Fitness Fridays: Getting in Gear

So this blog is meant to document both my hair journey, which I am usually pretty good about, and my fitness journey which let's face it has been hit or miss.  I have lamented many times that I would love a trainer.  Preferably one that was already at my gym so I didn't have to travel to yet another gym to get trained. When I joined the Y so that I could take classes in addition to the swimming I thought I could find a trainer there but literally no one has ever called me about it so I was getting discouraged again.  Yep I had added the yoga classes to my swimming classes but two hours a week of sweating and moving my body wasn't putting a dent in the spare set of tires around my belly.  I was still wanting plan B to come together but I wasn't putting much effort in after getting no where with local folks for months.

As I was tending to Influenster and my participation in the Vidal Sassoon campaign, I noticed another relatively new thing on there called VoxPerks.  I clicked on it and actually paid attention to the one I had scrolled over before for a website called FitOrbit.com.  Influenster was offering a discount on registration so I said what the hell let me check it out.  Turns out I was pretty impressed with the program and went through the registration.  The sign up is easy enough and actually more detailed than I would have thought.  From there you are given your top three matches but can keep looking at others if you don't think you will click with the ones they suggested.  Oh and if you hate your trainer you can switch to another one which I thought was great too. 

I chose my trainer, Elizabeth, because she seemed to be good at all the things I wanted to work on and was friendly.  We started narrowing down my wants, interests, routines and habits even more as well as any food limitations I have.  She's been great in the few days we've been working together so that I can officially start on Sunday.  I spent part of the day working on part of what will become my Friday workouts.  I went partially because I haven't been in a while and partially because next Friday and Saturday I will have to work to get a good workout in because I will be at a conference.  I totally forgot about that when I picked the 2nd as my start date but I will do something even if it's a short workout.  It was great to be moving again at the gym that got my lazy behind off the sofa in the first place but woosah it was a killer and I didn't even finish it all.  It's good to know that it's set up to be a good sweaty workout and as feared I need to mix them up instead of doing them in order because my upper thighs hate me right now lol.

I spent the rest of my afternoon/evening shopping for the things on my new meal plan--that's right no guessing what to eat on top of the workouts--that I didn't already have at home.  I did switch out a few things that were allowed switches (yeah I kinda hate broccoli) but for the most part I have the ingredients I need to start things off well.  I will still hit the pool and yoga in the morning.  And then Sunday morning both Maroon 5 and I will be singing a new tune.  In case you have no idea what I'm talking about with my estranged scruffy tattooed yoga enthusiast Jewish rockstar husband I will leave what I mean at the end of this post.

Who has a trainer?  Or had one?  Or has questions?  See ya for the next wash day.

300th Post: Three Wash Days in one week oh my

This week, as I mentioned in my Fitness Friday post, has been ridiculous.  You would think with having two days off I would have had some down time to unwind and let my brain go to happy places but yeah not so much.  The end of the week was filled with meetings and exams and awkward conversations, I mean DAMN they were awkward.  However, that was done and I was looking out for the weekend workout so that I could get to the last wash day of the week.  I'm sure you're wondering what it was the last well let me get to that in a second.  I would be remiss to say that the weekend ended up much better with a massage, mani/pedi and that wash day but let's just say I earned it lol.

First wash day was Monday/Tuesday when I had to wash out the results of the previous Saturday's trip to make my body more active.  It wasn't bad but because I had been a lazy bum the days following the pool there were way too many tangles and I lost the most hair I have in this stretch.  I was sad but knew it was temporary because I was going in for the second wash day to make my hair straight with some heat.

Second wash day came on Wednesday night with someone who seems comfortable with black hair but did mine not so great. Mind you I'm ten weeks post so I'm not expecting miracles but she was giving me volume when I needed straight.  The first day afterwards was a mess cause it felt like it was growing by the hour.  I set it on flexi rods that night and my hair looked great on day two.  Made me mad I hadn't done something to it when I got home and knew it wasn't quite right.  That left me primed and ready for Saturday's outing to the Y.

Workout went fine, great even but then I was rushing for the 10 minutes I had to get from the Y to the day spa.  Day spa was fantastic and even though I had a new girl doing my hair it felt and looked great when I was done PLUS she gave me a few samples in order to help maintain that during spells between stretches that may hair started looking a mess.  I would have taken a photo but I was flipping exhausted at that point and it was time to sleep as much as possible so I did.  It would be unfair to take a photo now with sleep all over it but trust me it was good.

