Los Angeles

A Quick, Breathless Workout

Posted on by Julie Pearson

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m trying to exercise more. It can be really tough to carve out enough time for a solid workout. If you’re like me, living an active lifestyle needs to be efficient. TV doesn’t binge-watch itself, after all.

Yesterday, I biked to the neighborhood ice cream place with my roommates (I follow my own advice). It was a nice day, and a short ride of about a mile each way. Biking is great exercise, but I abandoned it when I was ten – it seemed too much like a sport and I didn’t like those. I’m just getting back into it, and this was my first ride in traffic. Ever. What a rush! Cars are so much larger and faster than bikes!

I just can’t wait to get back on this bike.

The hills in my neighborhood helped to keep the short ride challenging. And the more cars passed by me as I rode, the more my heart rate accelerated. Wrangling left turns made all my muscles tighten up so that using my legs was nearly impossible. While trying to get across a busy street on a short green light, my vision turned blurry and reality started to feel hazy. Before I knew it, my breath had quickened and I was having a panic attack, right in the middle of my workout! What a happenstance!

The more nervous I got around the cars, the more embarrassed I got at being nervous – which just made my breathing more shallow. Better still, the very last hill by my house was enormous. I thought my legs were going to fall off as I desperately tried to take in enough oxygen to keep pedaling. What an opportunity.

Afterwards, I wobbled inside and hyperventilated into the couch. My lungs felt like they were going to explode – the surest sign that I exercised effectively. I’ve never felt so physically and emotionally spent in such a short period of time. Plus, I now know what it’s like to be so shell-shocked you can’t taste ice cream. That sounds like a diet tip to me!

So if you need an efficient way to get that heart pumping really, really fast, be like me and be very anxious!😬 🚴

 

Exercise Better: Find Your True Motivation

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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I have a hard time with working out. Gyms make me anxious, yoga class makes me more anxious, and I hate sports. But I don’t like feeling lethargic and imagining my arteries turning into marshmallow fluff, so I’ve been trying to start a regular exercise practice.

Walking is a great workout that doesn’t feel like “exercise” (or burn that many calories). But finding the motivation to go for a walk can be difficult. Sitting is just easier. 

Bribe yourself to go for a walk by going to get a fun snack. I walked to Scoops for ice cream. I walked to Cafe Tropical to get a truly unreasonable piece of apple pie (fact: the tirimisu is better). Walking is good. Dessert is delicious. I win double. And you can too! You don’t have to walk that far to justify consuming three times the calories you burned, and you can ride that high – and sugar crash – for days.

It might look like a cop out, but I guarantee it will feel like a sweet success 🙂

4 Things I Love (Even Though I Don’t Feel Like It)

Posted on by Julie Pearson

I’m having a terrible week! But that doesn’t absolve me from loving stuff. Because I am a lifestyle blogger, and thus, I am obligated to influence the masses.

  1. Cold Brew Coffee. I usually like my coffee like I don’t like my weather: hot. But my friend Will started a cold brew coffee company, and I’m pretty into this whole Cold Bruja Coffee thing. I normally think of iced coffee as a thing to drink in the sunshine on a patio, but I drank this one in bed on Saturday morning while trying to physically meld with my comforter. Is getting out of bed even worth it oops I mean necessary anymore? Also there’s a fun blurb about a witch on the bottle!
  2. Working Behind a Big Desk. My job requires so much sitting that most of my coworkers don’t even know I have legs. Usually this is frustrating and I know it dooms me to die an early death. But yesterday, I was eating the remains of a cold breakfast sandwich and I spilled some chipotle mayo on my sweater. The horror! But with a big desk hiding my whole body and personage, nobody could tell.
  3. Using a Machete. There’s a drought in California, which absolves us of all responsibility for taking care of our lawn we’ve decided. Eventually though, the grass gets too tall to walk through, and my roommate thought a machete was the best way to handle that. I took a turn at lawn macheteing this weekend, and it was a great way to exorcise some demons before I got too tired and collapsed into a crying puddle on the couch. Cathartic!
  4. Night French Toast. On Sunday night I felt so dissatisfied with everything around me and within me, that the only thing that could possibly fix it was to make French toast at 10pm. I don’t know why. I don’t make the rules, I just crack eggs for them. But something about watching maple syrup congeal on a spongey piece of bread really calmed me, and as the one piece of toast cooled too fast while the other one was still cooking, making it impossible to eat both pieces in a neat stack, the chaotic nature of life made sense in a new way. Yum 🙂

4 Things I Love This Week

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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I’ll be very ill if I don’t have this!

