Lemon Cupcake Life: Health & Travel

January came with a reinvigoration in my fitness.  The last week of December, I was able to go to the gym with my husband and son, which got me out the door and was a good routine for us over winter break.   Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash Wednesday, January 15 Treadmill Walk 8 min 0.28 mi Leg Press: Squat & Calf Raise 90 lbs, 90 lbs, 100 lbs Leg Extension 70 lbs, 75 lbs, 75 lbs Leg Curl 70 lbs, 70 lbs, 70 lbs Abductor/Adductor Inner Thigh: 50 lbs, 50 lbs, 50 lbs Outer Thigh: 70 lbs, 55 lbs, 55 lbs Core/Posterior Chain Fire Hydrant (10x1) Bridges (10x3) Donkey Kick (10x1) Straight Let Lift (10x1) Plank (10 sec) Thursday, January 16 Elliptical 0.63 mi 8 min Core/Posterior Chain Bridges (10x3) Fire Hydrant (10x1) Donkey Kick (10x1) Straight Leg Lift (10x1) Plank (10 sec) Saturday, January 18 Walking  13 min 0.52 mi Lat Pulldown 50 lb, 70 lb, 70 lb Shoulder Press 30 lb, 30 lb, 10 lb Seated Row 30 lb, 35 lb, 40 lb Chest Press 50 lb, 55 lb, 60 lb Run 7 min 0.47 mi ...

2024 was another year of transition.   Transitioning back to who I want to be and refocusing on what I choose to focus on.  One of those focuses being on fitness.  I love working out, and have a huge sense of accomplishment afterwards.  Especially when I'm working out when I didn't want to or making progress that I'd been working towards, but had originally felt out of reach.  With refocusing this blog on workouts & travel, I'm going to pull in my content from other locations.  My future workout logs will be on this blog.  Linked below are my workout logs for 2024 that I had been posting on Medium. Photo by Dominik Martin on Unsplash May 2024 Running Log June 2024 Running Log July 2024 Running Log July Workout Log August Workout Log September Workout Log October Workout Log November Workout Log December Workout Log

There are many ways that people describe 'health' or 'being healthy.' 1. Absence of sickness or injury Photo by Morgan Sessions on Unsplash    According to Oxford Languages, the first definition of health is "the state of being free from illness or injury."  While this is what people seem to refer to when they say they're glad they, "have their health," it's not necessarily all encompassing.   It's a bit of an over simplification and leaves out mental well being. 2. Someone's looks     When people describe someone else's health, non-medical professionals tend to use visual references to make assumptions.  People bring up size, coloring, visual injuries, and tend to ignore anything not visual, like mental health.      3. Mental & Physical well being     The second definition of Health listed in Oxford Languages is "a person's mental or physical condition."  While this is far more advanced than encompasses and leg...

In no particular order, these are the places in the world I would most like to travel. 1. Scotland I would love to go to Scotland. So much. Ever since I started watching Outlander when it was added to Netflix, I have been obsessed. I didn't google anything while watching the show initially because I knew there were more seasons, and I didn't want to be spoiled for future episodes or seasons. I am notorious for googling location, actors, and backstory, while watching a show or movie. When I started rewatching with my husband, I let myself start to google--historical references especially. As a historical fiction obsessed viewer, I find it interesting how accurate a show is able to be, so I wanted to look up all the events and people in Outlander . While looking up filming locations, I was also finding that Harry Potter had many Scottish filming locations. It should have been obvious because Hogwarts is presumed to be in Scotland, but it hadn't had any obviously similar loc...

I have been using fitness apps on some sort of apple device since I got my iPad mini in 2012. I didn't have a smart phone yet, so the first fitness apps were initially downloaded to the iPad. Some of those I still use. Here's a run down of my most used fitness apps on my phone. (Side note, most used doesn't necessarily mean best. They just seem to be what I have found most useful throughout life phases.) Runkeeper Initially, I used this as my running log in college. Since then, I don't run much, but I do more walking and bike rides. I like to use this to record my cardio and weight tracking. I like the goal setting, my stats, and shoe tracker are all parts of the app I have used heavily at some point. As a running coach, I also like to use to find exact distances of team routes using GPS because the distances are generally the most consistent compared to other distance apps. Fitbit The first Fitbit I had was one my mom got from work. It was a Fitbit Charge, and I used i...

  Repost from my old, now deleted, blog from July 12, 2021. While a lot of my life has changed since this was originally posted, I felt it was important to not lose my original thoughts and original purpose. I have been putting this off for years. Okay, I'm not sure about years, but at least a year. Everything I've read about a first post just says to write one. Despite not having done much writing in the past few years, I have always said I'm a better writer than speaker, so why do I spend all my time talking?  In teaching, there's so little room for opinions or my other interests. Teaching makes up a small portion of my interests, but the majority of my life. It's making my life feel smaller, instead of bigger like the variety of my interests. As a teacher, I'm trying to expose my students to life outside the classroom and expand their world. However, each day of teaching has made my world and myself feel smaller. Now, this isn't a super peppy first post, ...