A case of the blah’s

It has been too long since I have posted, and furthermore, there has been nothing great to report on either. The eating habits have been not great, the working out has been better with the combination of dancing, walking, and a sprinkle of yoga. Not so much to talk about except, it is with a heavy heart that I am reporting that I will not be doing the Electric Run despite having paid for it already. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I don’t want to be walking through it. It ain’t called the “Electric Walk”. So yeah, kinda depressed about. This is the second time I have signed up for something and pussed out on it. It might be a fear of failure, but I have also lapsed on training, and I am sick right now, so I couldn’t make up the days, booo!

I really wish there were better news to report, but I am basically posting to not get kicked out of AFBA Had this great idea to do a “Meatless March” I am back on the flesh, but here are some Veggie friendly places that I scoped, you can just forget about me ever doing vegan. Love my cheese, love my eggs, sorry cows and chickens, I like your babies and their food:

http://instagram.com/p/WaQ-VMhZZN/

http://instagram.com/p/Wpq3u3hZYU/

For the remainder of this month, I am going to pretend to be happy. Even if I feel like crap inside, I am going to slap on a shit-eating grin and fake like studying for the CAPM isn’t the most boring fucking thing ever.

Gym-Pact is up to 5 days now. I failed last week because I was sick from the southby revelry (no, it WASN’T a hangover) but today is always a new day, right? This is the mustardy water from the writing I wish I could squeeze on my sandwich.

Cardio eyes bigger than cardio mouth

If I seem more sporadic and distracted (than usual) this week, it is because I have been super stressed about Miss Lucy. She has been a wonderful blessing, but unfortunately she has had some health difficulties. She went in to get a lump removed yesterday and has been recovering since then. Thankfully, with familial support, I haven’t had to bear all of the financial burden, even though I would be more than happy to, if necessary. Poor Lucy, I just want to get back doing our run/walks. Last night she was very ornary in sleeping in the bed, she would lean against me and take the whole side of the bed which was cute, but I woke up several times trying to not be too physical with her and the stitches, but also reclaiming my part of the bed. Today I am exhausted, which is fine because Sunday I hit it pretty hard. I did the Plyometric Circuit Cardio workout from Insanity, walked Lucy for about 2 miles and then went to Gentle Yoga (would have collapsed had I did anything else)

I wanted to restart the Insanity plan on Monday, but it felt like all of my major muscle groups were ripped to pieces. That is a good thing, right? Well yeah, but not so much for motivation. My plan which I wasn’t going to share, was to start in February. However, I still have the 5k to train, so I needed to factor that in. Well, let me digress and explain the tile. In the 80’s and early 90’s, my mom would take me to the grocery store to the salad bar and it basically was all you can eat, but based on the weight of the food. I would always get way more than I could eat because it all looked so tasty, especially the croutons! She would reply, “looks like your eyes were bigger than your mouth”. Well, when I look at the below pictured plan, I feel the way about my ability to work out even on rest days. Yes, let me repeat that, rest days, so really this is the major flaw. I will be honest with myself enough to realize that I won’t want to and shouldn’t work out every single day. Maybe some people can, but it does not seem sustainable. I am not sure when I will do the running days, but definitely need to reschedule them, my guess was MWF but if I make an insanity workout but not c25k, or if I make a c25k and not an insanity workout, I won’t sweat it, besides I actually have an additional month besides this one to get prepared for it. It taught me a good lesson, though, don’t let your eyes (ego) be better than your mouth (ability/desire)

Quit Complaining

I feel like that I bitch a lot,and while complaining about complaining is still complaining, I really need to stop it. Firsthand, I noticed that Johnny would complain about some commercial or something that I would say or just something when we are hanging out, and it is super annoying, but then I realized that I probably complain just as much as he does, and how do I have any right to bring it up, if I don’t control my complaining.

