Naked Toilet Paper?!

UGH! I have to get this off my chest. I hate this commercial:

I'm sure you've seen it. It's ridiculous.

How long has society lived without this additional piece of decorative clutter in our bathrooms!?!? UGH! Now this commercial makes it seem like you're an idiot if you don't "respect" the stupid toilet paper roll. I mean, yes, it is used to clean some of our... ummm more delicate areas and I don't condone using a roll that's been sitting on the ground or that's fallen in the toilet and is now dry ( ICK! I get a little grossed out thinking about this now... but I swear there were rolls in middle/high school just like this we had to use).



BUT REALLY?! A Cover?!





Okay - I feel better. Anyone else?

Workout Wednesday: X's

It's been a while since I last provided a GOOD workout idea.  This one has ALWAYS been one of my favorites... even my old neighbors and work out partners, Shameka and Jordan (her daughter) can testify. 'Meka loved to hate this one when we'd do it... but Jordan was always there to tell us it'd make our butts look good!

HA! I miss that loud mouth Jordan!!

Yesterday in our warm-up moves I asked for volunteers and one of the girls chose this one!! I like to call this move, the X-Jump-Squat.  Like always, it's a muscle multi-tasker and great to add on to a circuit for a cardio boost.

As the pictures show:

• A. Start in a low squat position with your legs apart. 
• B. Jump UP and OUT creating an "X" with your body. 
• C. Back to the starting position. Repeat.   

I also like to do these with my feet/knees together in the squat position. It's a bit more work on the abductor muscles and the quads, but it's a nice way to change it up for a different challenge.

Mix this move in to your running/walking routine or while you're lifting to help keep up your calorie burn. I also recommend setting a goal of 10 reps to start. Eventually do timed intervals or max out until you just can't do any more. :)

Shiny and "new"

Okay - Soooooo I'll admit. I've lacked LOTS of motivation recently. I'm worn slap out about 80% of the time and the rest of it I'm blaming lazy. I swear I probably get in 10 miles a day at work. Seriously. Well, maybe not quite 10... but really, I should check it one day. I easily get in 5 miles.

ANYWAY!

Finding motivation has been challenging... Todd and I are both just doing our thing lately. Run, work, eat, maybe workout, sleep, repeat. Honestly, it's boring. HA! But this week was different!!

I FINALLY got to be "Coach Amanda" to 32 elementary school girls participating in Girls on the Run! It was awesome!! I missed our first week due to my work schedule, but after a few butterflies in my stomach and a whole lot of "I don't have a clue what's going on".... the school bell rang and the girls slowly trickled out to the black top behind the school. Each one with big eyes, messy hair, smiles and rushing to put their bags up to come meet me! (I had beat the other coaches to practice.)

They FLOCKED to me!! It was almost like bugs to a light bulb. Each one with the same question: "Are you the NEW COACH!?!?!" Happily I said "YES! I'm one of your new coaches! My name is Amanda."

A few ran their fingers through my redheaded ponytail. Others grouped together to talk about me. Some told me I looked like I could run "really fast". One even told me "I was cool". A few held my hands. One tried to pick me up. It went on and on...

I was on cloud nine all afternoon.

We went through our activities and started our running activity. These girls were so amazing! Of course, there were a few rowdy gals... but for the most part, I've never met a more well mannered group of little ladies in my life. I don't think I stopped running the entire time (Not what I would say of my fellow coaches though!), which I believe helps to make me "different" to the girls. I'm also not a "mother" yet... which helps, I think.

Regardless, I raced the fast girls. I skipped with the little girls. I held hands with a team of 5 while they ran their lap TOGETHER as a TEAM (this group was the ONLY one of all 6 small groups to consistently stay together as a team). I taught 3rd graders how to do push-ups. I praised each and every little smiling face the I saw moving. I joked with them. Made silly faces. Jogged with "the last one" of the group. Teased my fellow coaches for not running...

And before we all knew it. Time was up! :) I still am not quite sure who was more upset that the day was over, me or the girls?!

Several of the girls made sure to introduce me to their parents. But one girl, "Jules", had started to leave and suddenly stopped, told her mom she forgot something, turned around and came to me smiling and said "Coach Amanda, I'm so glad you're my coach" and was gone as quickly as she had come.


Only thing is, I'm SOOOO HAPPY to be their "Coach"! After one day, they've already lifted my spirit and motivated me beyond words!!


I knew GOTR would be amazing.... but actually, amazing hardly describes it.

That Awesome-NESS

My Stella & Dot Director sent this out this week. It's sweet and a must share with all the fabulous people in my life, YOU! :) 


Enjoy!

I hope all of you are waking up FULL OF AWESOME!!!There was a time when you were five years old,and you woke up full of awesome.
You knew you were awesome.
You loved yourself.
You thought you were beautiful,even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.
You loved your body, and the things it could do.
You thought you were strong.
You knew you were smart.
Do you still have it?

The awesome.

Did someone take it from you? Did you let them? Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, smart enough, good enough? Why the hell would you listen to them? Did you consider they might be full of shit? 

Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model? 

Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold?

Are you freaking kidding me?

Look at her. She is full of awesome.

You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back. All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out. 

