Insane Recovery

Hey, all!

I just finished the "cardio recovery" workout for Insanity, more on that later. Today I enjoyed my last free afternoon before lab joining/house buying/wedding planning starts to own my life in June. Seriously - I go wedding dress shopping on June 1st, make an offer on a house on the 2nd, and join my thesis lab on the 3rd.  It's all downhill from there.

I still need to finish cleaning the apartment for mom's visit tomorrow. B has a well-timed stomachache so it looks like I'm on my own for this one. Why are there always dishes? Why is there always hair on the bathroom floor? Why hasn't the dog learned how to vacuum?

Alright alright, less complaining and more sweating.

Workouts
Arms routine 1 - I'm going to do a post on this soon. I hate hate hate lifting arms. I'd rather do squats and deadlifts all day erryday.

Cardio "Recovery" - I use the quotes because this workout set my muscles on fire. I guess it is more joint recovery than actual whole-body recuperation and stretching, because a lot of this video was comprised of isometric (static) exercises. I am quickly rediscovering my dislike for Tania. Couldn't they move her to the back row for at least some of the videos? Why is she ALWAYS THERE? Rage rage rage. I guess I lied when I said I was done complaining, sorry not sorry.

 GOOD FOR YOU, TANIA

Food
Lots of random food today! Breakfast of oats and blueberries, lots of coffee at a meeting, then I stopped at the farmer's market on my way home. Very dangerous, I'm glad I only had 20 bucks with me. I had a beautiful fresh egg for a midmorning snack, then some leftover pork for lunch. Afternoon snack was another farmer's market find: vanilla latte greek yogurt from the local dairy in collaboration with the local coffee roasters. SO amazing. Celebrated my yogurty victory with an orange creamsicle, then had a spinach hemp smoothie and another egg for dinner. I was planning on lentil sloppy joes but B was really sick and I didn't want to cook for one person and feed the dish monster that's forming in the sink.

On the topic of farmer's markets: I love them. Unfortunately, my current budget won't allow me to buy 100% of my produce there. The two things that I try to always get locally, despite the expense, are honey and eggs.

Local honey gives you a better chance of eating the real deal (not toxic corn syrup from China). It has been widely reported that local honey can help alleviate symptoms of seasonal allergies, but I have seen peer-reviewed articles with conflicting and unconvincing reports.

Free-range chicken products  have a much better nutritional profile than the conventionally farmed varieties, and I like to buy them locally because I don't trust Walmart's "free range" eggs to be anything other than relabeled eggs from caged hens. I like being able to talk to the farmer, visit the farm if I want, and help support the local economy.

I buy my yogurt from the farmer's market because the guy who runs the booth is an incredibly sweet man and I love the picture of the cow that's on the cartons:

The dairy that produces the yogurt for those of you in the Missouri/Illinois bistate region. Their stuff is great, I think the raspberry greek yogurt is my favorite (besides the new vanilla latte deliciousness).
The St Louis-based coffee company that made the latte flavor happen (and they ship!).

What I did well
I got my Insanity workout done much earlier than usual today. Usually I put it off until the last possible minute because I'm a chicken. I'm going to TRY to get up early tomorrow and do one before B wakes up and before my mom gets here, but that's a pretty ambitious goal. I'll keep you posted.

What I need to improve
My posture is, err, not good. That's putting it lightly. Most people think I'm about 5'4" when I'm actually three inches taller. I have a huge slouching problem. The focus tomorrow will be thinking about my shoulders and hips and maybe trying some posture-improving exercises. 

Bonus Post!

One thing I forgot - I want to start adding "one thing I need to work on" and "one thing I did well today" to all of my posts. Here are Wednesday's comments.

One thing I did well today: Water consumption! The heat probably helped to make me thirstier. I paused at a few water fountains during my run and pretty much chugged liquid the rest of the afternoon.

One thing I need to work on: Stretching after workouts. I'm terrible. I usually want to curl up in a ball and nap, which is why I'm so darn sore right now. 

