Moderating Indulgence

Happy early Sunday morning everyone as I just got home from Ryan’s grandma’s house and it’s already 12:15! Here’s a backup of my afternoon and night. Ryan and I decided to save swimming and the nice gym for tomorrow (err today) and just go upstairs to the apartment gym and work out a little. It was legs and abs day—my favorite!

Here was my workout:

5 minutes on stairmaster to warm up

I moved through Giant Sets of leg exercises (out of this months Oxygen magazine—loooove it!) today to build muscle on my legs. I did the four moves straight through (circuit style) ending each giant set with 30 jumping jacks followed by a 2 minute rest. I did the “circuit” three times.

Stiff-legged deadlifts (40 lbs) 10 reps

Squats (40 lbs) 10 reps

Reverse lunge and lifts (24 lbs) 10 reps

Dipping bridge pose (15 reps)

I followed this circuit with some abs:

3 sets of bicycle crunches—20 reps

3 sets of reverse crunches with stability ball—20 reps

3 sets of regular crunches with legs at 90 degrees—20 reps

Followed by about 10 minutes on the bike with the resistance cranked up to work my booty 😉

And tons of stretching at the end. Made for a great lower body workout in about 35 minutes!

When I got back from the gym I made a recovery shake with 1 scoop of Designer Whey vanilla protein powder, 1/2 cup water, 1 banana and a ton of ice.

MAJOR props to this shake because it kept me full for the next five hours basically until we finally had dinner around 9:15!!!!!! Woah! That’s a first for sure!

When we got to Grandma Dot’s house we all relaxed and had some snacks and drinks. There was a big plate of celery, carrots and dip and I probably had about 7 mini carrots and 3 celery stalks, no dip. I’m not a dip person unless its guac or salsa.

And some homemade bruscetta. It was soooooooooo amazing! I had two pieces with the goat cheese on top:

The entire night I sipped on two glasses of red wine. This is pretty good for me because we were there all night long and there was a lot of drinking going on and a lot of refilling of low glasses. I made a plan for myself though because I know we are working out in the morning and didn’t want to feel like crap. I had one glass of wine before dinner and one glass with dinner. I feel so proud of myself because I could have easily had about three or four glasses!

For dinner we grilled salmon on cedar planks and had summer squash and salad on the side. OH MY GOSH! The salmon was the best I’ve ever had. I think it was the plank that made all the difference. It had a wonderful smoky flavor to it and even Ryan loved it and he’s not a salmon fan. I finished the plate you see below minus about three bites of salmon.

And for dessert, Aunt Kay made homemade peach cobbler with fresh peaches that they got last week in Georgia!!! I’m just going to say right now that peach cobbler (or any cobbler really) is my favorite dessert of all time. I LOOOOVE it! Especially with vanilla ice cream. Since Grandma Dot has been in the hospital she’s on a strict diet plan and can’t have caffeine, alcohol, salt or SUGAR (all her favorite things sadly) so Aunt Kay made this cobbler with splenda instead of sugar. I have to say, I couldn’t tell a difference. I don’t like to eat a ton of artificial sweeteners as you all know, but this was really really really amazing and even better that Grandma Dot got to enjoy it with us. I had a serving with whipped cream and then went back for more pieces of the crust–my favorite part 😉

Tonight was definitely a splurge night but well worth it!! Tomorrow we are getting up and heading over to the health club (still milking that guest pass that they forgot to take from me last weekend…muhahaha) where we are meeting Ryan’s sister Erin, and I will be lifting and swimming.

I hope everyone had a great night—check back with you in the a.m! This girl is sleeeeeeepy!