First Time At Body Pump...

Morning all! I'm feeling really energised this morning! I went to Body Pump yesterday evening for the first time, and my body must have needed extra recovery time as I slept until 10am this morning!! That's unheard of for me - Liam and I take it in turns to give each other lie-ins at the weekend, but even on my lie-in day I normally only sleep until 8.30am latest! I'm glad I did get extra sleep though - my body is feeling pretty sore this morning!! :-D

Let's go back to yesterday though. I had a pre-exercise snack a few hours before Body Pump of a couple of slices of malt loaf with peanut butter and strawberries:

This was really tasty. I normally just eat malt loaf with butter, but I liked the new topping!

Then at 6.30pm my sister, her boyfriend and I headed off to Body Pump. I was looking forward to it, but didn't know what to expect. The instructor didn't arrive until just before the class started but luckily there were other people there who helped us set up.

I can't remember what weights I used for everything, but my warm-up weight was 2.5kg on each side, and I went down as light as 2kg on each side for shoulders (as I'd twinged my left shoulder at the end of the previous track so didn't want to do more damage - glad I did this anyway as I was getting tired by then!!) and up to 4.5kg on each side on one of the tracks - one of the legs tracks I assume. I saw someone had a little notebook to write down the details - I wish I'd done that as it'd be interesting to see how I improve - by the time we got back in the car my mind had gone blank!!

I really enjoyed Body Pump - my whole body was like jelly by the end but I kind of liked that - shows I've actually worked my muscles for once!! There's no way I'd have worked on weights for that long in the gym on my own so it was really good to focus on a different aspect of fitness - and I definitely needed the instructor to tell us there was only 4 more reps left to keep me going by the end of most some of the tracks!! This morning I feel stiff and achey - particularly my thighs and upper arms - but I can walk which is a relief - I was a bit worried as I was so sore last night and thought I'd stiffen up even more whilst I was sleeping!

When I got home from Body Pump I had an easy dinner of half a pack of fresh pasta (pumpkin and pine nut stuffed fiorelli from Waitrose) with salad.

I wanted some kind of sauce but couldn't think of what to put on it (and was too hungry to take time to make anything!) so I just added some ketchup and grated cheese after these photos. Slightly boring way to finish it off perhaps, but it still tasted really good.

I hadn't been planning to eat anything else as I ate dinner really late for me, but after I'd finished the pasta I fancied something sweet. An evening snack plate it was. This was Urban Fresh dried pineapple, almonds and a couple of squares of Lindt dark mint chocolate:

The dried pineapple was my favourite part of this plate. I sometimes find dried pineapple to be too dried and chewy, but this Urban Fresh version is the best I've ever tasted. Really soft and, well, fresh tasting. Yum! I just wish I could get it more easily than going to "big" Tesco half an hour away...think I might have to do an online order sometime soon!!

After my lovely night's sleep, I woke up this morning fancying a smoothie. When Liam went to Waitrose on Thursday evening he'd got a bit confused by my shopping list ("2 bags of salad, preferably not spinach" = 2 bags of salad + a bag of spinach?!!) so I had a green smoothie for the first time in ages. Well, kind of - adding spinach makes the smoothie lose it's pretty colour, and this one didn't even go green - just a kind of sludgy colour!

This was half a banana, a couple of large handfuls of spinach, frozen strawberries, milk and a tiny bit of agave nectar. I'd never had frozen strawberries before (another Tesco purchase that we can't get in our little town!) and was really pleased with how strong their flavour was. I was expecting to have to add a lot more sweetener than I did, but the strawberry flavour really shone through.

This smoothie made 2 big glasses, but I only got to drink 1.5 of them as the children took a liking to it! Izzy had a few mouthfuls but then Toby decided the rest was for him...!

After he'd finished it all, he tried to "cook" it in his toy oven, haha, he wasn't too impressed that it didn't produce more smoothie!!

Bless him, he's still at the age where the colour of something doesn't put him off. So long as it tastes good, he's more than happy to eat/drink it!!

Right, that's all from me for now - typing this is making my left arm ache worse!! Liam thinks I need to "man up" but he's never tried Body Pump...I'm hoping it's not just me that aches this bad!!

Have you ever done Body Pump? Were you quite stiff & sore after your first time? Does your body get quicker at recovering if you go regularly?!! I'm definitely glad I went to Body Pump on a Friday evening - I don't think I'd have been ready to do the whole getting the children ready & school run this morning!!