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?

Hey there! Happy Friday. I've got a good little strength workout to share with you today. Ever since I started working as a trainer for the Thrive program, I've totally been sold on the effectiveness of total body, functional workouts. They're hard, practical, and most importantly - safe! Unless you're training for something like a race or competition, I totally believe that functional fitness is the best way to get you feeling good and looking good. It's so important that we do things inside the gym that make things outside the gym easier. That's functionality.  Anyway, just a few random thoughts about my first world life over here...

Firstly, always thinking and praying for all of those in Orlando who were affected and continue to keep all my family in my thoughts after finding out some scary news about my mother. Love is love is love is love is love is love!! And my mom is as strong as a horse so no worries, she's totally going to be fine. 

Bloodline is back and season 2 was SO intense!! If you don't watch Bloodline (it's a Netflix original series) please go do yourself a favor. It's set in the Florida Keys and the cast is SPOT ON. These people are straight up Florida Keys natives. OMG it's so good. I've also tried to get into Orange is the New Black, but I think this season stinks. 

Also in my spare time I've been trying to take advantage of the warm weather by doing unnecessary yoga poses on rocks and taking photos of it...

The Wissahickon Trail in Philadelphia is so wonderful. I had a morning off last week and took an hour stroll through the trail. Such a great way to start the day!

This past weekend was an awesome one, too. On Friday I taught a spin class at Body Cycle Studio, grabbed a beer at Rogue's Gallery with good company and then Michael took me out to my favorite Mexican restaurant, El Poquito. 

I worked Saturday morning, and then finally made it down to Spruce Street Harbour Park for the first time this Summer on Saturday night. Followed immediately by a trip to Big Ass Slices in Old City...

Yesterday we head down to Brigantine beach for a gorgeous day! Wishing I was still in this exact position...

And now because my mind is on beergaritas, Big Ass Slices and beer on the beach, let me just share this workout to help reverse the effects of beer...

Total Body Dumbbell Workout

This workout is a great way to work on your functional strength while keeping your heart rate up the entire time. If you can't tell, circuit style training is my favorite way to train - mostly because you can get in an awesome workout in less time and work your entire body. 

Here's a video of the exercises:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL6CjJU36vM[/embed]

Make sure on every single exercise that you keep your core tight for proper alignment! Especially on the shoulder presses and front squats. You'll avoid low back pain by keeping your back flat the whole time. Try to make rest periods short and keep moving! You can also modify the mountain climbers by slowing them down. You can also modify the ploy lunge into a reverse lunge, just take out the jump. 

Enjoy and have a great week! It's the first day of Summer, YAY!

XO- Rach

Did you have a nice weekend?

Any summer plans coming up?

Favorite Netflix shows at the moment?

When your best friends from childhood come to visit for a long weekend, you do all the tourist things, eat all the food and drink all the beer. My best friends Hailey, Elizabeth and Melissa came to visit me in Philly this past weekend and it couldn’t have been a better weekend. The weather was PERFECT and I was able to show them literally almost every Philly neighborhood. I didn’t think we would fit as much in but we did a lot!

 They all got here Thursday night and on Friday morning we started our adventures in Rittenhouse Square. 

After Rittenhouse Square, we headed down to Reading Terminal Market for a delicious lunch and 4^th Street Famous Cookies (so damn good).

 After a large lunch, we walked up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to run up the Rocky Stairs  lay in the sun at the top of the Rocky Steps before I made them all take my 4:30 spin class.

After a quick recharge in the sun, we made our way to Body Cycle Studio for my class! You know true friends when they take your cycle class on vacation… 

Caught in action...

On Friday night we started at Independence Beer Garden (Hallelujah so happy it’s back open!!), danced at Fado and ended Ubering to Big Ass Slices for some Big Ass Slices of pizza. No pics here because pizza was our priority. Let’s just say my early Saturday morning at work was quite a challenge.

On Saturday when I got off of work, we roamed around the Italian Market for some Philly Cheesesteaks from Geno’s and some cannolis. A true Philly meal. After that we head over to Old City, Society Hill and Race Street Pier. We were totally exhausted after Saturday so we head back to my neighborhood to finish off the night with margaritas and Mexican food at a cute little place near my apartment.

On Sunday we were citied out so we went on a little hike through the Wissahickon Trail…

It was a good ass weekend!! I already miss my girls and I’m so happy they could all make it up to visit :)

XO - Rach

How was your weekend? 

What's your favorite city to visit?