I have two weeks worth of workouts to catch you up on today. Whoops.

Here’s how the last two weeks went:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Revolve Rip Ride (7:30 pm, 60 min)
Wednesday: Barre Fusion (7:45 pm, 60 min) – I really wanted to love this class, but there really wasn’t as much barre as I’d hoped for. I was expecting a pretty typical barre class, with slightly more time spent on stretching and maybe a sun salutation or two but instead it seemed more like a straight vinyasa yoga class to me.
Thursday: Bowchickawowow Flybarre (5:45 pm, 60 min) & Revolve Red Hot Rip Ride (7:30 pm, 60 min) – I normally don’t double up on weekdays but I couldn’t resist this particular day! Two of my favorite classes were doing Valentine’s Day themes. Flybarre had a bowchickawowow class full of sexy music and Rip Ride had a ladies’ only class and playlist. Such a fun day!
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rip Ride (10:30 am, 60 min) & Flybarre (1:15 pm, 60 min)
Sunday: Flybarre (4 pm, 60 min)

Monday: Flybarre (9:30 am, 60 min) & Body Ride (12:30 pm, 45 min) – Can I have every Monday off, please? It’s too fun. The Flybarre class was a blast with Shay, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite Flybarre instructors. She’s so cheery but with a laidback cool vibe. And Christianne’s class after that was incredible too. I was really feeling that day’s music.
Tuesday: Rip Ride (7:30 pm, 60 min)
Wednesday: Body Ride (7 am, 45 min) & Flybarre (6:45 pm, 60 min) – After a lot of back and forth on Jason’s Body Ride on Wednesday morning, I’d decided not to go the night before. But I just so happened to have insomnia that day and woke up at like 6 am so I went and rocked it out. It was an awesome way to finish out my unlimited month at Revolve. I would’ve skipped Flybarre after work but I was already past the free cancel period so I went anyway. I tried a new-to-me instructor this time, Amanda, and she was really upbeat and fun. No regrets.
Thursday: Rest – This is what the title refers to. I reluctantly took this planned rest day, even though I didn’t want to.
Friday: Revolve DJ Ride (7:30 pm, 60 min) – I really liked this ride. They had a live DJ and both Christianne and Kristin were teaching. Both are amazing and it was awesome!
Saturday: Rip Ride (10:30 am, 60 min) & Flybarre (12 pm, 60 min) – Rip Ride was amazing as always. I tried another new-to-me Flybarre instructor, Khori, and she was awesome! The triceps work was especially tough.
Sunday: Flybarre (4 pm, 60 min) – This class is quickly becoming my Sunday afternoon staple. Love it.

Recently, I’ve had a lot of trouble with rest days. As in, I don’t want to take them because my workouts are the perfect form of stress relief and too much fun. Though I really should take more for the sake of my bank account. Those expensive classes really add up.

Anyway, last week, I’d planned to take a rest day on Thursday but I wasn’t too excited about it. What made it even harder to stick to taking my planned rest day was my schedule for that day. My boss and I spent the day recruiting for interns, which meant the day started early and ended early. Usually I’m busy with work so I jump at any chance I get to get to classes during work hours and beat the after-work or before-work crowd. I got home around 3:30, so of course, I was so, so tempted to squeeze in a late afternoon Flybarre class, but ultimately, I decided it would be better to stick to my rest day.

I felt like I was wasting my free time, which annoyed me at the time, but in retrospect, it was a really smart decision. It gave my body time to recover from from my workouts earlier in the week and I felt strong at Revolve’s DJ Ride on Friday night.

My lesson learned for the week: rest days are your friend!

And just to include some color in this post, last night I went to Plataforma in the city for a work dinner and their salad bar is just as unbelievable as people say. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a rodizio (Brazilian BBQ) place, but their salad bar is supposedly so great that it even draws vegetarians. Truth!

I’ve been feeling antsy all day today. I haven’t gone to the gym for over a week now and only went twice the week before. Gah!

This is really weird for me, but I at least had some good reason for it. Two weeks ago, I was on vacation in Hawaii and simply couldn’t find time in my relaxing vacation schedule for the gym. I didn’t totally slack on exercise though. We did a lot of walking and hiking, so it was nice to know I wasn’t doing absolutely nothing.

The past week has been a little tougher though. Honestly, I have no good reason for slacking since I got back from Hawaii last Friday. Simply put, I was jetlagged and tired from the trip earlier in the weeks and decided to catch up with my friends instead of going to the gym.

What’s worse is that now that I finally feel better and actually want to exercise, I can’t. That’s because I got both of my wisdom teeth on the left side of my mouth extracted after work yesterday. I know this is a big deal for most people, but I’m totally fine aside from some minor soreness. I’ve always had a high pain tolerance and also don’t have any swelling.

