I LOVE my Bike!!!

Tags

bike, biking, brooklyn, bushwick, cobble hill, exercise, fixie, goals, gym, health, healthy-living, heart rate monitor, hipster, moves, New York, Polar FT60, prospect park, run, running, weight loss, williamsburg, work out

It happened, Brooklyn has taken me over and I think I am officially a hipster.  Let us count the ways that I have changed since leaving my roots in NJ

• I work in a salon in Bushwick and worked in Williamsburg
• I have a scooter
• I have a “fixie” (almost)
• I like my hair better when I don’t brush it
• I am vegetarian
• I juice
• When I don’t juice myself I buy juice
• I love instagram
• I post food photos on instagram
• I have an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook Pro.. and an AppleTV lol

the list goes on and on….

Help me I am a hipster!

But you can’t totally take the Jersey out of me. I still love my animal print lol

But anyway.  This post is about my hipster bike.  I love it already.  Today my friend Julie and I went on a bike ride around Brooklyn.  We biked through Prospect Park and ended up in Cobble Hill for dinner.  It was so much fun and we are going to try to do it more often.  I have to admit, I was nervous that I wasn’t going to use my bike too much, but now I am in love with it and have used it pretty much everyday!

Didn’t get a photo of Julie during in daylight… woops.

Today I also ran outside for the first time this spring.  I originally planned on going to the gym to run on the treadmill.  In fact I walked all the way there, checked in walked into the locker room and realized I forgot my lock and had to go home and get it.    What a waste, so I changed my mind and went for a run outside.  I ran just under 3 miles.  2.9 to be exact and only because I got to the grocery store and wanted to to buy some food.  I even tried to run past the store to the end of the block and turn around but it still didn’t move me up to 3 miles.  darn.

The first row was my run and gym walk, and shopping, and doing some calisthenics when I found places to do them.  The second two rows are our bike riding adventures. 1,552 calories for the day!!!

I really love this Moves app!  It’s so cool how it knows what I am doing, and I love the timeline of my day! Everyone should download it.  Plus it covers what my fitbit and my heart rate monitor can’t.  My fitbit doesn’t know anything other than walking, and my heart rate monitor while it can track my running, and calories and my heart rate (obviously) it can only count my calories not my bike mileage.  So maybe it seems like all these apps and gadgets are excessive, but really they all do different things so I like to use them all.  They aren’t necessary but they are fun.

So now my scooter is feeling left out, in fact the bitch got two tickets today while it was parked (don’t worry I can fight them, the cops must have been really bored today) Now you will probably see me around more on my bike, and hopefully this little added extra cardio will be the jumpstart I need to FINALLY get to my 50 pound loss mini goal!  So many April set backs really ruined that goal.  I am also starting back up with my trainer on Friday so that should help too…

Are there any other fun apps that I should have on my phone?

 

 

 

New Bike, New App, and Bianca and I Hit the Club

Tags

bianca alexis, bike, brooklyn, diet, exercise, fixed-gear, fixie, goth club, health, healthy-living, moves, necropolis, New York, nitzer ebb, running, weight loss, williamsburg, work out, zycle fix

The past few weeks I have been totally out of my element.  I came down with the worst  cold in the history of all colds.  I swear I have never been as sick as I was last week it was insane.  This week I have finally started feeling like myself again so I am finally getting back into the swing of things.

Right before I go sick, I bough a bike.  I know, I know, I have a scooter… what do I need a bike for?  I just figured it would be fun and a good way to burn some extra calories, at least while it is nice out and not super hot and humid.

I LOVE it!  I just need the perfect Barbie sticker for it.  Yes it is a hipster bike,  it’s a fixie.  But right now I have it flipped to be a single speed because I am not ready for the whole fixed gear non-stop pedaling trend.  I just needed a super light bike that I could carry up and down my stairs to my third floor walk up apartment.  I kind of customized this bike a bit, changed the handle bars, added a pink chain and stuff, but it is by a brand called Zycle Fix.

