Tag Archives: Turbofire

Apr 14 2013

Sunday April 14, 2013: I’m still here

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Lori asked if I got a nice raise with all the extra activities I’m doing at work right now. The answer is no. First my salary is at the top of the salary scale I’m in so I haven’t got a big raise in years. Besides that there is a salary stop in our company. Our country is in a recession and construction and DIY are the businesses that are hit the hardest. There are already some people that have lost their job at our company and I’m just happy to have a job. Besides that I have no complains about my salary, it’s good.

I started working for the manager Communication last Wednesday and Thursday he brought me flowers because he is so happy I am going to help him out. These little things make your day.

 

You know I have a cook book addiction. My favorites are Jamie Oliver, Tana Ramsey (yes the wife of), Ainsley Harriott, Annabel Langbein, Bill Granger and Nigella Lawson.

We have a TV show called College Tour. Every week they have a different guest and the audience exists of students that can ask questions. Last Friday Nigella was the guest.

I love Nigella because she’s a lot like me: she likes to cook but she gains weight easily too. She recently lost weight and they asked how she did it because she loves to cook and eat and her recipes aren’t diet proof. She lost a little weight by eating a little bit less but overall she hasn’t lost that much weight she said. She exercised a lot and her body got stronger and more toned so it looked she lost a lot. This sounded like music to my ears because it’s my way to lose weight right now too.

She also said that being a good cook doesn’t make you a better person. Her experience is that some people think they do and that being a good cook defines you. Cooking is for pleasure and it’s allright if something doesn’t taste as good as you expect, it happens to her too.

Overall I loved the show because I learned about her childhood, things I didn’t know and how she became a writer of cook books.

Workouts:

Cardio Monday

A Turbofire workout: Fire 45. Three rounds of cardio/boxing/plyometric exercises of which I skipped the last one and 3 HITT sessions inbetween. Total time: 33 minutes.

Long run Sunday

Long run is a big word for my run today. My cold did last longer than I expected. I tried running twice last week but had to stop after 5 minutes because I had no lung capacity. I decided to try again today and take it really slow. Goal was to run 5K and finish, time didn’t matter. I took a walk break after 2K and at 3 and 4K. It was hard but I also knew after I finished that I’m almost recovered from my cold.

Positive note: I wear my Summer running outfit for the first time this year!

Stats:
Distance: 5 K / 3.1 miles
Time: 00:36:13

Speed per km: 8.28 km/hour (5.1 miles/hour)

Time per km: 07:15
Weather: drizzling rain, cloudy, little bit of wind, 13C (55 degrees)

Last song on Ipod before finish: Lady Gaga – Born this way

Meals:

Sunday

 

New recipe from a Jamie Oliver book: lamb chops with honey and balsamico and a lasagnette with green asparagus and cherry tomatoes. Very tasty, a keeper.

 

I have been cooking some new recipes the rest of the week but the photo’s didn’t turn out very well.

Yesterday I baked “boterkoek”, the main ingredient is butter. It’s not diet proof or very healthy and I don’t make it very often but it’s so delicious. Both R. and I love it.

Jan 29 2013

Tuesday January 29, 2013: Hooray for the King

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Monday afternoon it was all over the news: our queen would give a TV speech at 7 pm. This could mean only one thing and that she would step down as our queen. Of course we were in front of the TV and indeed she announced that she is going to retire. This means we will get a king: Willem Alexander and a queen: Maxima. The ceremony will take place on April 30 which already is a National holiday. On the same date 32 years ago Beatrix became our queen. I expect that this will be celebrated big in our country.

I was supposed to go out to dinner tonight with our management team. One of the managers has got a new function in our company and we had a “goodbye” dinner planned. But he was sick yesterday and today and my own manager was sick yesterday and not completely fit today. So we cancelled it and will do it another time.

Workouts:

Yesterday morning I did a run. Some parts of the bike path were a bit slippery because it was frozen but it didn’t really slow me down. This was a good run, nothing to complain about, everything went well.

