November 2010
55 posts
October 2010
75 posts
four songs I cannot get enough of right now:
- Space - M.I.A.
- No Love - Eminem ft. Lil’ Wayne
- We Speak No Americano - Yolanda Be Cool & DCup
- Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
They were all on tonight’s dinner playlist (a home cooked meal with an old friend) and will be on tomorrow’s tailgating playlist too.
Yay!
In one study, published by in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists tracked the diet and exercise habits of people who claimed they couldn’t lose weight even though they cut calories. The upshot was that the volunteers had dramatically underreported their calories by 47 percent and overreported their activity by 51 percent. And their failed ‘diets’ had nothing to do with sluggish metabolisms. When the researchers compared the participants’ ability to burn calories with that of a control group, there was no difference.
(Women’s Health, September 2010)
“If the highs of stress during the week aren’t offset by the lows of leisure during the weekend, your cortisol levels can remain sky-high, hampering your body’s natural ability to recharge.”
—Stephanie McClellan, M.D. (Women’s Health, September 2010)
A study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found allergy sufferers had lower levels of immunoglobulin E, a marker of alergic reactions, after kissing a loved one than when they didn’t. Smoochinmay ease the inflammation caused by stress (Shape, October 2010).
The finance better get ready to pucker up!
My life in numbers:
3: days until the fiance and I (and my cousin + her boyfriend) go to see the jets play. It’s supposed to be a gorgeous fall day, just perfect for football!
10: the number I can count to in Japanese (I’m trying the Rosetta Stone program through work). Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyu, ju.
491: The amount I spent at lululemon last night. I know, I know - something needs to go back. I’m on a budget, right?
10: Nights in the next three weeks I will spend in hotels
2: number of skinny vanilla lattes I’ve drank in the same number of days
34: Items on my work to do list
1: number of ear buds that work on my skull candy earphones right now. No sound comes out of the left one. I guess it’s time for a new pair.
1268: the number of calories I burned on my (combined) runs yesterday + Tuesday. Even though it was planned, I am taking today off. My shin is starting to hurt and I don’t want to battle shin splints like I have in the past.
3: weeks it’s been since I last went to Weight Watchers. I am going on Saturday. No matter what I see on the scale.
48: hours until my 90 minute, deep tissue massage. (A birthday gift from the sister.) I cannot wait!
A supervisor who supports you and who’s got your back lowers your risk of having a heart attack by 20 percent, say researchers at Stockholm University (Shape, October 2010).
I need to get myself one of these!
I was going through some old files today, and I found my 30 Before 30 list. I updated it - but if I really want to finish these in the next 34 months, I better get going!
30 Before 30
- Get an MBA
- Get another Master’s degree (or go back to school for something)
- Take a class for personal enrichment
- Learn to sew (or knit)
- Learn another language (or re-learn all the Spanish I conveniently forgot)
- Run a half marathon [TWICE!]
- Run a marathon
- Buy a house
- Get engaged
- Get married
- Learn to cook a signature meal
- Create the perfect playlist for a dinner party
- Go to a wine tasting event
- Eat in every night for a month
- Go to Greece
- Go to Scotland
- Take my family on an amazing vacation
- Feel comfortable in my body
- Master doing a headstand
- Volunteer at least 3x per year
- Make do with less – donate at least three bags of clothing/househood goods to charity per year [IN PROGRESS]
- Find a job that I like and that I’m good at
- Start (and stick to!) a budget – and save at least 10% as a ‘rainy day fund’ [IN PROGRESS]
- Master the art of painting my nails (and my toes) myself
Get a full-body skin cancer check(but keep doing this every year!)- Read at least 10 literary classics [IN PROGRESS]
- Find (and buy!) the perfect pair of jeans
- Look good in a business suit (and not like I’m trying to ‘play grown up’)
- Pray (or try to talk to God) every day
- Be appreciative, engaged, and mindful
(updated 1.1.11)
Environmental Science & Technology notes that as few as five minutes of outdoor exercise can bring major health improvements. Enjoying areas near water yielded an even bigger benefit (Self, August 2010).
