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Blogs I love, Fitness, Health

Sunday Summary

February 9, 2014

Well, this weekend was incredibly slooooow which was in direct contrast to my very busy and hectic week. I really should’ve expected this (I am a grad student after all) but after having that month long holiday it was just a big reality check for me.

To deal with the weekday hectic-ness that is now my life, I have had to start making meal preps at the very start of the week. During the holidays I was kinda lazy and was like, eh I don’t need to meal prep because I have all the time in the world. Hah, that was nice while it lasted … last Monday morning I made a huge pot of beef chili with chickpeas and plenty of fresh veggie which was basically lunch for the entire week which was awesome. This week I am planning on making a huge pot of Thai chicken curry 🙂

My yoga program has been going well and I am so happy to say that I am getting much more flexible. And my arm strength has improved too!!!! I two sets of 6 negative chin ups now, which is a huge accomplishment for me. I incorporated a variety of resistance band and cable machine moves this week to challenge my upper body from the usual weights and machines. I haven’t been able to go to the gym at the same time as any of my friends, so sorry I cannot show you photos of any of the moves I did.

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Okay onto a more serious topic now .. have any of you heard of the 80:10:10 diet? I heard about it a while ago, but I recently came across an article on www.fiterazzi.com that talked about the dangers of it. Fiterazzi is fast becoming a favorite new health and fitness website of mine because unlike other websites that just talk about ‘losing 10 pounds fast’, they talk about issues tend not to get talked about, or which are hard to talk about. I recommend you check them out and the specific article I am talking about. I would love to know your thoughts about the diet, and whether you know anyone who is attempting it.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness

Elevate Fitness: Ele_Sculpt

January 30, 2014

Last week, I tried out a new workout class called Ele_sculpt at a workout studio called Elevate Group Fitness. Although I love the gym and all of the workouts I do, I walk past this place on my way to the gym and it made me wonder what it was. There are two locations, one in Hayes Valley and one on Ocean Avenue; I walk past the one on Ocean Avenue. I was really curious about what they had to offer (yoga? pilates?) and I like to try new things to shake things up and keep my body challenged. Wonderfully enough, if you have never been to a class there, your first class is free!

Elevate Fitness

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

It was really sunny that day so apologies for the shadows .. isn’t the exterior cute though? So friendly and welcoming.

Anyway, I decided to go to an Ele_sculpt class although there are a total of three classes to go to: Ele_sculpt, Ele_barre and Ele_yoga. I was told is that Ele_sculpt is a more all over body workout so you hit your arms, core and legs. Ele_barre is more focused on giving you long and lean dancers legs (you can’t elongate your legs by the way folks, but you can give the illusion of length). Ele_yoga is a yoga practice but incorporating elements of aerial yoga (something I really, really want to try)!

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

I walked into the studio and … I saw the amazing pieces of equipment that you are seeing above!! I absolutely love using bands to workout with so by this point I was about to die at how excited I was. The demographic was definitely older than I thought. I don’t know why but I thought everyone would be 20 year olds or something. Everyone was very nice and friendly though, they all obviously knew each other and there was a great sense of community.

The next hour was intense .. I consider myself to be a pretty fit person but geez, I was disgustingly sweaty in the first 20 minutes .. We started out with some yoga, and a cute little motivational speech which was a nice touch and then we dove straight into it. Core work, cardio, leg work, arm work … it covered it all. We used the barre for the leg work and I was embarassed at how much I had to stop haha, but I was a lot better when it came to the arm work. My current goal for this year is to do 10 consecutive pull ups AND chin ups so I have been working my upper body a laaaht.

review of Elevate Fitness in San Francisco

This is Amanda, the lovely and informative instructor who taught the class that day! Ignore me though lol. I loved her energy and the fact that she made sure to walk around and check everyone’s form.

All in all I really enjoyed the class! Although I am quite a gym junkie (I repeat, building upper body strength …) I would definitely go again and I recommend you all give it a go 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Blogs I love, Fitness, Health

Sunday summary

January 19, 2014

I feel as if I have accomplished so much this past week. I officially launched Honestly Fitness on Tuesday, January 14th, have received over 798 hits and gained 306 likes on Honestly Fitness’ Facebook page.

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Wow!! Thank you all so much, I could never have expected such an amazing response, and I all it all to YOU, my wonderful followers!! I have received really supportive and positive comments all around, and I am so happy you are all enjoying the blog posts. That is my goal, to create a blog where people are genuinely excited for the next post to come up and as a way to learn new things about health and fitness. And please, let me know what you would like to see next! I have many idea’s for future posts but I want to know that I am blogging about things you guys want to know about.

I just wanted to end this fantastic week with a health and fitness mention, sort of like a ‘This week I am loving …’ post.

The Green Post

I recently discovered www.thegreenpost.com.au and really love how their approach to health and lifestyle is focused on educating people on a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. It is such a breath of fresh air to find someone else who is focused on the long-term as opposed to quick fixes and short-term changes that will get you nowhere. Although The Green Post is still fairly new, they already have many interesting articles and delicious looking recipes posted! I tried their Butter nut and Lavender Apple pancake recipe and it was AMAZING!! The fact that it still tasted so sweet with only apple sauce as the sweetener was fabulous, and the lavender was a refreshing touch to them. A very original recipe that I recommend you all try!

Yummmmmy! I actually made 3 pancakes but the 3rd one was not photo worthy .. pancake flip fail shall we say ;P

So there you have it for this weeks recap! I am so excited to see how Honestly Fitness grows over the coming few months and eager to share most posts and video’s with you all. I have had so many idea’s locked up in my mind and it is incredibly to be able to finally share them all with you. I also want to mention that I recently created a Pinterest page, so please check it out when you have the chance.

Honestly yours,
Alice