upper body

After an afternoon of driving, the Journey station on Pandora, lots of reminiscing and goofing around, many stops to stretch my swollen ankles (and randomly seeing a friend of mine at a California gas station!)

we made it :)

beach

It’s absolutely GORGEOUS here. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve been to San Diego (high school maybe?) and the Pilot has never been, so it will be fun to explore it together.

Our hotel is lovely, too.

Nice comfy bed:

bed

Standard desk, TV:

desk

Powder room:

powder room

But what takes it over the top is the view from our room….

room

We got here just in time to watch the sunset from the balcony,

pilot me

and below on the beach, many people were doing the same- just standing there amazed.

sunset

We walked around to check out the surrounding hotels and see what stores and restaurants were on Mission, and now we’re back at the hotel getting ready for dinner.

mission

I think there’s a lounge chair and a mocktail with my name on it…. ;)

See ya in the morning!

xoxo

Gina

Something to talk about: When was the last time you went to the beach? What’s your all-time fave spot? One Ocean holds a special place in our hearts, but the hotel we’re at now may be our west coast version.

And just so you can have people ask you “which way to the beach”, here’s

Something to do:

Sunday Night Arm Burner!

Add this in to your next weights routine, or after the Schweaty November Workout for a nice bonus burn. [As always, check with a doc before making any fitness changes and honor your body and your injuries]

*Since the focus of this burner is to build muscular endurance instead of strength/power, focus on doing as many as you can with good quality during the 1 minute time period. If you tire before 1 minute, that’s ok! Remember with strength training failure = success.

-Burnout bicep curls: start at a weight slightly heavier than you would do (Maybe 2 weights up?) and do as many reps as you can (aim for 10). Put the weights down, grab a slightly lighter weight and do your second set (10-12). For the third set, grab your usual weight and do 10-15. You may notice that your usual weight will feel twice as heavy.

-Bench tricep dips- as many as you can do within 1 minute

-Decline push-ups – as many as you can do within 1 minute

-Overhead press- as many as you can do within 1 minute

Stretch.

{ 64 comments }

Peppermint patty

by Fitnessista on October 18, 2011

in breakfast,today's tip,upper body,workout

It had to happen.

tea

After posting about the dark chocolate almond milk yesterday, you guys started flooding my brain with amazing chocolaty almond suggestions. I knew it would be good in smoothies and baked goodies, but hadn’t even thought about heating it up to make hot chocolate or, as Vanessa suggested, steeping mint tea in it.

I was all over that.

tea (2)

I heated up the dark chocolate milk + a little plain almond milk to thin it out –the chocolate milk is THICK- for about 1 min 30 sec in the microwave. Added the tea bag,

made my eggs and toast

eggs and toast

and then heated again for an additional minute.

It was the perfect morning pick-me-up and tasted SO much like those York peppermint patties!! This will be a holiday staple over here :)

Pre-chocolate and egg feast, I hit up the base gym for a killer arms workout:

Arms Workout

[If you plan on doing this on your own, check with a doc before making any fitness changes]

Warm-up 5 minutes, elliptical
Side laying lateral raise- right side 15 reps
Bench push-ups 15
Side laying lateral raise-left side 15
Bench push-ups 15
*Repeat lat raise combo and push-ups 2 more times, to get 3 sets total  
Bench tricep dips 3 sets of 12
Lat pulldown 3 sets of 12
Sumo deadlifts 3 sets of 12
Bicep curls Countdown reps *More info on this at the bottom of the post

It’s someone special’s birthday next week –and he’s actually home for it this year!- so I have some birthday fairy errands to run ;)

Enjoy your day and I’ll see ya later!

bell

xoxo

Gina

Today’s tip: Countdown reps! This is an awesome way to burn out at the end of a workout. My favorite moves to do this with are leg presses, bicep curls, and tricep dips, but the options are endless.

[Even though you’re doing a lot of reps, be sure to chose a weight that enables you to maintain proper form the entire time]

-Start with 10 reps

-Then do 9

-8, 7, 6 and so on

-Then when you get to the last set, instead of doing 1, do 10. Whew!

{ 52 comments }

Pilot’s Day Off

September 26, 2011

Hey! Happy Monday <3 Hope your week is off to a great start. I’m a little later than normal with today’s morning post, but the Pilot took the day off work, so we’ve been hanging out. He has a ton of leave saved up (92 days, some of which he’ll lose if he doesn’t use), [...]

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Ferocious

September 23, 2011

Hey friends! How has your Friday been? Up to anything fun this weekend? I just saw Lion King in 3D with a couple of friends. It’s funny because when I saw the commercial that it was re-released, I was like “Ohhh! I want to go see it!” And then today after making plans, I was [...]

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Blown Away

January 18, 2010

Hey everyone! I’m blown away by your amazing, enthusiastic and kind responses to the Winter Shape Up. I’ve already received some wonderful feedback from those of you who have already tried the workouts (thank you!!!) and I’m just so stoked that ya’ll are liking it. Seriously, every one of you make this bloggy what it [...]

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Glamour…and so much pain

December 30, 2009

Hey hey hey! How’s your night going? Mine has been glorious, but got even better when I found out that the lovely Sarah, of Glamour’s health and fitness blog, Vitamin G featured my lunge and lift video on her blog today!!! WAHOO! This is the second time I’ve been feature on Vitamin G and I’m [...]

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Hello, four eyes

December 15, 2009

Hey everyone! Sorry to disappear this morning! It’s be a whirlwind of a day I am rocking these bad johnnies: Glasses face! It’s definitely been a little weird to get used to –I always have contacts in- but until my eyes are healed (eye infection from the new contacts they gave me), I’ll be wearing [...]

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A delicious disaster

December 11, 2009

(Sing it to the Kelly Clarkson song “Beautiful Disaster”) Hey everyone! Hope your Friday is going well In celebration of cookie Friday a la Tina, I had two types of cookies in my life today… 1) a vegan cookie I split with Jeni (Blurry crackberry pic. I’m embarrassed, haha) 2) a cookie abomination Ack! Attack [...]

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