I love yoga month. Mostly because it is an extra excuse for me to do more yoga, or talk to more people about doing more yoga. At the end of the month I’ll be attending & probably working at Energize Tampa Bay - and I’ve helped with their graphics and web too. This was a brainchild of my friend Lora. I love when people get an idea they think will benefit others and just run with it even if it means extra work or tight deadlines. The extra work that makes dreams come true feels less like work. Similarly, Ashley is working on All Over Yoga, and it’s in soft-release, or beta, or whatever they say for blogs. If you have a photo of yourself doing yoga somewhere random, email it to her and it just might end up on the site!
The week thus far: Sundays I don’t usually work out. But I scrubbed the kitchen and a tub. Monday I went to the gym. 12 min treadmill, 15 mins Stairmaster, lower body workout with some pushups and tricep dips thrown in. Tues I went running to 52nd Ave, around the loop to 10th St and back. Today - being the first day of Yoga Month - I did close to an hour of Yoga with Kurt Johnsen on the newish cable channel Veria. Now my hips and mind are open and ready for a great day, and karate class tonight.
Karate class has moved on to something new - One Step Sparring.
Basically, at my level, this means someone comes at you with a right punch and you have to think of a creative way to block it and then take them down. Do they end up face planted? Do you wrap their own arm behind their back? Do you drag them by a foot? It’s all fun and games till someone over 30 throws out their back…
Wendy was concerned about the whole class being more advanced than us. (They are, we have half black belts in the class now, we’re the lowest ranking females.) So we took a day with a different teacher on a different night to learn some new moved and that helped her a bit. We’re supposed to have 10 go-to Take Downs in our own personal repertoire that we can do at any time. I have 7 now. Wendy hasn’t really started a list.
School has begun and my girls are in 7th and 8th grade!!! They are tall and smiley and fun to be around. Almost all of the time.
Know anyone running the Komen 3-Day? There’s a contest perfect for Bloggers because you need VOTES to win. Basically, if you win you get an extra $250 toward your goal. Details are on Plus Sized Bras.
I went walking with a friend today who was going through chemo last year and could hardly walk, and now she power walks 3-5 days a week. That’s a motivator!!
My husband is on a Ragnar Relay team and will run across the state of Florida from Miami to Key West relay style. I think I’m going to be a driver or navigator - each team has 2 buses and I just want to be involved but the team is already full. (You can’t have more than 12.) We’re hoping this means we get to finally meet Blogger Lindsay from Chasing the Kenyans. We missed meeting her at the Disney Marathon 2 yrs ago, but she has joined the Ragnar Team. Lindsay, I will have M&Ms for you!!
Tonight we’re going to watch The Brothers Bloom. We had never heard of it but Netflix recommended it and I like Rachel Weisz and Mark Ruffalo. The girls and I are also addicted to Veronica Mars on Netflix streaming through the Wii, and hope to finish season 2. Sat night should be parent date night! Enjoy your weekend!
Monday we drove home Ft Lauderdale and unpacked. No workout there other than toting around laundry.
Tuesday night was karate. We practiced getting out of choke holds and arm holds - basically what to do if someone comes up and grabs you. It was fun, but not a real hard workout, so I came home and did ab/core before showering. Boat pose, crunches, bicycle crunches, plank contest with Wendy (I won.) A new Yoga Download workout I did has you go in boat pose, then put your hands behind your hips with your fingertips facing your body and elbows in tight. You lower your feet to hovering just above the floor, hold for 5 breaths, and bring them back to boat. Repeat 5 times. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
Wed AM I went to the gym. I decided to break my cardio up, so I did about 12 mins on the treadmill, then an upper body workout, then abs, then Stairmaster, than core and stretching. I think I’ll do that again today, but lower body instead of upper body in between.
Last night 2 women from Brian’s Ragnar Relay team went running at 6:30pm. They are at about my pace, but that timing was hard for me. I usually get home from work at 5:30, and we had 3 teen girls to feed last night. I’d like to be able to join them in the future though.
After dinner Brian and I watched “Hot Tub Time Machine”. It was fun. There are bits of Back to the Future in it, and too much sex and language for me to let the kids watch it, but fun for us. It’s the first time John Cusak seemed to be showing his age (to me).
When I do an upper body workout I do one of 3 things: The weight machine circuit the gym has OR 15-20 lb hand weights on a bench OR 12-15 lb hand weights using a ball as my bench. Which do you prefer?
When you miss more than a week of blogging it’s hard to remember every workout you’ve done. The kids were out of town, and I had a bunch of doctor’s appts, and there was a lot of yoga.
