Friendsgiving in Paradise

Over the last several years, Bill and I have had a tradition of spending our Thanksgiving holidays with our good friends Ben and Jamie. We’ve dubbed it “Friendsgiving”, and we would alternate hosting each other from year to year (they’ve lived in both Texas and Colorado over the years that we’ve been doing it). After missing out on our get-together last year, we decided we wanted to make our Friendsgiving 2021 extra-special by planning to have it in Hawaii.

When we booked the trip last June, we decided on sharing a two-bedroom condo in Kihei, Maui. Bill and I have been to Maui before, Ben had been to Hawaii but never to Maui, and it was Jamie’s first time going to Hawaii. We picked Maui because we feel like it has a good combination of great beaches and plenty of local shopping and restaurants without feeling super touristy.

By August, Covid cases had spiked and the governor of Hawaii issued a message discouraging tourism through October. We were a little unsure that we’d be able to take our trip after all, but thankfully things got much better and by mid-November the guidance had been lifted and tourists were no longer discouraged from going. All four of us were also able to get our Covid booster shots in enough advance to be fully effective in time for our trip.

We flew to Maui the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and met up with our friends at the airport. After two years apart, we were so excited to see each other! The weather was gorgeous and a much-needed break from the gloom of Seattle in November.

On Wednesday evening we drove to Lahaina to attend the Feast at Lele Luau. It was really fun! We were greeted with fresh leis before being led to our table, where we were able to sip cocktails while we watched the beginnings of the sunset. Then we were treated to a five-course meal that we enjoyed while we watched the dances that accompanied each course. It was a tour of the islands for both our eyes and palates!

At the luau

We got incredibly fortunate to be able to find a condo through Airbnb that was right across the street from Kamaole Beach Park II. We went there every day to relax and swim. One of my favorite things was seeing sea turtles! The turtles love to play in the surf and we spotted quite a few of them every day. One actually brushed against Bill as it swam by us!

Kamaole Beach Park II

Bill’s favorite beach in Maui is at Makena State Park, so we made sure to spend plenty of time there. The beaches are breathtaking and the surf is usually good. Our Airbnb host provided us with an assortment of beach toys and equipment, including two boogie boards, and we had a blast taking turns catching waves.

Sunset at Makena

We ate way too much amazing food while we were there. Our favorite spot was the Kihei Caffe, where we began most of our mornings in Hawaii. Their breakfasts are beyond delicious and the portions are generous. We liked to eat there and then head to the beach, knowing we wouldn’t be truly hungry again until dinner time. Although there was always a line in the mornings, it goes fast and the food is well worth the wait!

While everything about being in Maui was amazing, hands-down my favorite part of the trip was enjoying such a beautiful place with friends we love and had missed so very much over the last two years. Hopefully this will be the first of many vacations we can all take together!

Take Me to (Dance) Church

Anyone who has been around this blog knows that one of my favorite hobbies/passions is dance fitness. Eleven years ago, my coworker invited me to a Zumba class and that class changed me forever. I was instantly hooked, and found myself rearranging my schedule and making Zumba a big priority in my life. Even when I was living and working 30+ miles away, I would still make the drive so that I could attend, and when the classes ended forever a few years ago I felt like a big piece of me was missing.

I tried a couple of different Zumba classes at different gyms, but nothing filled the void like that first class did. I missed the music, the routines, my friends, everything. But I found a new home at the Red Hot Dance classes when I joined Harbor Square Athletic Club here in Edmonds, and as I became a regular and made friends I felt less sad over the loss of my beloved Zumba class (though I will miss it forever).

Of course, then the pandemic shut things down and now I don’t have a gym membership anymore. I work out pretty much exclusively from home and although I like my at-home workouts, they just aren’t the same high that I get from dance. So when my friend Kate invited me to a Dance Church class on Tuesday night, I was excited to say yes!

I’d been to an outdoor Dance Church event with Kate over the summer and had enjoyed it. They’re a dance fitness platform with both streaming and live class options, including events at venues in Seattle. Attendees are required to be vaccinated and to pre-register, so the classes are never overcrowded, and masks must be worn throughout class. Even though I am extremely cautious due to Covid, the extra precautions helped me feel confident about attending.

