Fitness – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

Recap–the (almost) 14 day fitness challenge

November 28, 2011 No Comments

Whelp, it has been 14 days since I proposed the 14 day fitness challenge and made it my goal to exercise every day for 14 days straight (including the Thanksgiving holiday). The first 7 days went as planned and I exercised each day. Boo. Ya.

Here’s how the second half of the challenge stacked up:

Day #8: Power Pump class at the YMCA
Day #9: Woke up with knee pain, so I decided NOT to exercise.
Day #10: 15 minutes on the elliptical, 1 hour of strength training & free weights
Day #11: Turkey Trot! 5 miles in 43:48!!
Day #12: 30 minutes on the elliptical
Day #13: 3 Mile Leslie Sansone walking video with my mom
Day #14: Stuck in traffic on the drive home from Ohio and got home 2 hours late – AKA no exercise.

So the 14 days fitness challenge was more like the 12 out of 14 day challenge. Even though I missed the challenge goal, I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish. First off, I listened to my body and decided not to run when my knee was bothering me. This is HUGE for me. Normally I am stubborn (and stupid) and try to run despite pains, which is exactly how I hurt myself two summers back. Second, I EXERCISED ON THANKSGIVING. Insane!!!

The Turkey Trot was the first race I have run in, and I’m already searching for my next race.

Half marathon here I come!!!!

Fitness

Fitness Challenge

November 20, 2011 6 Comments

Normally at 11pm on a Sunday night I’d be curled up in the fetal position on the couch swaddled in a big fluffy blanket praying to all that is holy that time could somehow remain still and allow me to savor a few more hours… let’s be honest.. DAYS of weekend. This evening, however, is one from a different tale because I’m in the midst of an extended Thanksgiving holiday back home in the Motherland. There’s still a couch and a big fluffy blanket but that typical Sunday anxiety for the impending workweek is delightedly absent. Instead I’ve got thoughts of plans with friends, family festivities out the wazoo, lasagna, the upcoming Turkey Trot I signed up for (my first race EVER EEK!), MORE lasagna, oh and of course the mental preparations for my annual Black Friday Blitz.

When I started preparing for this long trip home, I knew in my gut that it would involve a ton of food and a ton of exercising… wait…. shopping counts as exercising, right?! Right. So what my gut was REALLY saying was that the trip home would involve a crap ton of food and next to nothing in the physical exercise department.

Ugh.

I came up with the idea to challenge myself to a 14 day fitness challenge to ensure I kept my butt in gear (literally) over the holiday.

14 days of back-to-back fitness.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished in the first 7 days:

Day #1: Ran 3 miles
Day #2: Body Pump!
Day #3: 30 minutes of high intensity interval training
Day #4: Body Pump!
Day #5: Ran 5 miles
Day #6: 1.5 hours of Strength Training & cardio randomness
Day #7: Ran 3 miles

So far so good! This challenge really helped me to stay on track during a rather stressful week that included MANY instances of trying to talk myself out of going to the gym. Too tired. Too much to do. Too far behind… etc. Too, too, too. Blah, blah, blah. Each of these days I’d remind myself of the challenge I posted on this here blog and how extremely disappointed you all would be in me if I did not hold up to my end of the challenge. Am I right? Just the thought of your sad faces has gotten me out there doing SOMETHING physical every day.

To that I say THANK YOU!

Oh by the way, did I mention I have this whole week off of work? Oh… I did?

Hmmm… well I guess there’s nothing else to say then. EXCEPT to announce the winner of the NuGo slim giveaway!

The winner is….

Katie! Congratulations!! Please email me with your mailing address!

Fitness, Ramblings

14-Day Fitness Challenge–Turkey Trot Edition

November 13, 2011 6 Comments

I don’t know about you guys, but my level of motivation to exercise is dwindling downward along with the temperatures. Add to this the impending holiday of gluttony, and I’m a wee bit concerned my pants aren’t gonna fit come the new year. Let’s just face the facts. I’m not one to turn down delicious grub, and my food intake around the holidays can be downright excessive. That’s just me. I love food. I definitely make an effort to be “conscious” of what I’m eating, but when you give me fifty options there’s no way I’m walking away from that buffet line without a mounding plate of glorious home cookin’. There will be pounds of turkey slathered with cranberry sauce.. and several hot buttery rolls… and potatoes in every fashion: mashed ones, and cheesy ones, and sweet ones topped with melty marshmallows and brown sugar, and a potato salad… or three. Let us not forget about the dessert table. I can hear the angels singing now…. I have to sample everything. It’s tradition, and not doing so is just, well, downright rude in my family.

