Computers are trying to kill my workout plans.

PFFFFTT.  Oh, that wasn't me! That was the dog over there!

Last time I posted I was week three into my workout challenge.  So much has changed.  I managed to get to five weeks, but couldn't post about it and then all the things tried to die all at once.

My chromebook had issues.  I couldn't really do much from my phone.  Week four, I felt stronger.  I chose to change my light resistance band to the medium and I totally felt it in my CLX.  Then week five came around and it was HEAVY SETS (I guess I was on the right track) and less reps.  So hard and challenging, and I loved it.   Then, the server I was using for my workouts went kaput.  Like in a big way...I was so bummed.  BUT! Instead of giving up all together, I decided to do something else that didn't require a video player.

I started cross fit.  And because I'm a big weenus about cross fit in general (I've seen some of the hardcore videos) I chose to do a ten day kiddie cross fit...like, a 10 year old kid wrote it up.  I have no shame, I will start out on a kiddie level! :) It didn't require weights or equipment I didn't have or couldn't afford.  It required your shoes and your body.  Easy enough, I thought.  This kiddie cross fit is NO JOKE....I breezed (and when I say breezed, I mean panted and heaved and ho hummed right on past my physical limits--pushups I still hate you.) through that 10 days and then I was hooked.  Cross fit is now my BFF.  It just doesn't know it.

I immediately picked up after day 10, I was so excited I didn't take a rest day, and started the 30 day level 1 Cross Fit Challenge and for the fun of it, decided I also needed to do a 30 day squat challenge.  I am currently on day 26, with no giving up! Sure I have just really walked instead of run the miles but if I couldn't run a whole mile before hand, what makes you think I'm ready to do that yet!?!  The couch to 5k will be my May challenge, on top of these last few days.  I've also decided I need to do these squats with resistance bands when this month is over, and I will either re-do this 30 day or try out the Level Two...I haven't decided.  Either way, I am going ALL OUT.

P.S. It really helped to have my fren doing it alongside with me, even though she's a whole six hours away from each other and not really beside me...*shifty eyes* Whatever man, we get on the chatterbox and say "I DID THIS! DO YOU?"  "Oh not yet, wait let me bust out the workout now!"   "YEAH! YOU CAN DO IT!" and so on and so forth, but with a ton more humor because we are both hilarious and know it.

Almond butter cups

Okay, I know I've seen several "peanut butter cups" online.  All of which look great, but I never got them to turn out right.  Or they weren't paleo friendly.  Mostly because I am probably lazy and don't take the time to make them correctly?  Or I never have those cupcake liners.  I think it's just that my chocolate was always the wrong consistency.  Whatever.  Either way, the two times I tried to make them cute, I'd end up with a huge dollup of chocolate on the bottom and the sticky almond butter too thick, and then no tops so to speak for them.  I tried something different this time.

2/3 C cocoa powder
1/3 C coconut oil, melted
4 TBSP honey (or maple syrup)
This is my base recipe for any chocolate I make.  Depending on the sweetener/more or less oil you use, you can make it really runny or really thick.  I needed it more on the thin side this time so I used a bit more oil.

Mix til smooth and tasty, adjust your sweet the way you like it.

I poured my chocolate (which was really runny!) into a greasy pie pan just enough to cover the whole pan.

Then I dolluped about 1/4 - 1/2 C of almond butter (this kind was crunchy!) into several spoonfuls to try to cover as much of the chocolate as I could.  I flattened it out a little where I could and then poured the remainder of my chocolate liquid on top to cover the almond butter.

This worked out so much easier than trying to stuff individual cupcake cups.  I'm sure it's not as cute of a presentation, but still.  Stick it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to harden and then cut into squares.

My end result ended up looking like this:

It tasted like YUM.

Maybe I will call them Breeze's Almond Butter Squares: the "reeses" for lazy ladies everywhere!

Here  is a pretty easy recipe too.   I tend to buy the chocolate in pure powder form, so I can make a variety of things and not have to melt it.  I've also become a  stickler for whats in my chocolate so I have avoided any with sweeteners.  Yes, my semi sweet dark chocolate chips are on standby til I can find some without cane sugar or yucky oil.  You not paleo, or semi-paleo will like this recipe too, but when its as easy as 3 ingredients to make your own sweet chocolate, why bother?

Week 3.

I will not bore you with the details of this weeks workout, it was the same as last weeks.  What I will say is I CANNOT get into the Fire45 for the life of me.  I don't know what it is about that workout, but OMG I just glaze over and would rather run in place for 45 minutes.  Which I actually did Monday.  HEY! At least I still worked out.  And I of course did the fire drills.  Okay, I did some of the workout, but for the most part I just ran in place for 45 minutes.  I'm changing it up this week.

I did get a fun different workout in on Saturday, actually I only call it a workout because I got sweaty.  We went sledding.  Well, "icing" is the better term.  Thursday WinterStormQ mauled us with ice pellets, I kid you not there was three minutes of snow...the rest was sleet and ice.  It looked like a sno-cone machine exploded.  So, the yards were solid ice sheets.  We would step out of our door and get down to the sidewalk (which was clear, thanks Goose!) and step over to the ice, and we basically skateboarded down the yard to the curb.  Our yard is fun and slope-y like that.  So we  took off to the park with our sleds and dog in tow and had a blasty blast of a workout.  I don't know how many flights of stairs I climbed, but by today my arms are sore from the sledding.  We really had a great time because it was so icy, we just went on and on forever!