The class was so much fun! It was held at Washington Hall, a historic landmark building in Seattle that turned out to be a really beautiful venue for a dance class. Everyone with Dance Church was extremely kind and positive, and the enthusiasm in the room was definitely contagious. I found myself swept up in the music and the movement, and it felt like only about ten minutes had passed when the hour was up and class started winding down.

I had a blast at Dance Church and will definitely be attending more classes in the future.

Working Out with the Peloton App

Over the last year and a half, Bill and I have been working out pretty much exclusively from home. Our gym was shut down during the beginning of the pandemic, and even when it reopened in summer 2020 neither of us felt ready to go back to that environment. We decided to cancel our membership and restart it when things felt more normal, which sadly hasn’t happened yet. Although the gym we went to is taking Covid extremely seriously and has implemented a lot of great safety protocols, the idea of being around sweaty people who are breathing heavy just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me just yet.

We kept ourselves active with home workouts from our Beachbody on Demand subscription, but over the last couple of months I think both of us have grown bored with our exercise routine and found ourselves craving something new. Although BoD does have a robust library of different exercise programs to follow, I don’t really want to work out six or seven days a week and I’m generally happy to keep my home workouts to around 30 minutes, and not a lot of the Beachbody workouts fit those parameters.

A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting to a friend that I was bored with my workout routine and having a hard time making myself exercise, and she enthusiastically told me about the Peloton app. Although I do not live under a rock and know all about the extremely-popular Peloton spin bikes, what I didn’t know was that there is also an on-demand library of other types of workouts. I get a free trial of the Peloton app with my credit card, so I was able to sign up with zero commitment.

My first impression as we explored the different available workouts is that there are a LOT to pick from in different categories. And since there are some that are as short as ten minutes, we’re able to stack multiple workouts. Today, for example, we did a 20-minute strength training workout and a 10-minute cardio one. There are also longer videos to pick from, but something about doing multiple different ones makes me happy.

Using the Peloton workouts has been such a great change for us. Different trainers always work you out differently and the app has plenty of different people to choose from, and just mixing up our routine has made me more excited to work out again.

Things That Make Me Happy

Last week I wrote a post about how I had been struggling with burnout. Truthfully this week started off even worse, due to a combination of terrible things happening in the world, but I’m trying to work on getting myself into a better headspace by finding little things that make me happy and treating myself to as many of them as possible.

I am a person who definitely enjoys simple pleasures. I don’t need anything grand or extravagant; little happinesses suit me perfectly. Since writing my burnout post I’ve been trying to pay particular attention and take note of the things that have been making me feel good and decided to write about them, so I can look back and have a handy go-to list when I’m feeling blah.

I typically start my workdays with exercise. I like getting my workout done at the beginning of the day and starting my morning with movement tends to put me in a better mood. Once I’m finished working out, I definitely need a shower desperately, but lately I’ve found myself having a lot of anxious and racing thoughts while I shower. Bill recently got a Bluetooth speaker and he helped me sync my phone to it so that I could listen to music while I get ready in the mornings. It’s helped so much with my anxious shower thoughts! Instead of overthinking while I shampoo my hair, I can focus on the music. I created a short “shower playlist” on Spotify for myself and am only putting songs on it that make me feel happy, calm, or energized. So far it’s doing the trick!

I also decided I needed a new evening ritual as I’ve been having trouble falling asleep at night, even though I feel tired. Since I’ve fallen a little bit behind on my 2021 goal to read 24 books by the end of the year, I decided that reading would be the perfect before-bed activity. Nearly every evening for the past week, I’ve brewed myself a cup of lavender chamomile tea and taken it, along with two Dove dark chocolates, to bed with me to read for the last hour before I go to sleep. I had just finished a Jen Lancaster memoir and needed a new book to read, so I chose to begin the Harry Potter series again. I’m halfway through the first book, and honestly even though I remember liking it I quite forgot just how much I love the series. Reading it again is making me SO happy, which is a nice feeling to end the day with.

Speaking of rituals, who washes their hands more often than they ever imagined possible now? Uh, that’d be me. Back at the beginning of the pandemic, hand soap became incredibly difficult to find and I tasked myself with placing orders with Bath & Body Works to stock up on soap and hand sanitizer. Since I was buying everything online, I had no idea what any of it smelled like and was ordering solely based on names of scents that I thought would be nice. Some of the choices I made turned out to be duds, but others are delightful. Over the weekend I needed to replace one of the soaps in our guest bathroom and randomly selected a Violet and Freesia scented one. I washed my hands with it just to try it out, and it was like the clouds parted and the heavens opened up and cascaded down the amazing scent. I liked it so much that I put it in my own bathroom instead and got a different soap for the guest bath. Something about the smell reminds me of when I was living alone in my Victorville apartment, back when I was 22, but I can’t recall what I was using at the time that smelled similar or why it’s triggering a pleasant feeling of memory. The Violet and Freesia soaps aren’t currently available at Bath & Body Works, but I hope they bring it back so I can buy more.

