This is just a repost from my favorite blogging personal trainer. A little motivation for your weekend. Original found here.

"The average American is overweight, has no college degree, makes about 32,000 per year, will go through at least one divorce, and will not live past the age of 78. Death will probably come by way of heart disease. Now why would you want to be simply average? Don’t be a “C student” when it comes to your life and your health. You can continue to make excuses, but that doesn’t change the consequence. Embrace the popular slogan and “just do it.” You won’t necessarily “feel like it” until you’ve been at it for a while. But don’t worry, the feelings with follow soon. Believe it or not, you will eventually enjoy not only the benefits of being healthy but also the process! Just remember it will take a little time."

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About a month ago or so, we were invited by a friend to join her and her team from her company to walk a 5K in downtown Dallas. It was a charity event put on by the American Heart Association and in support of sufferers of stroke and heart disease.

We pretty quickly decided we'd join her. It was an especially easy decision, because furry four-legged family members were allowed! This was the most exciting part, for me. Renn has been on long walks with me before. Generally, we go for a 30 to 45 minutes walk once a day unless the weather doesn't allow. And on the weekends, we'd recently been going for walks of up to 1 hour and 15 minutes, so I knew he could handle the 5K.

We registered for the walk two days beforehand (my fault since the email clearly said to pre-register, but I'd completely overlooked that part until almost the day of the walk). And we set up a meeting time with our friend at her place, which is located very near where the walk was to begin. She also has a dog that she was bringing. Her dog and Renn had already met at the dog park and gotten along famously.

The walk itself was very slow moving at first. Hundreds of people filing down the road (next to the W hotel) on our way winding through downtown. After the first couple turns, though, the crown thinned out a bit and the walking wasn't so slow and smushed. It was neat to walk around the streets of downtown. I'd only ever been in a car and driven to my destination. I'd never walked around in that way, so I really appreciated the opportunity to see the city from a different perspective.

We finished the walk in just over an hour, I don't remember exactly how long it took. We were pretty hot and sweaty, but luckily it was overcast that day, so it definitely could have been worse. After the walk, we went back to our friend's place and believe it or not her little doggie was ready to play with minimal recovery time. She's so cute! Renn, a bit older than her, wanted to join the playtime as well, but he was moving at a noticeably slower pace than his puppy pal.

Overall, we had a great time participating in an event for a good cause, and we got some outdoor exercise while we were at it. Not bad for a Saturday morning.

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In my (apparently very domestic and I suppose boring to some) married life, I have become more and more enamored with cooking and cooking related topics and hobbies. One of my favorite things to do is to go grocery shopping. Mostly because we do this activity as a couple and have fun together as we trod through the aisles. Recently, our local Kroger has been remodeling. A process that seems almost complete as of yesterday when Christopher and I went for our weekly shopping trip.

Grocery shopping is a pretty organized affair, I make a list during the week of the things we run out of and stock up on fresh veg and fruit each weekend. The remodel has made an old store new, and it's very lovely as far as grocery stores go. The old corner section of organic food has turned into a beauty and health care section. The organic food has taken a more prominent place near the produce. And the bakery/deli areas seem to have expanded with a new cheese display and large olive and salad bar.

I use the deliciousness that I buy there to make even more deliciousness at home. Recently, I've taken up stir fry. A bit difficult since I don't have a wok and my largest pan is not that large. But I make it work, very carefully. My stir fry usually includes cabbage, bok choy, broccoli, carrots, and chicken. mmmmmmm.

Another new favorite is twice baked potatoes with a hot chili pepper sour cream sauce. The recipe includes butter, cheese, scallions, milk, salt/pepper, and something else I can't seem to remember. It's a bit long in cooking (baking potatoes takes about an hour or so), but totally worth the wait when it's done.

And, of course, Christopher fires up the grill regularly, usually multiple times a week. I'd pick his burger over a restaurant burger any day of the week. He's also gotten very good at glazed grilled chicken, fajita chicken, steak, and grilled salmon.

Not to brag, but I love dinner at my house!

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In a recent trip to the library - man, I love the library - I decided I wanted to find something from the non-fiction section to keep me entertained and interested on the weekends. As you can tell from the food posts, I'm very interested in healthy living. So, this is the area where I went to choose my books. I picked up The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health by Randall Fitzgerald.

