Work it, Shake it and..Brake it.

This is going to be a lengthy post!

I had full intentions of popping out of bed like a poptart this morning and getting right to my day, but I failed! Nothing wrong with being a bit lazy though, I needed it, especially after a long week. Alteast I still got in a morning workout.

Workout; lower body.

I did 3 sets of all of these:

• Step-ups on bench, with dumbbells - 1 set of 10 @ 40lbs and 2 sets of 8 @ 50lbs.
• Squats with dumbbells - 10 reps @ 40lbs.
• Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts with dumbbells - 1 set of 8 @ 50lbs and 2 sets of 8 at 60lbs (8 for each leg)
• Angled Seated Calf Raises - 12 reps @ 160lbs
• Leg Sled - 12reps @ 200lbs
• Hamstring Curls on ball - bodyweight, 12 reps.
• Lunges, rear foot elevated - 25lb plate, 8 reps (I decided to go easy on myself)

Talk about wobbly legs after that. When I got home I was so ready to whip out the blender and make my favorite shake: 

Cinnamon Banana Protein Shake

½ frozen banana, sliced

½ cup or 4oz of milk

1 scoop of vanilla whey protein powder (I use Jay Robb)

1 cup of crushed ice

Cinnamon, lots!

Toss in your blender and go to town! I like to slurp my shakes out of a bowl with a spoon :)

This shake is even better when ya throw in a spoonful of pumpkin and some pumpkin pie spice or use greek yogurt instead of milk.

After that I settled down to take a crack at some homework, until my tummy decided it was lunch time. I baked up some chicken breast and sandwiched it inside a whole wheat pita with some roasted red peppers, tomatoes, spinach and ranch and toasted it. For siders, I had some baby carrots with ketchup and green beans with parmesan. So good. I've been on a crazy chicken kick lately and there will definitely be some recipes to prove that.

Brake Booster Check Valve Quick Fix;

The other morning when leaving for class, I went to back out of my driveway and...my brake pedal was suddenly hard as a brick and I had no braking power. Needless to say, I was in a rush and ended up having to drive my big jeep aka DangerJeep..which is not fun at highway speeds! I suspected something was wrong with the booster system. Turns out it this guy, the vaccuum check valve, was cracked:



Old Cracked Check Valve



A brake booster uses vacuum from the engine to multiply the force that your foot applies to the brake pedal.  Without this, your brake pedal would be constantly hard and you'd have to use some seriously heavy force to get your brakes to apply.  The check valve is used to regulate air in and out of the booster to create a pressure difference between atmospheric pressure and engine vaccuum, which in turn causes a piston inside to move back and forth to create hydraulic pressure to apply your brakes.

Step 1: Locate and remove the old check valve, (mine was already out) but it would be in that hole there on the booster canister. This is all on the drivers side, under the hood, on the back of the firewall.



Step 2: Spray the ribbed end of the new check valve with PB, to lube it up! (Yeah, I know, talking dirty already..)

Step 3: Insert the ribbed end of the valve into the brake booster canister and re-attach the large rubber vacuum hose to the smaller end. And voila! Brakes work again!

There should also probably be a metal clamp that secures the vacuum hose to the check valve, but I'm without one for now. Easy, right?

I'm off to go work on a research paper and I currently have some delicious pumpkin pie squares in the oven that I can't wait to dig into...