Fitness Friday: the Fallback

So I meant to write this post last week but life got away from me again.  I haven't been working out much during the week because it's been ridiculously busy more days than I care to remember right now.  But most weekends I've made up for it by hitting the Y for longer than normal workouts.  I do yoga for an hour and then go to swim class for 45 minutes at least but I try to stay for an hour.  So I have been doing that when I'm not working on the weekend.  It's fantastic and I feel great when I get back home.  I need to get back to work on the mid week workouts, either by hitting some classes or just doing my solo workout at the gym.  I need some more motivation because my levels all came back a tick above the acceptable range when I just had some blood work done.  And I need to get back on my better eating habits.  Anyone have any suggestions.

Firmoo Review Part 1

I was contacted a few weeks ago to give a review of an online eyeglass store, Firmoo.com.  In exchange for a free pair of glasses I was just asked to give an honest review of the process, glasses themselves and so on.  I was also asked if I knew any bloggers that my like to partake in the offer and honestly I wasn't sure if anyone would or if anyone needed a pair of glasses so I have yet to follow up with that piece.  However, if after seeing these glasses you are interested let me know and I'll pass on your name.  Even if you don't want to do a review, Firmoo has reinstated their free first pair program so if you want to explore their options please do.

I was due for an eye exam otherwise I would have probably gotten these before the end of September as I was contacted early in the month.  I got a new script and the change was negligible again but I felt better having a more accurate view of well my vision.  That night I came home and ordered my free pair of glasses.  They would have totally been free had I not upgraded the lenses to progressives and the fingerprint resistant coating.  All told though even with those upgrades the glasses themselves were 45 bucks.  Compared to the pair I got at the store, totally cute retro glasses lol, I paid about a fifth of the price for the same type of glasses.  The process was pretty seamless but unless you are good at measuring things like your pupil distance or are fairly certain of your prescription I would recommend having all that measured by a professional before you start.  Payment is through Paypal so you don't have to pony up a credit card.  The company is based in China so while the glasses are made and shipped quickly it could take a few weeks for your glasses to arrive.  By my estimate it was under two from shipping to delivery, maybe a little over a week.  They are shipped well in a hard case and protected in a wiping cloth.

This review will focus on my current glasses and the new firmoo pair but when the others come in I will revisit the whole shebang.  Now the first thing I noticed was the difference in weight between my old glasses and the firmoo pair.  I haven't had plastic frames in years so I was unprepared for how light they felt.  These frames are also wider than my current pair so I would need to have them adjusted to wear long term so they stayed in place without me readjusting them.  Other than that though the prescription was a tiny bit sharper as it should have been and thus gave me the requisite headache that always comes with new glasses.  This is another reason why I am holding off on the final comparison.

The lens thickness looked about the same as my current glasses.  There was a little overhang I think because the lenses are plastic but it wasn't something that would make the glasses unwearable.  And they also included replacement screws and nose pads which is great as well.  So far so good on the firmoo glasses.

There was only one thing that I wasn't expecting and it could be the result of the new coating, or using my camera phone, that is not on my current glasses.  As I was preparing to take the up close and personal shots of the frames on my face I noticed that I could see myself in them and their was a green haze to it that I couldn't explain.  I walked around the bedroom and through different parts of the house to see if it got better and for the most part it did not.  I finally had mom take a photo of me in the new frames to minimize the green thing the most.  I only saw that when looking through the phone though and didn't notice it otherwise.  I will check it out again when the new lenses come as they have a similar coating on them.  I look asleep in the top photo with the new frames and cranky in the photo with the old frames lol.

All in all I think these are decent glasses and as soon as I'm ready to transition over to the new script they will be part of the rotation.  I think Firmoo.com would be a good option for those that want a glasses to go with their personalities without having to break the bank when a new mood struck. Or for those that are in need of a new pair but not wanting to shell out a few hundred on designer frames.  Be careful with fitting and measurements but otherwise I can see why others have used the site repeatedly.  I seriously had no issues from the start of the process to the end.  The new glasses should be in hopefully this week and then I can follow up with the more complete review.

