Cardio

Two Meatballs: Bolt to Bolt

July 7, 2014Big Changes, Cardio, Family, Fitness, Fitness, Motivation, Plus Size, Health, Beauty, Humor, Friends, Goals, Health, health, fitness, beauty, motivation, plus size, make up, hair, hairstylist, oribe, bumble and bumble, MAC Cosmetics, comedy, Paleo, besties, best friends, meatballs, exercise, life change, lifestyles,, Life change, motivationtwomeatballsgetfit View all 6 comments

What an amazing holiday weekend with family!!!! I hope y’all enjoyed yours as well!!! Work was crazy busy for Jenny and I this week bc the owners of the salon so graciously decided to close Friday and Saturday in honor of America’s birthday!!!! We love them sooooooo much! We both love being busy bc then you just appreciate the time off that you have sooo much more…and who doesn’t love a holiday. I have to say 4h of July is def one of my fav holidays…fireworks, family, bbq’s, swimming, watermelon (which I don’t even like but it just feels right), sparklers, lightening bugs, and this unexpected lovely weather that we had! As you know Jenny and I have really recommitted to tightening up…we got a little fast and loose with our new lifestyles so I celebrated this weekend by going to the gym 4…count em …4 days in a ROWWWWWWW! I think that is a personal best for me since I started on this journey!

#holygymselfiebatman

This makes me feel amazing! I feel so strong when I leave the gym and every time I move something that I worked out and it hurts it just hurts sooo good! Also and you guys are never even going to believe this but I love working out with my family!!! Thursday was our meatball workout/ass whooping with Sandra but Friday, Saturday and even Sunday I worked out with my parents…and this sweet angel even popped in on Sunday!

#sweatfog #heatwave #fogginupthecamera #lovemysis

And then some terrible car “usies” (the plural of selfies…thanks Sandra) from our day of sisters that followed…#sisterlifewife

Also this weekend I reigned in my out of control eating! On Friday we all met at my sister’s pool after the gym for an awesome FOJ (get it?!) celebration. There was a greasy watermelon contest and a big splash contest and a name that tune contest #ilovegames and lots and lots of swimming and watching my little nephew Chase make up swim moves…like the dolphin (it looks exactly like what you think it looks like!) Then we walked back to my sisters house for an awesome paleo exclusive cookout!!! Having everyone on the same page is so amazing. Happiness and support are a choice and it makes me so thankful that my entire family is on the same page. I mean look at alllll that yumminess on one plate!

We had marinated steak and pineapple kabobs on the grill, grilled zuchini, carmelized squash and onions (which I swear is a macaroni and cheese replacement) sweet potato chips with guac, a jicama, cucumber, lime stack and corn on the cob! yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Then Wyatt and I watched one of my all time fav movies as a kid…Addams Family Values! Ugh I wanted to be Wednesday Addams soooo bad when I was a wee lass…what a badass!!! #sooomuchfun

Then Saturday the Original Beards (OB’s…shout out and stole this from Nikki!) went out to dinner downtown. My family can def get stuck in a rut. We Ale House and Raleigh Times it up and last time we were all out, Kelly said we have to go somewhere new next time! I LOVE NEW!!! So I did some research and asked my downtown guru…Michael Knight for a good recommendation and he said you should try Bolt www.boltbistro.com . So I looked up the menu and saw lots of paleo options right off the bat and made a reservation tout suite! It was such a nice night that we sat outside which is unheard of in July for the comfort craving Beards!

I can’t say enough good things about this place!!! The atmosphere is totes adorbs…

they had an outdoor walk up bar #genius…

the menu was great…

there was a little cutie patootie playing and singing #ambience

the wait staff clearly all got along and loved each other, they were openly singing with the performer and giving each other a hard time…

and our waiter Adam was ahhhhh-mazing!

And he was adorable and so personable. We talk a lot in my family and between the meatballs (and I even mentioned it above…it’s on my mind all the time) about happiness being a choice. The manager Tim and everyone at Bolt literally embodied this sentiment…but especially Adam. He was charming and had great recommendations and the gift of easy yet engaging small talk but above everything else he was emanating positivity. Not to mention he is a Wolfpack alum…what’s not to like. He clearly loves what he does and we are all about that. He recommended the scallop dish and that’s what I got bc they are my favvvvvv and this particular dish came with a cauliflower puree…how progressive and paleo! Tim came by and told us how everything was local and organic…yay!!! Everyone was super attentive!

