5 on Friday: Madison Edition

As I have already mentioned in two other posts, Wednesday was Nick's birthday.  I didn't buy him a present...gasp!  

Instead, I'm taking him out in downtown Madison this weekend.  I grew up in a small town close to Madison, and I went to college in Madison, but Nick is from Illinois.  Nick has never gotten to experience downtown Madison's nightlife.  We only live about 30 minutes away, but I got us a hotel for Saturday night, so we can both fully enjoy the night, and not worry about driving anywhere.  

In honor of our weekend, and a few things I LOVE in this awesome city, I am doing a 5 on Friday Madison Edition. 

{ONE}

 After dropping the dogs off at a friends, our first stop in Madison will be the Chazen Art Museum.  This is more for me than Nick, but I think he'll like it.  They recently opened a new contemporary wing (right side of the building) that I've only been in a for a few minutes so I can't wait to fully check it out.

{TWO}

My favorite place to eat in Madison!  The Brasserie V is an awesome European inspired restaurant near my work.  Not only is their food a-maze-balls, but they have over 250 beers selections from all over the world.  Nick loves beer, and has never been to BV so I'm pumped to take him to lunch there. 

{THREE}

Breweries galore!  A few microbreweries have popped up in Madison, and as I said above, Nick LOVES beer.  Not only does Nick love beer, but I love beer.  This weekend is mostly going to be about drinking a lot of good beer.  No shame. The above are 3 breweries we will be checking out.

{FOUR}

Madison Comedy Club on State.

Nick is a big fan of stand up comedy.  It's really a hit or miss for me, but I will admit, the few times we have gone to the CC, I've enjoyed it.  Going to a show was Nick's one request for this weekend, but since I'm such an amaaaazing girlfriend, I had already reserved our tickets before he asked :)

{FIVE}

 If you like martinis, this is the bar for you!  The Icon has the most amazing martinis, and after 10pm, they are on special for only $5!  These martinis are potent though...only one and you're going to be feeling it.  Besides the martinis, The Icon also has a great ambiance.  They play old black and white movies, and the decor is based around pictures of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, John Wayne, etc.  

I could go on forever with this list, but these are the top 5 things we will be doing this weekend.  I am just super excited to show Nick all of my favorite old haunts, and for him to have a little taste of my life as a college student.  It will also just be nice to get out of the house for a night!!

Have a fantabulous weekend!

Super Sore NSV

It has been a while since I've linked up with KTJ to share a Non-Scale Victory.

Maybe that's because over the past few weeks/months/eons, I haven't had any victories...on the scale, or off.  Now that I am committed to making 2014 the year I make my fitness dreams a reality, I am hoping I'll have tons of victories to share.

On to this weeks victories.

Yesterday was Nick's birthday.  I was an awful girlfriend, and didn't make him a cake (I am taking him out for an AWESOME weekend though!) so I decided to buy one on the way home from work last night.  Enter this temptress...

Heaven in a box!

This cake is intended to have 8 servings with a whopping 240 calories per serving.  It is a fairly small cake, and once I had the 8 pieces cut, my first thought was, "These pieces are tiny!  I'm so having two."  As I savored my first piece though, I thought about my Diet Bet, and what I said yesterday.  I am currently a little bit ahead of the game, but is having a second serving of cake really worth losing that advantage?

No.  No, it's not.

I finished my piece.  Got up from the table, rinsed off my plate, and immediately put the cake away so I wouldn't stare at it and be tempted.  Sweets are one of my biggest weakness so I am extremely proud that I was able to just walk away.

Instead of my usual routine of blowing off workouts, I made a goal this week to get 30 minutes of activity in each day, and so far I am 100% on track.  That being said, I sooooo did not want to do anything last night.  My legs and arms were still sore from the jumping jacks I did the night before, and work had me drained.

 As I was laying on the floor, whining to Nick that I didn't want to work out, running through all of the "good" excuses as to why I could skip working out, I started feeling extremely guilty.  I started thinking about how badly I want to feel confident in my bathing suit this summer, and not worry about how my rolls look, or sucking in my stomach.  I started thinking about all the cute clothes I have, that I never wear because they're a bit too snug.  I started thinking about how I am supposed to be in the prime of my life, but instead I'm tired and sluggish all the time.  All these thoughts made me pick myself up off the floor, and get my sweat on.

This is the workout I did last night, and it kicked my ass!

I thought I was sore from the jumping jacks...  My entire body hurts today from doing this 3 times.  When I read though it, I was all like, "Oh yeah, I can totally do this.  Super easy."  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.  It was tough!  My 3rd time was a struggle, and I couldn't wait to finish, but I felt GREAT afterwards.

It took me just over 20 minutes to finish the 3 circuits, so I played Just Dance for 10 minutes to finish out my 30 minutes of activity. 

