The BIG Two-Five & News

Hi again you guys!
Yesterday was my 25th birthday, one of the big ones. It was a little scary, it’s not that I feel old (but do you ever, really?) it’s that when I was younger I used to picture myself being 25 and on top of the world. And I guess that I’m kinda on top of the world, like my younger brother pointed out to me yesterday during our dinner; I’ve got things quite figured out and there are a lot who haven’t figured that out yet – so that’s good, right? I’ve managed to do something during these 25 years. I’m currently studying Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, so I know what I want to do (sort of) and I’m in a committed and great relationship of 3 years, we share our own apartment, so it’s great really. I guess I should just count my blessings.

Sorry for rambling, all in all it feels quite okay and I had a lovely day yesterday and I felt really celebrated!
Like I wrote in my last entry, I didn’t have time to do so much training this Friday due to nerves and my exam, but I did a solid workout for an hour yesterday (even if it was my bday, I thought that was pretty good). But, I did eat some not-so-clean food yesterday, but I did better than I expected. I ate a little too much carbs and a little too much fat, but it wasn’t that bad. Since I’m not sure what ratios Cassey uses in her “Clean Out Mini Meal Plan”, I’ve divided it like this: 120g protein, 90g carbs and 40g fat and yesterday I exceeded the carb portion with 11g and the fat portion with 10g, but it was delicious and I still didn’t reach my Daily Goal, mostly because I ate too little protein.

Since I spent the majority of the day together with my parents and younger brother, me and E (my bf/partner) decided to have a cozy, stay-in-watching-a-movie-night today and we’ve prepared with Chips, seeing as he said that I should allow myself to eat something that I love. We’ll share the bag at least, so that I don’t pig out – ending up eating the whole thing myself. So not a very healthy weekend, but will do better through out the week that starts tomorrow. I’ll go back to the regular meals and training, so I don’t fear that I’ll gain any particular weight or something from this weekend. Will have my party next weekend though, so some alcohol will definitely be consumed and maybe snacks. But I’m not all that worried, I will be good during all the other days!

How do you guys handle special situations/birthdays and such, when it comes to food?

Onto the exciting news!
Just an hour or so ago, me and E finally booked our trip to New York! We’re flying out on the August 2nd and we’ll stay for 10 days. It’s going to be so amazing and I’m so happy! I’ve been to the States before, but never NYC. If you guys knows anything about it, please give me suggestions on good restaurants and things to do! 🙂

 

I survived

Yes. I survived, but this time I’m actually not referring to Cassey’s exercises, rather I survived my psychology exam, but well it doesn’t feel that great. I mean I surely passed, but I won’t get an A or anything. Since I strive to be absolutely honest with you guys, I didn’t exercise all that much today. I’m not really proud of it, but seeing as my exam was a 3 p.m. today I spent the earlier part of the day mostly being nervous. I couldn’t go out running again because my shins hurt – runner’s splits – have to buy a decent/proper pair of running shoes. But I did the first two videos (that you’re supposed to do according to the calendar), so at least that’s something. I didn’t want to completely ignore the training, even if I was nervous and focused on scanning through some of my notes this morning. But I plan on making up for it this weekend or I’m going to try.

But again, I’ll be honest. Tomorrow’s my 25th birthday and I’m going to enjoy it! I think I deserve it and I have to do some last-minute cleaning tomorrow (don’t have the energy now) before my parents and brother arrive. But I’ll try to maybe do at least another video or two tomorrow morning or on Sunday. But I think this is important, to try and be realistic about this whole thing. I don’t want to become obsessed or get anxiety if something like this happens; which makes me unable to train. Or what do you think?

I’m going to enjoy some Thai food in a couple of minutes, I’m so hungry! What are you guys eating today? Please share recipes with me! Clean eating isn’t all that fun if I can’t try new ideas, so please tell me, how do you guys prepare your meals through out the week?

I also wanted to say thank you so much to my readers and especially to those of you who have commented on my blog! It means a lot. I’m glad we can be there for each other, motivation is so important.

Have a great weekend guys, any plans?

