Welcome to our faves post, my friends! Can you believe we’re into August? This week, Brady turned 22-months old, oh my, I taught three classes, did a lot of work and our besties arrived from Ohio too.

They arrived late on Wednesday, and last night, we went out to dinner. We’re off to the City this afternoon, and then to wine country tomorrow — woohoo! No time to waste, so let’s get to the weekly faves, and there’s a lot in this one …

Current faves

Wellness

My experience trying an IV vitamin therapy drip

I have to start this one out by saying that I wholeheartedly do NOT think you need to invest in expensive trendy treatments in order to be healthy. You do not. However, I’m always down to try new things, and I definitely think we will start seeing the IV vitamin therapy drip becoming more and more popular and mainstream, because the basis behind it is sound. When you get an elective IV of concentrated vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, they are instantly absorbed into your bloodstream and you can feel the effects immediately — much more so than taking supplements, pills, powders or eating food. These drips are already a standard on the Las Vegas Strip to help hungover people feel better, but they’re now becoming a wellness tool, so you can supercharge your consumption of beneficial vitamins, help your skin, boost your energy and much more.

So here’s the deal: There’s a brand new spot on Union Street in the Marina neighborhood of San Francisco (just steps away from the Equinox where I held my first ever personal trainer job), called Drip Doctors. And Drip Doctors is an IV therapy and regeneration center. It just opened a few weeks ago, and they invited me to come in to try a free service. How could I say no to that?

(My top is older and from this brand, and here are my jeans.)

I chose the Limitless treatment, which costs $270, and it took about 40 minutes total, which includes the time it takes for the nurse to create the “drip” or bag of liquid that I took in. Here’s what Drip Doctors has to say about it …

The Limitless Drip is an all-time favorite! It is the ultimate vitamin infusion that contains the most studied vitamin mixture created by Dr. John Meyer in the 1950’s plus the added touch of Drip Doctors’ specially formulated antioxidants. The Limitless Drip contains multiple high dose vitamins for optimizing your immunity, neuro-function, metabolic energy and cell recovery. It has been studied in terms of efficacy for treatment of symptoms related to multiple chronic fatigue and life debilitating disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, cancer, fibromyalgia and dementia just to name a few. The high dose glutathione, which is the mother of all antioxidants and master detoxifier, is touted for its benefits alone. We top this with vitamin C and B-complex to help boost your immune system as well as DNA replication.

All in, I took in a whole liter of fluid, with a “push” or extra dose of glutathione (which helps detoxification) at the end. That’s a lot! (I also drank two bottles of water while I was there, so hydrated is an understatement — definitely wasn’t happy to be sitting in traffic on the way home, if you know what I mean.)

A few things to note about my experience …

• It didn’t hurt. My nurse used a numbing cream on the inside of my elbow before inserting the IV needle. You don’t even get a numbing cream when you get blood drawn or a shot at the doctor, so this was nice. The needle was very small and the insertion didn’t hurt at all. While I knew I had something in my arm, I never felt pain while it was in me. I was pleasantly surprised by this, because like most people, I’m not a fan of pain or of needles.
• You can still move about. Although I spent much of the time sitting in a super fancy massage chair and listening to a podcast (you can also watch Netflix at Drip Doctors, which is amazing, but I didn’t do that), I could have used my phone or done whatever I needed to do with limited mobility with the arm that had the needle (it’s your non-dominant arm, most likely). I even moved about the facility to take a picture.
• It’s relaxing. As a mom of a toddler who has her hands in multiple projects, I don’t get a lot of time to just “sit and be.” Other than a few minutes of listening to a podcast, I enjoyed getting my drip treatment, because I didn’t feel like I needed to be doing anything else. That feels good.
• It’s a boost. I started to feel pretty calm while my drip was going, and that was likely from the effects of the magnesium, but then I also felt a little energized when I left too. I slept incredibly good that night and felt hydrated even when I woke up in the morning the next day. I didn’t feel like the boost lasted much longer than that for me though — however, I taught an incredibly sweaty BODYPUMP class the morning after getting the drip, so perhaps I lost a lot of my hydration that way, who knows.
• It’s trendy and isn’t scary. There are a lot of scary wellness/beauty things out there like the vampire facial (gross, and involves putting your own blood back on your face), but getting an IV drip is clean (as long as you are at a great facility with a licensed nurse, like I was), basically painless and gives you an extra edge. A lot of us can be deficient in certain minerals, vitamins and nutrients (especially if your diet includes eating a lot of the same food over and over), and drips are a great way to get those vitamins in, knowing you will benefit from them. We don’t always absorb all of the pricey supplements we buy, but a drip pretty much guarantees that you’ll get what you need.

To close this out, I don’t think that getting an IV vitamin therapy will be part of my regular wellness routine right now. It’s still quite pricey, and the facility isn’t close enough to me to be convenient. However, I love that this is something that is available for us when we need a boost, perhaps before a vacation, after a vacation, during a stressful season at work and much more. 

My nurse at Drip Doctors said that the best cadence to get the most benefit would be to get a drip maybe once a month, then get a push in between (a push is a smaller dosage done manually by a nurse via the IV in your arm) to top up. So there you have it!

Thanks to Drip Doctors for inviting me in and hosting me on the house. I loved it! In case you want to know more, Drip Doctors also has some cosmetic and regeneration offerings in addition to the IVs, and they have locations in Southern California with more coming to the Bay Area soon.

Events

Sweating it out at CorePower with Mindbodygreen

I killed two birds with one stone (is that the worst phrase ever or what? In fact, let’s not use it anymore) this past weekend during my trip to the City, because I also visited CorePower Yoga Duboce in the Castro neighborhood to take a yoga sculpt class and learn about brain health at an event hosted by Mindbodygreen.

