Spice Up Your Life! Spice Up Your Workouts! Updated

What's up kittens? Having a good week? It's always hard to get back in focus after a long holiday weekend, isn't it? It's bad enough I already have issues knowing what day it is and what town I'm in but whoa, after a holiday weekend I'm really in a fog. No Jokes Please.

Anyway, I'm starting to dig the kettlebell feeling more and more. As you know, I recently bought the RKS Kettlebell DVD set and yesterday I did my first workout. I did DVD #1 which is essentially ONLY kettlebell swings. However, don't think this was 1) easy or 2) boring or 3) void of sweat or 4) void of cursing. I am VERY excited to move forward in this series and do the rest. I used- or wait, I started with 25lb kettlebells and had to move down to a 20lb kettlebell because my grip was failing. 

Can you tell I'm rather addicted to Tumblr and Pinterest? DANG! Anyway-- keep reminding yourself that we only "compete" with ourselves! It's about EFFORT and pushing it, not trying to be perfect. My friend Krissa can use 30lb dumbbells for overhead presses. I use 20lbs and grunt my way through it- but that is what is TOUGH for me. If it's TOUGH, I'm working my muscles. Enough said. JUST WORK IT.

Check out my sweatfest vlog below for my "review":

Also! Spice Up Your Life is not just for workouts....I've been talking about adding spicy-ness via variety in our "diets" as well (READ: "diets" for me is WAY OF EATING, not a DIET). I'm filling my cabinets and fridge with LOTS of foods that I love and guess what-- I am NOT forbidding foods anymore....that's right. I am slowly but surely getting back to the point where ANYTHING can be in my house and I can reasonably eat and reach my goal. 

Yea. You saw it here first. I have a hujazz jar of Nutella in my cupboard. I also have PEANUT BUTTER. I've also filled my fridge with vegetables, fruit, hummus, Almond Milk, Chobani Greek Yogurt, Laughing Cow Cheese wedges, organic brown eggs (for you Danielle) Brownberry 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Jell-O, Trader Joes Brown Rice Pasta (heaven!), Organic Trader Joes Marinara-- you get the idea. I'm not hosting a psycho diet kitchen, but I'm also not hosting a PIG OUT FREE FOR ALL. Balance. Every time I go to eat, I stop and think- why am I eating. Then I calm down- and if I am hungry, I eat what my body "needs" and try to keep a good balance. I am also focusing on eating AT THE TABLE. Geneen Roth talks in her books about eating in a rush, eating in the car, eating at the counter- all things I have done- and you do it because you are usually Rushing and thus you rush through a meal and don't even taste it. SIT DOWN. Eat slowly. Enjoy your food. You're allowed to do that. Go ahead. 

In the spirit of "diet" balance, I am posting this gem, shared on Tumblr from The Reality of Skinny:

Here are some of the best Healthy Snacks, via Women's Health Magazine:

1. Sliced tomato with a sprinkle of feta and olive oil
2. Vitamuffin Vita Top
3. Starbucks tall Skinny Latte
4. Banana
5. Edamame
6. Air- popped popcorn 
7. Quaker Instant Oatmeal
8. Greek yogurt
9. 8 pieces of shrimp, with 4 tbs cocktail sauce
10. Sargento Light String Cheese
11. Curves Granola Bar
12. 1 cup baby carrots with 2 tbs hummus
13. 1 1/4 ounce turkey jerky
14. 1/2 cantaloupe
15. 1 cup vegetable juice, and 2 oz roasted turkey breast 
16. 1 tbs peanuts and 2 tbs dried cranberries 
17. 1 cup strawberries and 3 tbs Cool Whip Free
18. Amy’s Cheese Pizza Snacks
19. 1 cup raspberries with 2 tbs Greek yogurt and 1 tsp honey
20. 2 egg whites with 1 slice of whole wheat toast
21. 1/2 cup frozen yogurt
22. 5 Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses
23. 2/3 cup Barbara’s Baked Cinnamon Puffins Cereal (dry)
24. 1 oz Yellowtail and 1 oz Tuna sashimi 1 packet Kikoman Instant Miso Soup
25. 18 Fat Free Rold Gold Tiny Twists
26. 2 oz Veggie Land Veg- T- Balls with 2 tbs tomato sauce
27. Chocolate milk
28. 1 Nutter Butter Granola Bar 

I'm telling y'all- Shrimp Cocktail if you like it (which I do) is a beautiful thing. Lo-Cal, Lo-Fat and scrumptious. What are your favorite healthy snacks? Do you snack? Or avoid it? 

Question of the Day: Have you ventured into Kettlebell Land yet? If so- how did you find out about it? If not, do you want to?

Saturday's Sweatfest. Holy Moly.

Whoa. People I did a little 30 minutes of Amy Bento Kettlebell followed by this gem for kickboxing and leg blast. SWEATFEST. What an awesome workout. Totally different than others out there and she just builds and builds and builds. This is the kind of workout where you keep doing it and get better and better in your flexibility and endurance and wow it works the legs- I also wanted to mention that this workout toward the end plus the Tracy Effinger one from yesterday both incorporated (and come to think of it that Amy Bento weight one from earlier in the week did also) the 'sissy squat' variations. I had no idea how TOTALLY DIFFERENTLY this positioning works your lower body. Whoa. I have NOT been doing that in the past and look forward to conquering it more. Yea. See a little peek here below, but you can see more and get your own DVD at Collage Video. (and no I'm not making any $$ from Collage Video, I just use them cuz they have a guarantee and GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE plus video previews...I never had heard of this woman but saw the preview and am SO GLAD I got this!!)

The Video is called Ilaria's Bodystrikes. FYI.