Pilates Love

Wow, almost a decade ago, I discovered Lagree Pilates on the reformer when my friend told me about Pilates Plus in Silverlake.  I am not even sure if that studio is still there, but after I moved, I started going to a studio in Glendale that closed down, then Equilibrium in West Hollywood which also closed down and then I found Sweat Pilates in Culver City.  But none of those studios compare to Studio Metamorphosis in Pasadena and Eagle Rock.  Holy smokes...their Run/Shred workout where you run 25 miles on a treadmill then workout for 25 mins on the megaformer is killer.  I was sweating so much my sweat was burning my eyes and I could barely see, but I loved it!  The trainers there were all super toned, not to mention so nice.  I am excited to see how my body changes as I take more of these classes.  If you're in the area, I really recommend checking out this studio!

December Noteworthies and Book Reviews

I really didn't do much this month except for a pleasant discovery of a new hiking trail.  I've only conquered half of the trail, but am looking forward to completing the full 8 miles sometime in the new year.

A photo posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Jan 1, 2017 at 9:13am PST

A photo posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Dec 31, 2016 at 3:40am PST

A photo posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Dec 10, 2016 at 12:06pm PST

I can't believe it...I actually read 12 books this year, one every month!  I am going to continue this goal through 2017 because I really do enjoy reading.  

In November, I read Trusting God When Times Are Tough by Ed Hindson.  I had been working on this book a while and finally finished it last month.  

I didn't find that this book had a lot of new insights as someone who has ready many spiritual books.  At the end of the day, it's just important to keep perspective and stay focused on God and not on our own desires and understanding, but trust that God has a plan and that His timing is perfect.

My December book was a long anticipated book written by my favorite chick literature author Emily Giffin.

Her books area always light and fun reads.  This one was no exception.  It's about two sisters who lost their brother in a tragic accident and 15 years later, they find that his death is interlaced with their current circumstances and independently, they work through years of buried emotions and secrets.  I finished this book in two days, so obviously I recommend it!

Till the next book!

November Noteworthies

November, November, November.  It frightens me how quickly you've come and gone.  This month, there was a lot of celebrating!  From baby showers to birthdays, wonderful things are happening all around.

A photo posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Nov 27, 2016 at 5:37pm PST

My little nephew (left) turned 1!  We celebrated with family at my sister's home and it was just such a blessing to see just how loved the little guy is.  The cutie on the right turned 4, and I just love him to pieces!  He's the boy of a close friend of mine and I am so happy to have been able to just watch him grow into his own so far.

A photo posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Nov 24, 2016 at 8:48am PST

I also ran in an annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.  I only did the 5K this year and came in slower than I usually do, but faster than I anticipated.  

A video posted by Truly Blessed 👩🏻🐶 (@trulyblessedssl) on Nov 13, 2016 at 1:18pm PST

Echo has been making great progress on his agility classes!  I love watching him happily running through a course.  Oh how it warms my little heart!

As far as my book review is concerned, I shamefully admit that I have not finished this month's book yet!  But, I WILL double up in December and achieve my goal of one book per month for 2016.  Stay tuned!

Hollywood Half Marathon

My friend and I had been training for the Hollywood Half Marathon for the past 6 weeks.  Every weekend, we dreaded the long runs....7 miles, 8 miles, all the way up to 12 miles the weekend before.  On the day of the event, adrenaline was pumping and we were ready.  My goal was to finish under 10/mi.  Not only did I reach my goal, but I crushed it!  I felt amazing the entire race and finished in 2:01 hrs @ 9:17/mi!

 Yes, it is still dark!  We got up at 3:30AM to take the train into Hollywood for a 6AM start time!

 Here we are halfway through the race, still feeling awesome!

A video posted by @trulyblessedssl on Apr 9, 2016 at 10:20am PDT

Here we are coming in at the finish line!  The best part of this video is overhearing a man say "That's what I'm talking about!  That's victory right there!"

We finished right before the rain started!  What a wonderful experience and a wonderful race!  And yes, we did decide to twin it!

Classpass Review

I recently decided to take advantage of Classpass which allows you to attend classes at any participating studio up to a 3x times a month per studio, especially because they had a $19 special for 2 weeks option!  I utilized my Classpass to attend a couple Pilates classes at my favorite studio Sweat Pilates.  Each class typically costs $35 for 50 mins, but with Classpass, depending on how many classes I would take in the 2 weeks, the cost was super duper low!

