Fitness Friday, Slacker Edition

Oy vey, guys, July has been rough on the keeping momentum going on working out. I’m going to blame the heat (and not, you know, my total ennui and flopping around not wanting to do anything). As a result I slacked off the on the daily stepping but I did fire up the Wii Fit and so at least I haven’t been doing nothing.

Anyway, this week has been much better in terms of scheduling my exercising. I did the stepper Monday through Thursday like I’m supposed to and even managed to throw in a little bit of Wii Boxing, which I like for upper body, and some Wii Hula Hooping, which is good for your mid-section. It’s not so good for one of my knees so it’s not something I can do every day in addition to the stepping.

I got some new shoes which has been really helpful for the stepper, which no lie, I was doing in flip flops. (Whoooops.) (In my defense they were nice Teva flip flops.) So that’s been nice. They’ve also been great for our walks at the Lafayette Reservoir, which for the last three weeks have not hurt my feet at all. I had tried to break in my pair of Skechers that I bought a year (or more) ago, but they just turned out to be terrible. I gave them a good try but at the end of the day just didn’t work. They were a pair of those slimmer-cut type sneakers, not regular full-soled sneaks which I’ve never had a problem with. So I’m a little down on Skechers but probably not forever. Luckily I had my extra paycheck on my birthday weekend so I went to DSW and got some New Balance sneakers, which were NOT cheap but so far they have been really great.

NBshoes

I think mine are more a navy blue though (they’re the ones I posted on Facebook if you saw that) with fluorescent orange accents. I couldn’t find a picture of them on the NB website, but these are pretty close.

Anyway, I’m back on track for the most part and that’s really the only thing you can do. Tomorrow my office has been invited to a luxury box at the Giants game so there will be much food and fun… If you ever have an opportunity to watch a game from a box (where food and drinks are provided to you) you should take it, because it’s a lot of fun! I’ve never been to a box game at the Giants’ stadium but I have at the A’s stadium, and it’s a treat, even at that ridic park. Not gonna lie, after a week of relatively healthy eating (except that stop at Freebirds for lunch on Tuesday, *cough*) being handed beers and sliders sounds really great!

I’m now getting to the point in this lifestyle change where I’m going to have to address my diet, so bear with me while I figure that out. I’m a stress/bored eater, and I don’t really eat breakfast or fruit so it’s going to be a challenge to change that. I try to bring things to the office but I’m just not hungry in the mornings so making an egg sandwich isn’t totally the solution to that yet. I have oatmeal and a bowl at the office but…

Any suggestions on the breakfast problem would be appreciated! I’m willing to entertain the thought of shakes, too. Just nothing with banana in it as I loathe bananas. I could drink it if the banana flavor was mostly hidden though. I like yogurt and cottage cheese. Having protein bars (I like the Lemon Zest Luna Bars and a number of different Cliff Bar flavors) at the office has helped with my snacking but I’m not really sold on protein bars being an actual healthy thing to eat on the regular, considering all the sugar/chocolate that’s in so many of them. They do curb the hunger more than granola bars though, which are definitely not very good for you. I also don’t like crunchy snack bars – with all my teeth issues dating back 20 years to when I had braces, I just can’t with those even though they might be a little healthier.

So you can see I’ve definitely been giving this some thought. I have run into some dumb problems due to my lack of loving fruit. I have no problems BUYING the fruit but then it sits and I don’t eat it (unless they’re orange cuties/mandarins) and I even bought a bunch of apples to make applesauce, but that hasn’t happened yet. I did eat the white nectarines I bought because they were delicious but for the most part I’m pretty ambivalent about fruit. That’s why I think if I got into the rhythm of actually making shakes it would trick me into eating a wider variety.

Vegetables haven’t been an issue for me; I like most of them except the grainier types (e.g. lima beans) and cook/roast them on the regular. I mostly just have to remind myself to eat them if I have them or pick up a bag of brussell sprouts or whatever to have in the freezer if I don’t. The freezer’s kind of a black hole so I have to try to remember what’s in there to begin with. I think my non-issue with veggies is that they’re not sweet – I definitely prefer salt to sweet when it comes to flavors.

I wish I had a chef.

Links of the Week

linksoftheweek

 I don’t know about you guys but I’m having a pretty good week. I got some good $$$ news last week and it was effective immediately so that was nice. I got some cinnamon bread at A Sweet Affair on Saturday (sooo delicious!!), and I fixed my grandma’s TV/cable not once, but twice. *receives award for best granddaughter ever*

You’ve probably seen this already but We Found Our Son in the Subway is one of the nicest things you’ll read, if you haven’t already.

As a longtime Project Runway fan (one who, alas, can longer stomach the show since its move to Lifetime) this update on the very first winner Jay McCarroll was fun to read. I still think that his finale collection was one of the best in PR history.

‘The Walking Dead’: Norman Reedus explains why Daryl Dixon never runs out of arrows. Not gonna lie, I had noticed this (and I rarely notice anything… I’m not a deep television watcher). Daryl’s my favorite.

Make your own cinnamon bread! So far the Pioneer Woman hasn’t steered me wrong. The only difference I would make is roll that bad boy in cinnamon sugar after it pops out of the oven like the bread from a Sweet Affair.

Links of the Week

A new feature of the blog is going to be highlighting some of my favorite articles/links that I’ve read throughout the week. Here’s this week’s list!

linksoftheweek

The Rock ’n’ Roll Casualty Who Became a War Hero. This guy was fired from Soundgarden AND Nirvana… and went on with his life – in the military. A great read.

Incredible time-lapse of fog flowing over San Francisco for 2 years. I found this particularly interesting given the recent heat wave that was broken only when the fog finally came in. Living in the Bay Area we’re used to fog, but this was a new way to view it! (I’ll stop talking about the heatwave someday but NOT TODAY) (Incidentally it’s been very nice here lately and I haven’t even turned the air on since the weekend.)

Project Popsicle. Some great ideas to make homemade popsicles! I will definitely have to make an effort to make ones that aren’t just frozen orange juice. Or just in general, I think my popsicle molds are hidden away in a drawer somewhere. This is a great way to trick myself into eating fruit.

Hubble Telescope Gallery. I was looking for space pictures (who doesn’t, right? hah) and did a quick search for Hubble Telescope images and this whole site popped up. You have got to check it out – space is beautiful.

hs-2009-25-e-web
Awesome, right???!

Primeval Underwater Forest Discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. While we’re on a science kick, check out this awesome find in Alabama. I liked the video, a very green and eerie atmosphere. I would be interested in seeing a documentary about this.

And finally, 4th String Jaegers. You can make your own Jaeger design (the fighting giant robots from the awesome Pacific Rim!) (No seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed it!) on the Warner Bros website annnd apparently people have been giving their creations stupid names, which of course have been collected into a hilarious tumblr.