Blends, Spin, Cookie bagel.

Based on this title, it’s safe to say my creative switch in my brain is off thanks to exhaustion and STILL being sick. I’m a lot better, but after I taught this morning I had to come home and take a 3 hour nap because I was shaking from being so tired and my body was really hurting. This has been like a step under the flu, and poor John has it now. GO AWAY, WINTER.

My weekend was pretty amazing despite being sick. I worked Saturday and came right home to get back in bed since I had my big workout day Sunday. I couldn’t skip my long run all together but Brenda and I cut it back to 6 miles so I wouldn’t push it TOO much. After my run, Allie and Beth who were in town to meet each other came to my spin class! It was so great to meet Beth and see Allie again since last summer! I was beyond excited to have them in my class along with Brenda and our friend Stephanie. Nothing better than friends in your class to kick their butts. We showered after class and headed to brunch at Hu Kitchen, a paleo restaurant that I had heard about and wanted to try forever! Not because I’m paleo because uh, I’m clearly not. My love for grains and sugar runs deep and won’t be ending… ever.

 

 

I ordered the 2 eggs with sweet potato hash, pork sausage and paleo “bread”. The eggs, hash and pork were delicious! The bread however… well, I just wish they wouldn’t call it bread haha I didn’t like the taste of it at all, but the texture was more like a crumbly muffin type thing. No judgement if paleo is your thing and makes you feel great because that’s what it’s all about, but I truly couldn’t imagine my life without the foods that I love and I’m lucky that grains make me feel energized and great and not sluggish. Give me ALL the bagels.

I was waiting to see if I had to teach class at NuYu so Brenda, Eddie and John and I went to get coffee and talk for awhile. Once I found out I had no one sign up (we had a storm coming so that always deters people) John and I went to get some chicken at Dirty Bird. He’s obsessed with this place and they offer fried chicken, lightly battered chicken fingers, and rotisserie chicken. I’ve been craving chicken fingers for probably close to a year without giving in to it. It was my #1 favorite food when I was heavier and eating junk, and it was really hard to give them up! But I decided since I burned 1,200 calories that morning that I would try them out. Very glad I did. They were super lightly battered and I was actually able to pick off a lot of the breading. The chicken was the best chicken I’ve ever tasted, along with the vinegar coleslaw and honey mustard. I took a bite of the cornbread before realizing it’s made from corn which I cannot have without dying.

 

John and I dragged our sick butts home and were in bed by 7. Again, go away winter.

Yesterday morning I taught my morning class at 6:30, went to work until 6:30 PM, then had another class at 7:30. It was a crazy long day but my classes were amazing and make me so happy. I stopped at 7-Eleven to try this Diet Cherry Coke slurpee that I got a free text coupon for and it was really disappointing. This is a random fact that you don’t even need to know but I was pretty butt-hurt by it.

And dinner was a can of chicken noodle soup with 300 wheat crackers. I love when they get soggy because I’m strange.

 

And my new favorite dessert if I’m needing something sweet at night. Just a tbsp of peanut butter dipped in dairy-free mini chocolate chips.

 

After I taught my class this morning, I stopped at Brooklyn Bagel to get what I had waited for since last week when I saw that they had this flavor: another toasted coconut bagel with GIRL SCOUT SAMOA COOKIE CREAM CHEESE! I asked for just a little of the cream cheese since I shouldn’t be eating it anyway, and I ended up having to wipe off 4 NAPKINS WORTH of it off. Seriously who eats that much cream cheese?! Anyways, it was freaking amazing. So much coconut.

 

My Dr. Oz show got switched until today and I’m currently watching but my video hasn’t played yet! I saw myself in the audience but I’m getting sad that they cut my video haha It’s been a little annoying trying to beg to find out when I will be on it!

Do you follow a paleo diet? The only thing I like about it is the abundance of avocado and bacon. But I can’t eat either without bread haha

Have you ever taken a friends fitness class? I wish you could all come to mine 🙂

 

DR OZ!

Hi!! This week has been insane for me and to top it off I have been so, so sick. This is the worst cold I’ve had in a couple years and has knocked me on my ass. I’ll do a quick re-cap starting with last weekend and bring you up to speed with what will be on today and/or Monday! 😉

Last Saturday night:

My usual pre-long run dinner (cheese-less chicken and onion Domino’s pizza), except I ate the WHOLE thing because on top of my long runs I now teach 3 spin classes on Sunday’s.