It was sooooo good! Everything that everyone ordered was amazing. The whole night had a glow around it…I don’t know if it was bc downtown was decorated for the 4th…

Or the great people that I was hanging out with and the awesome and hilarious conversations that we had (where would you live if money weren’t an issue)…

Or if it was the games that we played (can you find the meatball!?)…

Or if it was our awesome waiter Adam…

Or all of the above…but the night felt full of its own special energy. There are so many opportunities in life to get mad, sad, disappointed, angry, jilted and depressed. And they are probably totally justified and legitimate…buuuuuuut there are so many more reasons to be upbeat, happy, positive, buzzy, shiny and grateful. Why not choose appreciating for the wonderful night you were handed?! Life is what you make it and I am so thankful to be surrounded by people who want to make it a better, more joyful place to be. Bolt felt like such a great fit on so many levels. So to Bolt, thank you for having us…what a great night!!! We will be back and you should go too…ps, ask for Adam and order whatever he recommends. You won’t be disappointed!!!

Enough gushing…This is a perfect example of something that could very easily be a bummer for someone…I am on another journey of a year of sobriety. Being around drinkers could really bum me the fuck out but it doesn’t…like at allllll! It makes me so happy that everyone can make their own choices and that y’all can enjoy a cocktail and I don’t have to feel the need to partake or feel badly or left out about the decision I made! Temptation is a bitch and I’m so glad that this has been a pain free and healthy choice for me! Another choice…bc that is all that life is…a series of choices and you have the ability to take control of your behavior! Are you poisoning the well or are you emitting good vibes!?!? I love you all and I’m sending all of this glow your way! #pollyanna

Sidebar…this is a little segment I like to call…sometimes you don’t always achieve your goal! Here for instance…I chose to hate this first picture and request that we keep taking it until I found one that I liked. Apparently this top was standing room only!!! So to my family, thank you for putting up with me!!!! Love y’all the most! #OGB

And second sidebar, in a year when I’ve hit the reset on my drinking button…I want to do this…you drink beer and pedal your way through downtown….what a fun way to exercise and enjoy a beer with no guilt!

Have an amazing weeeeeeeekkkkkk!!!!

Two Meatballs: Fireworks, F@%$ Ups and a Fat Crushing Workout!!!

July 4, 2014Big Changes, Cardio, Fitness, Fitness, Motivation, Plus Size, Health, Beauty, Humor, Friends, Goals, Health, health, fitness, beauty, motivation, plus size, make up, hair, hairstylist, oribe, bumble and bumble, MAC Cosmetics, comedy, Paleo, besties, best friends, meatballs, exercise, life change, lifestyles,, Life change, motivation4th of july, abs, america, arms, back, best friends getting healthy, best friends losing weight together, biceps, cardio, cheating on your diet, chest, confidence, curves, endorphins, fitness, fleet feet, getting healthy, hard work pays off, healthy, HIIT, innovative fitness training, Jenny Smith, meatball nation, merica, motivation, new lifestyle, no fat shaming, obese, overweight, patriotism, plus size, positive body image, quads, salon, Sandra Axman, Sara Beard, sexy, supportive team, sweat, Tabata, taking care of yourself, trainer, training, triceps, Two Meatballs Get Fit, uplifting, weigh in, weight loss, workouttwomeatballsgetfit View all 10 comments

First off….HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!! #merica We hope your weekend is full of sparklers, fireworks, bodies of water, cookouts, family and friends.

#kelseyisthecutestever #butsooooisdustin #salonpatriotism#mericanails #leeisthebest

This weigh in felt epic! We hit 20,000 views on Facebook for Two Meatballs: Grin and Bare it!!!

Holy shit!!! We feel great, we are getting a million compliments and together we’ve lost almost 100 pounds!!!

So what have we done…gotten cocky and started getting a little slack! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I did better on vacation than I have this week…who does that?!! Jenny and I made a pact on Tuesday morning to give up our personal vices for one week. She said goodbye to dark chocolate and I said adios to pistachios (NOOOOOOOOO)!!!

Thank you Nikki and Jack for the immersion therapy! #canyoutelljackiseatingpistachioandnikkiiseatingdarkchocolate #masicsm

So we started this month with great intentions. Then we posted the weigh in and the praise and compliments came pouring in (thank y’all so much) and that little voice in the back of our heads (not blue cross blue shield) said….YOU’VE ARRIVED!. Surely we must be done right?! We look great, we feel great…time to eat! We went to Ale House Wednesday night to celebrate..again with great intentions…what’s more Paleo than WINGS!? But then I ordered onion straws and we both ate our weight in bleu cheese. Woooooooof… We felt so awful when we left…I felt stuffy and like I had a cold and we both felt hungover and can you say BLOATED. What a way to celebrate right!? Lesson learned. BUUUUUUT then I met up with some girlfriends last night that I hadn’t seen in a million years and we went to Coquette. Love you Robyn and Ellen!!!