Motivational Monday

I found this image and quote so motivating last week. I was having a hard start to the week and adjusting to a new work environment and the stress even reflected itself in my workouts. But not in it's usual powering way. I was just frustrated. Feeling weak. Feeling slow and not up to the expectations I have for myself...

Then I saw this.

I'm back and motivated to do the impossible. I AM POSSIBLE.


So are you my friends. Keep working hard! Keep celebrating the 2lbs lost; the extra mile you walked this week (that you didn't "have to do"); the self control to not eat the whole bag of m&m's while you were home alone.

You're doing good stuff! It is POSSIBLE!

Soda Guzzle?

A handsome friend of mine, Paul, sent this interesting article to me this morning "for the blog". I suppose I should do as he suggested and post this tid-bit on the ridiculousness that is America's obsession with soda.

I do admit - I'm a Diet Coke girl. I don't drink tons of the stuff... but I do allow myself one of the tiny (cute) 8oz cans on work days and maybe for an added afternoon "pick me up" after a long run. I've tried to break this personal affair many times.... then I went to Nursing School.... and then I became a nurse. I know it's bad and it's terrible for my teeth and bones, BUT I'm sorry!

Quick and easy caffiene is at times, a must.

But this article has a few valid points. I'm not sure soda drinking will ever be as taboo as smoking as the article suggests.... Worth noting though. :)

My mom swears she (and my sisters) have stopped their soda habit. I'll be home this weekend to see if she's really telling the truth or not... Shall we take bets now?

I'll put in $10 mom's got a secret stash of mini Diet Cokes stuffed between the couch cushions. :)

Happy Reading!

Soda guzzling spurs call to cut back

by Mike Stobbe - Sept. 1, 2011 12:00 AM
Associated Press

ATLANTA - Half of Americans drink a soda or sugary beverage each day - and some are downing a lot.

One in 20 people drinks the equivalent of more than four cans of soda each day, even though health officials say sweetened beverages should be limited to less than half a can.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the figures Wednesday in a report said to be the government's first to offer national statistics for adults and kids.

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Sweetened drinks have been linked to the U.S. explosion in obesity and related medical problems, and health officials have been urging people to cut back for years. Some officials have proposed an extra soda tax and many schools have stopped selling soda or artificial juices.

But advocates say those efforts are not enough, and on Wednesday, a coalition of 100 organizations announced a new push. The effort includes the American Heart Association and the some city health departments that plan to prod companies to stop the sale of sugary drinks on their property or providing them at business meetings - as Boston's Carney Hospital did in April. There will also be new media campaigns, like one starting soon in Los Angeles that will ask, "If you wouldn't eat 22 packs of sugar, why are you drinking it?"

The new CDC report may be ammunition. It found:

- About half the population drinks a sugared beverage each day.

- Males consume more than females, with teenage boys leading the pack. On average, males ages 12 through 19 drink the equivalent of nearly two cans of soda each day.

- Poor people drink more than the more-affluent. Low-income adults got about 9 percent of their daily calories from sugary beverages; for high-income adults, it was just over 4 percent.

- Blacks get more of their calories from sweetened beverages than other racial and ethnic groups.

The study is based on in-person interviews of more than 17,000 people in the years 2005 through 2008. They were asked to recount everything they ate and drank in the previous day. However, diet sodas, sweetened teas, flavored milks and 100 percent fruit juice did not count.

Healthy-eating recommendations call for people to limit sugary drinks to 64 calories per day. That's a little less than half of a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola, which is 140 calories.

In other terms: An average can of sugared soda or juice has 10 to 12 teaspoons of sugar.

There have been efforts to reduce children's access to sodas and sports drinks in schools, with beverage companies agreeing to remove full-calorie soft drinks. But the CDC study found more than half of the drinks are consumed at home. Less than 1 percent are bought at schools or day-care centers.

That's why some members of the coalition argue that parents shouldn't drink sweetened beverages, so they don't serve as a poor example. They hope drinking soda will become as unfashionable as smoking.

A spokesman for Carney Hospital, the 149-bed Boston facility that stopped allowing full-calorie soft-drink sales, said the approach made sense. When the policy was implemented in April, sales of beverages dropped, but have gone back up, as more people apparently are adjusting to water and other non-sweetened drinks.

The hospital's Dorchester neighborhood has high rates of diabetes and other weight-related illnesses, said spokesman Joe Burnieika. "We can't afford to feed people's bad habits if we can give them a healthy alternative," he said.

In a statement, the American Beverage Association on Wednesday suggested that the coalition's effort was misguided. Citing sales data and some other research, the industry group said sales of full-calorie soft drinks had been declining, which they credited to soda makers offering more no-calorie and low-calorie options and improved calorie labeling on the front.

These initiatives "will contribute far more to solving complex health issues like obesity than (the coalition's) sound bite solution that offers plenty of hype but no substance," the statement said.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/09/01/20110901soda-guzzling-spurs-calls-cut-back.html#ixzz1WkWm7Tqe

Motivational Monday

I'm going simply stated this week. Kick this week off to a GREAT start! 

"There is no major secret to success in athletics, the secret is the will. If you have the will to do it, then it will be possible."

- Eliud Kipchoge, 2003 World 5,000m champion, who has amazingly made every Kenyan team since 2003.

Courtesy of iaaf.org