Daisy Do No Coffee

Hi guys! When I got my I-don’t-know-how-manyth cup of coffee from the machine at work this week, I knew what my next focus of the month should be. I really have to cut back on coffee intake on work days. First of all, because too much coffee is just not good for you and second because that coffee is just plain groce. It’s only doable because I drink it with milk powder and artificial sweeter (I know, that’s even worse for me).

My problem is that I just seem to need the caffeine kick it gives me, because I just find myself in a dip somewhere during the morning and again in the afternoon. Another problem is that once I start on the coffee I don’t switch back to tea or water. This easily results in over 5 cups a day..and in an upset stomach.

Now, I do not want to cut coffee out of my life entirely, but it should be reduced. But I would be happy if I manage to drink only 2 cups a day and maybe even reduce to 1.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you the new focus of the month:

Daisy Do No Coffee!

 

Image edited from the original found here

The rule is: max 2 cups of coffee a day, but preferably only 1.

Here is how I am trying to make this work:

- Go to bed in time. No being sleep deprived should help a lot. Try to get 7.5 hours a night and take powernaps after work if needed.
- Have good alternatives available: put a bottle of water on my desk, have my favorite tea flavors available
- Tell my roommates of the challenge
- If I stick to the rule, I can buy one of those delicious coffees from the coffee bar downstairs on Friday afternoon.

In other news, I went partying with a bunch of girls Friday night and am still very tired. I am really getting old…not because I am still tired because I have always had that since I started going out to bars, but because everyone in those bars is so young!
Anyway, to start of the focus of the month well…and not fail the first day already…I am going to bed now!

Good night everybody!

How much coffee do you drink each day? Do you consider that too much?

Daisy Do Zen: Evaluation

Somewhere in December I made up the Daisy Do focus of the month series. Let’s review the first focus: Daisy Do Zen. I know it has been a long month, but with the holidays and me being all lazy and all (and busy, but I don’t consider that an excuse: you have to make time for stuff), it just took me a little longer to evaluate how it went.

In short, I liked yoga but was not so much into meditation. When I tried to meditate I either got distracted and ended up daydreaming or I fell asleep. So, unless meditation is the same as daydreaming it did not really work. But… there is a variant that does work and that is when I practice yoga or sometimes when I am stretching after working out. My mind does go kind of blank at those times and I am just focusing on how my body feels and being in the present. So, I guess that meditation and yoga are sort of the same thing for me.

I enjoyed doing yoga. It relaxes me and I like what it does for my flexibility. I still think it is pretty hard to do and I am really bad at it, as you can judge by my version of the downward dog here:

 

I do have a spectator though hahaha!

I really do no like that pose at all! It comes back way too often during yoga sessions and it hurts my arms. However, I think that the injury in my shoulders that I was developing didn’t really help with that either. During my last sessions I exchanged the downward dogs for child’s pose but with my arms next to my legs. I really like that position! I also like sun salutations and warrior pose.

In conclusion, I am going to keep practicing yoga. I think it is a great addition to my overall work out schedule. Some days I don’t feel like an intense cardio class or lifting weights. Or I shouldn’t do any of those to prevent overtraining. But getting a nice relaxing stretch is something I can do those days…as you can see I am not really into the poweryoga stuff yet.

I am currently not doing yoga, to protect my shoulders until I now what is wrong exactly and what helps curing it and what does not. But as soon as it gets better I will pick it up again. I hope to show you a better downward facing dog in the future!

Stay tuned to see what my new Focus of the month will be…

Exercise stats

I love having overviews of things: making tables, calculating averages etc. Yes, I know…I am a nerd…as most bloggers, lol!

I used to track my workout on Breaking the Tape, but I changed to a Google spreadsheet this year, because Breaking the Tape is mainly convenient for running, biking and other sports that have a mileage.  But you can’t do much with it when you do other sports. I am still working on showing my workouts on this blog again.

But anyway, here are some stats of my workouts from the end of July until December 31th 2009:

• I cycled 50k – that could me a lot more…
• I walked 25k – … let’s not compare that to 2008 when I trained for an event and walked about 500k plus 200k for the event itself.
• I ran 130k – Go me! I am so proud of that! I ran 32 times, which is amazing because I have never run in my entire life!

In total, I did 90 workouts in 5 months, which is about 1 workout every other day! I spent quite some time in the gym:

• 4 hours of swimming – I picked up swimming with a friend from college. We’re not swimming fast, but it is fun.
• 3 spinning classes – fell off the spinning wagon, I guess I got a bit bored with that class, and there were so many other fun things:
• 12 hours of Zumba – I love it!
• 17 hours of Body Combat – my new addiction
• 13 hours of Body Pump – I like being a girl with some strength.

I am looking forward to see how I do in the next months. I have to be a bit careful, because I think my new addiction has screwed up my shoulders a bit. I will have to take it easy a bit for a couple of weeks to see if they heal by themselves.

I’ll be back soon with a full recap of my focus of the month!