Friday, August 31, 2007

100 reasons to get rid of it

Did you know that most people don't use 80 percent of what they own. Eighty percent! That's a lot of stuff.

Need more incentive to start throwing stuff away? Read 100 reasons to get rid of it (Well, there aren’t really 100 reasons it's more like several reasons and lots of ways)

Looking for a place to take your old cell phones, digital camera, or computer monitor? Did you know you can trade in your old iPod and get a 10% discount on a new one? That you can trade in books or movies you don’t want anymore for ones that you do?

Some of my favorite reasons:
  • Around 23 percent of people pay late fees on bills they cannot find.
  • Because you don’t want to end up like the Bronx, New York, man who, in 2003, was trapped in his home under an avalanche of books and newspapers for two days before being rescued.
  • Because what's the worst that can happen if you throw it out?
"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
-William Morris


Read the full article in the March/April publication of Blueprint

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The Diet...fork?

OK , what?


Apparently the new "revolutionary breakthrough in dieting" is this:



The Diet Fork!!


Apparently these are the key points. The diet fork has:

  • Shorter and dulled teeth inhibiting user from grasping larger pieces of food at any one time
  • Smaller triangular shaped surface area allowing dieter to hold less food than many other forks
  • Uncomfortable grip compelling user to put fork down between bites, slowing the user's eating speed

So, make it uncomfortable and annoying and then you'll eat less?.... someone help me understand.


Monday, August 27, 2007

Morning Workout Snacks

Two days a week I go to the gym early in the morning, very early, 5:15am. Way too early to make or eat a "proper" breakfast. So, at first I tried to go sans-nourishment. Not the best idea; after 8+ hours of sleeping - OK, more like 6-7 hours. In either case, heading to the gym without munching on something means running on empty.

I still have neither the time nor the appetite for a full breakfast, but here's an idea of some of my grab-and-go morning workout snacks:
- a small handful of trail mix
- 1 graham cracker
- 1/2 an apple
- 1/2 of a breakfast muffin (more on this wonderful concoction of mine in later posts)

some other ideas from some of the ladies at fitsugar
*yogurt *banana *clementines
*small handful of cereal
*a piece of whole wheat toast (with or without peanut butter or jam)

Monday, August 20, 2007

Pear Shape

According to ivillage, my celebrity body double is J Lo, because I'm bootylicious (Beyonce being another option). Now I'm not sure if I'm more annoyed at ivillage for the lack of originality...or myself for taking the dumb quiz....

Sunday, August 19, 2007

What's in Your Snack Drawer?

It's almost Monday which means the opportunity to start yet another week off on the right foot. On Mondays I bring a bigger lunch bag than usual so I can restock my work foods. I spend about 9-10 hours a day at work and, though I'm not one to fall for the lull of the vending machine, if I'm not well prepared one step out the building's courtyard and I'm faced with more cookies, muffins, grande-mocha-frappa-with-whip-concoctions than I know what to do with.
I bring fruit, yogurt, and yummy leftovers each morning; so, though not ideal, this is what's in my snack drawer right now:



1 tube of Smarties, Cashew Cookie LaraBar (my new favorite thing), Trident whitening(peppermint...only 5 pieces left), 1 Annie Chun's Udon soup, 1/2 empty box of cranberry flavored emer'gen-C, and a LOT of tea (green, white and black);

I keep my chai tea mix, soy milk and almond butter in the office kitchen.
Whole wheat fig bars and whole wheat english muffins are in heavy rotation. Plus a square or two of scharfenberger dark chocolate.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Juice Beauty thoughts

About a month ago I bought the Juice Beauty "Organics to go" kit from Sephora. Here's my run through of getting your beauty to go - Juice Beauty style:

Sensitive Green Apple Peel: First note is that really smells like apples, real apples not apple flavoring, extract or some other artificial concoction - just apples. It has a nice, creamy consistency and was slightly tingly about 30 seconds after application. I left it on for 10 minutes. It tightened nicely but not to harshly. I could see this being a repeat purchase.


Antioxidant Serum: I liked it well enough. It has a light feel and texture going on, but I would rinse my hands afterward because i felt a residue on them, but not on my face - I know, odd. Overall, it was nice but didn't do anything special for me.





Cleansing Milk: Very mild. Honestly I'm so enamored with my current face wash that it really didn't stand a fighting chance. But, that said, I do like using it as my second night time wash. If I wear makeup I'll sometimes wash my face twice so this is nice to use the second time since it's so mild.





Oil-Free Moisturizer: OK...so,first things first. It stinks - literally, stinks. It smells like either steamed asparagus or broccoli (both lovely in their own right, but not a fragrance of choice for a moisturizer in my opinion). The label says " lightweight moisturizing antioxidant apple juice" so I was expecting a smell akin to the green apple peel. No such luck. As for how well it works, it is very lightweight, too light for me. Honestly, I only used it 4 times because I just couldn't get past the smell. Granted, the smell doesn't linger - it just makes the actual application unpleasant and rushed.

Free Bamboo Face Cloth: Nice bonus. I tucked it into my travel kit.
Overall: Although there are some nice products - and many more that aren't included in the "To Go"kit, if you're not already sold on organic face products, Juice Beauty probably won't sway you.
*originally posted May 18, 2007

Did any one really believe the "Dairy Diet" would work?

The USDA requested that the dairy industry end its ad campaign suggesting that dairy products promote weight loss. The dairy industry complied. Why? most of the studies that supported a positive correlation between diary and weight loss were funded by the dairy industry in the first place - and even then the benefits were minimal.

Don't toss your three servings of dairy a day out the window (you are getting 3 servings right?), just don't expect to shed pounds with every latte.



So, no more skinny cows well, except for the actual Skinny Cow ice creams...those are delicious and, hopefully, here to stay. yum.

Monday, August 13, 2007

New Home!!

Welcome to my new blogger home. I'm slowly moving old posts here but in the meantime you can still find the, over at: www.brownskin.typepad.com