Friday Favorites – January Edition #2

Greetings from the airport! I’m heading to London for the weekend for a bit of a girls weekend, combining time with Charlie and Casey while also bidding Leah farewell! ‘m looking forward to the girls weekend. My weekend adventures in London are always packed with fun activities. This weekend is no different – brunch at Granger & Co, a 10k race, yoga, and hopefully a little bit of shopping.

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Here are the things that I’m loving this week!

I think I squealed with glee when I learned that Matthew McConaughey (Am I the only person who has to look up how to spell his time EVERY time I type it?!) has been cast in the movie adaptation of Born to Run. One of my favorite running books, I am thrilled that they cast someone who is a dedicated runner.  

Jess has done a great job making sure I weave strength training into training. I think next week’s goal will be helping me realize that before the warm-up run there needs to be muscle warm-up. Oops. These 8 Dynamic Warm-Ups are easy to do anywhere and will immediately improve your next run!

After doing those 8 warm-up moves, end your run with these quiver inducing ab moves from Amanda. This dynamic abs series will strengthen your core without the boredom of the typical, stationary plank. plankGina featured the POSH DJ podcast in her round-up last week. Since then I’ve been jamming to the great dj mixes during runs and my daily commute. In fact, I think the latest mix may have made me break out in dance halfway home last night. It’s hard to beat the free price or weekly updates!

imageI’ve had a tough time figuring out the layering game this week during my morning runs. The snow/sleet mix calls for something water resistant while the cold temperature has me wanting something soft and cozy. My compromise has been ALL THE LAYERS including this wind and water resistant Sugoi Versa jacket. It converts into a vest for the in between temperature runs and the large pockets are convenient for stashing the house keys and gloves. 

Buffalo Hummus Dip Recipe | gimmesomeoven.com

Even though I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this weekend, I can’t help but pin game day worthy dips. This Buffalo Hummus includes a surprise ingredient and is easy enough to whip up Sunday afternoon before the game.

Talk about Friday surprises, Renaud clearly knows the way to my heart. He surprised me with a delicious, fudgy brownie this afternoon. The toasted pecans and the extra dash of salt in Jaime Oliver’s Vegan Chocolate Brownie recipe are a game changer! Feel free to swap out the soya milk for almond milk or your favorite milk substitute but be sure to leave some for enjoying with the warm brownies.

Your turn – What are you loving this week?

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5 Lifestyle Changes That Go Beyond January

For years, both Bo and I have relied on quick, extreme diet changes in preparation for beach vacations and special events. Most of us know the feeling. First, you start by choosing some unrealistic goal within an even more unrealistic time frame.

I want to lose 10 pounds in a week and fit in a dress that hasn’t fit in two years.

I want to have a flat stomach before my tropical beach vacation.

I want to banish all my arm fat before wearing a strapless formal dress in three weeks.

After years of this mentality and more than one too many food and wine induced hangovers during the month of December, Bo and I started 2015 in a very different mentality.

We were ready to make a lifestyle change.

Working out has not been an issue for either of us over the past seven years. We each workout 5 to 6 days a week. Regardless how busy our schedule, we will make time for an hour workout whether this means eating lunch at our desk, waking up at 5am or going to bed later. We love the post gym endorphins and the strength and self-confidence we gain from a great spin class, day on the slopes, or long run.

Even though we’ve heard from dieticians, personal trainers, blogs and even the New York Times that 80% of weigh loss and health is what goes into our body; we haven’t paid enough attention to this part of the equation. We considered ourselves healthy eaters, not frequenting fast food restaurants or filling our plates with multiple servings of fried foods. But, upon further analysis and lots of conversation, we realized we each had some work to do in the diet and nutrition department.

We didn’t want to re-haul our diet in an extreme way, leading to failure. Instead, we spent a few hours on our Savannah to New York City flight outlining our goals and what we wanted to achieve from the change. Bo is more interested in the psychology of changing what goes in our bodies. While we’ve always known the “right way to eat” and fuel our bodies, it has always been easy to rationalize the little things. I was interested to see how my body and mind would react to the change. For at least five years, I’ve eaten nearly the same thing Monday through Friday, almost reaching a robotic state during breakfast, lunch and snacks.  This would be the perfect opportunity to start experimenting with new cooking techniques, ingredients and snack foods.

Since our goal is a long-term life change versus a January resolution diet, we collaborated on a plan of action, agreeing to evaluate our progress each month and hopefully make further changes as we progress.