Another scent I’ve been obsessed with lately is the Malicious Women Co. candle I bought for myself on a whim. I have a bunch of different candles from the company, which is woman-owned and based here in Snohomish County, and I really didn’t need another one but I got upset when an anti-vaxxer group started trolling them online and I wanted to show them some support. The new candle is Anxiety Girl, and the scent is Lavender and Coconut Water. I love it and it helps me to be less of an anxiety girl myself.

Feel-good TV has been making me happy lately, too. I was inspired to start re-watching Friends after the reunion special aired earlier this summer, and just like the Harry Potter books, I knew I loved this show but I forgot just how much. Everything about it makes me happy. In addition to re-watching an old favorite, Bill and I discovered the show Ted Lasso on Apple TV, binge-watched the first season, and are now caught up in the second season and watching new episodes as they air. The show is not only funny, but it’s heartwarming and positive and just has a feel-good vibe.

I’m hoping that by focusing on things like this that make me happy, I’ll be able to battle my burnout and start feeling better.

Burnout

This morning, I got up a little earlier than usual so that I could work out before an 8am meeting. In between getting ready for work, I started a load of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and ran the dishwasher. I took a shower and had my breakfast, then sipped my first cup of coffee of the day during my meeting.

To an outsider, I’m sure this sounds like I’m doing okay. I’m being productive. But the truth is, seeing dishes in the sink sometimes makes tears well up in my eyes because I just can’t figure out how I’m going to have the energy to wash them. I’ll run a load of laundry in the dryer a second time, not because it’s still damp but because I just can’t make myself fold it yet.

Last week I was feeling anxious and out of sorts and by Tuesday I finally lost it and sobbed as I sat at the desk in my room that is also my workspace now. Sometimes I feel like I barely leave my bedroom, and I wish desperately for a different space to work from but there just isn’t any other place in the house that makes sense. I feel overwhelmed and frustrated and sad. Living through this pandemic for the last year and a half, pressing pause on pretty much every part of my life that I enjoy, and seeing just how little some of my loved ones care about other people has drained my very soul.

This week feels even more difficult, because the heat has returned along with smoke from nearby wildfires. Not only is it hard being cooped up inside because the air is too unhealthy outside to breathe, but I feel so depressed thinking of the fires and all of the loss of life and destruction that comes with them. I remember a time when wildfires were not part of Northwest summers and I hate that we as a species have hurt the very earth we live on so terribly that this is now a normal part of the year.

I know I’m fortunate to have a home and a stable job and that all of my basic needs are met. I am so grateful to all of the people who worked so hard to develop a vaccine so that I could have a little bit of my life back. I count my lucky stars every time I’m able to spend time with friends, because we got so very little of that for a year. I can’t imagine what it’s been like to be an essential worker for the last year and a half, being screamed at and talked down to and mistreated by people you’re trying to help, and it scares me to think that, as bad as I feel right now, that they must be feeling so much worse.

I wish I had something useful or positive to end this post on, but I have no helpful tips or advice for dealing with burnout. I’ve read a lot of articles on the subject and I honestly don’t know that there’s anything in particular that can help. So I guess for now all I can do is accept that I’m not feeling great and hope that writing about it will help purge it from my mind a little. And then I’ll brush away the tears, make another cup of coffee, and tackle my email inbox, because what else can I do but keep on going?

Riding the Wave

We’re in the middle of an historic heat wave in the Seattle area, with temperatures in some areas hitting (or breaking!) 100 degrees. Luckily it isn’t quite that bad in Edmonds, but we’re still seeing record heat and the high for today is supposed to be 97 (as I write this, it’s hit 90 and it’s just now noon).

