Friday, June 30, 2006

Long Weekend!

Yay! Long weekend, here I come! I worked from home today, and I'm off Monday & Tuesday! Yahoo!!!

Okay, today's workout was cardio HIIT. I didn't work out until between M1 and M2 because my legs were still sore from yesterday's LBWO. Thought I'd give my legs some time to warm up and move around. For cardio, I ran on the treadmill for 35+ minutes (with 20 minutes HIIT). My level 10 was a 7.9 mph this time, and I can barely stay on the treadmill! My little legs were pumping! Cardio was then followed by abs.

Eating has been okay, but I've been craving snacks all day! I have to be honest, I had minor weak moments, but not an all out binge. I have to get a handle on this, which has to start with that jar of peanuts in my pantry!

Hope everyone have a great holiday weekend! Choose your free day wisely and enjoy! Stay safe!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Here comes the sun...



First of all, thank you for your thoughts & prayers! The weather has finally taken a turn for the better! We may get some thunderstorms tonight, but not bad. Looks like we can finally breathe easy again. The towns by the Susquehanna, Schuykill, & Delaware Rivers are the ones hardest hit. I think some of them got it worst this morning when the river crested. My prayers goes to those still affected.

Anyhoo, got my workouts done today. Ran/walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes first thing this morning. Most of it was running. My legs just wasn't feeling it this morning so performance was not as good as Tuesday's run. Then this afternoon, I went to the gym and did LBWO. For LBWO, I did BFL (hams, glutes, calves), hip adduction and abduction (3 sets of 12 each - 85 lbs), and walking lunges across 4X across the exercise room (2X with 10 lbs. dumbells & 2X with 12 lbs. dumbells). I then did 2 sets of knee-ups with the captain's chair. That's it for the workouts! I'm very pleased overall.

So as you can see, still going strong. Let's hope it lasts. ;)

I'm watching the Travel Channel right now. It's showing Drew Carey's show where he travels to Germany for the World Cup. I love to travel and I'm itching to go somewhere right now. I'm going to Las Vegas with my family in late September, so I have that to look forward to at least.

Gotta go and eat my last meal for the day! Vanilla whey protein powder in skim milk! Here's a tip for skim milk - get the organic ones! It tastes just like 2%, but with the same calories as the regular skim milk. It's probably healthier since it's organic. It's a little bit more pricey, but it's worth it. So much better than the sour tasting regular skim milk!

Later!

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Flood Alert!!!

Just some images from local towns...



The above picture is a picture of a park by near my work.



So here's how my day started:

I woke up super early, raring to go to the gym for spinning class. As I was brushing my teeth, I could faintly hear the sump pump from my basement running an awful lot. I was puzzled since it wasn't raining outside. I then decided to turn on the news and 'lo and behold! Flood watch EVERYWHERE!!! Apparently, just an hour before, we got tons of rain! I must have been in deep sleep because I didn't even notice that it rained that hard. I know for certain that some of the roads become unpassable around here during severe storms because of a creek that's about half a mile away from me. So instead of risking it, I just went back to bed. I really didn't want to run today because I already ran Monday and yesterday.

Anyways, I decided to leave my house a little bit late for work so to give the authorities enough time to do their work. Thankfully, the affected roads were blocked. I drove by the creek and OH MY GOD! The water level was so high! This one bridge that I cross on the way to work was completely submerged. I had to take a detour further up to cross the creek. Once I got to the other side of the creek, I saw houses that were completed flooded. The road that run by it is on higher ground so cars were able to drive by but the sight of the houses right below was just hearbreaking! The traffic was horendous and I was an hour late for work.

The drive on my way back home was horrible too, and I left an hour early hoping to avoid the traffic! There are a lot of back roads, particularly those that run by the creek, that were still flooded since the creek didn't crest until 3-4 pm, so I think everybody stuck to the main roads.

Thankfully, my house stayed dry. I'm far away enough from the creek that it didn't affect me at all. Also, my side of the creek is on very high ground. As a matter of fact, the houses that are right next to the creek on my side were completely spared, except maybe for their backyards. I have to say, I am very fortunate. The most I "suffered", if you even want to call it that, is the inconvenience of being stuck in traffic. I'm still very thankful and pray for those directly affected.

