Lifestyle

My Favorite Things: March

April 1, 2016 by Nicole 4 Comments

No, this isn’t an April Fools’ joke. I’m actually posting my monthly roundup ON TIME!!

Favorite Products

Puppies & Fitness Tank

A puppy ON A MEGAFORMER?! *heart explodes*

I couldn’t give this company my money fast enough when I found this tank.

thredUP

I’ve been on a mission to clean out my closet, but Depop (the ebay-esque app I talked about in a previous update) was becoming a full-time job. Taking pictures of all my items and posting them to the app and then making daily trips to the post office–it got old REAL quick. I read about thredUP on Julie’s blog and decided to give it a go–so much easier! They mail you a big shipping bag (or three in my case) to fill with clothes and then they do all the work, photographing and listing the items they accept in their online consignment store. You create an account and can see what sells and what commission you get by logging in–and they’ve got cute stuff for sale, too! I spotted some Lululemon tanks for $20 in perfect condition. If you want to create an account, use THIS LINK–it’ll give you $10 in credit. It’ll give me $10 in credit, too. 😉

Favorite Eats

Spring Menu Tasting at Sweetgreen

Sweetgreen invited some local bloggers to taste their new springtime menu and I fell in love with the Hello Portobello salad! So. Good.

Peanut Aya Bowl from Juice Box

I was in Southie the other day for an errand and finally got the chance to check out The Juice Box. Their Peanut Aya (peanut butter and pitaya) bowl is delicious! I don’t think they use organic produce which is a bummer, but as least Boston is taking baby steps in the right direction with healthier food options.

Favorite Workouts

Box 60 at Title Boxing Club

I was obsessed with boxing classes this month and particularly loved Box 60 at Title Boxing Club by North Station. Like other boxing classes I’ve taken in Boston, it’s a mix of bag work and bodyweight exercises, but Title puts a heavy emphasis on the bag work–which I like! Another thing I love is that you get your own bag. At some gyms, you partner up–which is fine, and can be motivating–but I personally prefer solo workouts. This is me time! I want to beat the sh*t out of the bag and not have to worry about what anyone else is doing.

We started the 60-minute class (Title also offers a 30-minute version of it) with bodyweight exercises focused on low body (jump squats, lunges, etc.) and then went into bag work for the majority of class. The instructor would demo the combo and then come around helping people with form as needed. The last 10 minutes of class was core work off the bag.

Good to know: You need to bring your own wraps and gloves. Title has both for sale and will loan newbies gloves for their first class (not wraps–you’d need to buy them). Depending on the material, communal ones at gyms can leave your hands smelling like dead bodies, so if you’re going to box regularly, it’s worthwhile to invest in your own gloves anyway. 🙂

I’ve been trying new classes this month thanks to a partnership with ClassPass. You can get $25 off your first month of ClassPass using my ambassador link. It’s in most major cities and I can’t speak highly enough of it! If you’re a group fitness lover like me, it’s perfect.

Completing My Longest Training Run

I’ll talk more about this in my upcoming training update post, but 21 miles in the books! Time to taper. 🙂

Favorite Moments

Date Night at Oishii

The pictures from dinner (obviously I took like 17) are super grainy and dark, so you’ll have to just trust me on this when I say Oishii has the best sushi in Boston. I got a tuna mango roll that literally melted in my mouth as I ate it … I’m drooling just remembering it. Joe and I don’t do formal dinner dates very often so this was a real treat!

Posting My First YouTube Video

Yesterday was so exciting! Thank you to everyone who watched my first workout video–so pumped to make this a weekly thing.

Hope you all have a fun weekend planned! I’m off to New Jersey to see my nephews and niece and then popping into NYC to see college friends for the final four game (apparently UNC is still in the tournament?? Worst alumni ever over here!).

Filed Under: Lifestyle, My Favorite Things

5 Tips I Learned Making My First YouTube Video

March 30, 2016 by Nicole 8 Comments

real outtakes from my first video — not staged (LOL)

My first YouTube video actually never made it to YouTube. It was that bad. But far from considering it a failure, I actually learned a ton throughout the process. Nothing mind-blowing, just little tips for making the process more streamlined. My second go at the whole thing, it took me a fraction of the time and the quality of the end project improved tenfold. I still have a long way to go until I’ve mastered it, but I thought I’d share the little things I’ve picked up so far for any other bloggers and fellow YouTube newbies.

