TA Meta and everything else - Fall / Winter 2021

[Buzzer]

Classical Stretch Back To Jamaica an arms and posture one... DONE
Classical Stretch Back to Jamaica waist one.... DONE!

I don't know the names of them, but they were both amazing! I remember doing a lot of Miranda and getting some back pain so I stopped. I did these, the first in a long time, and I loved them!!! So much stretching for my torso which is what I need. I loved it so much! I am going to add her back into my rotation. I don't know how, maybe adding one onto cardio day and doing shorter cardio, or doing weights, then cardio then stretch... but I will do it!!

So one thing this illness has done is I am sleeping like a champ. I used to sleep 4-5 hours a night, now I am sleeping 8-9. I didn't wake up until 6:30 this morning! I am drinking my coffee, and it's 9 minutes until 7, the time I usually workout. I think I will push back my workout today and do it later. Maybe get LB started on some school then workout. I wake up through the night and check the time, but then I go right back to sleep. I don't think I have ever slept like this!! It's great! Even if it's messing with my workouts!

We are only doing school today, which is a much needed day. Yesterday in CC I realized how far behind we are with sickness then GWL. we definitely need some time to catch up again. So I will get her started on some stuff and go do my workout. Probably a basic again today, just getting back into it!

LB and I were talking yesterday about Westernaires. Here I was thinking we would do one year and be done, and I was telling her about her friends Mom saying "That's us in a few years!" when we saw the volunteers doing things for the show. It was at that moment I went from "just do year 1" to "oh man, I may be in this for the long haul." We'll see!

Eventmom: I feel for the long haulers too. One of my friends' husbands I just found out, who got sick at the same time as us and was vaccinated, has blood clots and is still sick!!! She has taken him to the hospital twice and he keeps getting sent home "due to covid" and so she is just supposed to "keep an eye on him". They put him on a medicine for the clots, she said he is doing somewhat better. I don't get it!!!! Very random.

Hi Ebianco! Hope you are getting through this last stressful time and getting in some good workouts!!

[eventmom]

Karen Voight Strength

so I switched to this to get in more weight work but I'm sort of blah on it. Today I thought, should have done squeeze stronger for a week. Next week probably back to barre then maybe squeeze stronger.

buzzer - so sorry to hear about your friend, that sounds terrible! lol on westernaires. We did piano lessons, violin lessons, pony club, band and that's about all we had anything for her to participate. Pony club and band were the biggest commitments but I'm glad we were able to do those things for her. Partly for her and partly because it's kind of nice to have things like that to look back on. Hope you got in your planned workout. CS is great for restarting/recovery!

hi ebiano!

[Buzzer]

Firm Tough Tape 2... DONE!

I like this one! I see all this demand for Tough Tape, since it's OOP, but I didn't like TT. But this one is fun! There is no aerobics, all weight training, but that's what I like. No abs too. I know at the time they wanted you to put in a "5 day abs" workout, but I don't do that. I just made sure to hold in my tummy like Ttapp since I knew there were no abs. Two sets of step ups though, right in a row! That was hard. I was getting slower and shakier at the end. Didn't help that I grabbed my 12's for my heavy weight in this workout! I did it though!

My inner thighs are sore today! I am surprised, but I shouldn't be. These muscles missed the whole month of October. Now they are having to work again and are protesting.

I'm still sleeping like a champ. Anywhere from 7 1/2 hours to 9 hours! It's crazy. Good though. I need the sleep! Even when I'm healthy, I should be sleeping like that. maybe that'll be something that continues after I am 100%. Right now, I feel about 97% good!

We got lots of school done yesterday, and did back to back karate. I am so far behind on taking her to class between being sick and losing two days this week to our trip. LB was wary of two in a row, but ended up being so excited afterwards. She said that stretching is usually uncomfortable for her, but doing back to back classes the stretching was easy and she felt more flexible on the second class! She asked to do back to back more often. I told her we are gonna have to since we have so many classes to make up!! She did really good though. I prepared her that we missed so much she may not graduate, but then I was talking to the lady that was helping her in both classes and she said "I'm not worried about that at all. She's got it!" so mostly it will probably be making up the time.