Unfortunately, we're supposed to get more rain this week. However, the weather report seems to indicate that we've already seen the worse. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! I've seen enough rain to last me a lifetime! Between Friday to today, we've had 7.80" of rain dumped on us! I can't wait for the weekend! This whole thing is supposed to clear up by then.

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On the fitness front, I was still able to get my cardio HIIT done today. I went to the gym after lunch and did cardio on the eliptical for 30 minutes, followed by ab workout. So that's one good thing that happened today.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Another goal met

Still going strong with the workouts! This morning, I ran on my treadmill for my moderate cardio. One of my goals, in addition running 2 miles in 20 minutes, was to run 5K (3.1 miles) in 30 minutes or less. Today, I DID IT! My exact time was 29:44!!! I'm so excited about it!

I also went to the gym a little bit after lunch and did UBWO and Smith Machine leg exercises. Workouts for the day - CHECK!!!

Eating has been clean! I was so proud of myself today! Someone from work brought in a bunch of white chocolate bars and left them in the kitchen, ready for the picking. I stayed strong and resisted, but man was it tough! What I did was avoid our kitchen altogether and went to the kitchen downstairs for water & coffee. Whew! Disaster averted!

Nothing interesting going on outside of diet & fitness. Just routine stuff. Still getting a lot of rain, but not as bad as yesterday. We actually got a little peek from the sun today! It's still there, after all ;)!!! Right now, I'm catching up on some laundry.

That's it for today! Catch you all later!

Monday, June 26, 2006

No end in sight...

Well, looks like this storm front is going to stay with us until the end of the weak. Driving home was quite an adventure. There were times were I feared my little Honda Civic was going to float away! But, I got home safely, thank God! My normal 20 minutes commute took me 45 minutes. I had to take the long way because there are places on my normal route where it becomes unpassable during torrential rains. I was praying all the way home that the cops around here were doing their jobs today and are actually blocking the unpassable roads. Looks like they were!

But it could be worse. A friend of mine from work, who lives 35 minutes south west from my house, had a horrible weekend. He lost power long enough for his basement to flood because his sump pump couldn't run. The good thing is that there were no water damage and all he has to do is to dry out his carpet. However, his skylight leaked and his gutters clogged up. He certainly wasn't a happy camper. My parents, who lives about an hour south east from me are fine. But there's a Walmart in their county where the cars in the parking lot floated away! That must have been scary!

The first thing I did when I got home was checked around the house. So far sump pump's running, basement seems to be dry, and the skylight in my family room is intact. So far so good!

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Fitness

The meals are going great! Last night, I cooked my meals for the week - EFL Golden Pancakes, EFL Sloppy Joes, Whole Wheat Couscous with Roasted Peas & Garlic (recipe from Muscles & Fitness Hers), and Roasted Salmon (recipe also from Muscles & Fitness Hers). I ate the Sloppy Joes for lunch and it was so good!

I also got my workout in first thing this morning. 35+ minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes of which were HIIT. I got in 2 miles in under 19 minutes (can't remember exactly what time because the display switches between time elapsed and time/mile and I was running pretty hard at that point) and my level 10 was a 7.8 mph, which is pretty good for me!

Off to a good start this week. I hope it lasts, at least until Friday. After that, who knows! It's the weekend before 4th of July and my parents are coming over and my mom wants to go to the outlet store. I'm also off from work Monday & Tuesday, so anything can happen!

Uuuggghhh!!! It's thundering again! The rain just stopped, but looks like there's more to come!!! I'm so sick of this!

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Rumble, Rumble


This weekend was a complete wash, literally!!! Just thunderstorm on & off all friggin weekend! Flood warnings everywhere! It calmed down long enough last night for me to go out and get take-out. I guess the entire eastern seaboard, from Florida to New England is suffering from the same storm front.