So, I have compiled a list of common complaints that I have and responses or solutions that I can use to counter them

1. “I’m bored.”
   This one is a pretty piss poor thing to say no matter who you are, and frankly I am way too old to be complaining about this. Usually it is during the weekend and it is that between time of having cleaned up my apartment, watched all my Hulu episodes and sometime before bedtime. This is a good 4pm to midnight (or later if I get crunk — 2004 called…) window. So, the solution, Read a motherfuckin book. Yep, there are a lot of things that don’t involve stuffing my face with fast food, or going downtown, or whatever not good idea that I have that will temporary alleviate my ennui but push me further away from my goals.
2. “I’m hungry.”
   Eat something, dummy. Okay this time, but without the inflammatory language. I usually have a pretty good gauge of hunger vs. stress/boredom eating, so I tend not to mindlessly snack, but I do get cravings for the sweet stuff around 8 or 9pm, so this is one that I have to be careful with. Everyone knows the difference between eating zingers and nachos and actually nurturing yourself with good food. I often will skip meals at work because I had forgotten my food at home, and/or too lazy to get something down the street, so really unless I plan on eating something, I really need to ditch this complaint and be more prepared when it comes to my meals.
3. “I don’t have any money”
   This one is valid. With my student loans, car, and credit card payments, I often am quite broke, however, with budgeting there is really no excuse I run out of funds. However, it is often the case, that I am shopping or eating out, and that is where the money sinkhole happens. This has been really challenging for me, because I let my emotions override my reason and I seem to lose the breaks on them, and eventually end up skidding into some bad decision. There seems to be a pattern I am noticing as I write this, and that is each of these things I complain about seem to cascade into each other. I get bored so I spend too much money then I don’t have any money, and then I am hungry (sometimes it is that bad). I am hungry, so let’s go spend some more money then I don’t have any money, so I can’t do anything and I am bored. All of my problems seem to somewhat be related, so maybe if I could just get control of my emotional immaturity I would gain control of my problems. It sounds easy, but you have to be willing to actually put the work into it.
4. “I’m too ______”
   This one is a little bit different in that it relates to some problems that I should just get over, eg: being flat-chested or being old. Yes, I have wrinkles, but should I be smoking and making them worse. NO! The flat-chested thing I should just get over as I have a boyfriend and any one who would just be with me for my tits is probably not worth being with in the first place. Can you say Douchebag? Sometimes the blank is “fat” or “flabby”, and well, that relates more to the first 3 problems. If I eat too much I weigh too much for my liking and if I keep my diet tight, I get skinnier, pretty easy right? At the risk of being repetitive, it is all about emotions. and if you can’t control your emotions, you can’t control your life which includes the discipline to workout every day, keeping a mindful yoga practice, and with keeping your food intake clean and not stuffing your face with sugary food. It is all connected, as I am realizing even just writing this.
5. “No one wants to hang out with me.”
   No, no one wants to hang out with someone who is constantly having problems and can’t get his or her shit together. This one really just sums up the crux of the issues and that is, all together now, emotional control. People use the term “Negative Nancy” and I feel like maybe I am that kind of person who complains all the time, thus no one wants to be around it. I have been around people who bitch a lot and it really gets tiring after a while. So, really just shut the fuck up already. Not to be unkind to myself, but I need a bit of tough love as they say. I need to get my shit together, or as my dad would say “get your big girl pants on” and just deal with my problems instead of complaining about them, and I think only then will things start to fall into place for me, and maybe you, too!

Okay, so yeah, that was quite a long winded entry, but I really got to the crux of my problems. It is all about control, and I need to get that back in my life if I want to gain any semblance of sanity.

