Your Opinion

Have you been consuming your weekly doses of pizza? Because I have not. It's been a long dry spell (about 6 weeks now!) and I'm beginning to have pizza withdrawals. 

I guess I can't say I've been 100% pizza free; there was one instance where the husband and I dropped into a pretty good smaller pizza chain in Las Vegas. Then another weekend spent drinking and carrying on with friends landed us in a fantastic little New York style pizza place in Hermosa Beach. And finally, I dabbled in a bit of the local Pizza Hut fare one delirious evening and instantly regretted it because that was by far one of the most disappointing pizza experiences I've had yet. 

I won't go on about those pizza endeavors, but I can say that I've missed making my own za in my own oven with my own pizza stone. The good news is that I will have all my pizza paraphernalia back in my possession by this weekend! My husband and I have been patiently waiting to move into our house and get our stuff out of storage (adios, living out of a suitcase!), and alas, the weekend has arrived during which we will be transitioning from temporary house to permanent home. And I will personally be transitioning from the pizza-withdrawl-shakes-syndrome to fat-kid-at-heart-gets-her-pizza-tools-back-and-dives-headfirst-into-mozzarella-and-dough-recovery. Praise the Lord! Sure, I'm looking forward to having a real address, decorating the house, and sleeping in my own bed again. But I must say, the weekly pizza binges are a thing that I value highly in my life, and now that I've started, I simply see no end to the tradition.

So, pizza eater. The wait has been long. But it is almost over. You've demanded pizza and I intend to provide it. So set aside a calorie allowance for some choice za, and stay tuned.

Isn't that just one witty little t-shirt? It brings a smile to my face. I found it on Jac Vanek but have no intentions of buying it. ($44 for a spool of cotton and some iron-on letters? Puh-lease. I could craft that up in 20 minutes for less than $5.) But hey, that's just my opinion. 

Post-Turkey Day Recovery Workout

The turkeys and cranberries have been eaten, I'm stuffed with stuffing, and the pumpkin pie is long gone. Another Thanksgiving success and as usual, I have friends and family to thank for it all. However, the workout routine took a minor hit during vacation time and today was day one to get back into it.

Did it hurt? Yes. More than a little.

Was it fun? Sorta. But not entirely.

Did it completely cancel out a weekend of Thanksgiving bingeing? Not even close, but it's a start.

For some workout inspiration today, I headed over to LaurenConrad.com and searched for something fast, simple, and effective. Miss Conrad did not disappoint!

I have been a fan of LC since her reality TV debut, and I enjoy seeing the cute and pretty things found on her website. Although she may not have gained fame for her fitness expertise (more so for the cute and pretty things), she endorses workouts and nutrition tips that are balanced and sound. The workout of hers that I did was intended to be a treadmill workout. However, since I have a slight disdain for treadmills and the weather today permitted an outdoor workout, I hit the outdoor track to complete all this.

LC's workout goes as follows:

I modified the workout so I could do it on the track. Also, I'd never be able to do some of the exercises for 3 minutes straight without modifying (like jump lunges and push-ups…that's just whack). Here's how it all went down:

• Warm-up: 5 minute jog
• 25 regular push-ups (not modified/on knees)
• 1 set of 15
• 1 set of 10
• 800m run at 7:30 per mile pace (2 laps on 1/4 mile track)
• 2 sets of 20 jump lunges
• 800m run at 7:30 per mile pace (2 laps)
• 3 sets of 10 sumo squats
• 800m run as fast as my feet would carry me (about 7:00 per mile pace)
• Abdominal workout - 2 sets of each:
• 10 crunches with feet off ground, knees bent to 90 degrees
• 12 bicycle crunches (24 per side, rotating)

Then I rounded out the workout by jogging the long way home, which took about 16 minutes going at a moderate pace. If you're not up for the jog or just don't have time, be sure you get at least a little cool down jog or walk in before you call it quits. 

After a good stretch and plenty of water, I feel ready to get back into it. At least until Christmas. 

Body Remix

Lately my posts have been inconsistent and sparse. For this, I do apologize, but as for my excuse, I am in the process of moving. The move started in October, and between hotels and temporary housing, my husband and I are still not in our permanent home. Hopefully I'll be back up and running with some decent blog posts consistently by the new year!

In the meantime, I have not forgotten about exercise. Actually, I've been pretty consistent about that. One of the first things I did when we got to our new city was scope out the gym. Although the layout was a bit unusual (cardio machines facing each other…what's up with that?) it looked like it had a decent amount of equipment, so I shed my sweatshirt and decided to hop on a StairMaster for a little while. Well, not even 30 seconds into firing up my iPod, I was approached by a staff member telling me that I could not work out wearing the tank top I had on. What? Am I really being excused from the gym because of my workout top which I wear all of the time and have never even thought someone would deem it inappropriate attire for the gym? Yes. It happened. Apparently I'd missed the sign at the door indicating that no one may wear anything sleeveless in the building.

The top I was wearing looked similar to this one, from Target:

So with my tail between my legs, I scurried out of the building while nervously pulling my sweatshirt back on. That was so unusual! I mean, could they not have just let me wear my sleeveless, racer-back style workout top that completely covers my midsection just that one time, because it was my first time? I guess not.

