Zumba, Olive Garden, Fireworks!

Okay, this was definitely a great day! Another great day I must say! :) Today I started the day with taking my dog for his favorite ride thru the Dunkin Donuts drive thru, he loves that even though he doesn't get anything out of it for munchies, but it's still an adventure for him. I'm gonna have to change my diet there soon, I going to go with the Oatmeal more often, I like their Oatmeal and compared to everything else they have there, it's probably one of the most healthiest food they sell. Actually, now that my curiosity is peaked, let take a looksey....according to their website Dunkin Donuts
One Dunkin Donuts Blueberry Muffin - 460 Calories and 130 Calories From Fat
Original Oatmeal with dried Fruit Topping - 270 Calories and 35 Calories From Fat
let's go with a classic just for comparison sake - One Jelly Donut - 270 Calories and 130 Calories From Fat
So, now that that's out of the way.......let's take a peek at my favorite Yogurt (since Dunkin Donuts doesn't sell Yogurt which they should, we will have to go to the grocery market to get this, but grocery markets don't have drive thru which is inconvenient for the "doggie ride"), but we will put in my favorite Yogurt right here anyways: Yoplait Strawberry  Orginial Yogurt which is my favorite. This is picture is pulled from their website.

So, that is that.....let's move on with my day.......

I also started my day with an hour of Zumba!! :) I love Zumba and I should do more of it. I found a great place with the nicest teachers locally, it's called Vive La Dance. This studio does it ALL, from Zumba to TRX, they have a very flexible schedule. So I'm going to try the TRX this weekend coming up.

Then moving on with my day today. I did have to go do some work today for a few hours and that was pretty uneventful. Then I caught up with some friends after work and then watched the fireworks here. I'm not really a fan of the whole noise and lights of fireworks, so I usually just watch them and let my mind drift off into some direction aimlessly until the fireworks are done. Then I went online tonight and played a friendly, free game of online poker. And out of 188 players, I finished 38th. Oh, well, I'll try again next time.

Out with June, In with July

Well, the last few days has been eventful (a little). Let's see here, what has happened in the last few days. Let's start with tonight. Tonight is my sister's birthday and I caught up with her at a local lounge club to have a drink and play some pool. Even thought I don't really know how to play pool, nor am i good at it, I played three games against her, sent the cue ball flying off the table twice and decided that pool wasn't my game like poker is. I like poker, it's not as violent as pool is (the cue ball went off the table and hit my sister's foot). But we had a good time and I don't think I'll be investing any money into a new pool stick anytime soon, even though I did blame my pool playing performance on the stick I was using! :)

Poker is awesome and I'm loving the poker league I'm in. The time and the day of the league is convenient to my schedule and I really get excited when I go. Then when I'm at the table, it's so peaceful and I play and socialize. :)

And last week, I stopped by the golf driving range which was which was great! I was hitting balls with my "security blanket" 8 iron so smooth and straight. I'm going out to hit golf balls again tomorrow night for an hour to get just some general practice in. When I see my golf coach again, we will be brushing up on hitting with the Driver. Not to sure of that club, but will force myself to get use to it. Next season (2014) I will be teaming up with a golf league to explore other courses and make new golfing friends. Can't wait!

The hand gun training I've been taking is really moving right along impressively. I really got down all the different types of guns and ammo, stance, holding form, and where on my body I could carry a concealed gun. Very informative. Next Sunday I got shooting with four or five different types of guns to weed out my favorite one to concentrate on. Maybe a 9mm, maybe a .22, we will have to wait and see. :)

This past weekend I got together with three other girl friends and we headed out on the town Saturday night to live it up. We ate dinner at a local Chinese restaurant and then by 9pm and two drinks later, we headed over to a local LGBT lounge bar which had a very entertaining Drag Queen show happening. None of us swing that way, but it was quite entertaining to watch the dancers entertain us to their favorite music. I would definitely go back again. They are very talented and I would love to get make up tips from them, cause I sure need it :)

My studying for my PT certificate is suffering a little bit with my social life being high on the hog. But, I'll have to manage to get that re-focused again and get back on the wagon. As for fitness, there are so many options and directions for me to go. My choices are to go with an expensive gym and have alot of perks under their roof including insurance to visit their doctor on staff, full gym, spa area, restaurant, social clubs, TRX, golf swing simulator, yoga, and P90X. Yes, they all sound impressive but the membership rate is a staggering $171 a month (including the insurance to see a doctor if you get hurt), so I guess it would be good for people who don't have insurance.