Okay, this week has been awesome workout-wise. I am happy to say I worked out for 6 straight days, as planned! Yaaahooo!!! It's been a while and it feels great! Here's what I did, starting from Wednesday since I already blogged about Mon. & Tues.:

Wednesday:
AM: 30 minutes cardio on the eliptical (20 minutes of HIIT, 10 minutes moderate) + Abs
The only hitch with this is I didn't do it first thing in the morning, more like right before lunch time. I woke up late and couldn't make it to the gym early enough before work!

Thursday:
AM: 30+ minutes running (moderate steady-state) on the treadmill
PM: LBWO (BFL) + Hips Adductor & Abductor + Leg Exercise on the Smith Machine
My legs still feel sore from this leg workout!!!

Friday:
AM: 30+ minutes running (20 minutes of HIIT) on the treadmill + Abs

Saturday:
AM: 35+ minutes running on the treadmill
PM (LATE): UBWO (BFL)
UBWO not getting done was a close call. I almost didn't do it because it was late by the time I got to it, but I did it!

And on the seventh day, I rested. :)

I can't say that my motivation has fully come back. To tell you the truth, the workouts sometimes feel more like a chore rather than something I enjoy. But I'm slowly getting there. I'm trying not to do too much, hence no running outside for 5 miles yet. I'm trying not to get burned out too soon. I am happy with the running this week. That's 5 days this week of running! The treadmill is helping a lot, especially the knees. It's also helping me with the speed & developing my ability to run on an incline. Maybe when the weather improves, I can start running outside again.

That's it for the week! Now I'm off to food shop. The rain has stopped momentarily. Hope it stays that way for a while. I don't particularly enjoy hauling groceries outside while it's pouring out.

Hope everybody had a great weekend!

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Quick

I'm keeping this short coz it's late and I'm tired.

Workout and eating went according to plan today. Ran on the treadmill this morning for 3+ miles. Then tonight, I did UBWO. Eating has been clean.

I'm starting to feel good about the running. I'm slowly building up my mileage again, as well as speed. I'm getting the hang of running on my treadmill in terms of dealing with the boredom. Also, I'm starting to really, really love owning a treadmill. I've started to appreciate how convenient it is having one of your own. The best part is I can run on it with just shorts & sports bra without being self conscious. ;-)

So far so good!

Monday, June 19, 2006

Shopping Frenzy & Cooking

What a busy weekend I had! First of all, my parents are in California visiting friends & relatives so we couldn't celebrate Father's Day this weekend. We'll do it this coming weekend once they're come back. As a result, I had the whole weekend to myself!

Saturday, I went out early for a run, showered, ate breakfast, did some housework, ate lunch, then off I went to the mall for a major shopping spree. I so needed clothes! I bought tons of summer clothes (both casual and for work), 3 pairs of fancy flip flops, 2 sandals from Nordstrom (in addition to the 2 pairs I bought the week before!), and a Maui Jim sporty sunglasses that I can wear for my runs. My bank account is hurting, but I so needed new clothes!

One thing I noticed about the trend with clothing now is the color brown. It seems like everywhere I turn, brown is prevalent. Anybody notice it?

Anyhoo, on Sunday I woke up late. After breakfast, I started cleaning my closet and ended up missing church. Ssshh, don't tell my mom, LOL! The good news is I found more clothes. I found barely worn clothes that I outgrew and that fit again! The best part is that they are still in style! After lunch, I went to Target and bought a new blender, among other things. I got rid of my old blender when I got the Magic Bullet. Unfortunately, when making a large batch of EFL Golden Pancake, The Magic Bullet just doesn't cut it. It leaks at the bottom and gets all messy. Hence, a new blender was needed. It didn't cost that much though, Thank God! I'm still keeping the Magic Bullet, since it's good for shakes.

After Target, I went food shopping, went home, and started cooking for the week. I made the EFL Taco Pasta Salad, Rachel Ray's Chicken Satay Stir-Fry with Orange Scented Jasmine Rice (modified to be more BFL friendly), and of course, the EFL Golden Pancakes. After cooking, cleaning the kitchen, and loading the dishwasher, I just crashed!

I so love having the whole weekend all to myself!

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Off to a good start this week!

