ESPN's body issue -- um, more Adrian Peterson, please.

I openly admit I love the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Yes, I fight my husband to the curb to grab the first glimpse of the issue. Honestly, I don't think my husband really cares at all about the issue. So, why do I like it? While the scantly clad models are nice (I am referring to those who don't look like they may have skipped a few meals), I find the athletes or the everyday sort of people featured to be the best part of the issue. Each year SI features athletes or athletes' spouses. Past favorites include Serena Williams, Mark McGuire's wife before finding out about the hormones she was injecting, and US Soccer player Clint Dempsey's wife, Bethany.

Now even better than the SI issue, ESPN has put together their body issue, or bodies we want. For a glimpse of what is to come, you can check out this page.

Check out the triathlete, Sarah Reinertsen. She's my new hero.

Back on the Blog Again.....

Is it just me or has it been forever since I have updated the blog? Nope, not just me. I checked and it has been a whole 6 months.

So let's do the recap thing like they do on Glee. Since the last entry so much has changed, or has it? I decided to re-read the resolution bucket list that I made at the beginning of 2010. Let's see....
#1 was to sleep less. Check.
#2 was to blog more. Oops.
#3 was to read more. I believe that I may be three months behind on my magazine subscriptions and my kindle seems to be collecting dust. Double oops.
#4 was watch more TV. Considering I didn't turn the tube on once from Thursday through Sunday this week, I believe this is an oops. Thing is, I don't feel guilty about this one at all. This should be a success because I watched the entire season of Entourage and True Blood and am super psyched for the debut of Boardwalk Empire (don't tell me, it's recorded). Really, HBO has ruined me for television.
#5 was to not sweat the small stuff. I am not sure how to measure this one so let me check with my family and get back on this one.

So what else is new? Training for the real deal this time -- the Marathon. The whole 26.2! Also, teaching a ton of fitness classes and will offer Les Mills Body Pump in October. Wait, real work calls. Lunch break is over. Apparently Bingaman just introduced a RES bill....big deal. Catch up soon.

Scout's Honor?

I love the Girl Scounts organizaiton. Their orgnization is known for helping young women develop life skills such as teamwork, leadership, money management, etc. These skills are best illustrated through the annual cookie sales. So since my niece is a scout and since I adore their cookies, I have purchased my weight in them. However, when I purchased some boxes today, I was surprised to find third on the ingredient list (partially hydrogenated palm, soybean and cottonseed oil) trans fat on the label. Actually they claim to be trans fat free -- thanks to a silly USDA labeling rule, which allows them to claim to be trans fat free.

Since the Girl Scouts empahsize healthy lifestyles and living, don't you think that they would require their cookie manufacturers to elimate trans fats?

The claim for keeping the fat in their scrumptious cookies is that taking it out would affect quality. (See reasons below taken from the manufacturers website.) Perhaps if they took the fat out, I wouldn't eat as many. Is that a bad thing?

What do you think?

From www.littlebrowniebakers.com
"Question:
How can the food label state zero grams of trans fat, yet list hydrogenated oils in the ingredients statement?

Answer:
We are aware of the health concerns regarding trans fats and we have invested significant resources in research and development to find suitable ingredient replacements to reduce or remove trans fats from our cookies. As of January 2007, all of our cookies were reformulated to contain zero grams trans fat per serving.

These changes are not as simple as substituting polyunsaturated oils. This would contribute unwanted changes in the food product itself, such as loss of crispy texture, change of appearance, and off-flavor.

We follow the Food & Drug Administrations (FDA) labeling laws. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues the regulations for all of the labeling information that appears on food packaging, including that for trans fat. Under the FDA regulations, trans fat is listed on the Nutrition Facts panel as zero (0 grams) if the amount of trans fat in a serving is 0.50 grams or less. As a result, these cookies list "0 grams" of trans fat in the Nutrition Facts panel, while the ingredient list includes "hydrogenated vegetable oil" or "shortening." The presence of these ingredients simply means the food contains a negligible of trans fat, or less than one half gram per serving. This amount is less than 1/20th of a teaspoon of fat."

A Little Fishy?

I have a new love affair. This one comes in the form of a capsule that can be taken daily and has been said to reverse the signs of aging. So why am I so excited about fish oil? Check out the recent video from ABC news.

I admit that at first I was skeptical. I was not the supplement type of gal. I am a whole food believer, or one who believes you can get all your vitamins and minerals from eating a balanced diet of non-processed food.

So when I got my blood work back for the doctor I thought that I should be jumping for joy. My total cholesterol was so low. Yay! But when you break it down and divide the good(HDL) and the bad (LDL), my good cholesterol was just plain ugly. It was too low. A health coach suggested that I start taking a supplement of fish oil a day. I thought, "can't I just eat more fish and get the good fat my body so badly needs?" Then, being the good coach that he is, he started sending me information on fish oil. The more I read, the more I was convinced. If you don't want to dig through the research conducted at the NIH,etc., there is a great little article in Men's Health.

