Weekly Review

I was able to try running again this week!  It went ok, though I was super slow.  But I guess that makes sense since I haven't run since April and it's much hotter now.  I need to start getting out the door earlier in the morning.  But overall, it was a good week last week.  I also did my PT exercises most days of the week (I think I forgot on Thursday) and my planks most days as well.  Here are the details.

Monday - Lower body strength training

Tuesday - Thursday - Rest days.  These were work days and ended up not really being able to work out other than my PT exercises.  I meant to get out for a walk on Wednesday but ended up running into a neighbor and talked too long.  So the walk just ended up being a short 10 minute loop.

Friday - 35 minute run/walk.  My new sports bras came in this week so I was able to try running!  The good news is that my knees seem fine and don't hurt.  I did a 20 minute peloton run/walk and then kept going for another 15 minutes on my own.

Saturday - Lower body strength training

Sunday - 40 minute run/walk.  And I saw this beautiful neighborhood cat on the way!  I also did a 10 minute peloton stretching class.

So that's it for the week.  It was also a good week because there was a noticeable improvement in the range of motion for my shoulder.  I'm sure it's been improving incrementally but I didn't really notice until this week.  I couldn't tie my mask behind my head last week but I was able to do it on Saturday.

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown! 

 

Weekly Food

It's finally Friday!  This is another week that seemed to crawl by for some reason.  I guess part of it is because we stay in the house all the time and really don't go anywhere.  But I know that's still the right thing for us for now so we're going to keep with it.  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and share the food we ate this week.

 

Weekend brunch was amazing this week.  Mike made a baked french toast with whipped cream that was delicious.  We also had it with mango and strawberries on the side.

We made another vegan pasta on Wednesday.  This one had roasted veggies and a tomato sauce that was creamy with the addition of soaked and blended cashews. And we served it with salad.  Sorry for the blurry photo, I don't know how I didn't notice that when I took it.

The middle of the week was a greek salad.  It was delicious, especially the second day as the flavors had a chance to marry.  We were trying to clean out our freezer a bit so we served it with garlic bread the first day and with tater tots the second day.  Random pairings but still delicious and now there's more room in the freezer :)

I hope everyone has a good weekend in front of them!

Weekly Review

I missed everyone last week!  I ended up taking another break because it just ended up being a busy work week.  I'm still working three days per week but trying to stuff the same amount of work into those three days as when I was working 5 days per week.  I hope you're all doing well!  I did get some work outs in and I did my shoulder PT every day.  I also have been continuing the 30 day plank challenge I'm doing with a friend.  We're up to 2 minutes.  Here's what I got last week.

Monday - 30 minute peloton power walk plus a 15 minute cool down.

Tuesday - 50 minute walk listening to a new audio book.

Wednesday - Rest day

Thursday - Lower body strength training

Friday - Rest day

Saturday - Peloton strength training plus stretching

Sunday - 30 minute walk in the evening.

I also cut my hair last week!  The shoulder is limiting my motion that I can't easily reach the back or top of my head.  That was making it difficult to put my hair into a ponytail.  So I just ended up getting it cut.  My salon is taking everything very safely as far as public health and I felt safe there.  They did temperature checks before people entered, everyone wore masks, and they had drastically lower capacity.  No one was allowed to wait in the lobby and they texted you to come in when they were ready for you to go straight back.  A friend had a virtual party Saturday so I also had a chance to put on some makeup and get dolled up.

In wildlife excitement for the week, we actually saw two foxes in our backyard one morning.

We also took advantage of our backyard and had a friend come visit on Saturday and another friend on Sunday.  We have  a big enough patio that we were able to stay on one side and we stayed on the other and we had more than 6 feet between us the whole time.  It was weird to not hug but it was great to be able to see them in person again!  They both brought their dogs and the dogs seemed really happy for the extra socializing as well.

So that was my week.  My shoulder continues to be an issue and when I met with the physical therapist this morning (virtually, of course), she indicated it would take at least several more months to get back to normal.  My knee is at least fine now given the break from running.  I can't put any of my sports bras on at the moment because of my shoulder.  I ordered some more that open in the back and they should be here this week.  So hopefully I'll be able to try running again once they come in.

 I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

 

Weekly Food

Yay, it's finally Friday!  This week went by pretty fast since it was a busy one at work.  And I'm still just working three days per week so it was tough to get it all in.  But thankfully it's the weekend now.  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and continue my trend of sharing the food we ate this week.