My dentist didn’t say anything about exercising in the post-care instructions and sadly, I forgot to ask. I did some googling though and it seems like exercising might be a bad idea. Even though the bleeding stopped earlier today, I’ll have a lost a good amount of blood already and any exercise can increase my blood pressure and cause the holes to start bleeding again or even cause dry socket. Yeah, not something I’m really willing to risk.

It’s so weird to not be thinking about my free time in the morning or right after work as gym time. In fact, I really miss the gym. This is something I would have never said a year or two ago, by the way!

Still, I’m dealing with it though. The Olympics have me more than occupied. And I’m also planning on organizing photos from the trip and picking out a few for the blog and my phone tonight.

But to add some color to tonight’s post, I thought I’d share the two soups I had for lunch and dinner today (since I’m restricted to mushy foods because of my extraction)!

For lunch, my boss, two interns, and I went across the street to a Thai restaurant. I had the Cellophane Noodle Soup with tofu. I think it may have actually been an appetizer since it wasn’t so filling and only cost $5 as opposed to all the $10 fried rice and pad thai dishes.

I snacked on applesauce and yogurt in the afternoon, but the time I got home I was starving! So I heated up some Amy’s organic black bean soup with veggie protein crumbles, soy cheese, and some Greek yogurt and ate it with two whole wheat wraps. Not bad and much more filling.

Hawaii photos coming soon!

1. My new camera and photography

My dad just got a brand new D7000 a few months ago so I bought his D80 off him. Then around Father’s Day, I saw a Groupon for two photography classes in Central Park and bought one for each of us so we could take it together. We just took the second one together on Saturday and I loved it! I learned a ton. Here are some photos taken on my D80:

Look forward to some better quality (AKA not taken on my iPhone) pictures around here soon!

2. Qi

Qi’s the name of a Thai restaurant in New York with two locations. I went to the one in Times Square last last Saturday and my dad and I went to the one in Union Square this past Saturday after our photography class. It’s official – this is one of my new favorite restaurants. I love the atmosphere and decor of the place and the food is awesome and reasonably priced.

On Saturday, my dad and I started with the Herbal Coconut Calamari. I feel like calamari is usually a hit or miss for me – I either find it really oily and heavy or light in a you-can-barely-tell-it-was-fried way. This was the latter and I really liked it! Super flavorful and the sweet chili sauce it came with complemented it perfectly.

My dad ordered the Gai-Yang & Som-Tum. It came with two huge pieces of perfectly tender chicken with a dipping sauce, a pickled vegetable and papaya salad, and black forbidden rice. It was delicious!

I had the Triple Mushrooms Gravy. I absolutely love mushrooms so I knew this was what I wanted when I saw it on the menu. It was really flavorful and full of mushrooms, so of course I loved it. I will say that it kind of struck me as just a generic Asian dish though, and not particularly Thai. But it was still good and we finished every bite.

3. Eating clean

The last two dinners I ate at home were both clean and tasty. First up, a roasted zucchini cucumber hummus wrap:

And a black bean burger with zucchini fries. Yum!

I also bought this Muscle Milk last night so I could get my protein fix this morning and it’s not bad! I still prefer my own protein shakes, but this isn’t bad for when I’m trying to clean out the fridge.

4. The fact that I will be in Hawaii in less than 48 hours!

This is why I’m working on cleaning out the fridge. I cannot tell you how excited I was to put on my out of office and get out of the building yesterday at 6 pm! Hawaii, here I come!

Today was one of my slowest days at work in a while. Some days I’m really busy and want nothing more than one of these slow days, but then when it finally rolls around, I can’t stand it. Having little to do is so much more boring to me than keeping busy! But I think that may just be my type A personality talking.

I meant to write a WIAW yesterday, but never got around to it. I had pictures ready to go and everything, but I was just beat after running some errands after work. So I thought I’d share today!

Breakfast

Love Grown carrot cake granola (so good!), strawberries, blueberries, and a Chobani. Here it is all mixed up!

I’m especially excited to share this one because for once, I had something other than overnight oats for breakfast! My parents just brought two Costco-size boxes of strawberries and blueberries and I’m determined not to let them go bad, so I washed and cut a bunch the night before. I should do this more often.

Lunch

My boss found a place called Energy Kitchen on Hoboken menus and man, was I excited when I saw the menu! Nothing over 500 calories and it all looked delicious. I had a California wrap (hummus, guacamole, roasted red peppers, and cucumbers). Yum! I want to try making this combination at home sometime.

Snack

My building’s cafeteria just put in a Wicked Spoon froyo machine. Mmmmm. This may require a lot of self-restraint.

Dinner

I went for one of my favorite post-workout dinners: veggie protein nachos! I just throw veggie protein crumbles, black beans, and salsa in a bowl and heat it all up. I love that it’s easy and healthy too.

In Hawaii prep news, I just bought an underwater case for my camera online and I think I’ve found the perfect dive shop for my sister and I to go scuba diving with. Off to give them a call back and hopefully book our dive! I’m so excited.