 
I've also always wanted to try kickboxing but with a punching bag so I visited Classic Kickboxing.  The instructor was really attentive and passionate which I appreciated.  There was a lot of downtime in between as he demonstrated the exercises which made it difficult for me to break a sweat (I don't sweat easily).  Also, because it was my first time, I'm sure my technique didn't optimize me for the best workout especially because my wrist was hurting with every impact.  All in all, it was a good experience, but I don't think that would be my workout of choice in the future.

Lastly, I have always wanted to try hot yoga, so I visited Santa Anita Hot Yoga.  Omg, the room was so warm when I walked in I felt like I couldn't breathe and it only got hotter!  I have never sweat so much in my life!  I took the beginner's class and it was a little too slow for my liking (though I am not a yoga expert) and the instructor's exhale came with some sort of whistle sound so it was really distracting.  I did buy a Groupon for this studio that expires in May so I am sure I will be frequenting this studio, but will probably not take this same class again.

Classpass costs $60/month for 5 classes and $119/month for unlimited classes.  I wish I was able to attend a spin class and a barre class, but alas, work got in the way and I couldn't try those classes out.  Classpass also includes 1 hour of gym time at Gold's gym, so I think it's worth it if you like to change up your fitness routine.  For me, I need to go to the gym more than 3x a month, so I have to pay for my monthly gym membership.  On top of that, I already pay for my bootcamp, so to pay for another $119 wouldn't make sense for me right now.  I still recommend it though!!

I've realized how grumpy I get if I don't get a workout in especially after sitting all day.  Here I am at my ghetto 24 hour fitness gym, lol.

Rock n Roll 5K

I participated in the 5k Rock n Roll race this past weekend in DTLA.  It was a last minute decision to run and I really wanted to beat my personal best.  Since parking is so expensive in DTLA and my Dad had access to a parking garage a mile away, I figured I would park there and do a 1 mile warm up run to the starting line.  When I got off the freeway, every. single. street. was blocked and I had no idea how to get to the parking lot otherwise and started to worry I wouldn't make it before the start time, so I pulled into the first street parking spot that I found and got out of the car and ran.  Little did I know I parked on a street where the homeless have made their home.  A little freaked out, I made my way over and all was well.  

I started my iPhone application to track my pace and started my race alongside a girlfriend of mine.  Fired up, I started at a sub 9 mins/mi pace, but little did I know, my friend continued at that pace the ENTIRE duration.  I really wanted to ask her to slow down and then book it at the end, but I wanted her to have a shot at getting a personal best herself, so I sucked it up and tried to keep pace.  At the end, we practically sprinted, wanting to just keel over and curl up into a fetal position, but we made it!  We were ecstatic when we checked the app on our phone to find that we most likely finished the race at a less than 9 mins/mi pace.  Personal best and goal checked off for me!

 Pre-race - the sun isn't even fully out yet!

 Post-race - I did it!

 Jump for joy!  New personal best!

We anxiously waited for the results to be posted to confirm our suspicion.  When they finally posted, I was disappointed because we finished at a 9:01 mins/mi pace.  SERIOUSLY?!  If we had ran 6 seconds faster, we would have made it under 9 mins/mi!!  Even though it felt like torture, we really weren't going as quickly as we had thought.  I can't even imagine going any quicker either!  I guess this means we will need to run another race to try to hit that goal again, but until then, I'll be joyful that I did get a personal best this time around.  My next 5k is in two weeks benefiting veterans, so maybe I'll take another stab at it then!  Um, probably not because I think if I had run any fast, I would have puked!

Skinny Fat No More

For the past year and a half, I have been attending Fitbody Boot Camp.  What drove me there was when I started to plateau in my workouts and results.  To clarify, I never thought of myself as fat because on the outside, I was skinny, but did you know that there is such a thing as skinny fat?  Here is the body fat % breakdown:

Classification	Women (% Fat)	Men (% Fat)
Essential Fat	10-12%	2-4%
Athletes	14-20%	6-13%
Fitness	21-24%	14-17%
Acceptable	25-31%	18-25%
Obese	32%+	25%+

It is entirely possible for a "skinny girl" to come in at over 31% body fat and be considered overweight because she has such little lean mass.  When I started Fitcamp, I was weighed 98 lbs and at approximately 21-24% body fat per calipers testing.  I was already in the Fitness zone probably because I was active with Pilates and ran regularly, but I needed more.