Brenda and I ran a great 8 miles Sunday morning and they felt pretty effortless for how little I’ve been running. Thank you, 1099 spin classes a week.

Followed up with my hour spin class that we had a ton of fun in. I used the same playlist that I posted here because I hadn’t used it in this class yet.

I started to feel sick this day and by Monday it was full throttle terrible sore throat. I stayed home from work but had to teach my 6:30 AM spin class because guess what? No one wants to sub at that hour haha I pushed through and came home to rest all day. My throat got worse and worse but it was my first night teaching at NuYu so I had to go. I drank a couple Emergen-C’s throughout the day and it at least took away the achy feeling and gave me a bit of energy. This was a 45 minute ride and more of a beginner’s class so I took it super easy and it was a great vibe! Here’s the playlist for that.

My throat was on.fire. after teaching even though the room at this gym is small and I didn’t have to scream, so I stopped at 16 Handles for froyo to soothe my throat. Great excuse, right?

Just a little bit to tide me over until I got home and made a healthy dinner full of vitamins to help me out!

I was off from work Tuesday but had to teach at 7:30 AM and I was feeling worse. I ended up feeling better for awhile after my class but that was just the momentary endorphins because by the afternoon I was dead again. I NEVER lose my appetite, and this week I have had to force myself to eat to have enough energy for my classes and to get better. I was in bed all day and night Tuesday with the hopes of feeling better for Wednesday morning because I had VIP tickets to…

Last week I was contacted by one of the producers of the show asking if I could film a few videos of myself saying some scripted lines, one of me working out and either stepping on a scale looking really happy or looking in the mirror proudly! I chose the mirror shot to keep it real since I don’t believe in the scale making you happy! 🙂

We got to sit right in the front row and it was awesome! Despite my coughing fits, it was a really great experience and Dr. Oz is a smart man. He mingled with the crowd more than I expected and I’m in a group shot with him that will be up on the Facebook page next week so I will post it then! So, my videos will either be on TODAY’S 4 PM SHOW (EST) or MONDAY’S. They were unsure of the schedule of shows yesterday and I have not heard back from them. Hopefully they still use me! haha

After the show (we were there for almost 4 hours and hadn’t eaten before) we ran to brunch because we were about to eat our hands. French toast at our favorite little french cafe, Le Grainne Cafe, that we have celebrated great things at!

 

This is the best french toast IN THE WORLD. It’s made with baguettes so it’s crispy on the outside and has an orange zest to it, topped with almonds and served with thin sliced ham, a couple little potatoes and fruit. I also had a soy iced latte that was so strong and so needed.

 

Latte = happy Jen. If you watch the show today or Monday, I am in the front row and this is what I wore! The shirt isn’t as dark as this pic shows and John had a red flannel shirt on.

After brunch, I went home to rest and had to head back out to sub the 7:00 PM class. I was the most sick at this point and losing my voice, but ended up having an amazing class. It’s funny how that works! I took it as easy as I could, which really means I was still working too hard. It’s hard to slack off when you have 20 people looking at you for motivation! You know how they say go ahead and workout if your cold is in your head, but don’t if it’s in your chest? Well it’s true. Working out Wednesday night made me feel 100x worse almost immediately after stopping, so I grabbed some Mucinex at CVS on my way home.

 

Definitely has helped a ton. For $27, it better. I REALLY hate taking medicine and almost never do since there isn’t a cure for the common cold but now that some of my income depends on me being healthy and able to workout I wasn’t playin’ around.

I made it through about 7 hours of work yesterday before I had to call it quits and go home. I was sweating through my clothes and feeling super weak so I molded myself back in my bed and today I’m feeling better. Still sneezing my brains out and coughing, but not as weak. Progress.

So yes, amazing news that I will be on the Dr. Oz show!! I’m sure I will be able to get the clip and post it here as soon as I can! Beware that it’s corny but I’m actually a pretty corny person haha

Have you had a really bad cold this winter?

Do you watch Dr. Oz? My grandma would be sooo excited, she loved him!