I have ridden it to work all last week, and not only did I get there faster than on my scooter, I burned about 100 calories each way which is awesome.  My cute leopard print seat however is very minimal and it hurts my butt, but my butt will just have to get used to it because I like it too much to change it!

We all know how I like to track things and my friend Birdie introduced me to a new iPhone app called Moves.  It is pretty awesome.  As long as you have your phone on you it tracks everything you do.  It knows when you are walking, running, biking, driving whatever and it keeps track and even keeps like a timeline of the places you were.  Sure it drains my battery a bit, but what doesn’t.  I have pretty much had to carry my charger everywhere I go for a while now anyway.

Obviously I had more steps than that but I wasn’t carrying it while I was running on the treadmill or while I was at work.  I still think the app is pretty cool the way it breaks everything down and can figure out what you are doing.

Bianca and I skip the Gym and hit the Club

On Saturday it was my friend Lauren and her boyfriend Lex’s birthday party.  I honestly wasn’t planning on going clubbing and was going to skip but then my friend Paulo messaged me and convinced me to go.  I am kind of glad that he did.  I honestly had a lot of fun and it was nice to do something different and I got to see a bunch of friends at the same time.

At first I hated it, it was super goth and slow.  I know to most people that read this are like wait, its a goth club, of course it was.  Well there are different types, and that one is not my thing.  After a bit the DJ changed and the music got better and then I had a ton of fun and danced the night away.  Then I didn’t get to poor Jake’s house until like 4.30am and I slept until about 1.30 in the afternoon on Sunday, back to my old self for a day.

Calamity didn’t know what to think about my make-up

Not only is this song fun, its good to workout to.  But I got excited to hear this song being played.

Girl Scout Cookie Inspired Protein Shake

Tags

brooklyn, cashew milk, coconut, dessert, diet, food, girl scout, health, healthy-living, protein shake, samoa, smoothie, Vega, vegan, vegetarian

I wrote this post a long time ago during girl scout cookie time, and I don’t know what happened but I never posted it!

I don’t know about you, but those little girl scout cookies get me every time.  The one good thing about living in Brooklyn and not having friends with kids is that I don’t really have access to them.  When I lived in NJ you could always find a troop of girl scouts sitting out side of a drug store, or a Walmart, or Target.  This year someone at Jake’s work was selling them so he got me my favorites, Thin Mints and Samoas.  The thing is they are full of crap ingredients.  Why have the girl scouts not caught on!  They are full of Hydrogenated oils, preservatives, trans fats, artificial flavors.  Just a ton of not good for you things, I really wish they would clean up their act.

Since they are only around for a short time, I figured I would make a shake inspired by my favorites, the Samoa.  The Samoa cookie is like a coconut macaroon, with chocolate on the bottom drizzled in caramel.  For my shake, I didn’t have caramel so I went with maple agave to get that sweet almost burnt sugar taste, it worked out pretty well.

For this shake you need:

• 1 scoop of Vega chocolate protein powder, or your favorite
• 1 cup of nut milk of your choice
• 1-2 tbsp raw cacao powder
• 1 tbsp Maple Agave nectar
• 2 tbsp shredded coconut
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2-3 ice cubes

For my shake I used my home made cashew milk that is unflavored as well as unsweetened.  I really like cashew milk for these types of shakes because cashew milk has a really nice richness that makes your healthy shake feel a bit more decadent.  Coconut milk would work great as well, but I never have any when I want it.  I used sweetened coconut shreds in my recipe, mostly because it was what I had opened at the time, and since my nut milk is not sweetened and I used raw cacao I figured the little bit of added sugar wouldn’t make much of a difference.  Plus we are trying to make it taste like a cookie!

Just throw all these ingredients in a blender, and blend till it is smooth, add some extra coconut on the top to make it fancy and you are set, drink away!

