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?

I hope everyone had a cheerful Memorial Day weekend! I got back to Philadelphia today and had a very fun, all-over-the-place weekend. Before I share my weekend travels, I wanted to share all of the fun classes I did last week, thanks to Class Pass. If you haven't heard of class pass, it is a service that you can subscribe to monthly and attend unlimited group fitness classes at the studios and gyms that are partnered with class pass. There are SO many studios that I can have access to with class pass, so it is really fun to try new classes every week. So here is what I did last week:

Monday - rest; tired from the weekend and pooped after work

Tuesday - 45 minute rowing class at RowZone - LOVED this!! The class included intervals on the rower and strength intervals off the rower.

Wednesday - Bikram Yoga - PHEWWW I can't believe I made it through the 90 minute class. Not sure I'll be back, but had to try. 60 minutes would be plenty for me. I enjoyed the heat, but the excessive sweating was a little ridiculous.

Thursday - 60 minute cycle at Body Cycle Studio - this was a fun class and a really nice little cycle studio! Going to try my best to audition to teach here...

Friday - rest; work and then traveled to Allentown after work!

Saturday - watched the CrossFit East regionals while I ate chicken fingers and fries (hardest workout all week?)

Sunday - 3-4 mile run/walk + probably 2 more miles of walking (didn't track anything) around Prospect Park in Brooklyn with Michael. The weather was in the low 70's and we just wanted to be outside all day. Plus the amount of dogs in the park made it worth it (I'm a tad obsessed.)

Today - bussed back to Philly, schlepped to get some groceries at Whole Foods and helped my roomie build a bed so that was enough moving around for me! Just relaxing and enjoying the day off :)

I love variety and the variety that class pass allows makes me really excited to workout. I am also trying to run more during the summer before the northern cold weather takes over in only a few months (yikes, not ready.)

Anyway, this weekend was a blast. I got to Michael's place in Allentown around 6 p.m. on Friday. He made steak and rice and we downed a bottle of wine - we were sleeping by 10:30 (we're crazy partiers, I know.)

Saturday morning we left by 7:30 to head up to Hartford, CT to watch the CrossFit East superregionals! CrossFit isn't really my thing, but I definitely like to learn about and respect every form of fitness. Plus, watching the athletes is really fun and exhausting in itself! It was also fun to see a new city even though we only saw a small part of downtown.

Our original plan was to camp in Connecticut Saturday night and go hiking on Sunday morning, but literally every camp site was booked. We clearly do well at planning ahead! Luckily, the wonderful people, Steve & Diana, that I lived with last summer in Brooklyn were home for the weekend and generously offered for us to stop by and stay the night!

It ended up working out perfectly because New York was on the way home, and I had not seen them since last summer! We had a lot of fun catching up on Saturday night. On Sunday, Michael and I got up early to grab coffee and enjoy the beautiful day.

I had plans to take Michael to Smorgasburg. We got on the L train to Williamsburg, where I remember the food festival being last year (it happens every weekend on Saturdays and Sundays from April-November.) We got there and I realized that on Sundays it is at a totally different park! Go me. We stayed in Williamsburg for a delicious lunch anyway and got to enjoy walking around without the crazy masses of people.

We picked up some craft beer on the way back to Steve & Diana's house to enjoy while everyone prepared for a big BBQ. More food! Steve is a chef and made killer ribs and chicken on the grill, and Diana's potato salad is amazing. They make sure everyone is well fed!

 We hit the road after dinner to go back to Allentown. I'm really happy that I live so close to New York now because Steve and Diana really feel like family away from home in Florida. I'm never one for making plans and I think that this weekend just reminded me how much more fun traveling is when you don't really have a set plan. We had no idea we would be stopping in Brooklyn but so glad we did! It's all just an adventure, right?

The weekend was well spent, but I'm ready to get back to work tomorrow to keep learning new things. Have a wonderful Monday night and Tuesday morning.

- Rach