Kids can be so much fun sometimes

Yesterday, shortly after arriving home from work, I was walking into our living room while reading some letters we had received in the mail. My son, happy to see, decided to come up to me and punch me in the lower region. You know the one, if hit it will bring a man to tears. Well it hurt as he hit me solid and I went down to one knee instantly. My wife, now holding in her laughter, was then trying to explain to my son and daughters why daddy was on the floor in so much pain. Fun times I say.

Now later on, I take my son with me to get our haircut. Before making it to the place, I dropped by the bank so that I may deposit some cheques I had. In order to keep my son happy/distracted while I tallied the amounts and endorsed the cheques, I let him hold my bank card. Well, he thought he would help daddy by inserting the card into the machine. The only problem with that is that he inserted the card into the deposit slot and not the card slot. Crap, card is now gone, and won't return until someone can open the machine. Great, so much for making a deposit. Luckily there was a phone beside the machine that connected me to a help line, who then canceled my card and have issued me a new one, which I will get in a week. In the meantime, I can't deposit my cheques, and I am now walking around with them until my new card comes in. So if you happen to see me on the street, please don't roll me!

Overall, yesterday was a fun day for me and my son, well at least it was fun for him.

Run Update

I managed to get out for a jog today, which made me happy since my last run was a little less than 2 weeks ago. If you read my last post, you know that I've been having some pains in my leg, but surprisingly that pain wasn't there when I was jogging. I did have some soreness in my right knee when I was doing my walking part, but it didn't affect my pace.

Here's the updated numbers.

			Difference
Date	Today	July 9th, 2009	13 days
Time	00:30:00	00:30:00	00:00:00
Distance (km)	3.89	4.08	-0.19
Average HR	146	154	+8
Max HR	164	171	+7
Calories Burned	472	489	-17

As you can see, I was a little slower today, which brought my HR #'s down.

Overall, I'm happy that I ran and look forward to running on Friday this week.

Aches and Pains

I must be getting older because every day I seem to find a new ache or pain on my body. It could be because of the excess weight I am walking around with, but I won't be able to tell for sure until I lose it. All I know is that lately (within the past few months) my feet, knees and legs hurt more than they use to, and considering I'm doing less exercising, I'm confused as to why that would be.

On the juicing side, I did juice yesterday and had 2 good drinks, but today I don't have any because I was exhausted last night so I didn't get around to making any. I know, finding excuses is not a good thing and I fully plan on making some juice tonight.

Holidays

Just got back from being on holidays for a week, and in a way, I'm glad to be back on a set routine. I missed taking my measurements last week, and in a way, don't want to know. After a week plus of eating bad and hardly juicing, I feel like I've gained weight. I'm going to wait until the end of the month before checking out my numbers. This way I can give myself a chance to maybe lose some of the extra pounds first.

Back to juicing tomorrow, after I get some groceries. Now to do some work!

Our dog is a trooper

Our dog, Bailey, had her 2nd check-up with the vet yesterday and it involved several needles and being implanted with the micro-chip (in case she is lost and picked up by the OSPCA). Through it all, she didn't cry, yelp, or wimper. Very proud to see our dog, who is usually scared of other dogs (bigger and smaller) was not bothered by being pricked with needles. Especially the micro-chip needle which is about the size of the end of a pen, in order to drop the chip under the skin.

She was also weighed yesterday and has more than doubled her size in the 3.5 weeks she has been with us. Glad to see that eating rocks is a great way to gain weight. Yes, she eats rocks, mostly small pebbles, but none the less they are rocks.

Outdoor festivals...

are great! If you ever get the chance to experience one, go no matter who the musicians are. You just never know when you are going to be pleasantly surprised.

Last night, my home town began it's annual Hot Air Balloon festival. Each year it runs around this time and for the 3 days and nights it is on, you get to see many hot air balloons take the sky, as well, a variety of local and radio playing Canadian musicians. Previous years have included shows by Glass Tiger, David Wilcox, Denis DeYoung, April Wine, and Theory of a Deadman. For last night's headliner, we had Amanda Marshall. It has been some years since she release a top 20 song, but none the less, she rocked it out and I was very impressed with the fact that I knew most of the songs she performed. Let's just say the lady has some pipes and puts on a decent show for all ages. Well worth the time spent watching her. Prior to Amanda hitting the stage, local favourite Graham Greer played for the couple of thousand people on hand. Graham used to be part of The Barstool Prophets who had some radio success several years ago, and now he's doing the solo (now with a full band) thing. I really enjoy his music, so any chance I get to see him play, I usually do.