 

 

2013|03|21 – Lower Body

Hi guys!
How are you feeling today? I’m feeling quite beat actually, been focusing on Psychology today seeing as my exam is tomorrow – not looking forward to that. But I did however have the time to do today’s exercises according to Cassey’s schedule and the nightmarish “The 100 Burpee Burnout”, I’m happy to say that I did survive although I couldn’t really keep up seeing as she was faster, but I think I did pretty good most of the time – the one-armed one though! Hell. I’m not quite there yet. But I’ll be able to do it soon enough, hehe – positive thinking and energy’s good, right?

Before I started to workout more regularly (for the 1000th time, I don’t know how many times I’ve started it up) in November 2012, I rarely felt like I had the time to work out properly. And I did have a lot going on at Uni then, BUT to be honest I did have the time. I guess I was partly lazy and unmotivated. So now, instead of sitting in front of a TV-series or whatever I take the time to actually follow the Calendar. I’ve also noticed that whenever I manage to get the exercise in before going to Uni, I feel so much more energized through out the day, so that’s great. I’m hoping to keep this up and that is the main reason I started this blog, I wanted to reach out to people out in the Blogosphere/Cyberspace, so that we can encourage each other! Especially you POPsters out there. I also thought that if I track my process like this, I’ll have incentive to keep it up!

I also stumbled upon this, truly wonderful, blog post that Cassey wrote a while back and it was quite in-tune with what I wrote about yesterday. Read her post here. It’s about “cheat” food, you know those times when you actually eat a real cookie or something like that. And it felt so honest and wonderful to read that post, she basically says that it’s okay to cheat every once in a while, your psyche needs it. And I noticed that during last week when I started following the Lean Out Mini Meal Plan,  I had cravings for sweet stuff and also my beloved crisps. And I ended up feeling so defeated when I counted calories and realized that basically anything that I wanted to eat, was filled with unnecessary, empty calories. That feeling isn’t very nice and so it’s better to listen to your body, you don’t have to plan your cheat days/periods, but try to listen to your body! Don’t get too stuck on counting calories and things like that. I speak from experience actually, I’ve had a weird and quite unhealthy relationship with foods since my teens basically so just try and do what makes you feel good. Sure, of course it’s great to have a little self-control and try to focus on the training, eating whole foods and healthy stuff, but it’s okay to cheat sometimes.

I know that Cassey asked that in her post, but I thought that if anyone’s reading and feel like sharing; if you’d cheat, what would you eat? Me? I’d eat crisps, or gooey cookies fresh out of the oven! Yum. Think I’m going to stop it here though, or I’ll get to big a craving for those kind of things and I’ll probably “pig out” on my Birthday this weekend anyways.

 

Keep up the good work! Did you enjoy working the lower body today?

 

Core

Hi guys!

How are you doing today? Wednesday, middle of the week yeah I know but hold on! It’ll be Friday before you know it (at least I hope so). I have an exam on Friday, psychology. It’s really interesting and all, but it’s a lot of new information and I just want it over with. But like I said, it’s Wednesday, so for you POPsters out there you know that today this month (I don’t know about previous ones, seeing as I just started) it’s Core! So did you guys work your Core’s today? I certainly did and oh my!

I must say that I really enjoyed Cassey’s “Corset Workout”, firstly because she gave that introduction on women’s trends and everything and secondly because she spiced up the workout by sporting a lovely Nike Corset. You did great Cassey! Since I’m just starting, following the calendar and everything, it’s not easy to keep up, but I’m doing my best. Tomorrow’s the 100 burpee burnout, can’t say that I’m really looking forward to it, because I seriously think that I might drop dead in the middle of it – but then again, I like a challenge.

Since I started 1 week and a half ago, I’ve tried to follow Cassey’s Lean Out Mini Meal-plan and it’s been going quite okay. I mean, I don’t yet have the Protein mix do to the Protein shakes, seeing as I need to find a Soy one or some other lactose free version. But I’ve been trying really hard to eat more regularly, something I was really bad at before. A normal day for me would’ve been no breakfast, no lunch – except the occasional fruit or something and then when I got home in the afternoon I’d be crazy hungry and for dinner I’d practically inhale my food gorging down on Pasta and such. Not good, I know. But now, I’m trying to eat three times a day and a fourth little “snack” (fruit in my case) after my workout. And I’m noticing that I’m getting hungry more frequently too, which I take as a good sign, hopefully my metabolism is working more on full speed nowadays. When it comes to liquid’s though I’m struggling quite a bit, I’ve never been good at drinking water, I rarely feel all that thirsty so I’m still at like 3-4 cups of water/a day but then at Uni I might drink some Diet Coke or something, not the best I know. But at least I’m working on it.

