My Favorite Things: February

I hate to wish time away, but thank da lo’ March is here. I think I speak for the entire city of Boston when I say spring is needed. Now. That being said, February was choked-full of favorites so this post is packed with goodies. Enjoy!

Favorite Products

Foldover Leggings from Fabletics

I have a few pairs of leggings from Fabletics, and these are my current favorites. The other pairs I have are of a thicker material, and I like that these are a little lighter and stretchier. You can wear them low, folded-over, or unfold them to cover your stomach if you’re wearing a cropped top, which I love!

S.W. Basics Organic Lip Balm

My friends at LUNA sent me a little gift package to celebrate their new gluten-free bars, and included in it was this organic lip balm–I’m obsessed. The ingredients are simple and real (cocoa butter, beeswax, essential oils) and it lasts. This is the first time I’d heard of S.W. Basics, but now I’m intrigued to try out some of their other products as well.

L’Oreal Paris Double Extend Beauty Tubes Mascara

When it comes to makeup skills, I’d say I’m on par with most nine-year-old boys. I don’t know, maybe that’s giving me too much credit. Given I have no clue what I’m doing, I typically just go with whatever products I find at the drugstore (Sephora intimidates me…I’m not worthy). I have short lashes, so I love mascara that comes with a primer. This gem from L’Oreal that I bought by chance the other week is rocking my world. The primer forms a tube around your lashes that lengthens and thickens them before applying the mascara. And even better, when you go to wash it off, the tubes just sort of slide off—no black smears of makeup going all over your face.

Favorite Workouts

(Studio) Karma Yoga

Karma Yoga has a location right by my apartment, and they have a great intro offer for new clients: $25 for two weeks of unlimited yoga classes. I’ve been going regularly since getting back from vacation, and love the studio! Can’t beat the location for me, and the two studio spaces and large with high ceilings and tall windows. I’ve noticed such a difference in my practice going several times a week as opposed to just once. Even if it’s just two classes, that second class I find my body doing so much more. My leg gets higher in three-legged dog with more ease, I bend deeper in forward fold–it feels amazing. So crazy how much I’ve been loving yoga–this time last year, it was like pulling teeth to get me to a class.

(Class) FlyBarre

Flywheel in Boston recently renovated their studio space and is now offering their signature barre class, FlyBarre, in addition to spinning. I was invited to come try out a preview class and LOVED it! I’ve only recently started taking barre classes, so don’t have a ton to compare it to, but I found the pace a little faster than other barre workouts–which I liked. And the music was killer. Everything was done to the beat, and the class was choreographed so that each song was like its own mini workout focusing on a certain body part. Ashley taught the class I took, and she was wonderful–upbeat, challenging and fun.

Another thing I like about FlyBarre is that they offer 60-minute and 45-minute classes. Sometimes that 15 minutes makes a huge difference. I’ll definitely be back for more classes!

(From the Blog) 30-Minute Jump Roping Strength Training Workout

I love workouts that mix strength training with cardio intervals, and this is a fun one because it doesn’t involve a treadmill or other piece of cardio equipment. A jump rope is a great investment for home gyms! This was also a favorite of mine because it includes exercises I’m bad at (pistol squats and starfish crunches). It’s important to remember that those exercises you hate are usually the ones you should be doing.

Favorite Eats

Macadamia & Coconut Crusted Cod Filets from Whole Foods

Every Tuesday morning, I stop at the Whole Foods in Wellesley on my way back from teaching (it’s much better than the WF by my apartment), and the other week I spotted some macadamia & coconut crusted cod filets in the fish section. SO GOOD. I made an avocado mango salsa to go with it and mixed it up with some quinoa, salad and roasted sweet potatoes. Highly recommend the filets if you see them at your local Whole Foods!

Anything and Everything from Bondi Hardware

I’m going to do a whole post about my Australia trip this week, so more on this later, but Bondi Hardware may just be my new favorite restaurant … on earth? We had three amazing meals here—yes, that’s right, we liked it so much we ate there three times in two weeks. Shown here is their Alaskan Crab Salad with Prawn, Black Rice, Coconut & Pomegranate.