It’s the freakin weekend

Haven’t posted in a few days just from a bit of the self-inflicted emotional turmoil I have put myself through just going through anxiety and stress from that. I prefer not to post when I am in such a craptastic mood, especially with the crying and whatnot. Oh, the crying. Regardless, I am fine, the world is fine, and even though the bottom of my torso feels like someone is wringing it out like a dirty towel (I could get grosser with that metaphor, but I won’t, you’re welcome) everything is going swimmingly and it’s Friday! Currently sipping on some Keurig cup coffee, we have various flavors, but I decided on the dark chocolate combined with the caramel vanilla cream. The caramel does have a bit of an aftertaste, but with the dark chocolate mixed with it, you can barely notice it.

Girl look at that body. Actually don’t because I am super bloated. Anyway, before melting down yesterday and Wednesday, I went to the gym for kickboxing and yoga on Tuesday, and it was pretty cool. The asanas were pretty good in the class, though I must say it was a lot more relaxed than I am used to. Imagine that, people go to yoga not to torture themselves psychologically and physically, what a concept!!! Okay, yeah, it was not hot, in fact it was pretty COLD, so that took getting used to, and not really sure about the ladies talking during the beginning, but I must remind myself to chill out and that not everyone is such an elitist about their practice.

So Tuesday night, I did go to kickboxing as mentioned and it was pretty fun as well. The choreography is always challenging, but it doesn’t feel like I am endlessly trudging on the treadmill/elliptical which is a nice break from what I usually do. My favorite thing about the kickboxing was that it was part of Chalene Johnsons’s Turbokick brand, which includes interval bursts that serve as a HIIT training so it is not just steady state the whole time, and people tell me that this is important.

Diet, diet, die-it. So, unfortunately, been really off the wagon in terms of sugar, grains, and basically any un-Whole30 approved items. For shame! Well, in my humble opinion, not really. The reason I say that is because I don’t feel terrible, and I cut back on the unhealthy behaviors (except for the past few days), and I do have healthy behaviors such as eating fruits, vegetables, and getting some sort of movement every single day. Thus, I will consider off-roading, as they say, a Win. Today’s Healthy Choice, was pretty good, though I do understand why the plastic tray was separated (I don’t heat the plastic, because who knows how really good for you that is). At any rate, the water from the frozen veg seeped a bit into the pasta mixture while cooking it in a bowl. A recommendation would be to use two smaller bowls to keep the items apart, and then you can drain the vegetable mixture and your final plating of it, would not have the watery pasta (lol edit, pasty, really, really?). It wasn’t horrible, but I can see how it would be undesirable.

310 calories, 45 carbohydrates, and 580 mg of sodium, but super tasty!

So, in trying to redeem myself for the past few days, I will try to make this weekend a healthy one, and I already can check the schedule for classes I may want to take, hooray! I think it will be a good one, it has to be a good one. Here is some music to get us started:

Tell me something good!

So, I went a little bit crazy this weekend and had a shopping spree, but it was mostly boring stuff like oil changes, but I did happen to register for a new fitness establishment for less hot yoga, and if today was any indication of the temperature, it was dare, I say COLD. The style was a lot more relaxed than I am used to as well. I’m pretty militant about my yoga, even though it is stretching, I do like to incorporate more strength. Putting planning into practice, back in my love phase of the constant love/hate of fitness. Love that sore feeling the next day. Hate that I am so bloated right now, that I can’t enjoy losses on the scale.

So financial fitness, we all know I am out of shape, hah! Totally frivolous purchase #1,  this:

I am a bit nervous to use it considering that the main ingredient may cause skin cancer, but I smoke occasionally so yeah, seem silly to be worrying about that!  At least I am putting planning into my workout routine. It is well known, to plan the night before, but I cannot overemphasize the quote “Failure to plan is planning to fail”. The past few nights I have put my stuff out:

While I didn’t go to yoga yesterday morning, I did practice with  All Fitness TV‘s version of it on the Roku. It was only 20 minutes but was an awesome introduction to an otherwise crappy Monday. Anyway, even with planning, you still can fall short of your goals, my intention on Monday morning was to actually go to yoga, but I was a bit betrayed by my beloved “slow motion potion”. Yes, I guzzle the relaxation beverages almost as much as I chug the energy drinks, get leeeeeaned:

It was relaxing, until it wasn’t. 1am rolled around, so instead of sleeping, I ended up watching episodes of American Dad until about 3:30 am, fun times. Last night, I also woke up at 4:00 am, the “Rasta Pink” was my potion of choice, instead, woke up to the horrible dating show called Excused. I am all about silly game shows and trashy reality TV, but o.m.g. this show is basically unwatchable. The comedianne who hosts it is so rude and bitchy to all of the contestants. I guess I would be too, considering what kind of idiots she has to deal with, but it is pretty bad, and if I am saying that, heh!

Speaking of not being bitchy, I have completely abandoned the paleo/primal paradigm in favor of the Healthy Choice microwave meals. Well, at least I am picking them conscientiously this time, typically I will not chose any meal over 40g of carbohydrates. The sodium in these things is a bit ridiculous, but at least they are low calorie, right? Anyway, I am not thrilled about the ConAgra brand, and if you have read The Omnivore’s Dilemna, you know what I am talking about. To try to make them a bit healthy, I have been cooking them separate from the plastic, because no one really knows the toxicity of heating plastic. Just trying to do things in general to be healthier, says the girl who just ate a burrito from 7eleven today. Yeah, whatev, it was like $1.69 and I am fah-reakin BROKE. I feel a bit like a materialistic ouroboros that spends all my money on skincare and fitness, leaving me poor to have to buy shitty nutrition that causes me to need buy the repairing exercise and skincare, and so on and so forth. But, anyway, I plan on making something a bit more wholesome to dine on tonight.

Get your ass moving

I feel like I have had no excuse for my sedentary life, but it seems so pervasive. I even blog about trying to be fit and then, and sometimes I really want to be inspiring to others. Other times  I come up with stupid mini-obsessions like self-tanning and reversing aging, even made a Pinterest board about it!  Maybe it is just something to distract me from the fact that I hate my life. No objectively, my life I realize isn’t that bad, but thanks to social media I can compare it to other peoples and feel ultimately very crappy about the things that I miss. The studies are conflicting about how social media affects depression, the oft cited quote from Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” I digress.

Anyway,  let’s be objective. Unless you put forth the effort to change anything, no pinning inspirational quotes or reading self-help books will help you. Well, there is one thing that I can control even if my emotional, financial, and my social life are completely dead to me. I can control my activity during the day. I am sure a lot of you have seen the infographic for how bad sitting is, well there is a less alarmist, more proactive diagram from the American Institute for Cancer Research, and it really kind of affected me.

Source: http://preventcancer.aicr.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21401&news_iv_ctrl=2302

For years, I was like the Ann or Mike character, but lately I do take hourly breaks and walk around the building, and with the help of my FitBit (RIP), I was walking around my apartment or on the treadmill. I walk around, but lack the vigorous or moderately vigorous weight bearing activity that this diagram shows the people doing. So, what the hell are the next steps?? Get your ass moving.

I found this video to be pretty helpful. I feel like I have all the tools necessary to be organized, but again it is up to me to really put the resources available to use. I don’t know if anyone else suffers from this, but I tend to hoard the information, and seek out the productivity tools, seek out the memberships to a “fancy gym” but then never use it. I suspect with the industry booming as it is, and endless publications regarding creativity, fitness, and productivity, that people like me are looking for a silver bullet, when in actuality it is as simple as just getting moving. Keeping the ball rolling, outside of actually being a fitness model where the idea of getting down to a certain body fat is desirable, just showing up is really the big challenge for most people. I understand now why many people who can afford it, hire a personal trainer. People really need someone to light a fire, as my Dad would say, under their asses.  Not really sure what the solution is for those of us who can’t really afford a personal trainer. This is the issue I trying to resolve with the yoga situation. Personally, I know myself, and if there is an option not to do something, hello Hulu, then chances are I am not going to do the “should” thing unless I change my environment or I am part of the hive mind of a classroom. I cafitness, cancer, depression, social media, austin,n’t blame myself, as it seems like it is that way for most people, and I am not exceptional. Sounds harsh, but how many people would admit that? The truth hurts, y’all.

