Serious Leg Workouts and Desserts

This weekend was just as fun as I thought it was going to be.

Friday night and Saturday morning we're both spent visiting friends and baking goodies:-)

Saturday morning I really wanted to go and hit up the gym to get back on the bike but little girl was taking advantage of sleeping in and I'd feel like quite the terrible mom waking her up early on a Saturday (if you wake her up before 9 AM she may bite you....haha). So I improvised and decided to do the P90X Legs and Back DVD.....sort of. My DVD won't work anymore, so I looked up the different moves online and did them that way.

Holy crap. My legs were DONE that night and the next day. It made a HUGE difference that I wasn't trying to keep up with the instructor or the clock. I was able to take my time, focus on form, and get in every rep of every move.

One legged squats, I couldn't hate/love you more. I will definitely be doing this again. I'm thinking doing the Ab Ripper this way will also increase the benefits.

Saturday night we all headed out to dinner at a friends. I was on dessert duty.

(Yes, I am totally shameless and took a bite and a picture without taking time to make sure their wasn't any chocolate on my fingers)

 

Taking inspriration from the Hungry Runner Girl, I made Brookies! I made Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip Cookies on the bottom and Bakers Brownie Recipe on the top.

 

It may seem incredibly crazy and fatty to bake brownies on top of chocolate chip cookies but it was so worth it and didn't dissapoint:-)

 

**I think next time I am going to do more cookie, less brownie. My boyfriend also suggested doing them with PB cookies instead of chocolate chip. I think he's on to something genius**

 

The next dessert I made was Brownie Bottom Coconut & Chocolate Cream Pie.

 

I see lots more of these in my future! It was SO incredily good. Every body was going nuts for it. The only thing that needed adjusting was my chocolate mousse layer. I needed to cook it just a few minutes longer because, as you can see, it was a bit runny.

 

I also think I'd half the mousse recipe because it really takes over and you can barely taste that amazing coconut cream layer and toasted coconut on top.

 

Sunday's interval bike workout was money!

Warm - Up:
10 minutes elliptical
2:00 plank
2:00 wall sit

Circuit: Repeat 3x
6 sphinx push ups
9 wide push ups
25 sit ups
25 calf raises
25 squats
12 minutes on bike (sprint 60 seconds, recover 60 seconds)

I walked out of that gym with seriously burnt legs. During this running down-time I'm really trying to focus on body weight training. Time to get lean and ripped!

 

I finished off the weekend with an amazing dinner as well.

 

Falafels, brown rice with kidney beans, grean beans and Cholula, avocado and Sabre Supremely Spicy hummus.

 

Loading up on those healthy fats and fiber:-)

 

I was even impressed that my little girl ate every.last.bite. I'm so lucky she likes a variety of foods.

Are you children morning people??

Have you do P90X? What is your favorite video?

Cabin Fever

It's official. I have cabin fever.

 

My poor daughter has been sick with the flu since Wednesday. This means that we are confined to the apartment so all of my workouts must be at home.

 

While I have managed to get some really good sweat sessions in (thanks to Jillian Michael's and P90X) the rest of the hours in the days have consisted of sweat pants and lounging on the couch. The first day wasn't bad....now it's Sunday night and I feel like a blob.

 

My priority is getting this little girl back to health though. She's still running a fever, won't eat, and is coughing and sneezing all day. So for now, we lounge.

 

and bake of course.

 

Baby girl -requested home made cinnamon rolls. When baby girl is sick, Mama delivers.

 

I happened to have all the ingredients for overnight cinnamon rolls.

 

**We haven't even left to go to the grocery store. I need fresh fruits and vegetables in my life**

 

I was pretty nervous about making these since they call for yeast. I have never had a good experience cooking with yeast. I always, always kill it. This time, I was successful!

 

 

The night before.

 

The only change I made was adding pecans to the filling (healthy fats, baby!) and I used an easy cream cheese icing for the plain fact that cream cheese is amazing, plus I don't keep corn syrup.

 

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They were amazing the next morning! A job well done.

Beach Body Workouts

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a fan of every Beach Body workout that I have done so when I was contact by them to take a look at their upcoming DVDs I was more than interested.

First, let's talk about the ones that I currently have:
 

Insanity: The name of this workout does it justice. It is intense. Just what a girl needsJ I especially love it because you don’t need any other equipment. It was very easy for me to throw in my laptop case and pop on when I was at my boyfriends for the weekend or traveling somewhere. Don’t think this takes away from it at all. If done properly you will be in pain (in a good way of course!). You will be drenched in sweat. You will know that you got a kickass workout.

 Let me just add this picture from the Beach Body website.....Do you see the instructor? I don't think it's possible to "waste" your time looking at him sweat  :-)




Brazilian Butt Lift:  It’s rather apparent that I don’t have a cute little frame.  I was given a whole lot of junk in my trunk, which will easily get out-of-control if I don’t keep up with it. It’s always been one of my “trouble spots”. So I bought this DVD set. It is definitely a lower intensity than Insanity but still delivers a punch. If I want a quicker than usual workout, or I really want to focus on toning, I go here. I love that some days you do 2 different DVDs a day so you can break it up. Only have 30 minutes before work? No problem. I’ll get the other 20 in after. 
 

The only thing that took me a bit of adapting was that the cardio workout was that it's dancing. Normally, I wouldn’t count dancing as a form of exercise. When I exercise, I go for sweat in my eyes. It doesn’t have the same amount of intensity but hey, sometimes we need to take it down a notch, and my daughter begs me to put it on so she can join in. So maybe I don't need to take myself so seriously all the time?
 

P90X: The most popular of all the Beach body Workouts. I believe that its popularity is well deserved. It really helps you learn different techniques for weights, cardio and stretching. It will leave your body guessing and sore.

My only issue is that I have never completed an entire 60-90 days with any of them. I attribute this to the fact that:

1. My passion is running and I always end up going back to it.

2. I find it hard to find the motivation to workout at home. I wake up at 4:30 every day and get home around 5:30. I am pooped. Once my daughter and I walk in the door we have homework, dinner, bath, reading, cleaning, etc. that all need to be done before her 8:00 bedtime.

3.  I’m ADD. Self-diagnosed.  I can’t keep my mind on track. I get 4 weeks into the program and get interested in another one.

That all being said, I don’t think it’s even necessary to complete the programs as a whole (Excellent and rewarding, YES).  I find that on rainy days, or days when I can’t find a sitter while I run, or when I just don't feel like running (true story, it happens sometimes) these workouts work great! I pick whichever one sparks my interest and go to town.

This covers the ones I’ve done. I’ll go on to what I think the new ones look like in my next post.