Speaking of Nuts....

I'm a big fan of the BBC America show "You Are What You Eat." Nutritionist Gillian McKeith holds and intervention with a family or person who eats horrible and puts them on an 8 week nutritional plan that she develops (mostly vegetarian). I just love how the British lay it on the line - "You're fat and disgusting, now what are you going to do about it!" Plus, she talks about poop and farting a lot - and that is just funny...and she get results. People lose 25 -40 pounds or more in 8 weeks.

On one of the episodes Gillian explained how nuts and seeds are such a healthy snack because they are full of vitamins and essential fats. Evidently, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and other seeds are a great source of zinc which is suppose to increase your sex drive. My husband ran straight to the store after he heard that and now I have bins full of seeds on my pantry shelf.

The fats in nuts are good for your heart, but they have added benefits for runners though...today I came across this article. Anti-inflammatory folks - lord knows I need that, and they are suppose to help repair small muscle-tear injuries. They article recommends incorporation about 1 1/2 ounces of nuts into your diet. But they do want you to stay away from the pre-packaged and heavily salted ones. I think if they are covered in chocolate they are good though (hee, hee). Do you think those little M&M guys can get me to strap on my kicks and go running?

Why?

Manwhore strikes again. I'm sure most of you have seen Playgirl's, I mean People's latest photo spread of Mario Lopez trying to pose as some of the most famous pictures of sexy guys. There is something wrong with this guy.

eewww! Thank goodnes this picture fuzzes out "the area" - just disturbing

He looks like he's trying out for the village people here.

Ugh...yes you have a nice body, but....I just don't want to see your package that close up.

Sorry Mario, not even you can make a diaper sexy....

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Let me just preface this by saying I still have a hangover from Saturday...so I'm not feeling very wordy today.

Saturday was Delaney's Unbirthday...she waited 5 months to celebrate her birthday so she could have a pool party. Pretty patient for a 5 year old...but when it came down to opening her presents and eating her cake she reminded me it wasn't really her birthday. Ugh.

I have the worst luck with parties and I was so worried that no one would show up...out of the 11 girls I invited from her softball team, only two RSVP'd. Evidently EVERYONE went camping this weekend, or had graduation parties to go to...I don't know, but in the back of my paranoid mind I always think they just don't like me. It was killing me because I wanted her to have a good party, and she did...so all my worries were silly, we had about 10 kids there which was just about perfect.

So I devised a new plan in getting ready for the party - High Intensity Interval Cleaning. Let me tell you, this works great with kidlets! We concentrated on one room or project at a time, worked really hard for about half an hour, then I gave the girlies a break and a reward (like painting their nails). We had about 3 HIIC sessions on Friday, and one on Saturday morning and the house was spic and span for the party...without any major stress.

I also tried HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) last Friday and I loved it...my inspiration for the cleaning technique. I'm going to try and incorporate this into my marathon training somehow.

On a side note, Delaney has been asking A TON of questions about god lately, we are doing our best to satisfy her interest. How do you answer some of these questions though? This was our convo this morning:

D: Can you talk in heaven?

me: I think so, but I'm not sure. I'll let you know when I get there, but you need to wait a while to find out.

D: How are you going to tell me?

me: I'll write you a letter

D: You can't do that. How about you knock over a plant.

me: Okay, I'll knock over your favorite plant to let you know if you can talk in heaven.

D: How about, not my favorite plant

Taking the Good With the Bad

The good news: I am officially down a pant size. My old pants actually slip down over my hips without even unbuttoning them.

The bad news: I have done everything in my power to sabotage this accomplishment over the past week.

More good news: My sabotaging ways failed...the old pants are still too big.

Okay...so I am back. Moving on from the parties and PMS from last week, and ready to go down another pant size.

I just freaking realized after reading POM's marathon training schedule and Marcy's maybe I better get on plan too....it is only 17 weeks until the Cowtown Marathon. I've been living in denial that it is as close as it is, thanks for the reality check ladies. Crap, 17 weeks! I'm actually a little scared since this will be my first full marathon....aahhh! Thankfully, I have a pretty good base right now.

So I have been debating in my mind whether to join a gym or not. I'm pretty anti-social so I really like running solo or just working out at my house - we have an okay setup - treadmill, elliptical, some weights.

I have three reasons for wanting to join the gym: 1) I think my husband will exercise more if we have a gym membership, 2) My babysitter is joining, and I actually like her so she would be fun to workout with, 3) air conditioning...all my home equipment is in the garage sans air conditioning...and it gets freakin' hot where I live. We're talking triple digits a good portion of the summer.

We have an Anytime Fitness going in about 5 minutes from my house. They are offering some pretty good start-up incentives right now...plus we can go month to month so I can quit if I don't like it or if I don't use it enough. It is a small gym, just cardio machines and weights...no classes, although they might expand if room opens up in the building. Their cardio machines are really cool though with video screens and bikes that actually steer...almost like playing Wii Fit, only you actually get your heart rate up for more than Wii Fit's intense 3 minute workouts.

I don't know, I just can't totally convince myself that it is worth it...but the air conditioning....

Last but not least, I found this little gem in a Women's Health magazine.

Fit-Speak
Exercise has a language all its own. Study up, then add these gems to your vocab--and your workout.

Chub rub (n) Red, angry chafing produced when your thighs rub together during a run.

Hard•ware (n) A finisher's medal--not the coveted gold, silver, or bronze but the one every participant gets for completing an event or race.