Today is a potentially slower day too, which I will love. We only have school, a birthday party, and Urban Air. We potentially have a friend we are going to pick up and go to a park with at 1, however that's up in the air right now. They are leaving for two weeks (MIL passed away and they have to do funeral and deal with the house), so we want to see them as much as possible before they go. So if they say they can meet at 1, we are doing it. They are the family we hang out with the most, so it's very sad! We will miss them.

Today I am not ready for cardio, so I will either do a classical stretch, an essentrics, or my favorite... angles lines and curves. My cardio is not at all where it was! But I'm working on it. It's never good after taking time off, it seems like that's the first thing that leaves me.

Eventmom; Your daughters activities sound almost identical to LB's! HA! Except instead of piano we do karate, and swim instead of band. But we do violin and horse so I guess we do half the same activities! Swim doesn't take much time though. Thank goodness, because if she keeps going in westernaires, we will have a competition for time between them and karate! It's gonna get more crazy for sure.

Ebianco: Hope you are getting through the stressful time at work!

[eventmom]

KV sweat - I know I won't get rid of this set because I cannot replace it but I'm so blah on it. It's okay but I'm really more into some of the barre/TA work out there.

buzzer - sleep! sounds lovely! I took a look at a clip for ALCII it looks good, I can see why it's working for you. I've read that cardiovascular fitness is the fastest to obtain and to lose when you take time off, so you'll probably get it back pretty fast as you rebuild your strength.

hi ebianco!

[ebianco]

Hi everyone,

I started my workout day Wednesday with Cathe ICE Boot Camp Total Body. The last time I did this one on a weekday, I decided it was too intense. But on Wednesday it was perfect!! The whole workout is designed with a cardio, lower body, upper body, then core move and repeat for several circuits. The cardio all uses the step and is drill based.

Thursday I had to take an unplanned rest day. Work has been extremely stressful, WAY worse than it should be, and it isn't even the work itself but certain people. This person is so contentious that I have developed a physical reaction every time I have to talk to him. It all came to a terrible head on Wednesday with a heated argument that I am still trying to recover from. Thankfully I slept better on Thursday night.

Today I was off work so that offsets the horrible stress I am still feeling. I did Fitprime/Kickbutt Push Pull the new one with Heidi and Kimberly, although in this case the original is almost exactly the same workout. Of course working out is great and I love this one, but it only slightly alleviated me from my stress.

Eventmom Yeah I like the Lacey version of the Callanetics Express workout!

Buzzer I totally agree that Tough Tape 2 is much better than the original. It just has a lot more variety from so many different workouts. Tough Tape is basically just Tortoise but without the ballroom aerobics it seems. I know both Tough Tapes don't have any abs but like you said you can either add them, or just engage them so they get worked the whole time.

[Buzzer]

Essentrics waist trimmer and arms... DONE!
Essentrics legs... DONE to the barre segment!

So this is the Sahra one, not Miranda. There are two workouts on the DVD, and I did almost both of them. I ended at the barre because I was getting some texts and it took up part of my time so I ran out of time.

Although I remember not liking Sahra to the point of not getting any other essentrics workout, this was a good workout! She is much better at cuing than Miranda is. Lots of stretching for the abs, and the ab segment was actually pretty good! The arms weren't killer, and overall I enjoyed the workout. I still think she tries to be a bit too.... I don't know... updated? Snobby? More uptight than her Mom? It just reminds me of those movies where young hip people are in a trendy apartment all meticulously decorated, drinking martinis and talking like they are more sophisticated than they are. It was a good workout though.

I enjoyed the leg part too, although I only did maybe 10-15 minutes of it. My inner thighs were aching from the basics workout I did before, so I didn't go full on this one. But it was still OK.

