Dec 30

FUEL:
1215: Mesquite Smoked Turkey on WW Bread w/ a Tomato; 75% Light Vermont Sharp Cheddar; Crunchy Peanut Butter; Tangerine
1245: 70% Santo Domingo Hershey's Single-Origin Dark Chocolate... not vegan, but close
445: Almost-Dessert Rice w/ Raisins, Carrots, Almonds, and Spices (see Recipe); Salmon (vc)
700: Apple; Skim Milk
915: Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter; 75% Light Vermont Sharp Cheddar
1030: 70% Santo Domingo Hershey's Single-Origin Dark Chocolate
1200: Cheese on Wheat Lance Crackers
130: Lots of Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter

FIT:
Lower Body Plyometrics> 3 x Mini-Suicides (3 x 2-stage, 15/30 ft lengths), 3 x 15 Burpees (splits: 56, 55, 57 sec... 12-15 very hard), 3 x 1 min High Knees. About 1 min rest between each of the 9 sets. 2 x 0.7 mi run for warmup/cooldown to sandwich the workout.

FUN:
The Universe> Big Bang Theory on the History Channel.
Bourne Supremacy - didn't meet the expectations produced by the hype.
Haircut.

I have a friend who, when she stumbles upon a tails-up penny, flips it over to heads-up and leaves it there so that someone else can experience the excitement of finding a "lucky penny." I just thought it was the cutest thing ever. That just shows you what a great person she is.

I'm intrigued by why people become vegetarian. There are many reasons: religious, health, cost, animal-loving, ease, environmental, and maybe more. For me, #1 is health. Cost and ease come next (no messy clean-up, more sanitary). Environmental stuff is a big plus. So I'm not vegetarian. I eat salmon and turkey, but no animal fat (besides fish oils). So I tend to like vegan foods.

Here are my thoughts on religion and animal-loving:
If someone has been born with a tender heart that is compassionate for animals, that is really wonderful. Cruelty sucks, for sure, but how far am I personally going to go to protest against it? I'd pay extra if I knew I was getting cruelty-free animal products and that the other types were truly mistreating animals. They feel pain, and it's not right to inflict that on them. With respect to what the Bible says, there's nothing for or against vegetarianism, in my opinion. In Eden originally, people didn't eat animals, and it was after the fall that that started happening, I think. So ideally, we wouldn't. We can get everything we need from plant sources anyways. And there's meat-eating and animal sacrifices. And man was made ruler over the animals. Being a ruler doesn't mean mistreating stuff, though. We're called to be good stewards of the environment and the animals. There's also stuff in 1 Corinthians 8 about not eating meat and eating it, but it's specifically about meat that was sacrificed to false gods, and its point is something else entirely beyond vegetarianism (an excellent passage by the way). Anyway, so my thought is, if you're vegetarian or vegan, that's great, but there's nothing wrong with eating meat, either, in and of itself. These are just my thoughts, subject to correction.