two firsts!

Happy beautiful summer day!!  I just went for a beautiful 2 mile walk around my condo complex while listening to the latest episode of the Strange Brews Podcast (I'm fan #130!) & now I'm taking a chill break on the couch with all my windows open, a mug of coffee (shut up, I drink coffee in hundred degree weather, today is nothing) & two incredibly snuggly kitties for a quick break before a Whole Foods run.

Shoutout to Reebok - I LOVE these new leggings!!

This morning I went to my very first ever Pound Fit class!  Ever since I heard about it I've been stoked to try it. I spent my formative years in marching band, jazz band, small group ensembles, etc. - playing every form of percussion instrument that existed. How could I NOT love a class that incorporated drum sticks into a loud, high-energy/intensity workout??  So when I heard that the fabulous Nancy G was going to be teaching Pound classes at Ken Jackson's, I signed up immediately.

The class was full of new people (like me), so we were warned that it was going to be a slower pace than usual - we filled out the 45 minute class two songs short of what Nancy told us would eventually constitute a "full" class - but it was still a fantastic workout. I hadn't read quite as much into the workout history, so I wasn't aware that it was so pilates-based and didn't realize how much core and lower body work would be involved - the songs that have you sitting on the mat doing a thousand torturous variations on the yoga boat pose were KILLERS, and I can feel all the squatting & lunging in the hip flexors/glutes/quads already.  I can't wait to take the class again & get it up to speed - I burned about 400 calories in the 45 minute class, but we took lots of breaks so that Nancy could explain poses, make sure we all knew what we were doing & that we all had correct form, so I think you could easily hit 600+ later on down the road.  I'm always looking for a core/strength type class that ups the energy and has a nice cardio element to it - call me a cheater, but I just get so bored doing traditional pilates.  Plus, DRUMMING!!

Not nearly as pretty as all the ones on google.......

My other first was something I've been hearing about EVERYWHERE for the past couple months, but living in the Midwest we just don't see them anywhere - acai bowls!!  The more I keep seeing pictures of these delicious creations, the more I've been craving them, so I took matters into my own hands.  I'll admit, I've never taste acai OR pitaya (the two - from what I can tell - most common bases to a smoothie bowl), so I really had no idea what to expect.  I did a little research and ended up snagging a couple packs of Sambazon original smoothie packs, hitting up the internet for topping tips (most especially this blog post over at The Fitnessista) and ended up blending mine with a banana & some almond milk, then topping with banana, blueberries, almonds, a little bit of granola, some goji berries and a drizzle of peanut butter & honey.  I accidentally added too much almond milk so my first bowl was a liiiiiiittle bit soupy, but it was so so so good that I forgave myself.  I can't wait to try a million different toppings - I was so leery about adding peanut butter for some reason, but there are few things in the world I love more than nut butters, so I talked myself into believing it would be good and damn, was it ever.  I feel a new late night post-gym obsession coming on......

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What's something new you've tried lately, & what inspired you to take the plunge?

hot date on the detroit river

In my favorite place, showing off my other favorite place; whats a Canadian/American girl to do?

Skye & I and the most obnoxious tech shirts
I have ever seen.

I did the best thing ever this weekend, which was a 5k for a super amazing cause that I wholeheartedly support with NONE of the mega-stress that usually surrounds a race for me (that impending doom leading up to the moment that it starts, then abates for the first two minutes of feeling good, and then picks back up and spirals into the WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF despair that keeps me company for the rest of the race as I feel like my body is being broken down into a thousand miserable little non-runner pieces).  Why? Because my non-athlete friend Skye was in town from Ohio to support the cause with me, so as part of the deal to get her up here I agreed to walk it with her.  HA!  Take that, running!  (I admit though, I felt super guilty watching people pass me knowing I could pace them or even finish before them, had I been trying - and also kind of disappointed that I didn't truly run it because the course was BEAUTIFUL.)

