A Day In The Life

Ah, good morning!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you woke up as someone else? Well if that’s you, today’s your lucky day 😉 Here’s what a day in the life of me on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday looks like. My morning pictures are from Monday and the rest of the day is Wednesday (yesterday) since I forgot about my pictures on Monday afternoon. It worked out though because on these 3 days of the week I pretty much do the same thing.

6:54AM and my alarm goes off. Random fact: I never set my alarm on a 5 minute interval. It’s always a random number. And i’m really not sure why. At 7:00AM I finally hop out of bed.

I’m not a Keurig person, I just don’t like the taste. So i’m attempting to use our old coffee pot. This morning I had to get mom to teach me how to brew from our coffee pot.

With my brewed coffee and ice water (always), I make the long trek to my home office. AKA our dining room. I mean where else is a girl to go when she doesn’t have a desk and chair?

Time for Jesus and time for blog reading.

Yikes. Someone tell this girl to get more sleep. #bagsfordays Here I am. A college student. Doing work before 8:00AM. With my blanket, space heater, computer, and water for an hour before my day gets going. But we already knew I wasn’t normal, remember? It’s so quiet and such a great way to start the day!

At 8:05 I go upstairs to change for the gym, and at 8:10 I come down and listen to The Today Show for a little bit before I say bye to the brothers on my way out the door. We keep things healthy with Pop-tarts for breakfast…which i’m a little bitter about. When I was younger/their age I was ONLY allowed to have Cheerios for breakfast, never sugar. And now this kid eats Pop-tarts for breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and snacks. UGH #oldestchildproblems

8:30 BodyCombat every Monday morning. I looovvveeee this class. It’s boxing, kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, and Muay Thai. I leave feeling like I could be the next Muhammad Ali or Floyd Mayweather or whoever is famous for fighting.

As soon as I get home from the gym I shower and change clothes. And then I eat a quick breakfast before work. It’s something different every day, but on this particular day it was an egg scramble.

I get into the office around 10:30 and work until about 2:00. Part time hours are great especially when you’re working a couple other jobs and going to school full-time.

Around 2:00 I hit the grocery store for the ingredients to make Andrea’s Pulled Pork for my brothers and dad to have as dinner while i’m in class tonight and mom is out of town.

Then it was time for lunch. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually made a sandwich and I was so shocked that I decided I needed to eat a turkey and swiss melt with a sliced tomato while I watched my PLL recording. And yes I ALWAYS have water on me at all times. Always. You’ll see.

And then I went back to the home office with a Seattle’s best frozen mocha while I worked on some schoolwork and a project for my mom.

Speaking of that project for mom, she happened to leave out the fact that I would need pictures that had to be scanned in. And since we don’t have a scanner, I had to come up with a solution. So to dad’s office it was!

Every time I go to the grocery store I get one thing that’s new. I love to try new things, so when I got home I tried this spearmint water. It’s an acquired taste…i’m still working on that one.

At 6:00, I put my future-baseball-mom skills to work and hopped in the car to pick Ry up. All I have to say is I better not have all girls *knocks on wood*. I snapped a super flattering picture of us for y’all because #itsadayinthelife.

On Monday afternoon, my mom and I made chicken salad…and can I just tell you that this is the best chicken salad you’d ever have. Ever. In your life. I became an addict at the young age of like, 10 when she first made it. I never was a picky eater growing up.

I’ve had it every single day since we’ve made it and I won’t confirm nor deny that I have eaten it for breakfast one morning. I mean, I crave this stuff. It’s pretty much all my favorite ingredients put together. Drooling.

So when I got home around 6:15, I unloaded the dishwasher while I munched on some of this infamous chicken salad. Pair this with rice crackers, or lettuce, or by itself. It doesn’t matter. Warning: You have to use some serious self-control with this stuff!

It was Wednesday. So around 7:00, I drove up to Church only to BE SURPRISED BY MY SWEET GIRLS AND CO-LEADER. I come trotting through the door and one by one they start walking up to me handing me flowers. Stop it. It was just a “thank you” for this past weekend. Y’all. It’s the little things like this that get me.

I was so confused by what was happening…I thought they were playing a joke on me but it turns out that they weren’t. Jen, my co-leader remembered me saying that I liked the flowers at our host home’s house and that my favorite color was yellow, so she planned this whole thing out! Oh. Wednesday nights rock.

Church goes until 9:00, but as soon as I got home these bad boys went in a vase and a picture was sent thanking them. Dead. Who needs a boy when you have 15 nineth grade girls to give you flowers???

By 9:30, pops and I were huddled up on the couch watching an episode of The OC. Because it’s what we do. And Ry came out for a little bit too.

Snack time consisted of blueberries and carrots. And then some other stuff that I forgot to photograph.

And after our episode was over, I came back down to my office so I could finish my blog post, get organized for today, and wind down. Last night was a late night and I didn’t hit the hay until 1:00ish. Usually I’m long gone before that, but I had some things to do.