First I had my physical and my doctor said my blood test results showed a high bilirubin level. I’m not a drug addict or alcoholic, and I don’t have hepatitis or any kidney problems, so they did an ultrasound of my gall bladder. The precursor to gall stones is “sludge” and the ultrasound showed none of that. Bilirubin levels can be high after an intense workout, and my appt was 10am, right after an 8am workout, so perhaps that is what caused it. I have a feeling my doctor will be keeping an eye on that for the next few appts though. My mom had her gall bladder out at 40, and they said she fit the bill for the perfect patient - fat, fair skinned, female, forty - the 4 F’s. So they want to be sure I am not following in her footsteps.
Along those same lines, I had my annual mammogram last week too. My mom and her sister both had premenopausal breast cancer before turning 50. I’m sort of high risk - my mom was negative for the gene but I’ve already had one biopsy and we’re of askenazi Jewish descent (Russia/Poland ~ think Fiddler on the Roof.) It’s so common in our geneaology that the Breast Center has even added “Are you of askenazi Jewish descent” to the questionairre they give you before your exam.
Brian and I also took a day of playing hooky before the kids came back in town. We spent it boating with friends and I had a bit too much sun exposure despite purchasing SPF70 with helioplex. A knee, my forehead, little spots like that which I’m sure will be peeling quite a bit in a few days. But we had a great time, and I’m now determined to visit the Ringling museum in Sarasota for my bday next June.
Friday I drove to Ft Lauderdale to pick up my daughters. They are tall and happy with lots of new clothes. They have been enjoying Camp Grandma, and Wendy even made her own copy of my mom’s sweet and sour meatball recipe so she can make them for everyone at home. And they baked chocolate chip Challah which was unbelievable!
Sunday we went with my parents to see the Mikado. We enjoyed the show and the cast. It’s a funny Gilbert & Sullivan operetta - possibly the most frequently played musical theater piece outside of The Fantastiks. And SOOO much better than The Fantastiks!! The Mikado tells a tale of colorful characters in the mythical Japanese village of Titipu. A romantic triangle takes the usual course of thwarted romance and complications. We saw it when I was about 7 years old, and I think I enjoyed it just as much then as I did now because my father explained it all to me. (It’s in English, but moves very quickly and with adult humor.)
Even Alvin and the Chipmunks have done it! Skip to 1:29
Today we drive back home (4 hours) and then we have lots of prep before school starts over the next 2 weeks. Morning workouts will be what keeps me sane, and I really need to add more running back in because I’m feeling a little tummy coming on. My clothes fit comfortably but I’ve gained about 4 pounds. I’m so sad they moved my weekly Fri core class to while I’m at work, and I need to start using all those exercises after each workout the way I used to when they were fresh in my mind. Luckily I have this blog to look back on to remember most of them.
Last week I did a series with a 6 lb med ball. It’s 3 different exercises all on your butt on the mat. 1) Balance on your sit bones with feet off mat and tap med ball from one side of your waist to the other. Your upper body/torso/shoulders have to turn with you. 2) While still balancing with your legs up in front of you, pass the ball from one hand to the other under one knee, then under the other knee so the ball makes a Figure 8 around and between your legs. 3) Keep your knees up at a 90 degree angle, but lay on your back. Bring the ball over head, and sit up using your abs, bringing the ball to your knees. Start at one set of 12 of each of those. When you can do one set of 20 of each in a row, then start 2 sets of 12. You can also work your way up from a 4 lb ball to an 8 lb ball.
Power Yoga Question: When you advance from up-dog to down-dog, do you choose to add a pushup in between?
This morning I started with a 2 mile run. I’d like to think I would have done 3 if the water fountain at the park were not broken during conditions like these:
Last Thurs I woke up feeling great - neck pain gone. I went to the gym for a full workout, and during pushups at the very end (well, right before core and stretching - and that’s the end of my workout) I felt something pop. Thurs and Fri were pretty painful after that. It was not the same spot as the week before, about 6 inches lower. During karate Thurs night I was lying flat on my back on the gym floor reading. The lying flat for over an hour felt great. (I had to be there to take my daughter.) And it was a fun class to watch the 2nd hour because they were doing forward dive rolls (like a somersault from a standing position) but the gym mats were folded up and standing like little teepees and they had to dive over them. The last few guys were able to dive over 4 mats in a row! It was probably a good class for me to miss due to recent neck and back pain.
Fri night my friend and I cooked Indian food from scratch. Her recipe of chicken, chickenpeas, onion, coconut milk and curry was a huge hit. My aloo gobi was good to me, but everyone else just ate a little, so I added lentils and more turmeric and I will be eating it for lunch this week.
Brian and I got some adult time Sat night - went out with friends for dessert and drinks. Yummy homemade treats at Cassis, you St Pete folk! And this week the kids leave town for a bit, so we have more adult time coming our way! Then there’s the rush of back to school shopping, and school starting, and 2 weeks of that kind of stuff before Labor Day settles everything down again. So I will take pleasure in my “Brian time” the next 2 weeks. We also want to finish season 5 of Weeds on Netflix.
