April showers bring… more May showers

This is the weather forecast for the week:

Suffice to say I will not be running any time soon.  

My week began with an intense boot camp class. I have a new favourite move – the “ninja roll.” Start lying down on a mat with your knees bent as if you were about to do sit ups. Use your core muscles to roll yourself onto your feet, jump up and return to starting position. The low option was to do standard crunches and I’m proud to say I was one of the few people in the class who ninja rolled my way through the entire minute interval… I felt like such a… well, ninja.

Here’s what else we did in boot camp today:

Cardio interval: shuffle 4 counts left, touch the floor, 4 counts right, do 3 jump squats, repeat for 1 minute, then go the other way

Combination #1: (repeat x2)
Scissor jumps and bunny hops (alternate 8 seconds each for 1 minute)
Plank with side row (1 minute each arm with 8 push ups in between)

Cardio interval: 1 minute jumping jacks

Combination #2: (repeat x2)
Squat jumps and burpees (5 of each, then 4 of each, then 3, etc.)
3 plank sliders followed by a push up (repeat for 1 minute)

Cardio interval: 2 minutes quick step ups 

Combination #3: (repeat x2)
Sumo squats (pulse for 20 seconds, hold for 10, repeat x3)
Mountain climbers (1 minute)
Ninja rolls (1 minute)

Core:
High plank, touch left elbow with right hand, alternate (70 seconds)
Oblique crunches (1 minute)
Scissor abs (1 minute)
Superman pose (1 minute)

After boot camp, I went to Josh’s house for his brother’s birthday party. His dad barbecued some pork souvlaki with tzatziki sauce. I had two skewers, a small Greek salad, roasted potatoes and brown rice with peas. Everything was delicious and of course there was birthday cake to be had. I hadn’t had any treats since Easter, so it was definitely time… the cake was a nice and light mango mousse cake.

Thanks to the combination of boot camp, too much food and crappy weather, I ended up taking a two hour nap before tutoring this afternoon. This was my second two hour nap this weekend… don’t judge me.

For dinner, I had a light but filling shrimp and cucumber salad, the recipe for which I got from Women’s Health magazine. The only difference is I use couscous instead of bulgur and leave out the red onions because red onions taste foul.

Cook 1/4 cup of whole wheat couscous with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Once cooked, add quartered grape tomatoes (about 12), chopped cucumber (I used 1/4 of a large cucumber), 20 shrimp, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Top with 1 tablespoon of crumbled feta cheese.

Tomorrow, I’ll be starting week 3 of the New Rules of Lifting for Women program. I’m going to attempt to add weight to the Olympic bar for squats… we’ll see how that goes.