The reason I say you should try and take an outdoor festival in is because they usually showcase local talent and are a great experience for the whole family. I know for us, we took our 3 kids and they were enjoying the music well past their usual bed time. Because it is outside, the music is not too loud for their young ears, and the content is usually g-rated. Finally, many of these festivals are fairly cheap. Last night's show was $15, or if you wanted to see all three nights of show, you could pay $20. You do the math, $15 for 1 night or $20 for 3.

Now tonight's headliner is Finger Eleven. I'm really looking forward to this show, and tonight the kids are staying home. Hopefully tomorrow I will post some pics from the shows.

Time to update the last time I ran to...

TODAY!

It has been almost 3 weeks (tomorrow) since my last run. During that time I've managed to lose a few pounds (~7) and boy did that help. I managed to run for 30 mins, doing 1:1s (1 min jog, 1 min walk) and had no pain what so ever. And I didn't even take any anti-inflammatory meds before going out for my run. I am very happy with my result.

To make things easier to track, I'm going to add some numbers here for this run and my last run, and each time I run I will continue to compare that run with the previous run.

			Difference
Date	Today	June 19th, 2009	20 days
Time	00:30:00	00:23:00	+00:07:00
Distance (km)	4.08	3.03	+1.05
Average HR	154	137	-17
Max HR	171	164	-7
Calories Burned	489	366	+123

As you can see, I ran a little farther and had some higher numbers due to running faster this time compared to 3 weeks ago.

All in all, I'm happy with this run and look forward to getting out again tomorrow.

Harsh

That is how I would explain today's vegetable juice. It contains Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Vidalia Onion, parsley and garlic and I may have mixed up the quantities as all I can taste is the Kale with a hint of onion. For those who don't know, Kale has a very bitter taste to it, making it hard to swallow. I've made it through 3 mouthfuls and I am done. Thankfully I only have half a liter of this stuff to throw down the drain.

On the other hand, my fruit juice consists of Oranges, Carrots, Apples and Ginger, which I have tried before and know I will like.

Oh well, live and learn.

Update of my numbers

So I took my measurements on the weekend and I was quite surprised. Since I started drinking these juices each day (over 3 weeks ago), I've managed to lose 7 lbs. That is a little more than 2 lbs per week, which fits nicely within a healthy way of losing weight. You always hear about people who can drop 5-10lbs per week, the first couple of weeks they started dieting, but then gain it back shortly after stopping the diet. I really don't want to be one of those people, and it is not healthy to lose large amounts of weight all at once. It is better to let your body re-adjust to its new weight gradually so that your metabolism works with the weight you currently have. I really don't consider what I'm doing to be a diet, as I had some "bad" food for me this weekend, but I still drank my juices. I'm looking at this juicing as a way to control my hunger, add healthy nutrients to my body, and lose some weight without starving myself.

For my other measurements, I did lose 0.5 inches off my waist, I lowered my upper blood pressure number, but my lower number and heart rate were a little higher than usual. Not sure why, but I will continue to monitor it over the next couple of weeks.

On a side note, today's vegetable juice, called Red Devil, consists of Tomatoes, Radishes, Red Pepper, Beets, Parsley and Cayenne Pepper, while my fruit juice, called Creamy Pineapple, consists of Pineapples, Mangoes, Blueberries and Yogurt.

Cayenne Pepper

That is some HOT stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I love hot food, but when you put too much, it definitely takes away from the flavour. And that is where I am right now. Today's vegetable juice is called Spiced Carrot and consists of Broccoli, Carrots, Ginger, Cinnamon, and Cayenne Pepper. It was suppose to also include Spinach but I was out, so I didn't add it. The recipe called for 1/8 tsp of Cayenne pepper, but since I more than double my ingredients I decided to add 1/4 tsp and then another 1/8 tsp. Well, right now my mouth and throat are on fire! I like it, but my juice doesn't have any other taste to it and that I don't like that. I do have a hint of ginger, but the heat over powers that pretty quickly. So be careful when adding spicy herbs to a juice as they might just affect how you enjoy it.

Bottoms up.