Kayla in the Suburbs: Socializing while you Sweat

me and my super tall, wonderful and pink clad gym buddies Sarah & Annica

I'm used to working out alone. As much as I love going to the gym and get obsessed with certain trainers and classes at Crunch, its hard to feel motivated to sweat when I just wanna sit around and watch Modern Family. 

Over this break I experienced for the first time true gym-buddies. Almost every day the three of us pictured above in obnoxious pink, would coordinate what classes we wanted to take (basically zumba, zumba and more zumba). Afterwards we would go out for lunch or dinner, and then sit down for an extremely long time at someone's house, exhausted from our gym-tivs.

I've never had gym buddies before, but I must say it's pretty awesome and I recommend it.

Perks of having gym buddies:

-- Going to the gym can feel like a hassle, and like I'm missing out on plans with my friends. By going to the gym with two of my closest friends, I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything.

-- I'm a bit terrified of swimming and avoid the water at the gym. If i had to pass the deep water class at day camp, I'd probably fail miserably. However, my two gym buddies are certified life guards and enjoy water classes. Going with them encouraged me to go to Aqua Zumba-- a hilarious and awesome variation of my beloved dance class.... And I felt super safe with even more life guards near by.....

-- I'm not a morning person, at all, but making plans to work out at 9AM with friends makes it worthwhile to wake up. There was someone to hold me accountable because I let them down if i decided to sleep in. It was nice when I felt like the only college student awake that early to get text messages from the other two while we got ready for super early morning aqua zumba

-- we soon made all our plans revolve around our favorite gym classes. during the summer we used to go out for dinner with all our friends every wednesday, but our favorite zumba class was on wednesday nights so we had dinner on tuesday instead.

-- we also knew when to split up, we loved taking group fitness classes together, but also knew when to do our own thing. Sometimes they would swim in the lap pool, and i would pretend I could swim in the shallow pool. We worked on different things in the weight room, but generally met up again to go in the hot tub or out to eat after.

-- because we were a mini group, we met other people as well. The first day of zumba we didn't know anyone, but now we've met a bunch of people who are as obsessed as we are.

-- the instructors started to recognize us and give us feedback since we travelled in a pack and were younger than most regulars. 

Sadly, Annica already went back to college in Pennsylvania, and I only have one more day of gym-tivs with Sarah, but we will be back at club fit, making friends with everyone, and being obnoxious soon enough.

I'm surprised actually how awesome of a winter break I've had when it's been pretty low-key and I've barely left New York State. I kept on track with my fitness goals, utilized both my gym memberships, and enjoyed mixing sweating with socializing.

I'm gonna miss having gym buddies and allowing my social life to revolve around Club Fit

Thanksgiving Activities: GivTivs and making Frosted Candy Bar Stuffed Cookie Cup

Over the summer I worked at the day camp I attended as a kid in Westchester and became absolutely obsessed with my co-workers.

For Thanksgiving weekend we decided to relive the summer and spend as many hours together as possible, and of course attempt to cook something delicious.

We successfully made frosted candy bar stuffed cookied cups, which live up to every part of their name.

Recipe Courtesy of http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/new-recipes/frosted-candy-bar-stuffed-cookie-cups.html

 and Annica's obsession with pinterest 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) butter, 

melted and cooled

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

12 mini candy bars (such as snickers, milky ways, twix)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray. Cream the butter, sugars, and vanilla on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour and baking soda. Next add the eggs to the wet ingredients and beat well. Finally add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just incorporated. 

Scoop batter into a regular-sized muffin tin, filling the cups about 1/3 full. Top with fun-sized candy bars. Scoop remaining batter on top of the candy bars, filling the cups about 2/3 full.

 Bake at 325 for 12-15 minutes or until the edges just start to turn golden.

Makes 12 cookie cups.

Frosting:

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened3 cups powdered sugar1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon Tahitian vanilla extract (we used regular)

Place the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes.

Ours was a bit thin, so we added more powdered sugar

We also decided to be fancy and add crushed candies

and voila:

A delicious, and majorly filling success. Pair this with our dinner of chinese take out, and you will have quite the food baby

The Four of Us with our beautiful cupcakes. They actually baked, I just watched and documented.

These things are absolutely delicious, but also super dense. I could barely finish one but it was soooo good.

All agreed, it was a successful weekend of GivTivs.