LSD (abbr)Long, slow distance--an hour-plus exercise session held at a conversational pace that builds cardiovascular endurance. Any high you get from this LSD is purely endorphin-generated.

Pew•ni•form (n) Stanky gym clothes that have been festering in your gym bag for a week. (Oh Yeah, I have a pile of these in my closet!)

Show shape (v) To shine your high beams at the gym. (A la Farrah Fawcet, Jen Aniston)

Vart (n) Embarrassing noise emitted from down there. Usually occurs when you come down from an inversion posture in yoga or do situps. As for the word's origin, well, think about it. (How embarrassing! I guess I'm not the only person who does this if there is an actual word for it).

Smelly Shelley

I made the mistake of trying to re-wear my workout clothes yesterday from the day before - oh lord they stank! And they were still damp...I don't know what I was thinking...just being too lazy to pull some clean workout clothes out of my drawer, and trying to reduce laundry. I use to be able to get away with this, but I really don't think I have ever sweated as much as I have in the past couple weeks. I am working out 6 days a week a minimum of 45 minutes and up to 1 1/2 to 2 hours - pro: I am losing weight, con: I stink.

I'm thinking this is why my closet doesn't smell to good, despite the fact that my husband put an air freshener in there (You think he was dropping a hint).

I guess I need to do laundry more often - but if you have any ideas of how I can get out of that (short of burning my workout clothes and buying new gear every week), let me know.

Tag - Your It

First things first, Nikemom has a T-shirt design contest going on. So for those of you who are creative, or if you know someone who is, check it out.

I've been tagged by Eurydice with a meme, so here goes.

The rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. Share 5 facts about yourself.

3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names, linking to them.

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.



Five things about me:

1. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Not that I could kick anyone's ass or anything. I took up Tae Kwon Do when my oldest daughter was about 5, she wanted to try it out so I did it with her. I didn't actually test for my black belt until I was 5 months pregnant with my second daughter. My husband was super nervous about me sparring while pregnant, but they were gentle with me - so I was safe. Then in the ceremonies I started BAWLING my head off because all those pregnancy hormones were kicking in - pretty funny.


2. Speaking of bawling, I cry super easy. I've gotten worse since my sister died 5 years ago, but really I have always been the first to cry in any room. When I took my daughter and nieces to see Iron Giant (long time ago) - I cried, none of the kids did. A touching commercial comes on - I cry. So every time something comes on that is emotional, all of my family looks at me to see if I'm crying yet. Really annoying.


3. I technically have 10 brothers and sisters. Technically because my parents divorced when I was six and both remarried and my dad had two more kids with my step-mom and my mom adopted six kids with my step-dad. A few of the kids my mom adopted had a lot of issues (their parents were into drugs, abusive, etc.) and we don't really have contact with them at this point because they are going through some self-destructive stuff (I think one is a crack whore, sad). But yeah, they still are family.


4. I taught myself how to spin yarn last year. This was an offshoot of my goat farm - I raise Angora goats that produce mohair. The goats are sheared twice a year, and the mohair can be used for spinning yarn and other crafts. I also like to crochet, so I have made a couple items (hats, scarves) from raw wool to end product - pretty cool.


5. I'm a hermit - I really get very anxious when people come to my door. I feel like my house is too messy (it isn't), I won't know what to say, the list goes on. I have been known to hide when I see someone before they see me...both out in public and at my house. I usually assume people won't remember me if I've met them say once before - and I feel like I will be imposing on them if I try to have a conversation with them. I know it's a little crazy, I inherited this wonderful trait from my paternal grandmother - luckily on a scaled down version.

So in tagging five other's my craziness mentioned in #5 above kicks in - hope I'm not bothering any of you by tagging you. Since I'm new to all of this, I am going very random in my tags. I'm tagging Lesley (she has been a little to absent lately), Nikemom, Fatinah, SeaBreeze, and Non-Runner Nancy (because we are split aparts, and she doesn't have enough to do :))

Memorial Day

Yay, today is a rest day for me - and a day off from work since it is Memorial Day - and a weigh in day. I am down 1.5 more pounds! woo hoo! I totally kicked butt on my goals last week with some very intense workouts. My body really needs a rest today. I also check my measurements and my waist and hips are down an inch, my thighs are down 1/2 inch. Boom chicka wow wow!

So I'm planning on keeping the same goals for next week - it's working, so why mess with it.

No big plans for the day other than a BBQ at home. Probably play some Wii fit with the kidlets. Still trying to talk the hubby into stepping on the board, he much prefers sitting on the couch and telling everyone else what to do -put your money where your mouth is babe.

What's for dinner you ask? We are having Portabello Mushroom Burgers (one of my favorites), and Sweet Potato Oven Fries. Yumm!

If you haven't tried Sweet Potato Fries, I highly recommend them. They are healthy (packed with lots of vitamins, not deep fried only lightly coated with olive oil), easy to make, they taste sooo good, and are a great substitute for real fries. I use this recipe from Food Network, only I substitute Emeril's Essence (Paprika, sea salt, pepper, garlic & onion powder) for the taco seasoning. Really, these are just fabulous, you have to try them! My kids like them, and that says A LOT! I have to trick them into eating healthy.

So I hope everyone who has the day off today has a great holiday. Today isn't about the right or wrongs of war - it is about the people who sacrifice their lives, body parts, families, etc. to protect others, even people they have never met before. Thank you to all the soldiers who have served and to their families and loved ones who have suffered as well.