Rain, Hail or Shine

Today it was rain. Yes, it was pouring, and we still trained outdoors. I got up this morning and thought for a second if I wanted to go, or if it would be on, but remembered that Rob said if we ABSOLUTELY can't train outdoors, we will go to the gym instead. So either way, he would have something for us to do. And I would have felt guilty the rest of the day if I didn't go. It was pouring as I was driving there, and I'm like, surely we won't actually TRAIN in this, we will get sick! I arrived and saw Rob setting up some stuff, in the rain, on the oval. I'm like 'Ok, so we ARE actually training in the rain'.

It's really not as bad as you think it will be. I warmed up before the wetness made me cold, it was just annoying getting back into my car wet and making it all dirty. I started with my hoodie on, then stripped that off pretty quickly. It was a hard session though. I am stuffed at the end of these sessions, they are really good. I am always sore somewhere the next day, I really don't feel up to any training the days in between. I'll see how I go next week when i'm more used to it.

On another good note, I got my results today for my Diploma and I passed! I am so excited. I applied for Uni on the weekend and now I have to send a copy of my results to UAC to show that I passed. Good day today :)

Oh yeah and Federer beat Nadal the other day to take out the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals! Federer has been losing a lot to him lately so this is awesome! I'm so excited for him.

Cannot believe christmas is almost here, this year has gone so quickly. It's insane. March seems so close now, you think you have forever till next year, and then all of a sudden it's only like 12 weeks away. Eek.

Nicola xx

Very Long Week

I've had a very long week this week so haven't posted yet. My supervisor at work was away this week so I was doing all of her hours. It was good I enjoyed it, but i'm very tired! I didn't do much training at all this week either. Last week I signed up for the Fitness First Outdoor Training program. I was going to do it back in march, but they never got the program up and running, then it was winter, then last month I couldn't afford it because I bought my car. So this month I said I was definitely going to do it. This program has replaced their bootcamp program.

I love outdoor and circuit style training so I am very excited to be doing it. I have already done 2 sessions and they have been really good. They are at 6am though so it has been hard trying to get my body used to getting up at 5:30am, one of the other reasons I am so tired! The days I do training and have to open at work are very rushed in the morning, but I always feel very invigorated afterwards. 

I ordered some new number plates a couple of weeks ago and I finally got them the other day! I'm so excited they look awesome. They are a "raspberry" colour and I also personalised the content.

Having a nice relaxing day today, probably won't be doing much!

Nicola xx

On A Roll

I have had a very good week this week :) My nutrition has been really good, i've tried really hard to be disciplined and not have any extras. I've also done all my workouts. I'm getting a bit tired today though, my cardio felt hard. I did

5 minute warm-up on the cross trainer
10 minutes moderate pace (level 12) cross trainer
10 minutes bike (resistance 6)
10 minutes treadmill walking 6km/h
3 minute cool down treadmill 4.5km/h

I normally run on the treadmill, and I was very tempted to start running, but my body has taken a lot this week and I don't want to be burnt out for my weights tomorrow. I've learnt a lot this year about listening to my body, and knowing when I need to slow down or take a break. And I definitely needed a lighter session today.

I bought some yummy strawberries and blueberries yesterday. I love berries, they taste so summery. I had them today with low-carb choc protein powder made into a paste with water. The protein powder I use is MRM brand, the 100% natural dutch choc flavour. I've tried a few choc protein powders and this one tastes the best :) I also use the strawberry and banana flavour sometimes in my shakes.

Can't wait for the weekend!

Nicola xx

Corn and cookies

Pretty sure I just had the sweetest and best corn I have ever tasted! Oh my gosh. I love corn so much, I ended up having 2 cobs. That was with roast rump steak and lots of steamed beans :) Yum. Perfect after my cycle class.

And what did I say about having to resist temptation re my mother's baking? Came home to peanut butter and chocolate cookies this afternoon. Had one after dinner, it was amazing. Peanut butter and chocolate is such an amazing combination.

Babysat the cutest kids today. I walked into the house and said hi to the little girl I was looking after, she's 3, and the first thing she said in this really serious voice was "you wore that yesterday". Haha! I thought it was funny, I wasn't actually wearing the same outfit, just the same jeans and shoes, and she saw me last week not yesterday. She is so cute. I love the funny things kids come out with.

Nicola xx

Early morning

I had an early one this morning, heading to the gym at 6:45am to do some HIIT cardio on the treadmill. Got to the gym, and the AIR-CONDITIONING WAS BROKEN! I didn't really notice until I had done about half my workout and I realised how HOT and sweaty I was getting, it was unbelievable. I thought I was going to pass out at the end argh. Then I came home and got ready, dropped my brother off the school, came back home, had a coffee and got my food together for the morning, then headed back to the gym for work. Breakfast this morning was the usual oats with Ladybird Protein Crunch.

