Greetings from warm and sunny Los Angeles! I’m here for the IDEA World Fitness Convention (the biggest fitness event of the year) and am having an amazing time. I’m rooming with my long-time old-school blogging friend, Heather, and it had been four years since I saw her when we last roomed together at my very first IDEA World. Now we are both mommies and are enjoying our adult time away.

I’ll share a full recap of everything I’m learning and doing next week, and wow, it’s a lot. But today, let’s get to those faves …

CURRENT FAVES

Food

Delicious Beyond Meat burgers

I had an “Impossible Burger” at Gott’s Restaurant in Walnut Creek a few months ago, which is a totally plant-based burger that somehow, someway, has the same texture and similar taste to a real meat burger. Well, Dave was the one who told me that we should buy and try the Beyond Meat burgers, another brand that makes such a plant-based faux burger. And you may be thinking: “Well, Ash, you guys already eat a lot of veggie burgers.” But this is NOT just a veggie burger, it’s somehow juicy and almost tastes like real meat. And it’s free of soy, GMOs and gluten. It does have some canola oil, which I’m not crazy about, but I’m only going to eat these once or twice a month anyhow, so it’s not a big deal.

We’ve now had these burgers (always grilled in a wrap, rather than a bun, because it’s so good that way) maybe five times now, and I’m in love. I still enjoy a grass-fed regular burger here and there, but these Beyond Meat patties are majorly satisfying. We find them at Sprouts, by the way, in the meat aisle.

Here’s a Beyond Meat in action all wrapped up with heirloom tomato and avocado slices …

Girls’ night dinner

I can’t get Dave to go to True Food Kitchen with me any longer, because he thinks the portions are small and the food isn’t that great for the price that you pay. I truly agree with two of those points, but I happen to love some of the items on the menu, and thus, I jumped at the chance for my lady friends to eat there on Friday night as part of a little mommas’ night out. Hands down, my favorite dish is the ancient grains bowl with salmon — overpriced and small in all its glory …

Beauty

The best new addition to my makeup bag: Mattifying powder

Remember when we were in high school and would carry around a little powder Covergirl compact and reapply obsessively all day when even just a bit of shine came through? Or was that just me? Ha! Well, times have changed. A nice dewy look is beautiful on the face, yet, you also don’t want your makeup rubbing off.

A few weeks ago, I ordered the Beautycounter Mattifying Powder, and it’s completely translucent and comes in a little container where you can shake out just a bit of the powder at a time, and grab it with a big powder brush. Then, you apply it after you’ve finished your makeup to set your makeup for extra staying power and to eliminate some shine and reduce lines. I love it and can tell it makes my makeup stay on really well, without that over-powdered look. And it’s super safe and nontoxic.

Speaking of Beautycounter, if you haven’t yet, sign up for my beauty email list today, because an entirely new product line and some BIG news are both coming next month, and I’d love to keep you in the loop. I can’t wait to share!

A sneak peek was featured in “Women’s Wear Daily” this week too … 🙂 Yay!

Quote

Happiness right now

Truth be told, I almost didn’t share this quote, because the punctuation is a bit off on the tile, and that rubs me the wrong way, but I love the idea … happiness right now. I have learned this more over the last year than ever before, and I truly understand it. It’s powerful. 

I pulled this quote tile from the Calm app after meditating earlier this week. Love it.

Fitness

Weekly workout recap

A look at how I’ve been moving lately …

• Monday: 30 minutes of BODYPUMP practice, 5 p.m.
• Tuesday: Taught 45-minute BODYATTACK, 4:45 p.m., taught 1-hour barre, 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP, 9:30 a.m., taught 1-hour barre, 5 p.m.
• Thursday: Taught 1-hour barre, 12 p.m.
• Friday: Rest day
• Saturday: Took 1-hour BODYATTACK, 9:30 a.m.
• Sunday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP, 8:30 a.m.

Didn’t I say last week that I would include more variety and not just do classes and Les Mills workouts this week?

Well, I didn’t end up doing that. I had already agreed to sub three classes, so had a total of six classes that I taught this week, which is the most I’ve done in years. Because I do the whole workout with the class in every class, that’s a lot — and I don’t plan to do six again anytime soon, but because I eat lots of calories, sleep a lot and take rest days, I know my body can handle it. I felt pretty darn good actually. Moving on, this upcoming week is much different because of all the cool workouts I get to do at IDEA, so you can expect way more variety.

But back to Les Mills for a minute here: If you want to try these workouts at home for free, you can still get a 21-day free trial of Les Mills On Demand by using my referral link here. Go for it — this deal is ending soon.

Best reads

Some things I enjoyed from around the web …

• Cold shower. I recently wrote a freelance piece about how to improve your health while making more environmentally friendly choices at the same time, and one of those ways was to take cold showers, rather than hot. I’m super interested in the theory behind cold showers and how they are so helpful for your body. Basically: Your metabolism has to speed up to heat up your body, you get a jolt of energy, and it’s said that the cold temperatures are good for muscle recovery too, perhaps like cryotherapy, which I’ve done once before. Here’s a quick article confirming that cold showers help your metabolism and maybe I’ll write more about this soon.
• Lateral movements. One of the many things I love about teaching and doing both barre and Les Mills BODYATTACK is because of the amount of lateral, or “side to side” movements, rather than “front to back,” which we are all more comfortable with. The body craves moving in multiple directions, and it’s hard to program that into your own workouts as frequently. Here are three quick moves that you can do at home, that are always in BODYATTACK. And if you want to do BODYATTACK at home too, you can still get 21 days for free using my link here (this is a longer trial than you can get if you go directly to the page, so don’t miss it).

Because we haven’t seen a shot of Brady in this post, here’s a cute one from last weekend, when we went to brunch to celebrate my half birthday … those overalls …

A Lady Goes West Favorite archives …

• All about online shopping. Did you see this one from earlier in the week all about what’s in my Amazon Prime shopping cart? … “My top 10 Amazon Prime purchases I order over and over again.” I really enjoyed hearing from some of you that my quirks about certain household supplies are shared.

 

• Speaking of fitness. Have you ever considered becoming a certified personal trainer? Here’s how I prepared for and passed my NASM personal trainer exam … “My experience with the NASM CPT Guided Study Program and passing the NASM exam.” Fun fact: Once you become a certified personal trainer, you have to get continuing education credits to stay certified, and I’m earning some at my conference right now.

As always, I truly appreciate you and the fact that you came to check in on A Lady Goes West today. I’ll be over here trying new workouts, sampling far-too-many snacks at the expo and living my best fitness convention life … until I fly home to my boys. Enjoy your weekend! xoxo

Questions of the day

What are you up to this weekend?

When was the last time you learned something new?

What’s something that you ate recently that pleasantly surprised you?