HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!

My morning has been BUSY! (Hence, the late breakfast post.) Our friend and real estate extraordinaire, Marie, arranged for another showing of our apartment this afternoon, so I’ve been running around cleaning up and tackling the enormous pile of laundry in our bedroom. The upside of showing our apartment so often is that it forces us to keep it nice and clean!

Breakfast

I started my morning with a fantastic bowl of banana oats. In the mix today: banana, ground flaxseed meal, chia seeds, cinnamon, vanilla extract, non-fat milk, and, of course, two scoops of Teddie peanut butter. So good!

And, as usual, breakfast included iced coffee with vanilla soy milk.

Workout

I had planned to go to the gym this morning, but when my husband told me it was 11 degrees outside, I did not want to bundle up and venture out. A couple of months ago, the folks from Physique 57 sent me a few of their DVDs to try out, so I finally gave one a whirl this morning. It was NOT what I expected!

Kelly Ripa (who I am meeting in less than 2 weeks!!) swears by this workout, but I’ve never been a huge fan of exercise DVDs. I know some people love them, but I always seem to get a better workout at the gym or outside. So, I was really surprised when this workout KICKED MY BUTT! Holy crap!

From the website:

Physique 57 is a focused and proven cardiovascular program of isometric exercises and orthopedic stretches. Physique 57 tones your seat, abdominals, thighs and arms; strengthens your legs and back; and improves posture to produce a beautiful, sexy body. Our interval training sets use your own body weight for resistance, and through dynamic exercises your muscles are targeted and overloaded to the point of fatigue, then stretched for relief. We call our process Interval Overload – overloading the muscle to create long, lean sexy muscles.

This workout actually reminded me a lot of Body Pump with the idea of “interval overload.” You work your muscles to fatigue– just like Body Pump– but with Physique 57 you (mostly) use your own body weight.

I was absolutely shocked that this workout was so difficult. My muscles were burning! I must have said the f word in my head about 50 times! (I said it at least once out loud!) I even stopped a few times to rest, which is totally unlike me– usually, I just fight through it. I also loved that this workout incorporated quite a bit of stretching into it. I’m a seriously slacker when it comes to stretching, so it was really nice to get some in this morning. It felt so good!

Anyway, this workout made such an (unexpected) impression on me, I am adding to my weekly workout schedule for Lose the Dough. It’s ridiculous! I’m still in shock!

Snack

After my workout, I refueled with a chocolate-raspberry-spirulina smoothie. In the mix was a container of Chobani raspberry yogurt, chocolate whey powder, spirulina, non-fat milk, and ice. The chocolate and raspberry flavors dominated the smoothie. Delish!

Off to work!