Reduce our alcohol intake to 2 nights per week. We can’t exactly pinpoint when we started enjoying a glass or two of wine each night, but it probably coincides quite closely to when our morning workouts became more difficult, and our stomachs became a bit softer. It’s easy to rationalize unhealthy food after two or three glasses of wine. Making dinner becomes a distant memory when a glass of wine is in hand, and the mind is too relaxed.

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Cut out Coca-Cola and drastically reduce sugars Of course it is difficult to cut out ALL refined sugars but we have rid our home of Coke Zero, processed snack bars and artificially sweetened foods and desserts. I have substituted my horrible afternoon chocolate and cappuccino or Coke Zero habit with popcorn and sparkling water. I missed Coke Zero for about a week but now I prefer my afternoon sparkling water or warm cup of green tea. I no longer have the 5pm headaches that followed the sugar rush. While Bo and I both have a sweet tooth, we’ve realized that having one or two indulgent, high quality desserts each week is more enjoyable.

Always be prepared.  Whether we’re out on the slopes, at the office, on a plane or even in the comfort of our home we always have healthy food nearby. Our refrigerator and pantry is filled to the brim with roasted chicken, cottage cheese, hard boiled eggs,  freshly popped popcorn, Fage Greek yogurt, apples, clementine oranges, celery, carrots, roasted cashews, almonds and salad ingredients. In case we got hungry while skiing this weekend, we each carried pre-portioned cashews in our ski jacket. We board each flight with two gallon Ziplock filled with yogurt, nuts, hummus, vegetables and fruit.

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Portion control is key to success. We use our food scale at the beginning of each week to portion snacks into individual portion containers to make snacking easier. The first day we measured, we realized we were eating 2-3 times the serving size of most foods. Regardless of whether they are healthy or not, food in excess is never healthy. It was a tough habit to get accustomed to the first week but now it’s become second nature.

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We committed to making the change together.  We aren’t policing each other’s progress. Instead we are merely cheering each other on each day and supporting the changes. We’ve been going through cookbooks together choosing healthy, weeknight recipes while also planning indulgent weekend meals based on what we’re craving that week. When you’re only having wine, cheese and dessert one or two nights per week there is a lot of joy in anticipating that weekends meals.

Next week, after we’ve had time to reflect on our first month, we’ll be back to share our thoughts and results.

Your turn: What’s a small lifestyle change you’ve implemented that has had a big impact?

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Swim Etiquette – Do or Don’t?

Hey gang! I hope you guys had a good evening. It seems like most of the people in my Facebook to Twitter feed were busy watching the State of the Union. When dealing with time zones, I’m thankful for recordings and clips so I can feel as if I watched it, even though I was fast asleep. 

Yesterday morning’s early swim practice didn’t happen as the snow and ice made it virtually impossible to leave the house at 5:45am! In fact, at 8am when I left for work, the commute took over 45 minutes as I walked part of it! Talk about a core workout, trying not to slip in slush and ice will work your whole body!

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Instead of skipping yesterday’s workout, Bo and I headed to the pool after work. This is just another example of when having a training plan really helps keep me accountable.

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Our swim might as well have been a return to this Summer’s open water swim practice as I shared a lane with 10-12 people – far too many for my liking. Also, can we talk about swim etiquette for just a minute? Who the heck tries to swim breast stroke or butterfly when sharing with that many people? You know who does that – more than four different people in the lane. Also, one final point for the rant, these people who have no idea how to behave themselves in a lane are indignant about their behavior. In fact, I have heard many stories of fast swimmers kindly asking one of these lane loafers whether they might do their slugging in the open swim area to have their ear torn off completely. 

After our swim workout we headed home to enjoy dinner and Modern Family & Law and Order: SVU. Unfortunately I ended up working on a project most of the evening so it wasn’t exactly relaxing. 

Before turning on the television, Bo and I spent 15 minutes chatting and catching up. I really can’t stress to you guys enough what a difference this change can make in a relationship. A lot of time the day is busier than you think and suddenly you realize that you go to bed without really talking.  We’ve done a really good job sticking with the few changes we made in December. This week we have put time on the calendar for smaller, more intimate dinners with a few of our friends this week and next week. We also made sure to schedule phone and FaceTime dates on our calendar as it’s easy to miss a week or two and then forget.

Your turn – Do you follow the swim etiquette in the article when sharing a lane or do you fight for your space by throwing elbows?

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