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Yael’s Variety Hour: Stress, Addiction and Conscious Living

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Today’s weekly variety hour (where I pull up my favorite posts from all corners of the internet) is a bit abbreviated. I had a very busy week, doing lots of writing and getting ready for a BJJ tournament which took place last Saturday. I do have a few posts for you, though!

Stress

Addiction

  • Is Sugar Toxic? I’ve been asking that myself. A New York Times piece by Gary Taubes, author of “Why We Get Fat”.

Conscious Living

Shameless Self Promotion

There’s a few other things in the works, and I’ll hopefully be able to announce them next week. Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave your favorite links from the week in the comments.

 

 

Yael’s Variety Hour: Fitness, Biz Skills, Poetry

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Welcome to this week’s Variety Hour–my personal pick of the most inspiring, thought-provoking, interesting or sometimes funny posts from the past seven days. Putting this list o’ lovely links together has made me a bit less depressed about Mother Nature deciding to throw a hissy-fit at the END OF MARCH. Just as the snow was melting and we were getting all excited about spring, it has to snow and turn into Winter Wonderland all over again. Boo. I’m sending Mother Nature to time out. In the meantime, here’s this week’s posts.

For Fitness Enthusiasts

  • How To Bully A Barbell. On the Other end of the spectrum, Travis Schefcik describes some strategies that may help you show the bar who’s boss.
  • The Path of the Buttercup. Ever since attending a Whole9 seminar (which I’ll write all about soon), I’ve been addicted to Dallas and Melissa’s site. This is an interesting article on overtraining vs. undertraining.
  • I Haven’t Done Shit. And that can be healthy sometimes! Not a fitness article per se, but I thought it tied in nicely. (And word on the street is that Johnny B. Truant has a mean deadlift.)

Food For Thought

  • On Blogs Being Dead is some excellent analysis by Charlie Gilkey which made me think about why I will sit down for hours with a copy of Wired but merely scan headlines on many blog posts. His is worth reading all the way through.

Poetical (Yes, it is a word! I just made it up!)

  • open up any way is moving poetry from the ever-amazing Danielle LaPorte. “engage every cell in fiercely wishing: to be seen. to be graduated. adored. valued. validated. met.” Beautiful.

Shameless Self-Promotion

  • Step Up And Face The Beast! The Beast Sled is an amazing fitness tool we developed to help you take your performance to the next level! If you want to build strength, develop speed, maximize endurance–even work on active recovery–the Beast will help you step it up a notch and get results! I could go on and on, but will just let you check it out yourself.

February Recap

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Today I’m typing from my office, where I’ve been spending most of my days (and nights) ever since I messed up my knee. Hours I’d normally spend training jiu jitsu (or cooking) have turned into sitting in front of my computer, either working or messing around online. And eating ice cream.

A month ago, I started making it a practice to spend each month getting things in order-everything from financial records and invoicing to looking at my list of annual goals and seeing how I did.

I’d also like to use this space to sum up the good and hard each month. Please do feel free to leave yours in the comments!! I’d love to hear how your February was.

The hard:

  • My knee. Although I am in great hands and do not have to get surgery, being out of the gym and dealing with various levels of immobilization has not been all that fun. And I guess it’s for the best, but attempting to reschedule an appointment due to not wanting to walk didn’t go over very well.
  • My blender motor dying while I was attempting to make pâté. Yes, we’ve since replaced the blender, but the attempted pâté bits are still taking up space in my fridge.
  • Weather. As soon as it got sunny and the snow started melting, it had to snow again, forcing me to miss the U of M vs. Iowa wrestling meet and other planned events. And then there was the fog, which made me over a half hour late to meeting a fellow freelance writer for the very first time (partially because I decided to get gas so I wouldn’t run out on the highway and get run into by some unsuspecting driver who couldn’t see jack… oh, and then I couldn’t find the gas station due to lack of visibility). Sunshine and rainbows, please?

The good:

  • Meeting friends for lunch. (I have some!) Going to a party, even. All things I took for granted before my year of forced isolation in Eau Claire.
  • Some really promising business developments. Joining professional groups and getting a bit of mentoring. My article on Ultimate Women Challenge making waves. (If you haven’t read it yet and click on that, keep in mind that lots of comments were randomly deleted in case the ones still up don’t make sense.)
  • Doing fun things with my partner in crime, including a basketball game, two local fights, ComedySportz, Irish food and the best Valentine’s Day ever.
  • Getting real furniture–a couch and a love seat. There’s still some I need to get (and the timing is always bad), but it really rounds out our living room nicely and makes me feel all adult-like.
  • My mail box. It gifts me with books, checks, postcards from Mexico and Antarctica, thank-you cards, homeopathic remedies, Onepass miles and copies of Wired and Outdoors and other great magazines.

Going forward:

For March? I’m just hoping for nice weather, quick healing, steady business and hopefully a tax refund. Celebrating my birthday this month (turning 32! eek!) and looking forward to the Whole9 seminar in Minneapolis on the 19th.

How was your February?

Yael’s Variety Hour: Football, Feminism and AOL

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Welcome to the weekly variety hour, where I pull up my favorite, most interesting, most fascinating posts of the week. Last week was all science, and this week’s news desk has distinct feminist overtones, a bit about football (and fitness), a lot about AOL, and some of my own posts from around the web.

  • The Meaning of No describes pending legislation which would change the meaning of rape to “forcible” rape.
  • Iowa Football and Rhabdo is a great post by John Welbourn about the 13 Iowa football players diagnosed with rhabdo. John Welbourn is a former player for the Philadelphia Eagles and is the real deal (even if he won’t follow me back on twitter.)

AOL has been making the news lately, with their leaked business plan and purchase of HuffPo. Here’s some cogent analysis.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Final Note

Check This Out

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I normally don’t post links to my articles during blog posts, preferring to save them for the “shameless self-promotion section” on the bottom of my weekly “Variety Hour” posts (on Wednesdays). However, I broke a story today of female fighters on contract for a martial arts reality show who (allegedly) found themselves in something which more closely resembled a hostage situation. Leaked: Ultimate Women Challenge Disaster: Filming Plagued by Lack of Food, Funds & Training tells the whole story, so if you are so inclined please do check it out and help spread the word.