When You Think of Things, Do Them

Hello my friendlings. ( <– I probably lost some street cred. with that one.)

I hope you had a nice Tuesday. I had a bit of a chaotic day at work today, I seemed to be bumping into strange little snafus around every corner! Fortunately, it was definitely not just me who was feeling the strange vibes. It’s always a bonus to not feel like the ONLY nutty one around.

Mini Rant/ Word-to-the-wise: About a week and a half ago, I received an e-mail at work that was offering a company step challenge. It’s one of those extended programs that companies can join in on as a team in order to make healthy changes. Every participant is given a pedometer to monitor their steps and there are fun little prizes along the way. I saw the e-mail right away and immediately wanted in. STUPIDLY, I waited, and waited, and waited and didn’t respond so that I wasn’t the FIRST one on board and let the opportunity slip right past my face! I came to this revelation today and flew down to the coordinator’s office to see if I could still sneak my way onto the team. HOPEFULLY they will still let me participate as the actual challenge has yet to begin. It is so “right-up-my-alley” I don’t know how I missed it! And by only a day. 😦 So what’s my word to the wise? DO THINGS WHEN YOU’RE THINKING OF THEM. There have been SO many times that I put things off, or promise myself that I’ll “do it later” and I end up forgetting entirely. It’s THE most frustrating feeling in the world, so spare yourself the agony and just do things when they first pop into your mind! If there’s no particular reason to put them off, then don’t!

Ehem. Sorry about that.

In other news, the weather here in WNY is absolutely ridiculous! It was GORGEOUS and sunny this afternoon (and by “gorgeous,” I mean 45 degrees), but by about 8:00 it was freezing cold and sleeting/ raining/ snowing. The roads are a mess already! Let’s hope things clear up by commute time in the morning!

After work, I made my way over to the gym and raced through an arm/ab circuit and followed it up with about 25 minutes on the elliptical. I really wanted to run again tonight, but for some reason, last night’s treadmill trek left my calves in some serious pain today! I figured I’d go for the zero-impact elliptical today. I  can never really get into elliptical-ing like I do with the treadmill or an outside run. It’s a great exercise and always leaves me sweating and feeling the burn, but I just don’t enjoy it! Not even a little. My arm/ ab circuit was quite a hodgepodge of exercises, but it was a pretty good one and flew by pretty quickly which is always a bonus.

And because I know you were wondering, here’s the song that has been fueling my workouts this week:

Are you embarrassed to know me? Don’t be. Embrace it.

(I may or may not also “sing” along to this song in the car. Loudly. Badly. Happily.)

I hope you have a great night and a wonderful Wednesday!

I’d Make a Terrible Caveman

This morning, I ate like a caveman. That’s right guys, I gave the famous “oatless” oatmeal (a staple in the Paleo diet) a try. The oatless oatmeal actually did a very good job of keeping my hunger at bay for most of the day and it didn’t taste too terrible either!

So what is the Paleo diet? In short, it’s back to what is assumed to be the prehistoric diet. The meal plan contains lots of meat, protein  and also some nuts and grains mixed in. (OK, that was a terrible explanation. This website does a much better job of explaining what the Paleo diet actually is.) Let it be known that I never, ever, ever would consider the Paleo diet (or “template” as they call it) for myself even though I’m sure it works just fine for some people. For one thing, any diet that puts my beloved oatmeal on the forbidden foods list is automatically off of my radar! One thing that I came to  realize in my perusal of various diet and health plans is that I’m not willing to cut anything out 100%. I’ll cut back and reduce and swap and skimp until the end of time, but I’m not OK with cutting any of my favorite things out of my diet indefinitely. As I talked about yesterday, for me it’s all about moderation and control. I love sweets and carbs WAY too much to cut them out completely. I’m also 100% positive that peanut butter did NOT exist in Fred Flintstone’s time and a world without peanut butter doesn’t fly by me! I’d definitely be willing to give the Paleo oats another try though, I’ve also seen many variations that make it more flavorful and change the texture a bit (I ended up swirling in some yogurt which really improved things in my opinion). If you’re curious, here is the recipe that I used. It’s been flying around on various blogs and also good ‘ole Pinterest for a few months now and I finally decided to give it a try.

For the workout tonight, I got right on it the instant I got home for work. I knew that if I didn’t do it then, I wouldn’t do it at all so I decided to leave The World’s Most Irksome Day EVER (think: The Office meets Saved By the Bell) behind me and hit the mat. I completed an ab workout that I found online a while back that hit all of the right places. It was quick and mean and I loved it!

Here’s what I did tonight:

• 25 Crunches
• 25 Toe-Touches
• 5 Leg Lifts
• 30 Seated Rows
• Plank (1 minute)
• Right Side Plank (1 minute)
• Left Side Plank (1 minute)
• 25 Burpees
• 10 Leg Climbs (10/ leg)
• 15 Slow Bicycles (each side = 1/2 rep)
• 15 Right Side Crunches
• 15 Left Side Crunches
• Plank w/ Leg Lift (1 minute)
• 10 Knee Tucks
• 10 Leg Climbs (10/leg)
• 10 Leg lifts
• 25 Mountain Climbers

In other news, it’s Tuesday. You know what that means… DANCE MOMS! Tonight was the season finale and it was fantastic. 90 minutes of catty, frenzy-filled dancing with the one and only Abby Lee. What will I do now that the season has ended??! Make a paper chain until the next season premier, naturally. (Just kidding, even I’m not that nutty. 😛 )

G’bye for now!