Let me say…Coquette had some really great options…there was a pan seared duck breast and even my fav…scallops! But do you know what I ordered!?!?!? STEAK FRITES! For those of you like my sister that struggle with French (#haricotvertshahahahahahahaha) its steak and FRIES! Like French fries you guyssss…white potato, fried shoestring French fries. And I know French so this wasn’t like oh whooopsies…I didn’t know what frites were! But they were delish and it happened. So then I woke up the next morning before our work out with our super best buddy Sandra Axman (www.innovativefitnesstraining.com caaaaaaaaaallllllll her!) and adorably hopped on my scale as if I were going to see a loss and you are never going to even believe this shit y’all….I GAINED 3 POUNDS. Duhhhhhhhhhhh Sara! Anyways I got dressed and went downstairs and sweet Jenny picked me up! And she was in a mood…a mood that much reflected how I was feeling. Neither one of us felt like exercising, we were both being bitchy and super irritated…it’s the craziest thing when you stray from what works how quickly your mind goes to fuck it mode. Sooooo we had a little counseling sesh on the drive to the gym. We both have been too slack…eating too much, eating out, not eating the right things, not getting enough sleep, being slack with water and for me skipping my normal workouts. She said I’m going to use all this anger in our workout today…#genius! A workout was just what the doctor ordered. How can you be mad when you are so physically exhausted and so proud of what you just accomplished!? And by the by…Sandra you are the greatest human…thank you for forcing us out of our funk and always being so encouraging, positive and energetic. You are a ray of sunshine that both of us desperately needed this morning and your commitment to our journey and end result is something that we are so grateful for!!!!!!! We love you to the moon and back. On to the workout…these first few pics we were still deep into bitch mode.

But we half heartedly tried to get over it!

But we really just wanted to go back to sleeeeep!

We went inside and the tom foolery began…lets be honest nothing makes us feel better than acting like children!

Then Sandra asked the question that we have heard 1,000 times this week…”have you guys been measuring?” Nooooooo we are idiots! Why didn’t we measure …that would be an awesome way to track progress! So we started today! We also got our BMI and some other important number using a Gameboy like hand held device

Aaaaand now on to the workout for real! This was both of our favorite workout ever!!! It was HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and we did Tabata which involves doing a particular exercise at high intensity for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. It’s repeated 8 times for a total time of 4 minutes! (Explanation courtesy of Sandra) First we did the dumbest cardio ever(this is Sara speaking…I hated this damn band)…it involved a small thick band that went around our ankles and then you stepped up and over a step aerobic step (#howmanytimescanyousaystepinonesentence) and we did a Tabata here.

Take a closer look at why I hated these…my poor fat ankles…my cankles/calves got eaten by rubber!

Then there were two stations both with two different exercises each. The back station you were kneeling on a BOSU ball doing reverse chest press (pull down) And at the chest station you did a chest press on a bench and we did these for 8 rounds…

Then we did the second exercise at our stations. At the back station you switched to standing trx rows and at the chest station you switched to chest fly’s!

Then we got onto our mats and did Tabata ab work…with two different exercises working two different areas. First was upper abs with crunches for 8 rounds then lower abs with leg crunches (laying flat and bringing your bent legs to your chest and then extending them back out) for 8 rounds. (There were no pics of this so we recreated this at work! #yourwelcome #mybackissoooohairynow)

Then we did a cardio thing back on the step with one leg stationary with the other leg being brought up with the knee bent and tapping the ground and bringing it back up again for 8 rounds…holy burn batman.

Then we switched stations and whoever did back went to chest and vicey versey!

Did you breath a sigh of relief and think that we were done..me too but WRONG! haha

Next was two different stations one for biceps and the other for triceps.

At the bicep station we did bicep curls while sitting on an exercise ball to engage our core! At the tricep station we had a stretchy thingy with two handles attached to an elliptical machine for stability and we had to do tricep extensions (Huge shout out to Michael for helping me figure out workout jargon…he is not responsible for the dumb shit I make up but for the correct terminology!)

Then before we switched stations we did a cardio/quad blaster back on the aerobic step. You start with your right foot fixed to one spot on the step and then do speed skaters for 8 rounds. After each round you alternate the leg that is stationary.

Then we switched bicep and tricep stations…

Annnnnd that was all she wrote! This workout felt ahhhh-mazing! Then we had to jackass around again!

And do a little homage to sweet dead Fat back Friday!

We just can’t keep our clothes on now! But look how much smaller!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

And finally Sandra (yelling this) WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH! To everyone reading this…if you are struggling to find the motivation to work out of just don’t know what you are supposed to do, this woman will educate and inspire you and help you get to your goal 1 squat at a time! Look at the difference she has made in our lives!?!?

She is LITERALLY the living best!

Enjoy your holiday weekend!!! XOXOXOXOOXOXOXOOXO!