I'm bad at balance. And I don't mean the stand-on-one-foot kind.

I mean the balancing everything I've got going on in my life and trying to make time for it all.

It's especially come to a head this week -- the week before I'm off 10 days for Christmas.

Work has gone absolutely crazy. A few of my projects are all blowing up at once, and I'm also trying to put out some unnecessary work fires. I've lost count of how many balls I'm trying to keep in the air, and I'm sure any minute now they are going to come crashing down on me.

The stress has kept me up at night, tossing and turning as I try to fall asleep, which of course means when my alarm goes off, I'm dragging in the mornings.

Yesterday was especially dreadful. Didn't fall asleep until 1 a.m., woke up at 6 for work, spent the day pinching myself to stay awake and focused and of course crashed into a hard food coma after our holiday potluck.

I had every good intention of coming home and doing my workout at the gym, but as you can probably imagine that didn't happen. Instead I curled up in a ball on the sofa and went to bed around 9:30. (At least I finally got some sleep!)

Finding the time and energy to hit the gym this week has been a definite struggle for me, and it's left me feeling a little guilty. I'm really enjoying the personal training program I'm on right now and I've felt so bad this week about not having the energy to get myself to the gym.

I know rough weeks happen, and that some things are just out of my control, but it's still frustrating to not have the energy to do things I want to do because I've wasted it on other things.

In attempts to end this post on a positive note, I am working from home today, which gives me a little bit more control over my schedule, which means I should be able to find some time for the gym today in between meetings and work projects.

And I might even get to hit the gym at off-peak hours so I won't have to wait for any of the equipment!

Man I'm a little late in getting today's post up (like 13 hours) but it was just a crazy, crazy busy day at work. We had an emergency come up on one of our contracts and I spent the day dealing with that.

Luckily I managed to not pull all my hair out. Probably because I was able to distract myself with pictures of my new baby cousins!

On Saturday my cousin Laura had her twins -- two handsome and healthy baby boys!



She texted me on Friday night to let me know they were probably coming the following day, and at first I was kind of nervous because that was kind of early, but as long as everyone was healthy, that was all the really mattered.

The boys were delivered Saturday as promised and, they are perfect and wonderful and ok I've only seen pictures, so far, but they are too cute for words. For now they're hanging out in the NICU getting bigger and stronger so they can go home with mom and dad.

And then I will spoil them with hugs and kisses and lots of love.

I mentioned briefly in yesterday's post that I started working out with a virtual personal trainer a few weeks ago.

So I thought it would be fun to tell you a little bit about what I'm doing, how it all works and why the heck I decided this would be a fun idea.

We'll start with a little bit of back story:

When I was in college I was a group fitness instructor. It was hands down one of the most fun part-time jobs I've ever had because I got paid to work out and I met some really cool people...like my friend Virginia.


I'm second from the left, Virginia is third from the left

I would say Virginia was one of the most well-liked instructors because she would kick your butt in class, but do it with a smile on her face and make sure that you were having fun at the same time.

Fast forward a few years and Virginia had made health and fitness training and coaching her full-time gig working with a variety of clients at gyms in the DC area.


Shamelessly borrowed from Facebook

But earlier this year, she and her business partner Kris -- a trainer and coach with years of experience under his belt -- decided they wanted to expand their services to help people outside of the DC-area reach their health and fitness goals.

So they launched EP Fitness Prep -- a virtual training and coaching program.

In the past, Virginia and Kris have worked with clients to help prepare them for a variety of fitness competitions (figure competitions, bikini competitions, etc.).


Virginia with a client at a competition

I have no dreams of being a figure competitor, but I reached out to Virginia because I wanted a dedicated program to help me get back in shape after lots of time off for injuries. I wanted something that would build fundamental strength to help me get back to where I was pre-injury.

In full disclosure, Virginia and Kris offered to work with me in exchange for blogging about my experience working with them.

So now that we've got the back story out of the way, let's talk a little bit about how this whole virtual training thing works.

To get started, Virginia and Kris had me answer a bunch of questions about my goals, the amount of time each week I could dedicate to a fitness program and how I would measure success.

I wanted a fitness plan that let me keep running, while rebuilding strength I lost. In response to my answers, that's what Virginia and Kris gave me.

My current plan has me doing strength work in the gym four days per week with the flexibility to throw in runs where I want.



They also provided me with a diet plan, which I was a little leery about. I'm not doing this to lose weight or massively overhaul the way I eat, and normally I find diet plans restrictive and annoying. If you tell me I can't eat something, it's pretty much all I'm going to want to shove into my mouth.

But Virginia assured me that the diet plan was more a guide that gave me flexibility to eat most of the things I wanted, but was structured to ensure I was refueling on necessary macro-nutrients to rebuild and recover from workouts.

I told her I'd give it the old college try, and in the two weeks I've been doing the program, I've found my diet hasn't actually changed all that much other than to increase the amount of protein I was eating, but I haven't felt like there aren't certain foods I can't eat.

So each week, I do the workouts, record the weight I use and track my food Monday through Wednesday and report back to Kris and Virginia. By Friday, they provide guidance on where I can perhaps increase weight and suggestions on how to improve in the upcoming week.



I'm only two weeks in, but I'm liking it so far. It's definitely different than working with a coach in person, but I like the flexibility of being able to do my workouts when my schedule allows, and I really love getting the feedback from Kris and Virginia each week.

If you want to learn more about EP Fitness Prep, you can check them out online: website, Facebook and Instagram.