Hello, hello, lovely ones! I hope things are going great with you. As you may have noticed, I decided to take Monday off from posting because of Labor Day, so this is the first new post you’ve received this week, so I moved it up a day. We’ll be back to our two-a-week-schedule next week. (I mean, what’s the benefit of being your own boss if you can’t take a holiday off, right?)

This first week of September was pretty standard for us so far. I taught my usual classes, subbed an extra BODYPUMP class, got some work done and all of that. Let’s get to the faves!

Current faves

Fun

City adventures with Dave and friends

Last weekend, Dave and I went to the City with another couple, Phil and Kicki, for dinner and a show. We tried a new-to-us restaurant called Liholiho Yacht Club in Nob Hill (our old neighborhood), and it was very much a solid San Francisco dining experience, complete with a trendy setting and views of the open and bustling kitchen. Liholiho features Hawaiian food, and we had a lot of flavorful and unique dishes that were definitely island inspired, including one of my favorite appetizers, tuna poke.

And now for a little story: I’m always down to try new things when dining out and branching out from my usual plant-based simple veggie-ful eats. However, I may have branched too much unintentionally on this particular night. We ordered a bunch of shareable plates, and so we each got to choose a few that sounded good. Well, I selected a sweetbread dish that was described like a dessert (I like to have a little bread with a meal, you know, and even better if it’s sweet). I didn’t ask any questions about it and tried it right when it came to the table. The funny thing was that it didn’t really look like bread at all, which was disappointing to me. And then about two bites in, I noticed it didn’t taste like bread either, and I was told that sweetbread is actually pancreas or organ meat from a lamb or calf. Ummmm excuse me, what? I literally felt disgusted after finding that out — and of course, the group had a good laugh about it, because they assumed I knew what I was getting into. Not so much. I’m totally fine with eating high-quality meat occasionally, but not really into organs. Anywho, the restaurant was super cool and everything else we ate was tasty.

After we finished up dinner, we moved along to the North Beach neighborhood to head to Club Fugazi to watch Beach Blanket Babylon, a hilarious live San Francisco original show, which is apparently the longest-running musical revue around. Dave and I saw the show about six years ago and loved it. It’s very political, full of pop culture references and features some completely amazing singers, crazy-huge-work-of-art hats and a bunch of San Francisco humor too — what more could you ask for?

The show has been running of 45 years, but is closing at the end of this year, and that’s the reason we bought tickets to see it one more time before it ends. It was just as good the second time around and a lot of the content had been updated to keep up with the times. Although note to self: The chairs at Beach Blanket Babylon are so darn uncomfortable, we were all fidgeting for the 90 minutes, while laughing, of course. Guess it’s good that we won’t be back. Overall, a great night out in the City with our friends, complete with a terribly long Uber ride home in traffic.

Fashion

The best black turtleneck tee

My friends, have you checked out Everlane yet? I think I heard about this shopping site on a podcast and then went to look around and was pleasantly surprised with the simple style — classic stuff that isn’t overly trendy. I ordered another two items a couple of weeks ago and am totally happy with them both. (I shared about my first orders in this post and this post.) This cotton black short-sleeve turtleneck tee is very basic, yet I just love it — I sized up with a medium, and it is nice and loose. It washed up well too.

(Beautycounter 9 to 5 color intense lipstick on the lips.)

I wore it out to the City with some fake leather pants, and yet, I think I could wear it with just about anything. Everlane is a cool site — the prices are reasonable, they tell you exactly why things cost what they cost, and they have ethical manufacturing practices too. Can’t beat that. Here’s my referral link to Everlane if you want to shop around. 

Also, another quick favorite: I got my hair done over the weekend and cut off a few inches, can you tell? It had gotten quite long, so should be easier to handle at this length. I also got some fresh highlights. BTW, I am such a fan of my hairstylist, whom I’ve been going to for the last six months — I found her through a moms Facebook group, and she’s sweet and does an amazing job. It took me a long time to find someone I love, and I hated spending money with stylists that I didn’t like — so it was worth the effort to keep searching.

(Also, these joggers are one of the best things I bought all summer. I actually got them in Vancouver and wear them all the time.)

Input

What do you want to see on the blog?

Switching subjects! I hope you guys know that I love to receive requests for posts and questions and topics from you. Rather than doing a full survey, which I did last year, I just wanted to let you know that I love to hear from you. Feel free to drop a comment on this blog post, send me a DM on Instagram or an email with your input/feedback/requests. And as always, thank you for reading!

And here’s a pic from yet another trip to Pressed Juicery recently … we can’t get enough freezes, and this one is the AB&J, which Brady and I shared on a warm afternoon.

Fitness

Weekly workout recap

Here’s a look at my latest week of workouts from last week …

• Monday: Practiced BODYPUMP for 45 minutes, BODYATTACK for 25 minutes, 10 a.m.
• Tuesday: Taught 45-minute BODYATTACK, taught 1-hour barre, 4:45 p.m.
• Wednesday: Taught 1-hour BODYPUMP, 9:30 a.m., taught 1-hour barre, 5 p.m.
• Thursday: Rest day
• Friday: 25-minute full-body weights workout, 10 a.m.
• Saturday: 1-hour BODYATTACK class, 10 a.m.
• Sunday: Rest day

You know what’s funny, is that when you’re a group fitness instructor, you spend so much time practicing to teach and teaching, that you don’t get as much time for your own workouts as you’d like. I’ve had a lot of weeks lately where I haven’t done a single solo workout. But the good news is that I fit one in this past week, and I worked on what I needed to work on. 

Here’s the full-body weights workout I did in the gym …

Best reads

A few things from around the web …

• Hormones and workouts. Okay, ladies, you’ve got to read this one. I’m SO interested in learning more about this idea of adjusting your workouts depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle (which is something that Alisa Vitti talks about in her book, “Woman Code,” which I highly recommend to all women, who are curious about their hormones). Basically, your body works differently depending on your estrogen levels, and that can affect your perceived exertion levels as well as how effective your strength workouts are and more. Read this for a primer on the topic, and then let’s dig in more on this soon.
• Successful women. I seriously enjoyed this podcast episode, called “How She Built This” featured on the Rise podcast by Rachel Hollis, where Rachel interviews three successful women on how they got where they are now. The best part is that the questions were good ones — like “why SHOULDN’T you have made it”? The women featured had different stories and were all very inspiring and open. It was quite enjoyable to listen to.

Here’s the GREATEST quote of the week from the Calm app that I’m absolutely loving …

A Lady Goes West favorite archives …

• Prenatal workouts. Even if you don’t take BODYPUMP, you can find some good tips in this post … “How to modify a BODYPUMP class when you’re pregnant.”

• Parent life. Because they say the first year is the hardest year … “What I’ve learned from my first year of parenting.”

That should do it for today. Thank you so much for stopping by the blog. We don’t have much on the agenda this weekend, which should be nice. See you over on Instagram until we’re back here again.

Questions of the day

What’s something good that happened in your week so far?

Do you have any questions, topics you want to see covered on the blog or other feedback? Do tell!

What’s your favorite site for online clothes shopping?

Did you know what a sweetbread was? 🙂 

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 free 21-day trial and get moving!