How I Stayed Active While Eating Cheesecake All Week
I’ve eaten a lot of stuff I normally wouldn’t eat – and in very large quantities – while I’ve been visiting my future in-laws this week. Pies and cake and cookies OH MY! I don’t even have a sweet tooth, but I have been going HAM on pastries. Which brings me to the next problem – ham. And pork.
I don’t eat these things, but I’ve sucked it up and eaten a fair amount so as not to put anyone out or be difficult. I don’t avoid eating “the other white meat” because of religious reasons or anything. It’s really just a personal choice. But man. I had these sausages at a family friend’s house that nearly had me break dancing in the kitchen, they were so good!
And so, after eating and eating and eating just a couple of days in, my pants started getting tighter and tighter, and I realized I needed to get my butt up and moving a lot more than what I was doing after getting in my 10 burpees upon arrival in Ohio. (We drove, so I just needed to move!) Hat tip, once again, to Jamie King for introducing me to the #BurpeesorBust Challenge!
First, we went for a 2-ish-mile hike, a good 1/4 of which was in the mud. It was great to get my steps in and my heart rate up, plus the fresh air was so necessary after breathing in nothing but sugar for days (it seemed). The Akron area really has a lot of great trails, so it was nice to get out and try a new one with my future mother- and father-in-law. It wasn’t too cold as far as hiking whether goes, and it was not terribly windy or raining so we could tackle this loop trail.
When we moved to a different family member’s home for the second half of our trip, we had access to a home gym in the basement. I kicked my own butt when I finally dragged it down there, and I’ll be sharing that workout with you guys in the next couple of days. (I shared it to my Instagram story while I was doing the workout.) I will just say this: My hamstrings are so sore, and DOMS is a mofo for real!
When I was here for the holidays last year, I really wanted to take a spin class, so I Googled cycle studios and found nothing resembling anything I was familiar with. Whomp, whomp. This year, things were different! I found out that there was this town called Hudson that had some of the boutique studios we have in our area, namely Cyclebar, Orangetheory, and Pure Barre. I also had heard of this VersaClimber studio called Rise Nation in Cleveland (my future in-laws live between Akron and Cleveland, but a little closer to Akron), and wanted to check them out while I was here. So many options!
Unfortunately, because these places are so new and so uncommon, it was almost impossible to find a class that I could take! I say almost impossible because I could’ve signed up to take 6 a.m. classes, but I’m on vacay, so ain’t nobody got time fo dat! Fortunately, I was able to sign up to get waitlisted at Cyclebar for a 9:30 a.m. class.
I like to think of myself as an optimistic realist, so I got there early and waited. Surely someone wouldn’t make it to class. It happens to the best of us! Nobody could tell me I wasn’t getting into that class, and sure enough, I got in – just barely! I grabbed the only empty bike in the front row and got ready to put in some work!