I made tofu chorizo, and it was amazing!  I am definitely doing this again.  It didn't take long at all and the spices were things I tend to have on hand anyway.  It can be kept in the freezer for a couple months, which is another advantage.  We made these sandwiches with it.  The sandwiches were good but a lot of work.  I probably won't make these sandwiches again just because of the amount of work. Sadly, it looks like I somehow forgot to take a photo.  But trust me, the tofu chorizo is going to be a hit.

We had gotten some really delicious bagels and cream cheese so we went with bagel sandwiches for our Sunday brunch.

And my birthday was this week!  So Mike made me a delicious honey yogurt cake.  It was flavored with lemon and thyme and so delicious.  It wasn't overly sweet, which is how I like my desserts.

He also made me homemade naan.  I made a chickpea curry to pair it with and it was amazing!

Tuesday was my actual birthday so we got take out tacos and margaritas.  They were the perfect way to celebrate my birthday :)  The veggie option was sweet potato and brussel sprout tacos and they were so good!

We also had burrito bowls later in the week.  We made some rice and used up the left over tofu chorizo as well as the leftover toppings from the tacos.  It all went together surprisingly well and made for another delicious dinner.

So that was our food for the week.  It turned out to be a great week full of delicious food :)

Weekly Review

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  There's not much to report on my side since I was taking medicine for my frozen shoulder last week that said I was supposed to avoid exposure to sun.  I did do my PT exercises every day though.  And leg strengthening exercises.  I also started a June plank challenge with a friend so daily planks were part of the routine as well.

In addition to PT and planks, here are some of the other things from last week.

Friday - 30 minute Peloton walk session and a 15 minute cool down.  I really enjoyed the 80s music on this one!

Sunday - 2 miles with Mike.  We went to a local area with a 1 mile path around a lake.  It was a bit more crowded than I thought it would be but the path is wide enough that we were able to stay 6 feet away from people for the most part.

I also did two ab sessions on the Peloton app and 2 stretching sessions.

We're still staying home but we had some friend time with a watch party on Monday of the Invader Zim movie.  We also did some online trivia.  One was a Buffy trivia (which we did not do so well at) and one was Epcot trivia (which we did better at).  And we had a virtual happy hour with friends Thursday plus a virtual get together on Saturday night.  I was tired so I didn't stay at that one too long.

 We had deer in our yard several time this week, they seem to enjoy just hanging out there in the afternoon.

Weirdly, I also saw turkey vultures just hanging out in someone's yard on one of my walks!  It was very strange to see such big birds up close.

And I started trying to grow some herbs.  I don't have much of a green thumb but they've actually sprouted this week so that was exciting :)

So that's it for my week.  I'm hoping on more workouts this week.  And my arm is responding well to physical therapy so I might even try to start some peloton strength training classes this week.  I'd say I've gone from 50% range of motion to about 70% range of motion in my right arm. I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

 

Weekly Food

I'm glad to be back to sharing blog posts this week!  And though it's felt like a long week, it's finally Friday :)  I hope everyone else had a good week!  And since it's Friday, I'm joining up with Fairytales and Fitness for their Friday link up and continue my trend of sharing the food we ate this week.

The weekend started out with samosa wraps.  This was a combination of a lentil spread, a filling that was a mixture of potatoes, cauliflower and peas, pickled onions and a dollop of plain yogurt.  It was so delicious!  We just served it with roasted broccoli on the side.

Sunday brunch included the usual eggs and potatoes but Mike also made vegan berry pancakes in a sheet pan and they were delicious! So much easier than flipping individual pancakes.

Our next dinner for the week was a vegan gado gado.  We used quinoa instead of rice, topped it with shredded veggies, roasted sweet potatoes and peppers, and steamed green beans.  The delicious peanut sauce is what really made this meal.  It was amazing!

And the middle of the week was pasta.  We've been getting into a bit of a pattern with pasta in the middle of the week just because it's quick and easy on a work day.  Plus, it's delicious!  We used a one pot recipe again which makes clean up quick too.  This week's recipe was a summer vegetable pasta.  But it made a ton of pasta!  It said it was 4-6 servings but we got much more than that out of it.

So that was it for the week!  The dinners all turned out delicious and we were pretty happy with them.  Hopefully that trend continues as well :)  I hope you've all been having delicious food recently too. 

Peloton App review

As I mentioned in past work out summaries, I've been trying the peloton app with a free 90 day trial.  I don't have a peloton bike or treadmill so I've mostly just been trying the strength training classes and the outdoor running/walking classes.  My 90 day trial ends in mid June so here's what I think of it so far.

