Day 14: Dancing Queen

Mistress of Many Moves, here....

Delighting in my new-found Zumba dance-spiration!  I tried a different YMCA lastnight and found myself the only lily white in a sea of beautiful black and brown.

I mean, the other 45 women in this class could have been Beyonce's back up dancers.  Totes.

I was almost as awkward as Taylor Swift was at the Grammy's rocking out to a rap song.  White Girl Can't Dance Productions, haaaaaaaay!!!

Nevertheless, I still bumbled bumped and grinded my way through 60 minutes of non-stop hip hop/Latin inspired hip shaking.

This chick came up to me at the end of class and said, "You did great!  We always give first timers a free pass when they don't know the moves..."

Um, yeah.

I'll prolly need a few more of those free passes.

But what's important is that I got through it and had a great workout.  I was exhausted when I got home!  A couple changes I'm making:

1. Cut out the evening cup o' Joe.
2. Alarm is set for 5:15am to do mat/MS work.

Surprisingly, I'm loving the morning workout.  It forces me up early enough to get the whole sequence done and then have some down time to get my day started without a massive rush.  My entire demeanor feels calmer and I genuinely feel more centered. This does mean twice daily workouts (most of the time.)  I'm packing a change of clothes to do my Zumba workout after 5pm.  (No morning classes are offered at the YMCA's in my area.)

Tonight and Thursday I have dinner planned out, so I'll be doing Zumba Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun this week.  I figure 5 x 5 classes at 60 minutes a class is pretty darn good.

I'm definitely hungrier.  Like, a LOT hungrier. I scarfed down 2 huge chicken thighs (bone-in, skin on) and a chicken wing for lunch today....but no breakfast, so that might explain the tummy rumbles.

Lastnight's dinner was epic:

Bacon wrapped jalapeño popper chicken bombs.  OMG. They are the bomb.  Low-carb heaven, y'all.

The recipe is on my What's on Parker's Plate site.

Scrumptious.

Happy Workouts!  

Love,

The Mistress

xxoo

Day 13: Bootcamp Re-boot and Dance-spiration

I feel like I'm finally actually STARTING bootcamp now.  The first third of bootcamp has been clouded with sickness and an overall blah.  Bootcamp Blah pretty much sums it up.  Beyond the illness that snuffed out my workouts last week, I had chalked up my overall blahness to the fact that this is my 3rd time doing TAM bootcamp.  Maybe I was just over it.  Been there done that, kinda over it.  Not feeling challenged or inspired.  Especially in the cardio portion.

Enter Zumba.

I've been wanting to try a Zumba class forever.  But, we all know White Girl Can't Dance I can be a little awkward on the dance floor.  I've hid my bad dancing in umpteen living room cardio sessions, but in a quest for renewed dance-spiration, I decided to try a free class at the YMCA this weekend.  There were about 15 of us in a giant room facing a mirrored wall-- ranging from a college kid to an elderly lady in her 70's.

When the class started, I suddenly realized how much I have missed actually having a large space to workout with an ability to see what I'm doing.  The mirror was key to feeling like I was "performing"-- as Tracy puts it.  In my house, I had 3 Home Depot mirrors lined up, but it was hard to really see myself the whole time.  Plus, it's easy to justify stopping and starting when you're home alone doing cardio.  The phone rings, the dogs are barking, the clothes are buzzing in the dryer....distractions abound.

But this class solved all of those issues.  The music was awesome, the instructor had great energy and I actually picked up the choreographed moves pretty quickly, thanks to the sequences I know from previous TAM dance cardio.  Bottom line:  I'm hooked!

I signed up for a membership so I can take regular classes each week!  I really think the discipline of showing up for a group class is what I need to keep doing consistent cardio.  Plus, what feels like 3 hours in my living room to eek out 20-30 minutes of bad jumping around and dodging dog toys and 2 pitbulls trying to get my attention was a huge contrast to the class-- which was 60 minutes of non-stop moving which surprisingly, flew by.  I was totally sweaty and completely energized by the end.  I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror while I was doing some hip shaking Latin inspired fabulousness, and I was wearing a big 'ol smile.

The experience has completely re-energized my workout and I'm counting down to my 6:30pm class tonight!

If you're not familiar with Zumba, here's a youtube video of a routine-- it's similar to a lot of Tracy's cardio dance moves, with a little more hip shaking!

I also managed to get up at 5:15am this morning to do my mat work and it felt SOOOO good to get it over with before my day started.  I'm going to try to make it habit to get up early for the mat portion.

Happy workouts, lovelies!

Love,

The Mistress
xxoo