CrossFit, FitFluential, Health, Photos

A Fitness Survey

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I took this survey from Christina and decided to fill it out, even though I wasn’t tagged by anyone.

1. Run/workout in the heat and humidity or freezing cold temps and snow?
I’ve never ran in the cold winter time. I’m a fair weather runner and have ran in 35ºC temperatures. I can’t stand the lung burn when you get while exercising outside in the chilly weather.

2. Washboard abs or flat abs?
On females, I’d rather flat abs, or a semi-defined stomach. I find that washboard abs look a little funky on girls.

3. Dr. Oz or The Doctors?
I don’t have cable. No idea.

4. Cardio or strength?
Both! I don’t say “today is a strength day” or “today is a cardio day” or anything like that. I just go to yoga when I feel like it, go on runs when I’m craving it, and go to CrossFit and not know what the heck is going to be up on the board that day.

5. Cravings: Protein or carbs?
I’m stealing Christina’s answer: I rarely crave protein – hopefully because I get enough. Who doesn’t crave carbs? I could sit around and eat pita chips, crackers, and bread for hours. Pasta bores me though.

6. Jillian Michaels or Bob Harper?
My boyfriend and I don’t have cable TV anymore, so I never really got into their television shows. Can I just say neither?

7. Frozen Yogurt or Ice Cream?
Frozen yogurt to me, tastes the same as ice cream. At least at Menchies, so why don’t we just go with that answer.

8. To train: Upper body or Lower body?
No preference. Though, my CrossFit coaches have been getting me to work my shoulder strength more. Which is sooo difficult.

9. Protein powder or food with protein?
Food with protein, for sure. Gimmie dat chicken breast!

10. Lunges or squats?
Squats are easier on my right knee. When I do lunges I sometimes bow my right knee inwards, which causes a bit of pain on my knee cap. Something “flicks” and it can be painful! I hate wall balls (at CrossFit) and have been known to skip classes if they’re on the website for the WOD (workout of the day)!

11. Sweet or salty?
Sweet. They don’t call me candy’ girl for nothin.

12. Workout attire: cute or comfy?
I don’t think anyone intends to buy ugly or uncomfortable workout clothes. I wear anything from Lululemon, Nike, to Old Navy.

13. Body Pump or Heavy lifting?
I went to a Muscle Pump class at the local YMCA and the instructor was huffing and puffing her way through movements, and allowing us breaks, so I kept on goin’. I really didn’t enjoy it at all. I’d rather stick to something more extreme like CrossFit. TRACTOR FLIPS! Who does that? Oh. Me.

We also like doing Frog jump at CrossFit too, lol.

14. Yoga or Pilates?
Yoga is good, only if I have an amazing instructor. I haven’t tried Pilates yet. I don’t even know what that entails. Is it just a fancier name for Yoga?

15. Nike or Adidas?
NIKE! Look at my hot pink Nike Free’s I got last year.

16. Running on the treadmill or outdoors?
I can run on the treadmill, longer than I can by myself outdoors. I like the outdoors though too, and have been doing a lot of that this summer with my co-worker L!

17. Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s?
I’ve never been to either of them! Anyone want to go with me?

18. Summer or Winter Olympics?
I like the summer olympics, gymnastics is amazing, trampoline is so silly, and diving. Diving is neat. Why wouldn’t there be diving in the winter olympics? It’s indoors….anyway, doesn’t really matter to me lol.

I’m part gymnast, didn’t you know? My strong point: the leg flail jump. That or I’m channeling Molly Shannon, from Saturday Night Live.

19. Exercise classes or Exercise videos?
Classes. I haven’t really given exercise videos a chance. I like classes because if I’m doing something wrong I can be corrected by the instructor.

20. Steamed veggies or roasted veggies?
Steamed asparagus, roasted potatoes. Ha. Got you on that one, didn’t I.

I tag the following people to complete this survey! All my Toronto FitFluential gal pals: Krysten, Robyn, Morgan and Jess! I also want to tag my new friend Meg!

