Day 24 Update! And, On Getting Stronger and Zumba Mami! :)

24 days until the photo shoot!

Exercise:
Kettlebell Muscle Power (50 minutes, all weight lifting, no cardio)

Eating:
5:30am Pre-workout energy boost ½ cup fresh squeezed OJ, 2 TBSP of Gelatin, ½ cup h2o
8:30am ¾ frozen banana, ¾ cup almond milk, 1 scoop protein powder (18g protein), ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
12:15pm Green salad with 3 oz chicken, red peppers, green peppers, green onion, avocado, grape tomatoes, drizzle of EVOO and red wine vinegar
4:00pm Melon and 12 almonds
7:45pm Turkey Chili (with black beans) topped with green onions, ½ cup of Crystal’s Sweet Potato Delight, ten corn tortilla chips with 1.5 tbsp salsa

Drinking:
150oz h2o
¾ cup almond milk
16 oz herbal tea, unsweetened
10 oz herbal tea, sweetened 1/2 tsp stevia


How I feel today:

First, the smoothie with the organic raw protein was 10x better with the banana and the hint of vanilla extract! What a relief! I hate wasting $. Honestly, I would have drunk it anyway for the next month. These days, nutritional value outranks taste in most circumstances!

Second, on getting stronger...these muscles are getting stronger, y'all! Today I went to kettlebell muscle power, which is basically a weight lifting class. We work all of the major muscle groups using kettlebells. During today's class, I told myself, I am going to go a little harder today. Usually, I get 10 lb and 15 lb kettlebells, switching off depending on the exercise. Today, I said, I will get 10, 15, AND 20lb kettlebells. Let's just say, the 10 lb-ers collected DUST today! :) And, while doing chest presses, I went up to 25lbs! Boo-ya! Lastly, I was really proud of my ability to do renegade rows (see picture) with no KNEE modification, on my toes the entire time. I did these with 15lb bells and can't wait to get up to 20lbs! Getting stronger, day-by-day! :)

Third, like I stated in my post on exercise, what makes me workout everyday is the fact that I genuinely like what I’m doing. A few months after I started D3, my trainer began offering Zumba!!! Now, I am not a “dancer,” but I do have a little rhythm and learn dance moves pretty quickly because of dance training I had when I was a child. Therefore, when Zumba appeared on the schedule, I signed right up! Zumba is so much fun. You get a good cardio workout (depends on how hard you go!) and you learn a few dance moves. Each instructor choreographs and personalizes his/her own set of dances based on stock Zumba moves. Personalization is key! Usually, in the 25 minutes Zumba class, we might learn one new dance and do it 4-5 times. In the 50-minute session we will review the dance we learned and do 5-7 other dances a couple of times each. Once we have “perfected” (that’s relative, y’all, because none of us our dancers in real life! LOL) the dance, it is taped and usually posted on youtube/fb. LOL So, today, I want to share with you a dance we learned and worked on last Saturday. If you see me, try not to laugh too hard! It’s all about FITNESS and FUN, y’all! Check out Zumba Mami!