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Weekend Link Love – 06.25.2011

In the spirit of spring summer cleaning, I am cleaning out my “starred” list on Google Reader. Here are my favorites – lots of love for these links!

Recipes & Food

  • Quintessence. This is a funky raw (vegan) restaurant that I want to try out downtown (NYC). Have you been?
  • Humble Stew via Burp and Slurp. This looks simple and filling. And Bobby-friendly. Definitely a must to try.
  • Mexican Fiesta Salad. I am actually making a very similar dish for a potluck I’m going to tomorrow. Natalie always has great recipes!
  • Avo-Tofu Salad. Another from Natalie! Cannot wait to make this one.
  • Chilled Summer Soups from Mark’s Daily Apple. You know, I don’t eat much soup – but I think I should start. I especially want to try making the Chilled Beet Soup Spiked with Dill and Vinegar.
  • 3 Indian Recipes – these all look amazing; thanks for the ideas, Mimi! Each has 6 ingredients or less (sort of).
  • Family Style Frittatas by Everyday Paleo.
  • Chili Lime Tuna Burgers by Heather Eats Almond Butter.

My Workout Updates

This week I did a lot of BodyRock. Here is what I did:

  • Monday: 30 day shred (not BodyRock but very Zuzana-esque). Used 3 pound weights.
  • Tuesday: Poker Face Workout. I definitely did not have a poker face. My reps here.
  • Wednesday: BodyRock (BR) Burpee challenge. I did 46.
  • Thursday: BR Wild & Free Challenge = insanity. My time was 26:13, using 6 pounds of weights instead of a sandbag, and no jumprope for the high knees. Could. Not. Speak. This is the day that Bobby officially realized I am nuts.
  • Friday: BR Major Muscle Apocolypse. My reps: Lunge (left): 8, 8, 8, 7, 8, 8, 7, 8, 8, 9. Lunge (right): 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9. Burpee: 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4. Pull up (reverse push up with chairs and broomstick): 8, 9, 8, 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, 10.
  • Saturday (this morning): BR Pound Melting Workout. Only 12 minutes. My reps: Reptile Toe Touch Push Up – 13, 14. Sandbag Side Lunge Knee Up (right leg) – 19, 20. Sandbag Side Lunge Knee Up (left leg) – 20, 20. Crab Fighter (right leg) – 10, 10. Crab Fighter (left leg) – 10, 10. Sandbag Squat – 17, 16.

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Happy Weekend!

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108 Sun Salutations, Burpees, and Pain au Chocolat… Manger Bouger?

Last night Bobby and I went to NJ for my sister’s high school graduation. It was great! I’m so proud of her. Afterwards we went out to Uno’s where I wolfed down a Cobb Salad. My dad came back with us to the city because he has a super-fun pension conference here today.

This morning’s workout:

  • 46 BodyRock Take Me Burpees
  • 15 sun salutations

Some yogis like to do 108 sun salutations at each change of the season (spring to summer, summer to fall, etc…). There are many answers to the question, “Why 108?” and one of them is that there are supposedly 108 names for Buddha. HuffPo has some more.

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I’ll share another French moment. This IS a food blog after all. (I got the best comment ever yesterday.)

  • Coca-cola. (Bobby’s. Real sugar coke! I still don’t like it.)
  • Pain au chocolat. (To share.)
  • From La Mie Câline in Saumur.

Since I am generally a healthy eater I have no qualms about indulging in buttery, chocolatey, French baked goods when I’m on vacation. They’re not as sweet as they are in here in the states, and they are tiny. The “gargantuan” croissants were the size of our regular ones. Even the bottles of Coke are smaller.

In France, most food ads come with this message (or a similar memo) at the bottom:

Pour votre santé, évitez de manger trop gras, trop sucré, trop salé.  www.mangerbouger.fr

It means, “For your health, avoid eating food that is too fatty, too sweet, too salty.” Manger-bouger means, “eat, move.” I certainly didn’t see many overweight people in France – though I am not sure it’s because of this campaign. I did see a lot of smokers and wine and coffee drinkers. So while they may have a good thing going in terms of food and portion control, I think they are a little bit behind the times when it comes to other areas of health. (No, coffee and wine are not bad, in moderation. There is never an excuse for smoking.)

Do you think we should have mandatory messages on food ads and packaging? What would the messages say?

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Makeshift Dip Station and Free Timers

Another Tuesday. Another day of BodyRocking. Today’s BodyRock Fat Burning Poker Face Workout was a 20-minute max reps challenge. Here are my scores. I think I could have pushed myself more in the beginning because you can see my reps did not decrease much as I went through. I was still beat at the end:

Exercise Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4
Surfer 10 7 8 7
Round Kick Crunch (Left) 14 14 14 14
Round Kick Crunch (Right) 14 14 14 14
1-2-3 Pushup 12 12 12 10
NINJA! 5 5 5 5

These workouts are short and effective and, as my husband will tell you, efficiency and optimization are always, always, on my mind. Whether it’s minimizing the amount of time we have to wait at stop lights while walking or maximizing utils, I am an optimization machine. (I was an econ and math major in college.)

Ah, yes, today’s title:

Makeshift Dip Station

It’s 2 chairs (just dining chairs) with folded linens over the tops (I started without but it hurt my hands). It is a little bit short for me but I made sure that I didn’t hunch and instead just bent my knees when going to grab the backs of the chairs for the air crunch. I don’t know what the pair of scissors is doing there. Bobby must have used them last night for something.

Free Timers

I use this one, but I also found two other options while Googling this morning:

Last summer at my wedding (bride + maid of honor). Handmade and handpicked bouquets from the organic farm she works at.

P.S. It’s my sister’s graduation from high school today! Congratulations Julia!!

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Sweaty Yoga: Philip Urso Hour of Power

I know I have not been posting. Sometimes I want to write, but have no time. Sometimes I have time, but nothing to write.

Today I have some yoga to share.

This morning I remembered writing about a sweaty yoga class (podcast) that I did back in California. It was in my first apartment there so I knew it had to be sometime in early 2009. I dug around and found it – the post was called “I Heart Housewives” – fitting because at the time that’s what I was. Not a wife yet, but acting housewifey and being unemployed.

The podcast was a 60-minute Baptiste Power Vinyasa class led by Philip Urso. It was Fast HOUR of Power – 03/29/2007. You can find it here.

Highlights (forgive me if my memory is not exact):

  • Begin in down dog. Move immediately into fast sun salutations. Then slow…
  • Warrior 1 -> Warrior 2 -> Reverse warrior
  • Crescent -> Twisted prayer (then bound) -> Side angle (then bound)
  • Warrior 1 -> Warrior 2 -> Triangle -> Twisted Triangle -> Standing Splits
  • Standing: tree & dancer
  • Mat: bow pose, ab work, pigeon, full pigeon
  • Edited to add: lots of bridges and wheels. Whoooooeee.
  • Spinal twists, savasana.

I did this from 8am – 9am just before I went to work. I did get a bit sweaty (but not dripping). I would love to try this in a warmer room (80+ degrees); I think that’s why I was sweaty the last time.

I really like Philip Urso – he talks, but not too much (::cough::davefarmar::cough::). His chatter is usually about how to quiet the “manic mind”. My manic mind was rearing its ugly head during the class, but I managed to calm it (mostly) by the end. And it’s stayed pretty calm all day 🙂

Link, if you missed it above: Philip Urso’s Fast Hour of Power.

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What was the last yoga routine you did?

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Weekend Link Love – 01.08.2011

Workout Love

  • I just did Crunch: Fat Burning Dance Party. Jennifer Galardi is one of my favorites! She has a great body – lean and toned – which is motivating, and she’s really energetic. Her routines are fun and the time flies. This video was 40 minutes long and it’s free if you have Netflix streaming.
  • I am about to do Yoga for Buns #1. This is podcast #9 from the Yogadownload podcast. Only… 40 more to go. I have done a lot of them in the last few years but I thought it would be fun to go from the beginning and do them all in order. I don’t remember if I have done this one before. It sounds painful. (20 minutes)
  • More of my Netflix favorites can be found here. And yoga faves are here.

Food Love

Other stuff I love.

Happy Weekend 🙂 What are your plans?