Sure it might not be a total replacement for the cookie but its still pretty good and calorie wise probably not that far off from a few cookies and you get so much more!  Give it a shot and see what you think.  Plus since girl scout season seems to be over, I am sure you are out of them anyway!

 

 

Synchronized Crunching and Eating for our Abs

Tags

ab workouts, abs, arc trainer, berry crumble, bianca alexis, brooklyn, bushwick, chia seeds, crunches, dessert, diet, dinner, exercise, fitness, fitness magazine, food, fruits and vegetables, grapefruit, gym, health, healthy-living, kale, New York, planet fitness, run, salad, vegan, vegetarian, weight loss, work out

Yesterday was yet another gym and dinner date with Bianca.  This time she asked if we could do abs, so that is what we did, a ton of ab workouts and a half hour on the arc trainer to finish it off.  I also may have went early and ran 2.5 miles before she got there because, why not?

We did burpees, butt ups, bicycles, side planks, v twist sit-ups with a weight, planks, regular crunches, and standing side crunches with a 25 pound plate.  The only thing I couldn’t do was the planks because I still can’t put much pressure on my elbow.  darn… But that made it easy for me to make sure that Bianca didn’t lift her butt up to make it easier, and I got to smack it every time she did.

Tired Bianca after her 3 one minute planks

if only we had a third person there to film us,  our reflection in the window was hilarious because we were synchronized the whole time.

After we were done working out we headed back to my apartment to have an entire dinner full of foods that are good for the mid section that I got from a Women’s Health article and a few other articles online.  After all they say abs are made in the kitchen don’t they?

I basically wanted to include greens, nuts, dairy, beans, organic soy, oats and whole grains, berries, coconut and olive oil, and chia seeds and I somehow did it.  Actually I shouldn’t be surprised that I did it, that is really just a balanced healthy meal isn’t it?

I saw a recipe in fitness magazine for a kale salad that actually incorporated a lot of the things listed and even better it actually sounded good.  I searched and searched online but could not find a link for the recipe so I had to take a screen shot of the magazine (thanks to my iPad subscription for making that easy)

 

I added a bit of garlic to the tofu croutons however and lemon to the dressing because it was kind of flavorless.  I don’t know if I just didn’t get enough juice from the grape fruit or what, but the lemon kicked it up just right.  I also soaked my hazelnuts over night and dried them in my oven.  And for added protein added cannellini beans.

i love that there are dollar bills in this photo so random

Also whoever decided that the cutting grapefruit over a bowl thing was an easy task is crazy, it was so hard.  I destroyed my grapefruit, no pretty segments for our salads.

Yum!  but that salad is not complete!  We forgot the shaved romano cheese!

much better!  Thanks to Bianca for stopping at a fancy Manhattan cheese shop to get it, the salad wouldn’t be the same without it!

For dessert I made a mixed berry crumble.  I looked up recipes for an idea of how to make it but didn’t really follow one, so I will just list what I used, this is for two.

Filling

• fresh blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries
• 2 tbsp Chia seeds (1 tbsp for each)
• quick drizzle of maple agave syrup (maybe 1 tsp tops on each)

Crumble topping

• 1 packet of Kashi go lean hearty breakfast cereal
• 2 packets of Monk fruit in the raw
• 1-2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbps coconut oil

pack the filling into the ramekins very full as they are going to condense down then top with the crumble topping.  Mix the topping with your hands to get all the stuff mixed together, the heat from your hands will melt the coconut oil enough to make sure everything is well combined

Bake in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes, but keep an eye on them so that you don’t burn the top.   Let it cool for 5 or so minutes, and the chia seeds will help thicken up the juice!

A lot of the recipes I found online had you add flour and sugar to the berries.  Why!?  Aren’t berries sweet enough on their own.  I wanted to omit the flour so I went for the chia seeds and it worked pretty well!  I was also toying with the idea to put a little balsamic vinegar with the berries, but I totally forgot because we were so hungry, but I think I am going to try it next time!

oh no!  Bianca is done and I didn’t make extras!

