What It Means to be a San Francisco City Girl This Week

THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES! YAYYYYY!!!!!

I have home town love for my teams, win lose or die. But it sure is fabulous when we win!
Being a city girl this week also comes with the usual school (midterms!), work (interviews for a promotion!) and getting a Halloween costume (I don't have time to shop!.) I did however manage to do okay in all three departments, and - despite being at work during Game 7 - managed to watch the last three minutes with a crowd of fellow gym-goers as we caught the last out.

I got off work at 9:30pm, and when I walked outside ten minutes later, it was like New Years Day. Horns honking, fireworks going off, random loud explosions, and of course - bus schedules disrupted. My friend had called me about 9pm to meet her downtown with the celebration in the streets. This of course sounded like fun, but the reality was I knew the "celebration" was going to get out of hand, and I was all the way across town with buses that weren't coming for awhile.

Home was my destination, with a full backpack of school books, a change of regular clothes, some interview clothes, and my empty lunch box that I cram 3 meals into every day. I tried on my Halloween costume for the first time, and realized I needed some white stockings to complete my Dorothy outfit. By the time this was done, I needed to finish unpacking and repack my lunch for work the next morning. My 20 minute Pilates DVD I've been trying to do at night would have to wait another day. It was time to decompress, so that I could be refreshed to get up and do it all over again.

Congrats Giants! Got another interview tomorrow. Happy Halloween everyone!

~ Samantha Marie

Being Healthy is Not a Part Time Job

And sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I get so excited and comfortable with my happy contentment of health that I ease up a little too much. Sure, that cupcake won't kill me. Heck, I'm low on carbs, I can eat those free cookies at work. I love pizza. I eat healthy the rest of the time...

There's nothing wrong with these thoughts by themselves of course. The problem comes when you say these things to yourself more & more frequently. Then the next thing you know you're having the second caramel apple ever in your life two days in a row and haven't kept up your food logging this week and wonder why your body all of the sudden feels like you're coming down with something.

The caramel apple was pretty good though.

Halfway through my shift at work today my body was screaming for nutrients. My skin feels achy when things like this happen... That I know I need a high dose of veggies, some tea, probably some homemade soup, and definitely a decent amount of sleep with a day of relaxation. When it was time for me to clock out tonight, that's pretty much all I wanted to do. Planned gym-time had to be set aside as I stopped by the grocery store on my way home to pick up a couple essentials.

On my way a small light bulb came on: My detox drink. Now hold your horses: I'm not using the phrase "detox drink" as some magical potion that's going to make you instantly healthy or thin or clean you out like the million detox drink fads claim. Nature has its little helpers for things like this.

Let's start with the basics:
Water. Duh. Drink lots of it. Put stuff in it. What stuff?

Lemons / Lemon Juice: 
Lemons are high in Vitamin C, which helps your immunity to help ward off things like colds & infections. It is an antioxidant which helps prevent inflammation, heart issues and cancer. It is an assistant to our liver - which is one of our two main organs (the other being our kidneys) that actually does our body's detoxing. It is also a natural disinfectant.

When people say, "We don't need to take anything special to detox, our body does that on their own." Well, they are both right and wrong. Our body DOES cleanse itself, but it needs help, aka instructions on how to do this. It doesn't make sense to think you can chug as much alcohol as you want and your body will clean all of it out for you with no issues forever, right? Your body knows what to do, but you still have to help it, not hurt it.

Cayenne Pepper: 
I try to sneak this in almost anywhere I can on a daily basis: In my egg whites for breakfast, my quinoa for lunch, my chicken or pasta for dinner. It is one of the most potent anti-inflammatory ingredients for health, great for metabolizing food and digestion. This temporary increase in metabolism produces a thermal effect which naturally helps the body speed up its detoxifying process. Cayenne is also noted to help blood pressure & prevent the formation of blood clots.

Apple Cider Vinegar:
Fights bacteria, improves digestion & metabolism, strengthens the immune system and prevents UTIs.

