Ouch. and Yum!

Okay, so in the spirit of mixing it up, Workout Buddy Katie and I tried a Pilates class Tuesday night. I own the DVD and have done the Winsor Pilates DVD 20 minute work out in a former lifetime. When I was enrolled in weight watchers and also using the very retro, very hip Sweating To The Oldies series. Richard and I used to get down! Where was I? Oh yes. Pilates class.

For trying something new, this was in the most stressful possible situation. We walk in - and being the big girl that I am in a sea of size 6s, I notice that the only places in the room available for us to set up in, is dead center. Normally I don't care that I'm the biggest girl in the room, because I could spend every waking minute of my life doing that, and I have better things to do, but dead center when trying something new? Hard. Everyone has their mats and balls and straps and blocks all set up and so I get our instructions from the instructor and we go fetch our supplies. The instructor is lovely, but talks a mile a minute and I can hardly keep up. The sweat I am producing, my god, you'd think I was on the elliptical. And the best part, she asked us to bounce on our balls as fast and as high as we possibly can. I fall off of mine. Twice. So she kindly trades balls with me. And then some of the moves, I just had to stop. I couldn't sustain them. And I hear her say "If you need to do this with your knees bent, that is okay, or okay, you could just stop too, that's okay too." Clearly she saw me poop out a couple of times. And today, the soreness! My quads were already mad from the squats on Sunday, so they hurt, and my obliques - oh la la - they smart. But overall? I loved it. Seriously! I loved feeling the way my body moved, and how strong I actually am. It also reminded me of my theatre classes when we would do movement exercises. So falling off the ball or not, I talked to Katie about it tonight, and I'm going to continue once a week. It's not the right class for her, but we'll still be water aerobics and elliptical friends. There's also a bellydancing class that Katie wants to take, that is up by her house. So she might do that without me.

In yum news - I have two new favorites! Broccolini! It is so good. I steamed some the other night and splashed it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Fabulous. It is tender like asparagus, and sweeter than Broccoli. Awesome. I highly recommend it. I would never put balsamic on regular broccoli, but this just seemed right.

And sweet potato fries. I could eat these all the time. Sweet potatoes are supposed to be really good for you, too.

1 large sweet potato
2 tsp olive oil
Bacon salt! So bad, but so good.
or
salt, pepper and paprika to taste

Preheat oven to 450. Slice the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch slices. Toss with olive oil to coat. Sprinkle with salt and seasonings to your liking. Bake on an ungreased cooking sheet for 25 minutes, turning halfway through. Sooo good.