Another avenue I'm looking at is signing up for a 3 times a week boxing gym, I like this because it's $99 for 9 weeks. I think boxing is great to get in shape and teaches you self defense. That's pretty much what I'm looking for. Their schedule is awesome too, I can make every class. But, that's only great for cardio and core work, I'm got to bring in some heavy artillery and incorporate CrossFit into my fitness routine. Why? Cause CrossFit is the gem of all fitness factors including losing weight, gaining muscle, flexibility, and balance, and again, it doesn't come at a cheap price. CrossFit is about $135 a month for unlimited. Due to my schedule, I would probably go with the $125 for a 10 punch pass. Sometimes I can go once a week, sometimes twice a week depending on what they are offering for a workout schedule.

One last thing, I did renew my swimming membership at the local hotel, I'm hoping to go swimming once a week for cardio and relaxing. So that membership is paid in advanced and good for a year! :)

So that's what I've been up to lately. I'll turn in again soon to update you on what's next and what's new! :)

My day, my new schedule.....

Before I get caught up in the Facebook community, there is a few things I want to touch on about my day today. I put together my new schedule and as much as I don't like it, the schedule includes everything I really like to do, I mean, it's not my fault I don't have enough time in my day.....so let's sort it out and see what it looks like.....

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
Yoga	Open	Open	CF	Open	Open	CF
SF	W	W	W	W	W	W
Dinner	Poker	BL1	BL1	BL1	Open	Open

I love the schedule cause it has the CrossFit (CF) WOD in twice a week which I really miss doing, so I incorporated that into my schedule once again. And the Wednesday/Saturday CrossFit schedule is pretty fairly balanced. I left some mornings open to be flexible on swimming which I will do in the morning once a week, and I'm going to try to attend a Bikram Yoga class once a week and their Sunday 8am class fits nicely into my morning week schedule. My mid day consists of being social and working, there's nothing I can do about that so moving to my evening schedule, I have dinner with family every Sunday night which has been happening for the past year or so. I'm going to try to get a Kickboxing class (BL1) in Monday thru Thursday nights from 7pm to 8pm with Friday and Saturday being "open". This schedule has the open time I need to study for my PT certificate also so I think it will all work out.

The Perfect Gym??

As we all know I've been on a mission to find the perfect gym (for me). "For me" means time convenience, I wanted something that started around 7pm, location means I don't want to spend more time on the road getting to the gym, than actually at the gym, and price meaning that I don't want to pay more than $100 a month for a gym, and lastly what the gym services offered to me, I'm looking for ab core work, shoulder/arm work, overall conditioning work, toning work with stretching in a group class setting. Is this so hard to find. Well, I've spent the last two months scouting out the gyms around my neighborhood with a pretty big radius and I've take a free class here and there at different gyms. Some were good, some just didn't meet my criteria, moving on to the next gym and so on. Well, as I appreciated the "free class" offer to really see first hand what the class offered, it made what I was looking for more clear. So when I routinely stopped by, once again, another gym to check out, this particular gym I just felt that this one could offer what I was looking for. Let's go thru the check list:

• Their classes go from 7pm to 8pm Monday thru Thursday and Saturday 9am to 10am
• Classes consist of boxing/kickboxing training, core strengthening, shoulder and arm strengthening
• Progressive classes - level 1 classes to work thru, leading up to level 2 and then level 3 classes
• Price! $99 for 9 weeks of unlimited classes. I'll let you do the break down of cost per class (not bad!)
• Location: 4 miles from my job! Enough said :)

So, I think this will work out for me and I'll keep you updated with my work out progression with this gym as I move along through their program.

The Search For The Perfect Gym Continues...

My May was a quiet one......not too much going on, what I had scheduled was just predictable social time. Getting caught up on some bills and trying not to spend too much recreational money, so close to paying stuff completely off. I did splurge this weekend and went to the movies to see "Now You See Me", it was an "OK" movie with some action, but I think the cheesy predictable romance portion of it could of been kept out. But, it was just an ok movie and I won't have to see it again. I'll be looking for new movies coming out over the summer.

I bought a domain name over the weekend (yes, another one) and those are never expensive, you just hope to make something out of it that will recoup some of the $14.00 you dropped into buying it. So I'll be playing around with that over the next few months.

