Today was a good day. This morning was P90x kenpo (karate/kickboxing) and then I had my karate class this evening. Tomorrow is 'rest' day and I think I'll be doing one of my non-p90x yoga DVDs.

Not until I get an email/letter confirming it. But don't tell my mind that - I am so ready....

Hi all,

Pat - congrats on the retirement paperwork!

kim - awesome blog, as always. Also WOW! on the PR

Mel - awesome wod

Alena, Shannon - hi!

Cheryl - great reference on the whole "balance" issue. ties in with my "attachment" goal for this year..I have to do more enjoying and stop the urge to over-control.

wod: inspired very loosely by Mel's wo yesterday I did some warming up from women NROL, and then body work: tired to do 20 pushup, pullup, squat, lunge but failed on the count of 10. So that is another wo in the making!

Have a great day all,
Rabbit

One hour of Zumba last night. I will have to be careful because it seems to irritate my lower back. Not to mention the fact that when I was on the TM the night before, my posture sucked and the incline made me bend forward too much and even though I knew I should I did not really try hard to straighten up. Now I am feeling it in the mid section of my back as well.

I wish I could be like Kim and completely give up grains. I did make a lot of progress though, in the past two years. I stopped buying the oh-so-good sour dough rye bread from a German bakery, still warm from the oven (because just its aroma itself would easily kick-start me into inhaling at least 5 slices of it, thickly layered with liverwurst [from a Polish deli, for a change]. I haven't bought the bread since January 2008, with a single exception (that included both the bread as well as the liverwurst).
At least I embraced whole-wheat-everything as soon as such products started to become available. These days, I still buy whole wheat cinnamon raisin bagels (about half the size of a regular bagel, 140 calories, 5 or 6 grams of protein) and whole wheat English muffins; and sometimes whole wheat tortillas. I haven't bought any regular pasta for ages (and I eat pasta only rarely). No more rice and no more regular potatoes (I switched to sweet potatoes although I really miss the regular ones.) I MUST be more dilligent and further restrict the intake of grains. Carbs, carbs, carbs!!!
I have to admit I had a REGULAR [!!!] bagel at work this morning - courtesy of the employer, there was a bagel breakfast this morning for everyone. At least I did pick a whole wheat multigrain bagel and not its white flour evil cousin.

I do wish the cravings for something sweet were easier to tame! (But, Kim, I always say "I crave" and never "my body craves" - at least I take full responsibility for my sins!)

BTW, the Chicken, Sausage and White Bean Chili turned out ok. Next time, I will use a lot more chicken broth and I will be less generous with spices. It was a truly "United Nations" meal - I used Thai spices (IMHO, Thai spices are good in anything, Tex Mex, cumin and also some Czech gulash spices.
Otherwise, it is quite nice as winter comfort food with carbs coming only from the beans.

Alena

Alena, I used to love a good liverwurst sandwich...mine was with sliced tomato and mayo...yummy, back in the day! Like Kim, I don't eat the grains or legumes and haven't for a while. Once in a while, I'll get nostalgic for a sandwich or some kind of bread, but when I try to eat it, it's actually kind of gross now, the bread, just not used to eating it any more, so I usually just opt for a couple pieces of lettuce, if I want a "sandwich".

I wish I could give up grains, I had 4 breadsticks today! Ugh! I love bread so but I know I am going to be bloated for the next day or so!!

I finished week 2 of P90x yesterday and I did a yoga DVD this morning. Yesterday, I was talking to a coworker of mine and she said her husband does p90x but she tried it and couldn't do it. I also have read other women say similar things. I was feeling a bit prideful yesterday thinking that I amazingly don't struggle with it although yes I do have to modify some things but it is amazing that I can do the workout without issue. Even sometimes I wish there was more/it was a bit harder. Am I insane? Perhaps.

I hadn't realized how many years it's been since I had a liverwurst sandwich! They will always remind me of my grandfather whose favorite meal was liverwurst on rye with a HUGE slice of onion (he'd just eat the rest like an apple) and a thick schmear of schmaltz. Yup, heart disease got him. but he sure loved it!

Alena- the chili sounded great until you ot to the cumin. It may be the one flavor I don't like.

