My Workouts of the Week + A Rambunctious Pre-St. Patrick's Day

This was another week of doing pretty well at the gym! It's becoming a nearly habitual part of my day-to-day, and that's a habit I'm notttt mad about forming. Just need to make sure that I don't injure myself. God knows I'm prone to doing that, so... knock on wood.

Here's what I was up to at the gym this week:

3/9 (upper body)

3x: 13 seated rows, 37.5 lbs

3x: 13 close grip chest press on exercise ball, 12.5 lbs each hand

3x: 13 bent over rows, 12.5 lbs each hand

3x: 13 chest press on exercise ball, 12.5 lbs each hand

1x: 8 overhead press on exercise ball, 10 lbs each hand *too heavy!

2x: 8 overhead press on exercise ball, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: 13 lat pulldowns, 37.5 lbs

3x: 10 deltoid flys, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: 8 deltoid raises, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: alternating chest flys with a 6 lb medicine ball

13 overhead press, 5 lbs each hand

13 overhead press, 7.5 lbs each hand

8 overhead press, 10 lbs each hand

10 push-ups

3/10 (lower body)

5 mins elliptical

3x: 30 calf raises, 17.5 lbs each hand

3x: 15 leg lifts from side plank, each side

3x: 15 deadlifts, 17.5 lbs each hand

3x: 20 side lunges + plyometric push-off, each side

2:15 jumping jacks

3x: 8 single leg deadlifts, 7.5 lbs each hand (I don't know why, but these are SO HARD for me!)

3x: 15 static lunges each leg, holding 6 lb medicine ball overhead

1:10 plank

10 mins hiking* treadmill

3/11 (core)

5 mins treadmill

3x: 30 Brazilian crunches

3x: 15 crunches on exercise ball, holding 15 lbs

3x: 10 plank pike up on exercise ball

3x: 15 lying overhead raise + double crunch, holding 7.5 lbs

3x: 30 cobras

3x: 30 v-sit twists, holding 15 lbs

3x: 15 dynamic side planks each side

3/13 (cardio)

45 mins hiking*/jogging on treadmill - here's the min-by-min breakdown:

    0-4 varying hike

    4-5 jogging 4.4 mph

    5-9 varying hike

    9-10 jogging 4.5 mph

    11-14 varying hike

    14-15 jogging 4.6 mph

    15-19 varying hike

    19-20 jogging 4.7 mph

    20-24 varying hike

    24-25 jogging 4.9 mph

    25-29 varying hike

    29-40 jogging 5-6mph

    40-45 varying hike/cooldown

30 bodyweight squats + 20 squat pulses

3/14 (upper body)

3x: 10 chest press on exercise ball, 15 lbs each hand

3x: 10 bent over rows, 15 lbs each hand

3x: 10 deltoid flys, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: 10 deltoid raises, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: 10 overhead press, 7.5 lbs each hand

3x: 13 lat pulldowns, 37.5 lbs

3x: 26 alternating chest flys with 6 lb medicine ball

* When I go "hiking" on the treadmill, I adjust the intensity and/or incline every minute for the entire duration, making sure to go through the entire range of available inclines (0-15).

I'm trying to increase my arm/chest strength ("pushing" exercises like chest presses) before I increase any of the weight on my "pulling" exercises (seated or bent over rows) so that my chest muscles have a chance to catch up to my back muscles. From what I have learned, if your back muscles are much stronger than your chest then you're not building a balanced upper body. I've moved up to 15 lbs for presses now, and once that becomes easy then I'll increase to 17.5 - probably in a few weeks? And won't that be exciting??!?

Speaking of exciting, here's a sneak peek of the first video I shot with my company's YouTube channel a few weeks ago:

Watch out world, there's a whole video coming. (Update: Here it is.)

I made sure to get in a Saturday morning workout this weekend because I knew that there'd be some ridiculousness happening later that day. My friends had planned an afternoon of early St. Patrick's Day festivities!

Around 2:30 on Saturday, a group of us met up at Orleans in Somerville's Davis Square for early afternoon drinks and apps. As I promised on Friday, I did indeed enjoy some Bailey's Irish Cream mixed with iced coffee and topped with whipped cream. Obviously, my kind of drink.

From there, we decided on a whim to go bowling, so we drove/Ubered over to Lanes and Games in Cambridge, which is fo' sho' a recurring favorite place to have fun together.  Ten of us played 2 games on adjoining lanes, and more drinks and apps were had. I bowled a 101 my first game (not bad, for me) and then put in a dismal performance during the second game. I can't remember my score but it was probably less than 60? #facepalm

After bowling, some of the group splintered off, but some of us headed back to "after party" (it was only 8:45pm) at the house of my friends in Somerville. Insert drinks, darts, and dancing over the next 4 hours. It was a good night.

This morning afternoon when I got out of bed, I headed straight over to Donut Villa to fill my stomach with greasy breakfast food and the best-effing jelly donut I've ever had. How do they make them taste so good? The owner of the restaurant, John, told me with a wink that he gets them from Dunkin Donuts every morning, but I shook my head at him and told him I could taste the difference. Sidebar, they all love me at the Villa now. Score!

