Green Smoothies+ Running!

I love smoothies! I also love spinach…but spinach in smoothies? I had my doubts. I decided to try making one anyway. I was very pleasantly surprised. Other than the color, I would have never guessed from the taste that there was spinach in there. It was sweet and fruity and smooth, like any other smoothie!

My Recipe:

• 1 cup frozen fruit (or fresh fruit with ice cubes)
• 1 handful of spinach
• 1 container of chobani greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup of milk/whatever milk substitute you want

I used frozen peaches and pineapple, peach chobani, and milk with a little splash of vanilla. There are no real instructions…just put everything in the blender, put the lid on, and blend until smooth.

I have been really busy since Sunday and I am spending the week at my grandparents’ house this week helping them train their puppy, so I have not been able to update on here for a few days. Here are my workouts since Sunday:

Sunday afternoon:

1.5 mile run- It was an extremely busy day. This was all I had time for, but it was still a nice little run! It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed running outside!

Monday:

30 minute run- I got up fairly early, ate breakfast, got in my running clothes and was about to head out when my grandfather asked me if I wanted to go to the store with him. I cannot say no to him, he’s so sweet, so I went with him. In my running clothes. I was one of those people. Ha, I don’t really mind if other people want to wear their workout clothes to the store, but I don’t do it if I can help it. Once we got back, it was starting to get warm outside, which is why I wanted to go earlier, but I went anyway. It wasn’t too bad out there. I managed to find my way back without getting too last! Yippee!

Today:

25 minute run and a walk with the dog- I did not get up quite as early today and it was already quite warm outside when I started my run. I was about 5 minutes down the road when my phone rang and I had to take the call. I was a bit annoyed by the interruption, but it was not too long before I was running again. When I got back I took the dog on a little walk and my grandfather came with me.

I think later I might want to do something else, but I am not sure yet. It depends on how much work comes in.

I hope everybody had a very good Memorial Day!

 

Fitness Blender

Thursday Workout:

Walk with my dogs and sister (1.5 miles)

Friday Workout:

2 short Fitness Blender workouts

• Cardio Kickboxing HIIT Routine (8 Minutes)
•  Abs and Obliques (10 Minutes)

Ran 2 miles

I recently heard of Fitness Blender and decided to give some of their workouts a try yesterday. I was pretty happy with them. They have a wide variety of workouts that are all free!  I want to try some others out soon. The only thing I can say that I did not really like was that they did not fully explain the exercises before they had you do them, at least they did not it the ones I did, but it was not too hard to figure out from watching them. They did, however, sometimes have a little video box in the corner previewing the next exercise. I was still really impressed with the videos and they seemed to know what they are talking about.

An Attempt at Redemption

Yesterday my sister and I went on a 1.5 mile walk with our dogs. That was all that I had time for as I had several plans for that afternoon that lasted until 11 PM. The weather has been lovely-not too hot, not too cold. The dogs did not get walked very often while I was gone, so they tire very easily, but they love going anyway. I think our 1.5 mile walks are about all they can handle for now. When we get back they always pant heavily and act like I’ve killed them. Poor things.

A huuuge spider we came across on our walk

Today I really wanted to get a good workout in. I made sure to do my workout fairly early in the day. Before I did anything I had to put some non-slip material under my treadmill so it would stop slipping back while I use it. I ran about 4 miles at 6 mph and walked .5 miles to cool down. Running felt so good. I was not sure if I wanted to go for the 4th mile, but I decided to go ahead with it and I am glad that I did!