The race we ran was Mickey's Run up in Windsor, sponsored by the Windsor Spitfires hockey team. The Spits are near and dear to my heart, and even more so is former captain Mickey Renaud, in whose honor the race is held to benefit the Windsor Spitfires Foundation.  I wasn't able to run the inaugural race last year because it was the same weekend I had another 5k planned, so I was extra excited to run this year.

Part of the track we ran - the whole thing was this beautiful & I want to go back and run this course for real some day.

The beautiful finisher medals we got.

After the race, we headed down to take a nice walk by the Riverfront before coming back to Detroit, & then decided that it was such a beautiful day that we should take advantage of it by staying outside, so I drove us over to Belle Isle to spend a few hours!  I can't remember the last time I was on the island, but it was definitely a perfect decision. I've been wanting to go to the aquarium ever since it reopened.  I wasn't disappointed - it's AMAZING to see it in working condition again - and even more cool is the fact that it's still undergoing renovations, but instead of trying to hide it, the aquarium almost flaunts this fact, filling open display tanks with local artwork, advertisements for local interests and signs for coming attractions.  Hallways under construction are only haphazardly blocked off, so visitors can see the work being done, and the employees are more than happy to tell you what they're working on renovating next. Such an amazing display of what makes Detroit so special.  We also spent some time walking through the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum and dipping our feet in the river before heading back home.

Riverwalk selfie!

Belle Isle Aquarium.

The beautiful koi pond out back of the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory made me long to be back in Asia. I could sit out there all day just basking in how peaceful it was. Unfortunately there was a wedding photo shoot going on when we were there, so this is as close as we could get :(

Enjoying the beautiful Detroit River.

Of course I couldn't leave without some spoils from the LCBO..........

Amazing Michigan history including a full spread on the Edmund Fitzgerald (which, as I pointed out about forty times as we walked through, is also an awesome beer).

We could have probably stay there all day to be quite honest - but we ended up leaving around the middle of the afternoon to meet up with some friends, grill some delicious venison burgers topped with blue cheese & horseradish sauce & marathon as many episodes of Orange is the New Black we could before passing out (which was way early....being out in the sun all day is exhausting!). 

Most delicious lettuce wrap I've had in a while....

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you feel guilty when you don't put your all into a workout, for whatever reason? Do you find yourself spending the rest of the day trying to compensate for it?

communing with nature.......or something

I have a new obsession, and it's long walks through beautiful scenery. I try (as I've said before) to run, but I just can't find a way to truly enjoy it in a way that makes me want to do it for fun (aka not a race). But now that the Michigan chill has FINALLY broken, I want to spend every second outside forever.  

Tuesdays I usually go to an absolutely phenomenal hot vin yoga class, but this week the sun was shining, it was beautiful, and stuck in a dark, hot room at my gym for an hour was just not what I was feeling, so I headed out to Stony Creek for a nature walk instead!

This is the first year I've bought a park pass, so I'm determined to make the most of it and go as often as I can. I had heard they had gorgeous walking trails so I sought them out and intended to walk the 2.5 mile Habitat Trail, but when I finished I wasn't satisfied...so I tried to hop on the 1.5 mile Landscape trail, but apparently I'm not very good at signs because I ended up doubling back on myself twice and walking almost 5 miles...oh well; at least I made a nice dent in my huge backlogged list of podcasts. 

I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that this was my first opportunity to try out my new BondiBand headband! A really fantastic store called GearBox Rx opened up in downtown Rochester Hills recently, selling CrossFit gear of all kinds, from shoes to apparel to hear & equipment, to my favorite part - a huge, huge selection of Paleo snacks from all over the internet. No longer do you have to submit to $8 shopping charges on one jar of almond butter or bottle of wing sauce, and no longer do you have to order a months supply of treats at once (at least if you live here). Plus the guys who run it are super knowledgable, personable, and assure me I will always be able to get my fix of Rickaroons from them (they also carry Steve's Paleo Goods, Nikki's Coconut Butter, PaleoTreats, Meenut Butter, Nohmad cookies/chocolates... Basically go there right now because everything delicious is literally at your fingertips. ANYWAY the BondiBand is AWESOME - kept the hair and sweat out of my eyes without getting irritable or itchy or hot (and as I am temporarily growing my hair out, this is the most important thing in the whole world, because I am decidedly NOT use to hair on my neck). New favorite!

