Weekly Workout Recap: No Excuses in Making Exercise a Priority {Jersey Vacation}

Hi friends!

I had such an awesome time on vacation last week, but I missed you guys! Even though I had access to my computer some of the time, I really stayed away and just enjoyed visiting my family and friends in Jersey. Between my full-time work, blog/freelance work, and personal email, I get a ridiculous amount of emails, and it felt kind of nice to ignore them for an entire 9 days. Now I’m just trying to catch up and decompress from the craziness that was last week!

My hubby flew back to San Diego yesterday, while I’m staying with my parents in Jersey and working from here for the next few weeks to get more quality time in with my loved ones. I decided that since this is a long trip, I’m going to post weekly workout recaps while I’m away from my home. It can be tough to keep up with workouts when I’m not on a normal routine and in my own house, but I’ve been finding ways to keep nice and active.

This week’s workout theme? No excuses! There are nearly always reasons you can come up with for why you should skip exercise, and on the flip side, there are nearly always ways that you can fit it in with some effort and a bit of planning ahead.

So let’s go ahead and recap my workouts since I’ve been home! To exemplify how I make it work and have no excuses when it comes to an active lifestyle, I’m also going to share with you what I was up to that day – because I’ve been all over the place and crazy busy since flying to the east coast!

Backing it up to last weekend when we arrived, last Saturday I was at my parents’ beach house. Some of my family – I think there was around 40 of us! – got together for fun in the sun and lots of good food and drinks. My hubby’s birthday was the day before, and my cousin and I had our birthdays coming up in a few days, so everyone celebrated with us.

It was an awesome first full day home! Since I knew the afternoon and evening would be hectic, I woke up and got a workout in: a 15 minute walk with my parents’ dog + 45 minutes of kickboxing & conditioning exercises + 15 minutes of yoga and stretching. A and I also wound up canoeing for 30 minutes in the early afternoon, which was fun! 

We enjoyed canoeing so much on Saturday, we did it again on Sunday morning. A 45-minute canoe ride was the perfect low-key movement to cure a bit of jet lag and tiredness from partying on Saturday, before we made the 2-hour drive south to visit A’s dad, who threw us a surprise family birthday party on Sunday evening. We were spoiled with birthday celebrations this year!

Monday was a rest day, as our day was jam-packed with getting up early to take A’s dad’s boat out on a nice ride to Chesapeake City, Maryland. We walked around and checked out all of the neat little antique shops and had lunch there before driving to Philly to take his dad to the airport for a work trip, and heading back to his house to get ready for dinner at A’s grandparents’ place.

 

I had wanted to workout that night following dinner, but we didn’t wind up getting back to his dad’s to go to sleep until 11:30 pm, so….Tuesday I woke up bright and early to get a quick workout in. I did a 30-minute treadmill interval workout, followed by 10 minutes of squats, sit-ups and pushups. Not surprisingly, I hated every minute of it! I’m still not a treadmill fan.

We then drove 45-minutes to A’s mom’s house, then headed down to Philly to see the Eagles training camp open practice. We had fun watching all of the players practice with 20,000 other fans, and I’m getting excited for football season to start…. though let’s be clear, I’m still a Giants fan myself! 😉

After making the 90 minute drive back to my parents’ house that night, on Wednesday I got a nice workout in while my nephews were all napping. My mom babysits them on Wednesdays, and whew, helping to take care of 3 kids 3 and under was a bit of a workout in itself!

But, I managed to get in a pretty long workout: 60 minutes of upper body exercise with Jillian Michaels’ DVD workouts + 15 minutes of abdominal exercises & stretching.

Thursday was my birthday, and after a birthday brunch with my hubby….

….I squeezed in a 30-minute Jillian Michaels’ Ripped in 30 workout, along with 20 minutes of walking with A and my parents’ dog + yoga play.

That evening we drove 90 minutes north for my best friend Meg’s wedding rehearsal dinner. After 8 years of them dating, 1 1/2 years as an engaged couple, her Miami bachelorette party, and lots of wedding planning, it was so exciting to have her wedding day finally upon us!

Friday morning A and I slept in, visited my grandpa, and got ready to head back up north for the weekend for wedding festivities. I fit in a 30 minute Killer Body Jillian Michaels ab/cardio workout + 10 minutes of stretching. 

Friday night we had a great time meeting up with my friend Danielle and her boyfriend for drinks before heading to dinner at the site of our first date almost 9 years ago – an adorable Italian BYOB eatery called Queen Margherita Trattoria – then driving to the wedding hotel.

Saturday was my friend Meg’s wedding day! I was at her house by 5 am getting my hair and makeup done with all of the other bridesmaids, and then off we went for picture taking, her daytime wedding, and many hours of partying afterwards. She looked absolutely gorgeous, and the day went off without a hitch! I got to catch up with some college friends and people that I hadn’t seen in awhile. The wedding had an awesome group of guests that danced their asses off, including myself, so workout-wise it was an active rest day of dancing. 🙂

Can you see why I’m recuperating from last week?! It was a whirlwind, which it usually is every time we visit our home state and have so many people to see, but I’ve been having such a blast!

Tell me… What was the best workout you did last week? When was the last wedding you attended?