G’night from Rachel Bilson and I. Heart of Dixie on Netflix before bed is always a good idea.

There you have it. A day in my life.

Curious of day’s past? Check out a Day In The Life (or as I used to call them #everydaymollay when I did it every month)…

After You Lose Your Job – November 2015
Summer Before Senior Year Of College – June 2015
Spring of Junior Year – First Semester @ A New School – April 2015
The Day of Thanksgiving – November 2014
As a Nanny – September 2014
The Day of Labor – August 2014
On The Farm – July 2014
My First (Most Amateur) One Ever – June 2014

Fitness Goals: Month 3 Complete

I can’t believe that it’s been 3 months that I’ve been writing fitness goals and working out as much as I have. It’s a good thing. And now it’s become part of my day. Surely you’ve seen this on Pinterest:

And it’s true. I have definitely seen changes. Am I exactly where I want to be? Nope, but that’s the fun part because I still have something i’m working for.

So like I said in my month 2 completed goals, this year instead of my monthly goals, i’m doing fitness goals because it’s something I decided I really wanted to focus on this year.

Month 3 Fitness Goals:

These were my fitness goals from 1.7.16 – 2.7.16.

• Follow the physical goals on my 2016 bucket list. My physical goals for my bucket list in 2016 are:

*Be able to look at myself in the mirror and be proud of what I see. Yeah…
*Get my group exercise certification. I’m still contemplating this one.
*Work out 5 times/week no matter what is going on. I actually went to a health consultation offered at my gym and when I explained what I was doing/what my workout and food plans are she said I really needed to take 2 rest days. So, i’ll have to change this to 4 (maybe 5) days. 🙂
*Finally get a gym membership. DONE!

• Stay under macros 5 days a week. Over the month, I was under macros 14 days, but I was over at least one of my macros 18 days. This is something i’m really working on, but I don’t know if i’m becoming too obsessed with it or what. If you have experience with this let me know!
• Research/find out what’s causing me to be bloated. I researched this and found a lot of information. Be looking out for a blog post about bloating soon. And I will be asking for you all’s opinions!!
• Cut sweets out 1 day a week. I started the 21 day detox last Monday. Update: I have sucked at these 21 days. So I might be starting it over because it’s pretty pathetic how bad I’ve been about this.

One thing I’ve really learned this past month is…

Going to the gym has become part of my routine now. I have a hard time NOT going. I’m so happy I’ve gotten to this point in my fitness life. 🙂

Month 4 Fitness Goals:

My goals for 2.8.16-3.8.16.

I decided to break this month down to separate goals every week. I’m hoping that this will help me complete everything!

• Week 1 of Month 4 – No sugar and stay under macros every day this week.
• Week 2 of Month 4 – No sugar and meal plan for the week. Have the day already pre-planned. This will be a lot of work, but I think very much worth it.
• Week 3 of Month 4 – No sugar and no eating within 2 hours of a meal.
• Week 4 of Month 4 – Don’t do anything. Don’t track food on My Fitness Pal, eat sugar if you want, don’t meal plan. Just relax and enjoy life this week.

Let’s do it to it!

My Fitness Routine

Morning, y’all!

Today’s post is one that I was actually surprised I hadn’t written before. I searched my own blog for this post and realized I had never made one…say what???

Update: I found a post that I did on my spring workout routine last year. It’s funny how we forget out own posts 🙂

Incorporating fitness into my daily routine is something that comes naturally to me. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone and I totally understand that. But it always has for me.

Growing up, I was always involved in sports.

I’m pretty sure the first sport I ever played was t-ball.
In elementary, I played lots of soccer, I tried out gymnastics, I took dance classes (but that didn’t last long), I took golf and tennis lessons, and was on the swim team.
In middle school, I went from volleyball season, to track and field season, to soccer season.
In high school, I started off the year in volleyball and ended the year in softball. I joined a dodgeball team with some friends as well. And of course, I was always in attendance at baseball games (even though I didn’t play).
I took a martial arts class once too…that was FUN!

I mean, my life has always revolved around sports and some form of exercising. When I went to college and no longer played sports I found myself really missing it. I missed the competition, the goofing around at practices with friends, the being hard on myself to do better…but mostly just being active. I really missed being active.

Middle school started my days of running with being on the track team, but college is where I began really working on my running and enjoying it. Lately, I haven’t enjoyed it as much. It started feeling more like a chore to me than anything else so I stopped.

So that’s when I started to try various forms of exercise over the past 4 years…

…I ran on the treadmill…

…I ran outside…

…I started attending yoga class at Lululemon on Sunday mornings…

…I tried workout videos…

…I’ve tried following along with Kayla Itsines’ workouts…

…I tried just going to lift weights…

…and I lost interest in all of these things.

Back in November when I started my Fitness Goals, I decided to do something different exercise-wise.