Like I said June is here and I have a few things going on to pre-occupy myself. I have a few educational clinics coming up, along with a few free classes at gyms I'm looking into. Over the past few months I've been scoping out different gyms and taking advantage of their "free one class" and "free two week" classes. Every gym has it's promotion going on and I've been hopping around using the promotion to find a gym that fits me and what I'm looking for to suit my fitness needs. Let me stop and explain what I'm looking for so we are all on the same page: I'm looking for a hands on self defense class to learn street level defense moves to protect myself in a dangerous situation. I'm also looking for a class that would keep me fit and in shape. If this is two different gyms, then so be it, but that's the nuggets that I'm looking for. And another thing I've learned by doing this is that when you talk to a gym and they explain (with the best of intentions) that they have what you are "looking for", you still have to take the time to try the free classes to see for yourself and judge for yourself if that class's technique and structure is what you are looking for.

So over the last few months I've been taking advantage of about 7 different gym promotions, STILL not happy with the results of the class. One of the gyms was a CrossFit box gym, I was very excited about the CrossFit frenzy until I saw the trainers were on their cell phones texting and typing something out vigorously and not paying attention to the students form and execution of the exercises, also giving "blow off" answers to any questions the students had to and answer of "Just do what's on the white board". Very disappointment in the attentiveness of the trainers there.

My next free session of classes was at a kickboxing class. I liked this class and their hours fit into my schedule and also the price plan weren't too bad either. The problem? Too far for me to go. Yep, it was way out of the way for me between my job and going home. I would need something on the route home so the search continues.

I found a gym that was convenient to my route home. Great location and offered great classes including the infamous "TRX" class which I was hoping to try out. The guy that hosted my tour and gave me all my info on this gym was nice, but you know those people who "show" off what they know trying to impress you on what they know and when they teach you, it's more talking and less teaching. Well, simple put, the teacher talked more than he trained. I understand that he has to explain it to us, but getting comfortable on the floor to watch him demonstrate it over and over in more of an advance level instead of a beginners level, just wasn't my pace of learning. If that wasn't enough of me the leave, the price sure was because I wasn't paying $145 dollars a month to learn a few basic formatted moves and exercises that wouldn't help me on the street to defend myself. Moving on......

Next stop was at a Martial Arts Kempo school. They were having a two week free trial and I jumped on board to learn what Kempo was all about. Again, this is what I'm talking about when I say talk is nothing compared to what actually happens in class. So Kempo was explained to me verbally and I was showed a few preliminary moves. Then they put me in the class setting. Whoa! Can you say "kid friendly". This program is designed around kids ages 7 years old to 15 years old. There were so older people in the classes and if they liked to be talked to like a 7 years old and do 10 push up (and no more), then the class is coddled for them. It was too elementary for me and the price after the two weeks (which I did use up the entire two week trial) was way too high for my budget coming in at about $42 dollars  a week for a 45 minute class twice a week. No thank you, I left after my two week trial.

Next stop was a MMA class, (I thought "Now this is getting exciting!"), so I contacted the MMA school right down the street from my house, I could walk there in 30 minutes. So I stop by and the classes are from 6:30pm to 8pm. Grrrrrrrr, I get out of work at 6:30pm and couldn't make it to class until 7pm on the nose. The teachers said he didn't mind having a class interrupted with a late student due to my circumstances, but I felt funny about it. Walking into a class half way thru and finding a partner to train with and then playing catch up with what I learned the last half hour......I just don't know.....so no. The price wasn't too bad here coming in at $99 a month for unlimited classes. (Note: no morning classes at all). So all there was for me was for me to interrupt classes and play catch up. I'll pass.

Now, this brings me up to where I am now. I've found two gyms that are relatively (no complains on location) close to my work and my home. So far, so good. Each gym (separate gyms) are offering a one class for free which I will be going to one of the gym's free classes on this coming Thursday 7pm to 7:50pm. Did you get that: 7pm to 7:50pm - I can do that!! And also the price isn't too bad either sitting at $85 dollars a month for unlimited classes. The other gym closer to my house is all about self defense (as they put it "on a street level") but I don't know the hours of the classes yet nor do I know the price of the classes to continue after the one free class. I did email them today to find out this information, I'm hoping to hear back from them sometime this week or I'll be stopping by and paying a visit on the way home from work. Both of their websites looked like women friendly and encourage no experienced students to sign up, that's a plus :)

So my quest for the perfect gym is still underway and we will see what this week brings to the table. Have a good night, I'll be back to update you! :)