Foodie Penpals February Reveal

So - I decided to join my love of food and love of letters/postcards/written mail. Through twitter and the blogverse, I discovered Foodie Penpals!

This month the person I received my wonderful box from was Rachel of Passing Daisies out of Ohio!

I could not be happier with my experience. It was so fun to shop for my penpal, and to receive such a well put together box on my door step!

My favorite item of the bunch:

I had never tried these, and even though they are sugar coated, they don't make your tongue raw like sour patch kids! I started eating them as soon as I got them out of the box, but then saved them for our evening movie plans. The movie, Safe House, and the candy, were a hit!

I also got a ton of cool drink items:

The mix of tea bags in a mason jar was an awesome idea that I might be stealing for an upcoming foodie pen pal!

On-The-Go Snacks:

I really love the Fruitzio freeze dried fruit. There is a ton in that pack and only 100 cals - for the win! I also got a super cute valentine and a ton of fun suckers :) Perfect for February!

Hearty Snacks:

I already love seaweed snacks, but I had never tried this brand, so it is good to know I universally love them. The Snyder's were also an existing favorite, and you can never go wrong with trail mix!

All in all I was so excited to get my first foodie pen pal box, and Rachel did not disappoint!

The person I sent my box to does not have a blog, but here is a portion of the email she sent me:

"I wanted to write when I was able to try everything. I absolutely love that you can go right outside and pick some fruit off a tree. I don't know if it was just in my head, but the oranges tasted much better than the ones in the grocery store. :) I was excited to see the Justin's peanut butter products. I always wanted to try them and now I will be able to. The ostrich meat stick peaked my interest. The one time I was in CA, we went to an ostrich farm near San Diego. I do have to say it was pretty tasty. The fortune cookies & roasted seaweed were very good. I love seaweed snacks and it was great to be able to compare different brands. Truthfully, I wasn't a huge fan of the bin-bin rice crackers which surprised me but my friend loved them. I'm looking forward to trying the See's candy and the TCHO candy bar. I haven't had a chance to try to jam yet but can't wait to. I really need to get to the store to buy bread. :) I think my favorite is the chocolate toffee pistachios. They rock! I'm trying not to eat a whole lot at one time so they will last longer. :) You definitely have a lot of tasty food in your area. Thank you so much for sharing it all with me."

I really wanted to send local products, so I am glad she enjoyed it. I had trouble sending a "full" box for $15, so I am glad the oranges were a hit since they were free for me to send!

If you want to participate in Foodie Pen Pals next month here is some information about the awesome program that Lindsay over at The Lean Green Bean has set up.

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.

-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!

-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!

-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)

-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.

-Foodie Penplas is open to US & Canadian residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We've determined things might get too slow and backed up if we're trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I'm going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

If you’re interested in participating for March, please send an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com and include the following information:

-Your full name

-Your email address

-Your blog name/address

-Your twitter handle (if applicable)

-WHETHER YOU ARE A US RESIDENT OR CANADIAN RESIDENT. - this is SUPER important so you get on the right list!

You must submit your information by March 4th as pairings will be emailed on March 5th!

***PLEASE NOTE: if you send an email, you WILL GET A RESPONSE within 48 hours. If you don''t....please re-send your email or contact Lindsay via Twitter (@LeanGrnBeanBlog). Last month we had a few emails get lost as spam so we're trying to avoid that!

#GoOrGive Month 2, Wk 1 Update

Hi All,

I know this is coming a bit late, but things have been a bit hectic.

I wanted to update you on my progress. With the help of some friends and loved ones both in real life and on the interwebs, I did much better last week than any other week in the month of December!

I only missed my challenge 1 day last week, and frankly I was spending time with a friend from out of town so it was worth it. Two days last week I went on walks late at night (after 9pm) to ensure I got my 10K steps. Luckily I had some good walking partners, and it made it that much easier.

Also, on Saturday, my girlfriend and I walked about 2.5 miles round trip to brunch! What an easy and fun way to get my steps in on the weekend! Are there places in your routine where you could walk to a location rather than drive?

So far this week I am off to a good start. I am hoping I can keep it up through the weekend.

I have also joined the #plankaday movement and have increased my plank time by 20 seconds!

Until next week...

#GoOrGive January 2012

Well, I wanted to give a quick update about #GoOrGive.

My December effort was less than stellar for a variety of reasons, which all come down to the fact that I wasn't quite ready to really get back into the grind of fitness and health. Don't get my wrong, parts of it I love, but it is something I have to work at. It doesn't come easy, or naturally to me.

All that said, I did not meet my goals of both going to the gym and reaching 10,000 steps on 16 occasions in December. As a result I owed the Make It Safe Project $80, which I paid. :) On a positive note, what is sure to be my poorest effort will benefit a great organization. I also have some books to donate, so hopefully I will get around to mailing those out soon.


In doing some self reflection, I have decided to post weekly how I did, it gives me a visual reminder of how much I owe and I think having to publicly (is anyone even reading this?) admit I missed more than a day or two in a given week will keep me on track. I also have an awesome new twitter accountability partner from the #livewellNOW/Fitfluential twitter crews. I hope both posting weekly, and having some daily encouragement will keep me on the right track.

Now, for the January charity: Planned Parenthood. This one was picked by my best friend, (I am taking suggestions for future months) and I think it is a good one, especially in a political climate where it is getting harder and harder for women to get the services they want and need. Instead of donating to a local chapter, I am going to donate to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, because it makes the lawyer part of me happy inside.

Go Or Give December Organization - Make It Safe Project

The first charity I have chosen for Go Or Give is the The Make It Safe Project. This organization was started by a 14 year old girl named Amelia Roskin-Frazee. Now, the fact that I'm a lesbian bookworm makes this months choice seem like an easy pick, but it goes beyond that.