Who needs a new pair?

Wash Day: Lace Em Up

So I didn't have swim classes yesterday so wash day was confined to a late night prepoo and early morning wash.  Wash day went mostly like it would normally:

Prepoo with my Organix and Moroccan Oil deep conditioner with scalp coverage provided by the Strong Roots.  I slept with that on my hair and got up about 9 and started my wash day.

I did one wash each with Organix Macadamia Oil and Moroccan Oil moisturizing shampoo.

I mostly follow time directions with the Moroccan Oil and Aphogee 2 minute conditioners and my hair was feeling pretty good. I let the Mizani MoistureFuse stay on a bit longer as I was showering at that point but everything went off as normal.

I deep conditioned with Dr. Miracle's for about 90 minutes then rinsed it clean.  I t shirt dried from about 11:30 to 2 when I stopped being lazy.

I have been meaning to try new styles but have been too distracted to do so.  I saw these new rollers a few months ago and bought two packs when I caught them on sale at Folica.  You could think of them as less bendy flexi rods but they tend to give a different curl pattern and after having laced my hair through them are dramatically lighter than the flexirods.

At least for this first time I didn't need both packs but this is a test run so we'll see how it goes.  Here are photos.

 

Me after the hair was all good and detangled

The lacers.  They come 20 to a pack.  As you are working your hair through them it kinda sounds like you are playing with foam rubber.  The longer your hair is the more this will feel like a massive chore to do but it was actually not too bad for me.  Mizani recommends pinning the end of your hair with bobby pins.  Another hair blogger was using rubber bands which I think I like better but I need to grab some.

And this is me before the bonnet went on and the hair was pinned as well as I could get it.  Taking the photo let me know where one bobby pin had come undone.  All in all not bad and not much longer than a flexiset to do.   I will try to take a photo tomorrow when I take my hair down.   How was your wash day?

Update:  So I managed to not rush out the door today and took photos, albeit not the best ones lol, of the results of the lacers.  I can say I loved the shape of the curls and how much easier it was to sleep on them than the other rollers I've used.  I may use more setting products next time for the comb out process cause it felt a little loosey goosey but surprisingly for me, considering the rain today, the curls are still holding well and they feel pretty defined.  I am thinking about making the sections bigger next time just to see how that turns out but we'll see.  Here are some photos.  What do you think?  Side note, I look slightly deranged in that first photo lol sorry.

The Weekend Just Won't End & Other Jokes

So this has been one of those standard there is no down time to be had.  Friday night I just needed to let my brain decompress but since then I've been on the go.  Let me just start this by saying I didn't even get closed to the gym before yesterday.  But as I had planned I got up a little earlier and climbed four flights of stairs to go to yoga before swimming.  The twisting wasn't as bad as thinking about my breathing.  I tend to always breath the exact opposite way people tell me to do when I am learning something the first time.  Turns out I started out that way again.  But I caught on soon enough and started to enjoy the stretching and the new challenges my body was trying to respond to.  I was glad there were fans in the room (and that the woman next to me turned the on) cause it felt like I was out in the Texas sun for a bit based on the amount of sweat that came off of my forehead.  Got a makeshift massage towards the end of class which was nice and was told I had done a great job for my first class.  I took her at her word because really I had to scoot on down to the pool.  It was a good lesson.  We spent most of the time in the deep end and trying to swim around without feeling like I was going to drown.  I enjoyed myself and did a few laps in the shallow end before coming home to start on my hair and promptly falling asleep.



As I alluded to before my brain was tired as hell.  My body joined the tired ranks after my workout.  I did manage to coat the length of my hair with conditioner and my scalp with Strong Roots before covering up my hair in a plastic bag and bonnet.  My intention was to wash it out quickly and then get to the other stuff I had to do.  No such luck.  I woke up a few hours later and just got to work on my grading after I grabbed a bit to eat.  Seven hours later I was done reading two classes worth of painful reading and giving feedback.  I nodded off a few hours later after debating washing my hair at 2 in the morning.  I woke up around ten, washed my hair including my chlorine stripping combo before letting my hair deep condition for about 90 minutes with the Dr. Miracle's.  I rinsed my hair out and t-shirt dried from about noon to 5 when I finally finished grading all tests, another class's writings and given them feedback along with doing early alerts for school.  5 is way too late to do anything with my hair except let it air dry so I got up, LOC'd, detangled with my 4 combs lol, took a few photos and am now relaxing.  My dinner is marinating now and sooner or later I'll get up to cook it lol.  Depending on how my hair dries I may blow it out slightly and then flat iron it before work.

