Happy Friday, Friends!  It’s been a busy week over here as I’m still working on a special project I haven’t been able to tell you guys about yet, but soon!  I’ve got a ton to do before I attend the Today’s Dietitian conference that starts on Sunday, that snuck up on me!  It’s going to be in Scottsdale, probably about 45 minutes – an hour away with traffic so close enough I’ll go home at the end of the day but far enough that I can’t quickly run home.

I’m a little nervous about being away from the baby for an extended amount of time (more than one feeding at a time) and coordinating pumping with the babies feeding schedule and attending sessions, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out (like how to save the milk all day?!?!)!  If you are going let me know, I’d love to meet you! If you have tips on traveling/attending conferences while breastfeeding/pumping I’m ALL EARS!  

Favorites

Alcohol at the movie theater? Yes, why hasn’t this always been a thing?  They only had beer and wine, which made me a little sad because I actually like beer more than I like wine nowadays (I know, who am I?) I’m testing wheat this week, so fingers crossed Blue Moon comes back into my life before summertime, but for this outing I stuck with wine. I got a Blood Orange Sangria, which was delicious and not too sweet.  

Baby K loves these mesh teethers with breastmilk ice cubes.  I also just made a tray of applesauce ice cubes, so we will see how he likes that!  (He was not a fan of the formula ice cubes lol) I don’t see any progress on teeth yet, but you never know!

I’ve meant to share this one with you guys for a while now, I mean this is my kind of makeup!  The number 1 is the color farthest to the left, and the next one is number 2 and so on.  I seriously love it. It’s like makeup for dummies.  

Fitness

I did something this week.  I decided to push through my workouts, and it felt amazing.  The one bad thing about having a fully stocked gym at your house and always working out at home is the lack of competition.  I find myself taking it easy far more often than maybe I should.  This week, I went into my workouts with a different mentality.  I told myself, I was only going to do the workout if I could give it my all.  I mean REALLY give it my all, push to failure, until I couldn’t give anymore. 

Why? Mr. Hungry is always showing me these YouTube videos of Athelene X – jack city ripped 40 years old.  He mostly caters to males, but he has some good points that can be applied to female training.  He was saying that increasing your volume of workouts and decreasing your intensity may be doing yourself a disservice.  In theory – the more volume, the better the gains.  In practice, you hold back on your workouts so that you don’t risk being too sore to workout again.  He says that most people stop well before failure anyways, so having an excuse (aka not to push it in case you are too sore) only furthers you not pushing yourself to your potential or getting the gains you want.  

I totally do this.  It’s not like I’m never sore, but there are definitely times I pull back because I don’t want to be “too sore to run.”  Or, times that I pull back because I still have x number of minutes or x number of movements left.  So this week, I decided I was going to fight through every single one of my workouts, and it was AH-MAZING.

I developed little mantras to keep myself from quitting, which were:

• your mind quits well before your muscles do
• most people stop before failure, this is not your failure (like muscle failure lol)
• the hard part is what changes you and get results
• this moment is the difference between you and you that you want to be 
• this moment is the difference between you and her (insert any number of workout goddesses I follow on Instagram)
• this is the moment you get better, every moment you hang on you are better than the last
• you were built for this – I can *&*!ING do this!
• remember how fast your heart rate will come down when you stop 
• this is a privilege I’m grateful to be doing this

How do you guys fight through your workout?  Pull the last little bit out without holding back and resting? 

Friday (5/10) – 2-mile incline plus core work Aaptiv

Saturday (5/11) 5 rounds modified from PaleOMG (aka one of previously mentioned mantra related workout goddesses)

• Lunge to jump
• Hand release push ups
• Squat press – I did wall sits for 2 of the rounds 
• 10 mountain climbers to 5 plank jacks 

Sunday (5/12) – OFF

Monday (5/13) – Aaptiv Run & Lift Workout – 1-hour circuit workout that I LOVED

Tuesday (5/14) – Aaptiv Run 

Wednesday (5/15) –

3 sets

• KB deadlift x 5 (#35)
• Arnold Press x 12 (#30)

3 sets

• chest press x 8 (#50)
• Hammer curl x 8 (#40)

3 sets

• TC press down x 8-12 RB
• Leg Raises x 8-12
• Calf Raise x 20 (#40)

2 sets

• pullovers x 12 (#25)
• Stability ball leg curls x 15 

Metabolic Sets (45 on/ 15 off) 2 minutes rest between rounds

Round 1: step up, box jump, step up, 180 rotation

Round 2:  slow push-up, shoulder taps, slow push-ups, medicine ball throws

Round 3:  Band rows, pulldowns, band rows, renegade rows

Round 4:  Iso dead bugs, mountain climbers, iso dead bug, walkouts

Thursday (5/16) – OFF