Tomorrow and Thursday (for a total of three days in a row) - I will run outside by the water. Although Lake Ontario can be a bit stinky, I am all for the health benefits!
Today in bullet points:
- Went to a crazy stressful, four hour account meeting - where we were accused of having not being strategic (totally true). On the way to the meeting, I ate a larabar and a banana.
- After said meeting, I checked into my new hotel (downtown) - and caught up on emails and work related things. Found lunch at Pita Pit (whole wheat pita with lettuce, spinach, green peppers, onions, and a bit of honey mustard).
- I needed a break around 4pm, and I knew there was a big storm coming - so I put on some spandex, laced up my sneakers, and went for a 4 mile run. I finished right as the downpour started.
- Came back to the hotel - had a conference call, caught up on more work-related things (I’m literally travelling for four weeks straight - which leaves a huge chance for things to slip between the cracks. I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen).
- Went to a (free!) yoga fusion class at lululemon - and loved it! We did some amazing (and super hard) hamstring/glute moves and variations of chatarangas - totally great poses to add to my repertoire.
- At lululemon, I found a whole bunch of stuff I must have. Like this (it’s a cashmere blend and has thumb holes! How am I supposed to refuse?) and this (I have the shorts and the pants - I need the crops!) and this (it probably will not be flattering on me - but is it not gorgeous?)
- I picked up a burrito on the way home. Burrito Bandidos? Amazing. Although I did not need to eat it all. And convincing myself that I should eat it all because I didn’t want it to stink up my garbage can - is not a good rationalization (wish I would have realized that before it was too late, though).
- I’m now all caught up on tumblr, so I am going to shower and lay in bed, catching up on the tons of magazines I brought with me. I have far too many magazine subscriptions - and it seems the only time I get to read them is when I travel.
I’m totally embarrassed to write this - but if you’re in the mood (and you like what I have to say…) please, pretty please - recommend me?
I’ve been feeling a bit unmotivated recently. It’s not that I haven’t been eating well (although I haven’t) or that I haven’t been working out as hard as I was (yup, not doing that either) - I think it’s that I’m trying to live healthily without a purpose. I ran my two half marathons for the season, and while I can train for something else - I really don’t have the budget to fly somewhere warm to run a Jan/Feb race. So I’m running for the sake of running (which was gorgeous in Vancouver last week) - but is easy to skip, or to not push myself since there’s no goal, no clock to beat.
It seems so weird to not have a half marathon training plan taped to my fridge. Even though I didn’t follow it perfectly, super compulsive me loved to cross off the day’s workout and add up my daily mileage.
So my goal is to plan out my monthly workouts. This worked well for me in the past - and I could use some stability in my life right now.
Here are my workouts for the rest of the week:
- Monday - rest
- Tuesday - morning: (hotel gym) sprint 2 miles on treadmill, 45 minutes elliptical, core and arm exercises; afternoon: yoga class
- Wednesday - afternoon run (outside) - 4 miles; yoga for runners class
- Thursday - morning run (outside) - 4 miles
- Friday - afternoon run (outside) - run 5 miles
- Saturday - (gym) circuit training with the sister
- Sunday - 8 mile run
I’ll update November’s calendar shortly!
How do you stay motivated?
Raise your hand if you ate less than stellarly this weekend.
…Yeah, that’s my hand going up. And I know it’s all in my head but I definitely feel like I have a “food hangover” — you know when you’re thirsty and sort of bloated and you just want to eat every carb there is?
(Well it is sort of like a hangover if you think about it.)
Anyway, I have packed my lunch and I am going to kick ass this week. I’m not going back into old habits because they make me feel like yuck. Who’s with me?
Hands up! Today we start again.
