Strong Medicine Mom: Friday Five Things & My First Giveaway!

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm off for another adventure in Chicago with my sister-friends. It's my last weekend of fun plans before I move so I'm pretty darn excited! Make sure you check out my extra cool announcement below!

Five Workouts:
Workouts have been HOT this week. Let's face it, it's the middle of summer and Cincinnati is notorious for being muggy, sticky, and uncomfortable. This certainly isn't Texas with temps in the 100s but we are consistently in the 90s and the humidity makes it feel like I'm wearing an ugly Christmas sweater to workout. Whew!

Monday: Boot Camp (45 min)
Tuesday: 4 mile Run/Walk (50 min)
Wednesday: Hot Yoga (60 min) + Boot Camp (45 min)
Thursday: 4.5 mile Run/Walk (60 min)
Friday: TBD

Five Thoughts:
1. Bug Bites
They just plain suck! I love being outside to run and workout but I don't love getting bit by everything. I bought some Bug Bands to wear but I keep forgetting to wear them. How do you all combat this buggy problem?

2. Sausage Fingers & A Red Face
Who else gets sausage fingers when they run? Mine swell up after about 5-10 minutes and won't go down until long after my workout. On top of that, I get big old red cheeks anytime I think of exercise & a lot of people don't. I wanted to find out why so here's a great little article that sums it all up. It's basically common sense now that I think about it - vasodilation from exercise = increased blood flow. The take away point I got from the article was a red face and swelling does NOT mean you are out of shape! It just means your regulatory reflex is more sensitive or reactive than others. Yay for homeostasis!

Darn red chubby cheekers!

3. Eating is Hit or Miss Lately
I tend to make pretty good choices until I let myself get too hungry - that's when I reach for something easy & quick. Like this morning I didn't eat breakfast at home because I have so many errands to run. I ended up stopping at Panera and getting a Mediterranean Egg White sandwich. Obviously not the worst choice but it's something I could make at home for fewer calories, less sodium, and less $. I need to break this habit! (It gets worse, I promise. Just an example.)

4. Birds (Caw Caw Caw)
My last semester of college I needed to take one last Biology lab & lecture to graduate so I chose Ornithology (birds) which included "awesome" field trips at 7 am throughout the semester. To be honest, I choose this class so I would only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday. It became a joke between my friends and I because I probably spent more time studying for that class than any of my other ones that semester. Plus it's just kind of weird. The surprising part? I actually enjoyed that class and have since grown to love birding. Anyway I saw a Blue Heron on my run yesterday! So that's pretty cool. Another revelation? The dean of my med school is a huge birder as well as several other professors so that bird knowledge will come in handy!

5. Making Healthy Choices during Girl's Weekend
My goal is to break through the post-Advocare cleanse plateau and if I'm going to do that, I have to make smart choices this weekend. I'm so tired of gaining and losing the same three pounds from all my shenanigans the past two weeks. I work too hard to mess it up! How do you all deal with fun weekends with your girls? Suggestions? Low calorie alcoholic beverage ideas?

And an extra special announcement:
One last thing! I'm participating in my FIRST giveaway! I never thought I would do one of these things but the opportunity presented itself and I thought it would be a great way to connect with new people!

We're giving away a Sony Cybershot Camera. While I love my iPhone, the picture quality isn't always the best so I totally wish I could win this thing. All you wannable fashion bloggers, go check it out!