Monday + Puppy Love

Hi everyone!

First I have to say a BIG Happy Birthday to my best friend, my confidant, and my biggest supporter– My mom, or “G-Mama” as you all know her 😉 I love you Mama!

Here in Maryland we got extremely lucky that Hurricane Joaquin slid past us. I know a lot of you out there were not as lucky with flooding and power outages. My thoughts are with you all. I hope everyone stayed safe.

I had sent Tony on a few shopping trips this past week while I was working, but turns out we didn’t need it. I guess I just wanted to be sure we had the essentials!

He’s also been all about sending me pictures of Phoebe. Am I jealous? Well… yeah… I am. Phoebe has always been MAMA’S GIRL; and now she loves Tony just as much. She loves to sit with him in the chair, snuggles him, and cries for him to pick her up. That was always me!

As the weekend went on, she was back to being my little side kick a bit more. Plus, as we went to G-Mama and Pop Pops house, she always gets a little jealous when I pay attention to Shelby.

But back to fitness related things. I was VERY pleased that I hit the gym after work each night. It definitely is not easy dragging myself to workout at 8pm, but I make it happen.

So if you’ve had a long day, you’re tired, and just want to go home and eat, remember I’m in the gym too! On work nights I only do 60-75 minutes and I call it a day. Every bit counts. Once you start, it usually gets easier and you get in the groove. It’s getting there and pushing yourself to start that is the hard part.

Speaking of pushing yourself. Tony steered me away from my own leg day for me to do leg presses with him. What happened? Well I thought my legs were going to crumble into pieces. If you want an extra PUSH I highly suggest this little gem. You will need a partner to help you strip the weights off.

Leg presses semi-wide stance

• heaviest weight you can. For me on this day it was only 320 lbs. 8-10 reps
• Strip a weight from each side- 10 reps
• Keep stripping a weight from each side until you get to a plate each side. 15-20 reps
• No weight on each side 20-25 reps

THE BURN! Are we done yet? NOPE.

Start with NO weight on the bar and work up and BACK down again. I didn’t end at 320. I couldn’t go that heavy on set #2. Do what you can. But when you finish your last set of reps, all the weight stripped again, pile a medium amount of weight on (this was 180 lbs for me) and bust out 8-10 reps to shock your legs.

Tony is a crazy man… There really are no breaks except in between the two different sets. Yes, we locked the leg press just for a second to pile the weights on, but that’s it folks.

And….I’m not going to be able to walk today 🙁

I was shaking, limping, and trying to get it together. Tony suggested hip abductors to loosen up the legs some. It definitely worked, so try it out!

I hope you have a great Monday. I’m off to start my day at the dentist. Wish me luck, there’s a filling in my future and I’m TERRIFIED!

XOXO With a Cherry On Top,

-Minnie