Upper Body Burn

Is it Friday yet?  I need it to be Friday now for many reasons, but I’m mainly looking forward to a great girls night out my friend, Melissa, has planned for all of us.  I’m in desperate need of some stress relief this week, and a Friday night dinner, movie (Safe Haven), and drinks with the girls is just what I need.  Therefore, I’m counting down to Friday early this week…I started on Monday.

There is some stress relief for me…I got the results back from my main blood screening, and I’m still cancer free!  Wooohooo!  I’m just waiting on a few minor tests that deal with my hormone levels, but I’m not worried about their results.  Yea to good news!

What are you looking forward to this weekend?

Today is an upper body pyramid workout that is broken up into supersets.  You will do 2 exercises per superset while increasing your weights used and decreasing your reps.  For an extra challenge you can do each exercise for 2 counts up and down, and I’m all about the challenges .  Remember to stretch when you are done!

What is your Wednesday Workout?

Saturday Shares

I wanted to share some things I came across during my internet and Pinterest traveling this week and earlier. I hope you like them, enjoy them, are moved and motivated by them.

This one made me laugh qutie a bit!

This Grilled Balsamic Bruschetta Chicken from the Picky Palate is very good, and quite healthy!  We have been having it at our house for almost a year now, and all 3 of us cannot get enough of it.  I highly suggest you make it this weekend or during the week, and you can quickly throw it all together on a busy evening.  I was out there grilling in 20 degree temps, just so we could have it again this week!

These Personal Sized Baked Oatmeal with Individual Toppings are what we are going to make this morning!  The Sugar-Free Mom is a genius!  We will soon have apple cinnamon and blueberry in the oven!

Sadly the website for this workout no longer exists, and I wish it did so I could share it with you.  I found this upper body workout last month and I love it!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is a must read!  I know I told y’all that I was stuck at the beginning for awhile.  However, as soon as I sat down with a chunk of time to read I was immediately engrossed.  I was up late for 2 nights reading it, and on that second night I was up till 3 am to finish it.  Read this book now!  I would tell you more about it, but anything I write will give away something or foreshadow something in the story line, and I don’t want to ruin it for you.  I’ve also added Gone Girl to my Must Read Before You Die list.

Snowed in or just looking for something to do?  These homemade bath bombs are easy and fun to make, and your kids will love making them too!  Check them out at One Good Thing by Jillie.

Workout Wednesday

I love this quote, because it is very true.  If I have to take off working out on a regular workout day I go nuts.  My body craves the workout, and yours will too!

I started the New Year off with a 5K yesterday.  It was my New Years Resolution Run hosted by For the Love of the Kids.   I had to do my 5K at the gym on a treadmill since it was a wonderful 13 degrees out with crazy winds.  My run started off great, my breathing was perfect, and everything felt great.  Then, at 2 miles my right butt cheek cramped up on me, and to make things even more fun, a couple of seconds later my right boob started cramping (since my mastectomy, my chest muscles like to cramp up out of nowhere).  I can only imagine how amazing I looked trying to nonchalantly massage out my cramps in my boob and butt.  Thankfully there was less than a mile to go, so I slowly jogged to the imaginary finishline on my treadmill.  It wasn’t the greatest run, but I loved starting out the year with one of my 13 in 2013 races and one of my 5 by the 5th races!

Guess what is back in season!?!  Cara Cara oranges and Sugar Belles!!  These are my favorite oranges, and they are beyond sweet.  I have been eating at least 3 a day.  They are just that good!  I highly suggest you head down to your local grocery store and grab some today.

Today is the last day you can enter the Giveaway I have going on along with your opportunity to post questions for Jill Conyers to answer in her guest post on January 7th!

This workout is mostly done on a stability ball, so you will be using your core to help keep your body balanced.  There are links below for 2 new workout moves I have not posted before.  If you are unsure about how to do any of the other exercises, check my Exercise Term Glossary Page.  You will complete 3 rounds of this circuit with 60 second recoveries between each exercise.  Remember to stretch after!