Doesn't look very appetising, but it's good :)

 And what do you know the air-con is still not working and the creche is like a sauna! We felt so bad for all the little kids, all their hair was sweaty around their hair lines and we had heaps crying today. I have to go back this afternoon for my 4-7pm shift, hopefully the place is a little bit cooler.

I went down early to pick my brother up from school (the parking fills up quickly when it's raining) and sat there with my Sia CD on, typing on my sister's laptop :) It was very pleasant.

Poor little Bonnie has been so hot and distressed the last couple of days with all the hot weather in sydney. All she wants to do is sit on the cold tiles and pant away :(.

Alright off to work again!

Nicola xx

Super-fast weights

I woke up on Sunday morning to a bowl of pancake batter and a waiting saucepan on the stove, the remains of the family's breakfast. I thought 'what the heck, I've eaten oats every other day this week, and it's a sunday'. So I thought I would try the pancakes with my new jams! The pancake recipe we used is really light and fluffy and it goes such a long way! The recipe is adapted from 'Contende', a cookbook made up of recipes from the families of St Joseph's College, dad has tweaked it a bit. By the way, these are sweet pancakes, not 'healthy' :P

Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup castor sugar
3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
60g butter, melted

Method
1. Sift all dry ingredients into mixing bowl
2. Stir in milks and well beaten egg yolks and butter, beat until smooth
3. In a clean, dry bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form, fold into batter very gently, set aside to allow bubbles to emerge
4. Heat a non-stick frying pan on the stove on medium
5. Ladle batter onto frypan for desired sized pancake and cook for 2-3 minutes until bubbles appear (there will be a lot!)
6. Turn and cook the other side for one minute, serve at once.

the best non-stick frying pan!

Love eating pancakes like this

I had two pancakes, each with a different jam on it. I didn't think this would fill me up but it did!
The next few hours I really didn't do much, then I decided that 1 hour and a half before my little brother's confirmation, I wanted to go and do my weights at the gym. Completely my own fault that I left it this late. So pretty much I had 30 mins to do my workout! I cut my weights program down and ended up doing:

3 minute warm-up on cross-trainer
Lat Pulldown
Chest Press
Half squats (with dumbbells)
Stationary lunges (with dumbbells)
Barbell Upright Row
2 sets back extensions
Bicycles
Quick whole body stretch

It was shorter than what I normally do, but it was something!

Then it was off to my brother's confirmation where I was his sponsor. The ceremony was short and sweet and it was really cute seeing all the kids there. Then I came home and had some poached eggs on burgen soy-lin toast, because I only managed to get a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese after my weights before running out the door. Very bad time management on my part :P

The rest of the evening was spent reading the paper and watching Junior Masterchef :) Overall a nice relaxing weekend.

Nicola xx

Lactate Tolerance

I decided to go to a cycle class on Thursday night. I didn't know who was taking the class as I hadn't been to this one in like a year. I was about to leave when I got a call from my mum saying that I needed to drop my little brother off to her because he needed to go to the doctors and she couldn't get home because of traffic. So I was like 'great, i'm going to miss my class now'. So I took my cycle shoes out of my gym bag and was just going to do cardio. But when I got to the gym I realised that I could probably still make the class. I hate to do cycle without my shoes, but I wasn't going to let my lack of cycle shoes stop me from doing it, I was determined to do this class. I went up to the cycle room and there was a note on the door saying that the instructor was going to be 5 minutes late. So that was good, I wasn't going to miss anything. The bike I always use was taken, so I went to the other side of the room and set up a bike, alas it was clunking, I moved to the next one, but one of the knobs was broken, so I went to the next row back, that bike was clunking too. I was like 'Ok, someone is trying to tell me not to do this class'*. I gave up and sat on that bike anyway.

10 minutes later the instructor turned up and he told us that he is a former australian olympian rower and will be giving us a workout called the 'lactate tolerance workout' that elite athletes use, and that he guaranteed it would be the hardest workout we would ever do. Boy was he right. I have not done cycle in a few weeks, so I knew I was going to suffer more than normal anyway, this absolutely KILLED me. I mean, it was great, but I barely completed what we were supposed to and I felt like I was going to pass out. That is not an exaggeration. I do love these workouts though, and I REALLY pushed myself, I felt so invigorated driving home afterwards.

