Set Higher Standards by YogiRavi

So I managed to survive Thanksgiving, Vegan-style. I joned a few friends at their home. They are not vegan, but were gracious enough to accomodate me. While they made a traditional turkey (with stuffing and gravy) and pumpkin pies, everyone shared the vegan side-dishes. The vegan menu included:

* Tofurkey
* Vegan gravy
* Sage stuffing (made with vegetable shortening instead of butter)
* Rosemary mashed red potatoes (olive oil instead of butter)
* Green beans almondine (olive oil instead of butter)
* Cranberry sauce
* Salad (which noone touched!)
* Peach pie in a vegan crust (which turned out to be a disaster….so I just ate the crust!)

Had I planned a little better, I could’ve made a vegan pumpkin pie….but stuffed as it was with all the other things!

I am running behind on my goal to finish 30 books in 30 days. Lucky for me, today begins a long four-day holiday! I am not travelling either.

I should be on book #14. Yesterday I finished #6, “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. Today I finished #7, and it was a short one, Eugene Sandow’s “Health and How to Get It.”

I have six books on my bookcase that I have still not read. I figure to be done with these by Saturday. If I pick up a few more at the used book store over the weekend, I will be back on track.

No, I’m not playing XBOX, just fiddling around with my blog template. Even though Cutline is the best WordPress theme in the Galaxy, I am having some fun (and frustration) trying to get it just the way I want it.

It is about 50% of the way there. Unfortunately, my knowledge of CSS/PHP is super-low and I have hit a roadblock. I can’t figure out how to:

1. Make the entire center portion of the page (header, body text area and sidebar) have a white background. There is a 50 pixel gap between my posts and the header I can’t close!
2. Add a little more buffer space between the body text in the white area and the background.
3. Add a thin black border and drop shadow to the entire white area to further set it apart from the background.

If you happen to know how to do any of these things….pls let me know!

If only this was part of Lisa’s My Microsoft revamp!

Absolute genius. Guaranteed to make you feel good. I’m addicted.

I’ve been a bit obsessed lately about improving my weight training program. I have thrown my split-routine out the window and am now focusing on a total body working centered around compoud movements. Specifically; squats, dumbell presses, dips, rows. I also do ab work and a few sets of biceps and triceps (just for the heck it). My total workouts are 20-24 sets and take about 1 hour.

The past two workouts have really felt great. I don’t have any aches and pains, and my body maintains a good pump throughout the workout. I realize this is way to earlier to make any conclusions, but things are looking good. Thanks Jason for the recco to give this a try! If you are at all interested in weight training and fitness, subscribe to his blog.

Ultimately, total body workouts are geared toward those interested in performance gains, whereas a split routine will favor a bodybuilder more concerned with asthetics. For a performance minded individual, there is less of a need to focus on isolation exercises (curls, tri press, calves, etc). The focus is instead on compound movements, and performing these more often (i.e. 3 days a week instead of 1-2 as would happen in a typical 3 day split routine).

Cassandra talks about this subject, and references a great article on T Nation about the merits of each. Alwyn also has an interesting perspective on the matter.

Which method of training is right for you? I really think this quote on Alwyn’s blog sums it up:

“Even at an elite level of athleticism, there are only 10% of people who need to stress over the details. Most people think they’re there when they’re not. You have to understand whether you’re a part of the 90% or the 10%.” -John Berardi

For me, I was trying to train like a bodybuilder, when I lacked the basic platform of strength and mass to get any good from it. The result was injury and slow gains. We’ll see if my body responds better to a total body routine.

Hearing Howard Lyman speak at the Vegan Holiday Festival got me thinking about dairy. Howard emphatically stated that the number one thing every person must do to save their health, is to stop consuming dairy products. Dairy, in his view, was much much worse than chicken, seafood or beef. As Howard was a 40-year cattle rancher, I was surprised that this would be his #1 recommendation to those on the standard American diet.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tanya just let me know that today is a great day to set intentions. In fact, it is also a great day for letting go and discarding things that have been festering inside this little head of mine for far too long. I never liked festering things anyway. Just saying the word makes my skin crawl. I am looking forward to making some space. More room for growth in a positive direction. Wow, if I knew this day was coming, I wouldn’t have had to bother with all that fasting!

The event was a huge success. No one would have guessed that Robert came up with the idea only 10 weeks ago. I would estimate a couple thousand people showed up, in what just might have been the largest Vegan-specific gathering in North America! There was plenty of food, free samples and great information.

Read the rest of this entry »