No Bianca! It’s Mine!

Behind the scenes action shot!

We only use the high-tech stuff here, poster board on a chair.  Thats how you get it done in a small Brooklyn apartment.

 

 

Bump in the Road

Tags

Anna Yvette, brooklyn, bump in the road, bushwick, goals, gym, health, healthy-living, heart rate monitor, john cena, machine gun kelly, mgk, New York, Polar FT60, road rash, run, running, scooter, weight loss, work out, wrestlemania

Last week I had a great gym week, again I ignored what my heart rate monitor said and ran as much as I wanted.  Its a lot  more fun, and I have honestly already noticed a difference, my heart rate is staying lower while I run which is awesome.again no stars or trophies. I really thought I would get a couple stars since I at least finished all of my zones.  Oh well.  I don’t need stars to keep going, they just look pretty on my watch.

I was all pumped to go to the gym yesterday.  Mondays I have been going in the morning to do some cardio then I go with Jake at night to do our weekly leg day.  I stayed at Jake’s house Sunday night to watch Wrestlemania and when I left Monday morning I hit a bump in the road, literally,  On my scooter.  I lost control and me and my scooter went flying and slid across the road.  I was pretty lucky I didn’t break anything or get seriously hurt just some road rash and bumps and bruises.  My scooter still runs even though it is kind of scratched up.  I was lucky that it was on a busy road, a lot of people saw it happen and helped me get my scooter up and called an ambulance to clean me up.

glad that it wasn’t an expensive coat and that it’s spring hehe.

This is what I woke up with.  My arms neck and abs are sore.  I guess I tensed up a lot, it was seriously super crazy feeling and scary.  And I am glad that this is all that happened.  It kind of woke me up a bit too, what if this were last summer when I was just wearing short sleeves or a little hoodie.  What save my arms from worse was my coat and my plastic windbreaker underneath.  I am definitely now always going to keep my skin covered when I ride no matter how hot it is.  I really wanted to be tough and go to the gym yesterday and at least just ride on the bike, but every time I moved my arm the wrong way my arm would start to bleed again and a lot, so I figured the people at the gym wouldn’t appreciate being next to a bloody girl.  I still am going to try to get some light cardio in today, maybe outside since it is AMAZING out!

Speaking of Wrestlemania my super talented friend Anna Yvette produced and was the vocals for a song by Machine Gun Kelly, and John Cena used it for his Redemption Video!   I was actually dozing off while we were watching and woke up yelling thats Anna singing!!  I had no clue that it was going to be on.  I am so proud of her!  What a huge huge huge break for her!

Kristin Went Out

Tags

art, brooklyn, Cojo Art, diet, goals, health, Mark DeMaio, myfitnesspal, New York, painting, Sacred Gallery, West Village, work out, Worm Carnevale

Last night I actually ventured out into Manhattan to go to the opening reception of a friend of mine, Mark DeMaio’s gallery Show.  I met Mark at another friends opening show a little over a year ago and we instantly connected.

Mark’s show was called I Walk the Line, he limited his colors to black white and silver, and even used black glitter in some.  I LOVED it!

This is my favorite piece of the night, I love the skulls and all the different faces in there.  Every time you look at it you notice something else.

-My Heart is Full

Mark and his doormen

After the show we headed over to the West Villiage to a great Peruvian restaurant for the after party.  I had so much fun and got to hang out with my friend Worm Carnevale who you might remember from this post and the photograph he took of me.  I also got to finally meet a facebook friend that I have followed for a bit named Cojo.  I stayed out wayyyyy later than I wanted to, but it was worth it.  It was nice to let loose (and by let loose I mean sitting around a table talking to friends haha).  I have become a huge slave to the gym that I kind of lost some of my fun self.  It’s just hard when you have goals that you want to meet and your determined its easy to let that happen.

