GYM CHRISTMAS Day 9: BoBo Time

Yesterday for the 9th day of GYM CHRISTMAS I celebrated "Animal Time." Spending time with my parents' dogs has always been one of the highlights of the holidays for me, and this year my excitement is 100% bigger because of BoBo's arrival (though it is more than a little diminished by Molly's departure). 

BoBo is fortunate in that we spend a ton of time with her. Unlike a lot of greyhounds, she gets to go to work with us most days of the week and we often take her with us when we go places. So for Animal Time, I made an extra effort to take her on a real walk during the noon hour, instead of just taking her out for a bathroom break. Of course it was extra cold on the the day I chose to give her a longer walk.

She also hung out with me all morning while I worked and then all evening at school while John gave his students' their final. Having her has made this semester so much better. At the end of the day, her lack of sympathy is kind of nice. BoBo doesn't really care how much writing I got done or how bad I think it is. She still needs to go to the dog park and let loose, or she still demands affection at certain times. It's a good reminder that my problems aren't that huge.

Here are some recent BoBo pics. Not that this blog is lacking a lot of photos of her.

Staring at food she can't have.

Looking quizzically at my computer. I was watching a video of puppies learning to howl and the noises fascinated her.

Even though BoBo time is pretty much all the time at our house, it felt good to single her out for a special day during GYM CHRISTMAS.

Today is December 13th! If you still want to participate in Gym Christmas, you can start today and you'll still be able to complete it - and receive a sweet prize from my friend the DJ.


Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 8: Nutcracker Yoga

Today I finished GYM CHRISTMAS Day 8: Crank up the music and boogie down. I wanted to get in a moderate work out before dinner but since I have plans to swim early in the morning, I didn't want to do anything too severe. So I did one of my usual December work outs: the same series of yoga poses I like to do, accompanied by selections from the Nutcracker. It's nice to do balancing poses to lyrical, graceful lines in the Snow pas de deux. This way I managed not to make myself too sore but I somewhat made up for the fact that I ate junk food for dinner last night.

Here's one of the beers we tasted with our friends, Grace and Douglas: The Ommegang Take the Black, one of their Game of Thrones beers. Game of Thrones Beer!! 

For lack of a more appropriate, ballet-themed picture (and there are some Nutcracker photos of me in my parents' house somewhere), here is a picture of our horn Christmas ornament. The Nutcracker has a lot of prominent horn parts, right?

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

Only four days left of GYM CHRISTMAS 2013! But in case you haven't started, it is still physically possible for you to complete GYM CHRISTMAS if you start in the next two days. So go for it!

GYM CHRISTMAS Days 6 and 7: No pain, no gain, and Taking Out the (Mental) Trash

I neglected to post a second time yesterday so today I'm covering two days worth of Gym Christmas activities.

Day 6: Turn Commercial Breaks into Fitness Breaks. Since we don't have cable, I just made a point of stretching and foam rolling during our ongoing marathon of Game of Thrones.

This Christmas, give yourself the gift of injury prevention. I highly recommend the foam rollers by Trigger Point. It hurts like you wouldn't believe, but it pays off. Day 6: check.

This morning, John and I went to the Christmas Pageant at my church because it is easily one of the most entertaining things I see all year. Little kids reading lines, pretending to be Mary and Joseph, carrying around a big stick with a donkey's head on it (to represent the donkey, duh), a kid dressed as one of the three kings holding a bar that said "GOLD" on it, just to make sure you know he's rich. It's non-stop laughs. Then the new rector invited the costumed children to stand all around him while he did communion and explained each part as he went. Note the kid running past the alter. He was dressed up like a horse and wandered around aimlessly during the entire pageant.

Today for Gym Christmas Day 7 I did Hazardous Waste Removal. For me that meant emptying all the trash in the house and cleaning up a bit because we're having people over for beer and board games tonight. I also decided to bake some Christmas cookies and chose a recipe for sandwich cookies. There's ganache in those cookies! Delicious. Also on the menu: French Onion Toasts from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (not shown).

For the more holistic aspect of hazardous waste, I focused on my dissertation. I have a great advisor and I was recently paired with a great mentor through the SMT abstract mentoring program. She and I will work together for a month or two while I prepare my SMT abstract that's due in January. She pointed out a few things that will dramatically change my project for the better. When something like that happens, it's easy to feel like the whole thing is going to unravel. But with a good advisor, it changes into something much more awesome. It also means I have more work to do. I spent some time today honing my outlines and creating a to-do list for the next two weeks that includes everything I have to do to write the fourth chapter, with new info in hand. Very exciting. It's nice to have an empowering day with my dissertation. Day 7: check.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now:

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Barack Obombus

Yesterday was GYM CHRISTMAS Day 5: Spreading Yuletide Cheer. I brought two bags of Christmas candy for my students as a surprise treat on our last day of classes. I only have 10 students right now and on any given day only 4-5 show up. So at the end of class, I still had two fairly full bags of candy. Despite my efforts to disperse them at school (and the small handful of chocolate kisses I had for a pre-lunch snack), I still had two bags of candy when I went home.

John and I knew that we wanted to spend the evening eating the leftover candy and watching Game of Thrones (in season 2 and we're hooked!) but I wanted to do a fairly challenging work out. Otherwise I would have sat around all evening eating candy and feeling kind of belch. 

So I did as much as I could of the Iron Strength work out I've written about before. And bonus, I got to do it in my new Triathlon Club T-shirt that came in yesterday! As one of my teammates said, now everyone will know how legit I am.

I haven't attempted Iron Strength for several months because of my stress fracture. But since it is (hopefully!) on the wane, I wanted to give it a try. And, to my complete surprise, I did the best I ever have with this work out. I did ALL SIX SETS of 15 jump squats - what?! And my legs aren't even sore today. My upper body, of course, is pretty tired and sore now because I also did two sets of 15 pushups and 15 rows from plank (without the weights). I still can't do some of the tasks, like sit ups, etc, because of my motion sickness. But I'm really happy with what I could do. I guess swimming has made me stronger. It's the kind of thing I find surprising because, if the way my pants fit is any indication, I'm not exactly as thin as I was a year or two ago. But if I'm stronger, then I'll take it. My pants still fit well enough, after all. 

In addition to Christmas candy, John and I decided to make a drink that Mark and his former roommate, Jeff, christened the Barack Obombus. The story goes that Mark and Jeff, both theory grad students, briefly concocted a plan to open a bar named for the genus of the bumblebee, the Bombus. They began thinking up signature drinks for the bar, like the Bombus Rombus, the Irish Car Bombus, etc, and of course, the Barack Obombus. It's basically a White Russian but with chocolate milk instead of half and half.

If you were going to buy vodka, and there was a 750 ml bottle with a tiny bottle of Crown Royal, and one without, and they cost the same, wouldn't you buy the one with the Crown Royal? I mean, come on. It's American Girl sized! 

So if after a week of participating in Gym Christmas (or not) you would like a chocolately drink, I would like to further my gift of yuletide cheer by giving you the recipe for the Barack Obombus: 

1.5 oz Vodka

3/4 oz Kahlua

3/4 oz Chocolate Milk (or more to taste) (non-dairy chocolate milk would work just as well)

Ice

Combine and serve. Repeat as needed. Goes particularly well with Game of Thrones.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

If I have time, I'll be back later today to report on whatever task I complete for Day 6. 

Happy Finals Week, everyone! 

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 4: Water, Water, Everywhere

Today was GYM CHRISTMAS Day 4: Regular Water Consumption. I decided to track my water consumption for the day and see how it went. Before tracking, I emailed a friend of mine who is a doctor and asked if the whole 64 oz a day thing is a good baseline, or how much it might vary person to person. He said to drink to thirst and, if I'm really curious, to use the color of my urine as a guide. SPOILER ALERT - I'd rather spare you from reading my own analysis of my own urine. Everyone's got to have a line, and mine is discussing my own urine on the internet. I've already said too much.

So here's what I drank today: 

1 cup of water from 5:20-5:40AM

1 cup of water during and immediately after swim practice, 6:05-7:40AM

1 large glass of water, probably about 10 oz

1 cup of chocolate milk after swim practice, because, don't worry about it, that's why. 

About 1 travel mug's worth of tea, half before lunch and half after (mug shown below)

Another large glass of water with dinner, probably about 10 oz

1 cup of water between dinner and bed

I took a picture of my view from the desk where I tend to work in John's office. You can see my Fort Wayne Magazine travel mug on the right of my lap top. I still have one of the Calming Manatee pictures as my desktop background. Other accoutrements include kleenex, lotion, a little dish of hard candies that belongs to John's real office mate, and my electric kettle. Exciting stuff. Bobo is laying down to the left of the desk, out of the picture.

What did I learn today? Well, I think I did a decent job of not getting completely dehydrated after swimming, something I often have trouble with. But then I didn't drink as much water as I meant to or needed to during the school day. It sounds so lazy, but once I've started working, I don't usually take the time to get up and refill the kettle. #whitegirlproblem. Or maybe, #gradstudentproblem.

I'd like to improve the amount of water that I drink. But I did ok. I think if I paid better attention to my thirst during the school day, I'd probably do fine. So here's to drinking adequate fluids!

DAY 4: CHECK.

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

GYM CHRISTMAS Day 3: I encounter Escher

Today I completed GYM CHRISTMAS Day 3: Sneak a Workout into another Activity. For me this meant taking the stairs at Talbot College. After a day of climbing up and down the four stories between John's office, my office, my classroom, a department luncheon, and the copy room, I felt like I'd spent the day in an Escher drawing. Day 3: CHECK!

Nevertheless, I came home and did a bonus workout, apart from Gym Christmas. I've been working on a variation of a yoga pose called "half moon." It's great for stretching out my back and hamstrings.  I can do it somewhat without falling over now, but the leg I'm holding is supposed to be more parallel with the floor, so there's still a long way to go. John was kind enough to take a picture. And in the process you can see how messy our bedroom is!

Here is my GYM CHRISTMAS list now: 

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

I have more plans for how to complete the list during the rest of this week and next. The holistic theme has made this year harder to complete in 12 straight days, as I have in years past. But I also like the variety. It's nice to have something else to think about besides chapters and grading and French history.

Are any of you participating in Gym Christmas this year? It's still not too late to sign up!

GYM CHRISTMAS 2013, Day 2: 7 minutes in heaven

It's the second day of GYM CHRISTMAS! 

Today I decided to do the task at the bottom of the list: the Seven Minute Work Out. I added a warm up and cool down set and treated the 7 minutes as a sort of AMRAP ("as many reps as possible") work out. Here's the break down. 

Warm Up: 

- 2 x alternating 30 jumping jacks and 5 burpees

- 3 x 5 pushups with 30 seconds rest in between

AMRAP Set:

- 2:00 each squats, overhead press with 5 lb. weights, and lunges with 20 seconds rest in between to transition between activities. 

Cool down: 

- different stretches for hip flexors, quads, calves, hamstrings. 

This is the first time I've done lunges since I got my stress fracture (which is hopefully on its way out!), and now my legs feel like jello. It's amazing how not doing some of the running-specific exercises will change your body. 

I didn't take a picture of anything work out related, so here's a gratuitous picture of Bobo with her Christmas ribbon on after yesterday's family photo shoot. She did make a cameo during my work out so that she could sniff my butt during my jumping jacks. I don't know who was more surprised - me, by her nose, or her, by my shriek when I felt her nose. 

I wonder how many other GYM CHRISTMAS activities Bobo will get to participate in.

So here's where I am with GYM CHRISTMAS so far. Red means completed, green means incomplete.

Go for a Pre- or Post-Dinner Walk.

Yuletide Cheer

Make a Game of Household Chores

Crank Up the Music and Boogie Down

Hazardous Waste Removal

Regular Water Consumption

Investigate and Share

Sneak a Work Out into Another Activity

Turn TV Commercials into Fitness Breaks

Muscle-Building/Strength Training

Animal Time

Seven-Minute Work-Out.

It's not too late to start participating! All you have to do is leave a comment on the DJ's blog each time you complete a task!

Did any of you cross one of the tasks off your list today?