Before this entry devolves into a vortex of self-pity and self-loathing, I do feel like maybe joining a real gym, not some crappy apartment clubhouse is the answer.  Got myself a VIP pass, lulz, to Premiere Lady Fitness, and they have yoga classes at different times of the day, so we will see if my hypothesis is correct about consistency and having a class to help you with that.  Hopefully yes, consistency + social support + variety = success is the theory, hopefully, I can light the fire under my ass just enough to stick with it!

Vanity killed the hot yoga star

Yes, it is true. I am thinking of taking off my focus bracelets from sunstone for a more cooler version of the practice Today was a really good practice for Fire 90 at Sunstone, but my god I hadn’t been to a fire class in a while and boy was it unbearably hot. So, yeah it got me to thinking, is this actually great for my skin, which is finally starting to clear up once I am obsessive about washing it after the sweaty practice.  So here is the rub, I found this study that suggests that 6 weeks of 43 degrees Celsius (about 104 degrees Fahrenheit)  for only 30 minutes and 3 times a week. My classes are probably about 98, sometimes less, but also they are 60 to 90 minutes long, and some weeks I was going 4-5 times! So, yeah, I don’t want to be wrinkly as I take hot enough showers, and any more exposure might really cause some oxidative damage, oh look at you trying to sound smart.

I guess I can justify fitness and the exposure of heat in that capacity because it isn’t just sitting still and I feel like you are supposed to be active in your daily life, which brings me to my next point. I need a new yoga place. Yeah, I certainly don’t want to quit practice, because it does make me feel good, and I feel like if I were to do it with a DVD at home, I would some how find a way to phone it in or half-ass it, as they say. The group dynamic just works for me. Le sigh, Pure Austin
or as I like to call it “fancy gym” has the best selection of classes for the price as most of the studios here are like 99-120 per month, holy mackerel!!  Even at $64 for the fancy gym, it is a  bit more money then I want to pay, so 24 hour fitness might be the second best at $29-36 a month depending how many gyms you want to have access to, or if you want to pay a stupid enrollment fee, which I don’t. There is also donation based downtown, but this cities two main arteries of traffic are perpetually clogged, and who wants to deal with that, no thank you to stress that I do not need. Haven’t found anything in my location that is cheap except for the damn hell asanas, just kidding.

I may try the Gaiam stuff online, but really the motivation not the actual classes are the problem. The only way I think I would do it is if I was at the apartment’s gym or clubhouse and using my iPad, just so that I am away from the distractions of my apartment. Well, enough pointless rambling and bitching. .

Beware the ides of Squatober.

Okay so I am not really doing that as well as I should, but I love the idea of starting over as it were on the 15th of a month. Maybe it is because I get paid bi-monthly, and without having to pay rent, it kinda makes me feel like it is bonus money which gives me a sense of freedom (well not really because I got them student loans) But anyway, the 15th represents a chance of renewal, that you can salvage the rest of the 31 days and start fresh even on a new month.

Sunday, I came up with kind of a spicy special sauce for my paleo(ish) remixed sandwich. It is low-carb, but the mayo is store bought, which is not primal compliant, BFD. I am so over it, but really I am just mad because the one time I tried making the mayo with egg whites and olive oil, it was a big-time failure. I haven’t tried since then, but I should.  At any rate, the sauce I made used generic mayo, Frank’s red hot wing sauce, and minced garlic, and it had just the right amount of creaminess, spiciness, and healthy benefit with the garlic. Not so sure it was the best thing calorie-wise, but the lettuce and chicken really needed some sort of sauce to make it actually be appealing.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. No yoga, and it is looking more and more like no orange bracelet by the end of this month, which sucks, but it is what it is. I may skip breakfast tomorrow, but I freaking love those nopalitos. Excuse Monday was  that my boyfriend needed the car because his has been having a lot of difficulties lately and I didn’t want to come back to pick him up. Yesterday’s excuse was that the night before I woke up around 3:00 AM and could not get back to sleep until like 4:30-5am. BTW, did you know that Jerry Springer has a dating show now? Maybe the world really is ending in 2012. This morning, what was my excuse, well I simply didn’t have one. I feel like I am going to sabotage myself with the work breakfast tomorrow, even though it is optional for me, but hopefully I will be strong.

