Unexpected challenge

When I went into the gym today, little did I expect to take part in a Challenge that was going on. I knew about it, but decided to give it a miss because of the set of exercises that they had advertised. I am not good with full push ups. Knee push up – OK. And my arm strength isn’t good enough for pull ups. I am working on it. There was a total of 6 exercises and we were supposed to do them in serial fashion and see how long we took for all 6 of them. Now, why would I go and sign up for this when I have joined gym after a long break and still working on my arm strength?

My gym instructor thought otherwise. When I went in today, all mentally prepped for my dumbbells workout (today is the arms day, y’all), she comes in with a clipboard and a paper and says ‘Lets do this challenge’. I was like ‘why ?’. She was like ‘why not?’ And then she says ‘I have belief in you. You can do it’. I did a eye roll and one more for good measure and told her that not to expect me to excel in it. I know all about their BS of positive and motivational talks. Been there, heard that a lot with my other instructor, and have done that to others too. There is no kidding me with that line, girl. Since the push ups were an issue for me, she replaced it with burpees. Now, I had no choice as to give it a try.

25 knee pushups

10 burpees

25 box jumps

50 full sit ups

50 skipping or jump rope

500 m running in the treadmill at 9 kmph speed and no gradient

I completed them all in 8.55 mins. She was very happy about that, even though there were better results than that. I told her that I am going home now that my workout for the day was over 😉 Once I got that done, I felt good. That wasn’t bad compared to the standard I held myself. I could have done better, if I had done some more practice at home or the previous day. But that’s all right. I made sure I maintained my form too. Box jumps literally tired me down and I had to slow down a bit when I was doing those. I used to hate burpees. May be still do, but at least when it came to this challenge I got that done. All in all I felt good after being challenged so suddenly and especially when I wasn’t mentally prepared. After that she told me that this was just my warm up and I had to do the day’s workout. 🙄  I had to cut two of my exercises from my day’s workout to be able to complete it on time and be back for work. Anyone want to give it a try? If you do, let me know how it went for you.

When I reached home, may be it was the feeling that I did good, I was craving for something very sweet. Like a Pavlova which was available on a fresh food site to order. But every single time I tried (and I tried for close to 5 times from different browsers), the page would error out the moment I select the sweet. Divine Intervention, you think ? I had to settle for some dates to satisfy my sweet craving for the day.

This photograph was taken during one of our Zumba workouts in a Music bar. Photo credits to a friend of a friend who was using my camera to try his photographic skills.Will be doing Zumba this weekend after a very long time. Getting excited already.

Songs of your life

Kimmie has got a list of nice ideas to write about for your weekly Wednesday post. Please check out her post on the list of topics here. This week’s topic is

August 10: Songs of Your Life – What are a couple of songs that relate to turning points in your life, and why?

I am literally going with a couple of songs.

I don’t have to say much about this song. It was a sensation when it came out. It is special to me because it came out during the time when I was going a very rough time where I was going through the separation from my ex-husband and also the bitter legal battle that ensued (for almost 4 years). And this song felt like it was written for me and since I could sing and hold a tune well, I almost thought I should sing it and send it as a ‘F*** you’ message to my ex. Hey, I am not a writer, so it is only fair that I use a popular song which matched word for word of what I was feeling at that time.

Since the previous song was a heavy one, let’s go for a lighter one.

I like dancing. I can’t dance to save my life or such. But I can dance a bit. And I ain’t bad that bad. Well, it is just these four walls that are gonna be watching right. I used to do that a lot at home, because it was just me and the walls. But then Zumba happened. And once that bug bit me, I was a goner. It not only felt good, it felt amazing. Dance and workout together. It thrilled me. I became a Zumba instructor. I am not doing anything with that certification as of yet. And its been almost 6 months since I have been to a Zumba class. But that hasn’t stopped me from choreographing or dancing to songs at the comfort of my home and I definitely feel better when I am dancing. Don’t you?

What next?!?!

Another friend of mine recently joined Word Press and I am so glad to welcome her to this wonderful blogging Community. We used to do Zumba together but it’s been more than 6 months I have done any Zumba at all. Want to join us 😉 ?

Comments disabled here. Please visit her website.