We ended up not meeting the friend at 1, so we got more school done. LB had a birthday party to go to at 3:30 (homeschoolers scheduling parties! HA!) so she did that and we went to Urban Air. That place was a madhouse! It was so loud and constantly kids running by. There must have been 7 or 8 birthday parties going on around us! It was fun! I'm glad to see they are still doing OK through all of this. We got home late (after 9pm) so I just went to bed.

Today we have trunk or treat and kids night out, so another busy day but lots of costume wearing for LB, so she's happy!! I woke up and looked at the house and thought "I really need to work on this again." So I am going to try to fit some house picking up and cleaning in today.

Ebianco: Ugh. I've had those co-workers. I usually try to hide from them. I don't think I have ever gotten to the point of losing it on them, but I'm sure I've come close. I'm more of a "say something snarky and run" personality. Usually when they are standing there, trying to figure out if I was serious, I'm gone. HA! I'm sorry it got to the point that there was an argument. That's difficult at work! Nothing like adding more stress onto the stress you already had

I have the Cathe ICE workouts! I don't think I have ever done one though. I apparently liked the idea of them though. I should put them on my list to do! Once I feel completely recovered and get my cardio back... because Cathe is HARD!

I guess I made up for the "no abs" in TT2, by doing the essentrics. I love Firm abs, but I suppose when they don't put abs in, there are so many other ways to do them! I did love this. I should get a backup of it because the only copy I have is the one I got on eBay years ago from "Thailand" and it's a copy. So far it still works, but I want to make sure I have a backup of the good Firms I do a lot just in case!

Eventmom: I believe it! (that cardio is the first to go but fastest to come back) I need to work on my cardio for it to come back though. HA! I guess in a way I am by doing the Firms, however on my off days from Firm I am doing easier cardio-wise workouts. I will get there, it just stinks until I do. Cardio is what I hate the most, so trying to rebuild it just makes me cranky. I hate being out of breath.

[ebianco]

Hi everyone,

Today I did Cathe Flex Train, a standalone workout that is total body strength with a mix of metabolic combined exercises, unweighted high rep legs with sliders, and definitely some higher weight focused work for each body part, plus abs. I definitely was huffing and puffing in this one. And the music is a lot of recognizable pop music (with different words), which kept me motivated. Definitely a great DVD.

Eventmom waves!

Buzzer It's tough because the person with contention is in my chain of command. I hope that it can quickly be smoothed over, I was trying to be helpful but now I just have zero interest in trying anymore. So I'm just going to keep my head down and just focus on the work itself, and be fastidious about being professional and cordial so there can be no criticism. Hopefully that will do the trick

It's funny about Sahra, she does not portray the same warmth as her mom although I like that she's not as chatty. I don't tend to do her workouts as much simply because they are longer than the CS episode. I should really do more Essentrics and/or CS!! I know I would benefit if I did them more, but never seem to want to pull them out.

[eventmom]

KV sleek - so this week was Karen's Sleek Essentials. This set is ok, not great. I won't get rid of it because it would be hard to replace.

ebianco - the express callanetics was nice the right number of exercises for each body part. Sorry about your job, the one good thing about covid is that I almost never interact with anyone at work. It's not always a good thing - it would be nice to have more camaraderie but it's better than having to gird up for conflict daily.

buzzer - That sounds like one of Sahra's first workouts. I honestly think she is just not that comfortable on the camera at the time. She is more relaxed in later workouts. It's a good workout! You'll get your cardio back!

[Buzzer]

Fat Blaster (?) or Burner... DONE!

This was a Firm Basic workout. I used 12's for lunges and squats, and sadly when she did the biceps part I was holding 8's so I used those. It was a bit too light, even with contracting through the whole thing. Overall it was a good workout though! They alternated between weights and cardio, so although the cardio was slow and easy it was also easy to bring it up a notch! Definitely a "learning" workout, becuase they would do all the steps super slow then speed them up. It was just what I needed though. It also made me realize that the basics still have a good place in my collection and I need to use them more often!

