My Favorite Workout DVDs

This weekend was one of those weekends that you never want to end. It was too perfect. I had no set plans (especially since I'm not doing any long runs at the moment) so everything was relaxed and chill.

 

Friday night my boyfriend's son, being the sweets fiend that he is, asked if I could make bake him some cupcakes. I happily obliged and dedicated my Saturday afternoon to some time in the kitchen. 

 

 

These cupcakes are by far my most requested. They are a dark chocolate cupcake with a semi-sweet ganache filling and a white chocolate buttercream frosting. These can pretty much do these with any frosting. My personal favorite is cream cheese (because cream cheese icing is by FAR the best thing EVER) and my boyfriend leans toward the peanut butter. Mocha is pretty damn good too.

 

That bread next to them is Honey Beer Bread. I can thank my friend Courtney for that delicious addition. She brought me some to work on Friday and I knew that I had to make a loaf. This bread is SO good and seriously one of the most easy recipes ever. I made mine with Blue Moon.

 

When those were done it was time to make the main course.

 

Barbecued pork chops, baked potatoes and salad. Damn that was a good a meal. I cannot wait until warmer weather rolls around so this can be the norm. Luckily, I have a boyfriend who loves food as much as I do and is willing to light the grill during pretty much any weather.

 

Since I'm obviously still harboring a runner's appetite, you'd better believe I've been getting some workouts in to offset it:-)

 

I have been doing a variety of different DVDs and at home workouts. This week I've done:

 

1. Ab Ripper X

2. Brazilian Booty Lift - Sculpt

3. P90X Legs and Back

4. My ankle weight routine

5. The Fitsugar Full Body Workout

6. Insanity Cardio Recovery

7. 30-60 minute bike workouts

 

Along with maxing out on wall sits and push-ups. I'm up to a 3:00 wall sit and 23 push ups. I'm going to try and get those up to a 4:00 wall sit and 30 straight push ups by the end of the month!

 

Yesterday I also tried this Jillian Michael's Workout for the first time.

 

She is seriously amazing. I have loved every single DVD of hers that I've done. They range from 20-35 minutes and leave me sweaty and exhausted. I'm hoping to be able to try her Body Revolution soon but that one cost some serious dollars.

 

One more quick thing, I'm making homemade granola right now. You should try it. It's SO easy and my house smells amazing right now.

I loosely follow this recipe. I didn't have any honey this time so I used molasses and cut the brown sugar in half. I use 1/2 a cup of almonds, sunflower seeds, cashews and unsweetened coconut.

 

Do you have a "most requested" item that you cook or bake?

 

What's your favorite thing to BBQ?

 

What's your favorite workout DVD? Have you tried Jillian Michael's Body Revolution?

I'm always looking for more to add to rotation!

 

 

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.

Recovering from Racing and Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred

Personally, I think the hardest thing about racing is proper recovery. It’s hard. We just went out there and pushed our body to the limit. We trained for months, put everything we had into less than an hour of work, kicked some serious ass, and want to keep the momentum going. We want to go sweat more. We want to race. We want to run….FAST.

Despite all these feelings, we’ve been told to do no such thing. While the exact number of days you should rest vary from article to article, and depend on factors such as running experience, length of the race, age, etc., it’s a common consensus that you need to take it easy for a while.

Here is a chart from Running Times (http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=24063) that breaks it down for you.
This means that I can’t do anything with high intensity for 9 days….

I’m sure this sounds crazy to non-runners, but NOT running is more difficult (mentally and physically) than forcing ourselves to go run.

To keep myself from jamming a pencil threw my eye and going stir crazy I’ve decided to continue to workout, just not intensely and nothing involving running. For this reason, I borrowed a copy of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred from a coworker.


                                       
 

I started on Level 2 for the sole reason I’m a cocky SOB and wanted to make sure I felt something. Let me tell you what. I did. The workout is pretty awesome, especially for only 20 minutes! Really now, who doesn’t have 20 minutes extra a day?? Jillian follows interval training to get you sweating . You do 3 minutes of strength training (weights, push-ups, etc.), followed by 2 minutes of cardio, followed by 1 minute of abs. You do 3 different circuits.

I am most definitely going to go and buy a copy of this workout DVD (and probably a few more of her DVDs as well). I plan to do one workout in the AM and one in the PM for the next week. This is perfect for a day you can’t get to the gym, or get outside to run, or are just crunched for time. Because, as we’ve all heard, ANYTHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING.

While I won’t be doing the entire 30 day shred consecutively (because marathon training is starting on Monday!! YAY!!) I will be incorporating this into my fitness regime and using it as fillers for days I don’t have time to do weights after my long run at work.

Any workout videos you’d recommend? What are your favorites?