Updates and Friday Favorites

If you reached out to me on Wednesday after I posted about the wellness program pitch I was doing at work, THANK YOU.  All of your crossed fingers, lucky charms, and well wishes came through!  We killed the presentation and got full permission from our c-level and executive staff to move forward with our ideas.  This is a vision I have had for our company for over a year ago (maybe even closer to two years now!?), and I am beyond happy to know that all the work and planning I’ve done with my wellness counterparts hasn’t been for no reason.  I think I’ll start sleeping a bit better at night because now I can officially say that my company has a worksite wellness program and that I am one of the four co-chairs spearheading this effort.  Nevermind knowing that if our initiative is truly successful, we will be able to positively influence over 4,000 people’s lives <—why I love doing what I do.  It was definitely a leap of faith to take this position almost a year ago not fully knowing if the wellness program would pan out, however I’m taking all of this as a sign that perseverance and not giving up on what’s important to you can really pay off.

That being said, moving forward I’m not sure how much of my worksite wellness program details I’ll be sharing on the blog.  I’m sure I’ll share some general stuff from time to time, but I do like to keep this little corner of the blogosphere separate from my day-to-day full-time gig.  In fact, I have never even used my company name in the blog before.  We’ll see though, if there are any specific topics or questions you guys would like me to write about, just let me know.

In other news, yesterday I really tweaked my back.  It actually started on Tuesday night.  When I was teaching Two A Day, I felt like I tweaked something.  Although it didn’t feel like anything too serious and I assumed a pulled muscle, I needed to ice and take ibuprofen before going to sleep that night.  I didn’t sleep well because of the pain, but I woke up on Wednesday feeling better (thank God because of the presentation!).  I took Wednesday as a rest day and woke up Thursday morning feeling no back pain at all, but after teaching my 6am class my back was severely spasming.  To the point that I could barely get ready, buckle my seat belt, or put my car into drive without spasms and pain shooting up and down my back.  I didn’t end up going into work, which I was annoyed about, but it was probably for the best.  I think this means I’ll have another few days of unexpected rest time in my future.  Frustrating, but necessary.

Other than that, there’s not much else going on.  I do want to have a Friday Favorites this week since I’ve taken a brief hiatus for the last two.  Enjoy!

Favorite share…

You guys didn’t share much with me this week, but my favorite share was from Liz.  Liz was going on vacation to Iceland with her family this week and prior to leaving said she spent a lot of time on F&F browsing for no equipment workouts.  This literally made my day when I saw her workout plan covered with F&F workouts in sticky note version.  Liz, I want to hear which your favorites were!

Guys seriously send me stuff (or tag me via social media), I love seeing fun food and fitness and wellness related things and will likely share on future Friday Favorites.

Favorite finds…

–> New moves!  Mommy Runs Fast posted 10 of her favorite strength routines.  I will be trying some of these.

–> 100 summer recipes to make, organized by seasonal veggie.  This is timely with our farm share!

–> Some great tips for enjoying a stress free vacation.  When we head out on vacation in a couple of weeks, I am most definitely disconnecting my phone from getting any type of work updates.  I think the part about making yourself too reachable really resonated with me.

–> An interesting read on exercise addiction.  I may joke that I’m an exercise addict, but it actually can be a very serious problem.  Just like eating disorders can be.

–> I also had a few links that nicely complement my recent quarter to mid life crisis.  The first is pretty funny and compare life in your early twenties versus life in your late twenties.  The second is even better and provides 30 signs you are almost 30.  Unfortunately I can relate to pretty much all of them.  The third is a little more serious and gets into why it’s so hard to make friends over 30.  A good read.

–> Finally, probably the best find of the week, The Old Reader.  As many of you probably know, my beloved Google Reader was discontinued as of July 1st.  I have really tried to adapt to Blog Lovin and Feedly, but I found myself not reading blogs anymore because I found them clunky and not as user-friendly.  So far, The Old Reader seems to be pretty much identical to Google Reader and has my main two priorities:  scrolling and ability to sort.  I have high hopes for this!

Any life updates or web finds you’d like to share?

P.S. I am looking for guest posts while I am away on vacation so that F&F can still be up and running!  If you are interested, please email me at akaralekas@gmail.com.