First Workout After a Week Off Plus What I Ate This Halloween

I’m back! After a week of partial fasting and prayer and no workouts I am feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. I got extra time with Jesus and my family!

I am happy to be back to working out again. It was great to sweat again and feel physically healthy. I still felt healthy last week… in fact, I felt more emotionally healthy than I have in a while. I believe it’s important to take breaks in life, to get my focus back on Jesus (because it’s so easy to get distracted), and to recuperate from the constant go go go of life. I even wrote a post about resting a while back. It’s important to have a healthy balance between work and rest.

But on to my workout today!

I started off with HIIT (my favorite)!

My workout today:

First I warmed up with a 5 minute jog on the treadmill. I had been stretching all last week so my muscles didn’t feel too tight.

Then I did a sprinting and body weight circuit (as follows):

• Sprint 30 seconds on the treadmill
• Pushups (25: went to knee pushups when I couldn’t do regular ones anymore)
• Dips on the couch (20)
• Scorpions (15) these are for the triceps… they are narrow pushups with your back arched holding at the top to really hit the triceps

I repeated this for a total of 3 rounds then finished up with more sprints (30 seconds on, 30 off) until I had done 10 total.

Then after catching my breath and getting some water I continued with a heavier lifting session:

• Dumbbell Chest press on the exercise ball

with a superset of:

• Dumbbell Flies on the exercise ball

Then I finished up with:

• Dumbbell tricep extensions

I did 3 sets of each exercise lifting to failure with each one.

Lastly I did one of my favorite ab routines (minus the last circuit that focuses on glutes because I plan on hitting legs tomorrow)

Then I did static stretching to end my workout.

It’s SO important to stretch after a workout. It’s easy to skip… especially if you are hungry or in a hurry. But stretching is beneficial in so many ways. It helps your body realize you should now be in recovery mode, decrease your chance of injuries, and helps lower stress levels (and stress leads to fat storage).

So that was my workout today!

Here is what I ate:

This morning I made a fresh batch of homemade almond butter. I missed my favorite homemade treat after a week without. So I put some on half an apple and also ate a bite of homemade oat bread with a smidge more almond butter about an hour before my workout.

The kiddos and I then made homemade meringues (from Elana’s Pantry) for Halloween snacks. I didn’t eat any of those but it was fun to make with the kiddos and they LOVED them!

After my workout I had my biggest meal which was eggs with spinach and salsa and a side of homemade oat bread and a couple heirloom carrots.

I continued to munch on carrots as the kiddos and I did fun activities like painting pumpkins.

Later I was hungry once again and ate some tuna with peas and a brown rice cake as well as some more carrots.

For dinner I had a salad with salsa and 2 turkey meatballs. I am completely out of homemade salsa from this Summer and super bummed but organic jar salsa with some added cayenne pepper gave me the spice I wanted.

Then at 6pm we went out with the kiddos to our church where they do “Fall Fun Day” activities. I love that it’s indoors since fall is cold here in MN! Although tonight was an unusually warm night. The kids got gobs of candy that they then traded for their goodie bags. My son got to eat a few pieces of candy since his tummy isn’t as severely sensitive as my daughter’s. My hubby then picks out all his favorite chocolates from the kids stash of course. I ate some eggs once I finally sat down to relax and watch something on Hulu.

My birthday is coming up, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and if I take every opportunity to splurge on candy bars, cakes and pies it will all add up quickly. So I have future plans to make some healthier sweet options for the holidays. Plus after a week of fasting I think my body would feel like bunk if I gorged on Peanut butter Cups (which is totally what would happen if I tried to just eat one because who can stop at just one… if you can you might not be human 😉 Just sayin’.

So that is what I ate today. Hope you all have a fantastic day! And if you do eat some goodies today don’t beat yourself up. Enjoy them! But if you are looking for some whole food options check out my sweets recipe page for some ideas.

And just because… here are some photos of my kiddos dressed up for the night.

If you have any comments or questions feel free to comment in the section below!

*Some of the above links are affiliate links.  Click here to learn more about affiliate links.