I heard about The Make It Safe Project from a link on twitter and subsequently found these two news stories here and here (you can find more press and interviews here). It came on a day when I was seriously questioning whether there was any humanity and compassion for one another left in the world. Really I was having a crisis of hope. Then, out of nowhere comes this story about a young woman who was full of hope. Hope that people can change; that LGBT people won't always be treated as less than; that LGBT teens would stop killing themselves if they could just feel a little less alone. I also think founder Amelia Roskin-Frazee and I share the belief that books can change you.

I can pin point major turning points in my life around literature and I can only hope my donation to this more than deserving cause will get a book into the hands of an LGBT teen struggling somewhere and be the turning point in their lives.

I will also be donating some book along with the cold hard cash. My shelves runneth over.

If you need to request books for your school, or would like to donate, do so here.

As far as the GO part of Go Or Give - today was a challenge. I had a packed day, as I was getting sworn in and am now officially an attorney at law (just waiting for that stinking bar number)! I did finally reach my 10,000 steps around 9:30pm, which is less than ideal, but I'll take it.

Have my gym clothes all laid out for the morning, so that is progress too. As Dory would say, "just keep swimming, just keep swimming."

Go Or Give

I started my fitness journey nearly 4 years ago, January 15th, 2008. I was a high school athlete, but to be honest, aside from the skill related to my sports I knew nothing about nutrition or gym training. In 2008 I was working for a public university and had the opportunity to go to a free health evaluation where my cholesterol was tested and I was weighed, etc. I didn't really see myself as unfit, despite my recent purchase of size 18 work pants. I weighed 195lbs all through high school, even while playing tennis in 100+ degree heat. I maintained my sub 200lb weight all through college. But, then I found myself in a sedentary job in the middle of winter where I used the cold as an excuse to take the bus the 1 mile to work rather than walking it. My wake-up call came that day when I weighed in at 208lbs. Passing the 200lb mark was the wake-up call I needed.

I ended up joining a gym I love, and desperately miss to this day. I was a faithful 7am bootcamper every day for nearly 8 months until I started law school in a new city (the one I still reside in). My transition to law school and a new city went smoothly, but over the last 3 or so years my fitness journey was severely derailed.

I took a trip to New York to celebrate graduation and taking the bar. On that trip I decided to dust off my pedometer and bring it along to see how many steps/miles we were logging in the city. Since my return, I have continued to use it, and it has become painfully obvious that I once again find myself in a sedentary job. I love my job as an attorney, law school debt and all, but I primarily sit in front of a computer or in front of clients. Over a two week test period I logged less than 2000 steps on average during my work day. Wow.

Part of my failed fitness journey has been my (mis)fortune to have discovered my dream gym on the first go around. I have looked far and wide and have not been able to duplicate my experience. I am convinced that the style of training, intensity, camaraderie, and general badassery only exists in one place: Albany, CA.

So, since I wont be moving back there any time soon, I decided to make a list of the things I loved about my old gym where I was successful in losing 36 pounds in 8 months:
- Focus on lifting weights/practical applications of strength training
- Variety
- Consistency
- Friendship/Sense of Community

Other things that kept me on track:
- It was expensive (missing on day of bootcamp was like $30)
- I knew people would be asking me the next morning where I was the day before
- I logged all my food on fitday on my computer throughout the day
- I checked mizfit's blog every morning for inspiration and wisdom

Some of the things I know to be true are that fitness is hard work, it can be fun, but often it is not something I am looking forward to. I have failed to do it "on my own" many times. I need to make it a routine. I have not found that fitness buddy that might make a difference for me and keep me accountable. I let people around me enable me. I need a penalty of some sort for not sticking to my goals. At my old gym that came in the form of a monetary penalty as well as friends not letting me off the hook for skipping.

Out of all of this self analysis, I think I have come up with a plan that will work for me.

I am going to call my program Go Or Give (aka #GoOrGive). Essentially, I need to go workout, and if I don't my penalty will be in the form of a $5 donation to a charity. I chose $5 because it is an amount that will add up, but it also won't bankrupt me, and it is about the cost of a latte these days, so I will have to skip the latte if I skip my workout (which will probably be beneficial anyway). I will donate at the end of each month. I want to donate at least $20 to each chosen charity, so if I have been on track and have not reached $20 by the end of the month, I will donate the $20 regardless. I will feature my charity of choice at the beginning of each month (taking suggestions via twitter and email), and will link to them on the side of my blog through the month. The nice thing about this is that people can modify this to work for themselves, you can easily chose to put your penalty $ in your savings account rather than donate to charity if that is what you chose. You can chose $1 or $10 per penalty, whatever you think will work for you.

The Goals:
1. Complete a 30+ minute work 5 out of 7 days (gym, yoga, cycling, etc.)
2. Walk 10,000 steps a day regardless of it being a heavy workout day or not

There are a few other things I want to try to work on as well, but these are over time. I know I cannot fix everything at once.
1. Drink at least 64oz. of water a day and only 1 cup of coffee
2. Make one protein smoothie a day
3. Get back into Kettlebell workouts
4. Do one unassisted pull-up (big ups for Bartendaz)
4. Try running again

As far as how I will keep connected, and keep it fun, my partner recently bought me and UP Band by Jawbone which will allow me to track tons of stuff on my iPhone including my sleep, my steps, food, and other goals. I can also connect with other UP Band owners, which including my friend, mom and boss. I am committed to reconnecting in a serious way with the blog world and drawing support and inspiration from the fitness community. I will also be tracking my progress on twitter via #GoOrGive.

Go Or Give Launches tomorrow: Dec. 1, 2011!