Hi Friends!  How was your day?  Mine was good because I got my hair done.  The last time I had it done was the end of May in advance of my June 5th bodybuilding show in Phoenix.   Rather than going back to the salon in San Diego that I used to go to (here’s why in my Cheating on Your Stylist Post), I decided to try a new salon and new stylist based on randomly seeing a girl’s hair who I thought looked good and this is where she told me she goes.  More in This Post  

The rates for the stylist I saw today are about half of what I was paying at my Previous Salon before I moved from San Diego to Phoenix last year so that’s nice. 

Which left money to splurge on this leave-in conditioner/detangler.  I have wavy hair that is prone a tanglefest!

  If it doesn’t work, you better believe I will be returning it.

Anyway, here’s my Color.  It feels so good to be freshened up!  

I was feeling so blah with blah hair.  It’s amazing how better hair = better mood!

If only my hair was like this.

Moving Onto My Shopping Stash that I picked up over the weekend…

TJ’s Dark Sumatra, Dates, and Raisin Medley mix are staples for us

And then I picked up this bag of Rice Cakes Multigrain Fiber Crisps on sale for 99 cents.  I was all excited until I realized…

Nothing a little Mango Cocoa Butter Body Wash can’t fix.  Smells Delicious!

Also at Target, I saw a Cheap Body Spray that I couldn’t pass up.   

And I found this gum which I’ve had before.  It’s fine, very subtle, but yummy.

From Yesterday…
Thanks for your congratulations about getting a Bowflex and setting up my Home Gym!

I am so happy to have this as an option!   I really enjoyed working out, at home, on my timetable and not rushing to beat the ever-closing childcare at the gym, and not feeling rushed today.   It was one of those days with my salon trip that chasing off to the gym would have been just another ugh moment.

I hope all of you who wrote in and said you don’t have the space now but in the future, you’d love to have a home set-up of some sort.  I hope you can Do it!   Our place in San Diego is small and I am sacrificing storage space and I had to donate some clutter in order to get this to fit my garage, but it’s worth it to me! 

And look who worked out next to me in the garage today:  A Snail

Thanks for filling me in yesterday, too, about how much research you like to do on things.  It seems some of you are research-aholics, and peruse Consumer Reports for the last 10 years like it’s your job..hah!  Whereas others of you are more the fast and furious approach.  Once you know you want something, you read everything you can on it, for a few days, but make a fairly quick decision on it.  I would say, I’m more the later, but can also fall prey to being a research-aholic!

Dessert:  Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting Drizzle

 

Gym & Weights Workout Today From This Tab: Back/Abs

I’m still working on getting faster with the Bowflex’s cables and pulleys and transitioning from one exercise to the next.  I can already tell that it’s biggest con, is the transitioning and re-configuring the cables but like anything, I will get faster with some practice.   For the price paid, the versatility of how many different exercises I can do with it, and the convenience factor of having it as an option to workout at home, I can’t complain!
 

Tip of the Day:  My Ani Phyo Raw Essentials Cookbook Give Away!

Questions
1. Have you ever eaten Snails?  Would you?  Or have you eaten any “exotic” or unusual foods?  I realize the definition of exotic and unusual is very fluid and not standard based on geographical region, ethnicity, etc, but hopefully you get my drift.

No Way! for me with the snails.  However, during my make-exception-to-eating-fish-when-going-out-for-sushi-with-friends kind of vegetarian days in my early 20s I did use to love unagi (eel).   Eel sauce is so good.  No vegan hate mail with any undies up in a bunch, please.

I’ve never had durian which I am told is good, but really stinky.  No thanks to stinky food.  I have enough issues just handling the smell of garlic.  Which to me is stinky!  It’s that fluid definition thing: one persons ewww is another person’s yum!

2. Reading Labels.   I have food allergies and consuming gluten throws my body for a real loop and I feel pretty awful for about a week after being glutened.    It’s been 5+ years since I have been GF and most of my diet is whole, raw plants or food I make myself.  However, I do eat some food I can’t make from scratch, I mean, I do have a life and need to buy some food every now and then, that I can’t make. 

When I do purchase food not made in my kitchen, I always read the labels.  Always.  The problem arises when foods are labeled as GF or Dairy Free or Vegan or Soy Free or Tree Nut Free, but they really are not.  Either because the company doesn’t test properly, or they do test, don’t care, and mislabel things anyway because there is no governing body really enforcing truthful and proper labeling in food.   

Katie sent me This Article which discusses testing issues:

“Even companies that do explicitly label their products as gluten-free, she said, might not always test products they assume won’t contain any gluten. The study “is a wake-up call to the food industry,” said Kupper. Companies “need to make sure (their products) are truly gluten-free.”Without an FDA regulation in place, there is still no hard-and-fast government definition of what gluten-free means, Thompson said.
That makes it harder to keep companies that might skimp on their testing accountable.
“It’s hoped but certainly not assumed that manufacturers who are putting the (gluten-free) label on their single-ingredient grains and flours are testing their ingredients,” Thompson said. “Do all manufacturers test? Probably not.”"

I can tell from my own experience that the Food Should Taste Good Multigrain Chips which are reported to be Gluten-Free, in my personal experience, they are not gluten free, enough.  I have major reactions after eating 2 chips.  I repeated this experiment (called a Food Challenge in allergy circles) 3 times over the course of 2 weeks and anecdotally can say for me, they are not gluten-free, enough.  Maybe they pass certain testing limits, but not all.  Whereas with Mary’s Crackers, also labeled as GF, I am totally fine with and have never had a reaction.

Which begs the question, why is it ok for food companies to sell, distribute, and mislabel or inaccurately label what’s in the food they’re selling?  It this because food allergies are not considered “real”?  What if they omit that there’s peanuts in a product and a child had a life-threatening peanut allergy and died?  Would that get the attention of those who can enforce truthful and accurate product labeling? 

2. Do you read labels?  For what purposes?  Do you read nutritional stats, ingredient lists, either to weed out “junky” ingredients or possible allergens?  Do you have any food allergies that cause you to really have to pay attention to labels?  Do you read labels for The Wrong Reasons, i.e. to obsess about fat/calories?

3. Are you shocked by the lengthy list of ingredients in almost anything that’s store-bought? 
I know I am which is further reason I like to make whatever I can myself, but there are only so many hours in the day!

4.  Does your hair impact your mood?
I think most people will say that when their hair isn’t looking the way they want it to, that they don’t feel quite as chipper.  Then again, some people do seem truly impervious to this.  Even Scott says that when he needs a haircut, he doesn’t feel as confident.  Does bad hair automatically put you in a one-down position and feeling a little grumpy?  It does for me!

5. Did your parents try to force you to have hairstyles you hated as a kid?
My mom never wanted to let me have long hair.  She thought it would be tons of extra work for her so she made me keep it short and I wanted long hair!  I really don’t feel like Skylar’s hair being longer is any more work for me.  What, a couple minutes per day?  That’s my job as a mom…care-taking.  Who cares if it takes me a few extra minutes for her hair!  I love long hair and I think some girls can rock the short hair but it’s just not me.  I love Skylar’s long hair and Scott does too!  

Stay Tuned For The Give Away Winner!