Morning Workouts

Call me crazy, but I think I like working out in the morning?

Over the past two weeks, I’ve not only convinced myself to get my butt out of bed an hour earlier, but I then proceed to put on my workout gear and get my limbs in some sort of coordination that mimics what we know here on Earth to be exercise. Physical activity. Sweat and muscle. At 6 in the morning. And I’m enjoying it?

Like I said, call me crazy.

But what’s not crazy is checking it off my to-do list, and being able to come home after a long day to a glass of wine and some couch time rather than trying to motivate myself to go get in a workout.

If it’s raining, or I have limited time, I’ll do a short yoga video from Reflexion. But most days I go out for a run. Normally when I go running after work/internship, I’m thinking about things that happened that day, sometimes over analyzing situations. Exercise should be a time to de-stress! But in the morning I can just kind of be with my thoughts and let my brain do it’s thing. So, the other day I came home and wrote down everything that came to mind during my run.

Things I think about while running at 6am:

1) Why did my neighbor ask if I was going running or jogging? Is there really a difference?

2) It’s so effing humid. I feel like I’m swimming. Does running in this make my lungs conditioned more or less?

3) Aw look at all the baby ducks! I wonder what would happen if I tried to take one home with me. Would momma duck go ape-$h!t ?

4) These other people out running, I wonder what time they have to go to work?

5) Did Andrew wake up yet? I bet he slept through his alarm again.

6) I think I want eggs for breakfast. But I also want something cold. A smoothie? But I want eggs. I really want eggs. Probably gonna be a smoothie though.

Obviously, not a whole lot of intelligence in these thoughts. But it seems to make the miles go by quicker. I think I might just stick with the morning workouts.

Are you a morning workout person? How’d ya get in the habit?

Busy Bee

Hey hey everybody!

I’ve had an incredibly busy week so let’s back up a bit to recap what’s been happening.

As far as the internship goes, this week was spent with the dietitian who covers the cardiac units. Being that February is Heart Month, I thought it was pretty fitting that I was able to shadow her the last week of the month. Aside from the monotony of seeing post-op patients and consults for congestive heart failure, we did a lot of other things.. fun things! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she helps teach a cardiac discharge class to all the patients who are well enough from their open heart surgeries to go home, or at least transfer to a rehab facility. The class focuses on properly healing after surgery, but also lifestyle modifications. Many open heart patients (hopefully) see this as a big “wakeup” call and are ready to change their ways upon discharge. In the class, heart healthy diets are addressed, specifically cholesterol, types of fats, sodium, caffeine and alcohol use. It was interesting to see how receptive these patients are, and how eager they were to start a healthy life. I guess sometimes it takes a near-death experience to make people change?

On Wednesday, we stayed late to help with a cardiac health fair at the hospital that was open to the public. A few of the cardiac surgeons gave informal presentations, and afterwards there was a lovely spread of “heart healthy” food, tables set up with the hospital’s fitness centers and nutrition information. I was recruited to help with the nutrition table, and it was fun being able to talk to all of the visitors and answer their extremely random questions. Oh you want to know about stevia? I mean that has nothing to do with heart health but yes it’s better than aspartame. Lots of these visitors were over the age of 70, so you can imagine the amount of personal stories I heard.

When I wasn’t busy with the internship last week, I was sneaking in yoga sessions in my living room. My posture has been really poor lately, I think just because I’ve been doing a lot of sitting and standing in one spot, so I wanted to kind of wring out my spine.

On Thursday I was excited to get my Sweat Pink Ambassador apparel in the mail! They were seriously generous with the shoelaces.

Friday was a whirlwind day. I was at the hospital by 7am and left around 3pm so that I could drop Annie off at the doggie hotel for the weekend. At 5pm, Andrew and I left for a three-hour drive to Sarasota. His great-aunt and uncle, who live in Boston, were visiting friends on Longboat Key and invited us for the weekend. They generously rented us our own room at a little beach hotel called Coquina on the Beach. When we arrived, we quickly made our way to the Tommy Bahama restaurant for a late dinner. I ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and the roasted vegetable entrée with warm farrow salad and grilled tiger shrimp. It was perfect, but after dinner we made our way to the Kilwin’s ice cream and fudge shop next door. If you know me, you know I can’t pass up ice cream so I went with the salted caramel flavor. SO good.

St Armand's Circle

Saturday morning we made our way over to the hotel that Andrew’s great-aunt and uncle were staying at and made breakfast in their little kitchenette. Since it was such a cold day (by Florida standards), after breakfast we took a quick walk on the beach to do some shell searching and then decided to do something indoors. We headed over to the Ringling Estate and Museums. His great-aunt was a professor of dance and theater history at Harvard for many years, and is still a respected critic in the Northeast. Though I’m not a huge fan of art museums, it was still interesting to hear her input on everything as we walked around.

beachsarasota

For dinner we headed out to an Italian restaurant in downtown Sarasota, Mediterraneo. I loved everything about this place. The atmosphere was lively and the food was amazing. We ordered a bottle of Italian red wine for the table, which I happily drank without even thinking to look at the label… I regret that now because it was delicious and would love to find it again. For dinner I ordered a Caesar salad to start, and the Black Linguine with Shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce for my entrée. Fun fact: black linguine gets its color from squid ink! For dessert, because you just can’t pass on dessert at an authentic Italian restaurant, I ordered the Tiramisu. So light and fluffy and not too overpowering with the rum. A perfect ending to the meal.

After dinner Andrew and I wanted to get a drink, but instead opted to pick up a bottle of wine to bring back to our hotel room. We watched movies and talked about quantum physics. You think I’m joking, but sadly I’m not. Wine makes you smarter I guess? We’re a strange couple, don’t even worry about it.

Today we woke up and headed over to their hotel room again for bagels and lox with coffee before saying our goodbyes and heading home. I had so much homework and paperwork to send in by 9pm tonight for my internship so we made sure to get back by early afternoon. As you can see I’ve been pretty busy, and hopefully will be able to get back into a normal routine this week.

Stay tuned for a recap of my February goals and new March goals tomorrow!

 

Have you ever been to Sarasota? How was your weekend?

Sweatin’ Pink

Heeyy you guuys!

Quick, what’s that from?

Ok so hi happy Wednesday… where is this week going? As I mentioned, I’m rotating with the Med/Surg dietitian this week and it’s much more relaxed than the ICU. But more on that tomorrow because I have something super exciting to tell you…

Did you notice the shiny new button on the right-side of my blog?

I’m now a Sweat Pink Ambassador!

Hold on hold on, let me tell you a little about the Sweat Pink Movement from Fit Approach

sweat pink

Fit Approach is a healthy community, founded by two hard-workin’ ladies, Jamie and Alyse. Basically they like to work hard and play hard, all while looking pretty in pink.. and they wanted to influence others to do the same.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not really a girly-girl (ok, sometimes), and purple actually trumps pink in my book (it’s my favorite color). But you better believe I’m going to be sporting my pink shoelaces when they come in the mail.

Being an Sweat Pink Ambassador means that I’m committed to inspiring others to live a healthy life. This is who Sweat Pink Ambassadors are:

  • Enthusiastic health nuts who love sweating and eating well, but can also appreciate the finer things in life (chocolate, cheese, wine…)
  • Natural leaders. They motivate those around them to achieve their best, and set an example of healthy, positive living. They set up running clubs for their friends, and organize gym dates early in the morning or after work. They get their co-workers to try yoga, and to order fruit instead of donuts for meetings.
  • Passionate. Whether they go gaga for green smoothies or tear up the floor every day at Zumba, there’s something about living well that really gets them going, and their enthusiasm is infectious.
  • Curious. Always looking out for the latest fitness or foodie craze, eager to learn, connect, share, and discover.
  • (from the Sweat Pink website)

We’re all in the Healthy Living Blog world for a reason… we love the things in life that make us healthy! But what could be better than simply living a happy and healthy life? Influencing others to do so as well, and that’s what the Sweat Pink Movement is about.

I’m so excited to be a part of this community and I can’t wait to keep inspiring!