My Monday Workout Plus What I Ate

Mondays…. most people don’t like them. I have never been very fond of Mondays but I have been trying to embrace them lately and just love every day I’m in at the moment rather than constantly looking forward to the weekend.

(Get ready for some rambling… feel free to skip ahead to my actual workout and meals if you don’t want to read about my distain for Mondays)

I have to say, that while I dread that my husband goes back to work on Monday and our schedule resumes as normal, I do have it pretty good here at home. We are on our own schedule since I homeschool my soon to be 6 and 8 year old kiddos. So now that they are finally sleeping in some days I have the option to sleep in too! I have found that we usually have a better day if I wake up before them so that I can get quiet time with Jesus before they wake up for breakfast. BUT, I have made an exception on Mondays. I still have my time with Jesus but on Mondays, if the kids sleep in, momma sleeps in too. And while in my college days sleeping in meant noon or 1:00, these days I am happy when I get to sleep past 7:00.

So, that’s how I started my day. My kiddos and I slept in… till 8. I know the people who don’t have kids or have teens are thinking this is hardly a luxury, but the newborn and toddler rearing mommas are beyond jealous to be reading this right now. So to those mommas, I’m sorry for getting over 8 hours of sleep in one night. I love you and this too shall pass (the sleepless nights that is). But I digress.

So, I read my bible and prayed while my son munched on a banana. I usually have a sweet healthy treat on Sunday nights and I tend to indulge a bit with this late night snack so I am usually not hungry on Monday mornings. I often fast till lunch which is exactly what I did this particular Monday.

I decided to make fresh almond butter to eat with lunch because what else could make a Monday more fantastic than the smell and taste of freshly roasted almonds made into amazing almond butter. If you haven’t tried this yourself you simply HAVE to! You will never go back to store bought. I promise!… okay, don’t sue me if you hate it. But I have never found someone to love the store bought more than fresh. So if you don’t own a food processor go out and get yourself one. I use mine for half the recipes I make. It’s my number one favorite kitchen gadget!

So this is what I ate on Monday:

I am so incredibly super hooked on protein brownies these days. I simply must eat them almost every day. So I started my day out with my protein brownies (at 11:30) topped with freshly made almond butter. I topped that with fresh raspberries from our garden then sprinkled it with walnuts. Perfection! I have started to add a smidge (like a TBS or so) of water to the recipe and find that it helps thicken the cooked brownies a little. Otherwise they are flatter so the water helps fluff them up a bit without loosing the ooey-gooey texture that the collagen provides. I found Great Lakes Collagen to be cheapest at Thrive Market.  Click here if you have not used Thrive Market before and would like 40% off your first order.

Here is a photo of the brownies with strawberries… I didn’t get a photo of them with raspberries but you get the idea. 😉

So then I gave myself a couple of hours for my food to digest because that’s quite a heavy pre workout meal. For my workout I incorporated sprints into my chest/tricep circuits. Below I go into more detail as to what my workout was exactly if you want to scroll down or just keep on reading.

After my workout I had groats with berries, fresh ginger, cinnamon, and chia seeds and a spoonful of whey protein mixed in for an added protein kick. I also ate some eggs with spinach, bell peppers, salsa, freshly grated garlic, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and Himalayan sea salt. I then munched on a few heirloom carrots because I still felt snacky.

I then had an appointment for my daughter at the chiropractor so dinner was later than usual. I ate a bigger diner than I’m used to because I was so hungry. I had my turkey meatballs plus a scoop of taco beef that my hubby cooked up using our homemade taco seasoning. We ended up making taco salad as an easy late night dinner. I ate mine over romaine lettuce with salsa, curry seasoning and some other spices (I can’t remember them all). So I had a ginormous salad! It was good stuff.

That’s all I ate that day. I usually eat many more smaller meals but the day just didn’t allow for it so I had 3 slightly larger meals instead.

Here is my Monday Workout!

I worked on chest/triceps

I did higher reps with lower weights to get my heart rate up while doing circuits.

I started with dynamic stretches followed by a 5 min warm up run on the treadmill.

I then set the treadmill to a sprint speed and did 30 seconds of sprints followed by:

• Dumbell chest press to failure (20 plus reps)
• Dumbell tricep extensions to failure (15-20 reps)
• Sprint 30 seconds

I repeated that circuit 2 more times then went into my 2nd circuit

• Dips on the couch (25 reps)
• Dumbell flys to failure (15-20 plus reps)
• sprint 30 seconds

I repeated that circuit 2 more times then went into my 3rd circuit

• Exercise band 2 arm tricep kickbacks to failure
• Exercise band tricep extensions to failure
• sprint 30 seconds

I repeated that circuit 2 more times then cooled down with a walk on the treadmill.

I finished up my workout with static stretches.

So there you have it… Monday’s workout and what I ate. I always like to workout on Mondays to start my week right. It doesn’t have to be a long workout. This one only took me 30 minutes (not including stretch time). Also, since Sunday is the Sabbath and I don’t workout then I’m ready to go after a nice day of rest!

Let me know if you have any questions about what the exercises are (or any other questions). And feel free to make comments below. You can click on any of the exercies to see a youtube video of each one.

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