While I am normally a person who loves summer and the warm weather that comes with it, we just aren’t prepared for this kind of heat in Western Washington. While more and more places are putting in central air conditioning, a lot of us still don’t have it and we have to rely on fans and window units to keep our condo as livable as possible. Even with that, it gets really hot in our house. Last night we went down to the beach, where it was breezy and a little cooler and where we could put our feet in the Sound and let the cold water cool us down somewhat.

Today is supposed to be the hottest, and thankfully temperatures will drop a little as the week goes on. But it’s not going to get “cool” by any means, with forecasted highs still in the high 70s to low 80s.

For me one of the hardest things about this weather is that not only is it next to impossible to keep our house cool, but I’m also stuck indoors because it’s just too hot to do things outside. My daily walks are just not a good idea in this heat and there’s no way I’m going to hit my June step goal. Bill and I did get up early this morning to do our workout before the day started warming up and I’m proud of us for that. It’s too hot to have the oven on so I didn’t get to make my normal breakfast of egg muffins, but I got the turkey bacon and egg white breakfast sandwich from Starbucks instead and I feel like overall it was a decent alternative. I have dinners planned for the week that are healthy but don’t require use of the oven, as I’m planning to run to the grocery store after work and pick up some premade chicken to put in my salads instead of having to cook.

I’m proud of myself for finding some healthy alternatives to stay on track, but I’m trying hard not to be really bummed about missing my step goal this month. I already knew that with my shifting focus on how I was going to count calories that the original goal I set at the beginning of the month wouldn’t work out, but I was okay with that because I felt like I was working toward a more sustainable and successful method of approaching my nutrition. But it’s hard not to feel a wave of emotion at what does feel like backsliding and missing multiple goals that I set.

I’m trying to be gentle with myself and also to remember that things like extreme weather do happen and that I didn’t gain all my progress in a week and I won’t lose it in a week either. I’m going to stay consistent with my workouts and focus on progress, not perfection.

Reopening Anxiety

Like most people we know, Bill and I are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19. With the exception of flying to San Diego last month (something I never would have done prior to being vaccinated), not a lot has changed for us. We still don’t eat inside restaurants, we aren’t going to the movie theater, we wear our masks religiously inside stores even if it isn’t required anymore.

Truthfully, I still have a lot of anxiety about the prospect of getting sick. Even if I caught something other than COVID, I know being ill for the first time in almost two years would freak me out. And the truth is, I like not getting sick. I really like it. If wearing a little piece of cloth over my face means I never have to suffer a stupid head cold again, it’s well worth it.

While our closest friends seem to be on the same page as us and are remaining more cautious, I know plenty of other people, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who have tossed aside their masks and are back to their pre-pandemic way of life. When a family member or friend texts me to gloat about how amazing it felt to go shopping sans mask, I don’t really know what to say. At this stage of things, I think they’re making a mistake, but it’s not really my place to tell them so. But I also don’t understand why these people feel the need to tell me about their behavior in the first place, since they are all people who know I think it’s too soon for that.

It’s okay to be anxious about the loosened restrictions and I am not going to be pressured into changing my behavior just because the option has presented itself. I have to do what I feel is right for me and what I’m comfortable with, and that extends into who I spend my time with. After a lot of anxious consideration, I regretfully turned down an invitation to a family gathering next month because it’s being held indoors and not all of the attendees will be vaccinated. Spending an extended period of time in close quarters with unvaccinated people is not something I’m ready to do and I finally came to the conclusion that the best way to handle these situations is to just be upfront about why I don’t want to go. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about my loved ones, but it does mean that I am prioritizing myself and my health right now.

I’ve had people tell me that I need to “just live my life”, to which I say, I am! I am not a shut-in. I have game nights with vaccinated family members and friends, and Bill and I have started dining out at restaurants that offer outdoor seating (and by that I mean true outdoor seating, not a fully enclosed tent which is now effectively just a new indoor space). When I flew for the first time, I was definitely a little nervous, but overall I handled it well and I am comfortable with the idea of doing it again.

I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to try indoor dining again, or go to a movie in a theater, or attend a party when I don’t know everyone’s vaccination status. I suppose I’ll watch and wait, and see if case numbers continue to fall or if we see another surge as a result of the loosened restrictions. As for masking up, I see that being a permanent staple in my life, at least in large crowds indoors and during cold and flu season. It’s such a small thing to do that yields such great benefits that I don’t see any reason to stop. After all, being sick sucks, no matter what I’m infected with!