Woke up early this morning and made it to the gym. Did 30+ minutes cardio on the treadmill (20 minutes are HIIT) + Ab Bootcamp. The running was great! I didn't beat my record, but I still reached 2 miles in under 19 minutes. I'm getting consistent with this! One thing I need to do is to get new running shoes. I have a pair at home that I bought at a specialty running store. The pair I leave at the gym is something I bought somewhere because it was on sale. I noticed that it causes me to land on my feet hard and it puts too much stress on the shins and knees. Probably next month, when I get paid again ;). In the meantime, I'll just bring my good running shoes to work everytime I run on the treadmill.

Eating has been clean so far. Later, if I don't get distracted I might do some yoga.

I want to say my mojo is back, but I don't want to jinx myself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

Hope everybody had a great Father's Day weekend!

Friday, June 16, 2006

2nd Day Straight

2 days straight of working out!!! Yay! Today I did 20 minutes HIIT on the eliptical, UBWO, and abs. I ended up not doing UBWO last night as planned. I was just too tired! Ended up making some homemade protein bars instead as I am out.

Today at work was just full of temptation at work when it came to food. Went out to lunch with a friend, so that wasn't too healthy. Then at work we had brownies that one of secretaries made for this one guy who was leaving the company for Virginia. It was also another secretary's birthday so people brought in carrot cake and Coldstone Creamery ice cream cake. Yummy! Luckily, by the time I got back from lunch the brownies were gone. I ate the last piece of ice cream cake, which was soooo good! The carrot cake didn't look too good so I didn't have any. But I think just the ice cream cake alone had enough calories to last me for the whole day! So when I finally got my act together in terms of workouts, my eating suffers. LOL! Oh well! Such is life!

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So I called this heating & cooling company that I usually deal with to schedule my AC annual routine maintenance. Unfortunately, I called close to 5 pm and they close at 4 pm so I got their answering service. Here's how the conversation went...

Lady: Hello! S Heating & Cooling, how can I help you?
Me: Hi! I'd like to schedule a maintenance for my air conditioner.
Lady: I'm sorry. They close at 4 pm so this is the answering service. Would you still like to leave a message?
Me: Yes. I'd just like to schedule the routine maintenance for my air conditioner.
Lady: Wow! I'm surprised you still have air conditioning.
Me: What do you mean?
Lady: Well, you're only one of the few. Probably half the people in this country don't have air conditioning anymore.
Me: Huh? Interesting.
Lady: Can I have your name?
...and so on and so forth....

WTF?!? Did I miss something? Has the world change and I wasn't paying attention? I kept thinking about this whole conversation on the way home, while passing all these houses and taking note of their air conditioning units.

Strange!

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Blogging Funk

Hey all! I'm in a blogging funk. Just nothing interesting going on with my life. Also, my motivation has deserted me. The last couple of weeks have been tough. I need to get back to a routine again and get serious.

I worked out today after taking a break from Sunday to yesterday. I was able to run on the treadmill this morning for about 30 minutes (20 minutes are HIIT). And yes, I ran on MY treadmill. A combination of television & iPOD did the trick of getting me distracted. And I was able to do 2 miles in less than 19 minutes so I still got it ;). After work, I ran outside for 2 miles. It wasn't bad when I got home but by the time I went outside, it got really muggy so I had to cut the run short. Tonight, I'm going to try to get an UBWO in.

The good news is that my eating has been clean. I think the lack of exercise has helped curb my appetite.

This weekend for the first time in weeks, I have absolutely NOTHING to do, which is awesome! I can use the time to go shopping and get some much needed clothes that fit, cook my meals for next week, and to plan, plan, plan.

One thing I need to do is to be more consistent with my cardio, and preferably do it first thing in the morning. I need to lose more body fat. I'm fairly lean but have no muscle definition. I want those cut arms! I'm also thinking of going back to the BFL weight lifting style in order to train my body to lift heavier. The supersets were great, but I find that I have to lift lighter in order to get all the reps in. I'm sure I'll go back to supersets again when I get bored with BFL.

That's it for today! Hope everybody's doing great!

Friday, June 02, 2006

Three Days of Rain

No, I'm not referring to the weather. Although, in this case, it would be very appropriate.

