i challenge YOU. (and flashback friday).

hello!

i don’t have a lot of time BUT, as usual, i have a lot to say~ so here we go :)

so i was scheduled to get my engagement photos today. BUT~ only in utah on the last day of april.. it’s been snowing.

so, the photos are a no-go. but we are going to go to the jazz game instead, so that’s good! (GO JAZZ!)

we will just have to do our photos another day, when the sun decides to shine.

a special announcement before i tell you about my challenge for you.

foodbuzz has launched a new feature called healthbuzz which is a whole section devoted to healthy living, cooking and exercising!  i am so excited about healthbuzz.  the BEST part about it (for me!) is that i was selected to be a contributing health editor and my posts will be featured in the healthbuzz  section of the foodbuzz website. sweet! go nose around healthbuzz, it just launched today and it looks as though it is going to have a ton of awesome posts, recipes, workouts and information regarding specific health issues.  april’s focus is children’s health.

i am really excited to be a part of this new endeavor!

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okay guys. this is it. i’ve thought up a may challenge for each and every one of you, whether you have a blog or not, you can totally participate!

allow me to introduce the

WAKEUP CALL CHALLENGE!

some of you may know that i have been trying to become a morning person. not even a morning WORKOUT person.. just a morning person in general.  but it is safe to say that i don’t do mornings.  i am always running late because i can’t pull myself out of bed. granted, penelope jane laying on my face may play a role in keeping me under the covers, but for the most part it is my own fault.

SO.. i decided to challenge myself.  every morning in the month of may, i am going to participate in a plyometric wakeup call.  i have been doing a lot of reading, and word on the street is that it’s a good idea to give your heart rate a jumpstart in the morning so you can keep your metabolism revving all day.  i know that i feel more alert and awake after a cardio workout, so i figure even if i just do a few minutes of some type of cardio in the morning it will help me wake up and hopefully jumpstart my body for the day!  i don’t have any cardio equipment at home and i really just wanted something quick and easy that i know i can commit to every day, so i decided to challenge myself to start each and every morning in may with a short-but-sweet plyometric mini workout.

i initially was just going to make this a goal for myself, but i realized that it was something EVERYONE can do. AND.. there will be two awesome prizes given away to the winners! the best part is you can tailor this challenge to suit your ability and stamina.

here are the details:

things you will need:

• a stopwatch/timer
• gym shoes
• a nice open area (about 5’ x 5’ will do)

that’s it! that is all you will need for this challenge.

what you will do:

• every morning, before doing ANYTHING else (well, you can put your contacts in and brush your teeth if you want), hop out of bed (easier said than done), throw on your gym shoes (you can stay in your PJ’s for this!) and grab your stop watch.
• mosey over to your designated floor space and start the timer. do how ever many minutes you desire (but the final minutes will determine one of the prize winners!) of the following plyo moves. try to do each move for a solid minute and then move to another exercise for a minute, and so on. to make it a bit simpler, you can opt to do the moves for 30 seconds each.  you do not have to do ALL these moves, pick and choose the ones you want and alternate through the ones you select:
• high knees
• butt kicks
• mummy kicks
• log jumps
• jumping jacks
• jumprope (with a pretend jumprope)
• run in place
• heisman
• 1-2-3 heisman
• squat jumps
• burpees
• box jumps
• switch kicks
• split squat jumps
• tuck jumps
• downhill skier jumps
• any other plyometric moves you can think of. JUST JUMP AROUND LIKE A CRAZY PERSON.
• here is a video of some plyo moves i like:

• at the end of your morning wakeup call routine, document the number of minutes you completed. keep a running log, you will turn this into me at the end of the month.

how the prizes will be given out:

• one prize will go to the person who racks up the most minutes completed
• one prize will be selected at random out of all participants (through random.org)
• i don’t know what the prizes will be yet, but i PROMISE that they will be epic! no lame stuff here.. only fantastic prizes :)

(cheesy alert) but remember, EVERYONE participating will be a winner because you will have made leaps and bounds toward your physical fitness!

more info:

• i plan to do photos/videos of all the above plyometric moves because i realize a lot of them may be foreign to you. in the mean time, do the ones you know or google the ones you don’t know. you can also watch the video of mine above to see some plyometric moves.
• anyone and everyone can join in the challenge! if you want to join in, please email me at mealsandmoves@gmail.com to let me know you are in.
• i will periodically send emails out to all participants with more information regarding the challenge and updates on how everyone is doing.
• if you have a blog, let other’s know about the challenge by linking back to this post!
• i will create a wakeup call challenge page to track my own progress. just click on the “challenges” page at the top of this page and then select “wakeup call challenge”

i hope that this helps me become a morning person and i also hope that you guys join the challenge with me!  even if you do workout every morning, you can still participate in the challenge because this is something you do immediately when you wake up. do your plyo minutes and then go do you workout.. consider this challenge a warmup!