Random Friday Off

Yesterday, I found myself with a random day off from work, which gave me a chance to do some things I’d been wanting to take care of but haven’t gotten around to doing after work. The weather here has been much warmer than usual for June, so I wore a simple black dress (with pockets!) and some sandals instead of my now-typical casual look of leggings or jeans and a t-shirt. It felt nice to look nice.

My first stop was Comstock Jewelers in downtown Edmonds, to drop off my wedding rings for their annual rhodium replacement. Comstock is a family-owned business that’s been in Edmonds since 1978, and I like to think that my grandfather Not only do I love that both of my rings came from a local jeweler (that was really important to me when we started shopping for engagement rings what feels like forever ago), but Comstock is fantastic and my rings always look amazing when I get them back.

After I’d dropped off my rings, I walked over to Rogue, a little boutique store that I love. I wandered around the store, enjoying the feeling of shopping at my own pace without worrying where I needed to be next. I decided to treat myself to two new pairs of earrings that caught my eye and liked them so much that I put them on as soon as I got back to my car.

Even though there was nothing particularly special or exciting about these errands, I felt so peaceful and happy while I walked around downtown. I like it here and I feel so lucky to live in such a great place, and even just popping into a couple of local shops and smelling the fresh popcorn as I walk by our movie theater is so enjoyable to me.

Later in the afternoon, Bill and I got to video chat with my parents while my dad opened his Father’s day/birthday gifts from me. They’re headed out on a month-long road trip, and so they won’t be home for Father’s day or the birthday that Dad and I share in July. I wanted to make sure that I got his gifts to him before they left.

Our evening wrapped up with my brother and sister-in-law coming over for dinner and games. I made a big salad, and bought cheesecake that I got from the PCC Community Market here in town.

I’m living exactly the life I wanted for myself and I never want to stop soaking it in and feeling grateful for it.

A Weekend in San Diego

Hey look, a travel post!

Prior to the COVID pandemic, Bill and I loved to travel and made sure that we did so as often as possible. Now that we’re both fully vaccinated, we decided that we were ready to try flying again.

My parents had booked a camping trip in San Diego, staying at a campground that we used to frequent as a family when I was growing up, so we decided to plan a trip to California to spend a few days with them. I hadn’t seen my parents since pre-pandemic, and we had all promised each other that once we were all vaccinated that we would find a way to get together.

Even vaccinated and masked, I admit I wasn’t wild about our first experience with flying. I didn’t realize that TSA will make people lower their masks when going through security, so I was a little surprised and not super thrilled to have to do that, but I didn’t really have a choice so I went with it. The airport terminal at SeaTac Airport was under construction and half closed, so there were a lot of people and it was really crowded. We did our best to find a secluded corner away from everyone else so that we could eat a quick snack and sip some water.

We pretty much exclusively fly Alaska Airlines, and they’ve been really good about health protocols. On the plane itself, we got seats in Premium Class and Alaska is still blocking off middle seats in that section. Bill and I had the row to ourselves which made me feel a lot more comfortable than I ordinarily would have, and I just watched Grey’s Anatomy on my iPad and read a book and didn’t look at anyone else around me.

I still don’t love the idea of a larger hotel, so we opted to book a condo on Airbnb instead. The condo we booked was one street over from Mission Beach, and I liked being able to smell the salt air and hear the waves when we opened the windows. The place itself was really cute and nice. We had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a nice bathroom. It was only fifteen minutes away from Campland on the Bay, where my parents were staying, so it was an easy drive to go visit them each day.

At my parents’ campsite, we were able to sit around a campfire in the evenings, and they had a great view of Mission Bay. At night, we were able to watch a fireworks display from across the bay at Sea World. A few things have been updated, but for the most part Campland is exactly the same as I remember it from when I was little. They’ve updated a couple of areas to be nice dog parks, which is really cool for campers like my parents who bring pets along.

On Friday, my parents took us to their favorite spot on Coronado Island, the Coronado Dog Beach. It runs along Ocean Blvd all the way up to the border with the US Naval Station, and offers great views of Point Loma and the Hotel del Coronado. And, we got to see a lot of really cool and adorable dogs! That trip was definitely one of the highlights of our weekend.

On Saturday my sister and brother-in-law drove down from their house in Beaumont to spend the afternoon with us. The weather was decidedly chilly and windy, so we retreated into my parents’ camping trailer and spent the afternoon blissfully playing cards and laughing ourselves silly. My sister brought Cards Against Humanity and insisted we play it. I was not sure at all how that would be received by my conservative parents, who are in their seventies, but they were very good sports and really got into the game.

