Starting the Week Off With a Bang

You only need 20 minutes for today's new, fun, super tough kettlebell cookie cutter workout. Let's get it done...

This workout is 3 rounds of:
20 kettlebell pendulum swings
20 kettlebell jump squats
10 knees to feet + jump tuck + pushup
30 kettlebell swings

It took me 19 minutes to complete all 3 rounds, leave me a comment and let me know how long it took you and if you totally destroyed my time.

I posted on instagram that I successfully made some amazing vegan cannoli this weekend for boyfriend and I. I combined a vegan pizzelle recipe and the filling portion of a vegan cannoli recipe to make them. I ran out of filling for the last couple though, so I just filled them with peanut buter and mini chocolate chips, much to boyfriend's delight. I made them to go with dinner of butternut squash ravioli and homemade vegan meatballs. I love making vegan Italian foods that are just as delicious and even more nutritious than the conventional, such a win win.

Much to my dismay, though, upon making breakfast quinoa for myself today, I happened to glance at the ingredient list on the back of my bag of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and was horrified to find that at some point (seemingly in the last few months) they added whole milk powder back into the ingredients. These were a known vegan product, touted across the internet as such for many years, why they would include this unnecessary ingredient back into this product is beyond me. Keep milk out of non milk chocolate varieties of chocolate, it just isn't necessary! It also further isolates vegan customers and forces us to purchase much more expensive brands, or horror of horrors, forgo consumption of chocolate chips; and that, my friends, is not an option. But I've been unknowingly eating these for some time and I feel betrayed. I hope my other fellow vegans have already been made aware of this and aren't just finding out like I am. Sad situation. Just have to be more vigilant about always reading labels, even of trusted products. Always better to be safe and sure. 

​I'm also working harder to make sure I'm eating enough protein and other vital nutrients each day. I've really been working hard and fatiguing my muscles lately and I want to properly facilitate healing and growth with ample protein; I also want my hair to have enough nutrients to be thicker and fuller, because right now I don't believe it does. Your hair is made entirely out of the very strong protein keratin, which is so strong it cannot even be broken down in the hydrochloric acid of your stomach. (Apologies if the remainder of this paragraph makes anyone squeamish, it is a little graphic.) Have you ever heard the stories about people who have eaten/swallowed so much hair that it collected into a ball that got stuck wedged inside their stomach? This is what happens because no part of our body has the enzymes necessary to break it down and digest it. I believe cats are the same way, and this is why they regurgitate the fur they inadevertently swallow from grooming, and unfortunately too why I've personally had to pull accidentally ingested human hairs out of my cat's ass that got stuck after passing a stool. And I have watched my cat chew up a live baby mouse and then just carry on normally with her day to no ill effects, so cat GI tracts are a lot tougher than ours, and even theirs can't handle it.

​We've got to give our bodies the proper nutrients to keep them growing strong. My reading up on this recently also has me recognizing the importance of iron, Vitamin C, biotin, omega 3 fatty acids, Vitamin E, and Vitamin A in supporting healthy hair growth. Iron helps oxygen travel throughout the body through the blood, where it is delivered to your tissues, including hair; so having enough iron is critical for giving your body the resources to do this. Vitamins C, A, E, biotin, and omega 3 fatty acids are all essential for further maintaining the health of the hair and scalp in a variety of ways. I don't need to get crazy detailed here, just suffice it to say that a varied diet matters so that we get all of the nutrients we need for carrying out all our body processes and maintaining the health of all our cells and bodies as a whole. I hope I can make some noticeable progress in this area in the weeks and months to come, I'll keep you posted! And I'll let you guys know when I finally run again too. It snowed all weekend and it's been too cold for it to even melt much, so hopefully later this week, it's supposed to warm up the next few days. Until then I hope you enjoy the new workout, let me know.