TurboFire
Week 1:
Fire 45
HIIT 25
Fire 60
HIIT 30
Fire 30, Core & Stretch 40

Chalean Extreme
Burn Phase (month 1):  Burn Circuits 1, 2, & 3
Burn intervals
Ab Burner
Burn it off
Recharge

Week two

Done! Well, minus the 40 min yoga stretch.

Monday:
Fire 45 --can't say this is really my favorite at all.  I struggled getting through it.  There's others I like better.
Burn Circuit 1 --no big thang! I pumped iron right along with them!

Tuesday:
HIIT 20 + stretch -- I NEEDED the stretch after this one! I was huffing and puffing all over! Love these HIITs!
Ab Burn -- all I have to say is ow.

Wednesday:
I exchanged Fire 45 for Fire 60, much better! I love that one the most I think.  Nothing was really dry at all afterward.
Burn Circuit 2 --not long after I finished this workout my arms turned to jello and my legs were on fire.  I call that a success.

Thursday:
HIIT 15 -- short, super intense.  I feel like I'm cheating on those but I know how effective they are
Burn it off -- this is real similar to a HIIT but a little longer and less crazy...good day for it and I really felt everything from the day before

Friday:
Fire 30 -- easy little workout to get my blood going
Burn Circuit 3 -- I only thought I was jello-y on Wednesday....

Saturday:
Okay, this isn't done yet but if I don't do it I'll not be able to walk.  Can't go wrong with 40 min of yoga and stretching.


TurboFire
Week 1:
Fire 45
HIIT 20
Fire 60
HIIT 15
Fire 30, Core & Stretch 40

Chalean Extreme
Burn Phase (month 1):  Burn Circuits 1, 2, & 3
Burn intervals
Ab Burner
Burn it off
Recharge

Food Babe's investigation article.

Two posts in one day!?! *checks for fever*


This came across my newsfeed on FB, and I just need to pass along the info.  This is precisely why we stopped shopping processed foods.  This is exactly why we CHOOSE to buy local, organic, pesticide-free.  This is why, after almost two months of straight REAL eating, anything else gives us stomach aches.  We aren't used to the toxins in "food".  Why are we allowing these toxins, banned in SO MANY countries, but not here?  Why do we have to allow it in our family? We don't. You shouldn't have to either.

Why people don't shop organic and local is beyond me.  It costs too much?  If you stop buying the processed foods, guess what? You have that money leftover for real food.  The cost of organic, the cost of local, the cost of grass-fed meat evens itself out.  I live on a shoestring budget, and we buy 90% organic, local, fresh foods each week.  Sure there's things that cost more, but in the long run, its going to help you.  In the long run, you won't be spending money on medical bills, prescriptions, or weight loss aides.  Shop the perimeter or the store.  Read labels.  Figure out "code names" they use to hide the junk.  Be smart.  Read this article.  Soak it in.  Take control of your food.  Don't throw in the towel and say, "well it's next to impossible to avoid all those things in our food, so why bother?".   If just one person changed their habits, and got excited about it and convinced one more person to do the same...what a nice health pandemic we would have on our hands.

Thank you, interwebs for being available for us to gain knowledge, and be smarter about ourselves.

Food companies exploit Americans with ingredients banned in other countries    By Vani Hari

Kimchi

I am sure, as most of the world has heard, probiotics are all the rage these days.  What with Jaime Lee Curtis promoting Activia like its the next Micheal Myers movie...don't get me wrong, I'd love to see her adorable grey head fight that jerk all over the big screen but, wait.  That's not what this blog is about! *slaps self* Probiotics!  For those who live under a rock or just don't ask google, I'll summarize:  Super healthy live bacteria that we would call "good bacteria" that helps balance out you gut.  

For a more specific answer:

Gotta hold myself accountable!

Day 1 done...whoa all over again. 

Well after almost a year of not working out (please hold while I punch myself in the face for admitting that....okay done!) for MANY reasons excuses, I have gotten back on the workout train and taken off.  What a dumb metaphor.   Anyway, I can sit here and give you a long list of reasons why I didn't work out...but I will summarize with a few key points which all boil down to laziness if I want to be honest with myself.  And, lets face it ... with this title, I better just be honest.  I started out the year with some injuries, one involved my falling down the stairs that stopped me from working out, and I just got it all up in my brain  that if I went a week or two and didn't stick to schedule, that I had ruined all my work and should start over...which was dumb.  Goose was gone for 7 months (minus the weekends) and I just.got.lazy.(not to mention would have rather had TV dinners instead of making something for just me...STUPID!)  My TV broke, my PC started wearing down and becoming unreliable, my fitbit broke, worked again, then broke. Then my hard drive failed completely, the one I had ALL my workouts backed up on, including old photos and music, etc.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  All excuses if I look at it truthfully.  Except for the hard drive, that just happened.  But it was a week of tears and sap until I realized intelligent me had backed up my photos and music elsewhere....just  the videos were gone.  I suppose the last excuse was I needed to get my eating right squared away and get through the 30 day paleo challenge first.  Done, now what? GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER BRI!