Afterward I was feeling so summery that I stopped and picked up some fresh cut flowers for my condo - amazingly it's been 2 days and the cats have only eaten one or two flowers...... (This is why we can't have nice things.)

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you have spring/summer fever, too? How are you adjusting your workouts?

double brew day

The best thing about brew days is that you literally get to spend them sitting outside sampling brews, smelling delicious malt, and eating tasty appetizery food all day while your wort boils away - and then when the hard work is over, there's always an epic dinner (and, if you're me, a cheesecake!) to be enjoyed.

Memorial Day weekend because of the long weekend holiday we decided to go extra ham in the brewing process and make two batches in one day! That meant (after a nice early morning 3 mile walk to counter the effects of all that beer), setting up and starting the burner up around 11 am so we could literally brew alllllll day.

We started off with a simpler extract brew, but a recipe I created from scratch, for an oatmeal stout (I went really light on the oats, though) brewed with some farm-fresh buckwheat honey that a coworker provided me with. This was kind of my "scraps" beer, since I had some leftover LME & hops from precious brews that I wanted to use up - but it will also be the first brew I try priming with honey instead of corn sugar. It smelled sooooooo good!!

The new set up - check out that fancy ass Dark Star burner hanging on the wall above my healthy collection of sample brews ;)

Our brew mates started to arrive around the time this batch was finishing, so after a healthy dose of snacks (yucca chips with guacamole & a metric ton of shelled peanuts for this girl), we got everything not the carboy & set up for the main even: an all-grain Pliny the Elder double IPA clone. 

Let me tell you how fun it was to lift up those 14 lbs of
soggy 2-row malt + 1,000,000,000 lbs of water.

Almost immediately we realized we had a problem - we just splurged on a shiny new Dark Star burner and a gigantic 18" brew kettle, but we haven't build our sparge system yet so were still doing BIAB - and no paint strainer bag is big enough to fit around the lip of an 18" pot!! We ended up having to construct a metal "table" for the bag to sit on at the bottom of the pan so it the grain wouldn't burn. Not the most technical approach, but it got the job done!

Not gonna lie...this one smelled sooooooo good and fresh and hoppy. There are so many hop additions that the wort actually looked green at some points!!!

While it was boiling away, we dug up the last bottle of an old brew a friend of ours made nearly 4 years ago - it was a phenomenal double IPA at the time, but woooooow was it ever strong now. There's a reason those aren't meant to be aged (or, as it's brewer says, hoarded)!! We also sampled Atwater's Maibock, Blue Moon's Pine in the Neck, Lagunitas Undercover IPA, Rogue Ales Yellow Snow, and our very own PCP - a chocolate porter with cocoa nibs that was my very first all from scratch recipe (and it came out better than I expected!)

Post-brew dinner was a BBQ rib feast with corn, potato salad, fruit salad and most importantly PRETZEL JELLO(!!!!!) - but we were so hungry I never bothered to snap a picture.

Both beers started fermenting super fast (probably due to the honey in the stout and the high alcohol content in the Pliny clone) - by the next morning the stout's airlock was already clicking away so loudly I could hear it from across my living room...

My new babes, settling into their temporary home.

The Pliny is just days away from being transferred to secondary and its first schedule dry hop now - can't wait to see the gravity on this baby ;)

cardio blast & my weekly workouts

I admit:  I'm a cardio junkie.  When I first started working out & switching over to a healthy lifestyle, it was all cardio all the time - and it did wonders for me, too.  I know there are a lot of people who knock it, but I've always enjoyed cardio 400% more than any other kind of workout (except running - ohhhhh do I hate running).

