Hi! I wanted to share something a bit different today - all my eats from yesterday plus a day in the life of my new job! So as most of you know, I did leave my job in advertising and I started a new job as a full time Thrive trainer at City Fitness here in Philly! I am also still teaching group fitness classes as well, so I'm totally immersed in what I freaking love to do. It's a WHOLE different schedule and new challenge but I'm so ready for it. I am training semi-private groups with the Thrive training modality (learn more about it here, it's an AWESOME functional training program) and I'm already amazed by the support of my new bosses, co-workers and the motivation of the few clients that I'm starting with! 

WIAW (What I Ate Wednesday) 

So here's a little sneak peak into what it looks like to work in fitness (when you're first starting out)...

7 AM: Alarm goes off, I have coffee and a little pre-workout snack (too sleepy to get a pic) of half a mashed sweet potato, half a banana, a tablespoon of Sunbutter and some raisins. I got this sweet potato breakfast bowl idea from Jen at peanutbutterrunner.com and I am OBSESSED!! Michael also used to mash sweet potato and banana together in college for a side at dinner. It's a winning combo, please try it. 

8-9:30 AM: I head to the gym near my apartment and practice a few of the strength moves in the Thrive training library as well as put myself through a workout that I will be putting my clients through eventually. This helps me gage the intensity and helps me to program my workouts for them. 

9:30-11:30 AM: I eat my (second) breakfast (pictured below) of an AMAZINGGGG chocolate smoothie bowl - recipe coming soon, this one was a winner!! It was packed with protein and healthy carbs. I also pack my day's worth of food, work on this blog post, take care of a few emails and get ready for the day. I also had a few handfuls of trail mix on the side.

11:45-12:30 PM: I commute to Center City by train and head to City Fitness. My current hours are afternoons/evenings, so I've been getting to work around noon and leaving around 9:30 at night. The gym is slow until about 5:30, but I try my best to work the floor, meet new people and set up some assessments! 

2 PM: I train a client. She does AWESOME. 

3-3:30 PM: Eat a delicious salad with spinach, grilled chicken, avocado, tomato, cucumber, olive oil & balsamic and an apple on the side. I'm really craving a coffee but resist the urge to spend $5 on an almond milk latte, because I can't ever just buy a plain old coffee...

3:30-6:30 PM: Shadow a few of the trainers, work the floor and get ready for my clients in the evening. I also noshed on a couple of these protein balls, they're so good! I have been making The Healthy Maven's protein bites every week. They're great. Actually kind of addictive...I made a batch of 20 on Monday and they're already gone. Whoops.

6:45-8:45: Train a few clients and I also had a couple people come in for an assessment! 

9:00: I eat this combo of veggies, rice, brussels sprouts, sweet potato and ground beef before I got ready to make the commute home (I walk about 15 mins to the train station and the train ride home is about a half hour). The wind was CRAZZYYY last night and literally almost knocked me over getting to the train station. 

10:30 I am HOME!!! I had a snack of cottage cheese, PB and jelly (yes, it looks disgusting, but trust me it's so, so good) before bed and then hit the hay at around 11. This morning I'm up and at em' - teaching an 8 AM cycle class at Body Cycle Studio before heading to City Fitness for a team workout, several assessments and some client sessions. It will be another long day and I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Have a GREAT one, you guys. 

XO- Rach

Is there something you just CAN'T go without eating every day? 

Hey there! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend. We had a good one here in Philadelphia. I didn't take many photos because I really was just enjoying the long holiday weekend and time with Michael and his two cousins who came to visit from DC. However, here's a picture from the beautiful fireworks over the Art Museum in Philadelphia. The Roots and Ceelo performed and were so good, even though we were probably about a mile from the stage! This morning I woke up and made some oatmeal.Don't be fooled by this pic - I immediately threw it all into a plastic cup and took it to go so I could walk to work (just over 1.5 miles). Eating hot oatmeal while walking to work on a hot and humid summer morning is probably not the best idea. I don't have my blender up here yet, but as soon as I do I can't wait to make my smoothies I miss it so much!