It’s important to me that you care what I, a successful lifestyle blogger, am into every week. Well, since you asked…

  1. Afternoon Coffee. I’ve been desperately addicted to my morning cup of coffee for a while now. I love the ritual of racing the clock to get to that sweet caffeine before the headache kicks in. But it’s become routine and stale. Yesterday, though, I made myself an afternoon cup of coffee. It felt as joyful as that morning cup used to feel, and might even be opening a door to a brand new addiction!
  2. Ignoring Sports. In LA, the seasons don’t change, and time exists only as a weird amorphous blob where months pass like weeks and suddenly it is the middle of March. This gives me even less awareness of important sport times that other people are paying attention to, and because I don’t live mere blocks away from a baseball hellscape anymore, it’s not being shoved in my face. It all washes right over me, along with what holidays are coming up, which day rent is due, and how old I am.
  3. Small, Nervous Dogs. I was terrified of dogs as a child, and while I got over the fear, I never really became a dog person. But lately I’ve been hanging out with a couple of tiny dogs with tiny anxiety disorders, and their stress makes sense to me. I, too, sometimes shake for no reason and need to be constantly comforted. Often I have heart palpitations and I don’t know why. And my legs are much shorter than they should be.

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    Panic attack in progress.

  4. Staying Hydrated. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been getting a lot of headaches lately. If I go to the doctor, I’m pretty sure they’ll ask me questions like, “Are you getting enough sleep?” Are you drinking enough water?” “Do you exercise?” Obviously: no, no, no. This one seems easiest to address. For the last week, I’ve been drinking a lot of water. Like, actively drinking water. All day. For some reason, I feel a lot better! Also I can’t stop peeing.

Get Reggie’s Deli a Netflix Show!

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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Apparently, Reggie’s Deli has been living in the shadow of Brite Spot all along and I had no idea until SandwichQuest: Part Three. Very sad, because Reggie’s Deli has been featured on no Netflix shows this year and Brite Spot is in at least two.

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Anyway, I went to this delightful – and admittedly, barely existent – deli with my friend Kurt, who was in town for work. We hadn’t seen each other since college and SandwichQuest facilitated this reunion, which is totally the kind of minute detail you could put into a show about my generation.

My sandwich featured turkey and avocado, which means it’s definitely in the running for the “cosmically perfect sandwich” title. The sourdough bread/swiss cheese/mustard/mayo situation worked really well. I liked it a lot, even if Netflix doesn’t feel that the tiny closet of a storefront is a fitting place for dissatisfied thirtysomethings who are just like me to discuss their angst.

Added bonus! The sandwich came with an (unadvertised) side of totally passable potato salad. This meant I was full, and saved half my sandwich til later. Aimless TV thirtysomethings can afford to go out for whole meals, but aimless real life twentysomethings need to make everything last two meals.

Reggie’s Deli, I’m writing a show for you (and me).

Grade: A-

Spiritual Wholeness Quotient: On par with watching something that was filmed in your neighborhood and is eerily reminiscent of your life to the point where it’s infuriating

Too Much Cheddar

Posted on by Julie Pearson

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SandwichQuest: Part Two led me downtown to The Sandwich Shop, a place that put as much effort into its decor as its name (a fact I admire – sandwiches don’t need frills). I went around noon for a work day lunch with my friend Bradley. The sandwich immediately got points for involving both turkey and avocado. Because when you’re looking for your soulmate sandwich, you know what you want even if you’re too scared to require it outright.

Anyway, the turkey-avocado-cheddar also contained some chipotle mayo that I found delightful. My only problem was with the cheddar. And you know what they say, “when a sandwich tells you who it is, believe it” – cheddar was right in the name. So I should have known that this might not work out. Still, I’m open-minded, and I like cheese. Ultimately, while I enjoyed the time I spent with this sandwich, the cheddar was a little overpowering.

I found myself envying Bradley’s vegan chicken bahn mi, and sandwich envy is an ugly feeling to have. I’d order this sandwich again, but it’s not an every day sandwich. And I’d definitely try the bahn mi first.

Grade: B+

Spiritual Wholeness Quotient: On par with the moment you realize you just ate half a jar of queso dip, but the dip was delicious but still, you ate half a jar of it

Jackfruit is Crazy

Posted on by Julie Pearson

One of my prime lifestyle ambitions at the moment is my quest to find the perfect sandwich in LA, and become spiritually whole in the process. I’m talking very specifically about a reliable go-to sandwich that costs less than $7 (okay, less than $10) and makes me better understand the meaning of life.. I’ve gotten a series of recommendations from friends (and Yelp), and created a sandwich spreadsheet to guide my journey.

SandwichQuest: Part One was a trip to Organix deli and fancy-hippie grocery store in Eagle Rock. I walked there with my friend Jen, who read an article about it and was interested in their fancy vegan wares (neither of us are vegan). Organix does not have a public bathroom! I had to pee pretty badly and was really assuming they’d have one. It factored into my experience a little, so just pretend you have to pee while you read this.

We both ordered the puerco, which is a jackfruit BBQ sandwich. Jackfruit is a fruit (you can guess this; you’re not stupid) but if someone told me I was eating pulled pork, I would have believed them. I don’t eat a lot of pork, so I’m not the foremost authority on this subject. Either way, the fruitmeat was good, the bread was good, and there was some cabbage on top with a purplish sauce situation that I found very enjoyable. While this won’t be a go-to sandwich (Eagle Rock is too far away, and this sandwich contained neither turkey nor avocado), I do highly recommend it.

Grade: A

Spiritual Wholeness Quotient: On par with staring at a waterfall as it thaws after winter. (I had to pee.)