Speaking Mindbodygreen, remember when I had the opportunity to share my story with this piece on Mindbodygreen? Because that was exciting … “The 4 Things I Had to do to Get Pregnant While Working as a Group Fitness Instructor.”

Anywho, before we did our sculpt class using light weights in the very crowded heated room (talk about a sweat-fest … oh my gosh), we heard from Leigh Winters, who is a frequent contributor to Mindbodygreen and is also a neuroscientist. She shared these brain tips with us …

• Take a magnesium glycinate supplement daily. And about 30 percent of people are deficient in magnesium, which you need for 600 different internal bodily reactions (so it’s quite important), and magnesium helps you sleep as well. I’ve mentioned before that I like topical magnesium on the skin (I use this one nightly), but Winters said that if you plan to take it orally, magnesium glycinate is the best form, because other forms of magnesium can mess with your bowels — and we don’t want that.
• Get outside. In order to avoid depression, improve your mood, lower anxiety and increase cognitive function, you should be spending time outdoors in green space for two hours a week total — not too much more or too much less. 
• Limit sugar. Apparently the brain can’t decipher between natural sugar or processed sugar, so you should try to make sure you don’t overdo it on either or you’ll get brain fog. This is a tough one for me, because I love fruit and dessert too.
• Exercise regularly, especially yoga. All types of movement support your brain health and function, but something about yoga and its focus on breathing is extra beneficial for the brain and actually supports brain growth. Good to know.

I hadn’t done a CorePower Yoga class in more than a year and hadn’t done a sculpt class in more than two years, so it felt good to flow in a hot room. And there was a LOT of sweating …

(My top, which I have in multiple colors, because it can be tied up or worn down.)

Afterward, I took a shower at the studio and still found myself sweating even 20 minutes later after I had left and was walking to my car. Good times. But it was totally worth the trip. I like the consistency of CorePower, and I always feel like I have had a good workout when I leave there, but I will say that the CorePower C2 class, which is just a plain flowing yoga class with no equipment, is my favorite. 

Fashion

Latest CALIA workout outfit

I’m working with the CALIA by Carrie Underwood clothing brand for the rest of the year (which I told you more about in this post), and here’s my latest set of pictures featuring … a workout skort. I’ve seen several brands selling these workout skorts, and you know — it’s definitely a throwback, because I loved the workout skort back in the day.

(My top and my workout skort.)

I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t sold when I put it on, then I did a workout in this outfit, and all of a sudden I was a believer. It felt light and airy and comfortable as can be. Not quite shorts, not quite a skirt … but a skort. Perhaps we’re going to see more of these! It’s got a tennis vibe, but actually works well for high-impact workouts too.

Fitness

Weekly workout recap

How I’ve been moving lately …

• Monday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP, 10 a.m.
• Tuesday: 30-minute CXWORX, 9:30 a.m., taught 45-minute BODYATTACK, 4:45 p.m.
• Wednesday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP 8:30 a.m., taught 1-hour barre class, 5 p.m.
• Thursday: Taught 1-hour barre class, 12 p.m.
• Friday: Rest day
• Saturday: 1-hour CorePower yoga sculpt class, 11:30 a.m.
• Sunday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP, 8:30 a.m.

This past week was full of teaching! I taught six classes in a week, which is a lot for me. But I also took a full rest day and branched out a bit with a yoga sculpt class. My body has seriously been craving some yoga, so even though we used weights, it felt good to flow and end in a savasana in a heated room. I swear I will get back to my solo workouts again soon, but I have limited kid-care time at the gym, and just haven’t been making it a priority. How about you?

Best reads

From around the web …

• A safe anti-aging line. More praise in Fast Company for the new ingredient in Beautycounter’s brand new line, Countertime, which is designed for anti-aging, is totally safe and doesn’t use retinol. Find out more about Countertime here! I’m going to share about my experience using it soon too.
• Stretching inspo. I love a good stretch and hate it when group fitness classes run out of time and the instructor skips the cool-down — not in my class. If you finish a HIIT workout or class, if you don’t feel like stretching, you can at least walk slowly on the treadmill or sit down and do some deep breathing. Here’s a great list of other stretches and cool-down activities.
• Frozen food. We eat frozen veggies almost every single weeknight, because they are simple, cost effective and easy to stock up on. I love this list of frozen foods that are easy to prepare for quick meals.

And for the best quote of the week from my meditations app …

A Lady Goes West favorite archives …

• Group fitness. I don’t think this is the longest post ever on A Lady Goes West, but it’s definitely up there. Can you tell I’m passionate about the topic? If you’ve ever thought of becoming an instructor or are already a fitness professional, you don’t want to miss this one from earlier in the week … “What you should know about teaching pre-choreographed vs. freestyle group fitness programs.”

• Mom life. It’s not easy to stay at home with your little one and also run your business. I’m figuring things out as I go, and it’s FAR FROM PERFECT, but here’s a look at how I do it right now … “What I’ve learned as a work-from-home mom.”

As always, thank you SO much for stopping by to read the blog today. I truly appreciate you. And I hope you have a great weekend. Stay hydrated, get some movement in and have some fun!

Questions of the day

How was your week?

Would you ever try IV therapy?

When was the last time you did yoga?

Workout skorts: yay or nay?

What’s a phrase that you wish people would stop using?

P.S. Planning to work out this weekend? Why not give a Les Mills class a try in the privacy of your own home using a free 21-day trial of my favorite streaming service, Les Mills On Demand? Here’s my personal link to give you that 21-day trial.