My blender hates me...and my abs are on fire!

So I was so excited to get a new blender!  I mean, I use mine everyday to make smoothies and shakes.  But the one we had is so old that it started throwing off sparks when I put it on high.  (which I need to do if I don't want iceburgs in my drinks!)

I seriously thought something was eventually going to catch on fire.  Or that I would get burned.  Ummm....NO THANK YOU!

So as I said, I was really excited to get my new blender.  I got a NINJA!  Woo Hoo!  This baby can do anything.  It chops down ice in like 2 seconds...no joke.  Unfortunatley, it can do that because the blades are so BIG and SHARP.  I found this out the hard way when I was cleaning it for the first time.  It took a bite out of my hand...

Seriously OUCH.  These pictures are from 2 days and endless bandaids later.  Needless to say, I learned my lesson.  They may recommend that you clean it with a "soft cloth," but I recommend using a soft bristle brush on the end of a very looooong stick!

Now that I'm using it, I'm still having trouble figuring out the order in which to add my ingredients so that they don't end up splashed all over the side instead of in the drink.  Huhhh.  I guess I'll have to keep working on it. 

If you have any suggestions....PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, let me know.  :)

Anyway, on to the workout.  So today was my Ab Burner and Recharge day.  Um, I so didn't know that it was going to be like that!  I saw the video was like 12 minutes and was all "Awesome, this will be easy!"  NOT!  Ab Burner is like 12 highly intense, hard-core, gut-wrenching minutes of extreme ab exercises.  And it goes straight from one to another.  Try tightening your ab muscles, now hold that position for like 12 minutes straight.  Yeah, this is harder than that. 

By the time my 12 minutes were up I didn't even know if I could get up off the floor.  You know you need to use your abs to get up....and mine were on FIRE!

So now I know my abs will be waaaay sore tomorrow, but it's totally worth it to get this body back in shape.

Do you have a favorite ab workout?  Feel free to share it and I'll let you know if I try it.  :)

The Holidaze are over...Back on the Horse!

So I call December the Holidaze because that is what it feels like for me.  I go through the whole month in a daze.  There are the normal holidays...Channukah, Christmas, and New Year's, but I also celebrate my 2 kids' birthdays and my own!  It's a never ending celebration-party of getting together with family, planning party times, opening gifts, writing thank you's, etc.  It's a lot and it's all stressful when you are the major coordinator. 

 

Don't even get me started on all the little presents and crap I have to wrap!

Yeah, that's all MY stuff!

 

By the time my own birthday comes around I don't even feel like celebrating anymore.

 

So on to the after part.  I am back on the horse.  Back to working out consistently.  Back to eating healthier.  Back to posting on my FB page.  And finally, back to blogging!
I spent some time getting my crap together, and now I am on FIYAAA!  I'm doing a ChaLEAN Extreme and Turbo Fire hybrid that I created!  It's moslty weight training with some serious cardio worked in.  Oh, and did I mention the seriously monster Ab workouts!  Ouch!

So feel free to cheer me on as I get this thing going again.  I have recommitted to being healthy and happy with myself.  And I made a bunch of my friends join me too!  Shout out to my peeps!  Team Tough and Team Amazing and Team Athena!  Love you guys and can't wait to see how far we go!

Being Sick really SUCKS!

So this is a little late in the game to be posting about, but I just had to do it.  I'm healthy again and it's been 3 weeks since I've recovered from whatever the heck I had.  And I know that I've posted about being sick with a cold before, but this one was not just a cold and it really threw me for a loop. 

I'm talking about 5 weeks straight of being sick!

 

 

And it really sucked big time.  First it was just a cold...bleh!  But it was an energy-stealing, no-appetite, life-sucking thing that supposedly was just a cold.  Then it turned into what it always turns into for me...a sinus infection.  Yay!  Now for the antibiotics...and as these antibiotics ran their course, somehow my cough got worse, I started to lose my voice and apparently got hit with cold #2.  Woo Hoo!!!!  Yeah...not.

 

So for basically 5 weeks straight I struggled to keep my nutrition in tact and to get in some workouts when I could, because as I've said before, you have to find a way to keep going.  And I tried, I really did.  But overtime, the old cravings came back and the excuses with them.  My metabolism, which had been getting pretty high before, was holding me through this.  Yay!  I wasn't gaining any weight back!  But now that I am 3 weeks out of finally feeling better...guess what?  It's not holding me any more. 

I am still having trouble staying consistent with my workouts.  I am still having trouble staying consistent with eating healthy.  But I am still trying.  Have I gained some weight back?  You betcha!  Am I happy about it?  NO WAY!  Am I going to get up off my butt and do something about it!  HELL YEAH!

 

So why am I even bothering to write all of this?  Who cares if I got sick and then sort of screwed up big time?  Well, I figured you might.  You, who are out there wondering what the heck you are going to do now that you've gotten sick and blown your workouts and eating to smithereens.  I just thought you might like to know that you are not alone, and that we all have to face these little "Life Challenges" sometimes.  And it is hard to get going again.  But I CAN do it.  I just have to keep going until I get consistent again.  And that means you can do it too.

As my own coach recently told me, everytime we face one of these life experiences, we have the CHOICE to react in the way that we are used to, or we can CHOOSE to react differently and make a change. 

I'm going to make a change.