And here is what I gather around my kitchen to make my own detox drink. It may not taste fabulous, but it does the job! I caught the flu for my first time in years this past January, and I was able to start getting over it within a matter of days after I started drinking this. More to follow!

I Seriously Cannot Be Uninspired

With everything going on in my mind, and everything I want to accomplish, including many short term goals, am I really uninspired to blog? Or is it writer's block? Or maybe it's just me being my usual indecisive self.

It took me a long time to finally start a blog even though I had wanted to for a couple years. It's definitely not how I imagined it - though my expectations were probably unrealistic. Am I supposed to have something super fabulous and organized to say every day? Somehow, I thought I would without even thinking about it. That is obviously not the case.

I could talk about my possible new experiments with using a Croc-pot, which aren't that inspiring other than the fact I am currently attempting to make carrots taste like sweet potatoes downstairs.

I could talk about how my mom finally turned to me a little over a week ago to make her a food & meal plan to start getting her health better (thanks Mom!) She has gone through some recent issues with blood clots and such.

I'm slightly overwhelmed with my last class for this semester, when I am normally awesome amazing in all my psychology classes. Neuroscience is interesting, but remembering terminology for words that I cannot spell or pronounce was never my strong point.

There is the patience that is my day job... The limbo of being promoted but waiting for the right thing to come along that is taking too long. It definitely has not helped me with my sleep issues, that's for sure.

Of course, there is the wonderful fact that it's about to be the start of the holiday season, with Halloween just 10 days from now and I still haven't found a costume. I wanted to be something uber cute and girly this time, so I had been hunting for a Dorothy costume.

But I would really like to distract myself with holiday drink recipes and pictures of hot fitness chicks in some motivational quote photos.

The Giants are in the World Series (yay!)
I have a good friends' housewarming BBQ this weekend.
I'd like to make it to my mom's for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
I'm in the process of planning the Annual Vegas in January (aka my birthday.)
It would be really nice if I had someone to rub my feet after a long day of working.
And I'm pretty sure these carrots in the Croc-Pot downstairs aren't going to turn out anything like sweet potatoes.

Well, I think this will conclude my ADD-type blog post. I will now attempt to get much better sleep tonight and hopefully have a more organized train of thought tomorrow.

~Samantha

Simple Core Workouts? There's an App for That!

Okay, so maybe there's like 75 million apps for that.

But with working at a gym, having Pilates DVDs at home, and knowing all the other cool stuff you can already do, why would I turn to an app for some core exercises?
Because sometimes you do want the basic & simple stuff. Sometimes at your gym it's too busy & everyone is hogging your equipment or space but you really want to get some abs in. And sometimes you don't really want to get out your DVD... or really do much of anything but you remind yourself: 10 minutes of abs is better than 10 minutes of no abs.

There are lots of free apps, and some paid ones. There have been one or two apps that I really liked the free version so much, that I upgraded to premium for like $2.99. Mind you though, I've probably easily tried at least 50 different exercise apps over the past few years, and that's not including all the other fitness related apps I've tried.

One of my favorites is called "Daily Workouts", which has individual exercises for body parts like your abs, legs, and chest along with cardio and full body workouts. With about 8 different exercises in a workout, you can choose levels 1 or 2 (level 3 is available on the full version) and length of time per workout, usually 5, 8 and 10 minutes, with 30, 45 and 60 seconds per exercise, respectively. Choose two levels for 5 minutes each and you'll have yourself a nice little burn after only 10 minutes, or double the time for 20! These are great to fit in just before bed or on your lunch break. I do these on my lunch break most Wednesdays (when my lunch falls into a very busy time period at my gym) so that's why I am sharing this today. :)

Search for other ab workout apps too: "Instant Abs," "Ab Workouts", "Daily Burn", and "Blogilates" are a few other good ones worth checking out that I currently have on my phone.

You can also, of course, make your own! Write down 10 different types of ab exercises, and challenge yourself to do each one for a certain length of time, like 30, 45 or 60 seconds.