I gave up grains, but not legumes. Black beans and chick peas are carb staples for me. My ds was incorrectly diagnosed with celiacs' disease 4 years ago and we went through extreme gluten-free living for 3 years. Dh and I haven't really gone back to eating bread or pasta, tho ds certainly has.

WOD was awful- I had to sub for the box jumps because my knees are killing me and i want to save them for skiing!

"Kelly"
400 meter run
30 box jumps
30 wall balls

5 rounds for time, capped at 30 minutes. I did alternating arm KB swings instead of the box jumps. Took me 32 minutes Not the same workout, but my goal is really to get a good workout, which it was.

Has anyone out there been to Argentina or Chile? Nelie, I remember you went to Antarctica a few years ago. DH and I have about a zillion air miles and tried to come up with somewhere other than California or France with both mountains and wineries. Suggestions welcome!

Mel

I'm in the same boat as Cheryl: I genuinely don't miss grains. 99% of the time, they were just a vehicle for peanut butter, um, other things, anyway. My vice is raisins. Yeah, it's "good for you" sugar ... but it's still sugar, and easy to overeat.

My workout today looks like a cakewalk compared to a MelWOD, but it still left me exhausted: 100 burpee pullups. I made it easier by using a pullup bar that was at fingertip height (arms extended) rather than a big leap away, but it still wiped me out. My vertical jump isn't high enough to clear a paperclip. Snails have better springs.

Mel: you could transfer the miles to me, and I'll go to France ...

be strong //

mel - interesting question...did you check new zealand or australia? They have wineries and mountains, but I'm not sure if they are in one location. And apart from france, there is also wine coming from italy...

Mel: Spain. Portugal. Germany. Austria. Italy. Hungary. NZ, definitely. Oz. Lebanon. Morocco. You lucky things! Wine (and food) tourism is so good.

Didn't know that coeliac disease diagnosis was wrong! How stupid. Do you know what it is?

Another busy day at work with no gymn time. The downside of self-employment.

Have a good day.

This morning, I woke up exhausted! Although I was exhausted last night and wanted to go to bed at 8pm! I lasted until 10pm. So I let myself sleep a little bit and plan to exercise after work tonight.

Mel,

We went to Chile for a couple days on our way to Antarctica! I liked Chile, it reminded me a lot of California in terms of terrain/climate. Santiago is a very modern city and you can get by with very little spanish. We even went to visit a winery, we did a winery tour and it was pretty interesting.

The downside of Santiago was that the disparity between rich and poor is HUGE. You see lots of shanties and then you see huge mansions. I was very sad that the river that goes through Santiago seemed to be a garbage dump as it was very obvious people dumped their trash there.

I don't think there are any wineries where we went in Argentina (Ushauia/Patagonia). I have for years wanted to go to Buenos Aires but just have never made it.

hi all,

Mel - about the coeliac disease...I went to a similar spell with DD last year...turned out to be she had some stomac parasites & after 3 weeks of meds it was better.

Silver - good luck with the job!

today was a wodlet: I tried the hindu squats, pushups & bridge I read about in another thread. managed 20 hindu squats, all of 10 pushups and 5 sort of bridges in 15 minutes and I was totally floored. it looked a lot like yoga to me, I was equally bad on it, but it was fun to try something totally new. I found the hindu squats easier then regular deep squats because the last part was on your toes, which made it much easier.


have a great day all,
Rabbit

Hi all,

Working from home today.

Floored again, after 15 minutes: I did pullups & upward overhead presses with a 20lb bb. My arms are sore now.

TGIF.

Have a great day,
rabbit

A wodlet is a nice idea. Good for those days when you can't fit in the whole gut-busting, sweaty thing. Worthwhile, small, perfectly formed. Hey - that's us!

WODlet! love it.

Yesterday I didn't even manage a WODlet. I was just beat up- over trained and overstressed. I actually went to bed at 6:30 pm for 2 hours. Very short cardio this morning.

"Fran" tonight- thrusters and pull ups. Funday Friday

Still weighing travel options. Oz and NZ just take too much travel time and we don't have THAT many miles or time!

Nelie- that disparity in South America bothers me, too, but also from a security standpoint. I don't really want to stay in luxury American hotels, but have read stories of tourists being herded into rooms at gunpoint and robbed in smaller b&b type or boutique hotels. Scary. One of our travel criteria is no wars, no gangs, no kidnappings.

Mel