Ms Mynt

What next?!?! This is a constant question in my head. Whether it be my daily routine, my next meal, my next holiday or simply the urge to learn more n more.

It’s easy to get caught in the rut of corporate life. Simple. You get up, look ur best, get to work, do ur best at work, get back n hit the bed. Day in and out. When it comes to the weekend, you want to catch up on lost sleep over the week or complete errands you have been procrastinating during the week or like me just laze around doing NOTHING! This was how it was for me for a long long time. I convinced myself that my life was packed(doing NOTHING of course) and always had an excuse to do nothing more.

Till one day, it hit me that am capable of so much more than whiling away…

View original post 352 more words

Keeping it up

When I planned my trip to London, I wanted to ensure that I keep myself fit and not over indulge as I tend to do during vacations. I also thought that if possible and if there was an option to do it, I would go to the gym or some fitness classes whenever possible. And once I got settled down, I started checking out. There was a Sports Leisure Center close to my friend’s place. So I gave them a call and figured out that they are managed by Better and that there is an option for visitors like me to get a daily, weekly, fortnightly or a monthly pass and book the fitness classes we like or even use the gym whenever we want. The pool access is also included and for 5 days the cost was 28 £. I thought it was cheap because in other places each class was for 10 £. And for the past two weeks, I have been going to one or the other classes. I am not a big fan of the gym, but I love trying out the fitness classes. Tried to check out a Zumba class, but since this was much closer to home decided to go along with this. Loved all the classes, but the best of the lot was Yoga, Pilates and Total Body Conditioning classes. I loved them. I am feeling really good about doing it. I am leaving back to Bangalore today. Hopefully will make another trip sooner back here.

---

Post for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “book.” Use any meaning of the word as your theme, or simply mention the word “book” in your post. Enjoy!

 

SoCS Badge by HopeFloats@ My Leaky Boat

Profane Rant

I generally avoid using curse words / profanity while speaking. That means, I definitely say them in my mind. I am just a little conscious of it while I speak because I don’t ever want to slip up in front of my nieces or nephew. Trust me, they are at an age where I end up explaining each and every single thing I say. And they do look up to me a lot and follow my mannerisms (because they like me a lot too 😉 ) So I make sure that I never get into the habit of using profanity ever. And the few times I had missed, I managed to silence the whole room. Having said that, I really hate it when the TV, especially the music channels, try and mute the curse /profanity based words in a song.  It is not that people don’t use it in their day to day life. If the intention is to make sure to not create enough damage well, in that case, just do not play the song at all. You cannot watch Hateful Eight or Pulp Fiction ever if you want to mute those words on TV. It would be so odd having to hear a beep or a mute every few minutes (or is it seconds?)

Some songs aren’t the same without those words. Here are some of the examples (and these are explicit versions, so if you are not a fan of EDM and curse words etc… you shouldn’t be listening to these) I have heard the clean version of the songs (for those that are available) and they just aren’t the same. Obviously, I won’t be playing these in front of my nieces and nephew but atleast I should be able to hear it without hearing ‘hhhhhmmm’ instead of the f*** word. For e.g. it comes in the “This Summer’s gonna hurt like a hhhhhmmmhmmmm” When I heard it the first time, I wasn’t sure what it meant. Hurt like a what?
Hardwell feat. Harrison – Sally

AronChupa – I’m an Albatraoz

DNCE – Cake By The Ocean

Maroon 5 – This Summer’s Gonna Hurt

In my Zumba class, my instructor would rather have a clean version of a song instead of using the one with those words. Example Nicki Minaj’s Starships. The clean version just mutes the f*** word a little bit. Everyone who comes to the class is above 18 and in between a heavy workout, almost everyone uses the f*** word out loud to express how intense the song choreo was. I might as well have the song with the explicit version so that I can voice it out while doing the workout (and it won’t be heard anyway 😉 )

What brought this on? Deadpool. That guy really does it 😛 We might watch it this weekend, but it will be censored heavily here in India. And that pisses me off very badly.

Colossus: We can’t allow this, Deadpool.
Deadpool: I don’t have time for your X-Men bullshit, Colossus! Besides, nobody’s getting hurt!