Fitcamp is basically high intensity interval training.  There are 5 stations, 2 exercises each stations, rotating between each exercise at 30 second increments, and 3 minutes each station.  The only weights we use are light weights, the heaviest being 20lbs. 

Today, I took the hydrostatic test, which is supposed to be one of the most accurate tests out there.  Here are my results:

9.6% puts me in the 99% percentile!!!  I was shocked and had one of those rub your eyes for clarity moments because I was hoping for 18%, but expected 20%.  Circuit training seriously works!  In the past year and a half, I have consistently worked out 3-5 times a week and had zero cheat days.  I don't think I even had a cheat meal, but would sneak in a few chips or a birthday cake here and there.  I love fries and ice cream, but probably only had those a handful of times throughout.  It means a lot when your hard work and sacrifice finally pay off.  The best part is that I don't even feel deprived because eating healthy and exercising has become a part of my lifestyle - almost second nature!

Now, if you Google women who are at about 10% body fat like me, you will notice that they are shredded to the point where it is kind of gross.  Am I?  You would think so, but no way!  This was the best illustration I could find online that made sense of this disconnect:

Both individuals are at 10% body fat but one weighs 175 lbs (left) and the other 150 lbs (right).  In other words, the guy on the left has 158 lbs of lean mass and the one on the right 135 lbs.  What a difference and additional 23 lbs of muscle makes!

I think I have done a great job at getting rid of my excess fat, but now I need to focus on gaining muscle in order to gain more definition.  The light weights at Fitcamp ain't cutting it anymore.  This will mean more protein and heavier weight training at the gym.  Do I want to look like a huge body builder?  Heck no - I don't even have the frame for that!  But do I want definition and abs like Emily Skye's?  Heck ya!! 

Here's to my next goal!

Homemade Protein Bars

Now that we are trying to eat healthier and build leaner bodies, we have increased our protein intake and found ourselves going through protein bars in a jiffy which quickly adds up in cost since quality bars don't come cheap.  I tried out a new recipe this weekend in an attempt to make our own protein bars.  The bars themselves were really easy to make and didn't call for many ingredients.  Warm and stir all ingredients over the stove, flatten in a baking pan, then let cool.  The nutritional facts per piece (I was able to divide into 12 small pieces) of my final product are below.  Taste wise, they taste like any healthy protein bar would taste, so definitely not holy cow delicious, but not patooey disgusting either and were chewy in texture.  Next time I make these, I will increase the protein powder and reduce the peanut butter to up the protein and lower the fat. 

Ingredients
Peanut butter
Whey protein powder
Old fashioned oats
Honey
Soy milk

Doggy Dash

We participated in the 10K Doggy Dash benefiting pet cancer research this past weekend in Santa Monica.  There were so many adorable dogs there who did the walk/run with their humans, although we didn't bring our little guy because 10K would have been too much for his little legs.  Next time we'll do a 5k so that he can participate!

Finishing strong!

 Here I am (almost 15 mins later, LOL)

Mission accomplished!  On to the next race!

Merrell Down & Dirty Mud Run

J and I have been attending a fitcamp in Burbank over the past year in an attempt to get in shape, build endurance, stay healthy, and most importantly, it's a lot of fun!  The team just completed their first organized race - the Merrell Down & Dirty Mud Run.  I was too intimidated to run this year, but after seeing how much fun everyone had, I may just conjure up enough courage to run it next time!  Luckily, there were professional photographers at every obstacle to capture the day!

J #788 starting his 10K alongside our coach

Carrying a sandbag uphill for their first obstacle

Balancing skills at work

The final stretch, crawling through mud - eew!

Congratulations!

The proud finishers!

Before the race when J was still nice and clean

Santa Anita Canyon

This past weekend, we went hiking in the Santa Anita Canyon and took the Newcomb Pass trail.  Our total distance hiked was 7 miles - go us! 

On our way up the mountain.  Echo looks almost human in this picture, LOL.

My favorite photo of the hike.  I love the trees surrounding us and the way the sunlight shines through.

The boys were not impressed by beautiful majestic views at the top...

...but I sure was!

I love this picture of Echo because he looks like he's smiling!