To convince myself, I decided to think of fish oil the way I explain climate change to non believers. Does it matter if human activity is causing the planet to warm? If you can make some small changes in your life that may lessen or alter the effects of warming, wouldn't you do that? So, if I can improve my heart health, possibly reduce joint pain and inflammation and improve my memory, why wouldn't I try this little pill? (Actually the pills are not so little, but you get my point).

So that is what I have done. I am convinced. I am giving it a try. If the only downside is a little fish breath once in a while, I am OK with that.

Speaking of research -- I notice that most research has been done with men only. If anyone knows of any studies conducted with women, would you let me know?

An oxymoron for sure

Taco Bell and Diet. Do those two go together? Or Drive Thru and diet. Sorry, I don't get it so I did a little investigating. I decided to explore the new Fresco menu at the Bell. No, I have yet to actually sample something because the last time I may have eaten the food from the bell was in college, over ten years ago. Remember the 2 a.m. cravings? And I wondered how I gained the freshman 15. Bingo.

So my investigation revealed that the fresco menu is not really all that healthy. Sure it may be "balanced" and what I would say lower calorie compared to traditional options. But it is only healthier if you limit your intake by eating only one taco or burrito. I cannot remember a time when I just ate one taco.

Taco Bell, do us a favor. Just keep doing what you do and don't jump on the diet bandwagon. So you want to offer lower calorie portions, that is great. Just don't call it a diet.

If you want to try the fresco taco, you can grab a free coupon from their site

Who is your Hero?

Willie Nelson's heroes have always been cowboys, but for me, my heroes have been people who have touched my life in ways that they may never know. My first hero was my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Dale Beltzner who helped me develop self confidence and also taught me not to be so afraid of science and math. He is the man responsible for teaching me what it means to be a leader and I think about him often.

As I was pumping my gas this morning at our neighborhood 7-11, I ran into another of my heroes, but I many not be alone in my fondness of this individual because he is a former Olympian and a local celebrity.

This encounter made me think about heroes. So many people look to celebrities to be role models or heroes and I wondered what others thought about this. A couple of months back, I overheard someone in the supermarket complaining about what a terrible role model Brittany Spears is and how we should not buy her music or the Star magazine, which this woman was coveting (and did purchase). I just laughed to myself thinking, why do people think we should idolize celebrities? For me, I will buy Brittany's albums along with Usher and many others who may not have a pristine social life. Why? Because these artists are good at their art (or at least they have great producers who help them be good at it),and I do not look to celebrities to be role models?

Or do I? Tiger Woods was a role model to me and we all know how that one turned out. At least he is a great athlete and I can appreciate that.

My new hero though, while a celebrity, may not count as "celebrity role model" because I can talk to him, our boys are just a year apart in age and take the same gymnastics class sometimes, and we live in the same neighborhood.

So why do I find Bart Conner heroic? Here's why. He greets everyone with a smile, always. He's active in his son's life. I always see him and his wife at the park with their son or at the gym, or out and about in our community. He's also active in our community. He has worked in the area to help develop the Olympic training facility on the Oklahoma River. He's a great model of health. He doesn't look any different than he did when he was in college. He also makes me feel blessed to live in our community and he genuinely cares for other people.

Bart's wife, Nadia has always been a role model of mine for achieving the perfect 10, but as far as people go, Bart gets a perfect 10 in my book.

Anyone out there care to share their heroes with me?

Q…Q…Qdoba

You have to love a restaurant whose name starts with a Q and is not followed by a U. Too bad it’s a proper name and no able to be used in scrabble.

What I really love about this place now is that they have made some great changes to their menu. I have always like the build-your-own burrito type of joints, but really wasn’t all that in love with Qdoba’s style. I prefer the old Atomic Burrito style (boo hoo – they went out of business), which is closely familiar with Freebird (the best of all build-your-owns currently), where you get to choose your own toppings and build a burrito by looking at all the condiments and items behind the glass. It’s like Subway for burritos.

So what was my beef with Qdoba (pun intended)? First off their beef is nowhere near as good as the fresh, spicy, grilled chicken and the verde pork. But what I hated the most was you didn’t get to choose your burrito size. Since I cannot control portions on my own, I would rather someone do this for me and that is what I was looking for. I know, I know, I should just save half for later, but since they taste so good, that never works for me.

What they have always offered is the “naked” burrito, which is simply everything you want in a bowl and the tortilla on the side. This does help a bit with portion control. What I didn’t love is that they made you follow their given formula. For example, let’s say you want a chicken burrito with black beans, no rice, and you don’t want the queso, but you want the grilled veggies, etc., they didn’t offer this. While technically, they can make it that way for you (although you pay for lots of extras), they want you to follow their predetermined formula from queso burrito to poblano pesto burrito to grilled veggie burrito.

So, now not only have they given you the options to truly build-your-own, but they have a pick two option. So you can pick a naked burrito to be paired with a quesadilla or a cup of soup, etc. You should check out their menu to explore all the combinations.

What is probably more enticing is that they have added options to the kids menu to include a choice of milk or juice rather than only a soft drink and you can have black beans, applesauce or chips for the side.

For these reasons alone and their scrumptious homemade chips, I will be making more trips here. Thankfully the service at the location by our house has improved; otherwise I would have never gone back and seen such wonderful new changes.