1. Outline the video before you shoot.

I had the workout I was going to shoot all planned, but I made the mistake of not planning out what shots I’d need. So then I got home and started editing and it was a choppy disaster. Visualize the flow of the final video and write down its outline. Think about transitions; what you want to see on screen during intro and outro titles; angles of shots; will you be talking or will you do a voiceover; what information do you need to cover when talking; and so on.

OPENING TITLE SCREEN fade music to
SHOT 1 | Close up talking
SHOT 2 | Side view of lunge (30 seconds) cut to
SHOT 3 | Front view of lunge *use voiceover*

That’s a very barebones example, but you get the idea. The second time I attempted to shoot the video, I knew exactly what material I needed to get and was way more efficient with my time. Having an outline made editing much more streamlined as well.

2. Big room + no mic = echo.

I’m all about making the most out of what you have when it comes to blogging/vlogging. Yes, the equipment helps–but it can be expensive! What works for me financially is gradually investing in equipment and then just MacGyvering workarounds for the stuff I don’t yet have. My next investment will probably be a wireless mic for these videos, but right now I’m just using a combination of my camera’s built-in mic and voiceovers that are recorded at a later date. The problem with using your camera’s mic is that if you’re in a big room (which I am for workouts), you sound awfully echo-y. The camera mic will also pick up all the little sounds around the room–from your feet hitting the floor with a loud thud during squat jumps to a truck driving by outside.

Voiceovers are a great solution because I can filmed the workout, remove the sound from the visual footage, and then just talk over it with audio recorded separately, and in a small, quiet room without an echo. When I want footage of me talking in real time, I set up a white background in a small room (my studio apartment works) and make sure to sit close to the camera.

3. You can use your iPhone’s voice memo app for voiceovers.

Game changer! Instead of recording audio for voiceovers using the mic on the camera (seems like a waste of memory if you’re not even using the visual footage, right??), I discovered the voice memo app on my iPhone works like a charm. Great sound quality and you can conveniently hold the phone right up to your mouth as you watch the video footage for which you’re doing the voiceover, talking based on what visuals will be on screen at the time. I then just send the audio file right to my computer and import it into Adobe Premiere (what I use for editing videos).

4. Use a stand-in to focus the camera before rolling. Just remember to move said stand-in out of the shot.

I’ll coerce my mom into helping me shoot these soon enough, but for now I’m making the videos on my own. It’s surprisingly not as big a pain in the ass as I thought! I set my camera up on a tripod and then put a chair or plant in the shot where I’ll be. I then focus the camera on the stand-in and start recording. I’ll then move the plant/chair and begin the workout where the plant once was.

Just make sure you move the stand-in completely out of the shot! I didn’t move it far enough the first time I tried to film and the result was half the workout material had a clean background and the other half had a chair in the back corner. Makes for choppy editing when you put the two together! Keep your background consistent.

5. Video drains the camera battery. Buy a backup or plan your shoot accordingly.

I have an older camera (I use my DSLR in video mode), so I’m sure there are way more battery-efficient models out there, but I was still shocked at how quickly my battery died. I had reserved a Breather (you can get an hour free if you use code PUMPIRON FYI) for two hours and my camera died a little over halfway into it. Womp wommmmp.

Spare batteries aren’t too expensive, and I think it’s a worthwhile investment if you plan to shoot for longer periods of time. I like to bang out multiple shoots/workouts/videos/recipes at once (I’m much more productive this way), so I just purchased two extra battery packs with a charger (under $30 — worth it!). These are the ones I got, but just go to Amazon and search for your camera model and the word “battery” and you’ll get exactly what you need.

Bonus Discovery: My left ear is apparently heavier than my right, plus other equally horrifying observations.

Wait. That’s what my voice sounds like??! It’s a reaction I think we’ve all had at one point or another while listening to a recording of ourselves speaking. Multiply that shock and horror times a million with video. Why does my mouth do that when I say words that start with “s”?? Do I have a lisp?! The hell are my hands doing?? Why do I keep tilting my head to the left?? Do I need botox?? All questions I asked myself while reviewing the video I’d shot.

Just remember that your mannerisms are going to seem a million times more awkward to you than to anyone else. Don’t even sweat it. But if you’re a fellow Italian, maybe like, I dunno, handcuff your hands to the chair out of the video frame … 😉

Follow Me on YouTube

After weeks of talking about it … ok, months … OKAY FML, years … I finally joined the YouTube community! I’m going to upload my first video tomorrow (woohoo!) and from here on out, you can expect a new workout video every Tuesday. There’ll be a blog post to accompany it with all the descriptions and pictures you’re used to, so if video ain’t yo’ thang, no worries.

