Lucky 15

One of my favorite activities at the gym is mentally composing my next blog post, which invariably tends to be a self-congratulatory rambling wherein I can say things like "OMG GUIYZ I DID LIKE SO MUCH RUNNING LOLOLOLOL"

One of my favorite activities coming HOME from the gym is to jump in a hot, steamy, relaxy shower, and then make mucho of the foodo, since I always exercise either before breakfast or before dinner (depending on the day). And all those things make me forget I have a blog.

Which is why I keep forgetting to update about workouts.

Lolz!

So on that note, OMG YOU GUIYZ I RAN FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES LAST WEEK.

As a recap, this is after super spotty two weeks of workouts followed by a month of inactivity. So I'm pretty darn proud of that!

But MORE importantly...

This blogger just signed up for her VERY VERY VERY FIRST RACE!

That's right! I plunked down the cash (via interwebz), and signed up for a race in May to celebrate Mother's Day!

I am all about killing two birds with one stone - ie, setting a damn solid goal for me to fight for, and honoring my wonderful Mumzy-doodle!

(She is going to love that I referred to her like that. It's better then Mummoo at least, right Mom?)

It's a 5K which I'm pretty sure is code for "Wussiest race I can participate in while still calling it a race" and I started training for it OFFICIALLY as of this very afternoon!

In which I encountered my mortal enemy (when on a treadmill)...

The emergency stop button.

That's right. You saw it correctly. SERIOUS ENOUGH FOR RED FONT.

Okay, disclaimer time: The emergency stop button is a big safety deal and when people get in over their heads and need a safe way to stop okay yes.

BUT SERIOUSLY.

It is right at waist level. And if someone, say, was looking ahead and jonesing to the music and running her last minute and a half for the night and just hitting a runner's high and didn't want to look down at the numbers and was trying to distract herself from counting down to help it go by faster, it is WAY TOO EASY FOR THAT SOMEONE TO BUMP INTO THE EMERGENCY STOP AND RUIN EVERYTHING.

So. Much. Fathomless. Rage.

FATHOMLESS, I SAY.


And then I get over it.

But! I got a happy surprise when I got home (aside from my Lumberjack), in that the workout clothes I ordered from Old Navy arrived!

YIPPEE!

I have currently been working out in two dollar loosey type pants from a super sale at JC Penney and old sports bras from like my junior year of college.

AND I TOOK A PICTURE GUIYZ

I know the bedspread is titillating too but let's focus on the clothes please

Yep. I just became THAT kind of blogger.

The damage:
Pair of running/yoga pants that are very form fitting/stretchy and more so than I'm usually comfortable with, but they are SOOO COMFORTABLE that I'm probably going to ignore it, cause no one's at the gym to check me out anyway.
Pair of running shorts that fit very well, but I haven't had much practice running with shorts, so we'll so how that goes!
Running shirt that I am in LOVE with. So comfy, it has thumb holes, I need another.
Training bra (kind of buried beneath the flip flops) because I need a new one. A little bit tight, but it really kept things in place when I tried it on, so we'll see how it holds up tomorrow.

And two pairs of flip flops because they were dirt cheap and I have zero flip flops.

I may or may not be ordering more things if they're still on clearance

All in all...SO EXCITED FOR TOMORROW MORNING'S WORKOUT. Go weight training!

Monthly challenges

Oh my, how did it get to be the ninth already? Boy oh boy!

So this week warranted my full time return to workouts...and I fell flat this morning. Monday and Tuesday were fine, except that Monday was cardio day, and apparently all the resolutioners were determined to keep me off the treadmill at 6:30 in the morning. So after spending ten minutes stretching and staring at them in what was probably borderline getting-kicked-out-of-the-club-creepy, I gave up, and spent ten minutes on the elliptical - which is valid as far as cardio goes, because cardio is cardio, but gives me a wub face for hoping to build my running back up again. It's been several weeks since I've logged any jogging time, between hives/ER and holidays.