Anyway, I'm going to relax so hard the rest of the afternoon. You can catch me lounging in the bathtub and then watching a movie - or a few episodes of Game of Thrones. It's that kind of a recovery day, haha!

I hope you had a great weekend yourself. Any fun shenanigans or challenging workouts going on in your neck of the woods?

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St. Patrick's Day Nails: Matte Green & Layers of Gold

As a nod to my Irish heritage, I've got some green St. Patrick's Day nails today. But let's be honest - even if I weren't Irish, I'd be celebrating, right? That's how we do things in America. And on May 5th, we'll all be Mexican. #Freedom.

Here's how my nails are getting in on the holiday action:

The green is Balsam Fir by Revlon and the gold is a combo of Big Spender by Nina Ultra Pro and Crystal Gold from Forever21's Love & Beauty line.

I used two coats of Big Spender on my ring and thumb nails and topped that with 2 coats of Crystal Gold, which is a fairly sparse yellow-gold glitter in a clear base. It would have been way cooler if it was more jam-packed with glitter, but you can't win them all! Do you have a favorite gold glitter that's pretty opaque? Give me the deets!

I used 2 coats of Balsam Fir on all my other nails and finished those nails off with a matte top coat. I topped the gold nails with Seche Vite, to make them really shine and contrast with the green.

I'll be doing a bit of St. Patty's celebrating tomorrow with my friends at some Irish pubs around town. I can't stand the taste of beer, so no Guinness for me, but there may very well be some Bailey's Irish Cream in my future.

There's also a slight chance that I'll check out the (in)famous Southie St. Patrick's Day parade on Sunday... though that may be biting off more than I can chew, since Southie is known for becoming pretty chaotic on parade day. We'll see!

What are you going to be up to this weekend?
Are you wearing any green on your nails to celebrate?

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50 Shades of Green

Well alright, maybe not fifty of them... but several.

Happy St. Patrick's Day errrrr'body! Did you get schwasted-face this weekend? I didn't, but I did get a nice buzz off of all the compliments I received on Friday about my St. Paddy's Day nails. Thanks to everyone who showered me with flattery - you sure know how to make a girl feel like she can use a makeup sponge to apply nail polish! #HighFivesAllAround.

Since today is typically celebrated with lots of green, and since I didn't go a traditional green route for my nails on Friday, I'm giving myself permission to jump into the sea of green that you'll no doubt be noticing on blogs across zee 'net today. It doesn't hurt that green is one of my favorite colors - from mints to kellys to sages to emeralds!

I hope you'll enjoy browsing my random green picks in this Boutique widget - you can click on any of the images to browse/shop directly:

What are some green thaaaangs you're loving on today?
Do you wear green on St. Patrick's Day, or do you shy away from it?
What's your favorite hue of green? Mine is probably sage or mint!

p.s. If you can't see the widget above, click on the little grey shield icon in your address bar and choose to "load" the script!

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St. Patrick's Day Rainbow & Pot o' Gold Nails

Rather than going a standard "green nails" route for some St. Patrick's Day themed nails, I thought I'd take things in a more rainbow/pot of gold direction. HOPE THAT'S COOL WITH YOU!

Colors used:
Snow Me White - Sinful Colors (white)
Ruby Ruby - Sinful Colors (red)
Fuzzy Navel - Ruby Kisses (orange)
Lightening - Sally Hansen Insta Dri (yellow)
Envy - Sinful Colors (green)
Midnight Blue - Sinful Colors (blue)
Amethyst - Sinful Colors (purple)
Stiletto - Revlon (black)
Big Spender - Nina Ultra Pro (gold)
Crystal Gold - Love & Beauty (gold)
#077 - Color Club (gold)

I started off with a coat of Snow Me White on all my nails, and followed that up by taping all of my fingers the same way you may have seen me do in this nail tutorial. That step isn't totally necessary, but it most definitely cuts down on clean-up time later.

Next I grabbed a makeup sponge and painted a stripe of each color of the rainbow onto the sponge before quickly dabbing the sponge on my nails. I reapplied the rainbow colors to the sponge between each nail. For the thumb I painted the bottom half of the nail black and then used mixed coats of all 3 gold polishes to cover the top half of the nail. Update tip: I find it's a good idea to twist all of your nail polish bottles open (while still leaving the cap on) and line them up, ready to swipe onto the makeup sponge. It's a pain in the butt to have to twist them each open right before you swipe them onto the sponge, especially because you don't want the polishes to dry on the sponge before it gets to your nail!

 To finish off, I gave the rainbow nails a top coat to help smooth the colors together better.

Are you going to do anything crazy this weekend for St. Patrick's Day? I actually don't even know if Canadians celebrate this holiday... I'll have to find out. Anyway - whatever you're doing this weekend - keep it real and have funnnnn!

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