2011

Spring in2 Action Challenge Wrap up

This challenge went by in a flash but I am proud to say that Team Unstoppable rocked it! I missed last week's update but I will put the numbers in this post. The last two weeks have been busy as usual. I finished up TF/CE and entered the Beachbody Million Dollar body contest (pls. cross your fingers that I make it to the voting round). After that I took a few days off of working out. They were not planned, I was just too tired and my feet hurt too much at the end of those days to get a workout in. I got back into it on Sunday and became a Yogi again :-). I went to Bikram on Sunday, then did Zumba on Monday, and yesterday was a rest day.  Today I did Hip Hop Yoga and Zumba. I love getting out of the house for workouts after a six month long program at home. The weather is also becoming warmer so that make it even nicer. The only disappointment so far is that I planned to start running last week and that hasn't happened because I am still having shin pain. I decided to take it easy for a while rather than risk aggravating my old stress fractures.

My eating is still so-so. My appetite has been weird and I've been eating outside the house more often because I haven't made time to cook. I need to get back on track in this area. The only other notable thing I can think of is that I have been extremely achy these past few weeks. Between muscle soreness, tiredness and bone pain, I was hurting much more than usual. I had another foam roller session a few days ago so hopefully all this pain will go away soon.

Okay now for the numbers:

Beginning of Challenge: 199
Week 5: 194.2 (+ .8 from previous week, probably due to stress)
Week 6: 193.0 (-1.2 from previous week)
Total for the challenge: -6.0 lbs!!


Woo-hoo! I think this is the most I've lost in a Shrinking Jeans Challenge so far. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, my teammate Kristy also did an awesome job. She lost over 10 lbs! Way to go Team Unstoppable!!


Sunday, April 3, 2011

Hip Hop Yoga and Foam Rolling

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to my new readers!

Last Wednesday I tried out a new class that I wanted to tell you all about. I bought a Living Social deal for a local Yoga studio and while perusing the class schedule, I saw a listing for Hip-Hop Yoga. I just had to see what the class was all about. I got to the class a little late but at the beginning we were just going through various Yoga poses. The instructor had a R&B, Pop, Rap mix playing in the background so that was the first thing that was different. It definitely gave the class a more upbeat vibe. As we progressed, we still did poses but instead we were now holding them for shorter periods of time. We would get into a stretch and alternate between two different positions. There were a couple of finger snaps and "hands in the air" thrown in there and the poses were slowed down versions of popular hip hop dance moves. The class ended with a long savasana. Overall I liked the class and I will go back (I have four more classes left in the deal that I bought). It kept my interest and got my heart rate up quite a bit during some of the moves. There was just one problem...

The next day my legs hurt soooo bad. Now, this class seemed very harmless; as I said before, my heart rate increased, I got my sweat on a little but nothing seemed super challenging or painful so why on earth were my calves and hamstrings DONE the following day? I mean, I was doing some cardio and I was hurting so bad I was praying for the DVD to be done. The only reason I didn't quit was that I was too determined to finish it. I followed that cardio session up with a date with this bad boy:

My Foam Roller
I bought this foam roller a few months ago and had never used it until last week. I went to You Tube to look up some exercises for calves and hamstrings and then threw in the IT band exercise for good measure. I cannot tell you how much this helped. I mean I was dang near crying while I was rolling out the different muscle groups (especially my IT band which I didn't even know was tight) but the next day I was good to go and had minimal pain. After a second session, I am now pain free. This foam roller is truly like having a masseur/masseuse on hand- I think we will become great friends.

Learn more about Foam Rolling or Self Myofascial Release here.

Have you tried or considered using a foam roller? Have you been to a Hip-Hop Yoga class? Please share your experience below.


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