Overall, I recommend this book. It is thorough, informative, and backed by dozens and dozens of reputable works cited. It is alarmist, no question; however, that is exactly the point the author is trying to make. And he succeeds.

Neither Christopher nor I have ever been just-take-a-pill kind of people. We both have to convince the other when it's time to go to the doctor. We both have to read up on the research available on the internet for the medication we are prescribed. We both have a general mistrust of medication. It was nice to read this book and have factual information back up our intuition. We will use prescriptions when necessary. However, what we will not do is go get antibiotics for every cold we may get when they will do absolutely nothing for our cold and create an environment for developing stronger bugs.

The main thesis of the book is that mankind is performing a chemical experiment on itself while blindly expecting objective government agencies to be its watchdog. Fitzgerald talks about the food industry quite a bit, but also takes his sword of choice to the pharmaceutical and medical industries as well as the bias, political agencies charged with regulating these. My one critique is that he uses a lot of animal testing to show how medications should have been pulled from shelves long before they were, but he then argues that animal testing is not a valid form of comparison to human reactions to chemicals. Granted that is a simplification of his statement. For more information on that, just read the book! ;)

What I like best about the book is (1) it's an interesting read with a relatively well organized structure (2) it uses recognizable evidence for its claims (3) it makes sense. I also can agree that, generally speaking, doctors and the community at large are too focused on finding one single chemical cure for a disease or one single cause for a symptom. Fitzgerald successfully discussing the hazard of such an approach and the benefit of looking at synergistic properties of drugs, foods, and environmental toxins. I also appreciate his nod to holistic medicine and traditional use of food as illness prevention.

I finished the book in one week, reading solidly only about two days. So it does not take a long time to get through its pages. If you're interested in this kind of thing, I'd say it's a great one to pick up.

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Hey everyone. Long time no see.

Been a while since I've posted on here. Lexie has been making pretty much all the posts for the last few years. I have recently been able to redouble my efforts in writing and so I will be making more posts on here when I hit writer's block in my projects. This is pretty much a follow-up post to her story about Coffee with a Cause.

I've been going to the cafe that she mentioned, Global Peace Factory, for almost a week now. Here's what I have to say about it.

Looks 8/10 - Only one complaint: I'm not big on orange, which happens to be their accent color. But by no means does it look ugly. The orange does, however, do its job and energize the place. The lightly colored walls bring in the sunlight nicely without making it a hot place. The bar is well organized with a multi-color chalk menu for paninis and various delicious coffee drinks. There is a display freezer with various ice-cream like contents.

Layout 8/10 - Again, only one complaint: Size. It's a little on the smaller side, but that is part of it's charm. There is a couch in an alcove with several tables dashed here and there on the ground floor. I love the loft that is above and behind the bar. I do my most productive work up there, there is a bohemian style rug and a chain link fence which would look out of place anywhere but here. Along two of the walls is a long one sided booth with ample plugs for laptops, along with a few framed prints of various internationally appealing people, places and things.

Atmosphere 10/10 - Great friendly staff and a host of other like-minded work-from-homers fill spots both up and downstairs. The music is a mix of Moroccan tunes, bohemian vocals and Latin flair. I find the staff to be more than accommodating in that they will take your order to your seat, and even take your second order from your seat, if you're there long enough.

Taste 10/10 - Being a long time Starbucks fan, I thought I was going to hate the place. But I found the opposite to be true. I like it so much, I don't want to go to Starbucks anymore. The coffee is excellent. The paninis are fun and tasty. I am yet to try the ice-cream, though I hear it's something other than ice-cream, which makes me want to try it that much more.

In closing, I have to say, after meeting the owner of the shop that this place has real promise. He is originally from Switzerland. This is his first attempt at a coffee shop, and I'd say he's hit a home run. He says the difficulties with this place are mostly bound its location. There is next to no neighboring retail stores, so very little foot traffic. The location at the NW corner of Legacy and 121 is not known for much other than a few corporate offices, but he plans to fix that lack of exposure he has by offering delivery services in the near future.

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Have you or someone you know tried Insanity with Shaun T? I've seen the infomercials, I've gone to the website (just like the infomercials without the music). I've thought about what else I could do with $120. The cost of Insanity is three payments of 39.95 (and shipping is $25, what's up with that?!?). So $120 dollars later, would I have appreciated my investment? I'm not certain, but I am interested. And, I'd like to hear opinions from the peanut gallery.