EMAIL ME NOW IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE CHALLENGE!!

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so.. that’s that. and now i will talk a little bit about the highlights between the last time i posted and today.

highlight 1:

i have been eating a lot of bowls of mixed steamed veggies + cottage cheese + ketchup and it is seriously so good. seriously so not pretty, but really tasty!

highlight 2:

we booked our cake baker/decorator last night! let me just say that wedding cakes are way pricier than i expected, and i feel bad about that for momma b’s sake, but i know that our cake is going to be AWESOME. i am lucky to have such great parents and i am really excited about the designer~ he has awesome ideas and word on the street is his cakes taste incredible!! plus, he is willing to do hand cut fondant houndstooth design on the cake. yipee!

highlight 3:

last night i was at my parents’ house and we cooked stir fry together. i love getting everyone together in the kitchen and using all the burners and making dinner as a joint effort. i think the end result just tastes better :)

   

highlight 4:

i went to a physical therapist about my ankles today! he has me on a plan~ i have a bunch of daily exercises and i have to do a contrast bath of hot to cold to hot to cold water every night.. and i will be treated by him twice a week. i hope that this fixes me right up! i am excited to run PAIN FREE again one day (soon!)

highlight 5:

i tried the cinnamon flavor of simply bar!

great stats, like all the rest!

 

dang, i think this one is my second favorite (next to the lemon flavor).

i thought it would be my fave, but the lemon has it beat! i LOVED the cinnamon, and guess what? IT HAS RAISINS IN IT!

as some of you know, i *loathe* raisins. BUT.. i have eaten a few things with raisins in them lately (like this simply bar, the alliebars, certain cakes and cereals) and i haven’t really minded the raisins! they used to make me gag, but now i didn’t really notice them. no, i am not going to go eat a handful of raisins, but hey~ i might be coming around!  ironically, today is national raisin day!

if you want to learn more about simply bars or purchase them, check out their website! it is an amazing company!!

well, those are the highlights! i wanted to keep them short and sweet since this post is already fairly long. and it is about to get longer!

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time for flashback friday! today’s flashback friday is going to be short and sweet. i was digging through the old photo box and came across a PLETHROA of photo booth photo strips from JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. 

a little tid bit about photo booth photo strips. i’ve always been obsessed with them. love them. whenever i see a booth i beg marshall to get a set of photos (but he usually says no because he hates them).  ever since i was a kid, i’ve wanted to have a photo booth at my wedding. i didn’t care what colors i had or what the dresses looked like or any other details. i wanted a photo booth.  this was back before they became all the rage at weddings, so i was positive it would never be a possibility to ACTUALLY have a photo booth at a wedding (this was back in 1995, folks).  well, fast forward to 2010 and as it turns out everyone and their grandmother rents out photo booths for weddings! super sweet.

needless to say, the very first thing i booked for my wedding was a photo booth.  i am super excited! i had the little logo at the bottom of the photos designed to match our initiations.  wanna see? 

awwww. so that cute little logo will be at the bottom of our photo booth photo strips and each photo session will print out two strips~ one for the guests to take home and one for them to create a scrap book page for me & marshall.  i am super excited!

so, for this week’s flashback i decided to show ya’ll a slew of the junior high photo booth photo strips. i guess some people called junior high middle school? either way, i was around 13 or 14 years old in these. have a good laugh!! (and please ell me you guys flashed the camera like we did, that was totally normal, right??)

THAT’S A WRAP! maybe next time i will show you the few strips i managed to get marshall to take with me :)

did you participate in flashback friday?  i know that monica and carly did! let me know if you did too so i can link back to your post.

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well, that’s all she wrote. i have a busy weekend AND my google reader is inching closer and closer to 400, so i have NO idea what any of you have on tap for the weekend, i hope you all have some fun plans and get to relax a bit! i will try to catch up with you all tomorrow or sunday.

Qs~

1. are there any foods you dislike but are “coming around on” lately? raisins for me. but sweet versions of cottage cheese are still a NO GO!

2. what do you have planned for the weekend? tell me! i love to hear what you are up to :)

xo. janetha b.

p.s. WATERMELON IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW! GO GET SOME!!