Workout video rant

So that I may eat massive quantities of food and remain under 500 pounds, I workout on a fairly regular basis. My routine these days alternates weekdays between a pregnancy workout (mostly strength training and yoga) and Turbo Jam (cardio). I've had the Turbo Jam dvd for about a year now. I bought it on amazon because I didn't want to have to subscribe to the beachbody.com thing so this is actually an older version of turbo jam.

Ladies, I'm sure many of you have seen this infomercial. The workout is good, it's fun, the time goes by fast and you definitely work up a sweat. The music isn't bad either. The personality of the host is bubbly and she's surrounded with an ethnically diverse group of varying fitness levels. Though the biggest gal is only probably 130 pounds so that kind of ticks me off...Sorry, rambling...

Anyways on to Chalene. She's a good motivator, she gives good cues so you always know what you should be doing and she's not overly obnoxious like some. Take Denise Austin for example, I have one of her videos that I have done exactly one time. I didn't even make it all the way through because she annoyed me sooooo much I nearly kicked my beautiful television. So considering I've been able to do the turbo jam video close to 200 times, that says a lot about Chalene.

But nobody is the perfect workout video host. The little quirky things they do that might not annoy you the first 7 or 8 times you do the video really start to grate on the nerves. Chalene – Why, oh why must you try to emulate snoop dogg when you say "yeah yeah baaaaaaybeeee" or "c'mon c'mon" and the grunts and "wamp" instead of "one". It's just not genuine and it makes me want to upper cut your face.
And then there's this move that she calls the "Howza Bro". She describes this as a move like the hawaiians do, why must you say this like a stoner surfer, over and over and over "Howza Braaaaa, Howza Braaaaa"?
Why does the former "Laker Girl" who's supposed to dance things up and get groovy with the moves only ever just look lost and bored? Why do you include your little skinny sister who annoys the crap out of me? Not only is she constantly smiling, full of energy, and skinny with hard abs like you, but she shakes her huge boobs at me instead of doing what you're having all the rest of us do for some of the video. What's that about?

Is all of this to motivate me to kick and punch harder? If so, I think it might be actually working.

Rotten tomatoes

As if you needed another reason to eat home-grown ones or locally grown this time of year! Careful about those maters...

Antibacterial soap - triclosan - YIKES!

Wow - just wow.

We'll definitely be tossing ours out.

P.S. I love seeing the publication I work on cited in the news :)
Here's a link to the journal article that was cited. Of course, anything outside of the abstract of the article is greek to me.

Sunday frittata

With the honeymoon only a few weeks away, I'm finding the idea of being in a swimsuit to be utterly depressing. A few years ago I did the South Beach diet and was moderately successful. I decided that in a last-ditch effort to slim down these next couple of weeks, I'd try to lower the starch intake. I revived a recipe I used for breakfast when on South Beach. It takes a bit of time to make, but it keeps for a week and eliminates turning to cereal or toast for breakfast. Oh and it's way more nutritious.

Sunday Frittata
Makes 8-10 servings
Ingredients:
10 eggs
1/2 c Cheese (your choice, I used sharp cheddar)
1 thawed pkg of frozen chopped spinach (sometimes I use diced sauteed zucchini)
4 oz sliced mushrooms (didn't have these, so I used 1 small chopped red bell pepper instead)
1 medium diced onion
1 tbsp olive oil (or canola)
a splash of non-fat milk
Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

After thawing the frozen spinach, squeeze out all the excess water. I always find this to be a slightly messy process, so if anyone has any great method for it, please let me know. In an iron skillet that is oven safe, saute the diced onion and mushrooms with a little salt and pepper in the olive oil over med–medhigh heat until the onions are translucent. If you're using zucchini, throw it in the mix too. Pull veggies off heat and move to a bowl to cool slightly. Keep skillet warm.

In a large bowl, whisk or beat the 10 eggs until well blended. Add about tsp. salt, some garlic and ground black pepper (the spices really are to your own taste). I use more salt when using spinach in lieu of zucchini. Mix in the splash of milk (a couple of tbs). Add all veggies and stir. You'll probably find the spinach clumps together. Use a fork to kind of break it up.

Add egg mixture to iron skillet over medium heat. DO NOT STIR. Preheat broiler with the rack about 8 inches away. Let cook over med–medhigh heat until you see the edges start to pull away (slightly firm). Add the cheese and put in the oven under the broiler. Broil until lightly browned/cheese is bubbly. Usually takes about 4 minutes or so. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.
Slice and serve. I made some fresh pico to add and that was a good added kick!

Comfort

I have been having big problems with my left hand since M came home in June and I thought it was because I was sleeping differently. Last week it occured to me that I also started a new job at the same time. I noticed that my set up at work had my keyboard on my desk, about 3 inches above my elbow height. No wonder my elbows hurt and I have strain on my tendons!!

A visit from the ergonomics person at work later... I have a keyboard tray installed about 3 inches lower and a chair that is much narrower so I can use the arm rests! No pain! WOOHOO!

Toxic

This morning, as with every weekday morning, I'm eating my cereal and watching the news, and this comes on. Interestingly enough I threw out my nalgene bottle a few weeks ago and opted for on of the kleen kanteens for this very reason. This wasn't new news.

For those of you who might not know, I work here. I suppose what I find interesting is that there were studies reporting this finding in our journal in 2003.

Check out the abstract of this article too. Perhaps I'm a little paranoid since they aren't sure of the effects on human health, only that of mice, but reading that such a high percentage of people were found to have this substance in their blood stream was not encouraging to me. Nor was the fact that the younger the subject, the higher the concentration.

So for you new moms, and moms-to-be, you may find this article useful, but the bottom line is, just use glass. Better safe then sorry, right?