Winter Workout Woes: Be Gone!

This week's post is devoted to winter exercise. Not because I do it all that often, or because I'm super fit from doing it, or because I really enjoy it. But because it keeps me warm even in this:

Not in the now-my-blood-is-pumping way you might think though.


In this way:

Pretty face, I know ;)

And in this way:

Yes, these two cozy warm items are the direct result of my attempt at diligent exercise. A few months ago, my motivation for exercise blew away with all of the fall leaves. I knew I was going to need some incentives to stay healthy during the long winter. James and I figure that our health is one thing that we are willing to spend a little of our miscellaneous budget on, so we set up a reward system.

Can you see the stars?

The system works a bit differently for us, according to our needs and schedule, but for me, I get a star sticker for each day that I get up at 5:20, exercise for 30 minutes, and drink a liter of water. If I fail to do one or more of those things, no star for the day. When I reach a certain number of stars, I splurge on things like a blanket, green olives, boots, etc. I never thought of myself as extrinsically motivated, but this system has worked so well for me that I guess it must be true.


In addition to keeping me warm, winter exercise has also been good because it has forced me to be creative with the way I keep fit. It's not like Hawaii where I could go for a barefoot run on the beach any time day or night. Nope, jogging outside in below-freezing weather at 5:30 in the morning is not an option in my eyes. That means that my yoga mat and YouTube have become my best friends. I have found two channels on YouTube that work really well for me. If you are having a hard time with winter exercise, check them out: Yogatic and Pop Pilates. I also went to a Zumba class for the first time this week with a teacher from one of my schools. Totally cured me of all my winter blues! It was the most fun I have had working out in a really long time.


Anyway, enough of the winter workout saga. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking for this week.

This was a mochi-making party that the international association put on. Mochi is rice pounded into a really smooth sticky paste. We ate it with sweet bean paste. Very yummy!

A Relief Society activity. We decorated candy jars and hooks.

One of my favorite classes. It was my last day with these girls because they are third year high school students and they don't come to school in February. They will graduate in March. I will miss them a lot!

More third year students who will graduate soon. For our last day, we played Funglish - thanks to the Bobsie for an awesome Christmas present!

This week, James was in charge of a date night activity. We went for a romantic walk in the snow and ended up at a quaint little restaurant where we ate this heavenly mud pie brownie and ice cream. Great date night activity :)

Yeah, James was pretty stoked about his brownie :)

 Well, that's about it for us. Hope everyone out there had a great week. Stay warm!