Mixing Up the Exercise

First, I feel like I need to address the streaking. Maybe I am not going to do every day in September. At this point, I have worked out 4 of 6 days. I feel really good about that and I don't want my arbitrary decision that it has to be every day to diminish my accomplishments. I definitely don't want to burn myself out from the get go either.  That out of the way, let's celebrate what has been a good week on the exercise front.

Wednesday morning I did a video from FitnessBlender.com. If you haven't checked them out, I highly recommend it. There are tons of free videos. You can sort through them by length, intensity, target areas, etc. I chose this one. My legs were already a bit sore from the walking, so I wanted a low impact workout that would target more than my legs.

Step one - move the furniture and lay out my mat. The mat is a Millie magnet. As soon as it is down, she is there to get on it. It is like our floor is hot lava!

Once I get the dog removed, it is time to get started. There were a few things I couldn't do...anything on my knees really hurt my knees. I just did more of the exercises I could do or marched in place to keep my heart rate up.

In addition to shuffling through their video library, you can purchase workout programs where each day of a specified time period is laid out for you.  I haven't purchased one yet, but I am considering it. In addition to the fitness videos, they have meal plans, discussion boards, recipes, etc. I will definitely be spending some more time on the site checking out the other content.

In the meantime, I feel like I got a a really good workout and am "enjoying" some of that "I used some forgotten muscles" pain.

After my workout, I was really craving stir fry. I had all those wonderful veggies from the international store. I figured why not have that for breakfast. It really hit the spot.

Thursday morning I was determined to hit the pool at the gym.  Sadly, in a blogging fail, I forgot to take my phone so no pictures. I will share some next time. They did some remodeling in the pool area. For my pool workout I did swimming and walking laps. I also did some underwater squats. My glutes have been feeling it all day. I keep telling myself the pain is good - I am imagining my firm, lifted hiney emerging :)

I am still working on my grocery budget plans, but wanted to share something I have always done. I love pork butt. I think it is a regional thing to call it pork butt (the sliced version = pork steaks). The cut is also know as pork shoulder or Boston butt. On all the summer holidays, local stores around here have pork steaks on sale. I like to buy a couple butts and freeze them. This week I bough two for 99 cents a pound!

 The first one is cut in steaks.

I trim as much of that fat off as I can.

Out of curiosity I put the fat on the scale. Even though it was close to a pound, it still is a very good per pound price for the trimmed pork about $1.15/pound.

Admittedly it is a fattier meat even when trimmed, but having it portioned up helps. I separate the steaks with bones and those without. If I am grilling, I use the bone-in. If need to chop it up, I grab the boneless. We cooked a couple of the pork steaks for dinner, otherwise I would have another bagful.

The second butt I asked the butcher to cut in quarters. Since there are just the two of us, these 1.5-2 pounds "roasts" are the perfect size and much less expensive than some other pork roasts. I like to cook them in the crock pot to use for enchiladas, Cuban sandwiches or good old fashioned BBQ pulled pork.

This time I weighed them before freezing and wrote the weights on the bags  2-7 is 2 pounds 7 ounces.

When I made the stir fry the other morning, I made a large batch.  Leftover stir fry and grilled corn for lunch is just as good.

Then one of my co-workers from another office stopped by with these treats.  I was the only one in our office at the time, so I took one and resisted his offer to leave a few there for the others when they come back in. I know myself well enough to know, I would have eaten theirs long before Monday. It was a nice sized treat. Just a couple bites to really enjoy it. Then I second guessed by decision to not let him leave any more...

This weekend our sidekick and one of her "brothers" are spending the weekend with us.  I am excited to see them. It is supposed to be super rainy all weekend, so I am thinking up indoor plans. One of our sidekick's favorite foods is crab rangoon. I think I am going to teach her how to make it for dinner tonight.  I bet she will get a kick out of that. I will balance that meal with more stir fry :) I also have a bunch of  leftover quilt blocks that I am going to let her arrange for a quilt of her own. Then I will assemble it for her. We are also going to squeeze in a little birthday celebration for her - can't believe she is 6 already!

What are your weekend plans?