I’m definitely tired, but I still got up early, and now I am heading back the the gym.  mission get to -50 pounds is still in full effect.  I’ll rest Sunday and maybe nap during Jake’s Wrestlemania viewing get together…  or maybe I’ll watch who knows, it could be interestesting hehe.

By the way, I’m back on MyFitnessPal tracking my macros, that is how on this mission is, I am actually driving myself insane tracking everything that I eat again.  So if you want to add me my name is KristinJacksonHair.  YAY

 

 

 

Do I Listen to My Body, or The Machine That Listens to My Body

Tags

arc trainer, brooklyn, diet, exercise, goals, gym, health, healthy-living, heart rate monitor, New York, Polar FT60, run, running, weight loss, work out

Last July I bought my Polar FT60 Women’s Heart Rate Monitorand I can honestly say it was one of the best things that I bought.  It did take me a bit to figure it out but once I got the hang of it I think it has been indispensable.  The thing that drives me crazy is that none of the training modes give me much time to run.  I chose the FT60 over any other model because it has the training modes that give you weekly goals to meet and/or beat and it also gives you feedback as well.  

 

Right now I have mine set to increase fitness.  I used to have it set to lose weight but I found that it had me work out at too low of an intensity and it got boring.  Even in the increase fitness setting my goals are 2 hours in zone 1 (117-133) 3.5 hours in zone 2 (134-151) and 1.5 hours in zone 3 (152-171).  When I run I am in zone 3 and when I do the arc trainer or the elliptical at a moderate pace I can stay in zone 2.  But why won’t it let me be in zone 3 more?  My body does not feel exhausted if I run the amount that I am which last week was way more than it wanted me to.  In fact the past few weeks I have felt like I wanted to do more.  So I decided that this week I would….

Sporting a pink face in that one… That day I warmed up with .25mi then ran 4.75 miles non-stop and stayed in zone 3 for most of my workout.  It felt awesome, I have lost so much of my endurance since last summer when I was running more.  When I wrote to polar asking how I can get more time in zone 3 in my training they basically told me I couldn’t and in a nice way to get healthier.  Explaining that I should be able to get my heart rate lower while I run.

Yeah yeah yeah, I totally agree with that idea.  However, how can I do that without feeling like I am actually working hard.  I am sure there is a TON of science that goes into these things but I can’t help but to feel a tad bit held back sometimes, but then other times it helps me get out of a weight loss slump.  I don’t want to say that I know all, or that I know more than the engineers that designed this, but I do know my body and it is telling me to run more.That was my totals from last week.  My zone 1 is a bit over what it really was because my battery was dying in my sensor I think and I was getting low readings during times when I should have been in zone 2… but oh well, its still about right.  See what it told me though, train less in zone 3.  Of course it did because I ran 3 days in a row.  The bummer was I didn’t get a single star for my feedback, usually I get 3 stars and a trophy.  I was surprised I didn’t get anything considering I did way better working out for 12.5 hours and burning almost 4000 calories!

So what am I going to do?  Run.  suck it Polar… just kidding.  But I am going to ignore the training goals, and just use the heart rate monitor to make sure that I stay within my 3 zones for a couple of weeks and see where it takes me.  I am creeping up to reaching 50 pounds and I would like that to come sooner than later. But I think everyone wants that.

 

Confessions of a Shoe Addict… take two

Tags

diet, exercise, gym, gym shoes, health, healthy-living, hurricane 14, irregular choice, jack rabbit, jeffrey campbell, kinvara, kinvara 3, minimalist, run, running, saucony, shoe addict, shoes, virrata, work out

If you have been any where near a loyal reader of my blog you will know that I have a shoe problem.  I just love the damn things.  They pretty much always fit no matter what size you are, and even though the good ones are never comfortable I still wear them anyway.  They can make every plain black outfit I have not so plain black, and well they also look so good on my shelves in my room.  But I honestly have not bought new shoes since probably Christmas… Jeffrey Campbell and Irregular Choice, my go to brands have been underwhelming for me as of late, which I suppose is a good thing.  And I guess I just prefer big chunky boots, over little sandals so right now isn’t my shoe buying season.

