Friday Workout

Most of you probably aren't going to be interested in the details of my fitness plan, but _storyteller_ and I have become long-distance workout partners, and I feel like if I post it here, with the public goal of working out six days a week, it should help to keep me honest and accountable.

The alarm went off at 5am again, but this morning it took me a long time to get out of bed. Then the novel I'm reading mugged me in the bathroom. Breakfast of oatmeal, my new practice. I actually turned on the grill for a quesadilla (my usual favorite breakfast) but a deep impulse came up and I turned it off and got down the Quaker Oats. Scanned some email while eating.

Did not feel like exercising, but did about 15 minutes of weight work. It's half the time of my assigned workout, but I was moving and worked up a sweat.

When I first got back to working out, about three months ago, I made myself exhausted and ill because I pushed too hard, too fast. I'm giving myself permission to go slowly this time: but not permission to miss a day. Even if it's only 5 or 6 or 10 or 15 minutes, I have to put on my shorts and my tennies and do it.

I have nuts on my desk at work for snacking, and South Beach Diet Maple Crunch bars for the car, so I'm less likely to go through the drive-through, especially after work. Last night, I cooked two batches of an almond and parmesan baked chicken from the South Beach Diet cookbook. (I'm not formally "doing" South Beach, but I like their food better than anything else I've tried.) I've also been drinking a lot of water again at work.

Simply not eating quesadillas -- or McDonalds -- for breakfast should be a huge win.

Synergy

I am finding that working simultaneously on eating better and handling my finances more responsibly is a powerful combination. My lack of experience/interest/pleasure in cooking has too often led to drive-through and take-out meals: bad on both my waistline and my wallet.

I'm finding that when the quest to achieve one goal isn't enough to change behavior, having dual, synergistic goals can make the difference.

And I cleaned my kitchen tonight.

Yea, me!

The Rewards of being a Nerd

Today my company loaded all 1,000+ employees at our corporate headquarters onto buses and whisked us off to the local convention center for a corporate pep assembly.

Each bus was staffed with a "camp counselor" (my choice of title) whose job was to keep everyone amused during the trip -- and a good thing too, because what should have been a twenty minute trip took almost 45 minutes because of unusually horrible traffic. Josh, our assigned Cheer Monger, had a bunch of trivia questions and a bag of prizes: candy bars, Starbucks cards, Barnes & Noble cards, and movie passes.

By the end of the trip, I was acknowledged as the official movie geek on board. Does everyone else know which Disney movie was the first have flatulence in it?

( Of course you do! )

It helps to have a child under the age of ten. I won a Starbucks card for that one, which was a disappointment because I don't drink coffee, and none of the things I would buy at S-bucks are on my diet plan.

A later question was about a shark from Finding Nemo, which I have to confess I have not seen. Someone else won that question by correctly identifying "Bruce."

I was sitting by Josh, so I said, "But how many people realize that Bruce was named after the mechanical shark in Jaws?"

I have no idea if this is actually true or not -- but it seemed likely. Assuming I'm remembering my movie trivia correctly and that was indeed the name they gave to the cantankerous mechanical shark. Josh looked at me funny, then said, "The sheer nerdiness of that deserves a card," and handed me a second Starbucks card.

I was also one of the very few who could correctly name the least-known Bond actor, George Lazenby.

I offered to trade two Starbucks cards for a Barnes and Noble card. No takers. But then a woman sitting behind me got a pair of movie passes, and traded me. So I came out ahead.