• Stability Ball Cross Triceps Extensions
• Stability Ball Incline Chest Squeeze

Post Christmas Workout Wednesday

Happy Day After Christmas!!!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Our Christmas Eve was pretty tame.  I spent the day cleaning out and organizing our laundry room, and then baking coffee cakes for all the neighbors to have on Christmas morning.  I have to say the laundry room looks pretty amazing!  Just check out the before and after pictures.

I do have an interesting short story from Christmas Eve night…While I was baking, I was singing along to the Rolling Stones’ song You Can’t Always Get What You Want, and my son says, “I haven’t heard this Christmas song before.” I reply, “It isn’t a Christmas song. What makes you think it is?” Web then says, “It is about how you shouldn’t want something and accepting what you are given and need,” Makes sense to me. Guess we have a new Christmas song to add to the playlist!

We also had a great fireworks display put on by our neighbors on Christmas Eve.  We had a ball watching the show, and I could almost pretend that it was warm outside just like on the 4th of July.

Christmas morning we were greeted by Hank and Tilly breaking into the doggie gifts early!  In our house our son never has gotten up early for Christmas. It is always the dogs waking him up, and this morning they were dragging him out of bed.

All 3 of them dug right in to the toys and stuffed shin bones.  They each got a mammoth stuffed toy to de-stuff, and they had them all de-stuffed before night fall.

Santa and the grandparents stocked our son up with Legos.

Santa also brought Bill and I the TRX suspension trainer!  Bill already has done a workout with the system, and he is raving about what a great core workout he got.  My goal is to get a TRX workout in on Friday, so I’ll let ya know how it goes.  I also got some pretty awesome gift cards to Starbucks and Barnes and Noble too!!

My friend Caroline brought over an amazing gift bag full of goodies from Alaska.  One of the goodies was Blueberry Hot Cocoa.  I’ve never heard of blueberry hot cocoa, and I’m dying to try it!  Check out the all natural almond and cashew butter too!

Oh, and of course we had our chocolate croissants for breakfast.  Flakey, buttery, chocolaty, goodness…and I enjoyed every bite!

What did Santa bring you? Did you get any cool workout gear?

It is still Workout Wednesday, so I guess I should be getting to the workout part of this post.  I know I’m in a bit of a post holiday stupor (I just want to lay on the couch and read or watch movies).  However, I know I will be happier after a workout, so it is time for me to get my butt in gear.

Since I’m going to be running quite a bit of races in 2013, and I’m getting my upper body built up for aerial silks in February, I figured I would combine the the two into a workout today.  Today’s workout involves a treadmill and weights (have the weights you will need set next to your treadmill).  You will run or do sprints on the treadmill in between working your upper body out with weights.  This is a great workout to do if you are pressed for time.  Do 1-3 rounds of this circuit style workout (Today my goal is to do 3 rounds).  I’ll follow up this workout with my Get Those Abs workout and some yoga.  Remember to stretch after you are done!  What is your post Christmas workout?

A Friend in Need

Injuries from running and/or training suck!  We have all been there, and we all pissed and moaned our way through our recoveries.  Some of us…myself for example…may choose to attempt to ignore the injury and just keep going.  I did this with a knee injury once and learned my lesson quickly.

My good friend Kim (a distance runner who has already done 3 half marathons!) got some bad news a few weeks ago.  She has two different tears in her meniscus and has to have surgery.  I wish I could go down to Florida and be there for her surgery, because she is quite nervous.  Please send a lot of good and positive thoughts her way…she could really use them.  Also, pray that she stops making her injury worse!  Yesterday she called me up to tell me how she decided to do some squats, “because I had to workout.”  Needless to say she was telling me how much that hurt her.  Did I mention that Kim is a runner too?  Yup, that woman is going to need to be chained down, because I know she is out there still trying to do her cardio.

A quick question for everyone…Has anyone torn their meniscus or knows someone who has?  If so, could you please comment here about it.  Kim would love to learn as much as she can about what they went through before and after their surgery before her own surgery.  Thank you!

Kim asked me to post another upper body workout, so she can do something in the workout department that doesn’t involve her legs.  So, for Kim and anyone else out there with lower body injuries, or if you just want to work your upper body…Here is an upper body workout to keep you happy and keep your lower body injuries from getting worse.  There is a cardio option for this workout that involves using your lower body (don’t do it Kim).  I also have a few other upper body workouts on my workouts page.