I posted this kind of sad post last May about my shoe buying extravaganza.  While I haven’t been bummed about my gym schedule or lack of partying, in fact I have been enjoying it, I have been feeling some shoe buying withdraw.  So I figured I would get some new gym shoes.  I have been spending upwards of 13+ hours at the gym a week so I might as well.  Plus this way I can switch out my shoes more to get a rest and not wear out as fast.

The last time I went to Jack Rabbit they fitted me in the Saucony Powergrid Hurricane 14. They are super comfortable and I love them, they have a slightly lower heel to toe drop than a standard running shoe at 8mm.  This helped me run better and go from a heel runner to a mid-strike runner.

tried and true

Maybe I shouldn’t mess with a good thing, but I was interested in trying a few pairs with an even lower heel drop so I ordered a pair with a 4mm drop called the Saucony Kinvara 3which is considered more of a minimalist shoe.

and then an even lower 0mm heel drop called the Saucony Virratathat I am going to slowly transition to and see how I like it.

I may have also gotten a boys version because they were on super sale though they don’t seem to have the zero drop…

And yes I bought them all in those color ways.  Jake is going to think they are so ugly, I can’t wait to wear them during our workout dates hehe.

So you might be wondering why I am trying these different types of shoes, its because I am actually really enjoying running and I want to get better at it and see what shoe helps me.  I have improved so much from last year and I want to keep going.  I have short legs, so I have a shorter stride and I want to get faster and make my stride more efficient.  I can tell via my fitbit, that it takes me more steps to get somewhere than the average person (I blame that on all my super tight mermaid skirts that I wore during my uber goth stage like Morticia Addams)  so I figure I should try something that might encourage me to widen my stride and make it a little more comfortable.  Plus they are pretty in all their loud neon glory.  I am sticking with Saucony though, they are super comfortable and seem to fit my foot well, a lot of times I have issues with my heel sliding up and down and at least with the hurricanes I don’t.

Do any of you guys use minimalist shoes?  How do you feel about them?  I am kind of excited to try them out.

Bianca Squats for Stuffed Peppers and Raw Carrot Cake

Tags

bianca alexis, brooklyn, bushwick, carrot cake, carrot cake recipe, coconut icing, diet, dinner, exercise, food, fruits and vegetables, gym, health, healthy-living, Martha Stewart, New York, planet fitness, raw, stuffed peppers, tomatillo salsa, vegan, vegetarian, work out

Tuesday Bianca came over for another gym day and dinner.  It’s fun to work out with her because she is gung ho for everything and fun to talk to during cardio.  We worked arms, and I made her do some squats lol. I even have proof!

The other best part about Bianca coming over is I get to try out recipes that Jake wouldn’t totally be into.  So I made vegan stuffed poblano peppers with fresh tomatillo salsa that I based off of a recipe I found in the Martha Stewart Meatlesscook book.  Her recipe included goat cheese, which I don’t like at all, and really it didn’t need it so I skipped it.  I also added the farro because i thought that would be a better addition.

I roasted the peppers on my gas stove which made my apartment smell interesting, luckily it was like 50 degrees outside and I could open my windows.  After I roasted the peppers and peeled them, I made a batch of farro and sautéed it with fresh corn and black beans with a bit of the salsa and packed that into the peppers.

What is farro you say? It’s a gluten free grain.  Now before you think I am hopping on the gluten-free diet trend I am not.  I wanted to change up my quinoa obsession and I figured a heartier grain would be good for this dish.  It has kind of a nutty taste and its just really good.

