welcome to love, milk & honey.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:: Hear ye, Hear ye, Lara Casey is in the blogdom and she is sharing her pearls of wisdom that have nothing to do with her usual Southern Weddings or Making Things Happen goodness.  Today she is all about the muscle mass and is sharing it with you!  Bet ya didn’t know this ginger rocked the gym world before she started rocking the wedding world!  Well, readers, she did and she’s got some awesome tips and the right tunes to get you pumping iron in no time!

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Tell me a little bit about you: hobbies, lifestyle, job, personality, etc.:: Oh, goodness.  I hope you will edit this.  My hobby is sleeping. Kidding.  Sort of.  My lifestyle is fast-paced and gratifying.  My job is to foster growth and clarity in businesses and to lead my staff with integrity and purpose.  My personality is type-A but A stands for ALL OVER THE PLACE.  OK ok, so I was a personal trainer in a past-life, too.  I eventually became the top trainer in Crunch nationally and the training manager for the 59th street gym in Manhattan.  Technically, I’m still certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine. //I didn’t edit… it was too good!  Sorry, Lara :)

Why do you work out?:: Nothing makes me feel better, more alive, more accomplished.  Taking care of my body feeds directly into everything I do- my energy, my attitude, my ability to handle stress, and my self-confidence.  I want to live a long healthy life in a body that allows me to conquer my dreams.

What time of day do you workout?:: Every morning before work for 30 minutes to an hour.  I don’t feel like my day has started without that time.  It makes everything afterward feel like cake.

How many days a week?:: Every day.  There’s usually one day that is really light, but I don’t take a day off unless I travel.  Even then, I always book hotels with a gym or I find a way to work out- running hotel stairs, hallway lunges, whatever I can do to get my heart rate up.  Although, I have a tendency to run late for flights, so I do a lot of running in airports.

What areas do you target when you work out? :: I train my whole body.  There’s no reason to “target train” unless you’re an athlete trying to improve muscle firing performance.  So, I train everything and mainly large muscle groups for health.  I do cardio every day and lift at least twice a week.  I need to lift more though.

What are your workout goals?:: Balance.  I just want to feel my heart beat and feel the strength in my muscles.  My goal every day is to push my limits for at least a moment.

Run us through your favorite workout sequence/what does a typical workout look like for you? (if it is different things on different days then run us through the week) :: Cardio: the treadclimber, elliptical and my favorite is the octane trainer.  It really replicates running.  Weights:  right now I’m working on endurance, training to ski in March.  I do 3-4 sets of 15 reps of each of the following:  back rows on the cables (when training to ski, I work on balance by standing on one leg for half the set and the other leg for the remaining half), lateral raises, lat pull-downs and a set of abs between to give my upper body a temporary rest.  I purposely don’t do chest because 99% of the time, the chest muscles are far too tight and make our shoulders internally rotate. Aka bad posture.  Considering how much forward movement we do with our chest muscles (think hunching over a computer all day), these muscles need to be stretched more than tightened.  I incorporate a lot of stretching into my workouts to elongate muscle fibers.  I need to get better about doing legs, but I do a lot of lunges, stair climbing and trail running in the summer.  When I do legs, I do what are called “control drills”.  These are single leg, no weight exercises, that just use body weight and balance to improve muscle function.

What songs help keep you fired up during your workout?:: My current gym playlist:  (yes, that sure is Kirk Franklin and Flo Rida in the same playlist)

What helps you push through the idontwanna’s?:: I know you’ll hate this answer, but I’ve come to see the value of working out and how it affects my daily life so much, that there is little I don’t want to do.  You have to find a workout that is comfortable for you, but one that is always changing and pushing you.  If you’ve been doing the same things for 6 weeks in the gym, it’s time to change it up.

What advice can you give to others about exercising?:: Eat well and be good to yourself.  Eating well doesn’t mean eating perfectly.  It means finding healthy food substitutions that keep you satisfied and being aware of what and why you are putting things in your mouth.  Get educated about food and it’s use as fuel for your body.  If you don’t fuel well, working out doesn’t add up to much.  I eat about every two hours, smaller meals, balanced carbs, protein and fats.  OK, diet is a whole other post!  Let’s just say I love Jay Robb Protein Powder and, after 11 years of consuming it daily, they should really be sponsoring me.  What do ya think, Jay?  I also love Greek yogurt, Greens Plus protein bars, Luna Bars, eggs, chicken, veggies, Mary’s Gone Crackers, and I’m always down for guacamole.  Indulgences: ice cream, chips, and Katharine’s candy supply in the office.

Give us your most embarrassing gym moment!:: I was doing a major deadlift routine that I had worked up to.. 225lbs.  After the last rep, I dropped the weights/bar like a jerk at the gym.  The embarrassing part of this story for me is moreso that I could dead lift 225. I promise I wasn’t burly.

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Thanks for sharing, Lara!