All winter long I subjected myself to strength & resistance training - and I'm not going to say I didn't get anything out of it, because I love love love my back/shoulder muscles, toned arms, & the way I am finally able to look in a mirror and appreciate that my ass isn't COMPLETELY flat - but as soon as the weather starts getting warmer, all I want to do is jump around and sweat...which is exactly what I did all week long:

Selfies on the beautiful CTC campus.

Monday - I spent the work day at the Chrysler Tech Center, which has a beautiful campus, so I took advantage of my longer than average lunch break between classes (after scarfing down an amazing free salad) to do a few laps of the property, which was blissful.  After my seminar was over, I had a couple hours to kill, so I changed, headed out to Mae Stecker park to do some more walking (now that it's beautiful outside, I can't stop!) and then shot down to Lifetime to take a Zumba class with my friend Emily & one of my favorite instructors. Monday/Wednesday the class I take is super dance-oriented, so I feel like it not only works my body, but also my brain - I was never a dancer as a child so I can only hope to look even remotely as good as the instructor!!

Tuesday - After a looooooooong day at my actual job, I took a hot vinyasa yoga class with my favorite yoga instructor.  She strays from the typical Lifetime Yoga format of sun salutation A, Sun Salutation B, a longer flow, and then some stretching & a cooldown & instead adds a lot more longer, more challenging flows, complete with oodles of balancing work (which is one of my favorite things about yoga!) and a horrible (but awesome) core section in the middle. I never knew boat pose variations could hurt so good.  Then I came home and did a nice few laps around my condo complex while listening to a couple podcasts (the newest episodes of Barbell Shrugged & Strange Brews)!

Wednesday - Met my friend for another Zumba class with the same instructor as Monday.

Thursday - Normally every Thursday I take a Dance Jams class with my all time favorite instructor, but she was having a sub I don't care for as much this week, so instead I swapped Lifetimes & tried a new instructor at the Shelby gym, and he was WONDERFUL!  A friend of mine who had gotten there early graciously swapped spots with me so I could get close to the stage & actually see what moves I was supposed to be imititating which was sooooooo helpful.  The guy who was teaching had lost 100+ lbs doing Zumba, which is what made him want to be a teacher, and he was GREAT. The class was hot hot hot, everybody was yelling and dancing and interacting, which made it a million times more fun than the usual Zumba class - plus he was super interactive with the crowd & got up in your face a lot, which isn't something everyone likes, but it's something I LOVE.  Considering I passed up free beer to go, I'm glad it was so perfect!!

Friday - This morning I got up and went to yet ANOTHER Dance Jams class - I had the day off because of the holiday, and a friend of mine teaches only morning classes, so I never get to go, and therefore I justified yet another bout of cardio ;)  Later I plan on biking over to my parents' house to do some pre-brew shopping & then hit up a homebrewer meeting!!

Saturday - The instructor I normally take on Thursday nights is going to be back, so yes.....I'll be doing Dance Jams yet again.  The more I type, the more I'm starting to feel ridiculous...  (On a sidenote - I forgot my FitBit this morning & I got so upset that none of my steps were going to count.....and then, like a genius, I read the help forums and found that you could manually update your steps in!!  I guess that might just tempt some people to cheat, but I was sooooooo glad my hour long efforts were recorded after all - when I got home and saw I only had 184 steps, I wanted to cry!)

Sunday - AT LAST! Sunday is my big brew day (we're making two batches in one day - never before attempted!) so I need to be up & at 'em earlier than normal, which means I'm taking a super early morning hot vinyasa yoga class. Hopefully it'll stimulate those creative juices & help me make some tasty beer.

And finally, the holiday Monday - A special 1:15 long Dance Jams + Strength class with my favorite instructor and another who I've never had before - I can't WAIT for this class!!

A little ridiculous on the amped up cardio, I know - but I feel great!!  I'm getting my high-impact endurance back, and I've been really rocking out the past few classes, sweating and getting my jams on.  I'm trying to find a new strength class I enjoy to work into my routine, but in the meantime, I love what I'm doing & I'm seeing results, so I'm not going to let anybody tell me too much cardio is all bad!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do your weekly workouts look like?  Are you a cardio junkie or a strength training buff?  Does the weather impact your workout regime?

free stuff is the best!

