January 22nd

It was another busy week and another great weekend. I made sure that I got a workout in every day this week. I gave myself a day off to rest on Friday. I found a  couple of new workout DVDs this week, so I have yet to get bored with my workouts. Yesterday I did Jillian Michaels' Extreme Shed and Shred. This morning I did Bob Harper's Total Body Transformation. This was an hour long workout and my body was working hard for every minute of it. I am sore in places that I haven't been for a while. I guess those are muscles that I have neglected. There were a lot of other DVDs on Bob's website that I want to buy. The "My Trainer Bob" series has two DVDs that I want to buy: Ultimate Cardio Body and Totally Ripped Core.

I have been trying to follow the Weight Watchers plan as strictly as I can. I used all of my points every day and all of my weekly "allowance" points. Thankfully I had 47 activity points that I didn't have to use. But, the scale hasn't moved. I am hoping that because I am building muscle that is the reason the scale isn't changing. It is really hard to stay within the daily points. I used the recipes on Weight Watchers to make dinner tonight (Chicken Sausage and Whole Wheat Penne). I also found a recipe for Spicy Shrimp Skewers and Couscous that I will make later this week.

I have been making recipes from the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks, which I absolutely love. This week I had fresh blueberries in my Door to Door Organics box. I thought that blueberry muffins sounded like a great way to use the blueberries. The recipe calls for yogurt, which seems healthy. I used Fage 0% plain yogurt. (My coworker Nick was eating the individual serving of Fage one day at lunch. I decided that I would give it a try and I LOVE it!) It is a good way for me to get healthy dairy and it is only 3 points for the 0% and 4 points for the 2%.) Yogurt seemed like a healthy addition to muffins. I guess the stick of butter made it not so healthy. Each muffin was 7 points. Ugh! But they taste really good. It is kind of hard to make a muffin one meal though, since I only get 8-9 points per meal. I need to up my fruits and veggies at every meal. I have been good about eating an apple every day. Yesterday I added a little Justin's almond butter to my apples.

I feel good that I already have 21 activity points for the week. In addition to the two workout videos, I played Just Dance 3 for the Kinex with our friends yesterday. I was just as sweaty and out of breath after dancing as I am after a workout DVD. I wonder if the Wii version is as good. It is definitely a fun way to workout because it doesn't seem like a workout.

I think the highlight of the weekend was going to Highland Tap and Burger with friends on Friday night. They have a beer club called Crafty Ladies Beer Club that meets there. One of these days I want to attend one of their events. They collaborated with Oskar Blues to make a chai stout called Chai-No-Mite. I love chai tea and even made a chai porter last year. Even though I hadn't planned on getting a beer, I couldn't pass up a chai beer. It was delicious. I had imagined that when I brewed a chai beer again that I wanted it to be a little more creamy. But this stout wasn't creamy. It had a great chai flavor and aroma. Maybe next fall/winter I will brew a chai stout of my own.

The lowlight of the weekend was grading tests. But that is the life of a teacher. Thanks to Chris for helping me grade. He got to see how ridiculous some of their answers were. I just can't believe that one kid could not correctly identify the anus on a diagram of the digestive system. Come on! Seriously, they laugh every time I say it in class.

Chai-no-mite