Good morning blog friends!
I hope that each of you had a fabulous day yesterday, whether you were celebrating Christmas or celebrating that it was Friday. Ours was another fun-filled day. I spent a lot of time working on the blog, trying to get a particular plug-in to work (no luck yet). I also did some rearranging of the widgets in the sidebars and footers. I finally took the time to set up my affiliate link with JustHost, where FitFeat is hosted. So if you have a blog that is not currently self-hosted, and you decide to go that route, feel free to click on JustHost from the banner in the sidebar and if you sign up, they’ll know I sent ya!
I have so many things to share that I don’t even know where to start!
I suppose since I’m writing this post at 6:38 in the morning that I’ll start the post in much the same fashion as I start every single day: with coffee.
Early readers of my blog know that I have a thing for coffee mugs, especially Starbucks coffee mugs. My mom included two new SBUX mugs for my collection this Christmas (thanks Mom!) I used the “Ohio” mug right away.
You know it’s a long holiday weekend with lots of spare time when one arranges their mugs for photos:
Those are just my mugs from Starbucks. I have another group of fun mugs NOT from the BUX.
MSP also surprised me with mugs for Christmas. He found two really unique ones. A “Dunk Mug” that has a slot on the bottom to hold your cookies:
Is that genius or what?? Now I have a place to store my Newman O’s while they are awaiting their dunk into almond milk! 
The second mug was just as fun:
There has been a lot of coffee and cocoa drinking going on at my house in the last few days, playing with my new mugs! (Apparently I’m easily entertained!)
It was definitely a ‘kitchen’ theme for my gifts this year and I feel so incredibly blessed to have received such loving and thoughtful gifts. I’ll be detailing them in the days to come. One of the gifts Santa brought was a SPIRALIZER!! Wahooo, happy dance! You’ll be sure to see some zucchini pasta pics very soon!
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Because we’ve had more snow, I’m exercising indoors and dreaming of a warmer day soon to get out for another run. In the meantime, to keep any exercise boredom at bay I’ve done a few days of DVD fitness, one of which was Cathe Friedrich’s CORE MAX. (FitTV shows edited versions of her videos daily, calling them Cardio Blast, if you ever want to check out her training.) YOWZA – it’s been a long time since I’ve focused on abs for a solid 30 minutes. My abs were burning so bad I thought for sure that the next day I’d be curled up in the fetal position, unable to get out of bed. As it turned out, my core was the right amount of sore.
However, where I DID feel it the next day … was in my neck muscles! I guess that means I need to spend some more time holding my head up in different angles besides just standing. It felt like I’d been doing this:
The 30 minutes went by quickly, my abs were crying at the end, and as usual she worked me HARD. I pretty much give anything Cathe produces “two thumbs up”. Her “Legs & Glutes” video is my favorite of DVD fitness. I mix it in from time to time (I’ve had it for YEARS) and it never fails to absolutely fry the lower half of my body.
Today’s discussion topic: Do you ever workout to DVDs or audio fitness? What’s your favorite and why? Drop a comment and let us know!
Have a SPLENDID Saturday friends!
– Shari B. =)
#1 by Sammi on December 26, 2009 - 12:52 pm
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My dad gets a starbucks mug whenever he goes overseas to somewhere that has starbucks. What is that middle one with the green building and black lettering? that’s basically what all of my dad’s foreign ones look like.
I wish it was colder here
I went running with my dad this afternoon and was burning up the whole time! The fact I’m dehydrated probably didn’t help. It was only like 60 degrees but it was waaaaaay too hot for my liking.
.-= Sammi´s last blog ..Blog’s First Christmas =-.
#2 by Shari B. on December 27, 2009 - 5:59 am
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Hi Sammi! The mug you are asking about is from Madrid, Spain. My good friend Beth brought that back for me as a souvenir when she was there, and I LOVE that mug.
Oh gosh, 60 degrees… I’m so jealous! Sorry that it’s no fun for you!
Hope you had a fantastic holiday!
