the unexpected domestic

Fitness Friday / 03.

To keep up my motivation for living a healthier life by incorporating fitness training/exercise and healthy eating I will be posting every Friday about my progress and habits and ideas.  When I exercise and eat healthy, I feel better and I sleep better.  My goal is to check in weekly what I've been up to!

A few weeks ago, I came across this verse, Proverbs 31:17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strentheneth her arms.  This was so encouraging to me to continue with my fitness and exercising!  God gave us our bodies and we honor him by taking care of ours.

I have a few work outs that I do where I focus on my legs and others that focus on my arms.  One of my favorites with the arms I do with a dumbbell!  When I first began using a dumbbell I thought it was easy.  Um, no. It's not.  Not if you're doing it right!!  I have three sizes, 5 lb, 10 lb, and 15 lb.  I am still using the 5 and 10 lb, I haven't made it to the 15 lb dumbbell yet but I know that by keeping up my exercises then I will get there! 

I am excited to continue with my walks and love using my Fitbit to track the steps I take.  It is quite addictive!  I mowed the yard which has been expanded since we did the garden and that was a work out in itself, but now I have more space for me to walk in without having my feet in tall grass!  Speaking of the garden...planting the garden was a huge work out and I know that tending to it will take a lot of physical work. 

I am looking forward to all of these things and am loving (almost) everything about them! 

Until next time!!

Fitness Friday / 02.

To keep up my motivation for living a healthier life by incorporating fitness training/exercise and healthy eating I will be posting every Friday about my progress and habits and ideas.  When I exercise and eat healthy, I feel better and I sleep better.  My goal is to check in weekly what I've been up to!

This week has been pretty laid back for me.  I have gone walking/running every day either before work or after work.  I have a route that I've been consistently using that includes taking a trail through the woods!  This adds a little bit of change of scenery because I get to see the trees and I know the dogs really enjoy going on this trail.  An upside is it is completely shaded and although I am sweating, it is a lot cooler than when I'm out there in the field/road!  Last year I ran every morning before work before the sun even got over the trees across the field but this year I haven't been able to run like that.  Partly due to my laziness, but also my schedule has been crazy mixed up.  I did take Sally to the park one day and we had a blast!  She loves riding in the car, too.

On Monday I cooked a couple of meals to take to work.  Meal prep is hard work y'all!  I made chicken fried rice for the first time.  It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, too!  I started cooking at 5:30 in the evening and was planning to just cook chicken and saute' some vegetables to eat a few meals that week but when I got to cooking, I remembered that I also wanted to make chicken fried rice.  I didn't finish cooking and cleaning up until 8:00 and then after I exercised it was past 8:30 and I was worn out!  But really, it was so worth it.  I have had plenty to eat all week and it tastes so good!  

I've also been gardening for the past two days and y'all, if you don't think that is hard work then you're not really working very hard at it :)

Until next week!  

Fitness Friday / 01.

Sooo I feel like I'm constantly start and stopping my fitness journey.  And then I get on these kicks where all I think about and want to do is exercise!  I am currently on one of these kicks.  Starting last Monday, I picked up my (heavy) weights back up.  Y'all, they felt a lot lighter before I quit lifting them for like two months than they did last week.  But this time, I will keep going!  I realized last time that it was a lot easier to keep to my work out routine if I wrote on a calendar what all I planned to do each day.  It was a great feeling to cross off the exercises as I did them, too!  I need to pick that habit back up.

My personal goal is to lift weights with a focus on arms or legs (or both) 6 days a week.  As far as cardio goes, I want to run at least 45 minutes to an hour daily.  I really love running. However I have very weak self-discipline and usually end up walking the majority of the way!  This past week I began running again but ended up walking most of the time.  The way I look at this is I just have to work up to it again :).  At the same time, I feel like this could be an excuse.  Butif I'm sticking with it then that's awesome anyways!  This morning I walked/ran for a total of 47:35 minutes!  yay!  

I used my Fitbit to track it and I always like to look at my route I take.  Since I pretty much run in my backyard, the lines constantly overlap and look kinda crazy!  Especially with the new road coming through, my circuit got totally messed up.  But I'm working my way through this emotional and physical loss. haha.  When they first began construction, I pretty much gave up running.  I loved running back there and I couldn't anymore because one: there was a big hole in the ground at first, and two: the road crew was always out there and I was not about to run in front of them!  The construction has slacked off a little, mostly due to the rain I think.  So this week I have found time to be outside and it has been awesome!

I got my Fitbit for Christmas from Adam and Katherine and I totally love it!  I love seeing how many steps I take and using it to track my runs.  But that's about all I did with it.  A few weeks after I started working at my new job, Mandy invited me to be her Fitbit friend.  It's so fun!  Both Jenn and she have them so I have two friends and that gives me a lot more use with it.  We are always talking about getting our steps in and it has encouraged me to actually try to get mine in.  The default setting is 10,000 steps and that's what I have kept as my goal.  On my walk/run this morning I got 4,418 steps in.  I wonder how the number of steps I take will differ once I start running more.  I guess I will find out in a few weeks!  The other day I got 10,000 steps for the first and my Fitbit did this little buzzing thing and I totally skipped around the yard I was so excited!  I did not get many steps in yesterday, it rained a lot and I did not really go anywhere.  I guess I could have just walked around my house, but that seems a little silly to me. 

Anyways, that's all I have for today!  I'm ready to get my fit on this upcoming week!  Until next week y'all :)

fitness challenge

Ok y'all.  Tomorrow is the first day of November and what better day to start a new fitness challenge.  I found one that I believe will definitely be a challenge but I am determined to do it!  It's also a little initimidating, but I will deal with that when it gets here.  

Looking at these exercises, I think they are fantastic all-over strength building exercises and are really just ones that I get too lazy to do. haha! I also found a "Planksgiving" challenge that I thought I might would do.  But I really really hate planks.  I probably do them wrong because they hurt my shoulders and well, that's why I hate them!  Here is the challenge, I'll decide later if I'm gonna do it or not!

Ok now, who's with me!?!?