Heave ho!

Hi friends!

It's currently nasty and drizzly outside, but I'm all sunshine inside today! I've got the "Big Band/Swing" channel on in the other room and I'm feeling so so so cheery and motivated today!

You probably remember last week I was feeling like this about my competition prep...

Unsure and discouraged (and a wee bit scared to get up on stage next month).

As of today, though, I'm feeling more like this:

Calm, cool and collected...(well, for the most part, at least ;)

I don't know what I've done right the past few days, but my body is finally breaking through this month-long plateau. I weighed this morning and am down 3 lbs (YAY!!!) and feeling much leaner. I'm now only 6.5 lbs away from my initital stage weight goal. With only 26 days left, I'll be "upping" my cardio starting today, so we'll see what happens!

My sweet Hubbs and I had our alarms set for 5am workout this morning, but we ended up sleeping in because neither of us got adequate sleep last night. We were both restless and it didn't help that at one point during the night I woke up SCREAMING the most blood-curling-movie scream because I had a dream a man was standing over my bed and about to attack me. I scared the c-r-a-p out of my poor, unsuspecting husband, but he just held me as I shook like a leaf. Seriously, I was shaking for like 15 minutes! The dream was that traumatic and scary! EEP! Now that I think of it, we shouldn't have watched "Paranormal" on TV before bed last night. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I had the BEST weekend with my sister visiting from Texas. I love when she comes to visit! Since I still don't have a camera, she took a ton of pics for me, but hasn't sent them to me yet. (Ahem...Kell, send me those pics!) When I get those, I'll write more about our weekend shenanigans. It included Friday Fright Night, pumpkin patches and meeting up with two of my newest and greatest friends.

What I can write about is a killer leg workout I had yesterday. Oh man, it was a toughie! There was actually a few times I thought I would puke, but luckily I didn't because that is one of the most vile things on earth. Ughh! Anyway, my main focus these next 3 1/2 weeks are my shoulders, abs and GLUTES. When I do leg workouts, I do compound moves and then isolation exercises last, if needed. Since I was workin' the glutes, it needed. Here is what I did yesterday in a circus circuit-type workout. I did all exercises three times through with no more than 30 second rests, then hit abs and threw in shoulders just for giggles...he he he

5-minute warm-up jogging at 4.5, incline 2%

Static lunges- 20lbs
Step-Ups- 20 lbs
Single-Leg Calf Raises- 30 lbs
Sumo Squats- 40lbs
Isolated: Hip Extensions- 20lbs behind knees- 3 sets of 15
50 Hanging Leg Raises (not all at once; 15, 10, 10, 10 and then 5 really slow ones at the end)
Shoulder presses- 25lbs- 4 sets of 10, 7, 6, 6 reps

I burned 600+ calories and it felt SOOO good! I'm thankful to my sista for giving me new music ideas, because it definitely got me pumped up to do this circuit-type workout. I think I'll post my playlist in my next post. 'Cuz sharing is caring!

After my workout, I wolfed down 1/2 sweet potato and 4 oz. chicken breast and got ready to leave for my Hunk's soccer game. I'm so in love with player #6!!! ;)

They played so hard, especially because they were down a few players AND had no subs. That means, they didn't have a single break the entire game. My man is a stud!

During the game, I enjoyed my new favorite Jay Robb Whey Protein flavor- Pina Colada. Oh man, it was SO good!

I also chewed on some dessert:

This is my new favorite gum! I'd seen the new Dessert Delights commercials but couldn't find the actual gum anywhere...until now! It's super yummy! I can't wait to try other flavors! This is the closest thing I've had to dessert in over 3 months. Sad, I know... :(

Well, I'm off to hit Back/Bis. I'm super excited that I was able to lower my assisted weight on the pull-up machine last week and hope to continue doing so until I can do them completely unassisted!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

♥,T

Question:

1) Did you workout this weekend?

2) What's your favorite brand of gum?