Last weekend was my birthday weekend and it was filled with so much delicious food and wine! This whole month (like every other summer) I've kind of let myself relax a lot in terms of eating and working out. I've really been enjoying life and eating all the good things. I've also been a little less strict about my workouts because I started to feel a bit burnt out with everything going on. Going into this new month I'm going to try to be a little bit better about my eating habits and try to switch up my workouts a little bit. 

Buck's County Wineries

Last Saturday we took a little tour of the Buck's County wineries - such a cheap and fun thing to do! We stopped by Rose Bank Winery, Wycombe (my personal favorite), Buckingham Farms and Rushland Ridge Winery. 

Wycombe Winery was my favorite overall because of the delicious wines and complimentary food. They had this olive garlic dip that was so tasty I've already re-created it at home and it's already gone. Rushland Ridge was a close favorite, mostly because of our expectations. We read this Yelp review before going there:

This review was a blessing in disguise - we all love dogs, 'abundantly poured' tastings sounded pretty great to us, and 'personal residence' sounded like a laid back and relaxing environment! And then we went and were greeted by the most adorable black lab, we got to pour our tastings on our OWN, and the laid back feeling was everything. Melissa from Conshohocken, you suck. AND my favorite wine I tried all day was from this winery. I thought it was "up to snuff," Melissa. RUDE. 

Recent Eats

Anyway, here's what I've been eating lately...lots of eggs, salads, chicken, beef, the usual!! 

Breakfast of eggs, spinach, tomato, banana and peaches with peanut butter.

An egg, spinach, avocado, Sriracha, and a banana with peanut butter! 

A delicious lunch salad with romaine, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, castelvetrano olives (best olives ever), basil, a burger and my homemade olive garlic spread from Wycombe Winery (told you I made it).  

Another hearty salad this time with avocado, feta and chicken made in the crockpot. 

I've been making whole chickens lately either in the crockpot or in the oven and it's the best. Such a cheap way to have delicious protein all week. Look at that beauty. I've been saving the carcasses to make homemade bone broth. No food goes wasted! 

We went down to DC for a wedding this past weekend and all healthy eating goes out the door when on vacation - here's a pic of us devouring a Mortadella and Fontina pizza in the car...

And a pic from the wedding to capture that I do in fact sometimes shower...

Workouts

Monday - Unite Fitness class - I'm going to start coaching group fitness classes at Unite so I try to pop in when I can! This workout was great. All of the workouts focus on 30 minutes of cardio, 30 minutes of strength circuits and 15 minutes of yoga! 

Tuesday - 20 mins incline treadmill walking + a Thrive strength workout

Wednesday - Thrive strength workout. Butt was sore from this one - lots of split squats! I did this workout with one of my clients and it was fun to push each other! 

Thursday - taught 60 minute spin + Thrive team workout:

3x: Overhead slams, broad jumps and bear crawls 

3x: 10 KB swings, 3/3 KB snatches, 5 KB Goblet squats, 5 push-ups

10 min: one lower, one upper and one core (moving with purpose) I did jump squats, chin-ups and weighted sit-ups. 

We then ended with a nice little burst of spin that I taught! I don't know if these guys had fun with it but I certainly did ;)

Friday - Hill sprints with my co-workers. We only did about 20 minutes (if that) and my hamstrings were sore ALL WEEKEND!!! 

Saturday and Sunday - Heavy lifting of the fork to my mouth. Best workouts all week. 

Happy Tuesday!! Hope everyone's week is off to a great start. Running to work now to train clients for the rest of the night :)

How was your weekend?

Wineries or breweries?

What was your favorite meal all week?

It's been a while!! 

Where did we leave off?! I'm a bit frustrated that I haven't been able to keep up with this blog as much as I would have liked to this summer, but you know what? Life gets really freaking crazy sometimes!! I had next to no motivation to keep up with social media for the past month for a couple reasons. For one, creating recipes gets pretty expensive. Michael and I try to keep our grocery bill under $100 every week for the both of us, and there's not much wiggle room there for me to experiment with super cool ingredients. I'm starting to think however, that this could be more of an opportunity to create BUDGET friendly recipes with minimal ingredients. Aside from that, I had to go home for a while because some unexpected news hit my family like a truck. Everything is going to be totally a-okay, but cancer fucking sucks. My mom is as strong as a horse though, so I know this will be a bump in the road. I mean look at her, she's a boss. 

I've also been absolutely loving my job. It's a little physically exhausting so whenever I'm home I veg out instead of turn my brain on to write and do work (this needs to change). Along with my job as a Thrive trainer, I've been able to pick up some more Body Cycle spin classes and I will be starting at another studio, Unite Fitness real soon here! I'm psyched. I always know I made the right choice by switching to fitness full time when I wake up and have to decide which gym I want to train at that day...HA. Totally kidding, there's so much more to it (although it is a pretty sweet perk!)

Speaking of, last week I had such an awesome opportunity to be in a promo shoot for Idalis Velazquez's (@ivfitness on the IG) All In 18 Women's Health DVD! It was SUCH a blast. It was so lovely to meet her and see her in action! I also loved being able to see what goes into making a short video. SO MUCH. I finally kind of understand what my boyfriend does for a living now. The coolest part was that I got to share this experience with one of my own clients, Diana. She killed it. Here's some BTS action...

So thankful for that awesome opportunity. Now I've gotta get my shit together for a busy week at work. I should probably also start packing considering we're moving again next weekend! Packing would be a good idea. 

Okay everyone, have a great Monday. 

XO - Rach

How's your summer going?

Any big plans for the weekend?

You can't ask a big Jewish family to keep any secrets. Since March I was planning to go home to surprise my grandpa for his 75th birthday, with high hopes of pulling through with the surprise, but what was I thinking?! Of course my family can't do surprises. 

I flew home to Florida last weekend and as I was getting of the plane, my sister calls me from Israel, literally across the world to talk to me and the first thing she tells me is that my grandpa knows and the surprise is no more. Awesome. And my sister of all people who wasn't even in the country tells me! I think my family was going to try to play it off to make me feel better. Although it was ruined, it was still a blast. It's such a treat to go home to sunny florida and soak up family time, beach time and pool time. Happy birthday Poppies, I know you're reading this! Yes, I still call my grandpa Poppies. In fact, the whole family does. 

It was back to the grind this week! Can I just say how much I love my job again. I actually can't quite call it a job when I get to train freaking awesome people all day and teach group fitness. What is life?! I'm so grateful.  I had a client last week touch her toes for the first time ever in her life and she was so happy that she cried. And then I almost cried. Definitely one of my top trainer moments so far and I haven't been doing this for that long. This is why I get so excited to go to work everyday. It's the best. 

Raspberry Swirl Chocolate Chip Bread

[yumprint-recipe id='26']YUM! This bread is my favorite. It's easy to make and the swirl makes it feel oh, so fancy.

Have a great Wednesday beautiful people!

XO - Rach

Can your family keep a surprise a secret?