Community = amazing.

I posted awhile back about being nervous when Square1Club opened that we would lose some of the “community” element that was so wonderful in our big bootcamp groups. Now that we’re a month or so into it I’m feeling a lot better where that’s concerned. Personally, I’ve tried to make a bit more effort myself to keep in touch with people, especially the ones I don’t have workouts scheduled with every week.

This past Saturday night I had an impromptu dinnerparty/scrabble night. It was so great! It was Angie’s idea, so thank you miss Angie for an awesome idea! We ended up inviting Kevin, Robert, and Amana. So there were 6 of us, like a triple date. Of course, had it been a triple date, the pairings probably would have been something like: Robert and Kevin, Dave and Angie, Me and Hartman, LOL! But anyway, it was a nice little group, just barely small enough to squeeze around my little table.

Amanda was awesome and helped cook. I asked Facebook for chicken suggestions (THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I’m filing all those ideas away because I’m sure there will be many “next times”) We ended up making a stir fry. HyVee had orange and yellow peppers on sale, so I picked up one of each. I bought yellow carrots because they’re “fancier”, some roasted red pepper for color, and broccoli. It was delicious! Amanda did an amazing job with the spices, considering how little I know to keep on hand. She even made a “sauce” (like she deglazed the pan and everything! Cornstarch was involved! She’s so fancy and knowledgeable, it’s amazing!) and I enjoyed my little cooking lesson (although I felt guilty making my friends do most of the work for a party at MY house. Oh well!)

We played a round of Upwords. Like Scrabble, but 3-demensional, if you’re not familiar. Angie is crazy good at word games. I’m…not. LOL! After that, even though it was late, we started a game of Mexican Train Dominos. Only Dave and I had played before, but the others picked it up really quickly and I think we all had fun. They didn’t end up leaving until 3:30 am!

I don’t normally detail parties on here, but I was remembering how worried I was when the club opened about losing our community. I can now say for sure that that is NOT the case. If anything I’m getting closer to everyone. We get more small group time with certain people so we get to know them even better. I’m loving it!

I’m also very happy to note that I can host a party and keep it almost completely healthy! I was “bad” near the end and had a few drinks, and the girls each had one. But otherwise, our dinner was mostly veggies, just a little brown rice and some chicken. We measured the oil to keep that in check. We left feeling good and clean and healthy instead of nasty with grease congealing in our veins. A healthy party CAN be done!

Calories CRUNCHED!

Well it's February already. The first Monday in Febraury, in fact. Which means last night was the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure what my readers (if I have any, lol!) would have normally done during the super bowl. Personally I've only been to two parties. One was in college at Steve and Aaron's house, and I recall eating oodles of "bad" food that night. I remember M&M's and Bugles for sure. I think there may have been pizza. I'm not sure.
The other was when I worked in the group home. I took two of the ladies to a Super Bowl party at my apartment complex, "Loser Heights". The Bears were playing so Dave and I wanted to actually watch the game. We had cupcakes I remember. I'm not sure what else we ate that day, but I'm sure either frozen pizza or fast food were involved. We left at halftime so the ladies could get to bed "on time" and so I could leave since my shift was over, but I'm sure we ate plenty of chips and cheese dip and cupcakes in the short time we were at the party.

Last night I found out that the average Super Bowl viewer eats over 4000 calories during the game. This sounds nuts to me, but I suppose if you sit and eat for three hours straight it will easily add up to that. Especially since the typical foods are chips and dips, chili (not the healthy kind I make), pizza, wings, beer, beer, and beer. I could easily drink over 1000 calories of Blue Moon (250 calories per bottle) during a football game. Add some brownies and chips and a half a pizza to that and you've hit the 4000 average easily.
Well this year we decided to do things differently. Square1Club hosted a "Big Game Calorie Crunch!" We set all the cardio equipment around the tv, turned on the game, and got to work. Each station had a sign with the amount of calories a 240 pound person would burn doing that activity for two minutes. We tracked our time at each station and wrote down our calories burned, and Kevin added them all up at the end.
As a group we burned over 23,000 calories! I'm so proud of our group.
I had the third highest total, with 2264. I'm super proud of that!

So not only did we not eat "bad" food during the game (our "refueling station" was stocked with protein bars, fruit, veggies and humus, pistachios, and plenty of water) but we also burned a ton of calories. I love what Marty is doing for our group. We're really making a community and a lifestyle that's so much healthier than we've ever thought we could be. It's awesome. :)