Yesterday we did the trunk or treat, had a few hours at home where DH was digging a huge trench.... 6 feet deep... for our water line for the garage. He rented an excavator for the weekend and spent the day in it. So LB learned how to drive the excavator (sitting on DH's lap) and she spent the time driving with him. She had a blast!! I ended up taking a nap for an hour or so because I am a championship sleeper, then she had kids night out. We went to dinner with the parents of the three kids down the street, which was fun! We haven't seen them in a while because of all this sick. Apparently she had a really bad respiratory illness too, that wasn't covid. So she was sick at the same time. Hers sounds like it was way worse than mine though! She ended up at Urgent Care twice and had to go to the hospital as an outpatient for breathing treatments and a chest x-ray. Crazy stuff!

Today I will probably nap... since I woke up kinda early... then we are meeting a few families from the 'hood and going back to that neighborhood we went to last year for t or t'ing where it was like a movie set. Kids everywhere, all the houses giving out candy, and so much fun!!!

Eventmom: I was looking at the essentrics workouts available on DVD, and realized I also have class of 2012. I should find that and do it. I just did a quick look for my classical stretch/essentrics DVD's, and I should have looked more! I remember not liking Sahra and tuning out on the VF new DVD talk, but perhaps I bought more than I thought I did before realizing she wasn't for me! HA! So today I am going to look for other CS/Ess I have.
So I had looked into the Sleek Essentials, and now I'm glad I didn't get them! I don't remember why I didn't, but I am glad I didn't!

Ebianco: conflict at work always stinks. It's not like you can just walk away, catch your breath and avoid the person. Nope. You have to see them the majority of your day every day. That's always the hard part! I hate offices anyhow. However I suppose that there will always be conflict, and I think you are doing the right thing to just keep your head down and focus on your work. I'm sorry your stressful situation just got more stressful

[Buzzer]

Essentrics Class of 2012... DONE!

I did both 30 minute workouts, the torso and arms, and also the legs. It was good. It wasn't great, but good. I was debating whether that was a canal or a pool outside behind them the whole time! I was convinced at various times either way.

A little more stretching, a bit more Miranda-like, and I liked the abs. I do like how much CS and essentrics stretch out the abs too. So I guess I liked this workout. I did NOT like her final stretch where she would stretch the right leg, then the left. Then go back to the right, then the left. Then turn back and do the right, now lets go back and do the left.

That's OK if you are sitting down on the floor stretching, but doing it standing where you had to keep walking around the chair was ridiculous. So I ended annoyed. Plus she was wearing black pants, and whether it was the pants or the camera angles, I couldn't tell which leg she had on the chair and whether she was rotating the same arm as that side, or the opposite. By the second side, I realized I was doing it wrong. Oh well. It was just hard to see.

I get the impression she and Miranda are very concerned with the types of people they know, because Sahra on this made sure we knew not only were her backups dancers, but they are ON TV. Miranda with her Athletes in the Athletic stretch seemed kinda braggy too. I am not impressed by either though, so maybe that's why. If you are on TV (or movies), it makes me less likely to get to know you. I just have no interest in those kinds of egos.

So, it was a good workout, had some things I did not like at all, but lots of things I did like. So it is one I will do again.

Yesterday DH took LB to a church we have visited before, and they were having a trunk or treat that afternoon. So at 2 we took her there. It was chilly out (maybe 40 degrees?) and LB came up to me about 10 minutes in shaking. She was freezing! DH ran to get her a coat from the car, and when she turned around so I could un-velcro her costume, she did not have a shirt on underneath!!! So we quick put on her jacket and warmed her up. Poor kid! So we went home after, and I made sure we had extra clothes, gloves, hand and foot warmers, and shirts for trick or treating.

We went to the same place we did last year. It's like another dimension when you get there. The police have the highway blocked off so people can cross, and it's a crush of people! It was a BLAST. Last year we were there in the dark the whole time, this year we got there when it was still light. It was a BLAST. Just a great time trick or treating, and the kids had a blast. It was nice to see our friends too.

Hope you guys had a good weekend and lots of trick or treaters!!