The videos will hopefully increase in quality and decrease in awkwardness week by week. Bear with me through these first few!

Fellow bloggers & YouTubers — any tips to add to my list?

Filed Under: Blogging, Lifestyle

Why My Family, Friends and Even Thieves Love Blue Apron (+Reader Discount!)

March 22, 2016 by Nicole 7 Comments

Thieves? I’ll get to that story at the end of the post, promise! I’ve got another drool-worthy Blue Apron post for you today (can’t help myself with the gratuitous photos). Poor Joe eats cold dinner every time I get a delivery because I cook the meals at 3PM knowing the lighting will be best to photograph them in all their edible beauty. Brings to mind this hilarious Instagram Husband video (<– watch it immediately if you’re a fellow blogger).

Even when I’m not working on a post with Blue Apron, I’ll order the service myself because I truly am so fond of it. If I have back-to-back weekend travel plans and know the week in between will be hectic, I’ll schedule a delivery on Monday so that I don’t have to stress about dinners. Because you can skip weeks whenever you want with no penalty, I just keep my account active and unskip weeks here and there when the menu looks particularly perfect for me.

That’s another awesome thing about Blue Apron–you can see the menu options weeks in advance. They’ll select three for you based on your dietary preferences, but you can still go in and swap out meals. It’s great for me and Joe because while I have my dietary preferences set to pescatarian, Joe enjoys all meats. We can look at the upcoming options and if he’s drooling over a chicken dish, swap it into the mix. I mean, he tolerates the unrelenting pictures of what he’s eating–the least I can do is make him the occasional chicken dish. 😉

Aside from the convenience of it, I’ve also seen an improvement in my cooking skills and knowledge. I find myself going back to old Blue Apron recipe cards when making my own meals. Often I’ll incorporate a technique or a flavor combo I particularly liked into a new recipe of my own creation.

The pictures in this post are a mix of favorite meals from my last two deliveries (one complimentary, one I purchased). All recipes can be found here. In order of photographic appearance in the post, I had the Seared Salmon & Spinach-Walnut Pesto with Potato & Onion Hash; Crispy Brown Butter Gnocchi with Meyer Lemon & Brussels Sprouts; Roasted Broccoli & Fregola Salad with Hard-Boiled Eggs & Tahini Dressing; and Cod Kedgeree with Basmati Rice, Eggs & Frizzled Onion (Joe’s favorite!).

The fish dishes are always a big hit in our apartment. Joe often doesn’t feel satisfied if a meal doesn’t contain some sort of meat, but I prefer a heavily plant-based diet … with the exception of seafood. We eat fish once or twice a week because of this common ground, and I am always looking to learn new ways of preparing it.

I never would have thought to make pesto out of spinach and walnuts, but it went so well with the salmon in the above dish! Definitely will be making it again.

About Blue Apron

If you’re new to the blog and/or Blue Apron, let me break down the basics of this service. Blue Apron sends you a refrigerated package containing all the farm-fresh ingredients (in the exact proportions) needed to create three meals. They offer a 2-Person Plan and a Family Plan depending on your living situation. There’s a huge selection of recipes and new dishes are added to the menu every week. As I mentioned already, you can set dietary preferences, change your menu and skip weeks as you like.

Blue Apron is working to develop a sustainable food system, and as part of that effort you’ll get seasonal, fresh ingredients sourced from quality supplier and artisans. They also offer a recycling program for your Blue Apron packaging (details here). As someone who gets a lot of package deliveries, I appreciate this.

Two Free Meals with Your First Blue Apron Delivery

I’m excited to offer P&I readers two free meals on their first Blue Apron order! The offer is open to the first 20 readers to sign up. Use this link to redeem.

Way back when I did my first Blue Apron post, my mom took advantage of this offer and she’s still using the service today! I went home for a night last week and walked into my parents’ kitchen to this scene:

Love it!

And before I end this post, I should explain this post title–and thank Blue Apron for sending me not one but two complimentary deliveries. My first delivery was actually stolen off the entranceway to my apartment building–what?! I get that I live in a city but I was shocked. It’s happened once before when a neighbor’s package was torn open and the contents stolen, but I never thought it’d be a recurring theme–or that the target of theft would be a refrigerated box of food. In a way though, I actually feel okay about food, if anything, being stolen because there’s a good chance that person was hungry and needs it way more than I do. Either that or there’s a black market for pre-portioned Brussels sprouts of which we’re all naively unaware …

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Blue Apron. While I was compensated for my time, all opinions–as always!–are my own. I appreciate your support of the brands that support this blog! 🙂

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Recipes