Hence the aforementioned pants fear.

Since I function best in life when I have goals to strive towards (Type A? Moi?!??), I’m rolling out a personal fitness challenge to get me amped up to exercise over the Thanksgiving holiday. This isn’t just ANY fitness challenge, this is the 14-Day Fitness Challenge – The Turkey Trot Edition. The goal of this fitness challenge is to exercise every day for the next 14 days. Yes, that includes Thanksgiving… and my beloved Black Friday. Every.Day. For 14 days. Here’s the kicker: I’ll also be running my first EVER race — The Cleveland 5 mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.

Can we all keep our fingers crossed for no snow, please?!

I WILL EXERCISE EVERY DAY.

Who’s with me?

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Fitness, Recipes

Strength Training & a Breakfast Sandwich

January 15, 2011 8 Comments

Last spring, I found a new love in running, and shortly thereafter I found out I have crappy knees that can’t handle too much impact.

Sadness… Sad smile

Then, a few months back, I joined a gym.. That’s right, a gym. And since then I’ve pretty much become BFF’s with the elliptical. Feeling like a hamster is better than feeling like a sloth. Am I right?

While it feels good to get some cardio in during the week, I noticed I’ve been feeling kind of weak lately. Slightly feeble. (could be the cold weather?) Plus my posture has definitely declined in the past couple of years, and that is not a trend I’d like to continue on.

With all this weighing on my mind, in my down time over the past few weeks I’ve been working on putting together my first-ever strength training routine. I’ve NEVER EVER been into weightlifting or any of the machines at the gym. It’s just, well, too complicated. Plus, I’m a numbers gal. If I can’t see the numbers adding away right in front of my face, I feel like I’m not accomplishing anything.

So one morning, I tried out a few different exercises I found in the pile of fitness magazines I’ve been hoarding in my office and was immediately discouraged. I just really didn’t know what I was doing, I had no plan of attack, and it felt like a big fat waste of time.

Well that is until I woke up the next morning and literally had to lift my legs out of the bed because they were so sore. Perhaps it is possible that doing these silly strength training moves DOES actually impact your body…

Perhaps.

The next day, I went through ALL of the fitness magazines I’ve been accumulating over the past year and snipped out the strength-training exercises that looked promising. Using this data, I pieced together the exercises I actually understood and/or those that appeared somewhat feasible and that could be done in the comfort of my own home…

Thennnnn I found images and instructions for each exercise and then decided to take things to a whole new level of crazy by organizing all the data into a PowerPoint presentation.

What? You don’t put your strength training workouts into PowerPoint?

Open-mouthed smile

After ALL of this research and organization, I had about 30 exercises but still no plan of attack. I knew what the moves looked like, how to do them, and… well, that was about it. So I sent my PowerPoint to the BF, who has a heck of a lot more experience in this area than I do, and asked him to please help me because I’m to the point of extreme frustration even though I had found pictures for each exercise, detailed descriptions, and picked out a really pretty color scheme!!!!

Hehe…

Pretty, right?

Luckily, he obliged and did help and also did agree that it was a pretty color scheme…. (your darn tootin it’s pretty) all while I got to work on breakfast!

FINALLY!!

Cue the turkey pepperoni breakfast sandwich please!

Easy peasy, I tell ya. This is 1 egg seasoned with S&P topped with 4 slices turkey pepperoni and 1 tbsp reduced fat Mexican cheese:

My cheese was being stubborn and would not melt, so I popped a lid on for a bit to coerce it.

Mellllltttttt I say!

Then I slid the egg onto a toasted whole grain English muffin and added some Ketchup and some Franks Red Hot:

How ridiculously good does this look?

Mmmmmmmm….

Get in my belly.

Smash em together:

Annnnddd the sandwich was gone 13 seconds later.

Stats on the sandwich: 221 calories, 31g carbs, 9g fat, 15g protein, 8g fiber

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