I love it!  I've really enjoyed the outdoor running/walking classes.  I would not use them on every run.  Sometimes I like zoning out while on a run and these aren't really conducive to that.  They do help me keep present in what I'm doing.  I really enjoy them for intervals and speed work.  I like the unexpected element of not really knowing what the intervals will be in advance and challenging your body with different things every week.

I also like the variety they offer.  There are different types of instructors and different types of work outs, even in the outdoor category.  And beyond that, there are is strength training, stretching, yoga, cardio dance, etc.  These are all things that can be done without a treadmill or bike at home.

I also like their filtering algorithm.  It makes it pretty easy to find exactly what you're looking for.  You can filter by instructor, length of the class, difficulty, type of work out, etc.  That really helps narrow things down since there are so many classes available.

Downsides?  It does use up battery and data.  I have been downloading my outdoor classes in advance and that helps minimize the excess data usage but it's still something to watch out for.  And the cost is pretty high.  But I do feel like it's worth it.  I enjoy the higher production values, the engaging instructors, the fun music and themes.  And I appreciate how often they have new class offerings.  I haven't tried any of the live classes yet but those sound fun too.

I think we can move the elliptical over and have room for it and the bike!

So the true verdict on how I feel about it is that we've decided to go ahead and get a peloton bike!  We haven't been loving our gym since they closed the branch that was closest to our house.  The gym membership was around $60 per month (for the two of us total) so it works out about the same with the monthly peloton payment.  We've cleaned out a room in the basement that was just being used to house junk so we have a place to put the bike.  And I think the cross training option with the bike classes will help out with some of the knee problems I've been having.  And I've been talking it up to Mike so he's looking forward to using it too. 

So that's my big news :)  We're counting it as my birthday gift, though they bikes are back ordered so we won't actually get it until July.  In the meantime, I'm definitely going to continue using the app and exploring the other offerings they have. 

Weekly Review

I hope you're all doing well!  I've been gone for a couple weeks because I pretty much just needed a break.  I've been going through some health issues, and it seems like the world is pretty much falling apart around us.  But I think I'm ready to get back online.  I am looking forward to catching up with all of you and see how you're doing!

Health update is that I did set up a telehealth appointment with the doctor a couple weeks ago.  I had been having pain in my left knee, which I was pretty sure was runner's knee.  I probably wouldn't have called for just that because I sadly have had that before and know the treatment, most of which is just time to let it heal.  But I also had been having right shoulder pain and my range of motion with my right arm kept decreasing.  By the time I talked to the doctor I felt like I only had 50% range of motion in that arm compared to my good arm.

It turns out I have something called frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis.  I'm not sure why or how this happened, but it is more common in women over 40 so I fit that demographic.  And it's more common for people with thyroid disease so I fit that box too.

The doctor set me up with a virtual appointment with a physical therapist and she's given me exercises to do.  They seem to b e working but they're really painful.  They all pretty much involve moving my arm in various ways, to the point of pain, and then going a bit past that point.  The doctor's also put me on some medicine.  It took a while for the medicine to get here so I just started that a couple days ago.  Fingers crossed all of this helps!

As far as working out, it's pretty much been reduced to going for easy walks (the doctor said that's fine for the runner's knee) and the PT exercises (for both my shoulder and knee).  We did get out to one of the local parks over Memorial Day weekend and it wasn't too crowded so we had a nice, long walk.  The knee is a lot better so hopefully I might be able to try faster walking this weekend and then maybe even some easy runs.  The medicine for the shoulder says avoid prolonged exposure to the sun so I've stopped my walks while taking the medicine.  Wednesday is the last day of the medicine so hopefully I can go out again Thursday.

And that's kind of it over here.  We've been continuing to stay home.  Our county opened up some stuff (outdoor patios for restaurants, curbside pick up for retail, etc.) but we're playing it on the safe side.  And we're continuing to work from home.  We've been continuing to cook some fun food as well. And continuing with standards like pastas, fried rice, and Sunday brunches at home.

Quinoa stuffed peppers

Vegan nicoisse salad

Lastly, I've been thinking a lot about the protests going on across the US in relation to the police brutality that is faced by the black community.  I've been doing lots of reading, lots of introspection, and looking into ways that we can help.  It's important to me that we do what we can to be allies in this time. It's wrong that this has to happen again and again and that we as a society keep repeating the same mistakes without making changes for the better.

So that's it for me.  I hope that you've all been doing well and staying healthy!

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!