Saying Good-bye to Cheese

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I was all set to write about my re-energized committment to going vegan and was going to start the post off with a definition of veganism which--because the Universe has a sense of humor-- when I found it, knocked me off my moral high horse and back down to earth. The definition for Veganism in Wikipedia reads thus:


Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.

 

Without doing too much research, I'm thinking the leather chair in our front room, the honey in my kitchen cabinet, and the rockin' winter suede boots in my closet aren't going to earn me any "Vegan of the Year" awards.

 

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PushUp Challenge Check-In

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We had a crew sign up for the 100 pushup challenge discussed in last week's post here. Just wanted to check in and see what sort of progress everyone is making?

The pulled muscle in my back on Thursday set me back a bit. I'm restarting the challenge today at Week 3. I will say this... when I did the pushup series last week, it was more of a challenge then I thought it would be. I can do 20 pushups fairly easily so I didn't think doing sets of 20, 15, 18, 15, 20 etc. with a one minute rest in between sets would be all that bad. That last set of 20 though? Shaky arms, for sure. 

Not to scare anyone, but I asked my uber-fit trainer if he'd ever done 100 pushups. He said yes, then shook his head at the memory. "My triceps were screaming at me by the end," he said, and I swear I saw him give a small shudder. 

Scary... but hope everyone is still with the program. Let us know!

Whatever the Lesson Is, I Don't Want to Learn It

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It's been a rough couple of days here in DenaLand. On Thursday, during the last 10 minutes of what had been an enjoyable yoga class, something snapped in my lower back. We were sitting on the floor in a simple head to knee pose when I felt the give. 

The pain was so severe and immediate I gave an involuntary yelp. 

"Uh-oh," said my instructor, reading the pain in my face. 

I managed to hobble down the stairs and back home where I immediately began a treatment of ice and ibuprofen.

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Food Journal Update

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You may recall a recent entry in which I started keeping a food journal. In lieu of fresh, inciteful, or socially worthy content, I thought today I'd instead offer a quick update on how that little self-improvement plan is going. 

Overall, pretty well. It's definitely helped with random grazing. I'm much less likely to walk into the kitchen and grab a handful of grapes or nuts or sneak forkfuls of leftovers out of the tupperware container while standing over the kitchen sink. 

It's also been revealing. Being a vegetarian...

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