I was really disturbed to find that after just ten minutes on the elliptical, I was painfully out of breath - not just out of shape out of breath, but I was starting to have chest pains out of breath. This is not a good thing. This is a Jess-is-on-too-many-allergy-meds-and-it's-messing-with-her-system thing. At least, that's what I think. It's possible that because I wasn't able to alternate a calmer walking pace with a jogging pace that it was too much of a push, but I wasn't exactly slamming it. I don't know. So that was a big part of my reason for not going this morning.

Tuesday was weight training, and that felt GREAT. Need for all caps and bold GREAT. I was down with the free weights - 30 on the barbell and 25 on the dumbbell as opposed to 35 and 30, respectively - and I did ten fewer reps with dead lifts and bench presses than I'd like, but I still felt AWESOME. I also included lunges, because I finally learned what those are! Yay! This is making me think that I might modify workout schedules, to either being M/W/F is hardcore weights day and T/Th is medium to low core cardio (whatever that means - cycling? jog/walking? I don't know), at least until I'm off meds and my body is back to 100%. I'm sure the hives themselves are taking a toll on the ole meatsack. If weight training makes me feel AWESOME and cardio is making me feel TERRIBLE, that's not a hard thing to figure out. If it gets real bad, I might even do something like all weight training and no cardio at all, like M/W/F is upper body and T/Th is lower body, but my current routine is really nice because I'm alternating working legs and arms and core, and that makes me feel like I'm not dying all the time and like I can really put my all into whatever I'm doing. So we shall see!

The other bummer is that I'm planning on committing and signing up for my first race. A 5K, to be exact. I have one in mind, we'll see how that plays out in the next couple days, and I'll post about it if I do. But! This year, I'm getting SRS. As in SRS BZNSS. SRSLY. And I want to get up to good jogging speeds and give myself something to work for! Goals are essential, yo.

Oh! So that yearly challenge I mentioned in my last post. I kind of used up too much space talking about lousy junk like working out, so I'll talk about food now!

~THE OMGLOL FOR FUNZIZZLE MONTHLY CHALLENGE OF 2013 (working title)~

For 2013, my plan is do to a Monthly Taste Challenge!
Here's how it'll work:

I'm going to assign each month a taste based on totally arbitrary REASONS THAT MAKE SENSE (to me, at least). And I'm going to do two recipes a month (give or take) based on that flavor, and I'm going to blog about it, and maybe even vlog about it! That's right...

I'M GOING YOUTUBE, BAY-BEE.

Or so that's what I plan!

Because last year's monthly challenge was a kick in the keister, I'm going much easier on myself for this one. I kind of put off doing this so January will hopefully have two recipes, but if not, oh well! I will do three in another month, or something.

I'm also planning on doing a four week sugar cleanse (I'll blog about that later too probably) so that month will have to have no desserts! *stern face* which is sad because I love baking *sad face* and desserts! *obvious face...who DOESN'T like desserts?* *I don't want to know if you don't like desserts.*

But my kind of sketchy outline idea for this plan is that of the two recipes, one will likely be a dessert type thing, and the other will probably be a side type thing (like a soup or a stir fry or a salad or a smoothie I don't know). We'll see how this goes!

Also, I haven't decided if I'm going to make every monthly flavor a secret or not. Mwahahaha! >:D

But for now, be content with January!

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!

The Flavor of the Month for January shall beeeeeeeee...!!!

Mint!

Why?

January is still *technically* winter (*stares at 48 degree weather outside*) and with winter is that crisp, clean feeling of falling snow. Mint might associate with candy canes associate with Christmas (and other holidays probably) but to me, if snow had a (stronger) flavor, it would be totally rad if it tasted mint.

Not everyone is a mint fan, I know...I live with one such person, sadly. But not everyone will be a fan of every flavor! Haters gawnna hate, yo. So expect to see two mint recipes sometime before the end of January!

Bonus: I'm going to try to make them (relatively) healthy! Even the 'zerts! Try to contain yourselves, I know this is overwhelmingly exciting.

Welp, that's all for now! Ta ta!