Be Bright Superfood Oil

Coromega sent me their Be Bright Superfood Oil to try out, and I really loved it! It’s basically a nutrient boost you can add to smoothies (or eat by the spoonful). It’s made up of coconut oil, avocado oil, hemp seed oil, black cumin oil and chia seed oil, and has the consistency of pudding. Sounds weird, I know, but I was surprised at how yummy it is! It was a fun novelty to have in the refrigerator this month.

Favorite Reads

Books

Long plane rides = lots of time to read this month.

It Was Me All Along by Andie Mitchell | I had the pleasure of meeting Andie on the blogger trip I went on to Hilton Head Health this fall, and that chick is as beautiful inside as she is out. I knew her book would be amazing before even reading it just by the way she speaks and so eloquently describe things in conversation. To say it lived up to my expectations is an understatement. Andie’s memoir chronicles her struggles with food and weight loss (she lost roughly half her body weight and has kept it off for almost a decade–she’s amazing), but it’s so much more than just that. From her rocky childhood to challenges after losing the weight, this book is a great read for anyone, regardless of if you’ve struggled with food.

The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott | I’m part of two book clubs: one where we read books highly recommended by our moms, peers and Oprah; and one where we try to find the most salacious, scandalous books possible and then just drink inappropriate amounts of wine while we gossip about them. I love both of them dearly, but let’s just say getting up for work the next morning is a lot easier after the former. This book, as you can probably guess by the title, was for my degenerate book club. The book is a little all over the place, but I thought it was fitting given the adderall theme. It’s the author’s drug-and sex-riddled memoir, but along a parallel track follows a murder trial. It’s a quick page-turner and a good beach read!

A Not-So-Favorite Read — Now I See You by Nicole C. Kear | I know this is a post about favorites, but I figured I might as well throw it out there that Now I See You was a bit of a bust for me. It’s the memoir of a woman with a degenerative eye disease that’s causing her to slowly go blind, but she refuses to acknowledge that she’s going blind until well into adulthood, so I felt like it ended up being a frustrating collection of stories about…nothing. There were some engaging parts, but by the end I found myself skimming and skipping pages to get through it. And I thought the humor was painfully forced. To play devil’s advocate, I may have found it boring because I’m not a mom and the author spends a majority of the second half of the book talking about moments with her kids. If you’ve read it, I’d love to know what you thought—the book has some glowing reviews so maybe it’s just me.

Articles/Blogs

• Upper Body Moves for People with Weak or Injured Wrists from Lifting Revolution | I hear this all the time with any exercise involving a plank position, push ups, etc.: my wrists hurt. Great read if you’re in that camp!
• Your comments on my mini-series about transitioning from a 9-5 to the health & fitness industry | I can’t even explain how much I loved reading all your comments on these posts. It warmed my heart to see people relate to my story in some way and hear that reading about my post-grad years struggling in the “real world” helped reassure others that they weren’t alone in feeling lost.

Good Time-Wasters/Videos

• I was so dumb as a kid, I thought that… | This made me laugh–especially since I actually thought some of the same things as a kid. Like when characters in a movie age, I figured they had to wait for the actor to grow older.
• Find the number one song on the day you were born | On my birthday it was Faith by George Michael. I’ll take it!
• SNL’s 40^th—Mom Jeans | I missed most of the SNL 40th Anniversary special, but miraculously tuned in just in time to see the Mom Jeans commercial. So. Good.

Favorite Moments

Spending Two Weeks in Australia

I’m putting together a post with pics from the trip, but had to give it a shoutout in this post as well. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a two-week vacation, and it was amazing. By the end of it, I was so relaxed and refreshed. You know when you get back from a jam-packed vacation and then feel like you need a vacation from the vacation? This was nothing like that.

Finding a Kettlebell Certification Course

Going through a kettlebell training course is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. When researching certs, Dragon Door kept coming up as highly recommended, and they’re coming to Boston at the end of March. It’s pricey ($599), but I think it’ll be worth it. I’m comfortable using kettlebells safely, but would feel more confident giving form tips to others if I had some formal training under my belt.

Boston Winter Ball

BWB is always a fun weekend in Boston, and this year the event was extra special. It was also a good reminder that I’m getting old and can NOT drink like I used to (ha!).

What were some of your favorites from February?

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