Stats:
Run-walk ratio: 5-7-7-5 minutes, 2 minutes walking inbetween (24 minutes running, 8 minutes walking)

Weather: dry, windy, 3C (37 degrees)

Distance: 4.4 K / 2.7 miles

Time: 00:31:29

Last song on Ipod before finish: James Taylor – You’ve got a friend

This morning I did a Turbofire workout. Turbofire is a kind of body combat workout and I like it a lot although it’s sometimes hard to keep up with all the moves. But I’m doing the best I can.

Total time: 44 minutes.

Outfits:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Weight Watchers review:

The program doesn’t feel like a diet. I eat much better than I have the past 2 years. I always said I already ate healthy but now it turns out I ate too much at meals, had too many snacks and alcohol and didn’t have much variation with my breakfast and lunches. Since I started WW and apparently eat more healthy my IBS problems are completely gone. I’m eating WW recipes for 2 more weeks, after that I’m going to add recipes from my cook books again but still most of the meals will be WW recipes, especially breakfast and lunch.

Weight progress:

Weight January 1: 82 kg / 180.7 lbs

Weight January 31: 79.2 kg / 174.6 lbs

Weight loss this month: -2.8 kg / 6.1 lbs

As a slow loser when it comes to weight, this is huge for me and I’m very happy with the result.

Dec 4 2012

Tuesday December 4, 2012: Mishmash

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Daily stuff:
Last week I heard that Bruce Springsteen was coming back to Hollandnext Summer for a concert and of course we want to go. Saturday ticket sale started at 10 am and I was ready at 9.55 am. At 10.01 am I had tickets for us. Later that day I read on FB that a lot of people had trouble buying tickets and had to wait for hours to be able to buy them. I considered myself lucky that I got them so fast. The concert is in a park on June 22nd next year.

This might be fun to watch for you: if you ever wonder where I live and how my village looks like, watch the video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTGLNiXbIdE

Yesterday a real life soap about a few people that live in my village started on Dutch television. I have seen some of the people sometimes but I don’t know them because I don’t participate active in the community. I wasn’t very impressed with the program either but R. likes it. The comment is in Dutch of course but it gives a view shots of where I live. The total video is only 52 seconds so it doesn’t take much of your time to watch it.

Workouts:

That akward moment when you are only a few minutes in your run and you feel like you have to go the bathroom. At first you keep on going and hope it will go away. But a few minutes later you know you have to get home asap if you don’t want to get in bigger trouble. This happened to me last Wednesday at my morning run.
With all my stomach problems, this was the first time I had to stop a run and go home because I had to go to the bathroom and I didn’t like it at all. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

This morning I did a Turbofire workout: HITT 25. I like the HITT workouts, they are intense but short. I had planned to do a 30 minute sculpt session after this but I overslept and didn’t have time to do it.
Total time: 25 minutes.

Outfits:

Today’s outfit

 

Dinner:

Monday dinner

Endive with mashed potatoes, bacon, onion, herb cheese and walnuts.

Tuesday dinner

A recipe I saw on a cooking show on the Dutch cooking channel: 24 Kitchen. Chicken with garlic, onion, spices, yogurt and herbs out of the oven, baked potatoes and mashed green peas with mint. I loved it, R. wasn’t that enthousiastic.

TV shows I watched last week

True Blood, The Walking Dead, The Kennedy’s, Mad Men, Private Practice, Downton Abbey, Once upon a time, Revenge, Rookie Blue, Game of Thrones.

Season 3 of Downton Abbey finally started here and I love this show. It’s easy going and I love the English aristocrat environment.

Movies I’ve seen last week

The Hangover part II

I liked part 1 better because of the surprise element but still this was a nice movie to watch on a relaxing Friday night.

Sint

A Dutch horror movie. We don’t have Santa Clause, we have Sinterklaas on December 5th. It’s the same principle: giving gifts. This movie was about bad Sinterklaas. This one was murdered in the 14th century and every December 5th when it is full moon his ghost came back to kill as many people as possible. It was scary sometimes and an okay movie, especially for a Dutch movie.