Turkeylishious

Integrity

Yeah, I slipped up a bit. Not so much out of weakness, but just pure forgetfulness, which I guess is kind of a weakness. I was at Starbucks ordering a drip coffee (not a Mocha as that is considered dessert) and right there in front of me sat a tray of samples of cranberry bliss bars, and I thought "yum, I like these" and before I knew it, doh! I just popped it in my mouth without even thinking, and I was not about to spit it out when I realized my error. I mean come on, there's blog challenges, and then there's Karen Carpenter behavior. So in the interest of integrity and (not quite) full disclosure, I have to reveal 1/8 of my before picture, since I ate about 1/8 of a dessert.

Hopefully it won't happen again, because I am really loathe to show any more.

Cat Man Do

Please please please click on the Weekly Saccharin video to see it in full screen through YouTube- this is the best animation I've seen in a long time. The animators name is Simon Tofield (genius!), and I have never seen such a hysterically accurate depiction of a cats nature. I go through a similar routine with one of my cats nearly every morning (minus the baseball bat part).

Enjoy!

Cupcake Challenge: Day 3

So far so good. I have resisted temptation at every turn, and have had to be a little creative in my circumvention. Last night for instance, I decided to eat some mandarin oranges (in their own juice, not syrup, cause that would be cheatin), but they weren't sweet enough, plus I was having a hard time eating them with the coffee stirrer (didn't have a fork) so I dumped them in a glass of diet sprite, and muddled them up a bit for a frothy, orangey treat. Probably sounds kinda gross, and would have been more fun with some alcohol, but gimmee a break, i was working with the limited resources of my hotel room.

Which brings me to the topic of exercise on the road. Not an easy thing. Especially if you despise treadmills like I do. In the milder months of the year, there's usually enough sunlight for me to run outside after I teach, but in the winter, I never see sunlight, and I'm not too crazy about running in the dark in a strange city or on a treadmill, so I have to be creative. And in lieu of running I will focus on strength training which I often times ignore when I'm at home. I have found a great resource for strength training pilates-type exercises on the Washington Post website. They've got tons of picture demos, for free! Kind of like having a virtual personal trainer. Many of these exercises you can do without equipment right on your hotel room floor (eww). Nice because the fitness centers at most 3 star and under hotels leave a lot to be desired.

So give it a shot! And I recommend one of those big balls for home workouts- they're a lot of fun (especially if you have cats...)

Yay Dr. Diane!

Okay, I'm breakin my rule just this once...but it's for an important announcement...

So, thanks to everyone who sent out their smarty vibes - it worked! (and maybe with a little of her own smarts ;) She did it! What an awesome accomplishment. And I know how hard she worked for it.

So, as she says, cupcakes for all!

And that picture is about the closest I'm gonna get to a cupcake for awhile...

Dr. Di

Just a quicky reminder that everyone needs to send out their smartest smarty pant vibes to Diane today as she defends her dissertation, the final rung towards her becoming the most insufferable academic ever (jk, love ya!).

I hope you knock the socks offa their asses, girl!!

The Cupcake Challenge

Alrighty, so I was checkin in on one of my new favorite girl blogs, and was reading about this challenge, where dessert will be eaten only once a week until January (holidays being the exception thank god), to help get the "sugar monkey" off her back. I've been needing just this type of challenge since I've gotten a little sloppy lately with my points. My Google calendar where I record my foods has been kinda spotty lately. And this past weekend I managed to eat not just pizza (four huge drippin slices), but chocolate cookies, brownies, AND peach cobbler (that I made for a pot luck...why do I do these things?). Now, I was on my bike all weekend, both days, riding for several hours (serious riding too, not just toolin around), so I just managed to negate the good I did by eating every last calorie (and perhaps more) that I burned. While the scale hasn't budged up, it also hasn't budged down, which is what I need it to do dammit! So, I am going for the challenge myself to rid myself of the evil Cupcake of Doom.

And if I fail, I will post a really scary "before" picture of myself. You thought this was scary, well, it ain't nothin compared to the one I will post.

If you're concerned about my honesty, well, you're just gonna have to trust me to hold myself accountable. Because after all, this is about me, and not about y'all. And you can count on B to help with the policing, since it's usually his fault when I transgress (hmm...that might piss him off enough to finally comment here).

I'm considering any sugary treat a dessert, and that includes my staple 100 calorie packs. The only sweet goodness I'm allowed outside the once a week is fruit and sugar-free, because like one commenter posted over at the Fitness Fixation blog, "If it makes you poop, it ain't dessert".

Words to live by.

Cupcake Free Zone

From this point forward, cupcakes are banned from this blog.There will be no posting or commenting about cupcakes, cupcake-likes, cream cheese frosting on red velvet cupcakes, chocolate filled cupcakes, moist white cake cupcakes with vanilla frosting, mango cupcakes, or even splenda cupcakes.

Cupcakes are the enemy.

Super Shuttle Chronicles: Part 2

I will never, ever, ever again take a Super Shuttle. You may remember my last experience with this sucky suck ass company. You would think I had learned my lesson, but nooooo.

I was trying to save the company a few bucks when I was in Houston by not taking a $90 taxi ride to my hotel, and instead got on the bus for $28. Stupid! I landing in Houston at 6:30 pm hungry and tired, ready to eat dinner and kick back and watch hotel tv. I waited an hour for the shuttle, then when it finally showed up, I squished in with 9 other passengers whose hotels were scattered all across Houston, and as you probably already know, Houston's sprawled out from like Louisiana to Nevada (it is really obscene). Evidently, their computer system that helps to plan efficient routes was down, so our driver took us on a grand tour of the city from north to south, east to west, and back east again, and oops-I-forgot-someone! back west again. And meanwhile, as I'm crammed in some guys armpit, the driver has switched off the basketball game on the radio and turned on gospel. And I'm not talkin about down-south-raise-the-roof-hallelujah kind of gospel (which I like), but rather Whitney Houston/Celine Dion-style Diva gospel, which frankly...sucks. And it was loud too.

So to entertain myself and prevent "the message" from brainwashing me :), I tried to come up with new curse word combos. Boy, this makes the time fly! Just start with some everyday, generic kinds of words like stick, chop, toe, worm, and mix with curse words. After awhile you will have some real winners. The one that nearly had me pee was "ass biscuit".

This was fun until my concentration was broken by the cranky old lady sitting in front of me who started complaining (in this really annoying whiny Seinfeld character accent) about how she's always the last person on the bus, so to shut her up, the driver changed course (away from my hotel), and dropped her old mothball smelling butt off first. So I was the last person to be dropped off, two hours later, at 9:30 pm, with no restaurants nearby but Denny's and McHeartAttack. So I chose the lesser of two evils, and ate about two bites of semi-edible tilapia, and corn/mash potatoes, and called it a night.

Anyway, let this be a lesson to me. Three hours of my life is worth more than the fifty bucks I saved. Especially if I can expense it.

Kids, cover your eyes...

B just emailed this to me from the Portland Mercury- it is titled "Worst...Tattoo... Ever."

I'll never be the same again.