Fab Fit Squad

That’s right, drinking chocolate milk after a HARD work out will aid in helping your muscles recover. Now let me reiterate HARD workout, if you just went a did a light workout and didn’t break a sweat, you won’t need a post workout recovery.  But if you did come back from a long bike ride, run or hike chocolate milk will help you recover better than some of those other high beverages. Why??

• Plain water just replaces the water you sweat out during your workout
• Carbohydrate laden beverages just builds and replaces your glycogen (stored muscle carbs)
• Carbohydrates and Protein combination not only replaces the glycogen but studies have that you see a double % increase in glycogen, plus the protein also helps your muscles to recover and repair.

I am a big advocate of using whole foods, but for post workouts chocolate milk will do the trick.  Just remember you need to be in a hard workout to earn the chocolate. In honor of National Chocolate Milk Day go out for a hard workout and enjoy!!

I am once again running the Falmouth road race with my husband. Last year was our first year, now we’re thinking about making it an annual thing.  We are just a little behind in our running schedule, but we’re planning catch up this week. My first run was last Saturday night when the temperature was roughly 85 degrees. FUN.. Which is really funny given the last time I ran any long distance (January) we were looking to see when the warmest part of the day was going to be.

So the run we good but really hot, we ran again yesterday and the 3.5 miles felt much better. I am experiencing so side stitches, need to work getting my breathing in synch as well as my food timing. I think the last two times I had large meals that didn’t fully digest before I went for my run.

We’re suppose to run tonight to make up for our missed run on Sunday, but mother nature had another plan for us. It’s POURING, so we’ll be running both days this weekend to play catch up.

I’ll keep you posted on our progress.  Goal this year is to run 7.1 miles in less than 1 hour.

It was hard break up, but it had to happen. About 2 months before my last fitness competition I was reduced to 4 yellow packets,  REALLY ARE YOU KIDDING!!! Prior to that those yellow packets and I were BFFs make the VBFFs. Like the Frank’s hot sauce commercial, I put those packets on EVERYTHING. Breaking up was hard to do, but it had to be done, I need to drop some weight and those yellow packets weren’t doing anything to help me.

Now that I am done with my competition and my diet is more open as they say, I thought I’d go back to  my old ways, but surprisingly I have not.

Sorry to say BFF we’re through, if you haven’t broken up with your yellow packet BFF read more about why you should.  This posting appeared in the Huffington Report. http://huff.to/9lgm1m

This blog was inspired by a NY Times article, Bidding Farewell to Ghosts of Pain

Yes, I am or at least when it comes to taking medicine. When I grew up we didn’t go to the doctor unless you were bleeding from the eye. Do you remember from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the father thought Windex cured everything. In my house a band-aid and a kiss did that. I’m serious.. I have to have a MAJOR issue to go to the doctor. I’m still that person, there has to be something really wrong for me to go. (more…)

I just returned from my 2nd Women’s Tri Fitness and it was just as exhilarating as it was last year. I didn’t win any hardware, but I did beat my times from last year, which is all that matters to me.  Well — that and after all the events my husband who is the most supportive person to me throughout my training turned to me and said he was so proud of me. That made it well worth all missed activities and times spent at the gym vs spending quality time with him.

This time instead of rushing off to the next thing, I did take time to celebrate my accomplishments while I was in Las Vegas, we lounged by the pool at the Monte Carlo hotel which was a balmy 102 (there was humidity and the natives were freaking out) UMMM you don’t know what humidity is and hung out at our very favorite restaurant Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris Hotel. Now I’m back to reality and its time to set some new goals.

This year I’m planning to:

1. work on my legs — would love to have a nice quad sweep
2. increase my speed and agility
3. increase my bench press — I’m getting 50 reps in next year’s Tri Fitness

I just landed in Vegas, the temperature is a balmy 101. I know that say its a dry heat, but it still hotter than Hades out there, I’m not complaining because I do love the heat. Actually as I sit here and type I’m wearing a long sleeve shirt and a jacket as the hotel likes to keep it like Antarctica. But I digress… So the actual competition doesn’t start until tomorrow, but today was weigh in for the bench press.. Which in my mind is the scariest part of this whole competition, you need to bench press 60% of your body weight for 50 reps, my goal weight to lift is 75 pds.  I got on the scale in my house and my unofficial weight had me 4 pounds below the top end of my weight class SWEET!!!. This morning at 8am — after flying 5 hours I get on the scale I’m 5 POUNDS heavier than I was at home, are you SHITTING ME!!! I retained that much water from flying or someone had their foot on the scale! (more…)