I did have some candy yesterday, seeing as I’m prepping for my exam and I usually want to snack on something then and well since I started using “MyFitnessPal” since I started with the POP Pilates/Blogilates, I was blown away by how MUCH calories candy contains and I don’t mean like half a bag full of candy, but just a few pieces. Oh my. Well, I’ll definitely try not to gorge on that too much in the future. So far I’ve been able to be good and stay off crisps/chips – that’s my weakness, my vice, I LOVE it so much. But so far so good.

But like I mentioned in the last post, my 25th birthday is coming up and I’m going out with my family and boyfriend to a restaurant. While I’ll probably be able to order something quite healthy and desserts for me usually means sherbet (quite okay calorie-wise) due to my lactose intolerance – I’m having a party here next weekend. First one, since we moved in here in the end of June last year. So it’s quite a big deal and I’m probably going to have snacks for the guests and so, so we’ll see how that’ll go for me. But then I thought that you have to live a little too, right? If I try to be good and really work for it, with wholesome food, exercise 6 times/week for the rest of the time, I should be able to do some “unhealthy” eating on my birthday, or what do you say?  I don’t want to just serve healthy stuff, even if I could do like oven-baked root veggies in the oven or something.

We’re all doing our very best right, and that is what counts! We can do this, but we’re also allowed to snack a little. At least I think so.

Love to all of you POPsters/readers out there!

 

1 week and counting

I just started following Cassey Ho who has this blog called: Blogilates. And it’s possibly the best site ever. She’s a Pilates and fitness instructor and she’s just wonderful! If you sign-up on her site you get access to her calendar that covers the whole month and tells you exactly what to train – and it gets better! – it doesn’t just tell you to do a hundred lunges or ten sit-ups, it tells you the name of one of Cassey’s YouTube-videos on her channel (or you simply search for it on YouTube and it’ll pop up). It’s so easy, well the videos aren’t – you’re gonna have to work for it – but for someone like me who’s quite lazy, this is perfect. Someone who tells you exactly what to do and for how long and you simply follow it for either six days a week or whatever fits you.

So, my 25th birthday is coming up this weekend and frankly it’s a little scary, well not scary per-say but it’s…well, I’m getting older. I remember being 10 and feeling like 25 was ancient. Anyway, I thought that I’d better start training properly and I really like this pilates-meets-cardio-and-calisthenics. Seeing as I’m a student I don’t really feel like spending a lot of money on a gym membership. Gym’s can be quite impersonal and I haven’t always been content with the classes and such. Anyway, back in November 2012 my boyfriend helped me puzzle together a training schedule for me to do twice a week but even if I managed to keep it up till now, middle of March, I just felt like it was a little boring and too repetitive. And I’ve never been a huge fan of exercising, though I love the results, yeah I know…that sounds great, huh? Well, since I’m about to turn – what feels at the moment ancient – I thought it was time to get serious.

I’ve now managed to follow Cassey’s calendar for one week and it’s been great. I feel stronger, even if it might just be in my head and for me to pull of running twice a week and 1h of training/cardio/calisthenics/POP-Pilates six times a week, well that’s almost a miracle. I’ve tried to eat better too and while it’s not fun all the time – I do have a sweet tooth – well, it’s still feels good. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up and while it would be nice to have an nice body at the beach this summer, it’s more than that, I want to be stronger and be able to really feel good about myself. Sounds kind of cliché maybe, but it’s the truth.

I’d really recommend you checking out Cassey’s site and especially if you’re like me, who needs to get some motivation to get your ass of that couch and away from the potato crisps. Cassey might not be a fit for everyone, I realize that, she’s very energetic and maybe even girly but I think that she’s wonderful! She makes me happy whenever I get myself out of bed to do my exercises before University and she tries her best to encourage you even though she’s not there with you in reality. Thank you, Cassey!

With this blog, if I’ll be able to keep it up, I guess I wanted to reach out to other POPsters out there and also, for myself keeping me motivated and maybe share with you steps of my journey and good and healthy recipes.