I'm talking about Julia Robert's play in Broadway, which I will be seeing TOMORROW. YAY! I'm so psyched!



I'm praying that she'll be in the play and not her understudy. That would totally suck!

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Speaking of rain, did anybody experience some nasty thunderstorms last night? It was so bad around here! It lasted ALL NIGHT LONG! It totally derailed my workout & laundry plans last night. Thankfully, the electricity didn't go out completely. However, the lights flickered on and off all night.

The bad part is that I completely lost my cable, so no TV and no internet. I felt so lost! LOL. I'm still thankful that we still have power. There were a lot of people in the area that completely lost power, even lasting up to this morning! I guess losing cable is nothing compared to that.

So needless to say, no workout yesterday. I'm going to try to make it up today. Fitting 3 days of workout into 1 day is going to be a challenge. I have to do today's cardio HIIT, some modified version of yesterday's planned LBWO, and some modified version of tomorrow's UBWO. Yikes!

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I just saw that I've been tagged. Thanks Melissa! I'll try to do it after I come back from NYC.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Happy June!

Hey gang! First of all, thank you for your nice comments from my previous blog. I'm not really close to the guy that passed away, but we know each other. We've talked & joked around in the past and we always greeted each other by name when we pass. I was still affected emotionally by his sudden death. His funeral is tomorrow morning. I'm not going since it would probably be awkward considering we're not really close. However, many people around here are going. There's going to be an educational fund set up for his kids, so I'll probably just contribute through that.

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On to more lighthearted topic...

My Memorial Day weekend was awesome, if you don't count the overeating, LOL! But, I was expecting this. I got a lot done around the house on Saturday. I was actually on my hands and knees scrubbing my kitchen floor! Does that count as a workout? I sure hope so, coz I missed my UBWO for that day, LOL. Anyways, I have these linoleum floors comes standard with most home developments around here, and dirt just keeps getting into these tiny pits in the floor. I mop pretty frequently, but once in a while, you just have to give it a thorough scrubbing. Next year, if finances go according to plan, I plan to replace the linoleum with tile.

Then Sunday, I had my whole family over for some BBQ. It was actually a bribe so can get enough people to help me set up the treadmill, LOL. Hey, it worked! My treadmill is now set up in my basement and what a beaut it is!!!

Monday, I went to another cookout. I just felt so bloated once the holiday weekend was over! But it was enjoyable nonetheless.

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Fitness...

Surprisingly pretty good. I'm back to running! Monday morning, I was staying at my parents house and we went to the park nearby. My parents walked and I ran 4 miles. The knees held up pretty good! Yippee!!!

Tuesday afternoon, I ran on my treadmill. It was just too hot to run outside. The treadmill was great! Very light and airy on the knees. I ran 2 miles :( I had it facing the TV, but I just got so bored! Physically, I could have gone longer but mentally, I couldn't get into it. I just have to get used to this new set-up and find a good distraction.

This morning, I actually got up early and was out the door by 6 am. It was mid 60's, but already humid and no breeze. Yuk! I only ran 4 miles though. Nature called and around the last mile, I had to carefully walk home to avoid some jarring ;-D. I still have to do my LBWO today. But it will get done! I can either go to the gym here at work sometime this afternoon, or wait until after work and just do it at home.

I'm still doing the booty shrinker routine. So far, I've done it twice this week. It's still kicking my butt.

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WTF!!!

I went shopping this past Saturday and either I actually got smaller or the clothing sizes went up again within the past month or so, but I actually fit in size 0 shorts...COMFORTABLY. I've always had issues with my thighs, because they're just so BIG, so I've always stayed away from shorty shorts (not necessarily Daisy Dukes where your butt cheeks are hanging out, LOL). But I tried some on this weekend in size 0, and they actually look pretty decent on me! So I bought a pair and I am quite happy with it. :-D

I still need to do more shopping. My clothes that were comfortable on me last year are now falling off! Thank God it's summer and I can now wear short skirts & cropped pants. This means no waiting for alterations! YAY!

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Hope everybody's having a great day! One more day till the weekend!!!