I decided I wanted to join a gym. I used to go to Emily‘s gym with her and attend group exercise classes there and really loved it. I’m sure it’s the teammate in me (after playing all those team sports) and being surrounded by like-minded people looking to achieve the same goals as me. I just loved every part of it! So November is when I began testing gyms out to get serious about joining. I started with a couple of yoga studios. And I found one that I really really liked. However, it was all yoga classes. While I love yoga, I didn’t want to limit myself by that being the only form of exercise I could do. So I started trying out different gyms, you know the normal 24 Hour Fitness, Lifetime, etc. And i’ve finally found one.

Now, group exercise is it for me. It’s my preferred form of exercise. Maybe that’ll change, maybe it won’t. We’ll see since i’m difficult to satisfy 🙂

What does a normal week look like for me?

Well, I try to attend one yoga class, one strength training class, one HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), and then the rest I usually hit are cardio classes. I do take 1 day as a rest day and sometimes depending on what’s going on for the week i’ll take 2 rest days.

Monday‘s have really brought me to get up at 8AM for BodyCombat. I love this class. I mentioned it before, but it’s a martial arts mixture with Muay Thai, Boxing, and Kickboxing.

Tuesday‘s  have found their way to become my rest days because of classes, but now that i’ve changed my schedule I can fix it by fitting a class in my school schedule.

Wednesday is another cardio day where i’m going to a TurboKick (kickboxing has become one of my favorite hobbies lately) or Insanity. Or that’s my strength training day with BodyPump.

Thursday is usually dance day. I’ve been to a couple CIZE dance classes and a U-JAM class.

Friday has been another rest day or else i’ll go to Pop Pilates.

Saturday is my HIIT. This class will surely work you and I would totally recommend you trying to incorporate some HIIT into your exercise regimen. It will boost your metabolism as well as increase your after burn rate (calories you burn while just sitting around).

Sunday is either my TurboKick class or a yoga class at Lululemon.

Really it depends on what is going on that day. I love these classes for so many reasons but also the fact that I go in, I do what the teacher says, and i’m out in an hour. That’s it. That’s all. Then i’m healthy. Haha well, that and of course the foods I put into my body…but that’s another post for a different day. 😉

So you want to incorporate regular exercise into your daily routine? Here are some of my tips.

Find YOUR time.

Sometimes finding a time to workout is hard. I usually keep my gym’s group X schedule open in my safari to refer to when i’m looking at tomorrow. I like to figure out my schedule of things I HAVE to do and then i’ll decide whether or not I can hit the gym in the morning or the afternoon. Which is often times why you’ll find me there first thing in the morning. I get ‘er done and get going with my day! Some days it doesn’t always fit into what I have going on and i’ve been known to stress about that. That leads me to…

Don’t let it consume you.

Now that i’ve found a gym I like, classes I like, instructors I like…I have a hard time NOT going (more on that later). But do I want the gym to run my life and keep me from enjoying my family and friends? No. In fact, I sacrificed my Monday class yesterday to spend time with my dad at Starbucks. Did it stress me out a little bit? Sure did. But when my dad’s not here one day for me to get a coffee with am I going to still be mad about missing that workout class one Monday morning? Absolutely not.

Try different things.

Like the different types of exercising I previously mentioned, I had to find out what suited me the best and what I enjoyed the best. And you should too. It’s not so much of a “workout” when you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Just like a job. It’s not a job if you’re enjoying what you’re doing. No matter what it is!

Test different gyms, classes, and teachers.

There’s one teacher that I absolutely enjoy!! Therefore, I want to continue going back to her class. Finding a teacher that you look at and say “yeah, i’d want to look like her” is so much more motivating too. You feel like since she’s looking like this after teaching these class I ought to at some point! As for testing different gyms, there were some that I just did not like one bit. How much would I have regretted getting a membership before trying it out???

Eat when your body needs it.

I think there is a lot of confusion with this. Personally, I usually don’t eat before I go to morning workout classes. I get up and go, which is what i’ve always done since my morning volleyball practice days. There’s nothing to prove that a fasting workout is bad for your body, or eating before a workout is good for your body. This is a personal preference. So make sure you do what your body needs! All day for that matter…don’t eat when you’re not hungry. Don’t starve yourself when you are hungry. Find a healthy balance! I know i’m still working on this too.

Drink yo water.

You’re getting tired of hearing that now, aren’t you? There is so much research around this topic that if I received a dollar for every article saying how important water was, I wouldn’t have to work the rest of my life 😉 Find a cute water bottle and carry it with you! Do not leave your house without one!!!

Trust the process.

One day you will thank yourself for waking up early and hitting the gym…or squeezing in a workout class before plans out with friends that night. One reason I love working out is that it just makes me feel so much better about myself too. Am I exactly where I want to be in my fitness journey right now? No…but I am getting there and trusting that the process will get me there. Just don’t give up!!! Trust me, I have multiple times and it just makes it even more difficult for me.

So that’s me and my fitness routine. What does yours look like? What would you tell people who want to start incorporating a fitness routine into their schedule?