Greetings from a four day weekend!!!  Between the holiday Monday, my plant (I work as a materials & release analyst in the plastics division of an engineering plant that does tooling, CAD design, foam, seats, plastic injection molding...you name it) being shut down today, and spending two days this week at the Chrysler Tech Center for supplier training, it feels like I've been on vacation for days already.  Fabulous!

Here's another thing that's fabulous: Influenster.  Basically, you sign up (my friend Dannie referred me a couple months ago), go through their laundry list of interests, pick what suits you best, and then take surveys, review products, and answer other peoples' questions until eventually you earn enough "influence" to qualify for free giveaways!  Every once in a while, the site will send you a survey to see if you qualify for a specific giveaway, and if you do, within a few days you'll get a surprise delivery of a box full of awesome free stuff for you to sample:

AND THE SPOILS ARE....

This box was specifically catered to an active livestyle - in fact it's called the #GoVoxBox, because it promotes all sorts of health and fitness related brands.  To be fair, I've gotten a few free things from the company before, but they were all one-offs of featured brands, and while I'm always up for trying out new free things, this is the first time I've been really really stoked to qualify for a giveaway.  As part of the idea behind Influenster, the point of being given all this free stuff is to turn around and share my thoughts on it with the internet - so here we go...

Blue Diamond Fruit Flavored Almonds - This was admittedly the thing I was the most excited about when it came to this box.  I love love love Blue Diamond - my faves are the low-sodium roasted almonds, the cocoa roasted, the salt & vinegar, the coffee roasted, & the coconut almonds...can you tell I'm a fan of nuts?  However, I'm not really a "sweets" person that often, and the idea of "fake" fruit flavor kind of grosses me out, so I was too skeptical to ever buy these on my own, so I was mega-thrilled at the idea of sampling them without commitment, and they were delicious!!  Granted, they were a little sweet for me, and I don't know if I would shell out my own money for them, but they were a really good fix for a sugar-craving, and the blueberry was actually quite good, and didn't taste like fake sugary garbage at all.  Awesome job, Blue Diamond!

PROFOOT Pedi-Rock - This was another one I was stoked about.  Working out as often as I do, I get the grosses callouses on the bottoms of my feet, and no matter how many exfoliating pedicure nonsense products I buy, they just don't seem to get any better.  I used the pedi-rock this morning & while it didn't take care of my callouses completely like those fantastic skin-graters they have at the nail salon, it made a HUGE impact.  My only concern is that it seems like after only one use, the exfoliating outside of the rock was already pretty worn off?  I'm unfamiliar with products like this, so I'm not sure how long they're even supposed to last, but after one use, mine already looked like this ---->

Aqua Spa Relax Collection Body Creme in Lavender Chamomile - I was less excited about the lotion itself and more excited about the scent!  Lavender Chamomile has been one of my favorite relaxing aromatherapy scents for years - when I first moved into my condo I pretty much bought out Bath & Body Works of it's lavender chamomile aromatherapy line & it's been the scent "theme" of my bedroom ever since.  The lotion itself is really nice, not greasy, and really nice for post-shower pre-bed relaxation, but the best part by far is the awesome smell.  I think it's even stronger than the Bath & Body Works version!

The Vitamin Shoppe Next Steppe Fit N Full Meal Replacement Shakes - The GoVoxBox came with 3 flavors of these meal replacement shakes - Swiss Chocolate, French Vanilla, and Fresh Berries.  I'm not a "meal replacement shake" person - they don't seem to fill me up or leave me satisfied - so I can't speak to using these that way, but I have been using them bit by bit as whey protein powder additions to smoothies and yogurt, and I will admit they're quite delicious that way.  I even made Paleomg Sweet Potato Protein Chocolate Chip Cookies with the vanilla yesterday & they were fabulous!  The best part about this part of the giveaway was that Vitamin Shoppe was nice enough to also include a quaint little mini blender bottle, which is the absolute PERFECT size to stash in my gym bag for those days when I really need a quick shot of pre-workout.  Awesome!