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I suppose it started for me in high school. There was a coffee shop (no longer in business) called La Crème just down the street from the high school, and my friends and I would stop in there often for a drink, snack, and hanging out time. It really did mimic the camaraderie of the television show "Friends," although, we rarely sat in the same place two times in a row. I sat and had deep conversations with the girl who would become my best friend there. I went on dates there. I ran into my parents' friends there. That place had a lot going for it.


From there, my love of coffee shops kept going. I do enjoy Starbucks, nothing but love there. However, there is something a bit more charming about a privately owned, non-chain coffee house. In college, starting freshman year and going all the way through senior year, a group of us met weekly at Sweet Eugene's for catching up and chilling out. It didn't really matter that most of us saw each other every day anyway. I worked at this coffee house during my time as an undergrad (beginning sophomore or junior year, I can't quite remember) and grad student. Not an insignificant percent of my paycheck would often go to food and drinks on my off-time.

Along the way in there, I moved to Paris, France. Uh, hello. We all know the French love their coffee (and with almost as much passion as the Italians, and that's hard to do). In Paris it didn't really matter to me which coffee shop I was stopped in, they were all inviting (albeit smoky) - especially on cold, gray Parisian days. What they lacked in creature comforts (no big fluffy couches here), they made up for in ridiculously cheap espresso and indifferent shop keepers. The indifferent shop keepers part is very good if you're looking to stay in one place for hours on end and only purchase a single espresso. Japan also had its little cafés (and Starbucks) where we liked to frequent. In one, the baristas knew Christopher by name (not to mention his order).

Since we've been back, I don't quite feel like we've found a coffee shop haven. That is, not until today. Sure, we'd gone to Starbucks like we always did. But sitting in one just hasn't felt quite as relaxing as it used to. Luckily, I'm a bit ridiculous about cutting coupons and looking through the weekly mailers for deals. This is a fortunate happenstance because this past week's mailer had a 50% food purchases coupon for a coffee house I'd never heard of called Global Peace Factory. 50% is a very good reason to give a place a shot.

Christopher and I headed over there for lunch today. We both ordered paninis (the menu is small so the variety isn't all that vast - mostly paninis or pastries, and they also sell gelato). Christopher also ordered a caramel frappé. We headed up to the mezzanine to sit and eat our lunch. It was very cute, comfortable, and inviting. What is even better is that this coffee house is part for profit and part for charity. 2 cents on the dollar goes to non-political charities. Certain items sold in the shop have 100% of the proceeds going to charity. Also, their plastic cups (for cold drinks) are compostable. Rock on Global Peace Factory. I feel we may have found a little gem in this place, and I know that we'll be going back. It's a nice feeling. Oh, and yes, the paninis were delicious.

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Sitting at my desk playing Sid Meier's Civilization yesterday, I realized two things. First, Sitting Bull will continue to be warlike and ruin my fun at building my cities no matter how many trades I place with him. He may even cost me the game. Second, my right arm and hand tingle and feel dead way too often for it to be healthy when I am at my desk. I told Christopher about it, and he said my symptoms were like Carpal Tunnel. Yikes.

So, knowing me - as you do - you know that I must do more research on the topic to find out if I indeed have Carpal Tunnel (because I'm not likely to believe the snake will injure me unless it bites me square on the nose). I found this information from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. It states that Carpal Tunnel sufferers have pain often radiating from the palm and going down to the elbow in addition to tingling in the thumb, index, and middle fingers. They may feel like they cannot squeeze or grip objects and/or feel a need to "shake it out." This information, Christopher had shared with me already.

Since I work at a computer all day every day, Monday through Friday, I do feel like it is not unreasonable to expect I may develop this one day. But now? Also, my symptoms do not match exactly. For example, there is no pain associated with my tingling. It feels like my arm went to sleep, but I could still hold a cup of coffee if I needed to. Second, my arm and fingers are ridiculously cold when this happens. This leads me to think that it may have more to do with poor circulation or with keeping my arm up too high in comparison with my heart, or something to that effect. Finally, it seems to affect my pinkie, ring, and middle fingers far more than my thumb and index fingers. In fact, my thumb never feels numb when this happens. I am not ready to go to the doctor just yet. Last I checked, the most common remedy for this injury was surgery. Eek. I don't think I'm there yet. In the meantime, if you see someone looking like a hobo at their desk wearing gloves with the fingers cut off, that would be me.

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