13 February 2012

shaking things up


This past week, this month even, has been all about trying to shake things up fitness and food-wise mostly because of the frustration I've been experiencing with the birth control pill weight gain and puffiness.  I've not had any soda, beer or wine since the middle of January, I drink 1-3 cups of coffee in the morning then for the remainder of the day it's all water, all the time.........which means lots of trips to the bathroom, lol.  Oh yeah, the water thing is for trying to ease the constant dry mouth side effect from the bc pill too, my next dentist visit is gonna be soooooooooo fun.  


The fresh veggie intake has gone up (even MORE trips to the bathroom! yay?), I have a kale smoothie mix for breakfast nearly every morning which consists of whatever I have in the fridge and freezer and I've started purchasing homemade energy/snack bars from a friend who makes them (incredibly delicious and healthy) for my sweet tooth cravings. 

coconut and chocolate, mmmmm

Quinoa is my "new" favorite grain (technically it's not a grain as I just learned from WHFoods) , I use it in lieu of rice. Not only is it tastier, it packs a fairly mean nutritional punch.  My only complaint is how bloody expensive it is around here.

Since I mentioned the unmentionable of the increased bathroom trips (well, unless you're a runner then you know we talk about that quite often, lol) earlier, that kind of brings me around to a neat little fitness challenge that was going around on twitter--do 10 push-ups after every trip (please wash your hands first!!!!!!! ick!). Depending on how much you're hydrating (or how many cups of coffee you've had) it's easy to get in a good 50-70 push-ups a day.  

There's also a pull-up bar installed in (on?) the doorway of my downstairs bathroom as of this past week.  Can't believe I've lived here over a year and just now got around to putting one up.  What's a bit discouraging is that last summer I could do 15 consecutive pull-ups and now can't even complete one, I can muscle my way 2/3 of the way up but can't quite get that last little bit done :-(.  At least it's there for the attempting now.  
My newest obsession is a 2.5 pound weighted hula-hoop. After struggling with an el-cheapo .97 cent hoop for months I finally googled "why can't I hula-hoop?"--yes, that's the exact term I used--I discovered that adults need a larger and heavier (thus slower) hoop to hula with. Ohmygosh, that thing is amazing!!!!!!! I went from not being able to spin more than 15x to doing 5-20 minutes at once (after getting warmed up) and ended up with extremely sore abs in the process. It's hilarious how incredibly fun it is, I end up giggling a good bit of the time using it.  


working on my technique


I think I've already mentioned the mini-trampoline in a previous post but it's another "toy" I've got sitting in my living room--which is starting to resemble a mini-gym what with the bike trainer, foam roller, and everything else scattered about.  Again, it's kinda like the other things, very easy to just take a couple of moments and do a bit of playing.  Elsie certainly thinks it's fun to chase me about while I'm jumping around on the trampoline.  Oh, and do 100 jumping jacks on one.........gets the heart rate right on up there fast. 



No comments: