As a child in the 1980s, I formed some interesting ideas.  For instance, it seemed every Summer, a pitcher would be endlessly filled with Crystal Light lemonade… with it’s persistent lemon flavor, and odd bitter edge that would persist even though your cousin splashed a good gallon of chlorinated pool water at your face and right into your mouth.  Seeing as I’m not into chemical flavors anymore, I found that slicing up a thoroughly scrubbed organic lemon into nearly “wafer thin”* slices and chucking the whole business into this fabled pitcher with some filtered water actually fit the bill.   Here’s the fun part – the bitter edge of the lemon’s pith seems to fill the bitter edge requirement as well – no scary 1980s faux sugar necessary.   If you really want some lemony goodness, squeeze a fist full of the lemon slices in the top of the pitcher.

My trusty Richmond Artiflex made quick and accurate work of this large lemon – and the sharpness of the knife assured lots of lemon juice made it into the water.

Also stopped in at the local organic co op today and picked up some incredible Florida mangoes, some zucchini squash (which I crave on a regular basis – turns out they’re high in potassium – which is something to be mindful of when we’re working out in the heat).  But as you can see, the weekend is fairly typical – lots of Beyond Organic goodies plus local organic produce from the co op (and tasty things like quail eggs too).   The scary looking bar of chocolate was a fun find in San Diego – the infamous “Do Not Eat This Chocolate” ghost pepper chocolate bar as mentioned by the Du Cane family.  So of course I had to get at least 2 of those bars.

Granted, I will eat more than just what you see pictured, but it’s a good start.  These are definitely some favorite items—and I wanted to somewhat dispel the local rumor that I only eat things grown in—or somehow fed—gold dust.  One of the big projects for the weekend is to put together what may be the largest opportunity meeting that Winter Park has ever seen.   It’s going to approach epic, and people are flying in and driving in to help present the program, the food and of course the incredible opportunity.   That’s not something I talk a whole lot about on the site, but do know – if you’re serious about creating a residual income, then check it out.   There’s a brand new, powerful and repeat-able system now for building your business and helping your community improve their health at the same time.  Best of all – it can be used by fitness professionals as well as people in any field.  So if you don’t feel like you know all there is to know about healthy eating, then don’t despair, the system will work for you too.  If you’re local, show up.   If you’re NOT local, that’s ok too, some of my most active team members are located in different timezones!  Let’s eat well and turn this economy around….

Enough about food.  Let’s work up an appetite.

Fridays are becoming infamous for some pretty serious, pretty advanced workouts—a friend of mine might refer to this as “extreme rambunctiousness.” Because it’s Friday, attendence is low enough that I can participate too… so things can get serious pretty quick.  This is also a great time for partner drills etc.   Last week we did a version of the daunting DOE Manmaker, today had more of a strength focus, but there was still a good bit of “travel” involved too.

We started out at GiryaGirlHQ and did our joint mobility warmup,  We then grabbed 1 kettlebell each – RKC snatch test weight if possible (for me this now means 16kg), or lighter if necessary for the press ladder section.   We have a place in the park that is just perfect for extreme step ups and/or box jumps so we started there

8 rounds of 20 seconds box jumps or alternating step ups (this platform is HIGH) and 10 seconds rest (4 minutes total).  I start with box jumps for as many rounds as feels safe then switch to step ups when my jumps get too low (I LIKE my shins the way they are, thanks.)

After that “bonus warmup” we took a very short water break and began 2 rounds of:

• Kettlebell military press descending ladder: 5/side, 4, 3, 2, 1 then
• 1 hand kettlebell swings – 10R, 10L, 10R, 10L straight through on the first round!  (2nd round we took a break halfway)

Another water break, and briefly shaking our heads at the bad pop-psych lecture some woman was giving to an unfortunate little boy (be strong, little guy…), we started in with 3 rounds of:

• Get Up (with kettlebell) 1R
• Get Up (with kettlebell) 1L
• Full Bridge (bodyweight) and hold at the top

Then it was time to review the interesting “figure 8” drill.   Just a few in either direction, then our joint mobility exercises because after all, we did have to actually walk back!

Good fun, but with the summer heat, even in the shade you can feel the sweat drip off of your own earlobes.   Time to refill the lemon pitcher for sure.

*Kudos to you if you got that as a Monty Python reference…