My skin situation has really been ticking me off. I am not sure if it is acne, or if I am allergic to something, but I have been getting these bumps on my forehead and has seem to coincide with my hot yoga, so I am wondering if it is just not washing my face thoroughly enough after yoga, but I did buy these special face cleansers, so I am not sure. I was looking into Proactiv, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon, all of them mention the sheisty Auto-Pay system that Guthy Renker uses to send them. They have kiosks at the mall for it, so that might be something that would better serve me just paying the extra money not to have my debit card information held hostage. How about you audience, have you had any experience (good or bad) with Proactiv for breakouts?

Of course, the stress from money problems could be the cause of the breakouts, and really I don’t know what to do about that. I am actually taking some strides in making better choices financially.  Instead of my normal salon, I am going to Avenue Five, which is a beauty school, and it is significantly cheaper then the one I had been going to, like $45 instead of $125. I figure the worst that could happen is they fry my hair and I have to get a wig, KIDDING, but seriously all the yelp reviews were good, so yeah. Okay, yes, be judgmental and say that I could just avoid going to the salon and have my natural hair, pish posh, what madness is that?
Besides, now that I started my DIY tanning and do not have a gym membership, I figure I can allot that money towards my hair. The last time I tried to DIY bleaching my roots, it was a disaster, so I have learned to not do that!

Well, not much else to say, so hope you are having a Wonderful Wednesday. Stay sweaty, my friend!

Yoga, Tan, laundry

The good news is that I finally got my lazy ass to hot yoga, and if I really focus my efforts into going the rest of October, no days off, and even with one day off, I can still get the Svadisthana chakra recognition, by the time Halloween rolls around, so that I can celebrate with my orange bracelet. Oh, how such little things amuse me. Also some success came out of my practice serendipitously, I was not able to make it to the room early enough so I was not able to find a place close to the front or side mirror where I normally use so that I can see myself for poses. Well, it seems like that was actually a good thing as I felt like I was able to nail most of them, when I quit worrying about how I looked, and also I felt like I was less obsessed with the skinny young things in my weirdo imaginary thinspo competition that I have in my mind. I guess like the Glitch Mob song is entitled “Starve the ego, feed the soul”:

So, what is the bad news? Well, weekends are notoriously bad (even for all the other bloggers it seems) for food, just in terms of not wanting to stick to a diet, even though I baked asparagus, boiled and blended the sweet potatoes and even poached some chicken, when you sweat for an hour doing push-ups, sit-ups and leg lifts, you tend to get hungry like super hungry.  So, I succumbed to the Domino’s $7.99 pan pizza deal, oh my god, how fantastic this pizza was! Seriously, as James Norton has noted,  they have stepped up their game. I do feel like this pizza is analogous to how good fettuccine alfredo is, vis a vis something with that much butter, cheese and carbohydrates will never suck even if you are a terrible cook. Well, here are the sausage and mushroom calorie bombs (plural!!) in question:

So on a little less horribly unhealthy not, I tried eating something light on Friday night, and I always have a challenge with the Eggvacado oven dish, so I tried whisking the egg, only used a single one this time,  a bit before pouring the mixture into the avocado shell. It turned out pretty well, however a small amount of the egg spilled out on the pan as it always does when trying to balance these halves on the pan. I need some sort of ramekin to snugly hold the halves into place while the eggy-TexMex goodness gets formed. Another good idea would be probably to do sort of like a deviled-avocado mixture like with eggs but have it encased in the skin, not sure how that would be executed, but it certainly sounds good to me.