 The hair loss for this week.  Seeing a lot of gray in there lol.

This is me with freshly dentagled hair

Modified Wash Day

Hey folks I have to say that I noticed when I'm swimming I do different things with my hair when I'm done in the pool.  This go round of classes is going well and my hair has grown quite a bit since the last set of classes so I have been more motivated to take care of my hair when I get out of the pool.  The last two weeks I have been putting JOICO reconstructer on my hair as soon as I get to the locker room and take off my swim caps (yep I wear two).  I comb it through a little and then pin my hair up with a clip.  I leave the Y with a wet ponytail and usually grab a bite to eat and head home.

The last swim sessions I tried to keep my wash routine as normal as possible with the addition of the chlorine stripping shampoo.  Neither last week or this week did I come home and do wash one and then set up for the next twenty four hours of prepoo and washing.  Instead I went through the rest of my wash routine and deep conditioned for a while yesterday.  After I rinsed it out I t-shirt dried for a few hours because I couldn't decide what to do with my hair.  When I did I got up and ended up doing an LCO instead of LOC basically because my brain was tired.  Wash day note here, the last two weeks I skipped the It's a 10 Keratin leave in and noticed that my hair was much softer at the end of the week.  With that knowledge in hand I returned my giant unused bottle of Keratin leave in for the regular version.  I used it for the first time yesterday and I'm interested in seeing how it works for the upcoming week.

After I LCO'd my hair lol and detangled it, I tied a scarf around my edges and let the length air dry for a few hours.  Eventually I roller set the length at the back of my head so I may have a funky bun tomorrow when I finally take it down.  Saturday wash days ensure my hair is dry before work on Monday but it somewhat throws off my mental plans.  Oh well.  The swimming is worth it and next week I may add in a yoga class.

Wash Day and Workout

This may be short.  Work is killing me thus the lack of posting or anything else around here lately.  However this morning I got up and went to the first round of swim lessons for the fall.  I was worried that I wouldn't remember anything and be starting over from scratch but turns out I hadn't taken off that much time and everything save breathing to the side when I'm swimming came back relatively easily.  I love the class and my teacher rocks and my spring class buddy was back so it was a great morning.  It was not without faults.  Because I hadn't done much in the way or working out in about two months I got cramps in both of my hamstrings a few minutes into the lesson.  My instructor showed me a trick to work that out and then it was back to swimming.




I was prepared to go home and do the whole chlorine strip and then start on my hair but I agreed to go get my nails done and a much needed massage so I decided to roll my hair into that process as well. So let's start at the beginning.  I came home and took a shower.  I did do a chlorine strip but opted not to do much more to it.  I got started with a manicure and pedicure.  My hands and feet feel like butter.  It's ridiculous how good they feel right now.  I may have to go back there for that routine maintenance in the future.  I love the small rooms and all in all it was a good spot for that to take place.  I moved on to a Swedish massage.  I was a little doubtful about how that would work given I had already had a fabulous deep tissue massage in June.  Oh my goodness it was the best ever too.  I fell in and out of a light sleep repeatedly.  I am always sad when they end but it was then on to my hair.

Can we say yeah for wide tooth combs and patient stylists?  After she washed my hair and shampooed it she grabbed a large double toothed comb and detangled my hair.  I'm not sure what products she used during the wash but they are an Aveda salon so I'm sure that's who made it, had a nice tingle is all I can tell you.  She added a smoothing cream for naturals to my hair and then blew it dry on medium heat.  Didn't take very long and honestly I could have left after the blow dry but I had asked for a flat ironed do and she obliged.  I was concerned that she didn't put on a heat protectant but the iron wasn't super hot and she only passed over each section of hair twice.  My hair feels amazing right now.  I'm going to wrap it today and then if I'm so motivated I'm going to hit the gym or the Y to get in a workout again.  My body was screaming for one with all that cramping clearly.  More swimming next week for sure and I need to FINALLY update my workout count.

Oh and here's a photo of today's hair