Thoughts on Healthy Eating

I really like eating healthy. I love knowing that what I am putting into my body is benefitting me. It just makes me feel so good! Since I have been home, it has been harder to eat as healthy as I normally would because the rest of my family does not share the same habits. I do not have the money to go out and stock up on my own food, so I have to eat whatever is at the house. It has been kind of frustrating for both me and my parents. They get very annoyed sometimes when I say I do not want to eat something because it is unhealthy. I do not want to cause any problems or even try to tell them what they should or should not be eating. I just do not want to put junk in my body. The main reason they eat and buy the things they do is because they can unhealthy food cheaper and at a higher quantity than healthy food, but I am pretty stressed out. We have some fruit and vegetables in the house, but the bread my parents buy is barely better than white bread, the peanut butter is chalk-full of sugar, as is the yogurt. My dad also insists on having Little Caesar’s pizza once a week or so and tempting desserts are a constant in the house. After only occasionally eating foods such as these, I now feel as though I am putting trash into my body almost every time I eat.

My question:

How do I handle this properly-without offending anyone?

With that said, I had a very nice walk with my sister this morning.  We were going to run originally, but her ankle was sore and we decided walking would be a better option. It was quite chilly outside, to our surprise, but it felt nice after we got warmed up a bit. We walked and talked and had a great time. Our walk was about 1.5 miles long.

When we got back, I felt like doing more, so I ran on the treadmill. I did a total of 2 miles in about 23 minutes. I started with a warm-up walk for 5 minutes and then ran 10 minutes at 6 mph. At the end of 10 minutes I ran an additional 5 minutes, this time at 7 mph. Then I did a 3 minute cool-down walk for 3 minutes. I had never tried running at 7 mph on the treadmill before and I am very pleased with how it went. It was only for 5 minutes, but I had expected to be more winded than I ended up being. My whole running time zoomed by and felt great. I barely noticed the time passing, except near the end when my phone, which was playing my music, froze and I spent about a minute trying to fix it-while running-before I finally gave up on it and just tried to think of music in my head or focus on breathing. I made it through alright without the music though.

Tomorrow I am thinking of maybe doing a P90X workout. I have not done one in a seriously long time and I miss it. I need to also think of more workouts I can do and plan them out for different days. It is harder to do when I do not have access to a gym, but I will figure it out!

 

Walk with My Sister and Canines

My whole family was off to a late start this morning. I finally just had to take my youngest sister, Lexie, running for a few minutes because nobody else was able to go. She is doing quite well and can almost run the loop without walking. I think she really enjoys it and I think if I keep working with her she will be able to build up some good endurance. I have the same hopes for my other sisters and my mom if they can find the motivation to keep with it.

Later on in the afternoon, I decided to take my 3 dogs out on a walk to give them some exercise. I asked my sister, Lacey, to come with me and she agreed. We took the dogs on a trail up past the park to a tunnel, which is our usual route for walking them, and then headed back. It was about 1.5 miles in total. My poor dogs fell out of shape while I was away because apparently nobody in my family walks them much. They were panting like crazy when we got back to the house. It was pretty pathetic. Looks like they need to build up some endurance as well.

I was pretty busy for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I am planning on taking my sister, Lindsey, running in preparation for our 5k that is on Saturday. We are pretty stoked about it! We get to pick up our packages tomorrow afternoon! I am anxious to see how my sister does on our run tomorrow. She has not exactly been training very much because she is so busy with other things. She said that she had been running a little before I came home, so we will see how she holds up tomorrow. Hopefully it will be fun and we can encourage each other!

Yesterday and Saturday Pinterest Challenge

So both today and yesterday I went to Busch Gardens with my cousin (and yesterday our friend came with us). Yesterday was my last day of classes for the semester and we left for BG at 1. We had a great time and spent 5 hours there. After walking around the park for 5 hours, I was pretty exhausted so I counted that as my workout for yesterday. Today, however, we went from 10-2, so I did workout a bit later on today.

My Saturday Pinterest Challenge Choice:

Abs and Legs Mini Circuit

• 25 sit-ups
• 25 mountain climbers
• 25 leg raises
• 1 minute plank

repeat 3 times

( I am having trouble with the picture uploader tonight)

This was not a super long workout, but it was still good nonetheless. With these exercises it does not take a long workout to feel them working.

I am very happy that today I got to have a lot of fun, work out, and spend a good amount of time studying for one of the 2 final exams I have on Monday. It was a very productive day!

A Little Bit of Everything

I was pretty tired today. I lacked motivation both in studying for my upcoming test and in working out. I eventually got around to doing both though.

My workout today:

10 minutes stretching

Abs:

• crunches- 30 reps X2
• reverse crunches- 30 reps
• vertical crunch- 30 reps with 3 lbs
• roll up v-ups- 10 reps

Walked 5 minutes

Ran 1 mile

squats- 30 reps, 10 lbs

bicep curls- 20 reps, 10 lbs

1 minute plank

It was an okay workout considering that I really did not feel like doing much today. I am hoping I will feel more motivated tomorrow!

Run to the Park

I decided to run outside today to try out my new fitness watch that I bought that is supposed to track my distance. I couldn’t figure out how to make it work the way I wanted to, but I ran to the park anyway. It is approximately a mile away. I stopped to get some water when I got there and then continued running for another 5 minutes or so. On the way back I alternated between running and walking. I learned that even if it is not super hot outside, the humidity is still brutal in Florida, which is why I had to walk some on the way back. In fact, I almost didn’t want to walk in it. It was still a good run, but in the future if I am going to run outside here, I am going to have to do it early in the morning or something, so for now I guess I will stick to the treadmill. I think my total distance ended up being about 2.5 miles. I am going to continue trying to understand how to work my new watch. It has a bunch of functions and I just forgot how to turn it on the right setting. Once I get it working I think it will be a very useful tool.

2 Week Workout Day 11 + an Adventure!

My weekend has been so great so far! The Anne of Green Gables party was amazing! I got to spend time with some of my friends and we were served really good food and the movies were good too.

Today I got back to campus at around 11:30. It was such a beautiful day that I knew I had to get outside and enjoy it before it got entirely too hot. I decided to go to these trails that I found a few months ago that are about a mile away from campus. I packed myself a good lunch, filled up a water bottle, changed my clothes, and took off on my adventure. The first time I was at the trails I ran over a snake (we both ended up walking away unharmed), which was a rather thrilling experience, so this time I was really careful to watch where I was stepping. I am not afraid of snakes, but I do respect them. Thankfully I did not encounter one this time. While running on the trails I did not go very fast, partly due to being on the lookout for snakes and other such creatures, the trails are marked by white paint on the trees so you have to pay attention to where you’re going, and also because it is very easy to trip and sprain your ankle. I really liked running/walking the trails because the area is fairly secluded and beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I ended up going a total of about 4-4.5 miles. It was a very nice change from the treadmill, I must say. I took a few pictures from my trail exploring today.

Warning: I’m a bit of a dork…

Later on I did Strength Plan B with the “Make it harder” options. It went pretty well. I’ve gotta say, I will be really happy to go back to mixing up my workouts once this 2 Week Workout is over. I feel so boring posting about and doing the same 2 workouts! There are only a few days left though. Tomorrow is a rest day and then I believe there will be 3 more workout days.

The Power Walk Workout is usually added to the Strength Plan B workout, but I did not do it tonight. I toyed with the idea of still going ahead and doing it, but I was really tired. I already did a lot of cardio today so I think that is sufficient enough. I wish I could have done it anyway, but I am so tired now, there was just no way.

2 Week Workout Day 6

Today I picked up where I left off from what I was going to do on Friday. I did Strength Plan A and Speed Ladder. My workout today went very smoothly. I think I have all of the exercises down correctly (or at least my own interpretation of what is correct) and I didn’t even really have to look at the instructions for each exercise. I felt really good at the end of the strength workout.

For the Speed Ladder part of the workout, which is cardio, I did it according to the directions,  but I did it with an incline of 5. It made the workout a whole lot less boring and more of a challenge. That lasted 30 minutes and when I was done with that I decided to run a mile just because I felt like it. I was rather pleased with myself.

I am also proud of myself for sticking to my plan of eating all of the sweets that I was going to eat last night and getting rid of the rest today. I only ate healthy food today and it felt awesome. I always feel better about myself when I eat healthy and I feel like I get more out of my workouts if I eat healthy also!