So, squatober hasn’t really been panning out how I would like, it seems like after the Whole 30, all of my dietary and fitness goals kinda fell through with them. All of my habits dissolved. I tell you one thing that really derails me is going out to drink, not that I do that very often anymore, but even just occasionally it seems that the apartment gets messy because I am too tired to clean, and I become regretful because I spent too much money furthering the cycle of depression, and I just have a general fog about me. Invention idea: some sort of drunk preparation kit, e.g.: cash for drinks so that you know how much to spend, a good hour of cleaning beforehand so that you aren’t stuck with chores in a neurochemically depleted state (hey they don’t call it “wet brain” for nothing),  and perhaps food prepared in advanced with b-vitamin and 5htp supplementation, the former to prevent thiamine deficiency and the later for any serotonin correction you need. So glad, my psychology degree has helped me in some fashion, hyuck hyuck.

I haven’t really had the kind of money to drink, so at least there is that keeping me on the straight and narrow, probably would just be better to be a bit of teetotaler for a while, at least for my wallet’s sake, if nothing else.

Clearing out the clutter

Second day of Squatober, and boy are my hammies screaming. Surprisingly my glutes are not very sore at all, perhaps they are as lifted as they are going to get from all the stairs and the dancing. Insomnia struck again this morning, not sure what time, but it was still dark out, so it probably was around 4:30 or 5 am. This is for the birds, it is keeping me from getting to my 7:30 class, really just considering of cancelling the membership if I can’t make it to the class, on the weekdays or weekends, but I don’t want to feel like a quitter either. 4 weeks or 28 days until Halloween, if I put my efforts towards attending class from tomorrow onward, I can get an orange focus bracelet from Sunstone, because I really need to get past the vagina chakra (what? I am not making this up!) Urrrgah, legs are really sure, not sure how I am going to dance tonight, but I will certainly try. Want to find the best mix of hard music and rhythm so that I am not just flailing around, but I am simply better than Gangham style.

Last night, I got rid of a slue of books/magazines and sold (if you really want to call it that) them to Half Priced Books for $6. On the bright side, they were kinda just taking up space in the office, but man, I was really hoping for at least $10, come on, no one wants to buy a Flash 8 book? Yeah, pretty much all outdated software, and some fitness books. I imagine by how many copies of some of their fitness books, that they are highly devalued,  just economics, baby.  But, hey, after a few days of clean-ish eating I was able to get back to 120.8 this morning. Freaking sodium, I knew I did consume a lot with the foods this weekend, but I didn’t think I would retain 3 pounds of water. My belly even looked bloated, really sure that was actual fat, and some of it is, but my clothes do feel a bit loser today than they did on Sunday. No more Chinese takeout for me, well unless I want to freak out for a few days about my weight, and who really needs that?  One bit of complaint is that my arms feel way too soft, like I feel like if I wagged them really hard I could use them as propellers and take them to Japan without having to worry about airfare! (it is one of my goals this birth year to go to another continent) Perhaps, a Curlvember?

I do eat a lot of stir-fry when I cook.  Because I try to stick with mostly paleo at least at home, I don’t make the yummy yummmmy fried rice that we get from the takeout. Even with the effort of having to get the groceries and cook for yourself, there is a bit of advantage when you have the control of cooking it by yourself. I have not gotten the trick of sauce yet, however with clean ingredients. For example, I tried to get a beef/broccoli base with ingredients such as coconut aminos, coconut flower, olive oil, and coconut oil. I think if I would have actually started cooking the broccoli sooner, the sauce would have not burned and I would have a better consistency, so yes the sauce became a little bit clumped (probably should have not added the almond meal, either), however the taste was good and that is really what matters, right?: