Accidental Exercise: Squats

I don't know about you, but I don't like going to the gym. Hate it really. I don't like feeling like a hamster in a wheel while I'm on a treadmill. It's so boring and I get bored easily. When I get bored, I lose interest.  When things are no longer interesting to me, I quit and move on to something more interesting.  Like naps.  Or surfing.  Internet surfing that is.  

No way am I jumping in the ocean to become shark bait.  

I have found that the easiest way for me to get exercise outside of the gym is what I like to call "accidental exercise."  It's the side effect of doing things you would normal do in your day-to-day routine that normally wouldn't be considered exercise, but the next day makes you feel like you completed a triathlon.  

Daisy May.  Loves to dig and run away when you call her.  

A few weeks ago, I got some accidental exercise when I had to sprint down the street to chase after Daisy when she dug out under the fence.  I got in some running, and also got some cardio.  My heart was pumping faster in 30 seconds than after an hour on the elliptical.  Dachshunds run so fast despite their short, stubby little legs.   

  

Last week, our other dog Sasha came in the house with a foxtail stuck to her side.  For those of you with dogs, you know just how dangerous foxtails can be for you little four-legged friend.  Those things can get stuck in ears, up noses, and in paws, causing pain, infections, and even hearing loss.  

One of the giant piles of weeds.  YUCK!

I knew that the weeds that I had been avoiding, had to come out ASAP.  

Early Sunday morning, Dave and I got busy working on the weeds. There were some pretty stubborn weeds out there.  In just a couple weeks, they had gotten so big and their roots had gotten so deep that I would grab them with both hands at the base and pull and I would lose my balance and fall backwards.
(And then my hubby would come up and yank it out with one hand and no effort at all...jerk) 

After a few hours, we were hot, sweaty, and dirty.  We had finally pulled all the weeds out of the yard.  It was starting to look better.  We threw all the weeds in the green bin, and it was filled up to the top.  We showered and went about our normal Sunday activities of preparing for the work week.  

Monday morning, the alarm goes off, and I sluggishly roll out of bed.  I was in quite a bit of pain, but that's sadly pretty normal for me.  I've had two significant back injuries in the past 10 years, as well as the inflammation that's most likely caused by my food allergies.  I just take a hot shower, and usually that helps me get loosened up for the day.  

I got to work, and I still wasn't feeling that great.  It hurt to walk up the stairs.  I started thinking.  What did I eat this weekend that could have caused this pain?  Right now my focus is on my food, but I couldn't pinpoint eating anything I shouldn't have.   

As the day went by, I was still hurting.  I took some motrin.  It barely touched the pain.  My calves, my quads, and my hamstrings really hurting.  My shoulders were sore.  My arms were weak. What caused this pain?  I felt like I ran a marathon. 

And then it hit me.  

I pulled weeds.

All Sunday morning, I had been going meticulously around the yard. Up and down.  Yanking out all those stubborn weeds.  Squatting down to grab each one.  Using my knees instead of my back, so I wouldn't get injured.  Pulling with all my strength to get out some of those monsters.  

I didn't realize it, but I had given myself a full body workout, without stepping foot in the gym.  I had accomplished a task that desperately needed to be done.  And I "worked out" for hours longer than I would have even spent in the gym.  

According to My Fitness Pal, the average 150lb person will burn this many calories for basic household chores.    

Cooking for 30 minutes - 68 calories

Gardening for 60 minutes - 272 calories

Light housework for 60 minutes - 170 calories

Mowing lawn for 30 minutes - 187

Walking the dog for 30 minutes - 112 

Moving boxes for 30 minutes - 238 calories

So next time you find yourself dreading going to the gym, look around the house and find some chores that need to be done.  I'll bet you will work out longer and harder than if you had just begrudgingly jumped on a treadmill.  

And your chores will be done. 

Roasted Corn & Jalepeno Salsa

Somewhere lost in the shuffle of this busy week, I got all the ingredients for this side dish/dip but never got around to making it.  I always see tubs of it in the grocery store, good, fresh ingredients, looks easy enough, so with some extra energy this afternoon (where'd that come from?) I decided to make this to bring to work with me tonight (lucky partners!)

First things first, I turned on the tunes:

{nothing happens easily or well in my house if there's a lack of music.  It's just a rule you see & John Mayer had things to tell me today!!!}

Then gathered my ingredients:

1 bag of frozen corn, thawed (or about 4 ears worth cut from the cob)

2 small jalapeños (or 0-1 if you're not a fan of the heat)

2 cups of cherry tomatoes

1 medium red onion

2 medium sized cucumbers

2 medium avocados

1 can of black beans, rinsed

3 limes

1 bunch of cilantro

Salt, to taste

Remember, I'm an eyeballer when it comes to cooking, I just cook as I go, so you may add and subtract from these quantities as you see fit, but this seemed to work out just fine for me.

It was hot today, not East Coast record-breaking hot, but hot enough that I was not going to be roasting corn on the BBQ or turning on the oven.

I grabbed a bag of thawed out fresh corn, coated a skillet with some olive oil spray and turned it on high.

This stuff cooks fast (see popcorn), watch it, don't get caught up in taking too many pictures for your blog or yelling for the 4-legged roomba to come and eat up what might spill if you're too overzealously tossing corn kernels instead of using a spatula. 

It took about 6 minutes on high with constant stirring to get a good char on the little kernels. 

 I took them off the heat and threw them in my new, beautiful bowl.



{Emma, AKA Food Roomba, she can hear food drop from the backyard, sniff it out on the floor,  and have it cleaned it up faster than you can say SharkVac!!}



I quickly chopped up the jalapeños, reminding myself to not touch my face or my eyes accidentally, took out the membranes and the seeds (where the spicy lives) and chopped them up to roast them in the same pan. 

Let's pause here for a second. 

It only took about 20 seconds of hot peppers on high putting out hot pepper fumes into my nostrils, before I started to cough and sneeze.  It was like I was watching Steel Magnolias!!  Oh the tears!!!

It was like I maced myself and got a steam facial all at once!

I hadn't even gotten to chopping the onion yet!!! 

I refused to be defeated by pepper fumes.

I carried on, chopping, wiping my eyes with a clean towel,

putting everything in the bowl in no particular order:

Rinsed the black beans

chopped tomatoes, onion, cucumbers, avocados

I threw in about 1.5 T of salt (give it a taste)

then squeezed the limes right over the top of the avocados before to giving it all a good toss together so they could all make friends with each other before having a good, cold siesta in the fridge for a couple of hours

Before I put it in the fridge {as is the requirement of any good cook} I grabbed a couple of chips and dug in…

this stuff is G-O-O-D!!

but lemme tell you that jalapeños after doing a little fire dance in the skillet, they're not playing around

This salsa packs a punch!! 

but it's good, fresh, easy to make, the ingredients are not expensive, and they are readily available. 

I give this two thumbs up for summer! 

I'm already imagining the variations on this with mango, strawberries, jicima, black eyed peas, kidney beans, the list goes on and then how to eat it - on salads with grilled shrimp or chicken, in tacos, on taco salad, layered in a bean dip…oh the possibilities!!!

Here's to Summertime and sidedishes!!

~ Lo

Spicy Schezuan Green Beans

Sometime in the last few months as Mel became an electrician's widow (her husband travelling out of the area for the first 6 months of the year for weeks at a time), her and I started getting together about once a week for dinner and a weekly B&M session. 

 No, it's not like S&M - it's b!%@# & moan.

When she told me she was making salmon handrolls for dinner

 (uhh yeah!! - I had been craving them all day), I told her I was committed to cleaning up the house and why didn't she stop by and make them at my place so we could "talk about the blog"

 while I finished stuff up around the house. 

 Easy enough..."can Dave tag along?" she text back.  

Oh yeah, the Hubs is back.  Sure.  The more the merrier. 

As I did a quick clean up in the kitchen so Mel could work her magic when she got to my place, I had some little reminder in the back of my mind that I should make something and I had pinned a recipe for spicy, shcezuan green beans a few months back that I had yet to try out.  

Score one for the pantry, I just happened to have everything I needed. 

As I started cutting, steaming, mixing, and sauteing, Mel's Hubs came into the kitchen declaring "Man those smell good, it smells like PF Changs in here!"  

Score!!!

Literally, this dish took about 15 minutes from prep to finish and not only did it smell like PF Changs, it tasted like it too. 

little sweet, little salty, little bit of a kick of spicy at the end

these beans mean business!!

1. wash and trim green beans
2. place in a pot, cover, and steam with approximately 1/4 of a cup of water for 3-5 minutes

3. Prepare the sauce:

{now I must interject that I am a cook-by-taste and an "eyeballer", it's just how Mama taught me.  Cooking was never complicated in our house growing up, it was good ingredients, taste as you go, and keep it simple.  Mama is a great cook, her methods stand both the taste test and the test of time}

Nonetheless the sauce as I eyeballed it:
2 T fresh ginger
2 T fresh garlic
2 T cooking oil (I used olive)
2 T* chili flakes  (I used chili paste)
*if you're not a fan of the heat, try with a t first and measure up from there, these dish packed a punch by the time it was all said and done, but I'm a fan of the heat, so I don't have to get out of the kitchen!)
2 t sugar
2 T soy sauce
1 T rice wine vinegar
place all the ingredients in a bowl and give it a stir while the green beans steam

4. After steaming the green beans (it steamed my camera lens too), I threw in some sliced mushrooms that were hanging out in the fridge and cranked the heat up to high and threw in the sauce and let it all come to a nice bubble for about 6 minutes until everything was well cooked through and the sauce thickened.
 The.house.smelled.amazing!

Of course, in my kitchen we do spills, we do clumsy, and we do clean up.
Spicy green beans were no exception...it was like a crime scene and before I could get to it, the dog came over and took a lick.  It was like the peanut butter reaction, poor thing just kept licking and licking and licking.
A spicy lesson for the pooch but she lives to bark another day.

I let the beans and mushrooms cook down until they were just cooked through enough that everything was well combined but still had a good bite to it.   Spicy?  Yes, but both Mel's Hubs and I could handle it...yeah, there might have been a little sweatin' and a little nose blowin' but what's life if not a little spicy!?

This.is.the.Lo's.new.signature.sidedish!

Mel's handrolls (recipe here), my green beans, and my absolute new Summertime love, Raspberry Shock Top  with muddled fresh raspberries made for an incredible, impromptu dinner on the back porch.

My introduction to hot yoga

When I hurt my back in 2004, I went to a rehab facility at a gym.  I did this in addition to physical therapy.  I was with a group of people who were about the same age as my grandparents, most of them in there for stroke rehab.  We started out slowly doing water therapy, then transitioned into some light yoga and pilates stretches and light weights on the machines.  A few months after I had been released back to normal activities, I went with my sister to a yoga class at the gym.  The class started out slow, and I was catching on from my experience with the rehab classes.  Then the teacher instructed everyone to do the "extended hand to big toe" pose.

I tried.  

I failed.  

I fell over.  

I took my sister out with me.  

I disrupted the entire class.  

I was mortified.  

After the class, the teacher walked over to me and very rudely said that she didn't think that yoga was a good fit for me, and I should find something better suited for me.  In other words, don't come back to my class, you suck.

So that was my last yoga experience...until Sunday.  My birthday.  Lo texted me and said that she was going to yoga, and did I want to go with her?  It's "mellow flow", not as hot, it's the easiest class, and the teacher "is such a love."

"Not as hot?  How hot is that?" 

(A few years ago, we went to a beer fest on the Sacramento River and it was 110* outside.  I got dehydrated even though I didn't even drink any beer and overheated and haven't been able to tolerate the heat since.  I hate being hot.)

"Only around 85-87"

(That's way better than than the 105 Bikram yoga you always hear about)

"That's not too bad.  What do I need to wear and bring?"

WHO JUST TEXTED LO THAT MESSAGE FOR ME????

"YAY!!!"

So I met Lo at the yoga studio at 10am on a Sunday, on my birthday.  Instead of sleeping in and eating birthday bacon. 

Who does that?  Aren't birthdays for sleeping, hangovers, eating out, and just being lazy?

We set up our mats.  The room was warm, but not overwhelming.  The lights were off.  There was a statue in the center surrounded by candles and flowers.  The teacher comes up and talks to Lo and gives her a hug.  Lo introduces me to Krista, and she gives me a hug, like we've been friends for a hundred years. I'm not a hugger, but this was a welcoming, inviting hug.  It made me feel like I was with family.    

The class starts and Krista starts talking, guiding us through the journey she will be taking us on this morning.  Her voice is soothing.  Her words are calm.  Relaxing.  Encouraging.  "It's ok if you can't do the pose."  "Don't worry about when you fall over." "Don't forget to breathe."

WHEN YOU FALL OVER.  I liked this lady already.

The class started out simply.  I've taken a few Pilates mat classes over the past few months, so I was a little bit more limber than at my last yoga class.  I was able to do many of the poses.  Some I did a modified version, some I made up my own thing that in no way shape or form resembled what was going on in the studio at that time. I was constantly moving.  Trying.  Effort. I fell over.  No one scolded me or shot me a death glare  I got up and kept on going.  

I started sweating a bit, but made sure I took a break to get some water in me.  No way was I going to get overheated.  I would not pass out.  911 would not be called out.  I would not spend my birthday in the ER getting treated for heat exhaustion from hot yoga. My hubby would never let me live that down. 

Then I started to get warm.  I wiped my forehead.  I was drenched.  I was sweating buckets.  Places on my body were sweating that I had no idea you could sweat from. Did I pee myself or was this all sweat?

This has to be what Texas feels like in July.

The poses kept getting harder, but I hung in there.  I kept drinking water and modifying poses that were too advanced for me.

Restorative poses.  My favorite.  A reward for all your hard work before you head back to the real world. A time to reflect on how far you challenged yourself, and how far you have come.

When I started the class, I stood with my feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart.  I could barely touch my knees with my fingertips.  By the end of the class, I could almost put my palms flat on the floor.

"You did so good." A goodbye hug.  A picture to prove I survived. 

Will I go back ?  

Yes.  

Will I try hotter yoga?  

Maybe. 

                                                                                                            

Mel, Lo, & Sunday Flow

Hot yoga.
It is a passion of mine.

I'm a young "yogi", still practicing & not quite as much of a regular as I'd like to be, but still, I loved hot yoga from the get-go and it's become my thing.
I got to yoga class not only for my body, but for my mind, and my heart.
Some of my friends think I'm crazy for bending & twisting in a hot and moderately humid room for
90-minutes at a time, sweating like a cold glass on a hot Summer day.
Despite that, I've gotten about a dozen of them to at least try a class with me.
I've had a few of them get just as hooked, and a few others try and kill me mid-class with hateful death glances under sweat drenched eyelashes.

Mel has avoided my invite to hot yoga for some time now, but this Sunday, on a whim, I asked her and she agreed to go. Can't lie, I was a little shocked that she agreed.
Her reaction in the past when I've asked her is "no way, no how, I'm just not ready for that."
Fair enough. However in the last few months, she's lost about 30 lbs with her strict diet and she had been practicing mat Pilates. I made it to a few classes with her and knew that she could probably hang in the heat of the Sunday "Mellow Flow" class.

One of my favorite teachers, Krista, teaches this class.
It's the "coolest" of the classes, with the temperature sitting at just about 87* & it's one of the grooviest of the classes, 'cause well Krista is a perfect combination of Goldie Hawn and Ethel Mertz.
Krista is hugs, smiles, and words of humor that bring ease and levity to practice.
Sunday morning class is about soft candlelight, community, and calm.
It's Sunday Morning Mellow Flow.


Each yoga class always comes with a mantra for the practice.
Sunday's mantra was a list:
1: Love - immense love
2: Moderation
3: Humility
Krista added the 4th: Happy
The instruction was to have all these things for ourselves and for our practice during our 90 minute class.

As we sat down, both of us sore and stiff from the long week, me hurting from walking/running a 5K the night before and having not slept in 3 days, I could barely lie in shavasana (corpse pose) without wincing.
I couldn't even lie like a dead body without hurting!!!

Mel leaned over and whispered to me that the last time she tried yoga, she got kicked out for falling over.
I just looked at her like, "mmmmm-kay, oh please..."
I said "No one in this room will even blink twice if you fall over."

Krista reinforced it right at the beginning of class, she said:
be happy
smile
don't be afraid to fall
(go ahead, read into it, don't be afraid to fall, physically, emotionally, just go with it!)

Upon hearing that I looked over with a glance that said: "Psssssst, Mel, don't be afraid to fall!"
Shortly after that, Mel did. 
She fell. 
It was a short fall and as she looked over at me with her eyes enlarged like she had just committed a crime, I just smiled back like "atta girl, can't fall if you don't even try in the first place."

So we got into class, up dog, down dog, cobra, pigeon, lizard, child's pose...
We did something that doesn't have a name - it was: bend over, grab the backs of your ankles or your shins, let your head hang down heavy,  and walk in a circle. 
Yeah, picture twenty spandex clad, sweaty women laughing their asses off doing that. 
Go ahead, pause reading this post for a second and do it yourself.  I dare you!

There was also some kind of other twist, I don't know the name of it - it was a sideways bend with one arm snaked through your leg, the other arm looped over your back, grabbing for your hands to connect and hold on, & then finally turning your head up and look at the ceiling.
I did it the best I could, not quite with my hands touching, but close enough and I looked up at the ceiling.
It only took about three seconds before sweat rolled into my nostril and it was like when you suck water into your nose at the pool and you think you're gonna drown. 
I thought I was gonna drown.

THERE IS NO DROWING IN HOT YOGA!!

Mel - she kept up with all of it, modified what she didn't know or couldn't get right away, but she kept up thoroughout, with the young yogis the old yogis, she did soo good for all 90 minutes without stopping! 

As we laid in our last shavasana, Krista's voice floated over the soft music playing, reminding us to:
watch your breath
soften your thoughts
know that you're safe, "Mother Earth" is holding you
(I interpretted my own spiritual meaning).

Our final moments on the mat, we sat silently, legs crossed, hands to heart center, heads bowed:
bowed to ourselves, our practice, to dedicating our time spent to someone close to us:
I thought of all the people close to me and I prayed.
I prayed like I was an auctioneer. Just as fast as I could think of a name, I said a short prayer.

For: safety, comfort, peace, wisdom, courage, understanding, forgiveness, healing, I prayed for it all...

At the end of class, after the music was of and we were moving around, I looked at Mel, looking to see if she was going to need an IV or maybe a foam bat to hit me with but she needed neither.
She looked a little bit surprised that she made it through class, saying she had never sweat so much in her life but she liked it and even though she fell, she made it through the class like a champ. 

Krista agreed.  There were hugs.  Sweaty hugs.

Mel kickin' some beginners hot yoga butt, made me think of one of my favorite sayings:

Don't be afraid to step out to the edge and take a leap.

Don't be afraid to fall.

pssttt....don't be afraid to go to hot yoga with me!!!

Namaste, my friends.

~ Lo