I went to Las Vegas for work for several days. I wasn't a fan of Vegas whatsoever, but I did something cool and ran a good portion of The Strip one morning. It's still in the 80s there, which means the mornings are in the 60s, which made it almost perfect running weather. Except for all of the dryness. My body is still recovering from all of that.

But I'd have to say that running The Strip (Scott calculated that I ran 3.4 miles on it) was one of my highlights as a runner. One of those fun runner things to do.

I've been kickboxing regularly at work and man is that a workout. Honestly, I don't do anything too fancy and my arms and my butt are always sore afterwards. I've also been trying to get some weight-lifting activity worked into my regular routine, as always. I've been doing my own form of circuit training, which goes something like this:

4 minutes of kickboxing, breaking down to two minutes per side. (One set will be a jab/cross/front kick combo, once on the left side, another on the right.)
2 minutes sprinting on the treadmill.
1 set of squats with the medicine ball (I toss a 4-lb. medicine ball up in the air and squat as I catch it)
20 sit ups on the balance ball

Rinse, repeat, using different kickboxing combinations and weight-lifting moves. I rest maybe for a minute total with each circuit. The idea is keep my heart rate up pretty high. I probably do this for 45 minutes and then I have to get in the shower and head back upstairs to work. Other days I just run, or even use the elliptical. I haven't been doing anything too amazing, just plugging along.

I see and read all sorts of things I want to write about but I just haven't gotten around to it. Things such as this week's Us Weekly cover article on Trista Sutter's (that's her name, right?) struggle - it is taking everything in me not to slap quotation marks around the word struggle right now - to go from an obese size 4 to a more acceptable size 2. I read that she doesn't feel comfortable or confident around her husband of four years because of these 10 pounds she wants to lose and then?

My head exploded.

I take serious, HUGE issue with those people who even bother to have an opinion on whether or not a woman chooses to lose weight. Everyone has their comfort zone - I'm perfectly happy carrying around an extra 10 pounds where others think I should lose more - and not everyone who watches his or her diet, and works out, is a nervous, vapid little sheep buying into the beauty myth. However? The answers Trista purportedly gave to Us Weekly make it seem as though she not only has some body image issues, but also a somewhat curious relationship with her husband if after having their baby and being wed for several years she's not comfortable around him because of the baby weight she inevitably had to gain to make the aforementioned birth happen. Plus we've got a nationwide magazine showcasing these answers as the mark of a woman taking charge of her life, and then, of course, providing diet tips.

Sigh.

Posted by Erin at 08:24 AM | filed under: Random