Red letter start to the weekend

Yesterday, I started getting back on a productive kick. I woke up and immediately knocked out my Insanity workout (review to come soon!), and then got cleaned up to go into work. Before heading to the office though, I met up with Lysa of Chopt for an interview. Chopt was one of my favorite lunchtime spots when I was down in DC, and they also have locations in NYC – so glad I didn’t have to give that up! While we’re talking about reviews to come, expect a full review of Chopt to come this week – perfect for all you health-conscious eaters.

After lunch, I headed into the office, where in addition to taking a really interesting course on customer experience trends in 2010 and 2011, I got some great news: I got staffed to the project of a lifetime! I am so excited. I won’t start for a few weeks (which means I get a bit more time to catch up on all kinds of NYC stuff), though I’ll have some research to do in the meantime, and I think it’s one of the most interesting project I’ve ever gotten to work on – it’s something that’s going to completely change the industry it’s in. SO exciting! As far as location, I get to be in DALLAS!!! One of my favorite cities in the country. Any Dallas readers out there? Let’s meet up!

While I did end up going out to dinner with a coworker after happy hour, I still made it to bed by 11pm – perfect Friday night for me! I woke up on Saturday feeling well-rested (though of course a little bloated from beer). However, being I was so well-rested, I decided to get my Insanity workout done quickly – as in, immediately upon waking. I was really nervous about this one, because it was a repeat of the first video (which nearly killed me), but I actually ended up completing it without an inordinate amount of difficulty. Woo hoo, I actually got stronger in just a week! As a reward for my hard work, I treated myself to my new favorite breakfast, a recipe from Cinch by Cynthia Sass. It’s a chocolate pear ginger smoothie, and is easy as anything: toss one small pear, 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup milk (I subbed 1/2 cup cottage cheese, which also upped the protein), and 1/8 cup chocolate chips into a blender, add water/ice as needed, and blend. So delicious and surprisingly filling as well!

At 10:30am, I retired back to bed to enjoy some TV catchup, but by 12pm I had to climb back out of bed again – and not for anything inconsequential. I had told my sorority sister Lori I’d go to a Zumba class with her on the UWS, so it was now time for workout #2! It was surprisingly sweat-inducing, and it felt great to get out and about and feel like a total rockstar for working out not once but twice by midafternoon. I felt like such a champ! Plus, the Zumba class was awesome – while I was new to the class, I picked up the choreography very quickly and the instructor actually told the “newbies” (seemingly not realizing I was one of them) to watch me if they couldn’t get the choreography down.

After Zumba, we headed to lunch at one of my favorite spots, Hampton Chutney, where I got an incredible grilled portobello/spinach/roasted onion dosa. So delicious! Lori is getting her master’s in nutrition at Columbia, and for her thesis, she’s planning/implementing a program to help teach nutrition in NYC public schools… kind of like Jamie Oliver in real life! We talked a lot about her program and the challenges of it, and then got into discussion of my appearance on Friday. That’s right, on Friday, I’m going to be speaking to a few classes about my running adventures and acting as a role model for goal setting and a healthy lifestyle. Cool, huh? I think I’m going to focus on the goal setting aspect most, and base the speech around my favorite quote of all time, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” (Thank you, Walt Disney!)

Post-lunch, we walked down to my apartment instead of taking the subway (that’s right, we both practice what we preach), stopping at the farmer’s market on the way home so I could pick up some fresh mussels for dinner. But after all that exercise, I felt totally entitled to just sit around my apartment the rest of the day/night… and it was glorious 🙂 While I had initially planned to go out that night, a plea from my friend John to come run at least a few laps of The Easter Marathon gave me the green light to stay in, rest up, and indulge in some tasty focaccia with my mussels. Last minute carb loading! Now I just hoped that he was right about the rain holding off… I do not want to run through mud and muck up there!