Rest Day = Ab Day!

Wednesday's are rest days from Body Earned. I may have mentioned this last week, but I don't like taking rest days mid-week. I decided to do another ab circuit and after spending some time on bodybuilding.com, I developed one that is AWESOME. I'm SO sore today. Everywhere. Not just my abs. Whoops. We'll see how W2D3 goes today...

Anyways, here's what I did. I repeated each circuit 3 times before moving on to the next one.

15 minute incline walk (speed 4.0, incline 15.0) - I'm going to decrease to 10 minutes next time to keep this under an hour.

Circuit 1
1 minute plank
15 butt/leg lifts (slow with control)
Bear crawl (for about 30 seconds)

Circuit 2
45 second plank/side
15 bicycle crunches/side (have both legs fully extended and a few inches off the ground before bringing the next leg in)
Crab walk (for about 30 seconds)

Circuit 3
15 cable rope cruches
15 SB roll-outs
V-sit twist (50 total)

Circuit 4
15 roman chair leg raises (legs straight) 
15 back extensions 
Mountain climbers with a twist (knee to opposite elbow, fast, 50 total)

Sprints 5 x 30 seconds, 15 second rest. I was at speed 10. 
Cool-down walk to lower HR. Mine was about 2.5 minutes.

Not too bad for an ab day!

Feel free to comment below or email if you have any questions about the exercises :)

My First WIAW!

 It was a rest day today from Body Earned, and I managed to develop an awesome ab workout. I was a sweaty mess by the end of it - success! I'm going to post what I did tomorrow.

After a couple weeks I finally remembered to take (amateur) pictures of (most) of my food yesterday for my first What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW). If you haven't heard of these, check out Peas and Crayons! This is just my regular diet - I chose not to follow the exact guidelines from Body Earned since I can't follow a "diet" to save my life.

I was too concerned about getting food in me PWO that I forgot to take a picture until after it was gone. This was a typical smoothie. I had the other half pre-workout.
I also had a coffee once I got to the office with a bit of Coffeemate - I still can't give it up.

About an hour and a half after my workout I had egg whites with quinoa, onion, mushroom, zucchini and a bit lot of Franks. I had an apple too which is abnormal, but I had been craving one. 

I was excited for lunch all morning. I had leftover spaghetti squash; it was just as good as it was Monday night. Could have used a bit more turkey though :)

Afternoon snack was two blueberry protein muffins (completely addicted to these!), a hard boiled egg, cucumber and celery!

When I got home from the office and getting my oil changed I was starving an ate two protein cookies, which were gone too fast to be pictured.

It was Tuesday, which of course means dinner with Amy and a new recipe. We had fish taco salad. It had:
-Spinach and romaine
-Yellow peppers
-Tomato
-Onions
-1/2 an avocado

For dressing I mixed salsa with a chipotle aioli (made from LF cottage cheese). I'll work on the measurements for this recipe.
The fish was haddock coated in egg whites and breaded in panko with taco seasoning mixed into it. I baked it at 500 for 15 minutes. 

After I took the picture I doused the salad in Franks, of course. 

Later in the evening I had mint chocolate "ice cream" made with LF cottage cheese, vanilla protein, mint extract and a few crushed dark chocolate chips. 
I may have eaten a few other pieces of dark chocolate over the course of the evening... I need to work on that bad habit!
 

 And just for fun - my favourite dog that I get to hang out with on Tuesday nights. Zoe must miss me all week because she cuddles up to me and tries to lick my face off every Tuesday.

Creamy Spaghetti Squash!!

I learned yesterday that my iron stores are VERY low. Maybe that's one of the reasons I was so tired yesterday. I made a trip to the pharmacy to stock up on iron and some other vitamins that I decided I needed. I think my body must have a problem absorbing iron, since I eat so many iron-rich foods. Not fair. I don't love taking iron supplements. Regardless, today I feel back to normal and I had an awesome workout. Have I mentioned that I love Body Earned?

I also made the BEST spaghetti squash last night. EVER. So good that it deserved two exclamation marks. I got the inspiration from Clean Eating Chelsey. Unfortunately in the process I ended up getting jalapeno juice (?) all over my hands and it BURNED. It still does a little. So be careful. Anyway...

Bake a spaghetti squash at 400 for somewhere around 40 minutes. Once cooled a bit, run a fork along the inside (go with the strings) to make a mock-spaghetti.

Saute the following:
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 onion
1 jalapeno
1 zucchini
fresh garlic
oregano
basil
pepper

Once cooked desired amount based on your preference, add in the spaghetti squash and mix.

Then add hummus and nutritional yeast. I used roasted garlic hummus and added about 4 tbsp, and 3 tbsp of nutritional yeast. If you've never had nutritional yeast, just trust me on this and go get some.

I added spicy turkey sausage to mine, but you can definitely use different meats/vegetables. and ENJOY!



I probably need to work on my food photography.

As a side note - Lee liked this better than the normal pasta sauce I made him. Win.