WIW

'Tis that time of week again, Weigh-In Wednesday.

Last week's weigh-in, which conveniently fell on January 1, and was my official weigh-in for the Diet Bet I am competing in, was 177.2.

This morning, I weighed in at 175!  A 2.2 loss.

I'm pretty sure this is the biggest weekly loss I have ever had.  To win my Diet Bet, I need to lose a total of 7.1 lbs by 1/31, or 4% in four weeks.  That means at least 1.78 lbs a week.  I have a little bit of a head start this week now, but I need to keep working hard.  Just because I'm a little bit ahead, doesn't mean I can slack.  I still have 4.9 lbs to drop in 23 days.

I've decided from now on, I'm going to take a picture of the scale for my weigh-ins.  It feels more official having photographic evidence...

One last thing, Happy Birthday to my Nick!!!  He turned the big 2-6 today.  Happy Birthday, Pookie!  I love you!!!!!

Jumping Jacks

This week has been off to a great start!  I hope it's going well for each of you also!

A made a goal this week to do at least 30 minutes of activity each day.  Last night, I ending up playing Wii Just Dance for 40 minutes. Dancing with the Wii may not be much of a workout for some, but let me tell you, I get sweaty!  Instead of just moving my hand around to follow the Wii character, I get my whole body into it.  Nick always scores more points when he dances with me because he focuses more on his hand movement, and I focus more on entire body movement.

Last night, I also randomly decided to do 100 jumping jacks consecutively.  Holy shit!  When you're out of shape like me, 100 jumping jacks is tough!

For my workout tonight, I decided to wear my heart rate monitor to see how many calories I burned while doing the 100 jumping jacks.  It took me 1:38 to finish the first 100, and I burned 14 calories.  This led me to try another 100...this was 1:38 again and 15 calories.  I then made the decision to do a total of 5 sets of 100.  At the end of 500 jumping jacks, I burned 80 total calories and it took me 8 minutes and 10 seconds.  I quick, semi-easy burn!  My shoulders and calves are already super sore from this mini-beast of a workout. 

Since the JJs took me 8 minutes, I rounded out my 30 by dancing again.  I did 6 songs, and by the 3rd, I was ready to be finished because my arms and legs were so jello-y.  I stuck it out though and got my 30 minutes of activity in. 

This morning I had my Almond Joy smoothie that I was so excited to try, and I was not disappointed.  It was fantastic!  The flavor was almost identical to an Almond Joy candy bar, without the oiliness.  Here's the recipe.

1 C fresh spinach

1 C unsweetened almond milk

1 banana (frozen)

1 pear

1T unsweetened coconut flakes

1 T cocoa powder

Blend all ingredients until smooth.  Enjoy!     

Smoothies & Goals

Despite most of Wisconsin being shut down today because of the extreme cold (-13 as the high!), I still had to work.  Boo.  I work at a college...considering all other local schools were closed,  you would think that we would be too...nooooope.

Anywho.

Today is Day 2 of the 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge I'm doing.  Yesterday, I had a smoothie called Gorilla Punch

1 C fresh spinach

1 C unsweetened vanilla almond milk

1 banana

1 apple

1T cocoa powder

1 T peanut butter

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

I thought I was going to love this one, I mean, peanut butter and chocolate, what's not to love?!  I wasn't really a fan though because I forgot to freeze my banana, and didn't use any ice.  This led to a room temperature, nasty-looking, green/brown smoothie.  The color and the warm taste was NOT appetizing, and I really struggled to choke it down.  Next time, I will DEFINITELY freeze the banana ahead of time.  I think that if it was cold, I would have liked it a lot more.

Today, I had Morning Sunshine

1 C fresh spinach

1/2 C oj

1/2 C water

1 banana

1 orange

1/2 C pineapple

I wised up after drinking the warm smoothie yesterday, and I froze the fresh pineapple overnight.  This smoothie was delicious!  The recipe I used made a little extra so I gave some to Nick.  He thinks green smoothies are all gross just because they're green so I was surprised he even tried it.  Not surprisingly, he loved it!

Tomorrow, I am going to try an Almond Joy smoothie recipe.  It sounds so delicious, so I can't wait!

On a final note, I am super pumped that one of my favorite link-ups is back!  Carolyn over at Fitnasty for Life is now hosting this link-up solo, so stop by her page, and give her some love!  And, of course, join the link-up!

I love this link-up because it's interesting to see what kind of fitness, and life in general, goals my fellow bloggers have.  Setting mini, easily attainable goals, can really help boost a person's motivation.  If you're stuck, and cannot think of any goals, it's always nice to see what your peers are up to, and get some ideas from them!

Since I've been such a lazy-ass lately, and am slowly getting back into the swing of a healthy lifestyle, I am only setting one goal this week.

At least 30 minutes of activity each day.