A New Couch and a Yoga Face-Plant

 WE HAVE A COUCH!

Tah Daaaah!

  Please ignore our ill-aligned couch and rug. I can’t quite decide where I want it. I’m afraid to sit on the couch because it’s not Scotchguarded yet, but at least it’s finally here! Ryan and I ordered this couch from Rooms to Go a week and a half ago, although it seems like we’ve been waiting much longer.

   While I was waiting on the couch to be delivered, I spent most of my day writing a paper on the gifted characteristics of Rachel Carson. (It’s a great way to take a fascinating woman and break her personality into a bunch of boring little pieces.)

    I hate sitting on my butt at the computer all day. It’s not natural or healthy. (Yes, the previous sentence is a link to an post about sitting too much on a Paleo blog. Read up!) So after working on this paper until my contacts dried up, I decided to stretch out a little bit with yoga and a gymnastics stretching video. The 30 Minute Power Yoga video was intended for those who are intermediate-advanced. I consider myself intermediate, so I figured there was no harm in attempting the more challenging poses. Everything was going well until the woman, out of nowhere, folded her foot to her chest and lifted herself off the ground. No warning. This form of gravity rebellion is technically called the ‘flying pigeon’ pose. I gave it a try, and I’m sure I did resemble a pigeon. Below, I have provided a useful picture that demonstrates the discrepancy between properly executing the pose and my attempt at the pose:

                                                                   Yoga is graceful.

 So after I face-planted into my yoga mat, I shook it off and tried the other side because the girl in the video said to do the other side. Nope. But at least after 30 minutes of doing chaturangas (their fancy word for really long push-ups) and lunging, I was ready to play a much shorter video and stretch out my legs a bit more:

   Annnd I’ve had my butt kicked by a bunch of muscular ten year olds. So let’s talk about food! After yesterday’s post on why I follow a Paleo diet, I figured I would include a couple of simple lunch ideas. When I changed my diet last November, the first challenge I encountered was the increased amount of time it took to make breakfast and lunch. My daily breakfast of Cheerios and skim milk was replaced with scrambled eggs, avocados, and sometimes bacon. I discovered that I didn’t turn into a ravenous, fire-breathing dragon a mere three hours after breakfast. (And because breakfast was at 6 and lunch was at 12, I had a long way to go. Being a teacher doesn’t lend itself to snacking.)

    So if there are no leftovers, then lunch is cooked in the morning along with breakfast. Today’s lunch consisted of chopped red onion, bell peppers, a large handful of spinach, and chicken sausage. I threw it all in a pan and sauteed with a two heavy-handed tablespoons of coconut oil.

 Here’s another lunch from a couple of days ago. This is something that would be simple enough to throw in a lunch bag in the morning, no cooking required. I had a spring mix salad with oil and vinegar dressing, half of a leftover chicken breast, celery, and almond butter. Now before you think this meal too closely resembles rabbit food, I’ll be honest and tell you I’m pretty heavy handed with the almond butter. Veggies alone will turn me into the aforementioned fire-breathing dragon.

I often use our large cutting boards as food trays.

Tomorrow, I have the unpleasant task of scotch-guarding the couch. I think it takes a while. Don’t worry…I won’t blog about it. 

Question: If time weren’t an issue, what would you eat for breakfast everyday? (Feel free to comment by scrolling to the title of the post and clicking ‘leave a comment’ or scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of the page to comment.)

Good night!