Muller Greek Corner, Corner & FrutUp Yogurts - This one was a coupon for a free yogurt - obviously sending one via US Post wasn't quite feasible.  Luckily most grocery stores around here carry the brand & I was able to pick one up pretty easily.  I enjoy yogurt, but again I don't like fake or syrupy fruits (even when they're not the totally sugary processed gross bad ones), and I normally just get plain & add my own mix-ins, so I wasn't quite sure which Muller I was going to choose, but luckily I found a Greek Corner flavor that's just vanilla yogurt with caramelized almonds to mix in - I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to add a whole lot of fresh fruit when I do!

The box also came with a couple other treats - a Vitamin Shoppe coupon for more Next Steppe products, a 16 pack of Playtex Sport Fresh Balance Tampons (which I can't review because I haven't had the need for them yet, haha), and a PROFOOT Traid Orthotic shoe insert that I haven't tried out yet either.

These products were all supplied to me free through Influenster, for reviewing purposes, but the opinions are my own.  Hopefully some of you can gain some insight to some products you might want to try based on these reviews!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you signed up for any programs like Influenster?  What's the best free sample you've ever received?

blog version 2.0 (and a little throwback friday)

I keep thinking, I need to make a post about _____.  And then I don't, because it doesn't seem "relevant" enough or "big" enough or "important" enough, and so my blog, which I created because I'm a writing major, and I miss writing and I miss tracking memories & being able to go back to them whenever I want, sits here and gathers dust because the things I feel like posting about don't fit into my pigeon-holed ideas about what the blog "needs" to be about.

And that's stupid.  I'm not a fitness blog, I'm not a beer blog, I'm a me blog and those two things just happen to be what I'm most interested in.  So now I'm going to write about me, and I'm going to write more often, and if you only want to read about the cool things I'm brewing or the cool classes I took, or how much weight I can lift, you'll have to learn how to skim.

We picked the bracelets with the bells because
we love to be annoying!! (My shirt says "I
HATE RUNNING" FYI....but I don't hate dancing!

ANYWAY, to start things off, last night I went to a 2 hour "Spring into Summer" Zumba Bash at Ken
Jackson's Fitness Factory (which is one of my favorite "small" - maybe private is a better word? - gyms/studios, because every time I go in that place I can't help but feel totally badass.  Maybe it's the giant mural all over the wall, or industrial feel, or the garage doors that open out into the parking lot, or the giant tires strewn about and the punching bags hanging from the ceiling, but it's really just an awesome space, period.  I took my friend Alisha, who is really trying to get into working out & being fit, which is great because it is SO fun to have someone to work out with again!! Especially now that it's getting nicer outside, so we've been incorporating a lot more walks & bike rides & outdoor stuff into the routine.

The cool thing about this jam was that it was taught by Ivy Mitchell, Terri Harrick, Nancy Bara, Dru Roby, Terri McCartney & Nancy Graybill (one of my Bokwa mamas!), some super longstanding Zumba instructors in Michigan, and the "theme" was kind of a throwback to the roots of Zumba.  Say what you will about Zumba - yes it's silly and no it doesn't feature barbells and heavy weights and giant muscles, but it's what really got me into fitness a few years back, and dance fitness classes in general are still a big part of my routine, and a huge part of the weight loss I accomplished.  I'll always have a soft spot for it - and it's just plain fun!!  Nancy started the class off saying how they're all 102 years old, but these ladies (and gentleman!) absolutely brought it for two straight hours.  Plus, I've been doing Zumba for about 3 years now, but it's been around for a lot longer - so it was really cool to see some styles & hear some music from basically the inception of the workout.  I'm not going to lie, my favorite dance class at the moment is 100% different - full of hip hop music & club dance styles and full of a lot less salsa & meringue, but it was really cool to go back to the roots.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What got you into fitness & how has it (or you!) evolved since then?