After work, I head up to the City Fitness in Northern Liberties to get in a quick workout before teaching back to back TRX classes. Tuesdays are my busiest days - I leave the apartment at 8 and don't get home until about 8:30 but somehow it seems to go by SO quickly.

I'll leave you with one of the TRX classes that I taught! It's only 30 minutes, so it's perfect for a quick strength workout with short bursts of cardio. Efficiency!

TRX Golf rotations: 

      TRX sprinter start:

TRX Crunch:

TRX Hamstring Curl: 

Make sure to stretch out real good after!

Hope everyone has a great hump day. Also on repeat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2PsXT88UeU

- XO Rach

Happy Hump Day! This week has been pleasantly busy over here. How has everyone been? Philadelphia has been sweaty HOT and humid lately and today was the first really nice day in a while!

I've been trying a lot of new things lately, thanks to Class Pass. It's the BEST thing ever for group fitness junkies, especially if you move to a new city and have no idea what kind of gym you would want to join. I've tried several new things lately and I have been loving everything.

On Monday I tried a Megaformer class at SFS Sculpt Studioin this cute little plaza in Northern Liberties.

OWWWWW. It hurt so good. But really bad. Every movement is very slow and controlled and about ten minutes in my entire body was shaking. Definitely will be going back. I am still sore! It's a very specific workout, different from pilates reformer classes (which I also still have yet to try), but I promise if you ever have the chance to try you will feel it.

Yesterday, my roommate and I tried an aerial yoga class at Kaya Aerial Yoga in Old City. OMG yes. This was SO much fun. The inversions were a little scary at first, but once I learned to feel the balance and let go, I felt so free! Will also definitely be going back while I can with Class Pass.

This morning I taught my circuit class at Sweat Fitness which included a couple full body dynamic circuits with exercises across the room and a few circuits with more isolation to work on core, strength and balance. I am loving that I'm starting to see regular participants.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a hot yoga class to stretch out my sore muscles. I've really been enjoying adding in a lot more yoga, barre and Pilates-style workouts. I usually stick to strength, cross-training and HIIT type of workouts, so adding in new things is refreshing. I think it's really important to switch it up every so often to keep your body guessing. It also humbles you when you think you're well rounded in the fitness realm and then you just about die in a hot yoga class (cough cough me).

On another note, I finally tried another new thing here - the subways! The verdict: they are WAY faster than the busses. Not very shocking, but I was hesitant at first to try to figure out the subway system because there are so few lines here in comparison to when I lived in NYC last summer and there are a million different subway lines.

I also just got hired at City Fitness to teach back to back level 1 and 2 TRX classes on Tuesday nights! I'm really excited to continue teaching and thankful I was able to find group fitness jobs so quickly here. The Philadelphia fitness scene is poppin'. I will make sure to upload a couple TRX workouts on here next week after I teach my first class if anyone is interested in training with the TRX.

And since I've been slack about sharing recipes and food posts (my kitchen tools are limited right now & I've been crazy busy) I thought I would share a couple of things I have been eating a lot of lately!

For breakfast I have the same thing every morning. I either bring oatmeal & fruit to work or throw together scrambled eggs, a wrap & fruit to eat when I get to work. It's easy and keeps me full!

Here are a few dinners I've made recently (sorry for the crappy photos):

PIZZA EGGS.  It's kind of like a big delicious open faced omelet that tastes just like pizza. P.S. this was pre cheese melting.

Chicken, brown rice, chopped salad, Trader Joe's brussels sprouts and kale chopped mix and feta cheese.

Pesto zoodles with cherry tomatoes and feta topped with baked Swai fish, which is exactly like Tilapia. I bought it because a pack of three filets was only $3.99 at Trader Joe's compared to only two Tilapia filets for $5.99. Always gotta get the deals.

And that's all I have tonight!

- Rach

Have you tried anything new lately?