The workout was a 33 minute workout (plus warm-up and cool-down) and had 2 levels - Light or off (80%), and On (95%). My off definantly wasn't 80%.
The format was -
1 min ON, 3 mins OFF,
2 mins ON, 3 mins OFF,
3 mins ON, 3 mins OFF,
4 mins ON, 2 mins OFF,
5 mins ON, 1 min OFF,
6 mins ON.
The point of the workout is to build up the lactate tolerance in your system. It was insane, and really hard, but I will definitely be using this one again. I will try to increase the intensity of my OFF's because on thursday they were like 20% or something.

*I think all those signs were telling me not to do the class, because when I got home from the gym I found out my little brother was in hospital. I won't go into it though, he is fine now :) Kinda scary though huh...

On to Friday.

The house was full of baking smells on Friday thanks to my mum's baking :) She made cranberry muffins. I tasted of course, and they were REALLY good.

She made them for some markets at my little brother's school, so only a couple were actually left for the house. I went down to the markets for a little while and bought some jam. I only had a little bit of cash on me, so couldn't buy any of the AMAZING jewellery down there. Another thing you should know about me - I LOVE jewellery. Especially Portmans, my favourite shop ever. I had a taste before I bought the jams and they were really good. They suggested stirring them through yoghurt - sounded like a good idea to me! I bought Vanilla and Pear (not as sweet as I thought it would be, and that was a good thing), and Banana, Lime and Cinnamon. I know that might sound gross to some people, but I love bananas, so anything that has banana in it I am up for. Hopefully they will last a while :P.

I had work this morning (saturday) and I was so tired from the last couple of days, so I went and got a takeaway coffee from Jimini's Cafe at Hornsby Westfield. They have really good coffee (Dane's). I don't know what it is, but I just love takeaway coffee. Even though I could have easily come home and made exactly the same thing and saved $4.20, it's just DIFFERENT. It feels like a treat getting a takeaway coffee, having a professional make it and everything. It's hard to explain why I love it so much. I just love taking it and drinking it in the car in my little takeaway coffee cup :D. Haha ok i'll stop now.

I got the Lean Body Gourment Cookbook by Sue Heintze from Ideal Bodies Online. There are some great recipes in there, can't wait to try them :). I feel like cooking something today. I will post the results if I do!
Till next time.....

Nicola xx

Slow Start

I woke up very late this morning. This is what happens when I don't have any commitments in the morning, like taking my 9yr old brother to school, a morning workout, or work. I work at the creche at Fitness First, it's called Playzone. I love this job so much, all the kids are so gorgeous and it's so rewarding. They're pretty much aged from 3 months to about 4 yrs, then on weekends and in school holidays we get older ones as well. I work there 4 days a week in the morning for 3 hours. Also massive perk of this job - free gym membership! So I save $90 a month having this job (I was a paying member before I got the job). Gotta love it.

This morning I had my oatmeal for breakfast which consists of Uncle Toby's traditional oats made with water, then I add Ladybird Protein Crunch, a little bit of Stevia sweetener and sugar-free maple syrup. This is the breakfast I have pretty much every day. I really don't mind not having variety for breakfast, it's actually good to not have to think about it in the morning, you know what you're having, no decisions to be made. I then had my multi-vitamin and my coffee! In the mornings I have a short black with 3 tbsp skim milk and stevia sweetener. Gets me started for the day :)

My coffee machine in action:

 

Coffee goodness:

 

I'm currently listening to Sia's new album We Are Born. It is such a great album, my sister and I bought it the other day and it's been on repeat in my car, and on my itunes :P. I got into her music a little while ago and love it. My fav songs on her new album are The Fight, Clap Your Hands, You've Changed, I'm In Here and I'm In Here (Piano Vocal Version). 

That's all for now :)

Nicola xx

First Post!

I've been thinking about creating a blog for a while, and i'm very excited to finally be doing it. I decided a few days ago that I definantly wanted to create one, and have been trying to think of a name for it ever since! I finally came up with The Cappucino Files. I love my coffee, and can't go a day without one :) But this blog isn't just about coffee, it will also be about my health and fitness journey, my university years and experiences (starting next year hopefully), sport, and everything else in between.

I'm studying exercise and sport science - i've almost finished my Diploma of Fitness at the Fitness Institute of Australia and plan on studying exercise and sport science at Uni next year. I enjoy the sport side of it more, and am fascinated by elite athletes. In saying this, I am a long way from where I want to be fitness and weight wise and I am determined to reach my goals to get the most out of my studies and career, and most importantly - be happy with myself and my life. I completed a 12 week program from Ideal Bodies Online a couple of months ago and lost 8kg whilst on it. It was a fantastic program and I have just started the training and nutrition plan they gave me from the beginning again. I still have a long way to go and I can't wait for the next few months of more training and healthy eating!

There's lots more to write about myself, but I have plenty more time and space to do that in the near future.
I'm going to go and watch The Good Wife now :)