http://www.mercurymagazines.com/pr1/121/12160

Get a year of Games for Windows and Electronic Gaming Monthly from Mercury Magazines, a distributor of free business/trade publications. You will need to fill out a brief form describing your job and industry, but no credit card information is required.

The option to get a free year of Electronic Gaming Monthly shows up after you enter your shipping information for the GfW subscription. I also got offered a year of Cosmopolitan (digital edition) for free, but that may not be a major draw for most of you.

Enter the following to get the EGM offer: Other Industries > Fitness Professional > Other Function > Consulting > Instructor

What a nifty (free) gift for the gamer geek in your life!

I keep a 16 oz. water bottle at my desk and in my car. I also have a separate shaker bottle with a 24 oz. capacity that I use for making hot green tea using loose tea leaves in a tea ball. Finally, I keep a regular size coffee cup at my desk. I pour in whatever mix of water and green tea I feel like at the moment. The tea is hot, and the water is cold, so depending on whether I’m freezing from the A/C or warm from a lunch break walk, I can regulate the temperatures of my drinks. As soon as the coffee cup is empty, I pour more water or tea into it, and I fill my larger bottles about twice per work day for a total of 10 cups while I’m at the office.

I usually get my 16+ cups of water and green tea in by doing the following:

- 1 cup as soon as I wake up to get me ready to workout
- 2-3 cups during my AM workout
- 3 cups with breakfast
- 1 cup on the drive to work
- 1 cup water with 11 am snack
- 1 cup green tea + 2 cups water with lunch
- 1 cup green tea + 1 cup water with 3:30 pm snack
- 1 cup green tea + 2 cups water with dinner
- 2 cups water with 9:30 pm snack

Yes, I COULD just drink out of the bottles directly, but I find that it’s psychologically helpful to use the smaller cup because it’s a lot easier to chug down the contents of a 10 oz. mug 2-3 times during a meal than it is to face the daunting task of finishing a big 24-30 oz. container. Ever notice how much thirstier you seem to be at a restaurant when you only get a small water glass than when you get a huge bladder-buster 32 oz. mega-cup? You probably need multiple refills of that 8-12 oz. glass during your meal, but rarely drink more than half of that 32 oz. cup, right?

The human brain is not always very logical.

Calories were a bit high yesterday at 1705 cal (35% carb/40% pro/25% fat), but still within the range recommended in Dr. Mohr’s guidelines for a 140 lb female. I had some extra BBQ pork last night when I got home, alas, probably rationalized subconsciously as a reward for skipping the holiday party at my office complex after work and avoiding the alcohol, candy, desserts, and deep-fried, greasy appetizers that are always served there. I’m just glad I opted for protein instead of the crunchy, sugary carbs that were calling to me. I’m cycling intake a bit lower today to balance the extra calories out. It’s recovery workout/non-strength only today, so this shouldn’t affect training intensity.

Monday’ DOMS is going away pretty quickly now. I got in 30 minutes of Yourself Fitness Cardio cranked up to high intensity this morning, and I will be doing an evening stationary bike session at the gym (intervals plus a bit of steady state to get my total minutes up to 30) after work. I’m generally a morning exerciser, but I’ve noticed that I have a lot more energy for hard cardio sessions (interval or medium to high intensity steady-state) after work when I am not in a fasted state. All I do when I go home on Thursday nights is watch CSI anyway, so I might as well do it at the gym with my butt planted on a stationary bicycle seat, right?

140.0 lbs this morning and still slightly puffy from water retention though I’m down 4.4 lbs of water weight from Sunday thanks to some epic water-chugging and very clean eats. I’m shooting for 136.x by the end of the month.

In other fitness news, the two pairs of inline skates I ordered Sunday from Summitonline.com should arrive today. They are non-surprise, mutual gifts from my husband to me and vice versa, so we won’t actually get to USE them until Christmas, but I’m looking forward to having a non-impact, outdoor form of cardio that I can do with my husband in the coming year. Gym cardio machines are really getting old, and as much as I like bodyweight circuits for their do-it-anywhere convenience, sometimes it’s just easier and more fun to do something that doesn’t require quite so much thought and gets you outside in the fresh air.

On the personal finance front, Chris and I have decided to work Ramsey’s Baby Steps as written and suspend our retirement contributions starting January 1, 2008 until we get all of our non-mortgage debt paid off and a $10,000 emergency fund established. This should only take 16 months (~April 2009) at most–it may go faster depending on whether Chris pulls in any large sales commissions and/or if I return to doing more freelance illustration work–and with over $100,000 already in our combined retirement accounts, the temporary break from contributing shouldn’t hurt us too much. I’ll simply be even more motivated to get steps two (Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball) and three (3 to 6 months of expenses in savings) finished as soon as possible so I can try to make the April 2009 deadline for funding my 2008 Roth IRA.

Woohoo! I love having a goal, a plan, and a challenge!

======================
WORKOUTS
======================
- Yourself Fitness Cardio (30 min)
- Walk (25 min @ 4 mph)
- Stationary Bike Intervals (1 min @ L9/1 min @ L13 x 6) + 15 min medium intensity steady-state (L9) (30 min total)

======================
NUTRITION
======================
M1: 3 egg whites, 1/2 c. spinach, 45 g. oat cereal, 1/3 c. light soy milk
M2: Pineapple soy protein smoothie
M3: 4 oz. sauteed tilapia, 3/4 c. asparagus veggie mix, 1/2 small banana, 2 small orange
M4: 1 c. light soy milk, 3/4 scoop mocha protein powder, 1/2 oz. walnuts
M5: 3 oz. chicken breast, 3/4 c. asparagus veggie mix, 1/2 oz. walnuts
M6: 3 egg white/1 whole egg omelette with 1 T. ketchup and 1/2 c. spinach

Water + Green Tea: 16+ cups

Supplements: 1 multivitamin, 1 calcium 500 mg + D, 6 fish oil capsules, 1 vitamin C, 5g l-glutamine