For the tomatillo salsa, I boiled 5 tomatillos to make them soft then drained them and put them in my blender with a couple cloves of garlic, half a jalapeño, a ton of fresh cilantro, and the juice from 1 and a half limes.  I seasoned it with salt and pepper of course as well.

Of course no meal would be perfect without a dessert so I decided to try a raw carrot cake recipe that I found on a blog.  And by recipe I mean an idea because you know I didn’t follow it.

For this I grated one giant carrot, then realized how juicy the carrot was, so I ran the second one through my juicer to get a dryer pulp.  But I think I liked how it had two different textures, a coarse grated carrot mixed with the finer carrot pulp so if you can do that I would suggest it.  If not grate both but squeeze out a lot of the moisture or it won’t stay together.  Then I added about a cup of raw walnuts (soaked and dried in my oven of course) about a cup of dates, and 3/4 cup of unsweetened dried coconut.  Blended that all together then pressed it into heart shaped baking cups.  Oh! and don’t forget the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg!  I did, and had to do it all over again lol.  I know a lot of people think carrot cake isn’t carrot cake without the raisins, but I can’t stand raisins so they were omitted in my version (and it was still carrot cake to me!).

messy kitchen

For the icing, the original called for cashews, which honestly sounded really good, but Bianca unfortunately is allergic to cashews so I made this out of coconut milk instead.  Did you know that if you put coconut milk in the fridge over night it thickens the creamy part of the milk and it separates to the top.  It ends up almost like being coconut cream (only without all the added junk when you buy it pre-made)  I scooped out all the coconut cream put it in my blender with some maple flavored agave, vanilla powder and a little vanilla extract.  Then I whipped it together and it made a super fluffy icing kind of like a cool whip consistency and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

I am totally making that raw carrot cake for like every occasion now, I think anyone would like it no matter what kind of diet they have, it didn’t need to be made with flour or baked, and it didn’t need any extra oil or hydrogenated fats to make it delicious.  Give it a shot, you will probably really like it!  Even if you are one of those people that don’t believe in mixing vegetables in with your sweets… you know who you are…

 

Tattoos and Leg Days

Tags

brooklyn, dead lifts, deadlifts, exercise, gnostic tattoo, goals, gym, gym time, health, healthy-living, heart rate monitor, leg day, measurable difference, New York, Polar FT60, squats, tattoos, weight loss, work out

Last Thursday I finished up my Angel tattoo so I didn’t get to go to the gym Friday or Saturday to let it heal up.  I made my goals for the week but by the skin of my teeth and only because I had days like this:

I kinda of knew I probably wouldn’t beat my goals if I didn’t add some extra time to the days I did go, but I went a little crazy hehe, I even clocked in about 22,000 steps that day!  Either way, I did sleep well after that workout!

I am sure you want to see my finished tattoo…

meow

Don’t judge my thigh, this is 10 minutes after we finished and man was I swollen!  It’s in the peeling stage right now so I can’t snap a new one quite yet.  Leaf did such a good job getting Angel’s attitude in her face, and I LOVE the frame!  I already have my  other leg planned the only thing is that I hate cutting into my gym time especially since I am trying to work on my endurance for the runs that I am doing this summer.

Monday was my first day back to the gym since my tattoo and it is my weekly leg day with Jake.  I used to just run while Jake did all his squats and deadlifts but a little over a month ago or so I decided that I should be doing that too.  So now I do his entire routine.

This was in the beginning of when I started with him I was doing 40 pounds and he was doing 315 pounds.

Yesterday I doubled what I started with and did 80 pounds and Jake made his goal a week early and did 405 pounds!  Thats just crazy.

The first week I started doing all this it hurt to walk for days after, now my legs still get a little sore since I keep upping the weight but not nearly like that first week.  I think there is a big difference in how they look though.  Hopefully.  Even if there isn’t a measurable difference I am getting stronger and that is kind of cool, and it’s more fun and entertaining to be on the meathead side of the gym for a change.