Which way to the gym?

How have I managed almost a year of blogging without writing a post on fitness?

It's been in the back of my mind, but I guess I just needed to organize my thoughts.  Since I've documented Gwen's first year, I feel like I can now talk about other non-Gwen things on here as well.  Well, I guess it's somewhat Gwen-related because I really have been wanting to talk about my prenatal workouts; HOW IMPORTANT they were and how much of a difference I feel that they made.  I wish I had blogged during my pregnancy, but oh well, next time right?

Some background info for anyone who doesn't know; in my former [pre-baby] life, fitness was my thang. And by that, I mean my job.  My degree is in Exercise Science, I'm a certified Personal Trainer, and I worked in the Corporate Fitness industry for 8 years as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, and manager.  So basically, I got to "work out all day".  Not really, but try working in the fitness industry without hearing that comment every day of your life.

Anyway, early on I realized that lifting weights is 10 million times more enjoyable to me than anything cardio-related.  I chose my major because when I ran track in college (ironic, I know), my favorite part of our practices was the weight lifting.  My workouts have always consisted of mostly strength and interval training.

Post-baby I was fortunate to lose my baby weight rather quickly, however, I know that some of it was muscle loss.  I stopped working out just before Christmas, and Gwen was born 1/9/11.  Since then, I haven't been as diligent as I could've been about working out, but Gwen and I joined a Yoga class, and we went walking a lot.  I finally joined a gym in the fall, but I'm still struggling to find a schedule that works for me.
Because of the inconsistency with my current workouts, I truly believe that I wouldn't have been as successful with my weight loss if I hadn't taken care of myself during my pregnancy.

Stay tuned - I will be dedicating a few upcoming posts to pre and postnatal info and exercises!

Home Brew!

Attention: This post is NGR (Not Gwen Related)

I documented our first home brew experience, which culminated today with the first taste!  The most tedious thing about home brewing is how sterile everything has to be.  Apparently, beer needs to ferment at the same temperature that bacteria grows, so it's really important to keep everything sterile. There's A LOT of cleaning prep work that goes into it (fortunately, my job was photographer, and not cleaner).

Rob, Justin, and Stevie - ready to brew our first beer!

 Boiling...

We ended up using 2 different sets of directions because we couldn't decide which to follow.  Not the best idea ever, next time we decided to make things a bit less complicated and choose 1 set to go with...

There was nothing very appetizing about the entire process..

Morgan was not a fan of the smell

We were just about finished when the rubber grommet fell INTO the bucket (not good because of the whole sterile thing I mentioned earlier)

 Trying to fish out the grommet - did not work...

 ...so Stevie had to go in

 Success!

**Now the beer has to ferment for 4 weeks.**

Time to bottle the beer and let it sit for another week to carbonate.

Fast forward to today: The moment of truth has arrived!!!

This photo gives you an idea how much we trusted the beer that we made - we had a lot of back up, just in case:

The poor, and first taste:

 Holy crap, it's actually GOOD!!

A definite success! A new business venture? hmmm...... :)



OK, twist my arm... here's a pic of Morgan holding Gwen.  It was too cute to resist posting