Sunday Spartan Workout

After watching Dave finish his first Spartan Race in Malibu (post to come), I decided to go to the local park and do a Spartan themed workout of my own on Sunday – After all, I am doing my very own Spartan Race in January!

Here's what the workout consisted of:

150 jumping jacks
15 burpees
3 X 10 dips
15 box jumps
15 sandbag squat-throws (I used a 26lb dumbbell and it works just fine!)
3 X 10 crunches
10 box jumps
3 X 10 jumping lunges
5 X 25' Spiderman crawls
Run 1.5 miles
30 burpees

Stretch

Here's a fun little revelation I had yesterday. The park I went to had no benches around to do box jumps, so I improvised... I realized that my truck would work perfectly as a box jump substitute.

It was so much fun, and so much more challenging (It's a bit higher than I was used to) and now I know I have a box for box jumps whenever I need it!!

Holiday hurdles...

I've started tracking my food again, via the my Fitness Pal app. I'm not gonna lie, my biggest fear of this holiday season is falling off the wagon. I know I won't completely, but I really don't want to lose sight of my goals. I want to continue to eat as paleo as possible, and with so many of my favorite old holiday treats showing up on store shelves its becoming harder and harder to resist. I've stayed the same weight for abou 3 months now, no weight gain, but no loss either. I am thrilled that I have managed to maintain my total loss of 27 lbs for 3 months, but my goal has not yet been reached. I'd like to lose more weight and gain more muscle, and that's a difficult battle - even without the holidays.

So I've started tracking my food again. One thing I have noticed is my metabolism. I can eat a lot more calories now and maintain my weight - as long as they are healthy nutritious calories, of course. I still avoid gluten and grains, and have a renewed love affair with cauliflower rice, but chocolate has been creeping its way back in to my daily diet, and I really need to cut back.

I am also looking into different workout routines. It's been a little difficult staying motivated now that the time has changed and its getting colder. Sleeping and snuggling under a blanket sound so much more inviting that lifting at the gym, but I haven't completely stopped. I've been focusing more on Cardio because it's easier for me to go on auto-pilot, you know... mentally check out and just get it over with. But I need to get back on the weight lifting wagon. Its good for me.

So it looks like that 6 lbs in 6 weeks challenge didn't really work out so well, but I'm not too discouraged. I didn't gain 6 lbs. In fact, my jeans are starting to feel a little bit loose, despite the lack of weight loss - but I hope that isn't from my lack of lifting. :-/

Looks like I've got a date with some dumbbells tomorrow.

Thanksgiving weekend, workouts and a Frenchie

This weekend went by in a blur and I realized it had been way too long since my last post. My main goal this past weekend was to not focus the weekend too much around food, rather, focus the weekend on working out and getting things done.

On Thanksgiving Day, Dave and I got up early to run the Arroyo Verde hiking trail just a few miles away from our house. These photos were taken after the 4 mile run with our little fur-child, Phoebe. Below the trails is this beautiful little park. After our runs I always just want to lay down on a blanket in this park and take a long nap. 

We ate with my family later that afternoon at my Grandparents. Thanksgiving isn't the tradition it used to be because my grandparents aren't very mobile anymore, so we visit them in their retirement community, and it is usually over no later than 2:00 - which is always a little bit of a letdown. You know, since nothing is open on Thanksgiving, so there isn't much else for us to do. But we did enjoy a bottle of wine and some Lord Of The Rings.... I had never seen it, and Dave was appalled, so we watch it. Haha.

Friday morning (Black Friday) I decided to forgo the shopping experience and went to a 7:00 am boxing class at the (new) gym. Damn I love that class. It kicks your butt. Definitely worth getting up and going to. I need to remember that. 

 Olive was just being extra cute this weekend so I thought I'd post some photos of her squishy mug on here. In this photo she was very serious about me getting out of bed to feed her. Googly eyes and all. Girl loves her food. Hmmmmm I wonder where she got that from?

Later on Friday we decided to put up our Christmas decorations. Mostly the tree and the outdoor lights. I do love my little tree - covered in pinks and blues and starbucks cups and owls... It's my favorite night light. I wish I could keep it up for longer than a month.

 Olive and Phoebe were very curious about what the heck we were hanging on the house.

Saturday my parents held a non-formal Thanksgiving feast at their house. It was delicious, but again, I took no photos of the food. I guess I was really serious about not focusing too much on food that weekend. We did, however, get another workout in before the last feast of the weekend. My brother Shane invited us on a little hike up the trail behind my parents' house in Ojai. It was only a couple of miles but it definitely helped with all the food we had eaten over the weekend. It was also very special because I hadn't gone on this trail since I was in junior high, so there were lots of memories on this trail. Sometime soon Dave and I have agreed to do the FULL day hike to the top of the Topa Topa mountain (the top of the mountain in the photo below - I've heard its a cray hike but totally worth it)

And then Sunday was just another day of getting groceries and things in order for the week ahead. That concludes our crazy Thanksgiving weekend! I truly enjoyed the time off and all of the time we spent on exercise and getting outdoors. It was a great weekend.