#3 by Joan on December 26, 2009 - 10:20 am
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well I have two dvd’s, one for Tai Chi (which I don’t like how it’s formatted so I think I’ll look for another one) and one by Joel Harper “Firming after 50″. That one I really like and do several times per week along with my walks. I like it because it’s broken up into 3 segments upper body, lower and abs. The longest segment is 23 minutes so I can rotate each day a different segment/body section and not feel like I have to carve out an hour of a busy day. This one I actually get it done.
.-= Joan´s last blog ..Garden Ornament =-.
#4 by Shari B. on December 27, 2009 - 6:10 am
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Hi Joan! I’ve never tried Tai Chi but I’ve heard it’s great and so healthy and relaxing. Does it FEEL like a workout? I’d love to know what your experience with it has been.
#5 by Joan on December 27, 2009 - 12:44 pm
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Hi Shari, yes it feels like a work out but in a totally different way than what you probably feel doing what you do. I think I’d call it a muscle endurance workout not cardio. After doing it for the first time I was suprised to be sore the next day. After doing it several times I definately felt firmer, toned and stronger. It’s great for balance and posture. It’s sooo slow that it makes you slow down, hence relaxing, almost meditative. I never got to the point that I could do the whole coreography by memory (my goal) but just the position exercises to work up to that point were great. I really have to get back into it.
.-= Joan´s last blog ..Garden Ornament =-.
#6 by Alexandra on December 26, 2009 - 9:30 am
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Mugs! I love them all! I think I mentioned before, I have a thing for mugs too! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any for Xmas so I’ll have to go out and buy myself one or two Hopefully, SBUX and Peet’s will have after Christmas sales so I can stock up.
On to your questions of the day – I have a HUGE (I mean HUGE) collection of workout DVDs ranging from weights to cardio to yoga, to dance and everything in between.
I started working out with Cathe about 20 years ago and have everything she has ever produced (yes everything because I love her so
I rarely use any of my weight training DVDs anymore because I like to lift heavy and in the low rep range now and most of the DVDs just don’t challenge me anymore. I still use the cardio based DVDs regularly on my cardio days though.
Gosh, do I have a favorite? I love all of Cathe’s stuff but I guess my favorites of the weight training DVDs are the Gym Style series because of the moderate to heavy lifting w/reps in the 8-10 range. Out of the cardio, I love the IMAX’s because they are high intensity and fun. And, even after all these years get my heart rate up really good. I also like her Cross Training series because they combine both higher intensity cardio with weights. This series is great for those that like to do cardio and weights on the same day. Not great if you’re looking to build muscle but great for fat loss.
I also love the Legs and Glutes DVD. Everynow and then I pull this out and it never fails to wipe me out. It a goodie. Another for lower body is Butts and Guts; another goodie. If you don’t have it, get it. You won’t be dissapointed.
For Yoga I love Bryan Kest’s power yoga (the original series) and I also like the Flow Series; I can’t recall the instructor names on this series but it’s a husband and wife team.
Do you sitll buy fitness DVDs? I just received Cathe’s newest production – Shock Cardio series and can’t wait to try them particularly the MMA boxing one.
Have a great weekend!
#7 by Shari B. on December 27, 2009 - 6:09 am
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Hi Alexandra! SBUX has been weird (at least here) about sale mugs lately, not sure if they are planning it that way to save money or if people are buying all the mugs before they can ever go on clearance but I haven’t found ANY good mugs on clearance since last Christmas. They used to put each season’s on clearance. I hope you find something good in your area to supplement your collection!
Wow your DVD collection sounds IMPRESSIVE! I haven’t tried the new Cathe series. I almost pre-ordered STS (I think last March) but just couldn’t justify the expense. I’m sure it was totally worth the money – I just already have so much fitness stuff that I needed to hold off. Especially when I’d had P90X sitting around and never made it through all 12 of those DVDs. I get bored with workouts fairly quickly so doing a routine on a video that is the same each time burns me out really fast — it’s kind of a fluke that right now I’m using some!
Drop a note and let me know how you like the MMA boxing one!
I did just order a new DVD, Physique 57, that I’ll use for a while if I like it and then review it here to let people know if I see any results or physical difference.
And I REALLY want to get Yogalosophy, but again, just need to wait. One at a time, one at a time.
Thanks for the GREAT info! I’ll have to find Butts and Guts!