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Daily, Health, Photos

Spa day: at home!

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We’re getting into the drier months now, and it’s time to focus on your skin not sucking into itself and shriveling up. Er, I mean.. it’s time to moisturize the heck out of your skin to keep having that summer glow! Right?

I’m one of the lucky ones who’ve never had major issues with their skin. I do find that my skin is a little sensitive (and reacts to certain eye creams: Warning, the following post shows a photo of me with an allergic reaction/puffy eyes) and it gets a little red, sometimes tight when I wash it with certain face washes.

I’ve been sticking to my skin care regime pretty faithfully. But for my facial wash, I now use Philosophy’s Purity cleanser, it’s gentle and I’ve never had any issues with it in the past 6 months of using it twice a day.

On a not so regular basis, I like to pamper my skin and do mud-masks and have a spa day in the comfort of my own home. I think that exfoliating your skin on a regular basis (at least once a week) is a pretty important step in anyone’s skin care routine. I’ve had this Philosophy’s micro exfoliating treatment laying around my apartment for a good 6+ months before I got the courage to use it. I won a huge beauty basket on Twitter, and this was inside. It looked intimating.

Reading the instructions scared me a little. The first step was applying the yellow jello-like goo. It was like a scrub, and I applied it all over my face (as you can see below). Then it was time for the second step – the activator. It caused a noticeable warming effect onto my skin. I was a little worried to be honest, but it didn’t burn. Just felt really warm. I left it on for the amount of time I was supposed to and washed it off with water and a wash cloth.

I can’t say I noticed a difference in my skins appearance, texture or smoothness. Perhaps one jar’s worth of this product isn’t enough to make an educated answer on how well it works for the skin. Perhaps it’s something one needs to use regularly to notice a difference.

Will I ever purchase this item myself? Probably not. It was neat while I tried it, but it didn’t wow me with results.

I am not affiliated with Philosophy, as I said I won this gift set at a Twitter party.

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CrossFit, FitFluential, Fitness, Health

My CrossFit Journal (Year 1, week 24)

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The short:

  • Yoga x2
  • Run x2
  • CrossFit x1

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year 1, week 24, day one

I went to Yoga again, but this time I went solo. I don’t remember much of the class, but I do remember not liking the instructor as much as another woman who does the class later on in the week. It’s funny how it works out that way…
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year 1, week 24, day two

4.25km run by my self — I had planned on going for 6km but I ended up turning around early. I thought I had only ran 3k, but when I mapped it out it was 4.25k! The sweat was pourin’ off me, it was super hot that weekend.

Sorry. That photo is probably nasty. Either way, I wanted to break up the texty blog post with some photos of my SWEAT. lol

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year 1, week 24, day three

Get out of town.

6:30pm CrossFit class followed by an 8:00pm 6km run with my co-worker. Moses. I was feeling it on the run, that’s for sure. I even let out huge sighs and “are we there yet?”‘s hahaha!

 

EMOM 15
1 Snatch

EMOM 5
1 Snatch Press
1 Overhead Squat

That was the prescribed workout above , a 20 minute time limit. You do 1, every minute on the minute. Instead I did 20 snatch press to overhead squats, and I did 60lbs for the full duration!


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year 1, week 24, day four

Yoga!!!

I think this is the one where I mentioned that I nearly got kicked out of yoga (for laughing). Not to worry, a blog post will be coming up soon about that.

I found this particular class very useless. I felt like I didn’t workout, just got a few minor stretches in. lol Again, total blog post all about this class coming up.

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year 1, week 24, day five

Okay this doesn’t really count as working out but I wanted to include it in my roundup.

(click to enlarge image)

Steph and I went to the local climbing gym because I knew there was going to be a bouldering competition happening that evening. “Summer Sweat Fest” sponsored by MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-Op). It was so great seeing my “old buddies” again. I haven’t really climbed hard since February, and then just going in there for an evening and watching everyone work the boulder problems, definitely made me want to get back into it again!

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