Garden Casualty

Shari B. — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:02:05 +0000

Good morning FitFeat friends!

Welcome new readers – my stats tell me there are some more of you out there, so hello there! Thanks for stopping by and I hope we see you often!

Weekend Rewind

Hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was one of the best in a while – it was full of fun activities, most notably spending Saturday evening at a local dueling piano bar drinking mojitos with my sweetie pie, just cutting loose and having fun. It was really a GREAT time. If you’ve never been to a dueling piano bar, find one and go! I’ve been to three different ones over the years and they never disappoint.

I also taught an Alternative Ingredient Dessert Class Friday night and met a new group of really awesome ladies! I had a blast and enjoyed sharing some fun ingredients with them that you might not consider typical for desserts, including greens powder, hemp seeds and chia seeds.

Photo Credit: Keri O’Connell

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

No news yet on the most recent blood draw, which was taken last Thursday. I’m hoping to hear from the doc today, but in the meantime I did do a workout this morning. (shhh… don’t tell on me!) Nothing too crazy. 35 minutes of Tabata/strength followed by 25 minutes of fun dance cardio.

Here’s how the Tabata went down:

Alternating Plank / Side Plank 4 minutes
Chair Pose with DB Rows 4 minutes
Alternating Upright Row / Overhead Press 4 minutes
Hamstring Curls on the Ball 4 minutes
Curtsy Lunges 4 minutes

Then afterward I just did 2 sets of Triceps Dips, 2 sets of Biceps Curls and 2 sets of Clam Legs before getting my boogie on.

Cucumber Down!

We had our first garden casualty this weekend. Our cucumber plant went from this:

to this:

in about a week! Poor little cucumber plant. We watered him – guess he just didn’t like his new home. Maybe he was scared of the zucchini!

Gardening friends, are cucumbers finicky? This is my very first attempt at growing veggies. Any thoughts on what I did wrong?

Summer Food

Here’s a quick article for you to check out on 6 Summer Picks for your Health. I have never had a garlic scape, but I am now intrigued and need to track some down!

Well friends I’m off to get busy – my Monday lists are always the longest. It’s going to be a GREAT week – I can feel it!

See you soon!

– Shari B. =)

Flex-It Friday: The Abs Edition

Shari B. — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:11:58 +0000

Hi everyone! Happy Friday!

Well, as it turns out, no one wants to bare their mid-winter abs. Biceps are one thing, but it seems that abs are quite another indeed! I was a little scared myself. I’ve had a bit of a food fest since the middle of January and was dreading seeing my “winter abs” vs my “summer abs”. In the dead of winter, I’m eating more grains and starchy veggies, not to mention those darn delicious vegan cookies from Whole Foods! (I almost wish that I hadn’t discovered that tasty treat!)

But in the interest of following through with things I plan for the blog, I present to you my lonely version of Flex-it Friday: The Abs Edition.

Or as I like to call it: “Fun with Self-Timer“.

I must admit I feel a little weird doing this one alone. But here goes…

Since we are supposed to FLEX for Flex-It Friday, I figured a side plank would be a good way to get a good shot of abs. My first realization? That I could definitely use a longer timer on my camera than 10 seconds!

In this one I totally wasn’t even in the shot!

Next attempt: uh, getting closer. A little heavy on the zoom button!

Nope, still not there.

Hey! A body! But no head!

And this time a head, but a BLURRY one! This is impossible! I want to know how Averie and Cindy get into their advanced yoga poses and take a pic!

I’m thinking Plan B is in order…

Scrap the self-timer….the camera gets to be in the picture too… Flex those abs!

Call it DONE!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the recent eating (bday dinner at the Melting Pot, the organic chocolate bars, caramel cream eggs, and Valentine’s Day candy) didn’t do as much damage as I had figured. I can pinch more right now than I can in the summer, but I know that when the days are longer and warmer I’ll be right back to where I was before Thanksgiving.

For next quarter’s Flex-It Friday, what will you BARE?!! I’m taking suggestions! Triceps? Calves? Your favorite strength exercise? Favorite yoga pose?

Have a fabulous Friday friends!