86 degrees

It was HOT today in StL. I can't imagine how I'm going to make it through these summers. I should have gone on my run in the early morning when it was still a nice and "cool" mid-70s...instead, I ran at 1PM, when it was hottest. Smart!

I had a pretty relaxing, slow day since I haven't joined a lab yet. I focused on cleaning up the apartment because I know things are going to get busy next week, and I'm going to run out of time to feed myself much less scrub the kitchen floor.

Workouts
3 mile run in the miserable afternoon heat.
Insanity - Cardio Power & Resistance

I'm really sore from yesterday...my lower back muscles hurt, which probably means my form was terrible at some point during yesterday's workout. I reunited with my foam roller a few minutes ago and my muscles are screaming but happy.

Food
Breakfast of oatmeal/raspberries/blueberries, poached egg as a snack (love them!) with some homemade bread, leftover veggie pot pie for lunch, leftover fish cakes and peas for dinner. Spinach and hemp smoothie after my run. Orange creamsicle bar as dessert.

Wow, those were the same meals as yesterday...creature of habit much? I'm trying to clean out the fridge for my mom's visit this weekend so I'm hitting the leftovers pretty hard.

How to poach an egg
My FAVORITE protein powder

Hemp protein is amazing. It has a really nice earthy flavor and a deep green color that looks great in smoothies. The stuff I linked to above has 15g of protein for 90 calories and is made from 100% organic hemp. You can't beat it! Of course, it's important to get protein from a lot of different sources, but this is a great supplement if you're like me and you struggle with meat intake.

Other things
Did fine with my vitamins, and my hydration was much better than usual. I finished more than 8 cups, but water is just so boring! I wish those crystal light packets weren't filled with artificial junk because they really make it easier for me to drink something other than Earl Grey and black coffee.

B and I finished the final season of LOST yesterday. I cried like a baby for the last 10 minutes. I know that my brother hated the last episode, but it was perfect for sappy, overly emotional people like myself. I'm a huge sucker for a happy ending :) 

Well Hello There

Hello, internet.

I guess this is my first blog post. I'm trying to keep a bit of workout/food log to keep me accountable for actually getting back in shape, and I don't want to haul a notebook around everywhere.

The basic plan is to do Insanity over the next couple of months while running as usual (half marathons number 6 and 7 are coming up fast). I'm also lifting (arms) for the first time in a while so that I'm not a jiggly mess in my wedding pictures, ha.

So, today's workouts. I lifted and did the Plyometric Cardio Circuit. I'm pretty dead. I did Insanity with some fellow swimmers back in 2011 (I think?) and I remember it being WAY easier than this. Yikes, I guess this is what a year out of the pool will do to you. Can't wait to find a nearby YMCA or something so I can start doing laps again. I get cranky when my skin doesn't reek of chlorine.

As for today's food: Breakfast was oatmeal with blueberries and raspberries, lunch was leftover veggie pot pie, dinner was dijon flounder cakes and steamed asparagus. I had a spinach and banana smoothie as an afternoon snack, and an orange creamsicle bar for dessert. I randomly snacked on raspberries throughout the day, I get them frozen from Aldi so they're relatively cheap. All in all, everything was tasty and I feel good.

Recipe for the veggie pot pie - I adore this blog. Her recipes never fail me.
Recipe for the flounder cakes - I replaced the mayo with 1/4 cup plain hummus, and obviously replaced the tilapia with a different fish.

Oh, and other goals for the next few months: drink more water and take my damn supplements! My calcium, iron, and B12 levels are all low, so I take various pills to help me out. I also take fish oil for the omega 3s and glucosamine for my poor joints. I've been doing great on the vitamin front thanks to a little chart I made for myself, but I can never choke down 8 cups of water in a day. I used to think that my fruit and vegetable consumption balanced out my lack of actual water drinking, but I was severely dehydrated for my last half marathon...I stopped sweating at mile 3 and things went downhill from there. I never realized how terrible I am at this hydration thing until I started counting my ounces.....It's almost midnight and I've only had four cups of water all day.

Obviously, sleep is something that I should improve as well.

Until tomorrow, then.