Even though we had a condo with a full kitchen, somehow we never actually got around to stocking said kitchen with any food. Instead, when I got up in the mornings I would make a pot of coffee and sip it while I watched glimpses of the waves and surfers from our living room window, and when we got hungry Bill and I would walk down Mission Blvd to Sara’s Mexican Food, a little walk-up stand that sold tacos, burritos, and other Mexican fare. We instantly developed an addiction to their Chorizo breakfast burritos, which were big enough that we could split them and still have a hearty breakfast and that made for great sightseeing fuel.

Our trip home yesterday wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I expected it to be, but I was definitely more anxious because we weren’t able to get seats in Premium Class and I knew that meant we’d be sharing our row with a third occupant. Because Bill is so tall, I always end up having to sit in the middle, and I don’t love being squashed in between him and a random stranger under normal circumstances but I expected to dislike it even more now that I’ve been social distancing from strangers for the last year. I had to repeatedly give myself a pep talk and remind myself that I’m vaccinated against COVID, that I was going to be double-masked (for crowded places I wear a disposable mask under my cloth one for some added protection), and that people fly every day and that they haven’t seen any trends or spikes in COVID cases in people that have flown recently. When we got into the terminal at San Diego International, it was super crowded and I didn’t like it at all, but then we remembered another wing that we’d walked toward when we’d headed to baggage claim when we’d first arrived the previous Thursday. We walked over there, and sure enough it was totally deserted (AND I found a little store that sold healthy snacks and had almond milk so that I could mix up my Shakeology shake, which made me very happy). We were able to sit all by ourselves, with no one anywhere around, and we waited until we absolutely had to leave before we gathered up our things and walked back to the gate where our flight was departing from. Our seatmate turned out to be a teenager who put his head down on the tray table and napped for the majority of the flight, so being in close quarters wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Overall, flying was a little uncomfortable but I was very grateful for the chance to visit with my family again, and our weekend in San Diego was a pleasant one!

9-Week Control Freak: Day 1

Today is the day that everyone in my Beachbody group has been eagerly awaiting: the new 9-Week Control Freak program is now available in the On Demand library!

9-Week Control freak is the latest program from trainer Autumn Calabrese. When I first joined Beachbody On Demand, Autumn’s 21-Day Fix was the program that I followed and I really liked it, so I’ve been excited to try the latest workouts she created. 9WCF is a 9-week at-home workout program, with each workout lasting around half an hour. I love getting my workout over in 30 minutes, and Autumn is great at kicking my ass quickly!

There are two versions of the program so that anyone who works out at home can follow it. The first one includes equipment like door- or wall-mounted resistance bands, a core ball, and a step, but the second one is a dumbbell-only option called Off the Wall. Bill and I are following the second one, because we work out in our living room and we just don’t have room for all of the other equipment that the first version requires (especially the control tracks with the resistance bands – that is, unless Beachbody can figure out how to come out with a set that attaches to the back of my sectional couch). The only thing that some people may not like about Off the Wall is that not every single workout is unique; it offers five workouts for each of the three phases that can be cycled through to complete the nine weeks.

Of course, Beachbody is a business, and they want to sell their products, so there are lots of supplements and nutrition containers and all kinds of other stuff that they encourage using while doing the program. I’m a calorie counter for life and I don’t have any desire to change that, so I’m opting to stick with my LoseIt app for tracking my food. I do drink Shakeology every day because I like it, but I absolutely don’t believe that doing so is vital to success with this or any workout program.

Bill and I did the first workout this morning, and I really enjoyed it. The main workout consisted of completing a circuit of five different moves, twelve reps each, as many times as we could in twelve minutes. After that was the Tabata Cardio portion. Neither of us knew what the heck Tabata was, but we now have learned that it’s a form of high-intensity interval training that forces you to work at a very high intensity for short periods of time. For the first workout we did eight rounds of mountain climbers, working for ten seconds and then resting for twenty seconds before going into the next round. I liked that because I typically do not enjoy cardio and really have to push myself mentally. Knowing that I only had to do it for ten seconds at a time helped me to work harder and faster during that time.

I’m excited to be doing this new program and am eager to see what benefits I get from switching it up!