Anyway, I decided to go do my own workout instead, in a place where sleeveless tops are permitted: the great outdoors.

Outdoor track, all ready for an athlete!

I did a Nike Training Club workout. If you missed the post where I raved about this app, here's the rundown: it is awesome; you can virtually customize your workout; you will get a great workout every time; the app is free.

I did the one titled "Body Remix," however, I did not have any equipment (not even a mat!), so I really had to improvise with some of the moves. I'll give the rundown of what I actually did here.

Open the app.
   > Click "Get Toned"
      > Click "Advanced"
         > Click "Body Remix" (the first workout on the list)
And get started! Now if you have equipment and want to do the workout as it is all laid out, be my guest. You will get a fantastic workout. If not, follow along here:

Feeling excited to work out. Let's do it!

• 1 minute: Back pedal and jog forward
• 2 minutes: Slide and glide (left and right)
• 2 minutes: Light jog
• 1 minute: Recover
• 1 minute: Burpees
• 1 minute: Push-ups
• 1 minute: Plank
• 1 minute: Ski jumps (sometimes I call these "speed skater jumps")
• 2 minutes: Walking lunges
• 2 minutes: Bunny hops (get low into a squat position, take tiny jumps forward on the balls of your feet)
• 1 minute: Bicycle crunches
• 1 minute: Toe touches
• 1 minute: Kick-downs (laying on your back with legs straight up, lower legs to the ground without actually touching the ground, then sweet them back up to the starting position)
• 1 minute: Push-up to frogger (do a push up, hop feet forward and to outside of hands like you're doing a burped with a wide jump, hop them back so you land in push-up position, repeat)
• 2 minutes: Squats
• 1 minute: Triceps push-ups
• 1 minute: Walking lunges
• 30 seconds: Mountain climbers
• 30 seconds: Knee tucks (start in a push-up position, hop feet in and bring knees towards chest, then hop back to starting position, repeat)
• 2 minutes: Standing hamstring stretch
• 1 minute: Pretzel stretch (glute stretch)
• 2 minutes: Standing quad stretch

And you're done!

This is how I felt when I finished that workout:

But I lived to tell you about it!

I included a few instructions above, but if you get the app you can see full instructions as well as short video clips of how to do each exercise. Any modifications that I made were not so complicated that you can't figure out what they are. And if you think so anyway, just leave a little ol' comment here!

Farewell, My Fair South (Pizza)!

The first time I told someone in California that I am from "down south," they thought I was referring to southern California. Let it be known, I am from the southeastern part of the United States. Namely, I have lived in Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. (Whether Florida is "the south" is arguable, but I'm going with it for the sake of the region I'm in currently.) Although I've traveled in many of the upper 48 as well as Hawaii and abroad, I have really only ever really known heat, humidity and the two seasons of the south. Needless to say, coming to California has been more of a climate shock than a culture shock.

Maybe I'm missing the south already, just a little bit? Maybe I didn't say my goodbyes thoroughly enough to the hot, damp air and southern hospitality I'm so used to? We'll see how I feel about the air come summertime, but for now, I'd like to pay a tribute to one last pizza; the last pizza I ate in the south before my departure, and a truly remarkable one at that.

Ladies and boys, I present to you, Antico Pizza.

Thought by some as one of "those" places that you have to eat at while in Atlanta, I'll admit, they serve up a great za worth trying.

Located on Hemphill near downtown, also known as one of the shadier areas of the city, and boasting a menu that at least half of which is written in Italian, be prepared for a cultural experience upon entering the vicinity of Antico.

Having never been there before, my husband and some friends and I took the advice of the employee working the cash register when it came to ordering some za. She seemed more fluent in Italian than English herself, so I'm not really sure what we ended up ordering. But I can say this - it smelled divine and tasted amazing.

I'm pretty positive that the pizza in the foreground of the above photo is the Margherita, and there's a good chance that the one in back is the San Gennaro. Both were excellent. I kept eating a slice from one then a slice from the other until I was just so stuffed that no more would fit into my pizza-loving belly.

You can tell by eating this za that the ingredients are truly remarkable. They are a far cry from your standard pizza place's cheese and crust. Just a simple bit of mozzarella is all that's needed to top a pizza and Antico really hit the nail on the head with that one. Not to mention the crust! Oh what mastery they've achieved in crust making. It's crispy but not cracker like. It's chewy but not doughy. It is baked to perfection and topped with ingredients that compliment it perfectly without overpowering it. If I could be a fly on the wall to observe the craft of dough making and crust baking, I would probably get swatted down and murdered, because that's what you do to flies. But I would like to know what foreign secrets are imposed on this dough!

Let's just say, the pizza bar has really been raised for me. Although I am 1/8 Italian, I don't expect that I can pull off an Antico-level pizza. However, I will certainly try to acquire fancier (yet budget-friendly) ingredients for pizzas that I make in the future (yep, I'm still not a millionaire). At the very least, I'm going to go for better mozzarella and fresher spices. And who knows…in two to five years I might even be making the sauce from scratch!

Oh what a joy. I want to get started already!