I’ve come to realize that working out is one of the most important–if not the most important–routines I have integrated into my life. I feel so much more energetic, happy, and strong when I consistently exert myself. I was talking to my boyfriend’s cousin about this at Thanksgiving. She said that the way she has come to view working out is that, “every day I don’t work out, it’s like taking a depression pill. And the effect is cumulative.” I love that definition and find it is really true. However, to make it more positive than negative, I’ve started calling it “taking my happy pill.” This morning, after I worked out, I gleefully told my boyfriend that I had taken my happy pill and was ready to face the day.

However, something else I have come to realize is that prep work beforehand is half the battle. So yesterday and last week, there were a number of things I did to set myself up for success:

1. Threw out ALL junk food. This was imperative. I know I’m too lazy to go out just to specifically buy a candy bar or some other indulgence, so if it’s not there I’m far less likely to eat what I shouldn’t. My boyfriend recently asked me, “Hey, I’m going to go to Joe’s Ice Cream, should I pick us up a pint?” Joe’s is the best homemade ice cream purveyor in our neighborhood and their ice cream is phenomenally good, so of course this is a horrible question for him to ask me (he’s a guy, he and his metabolism just don’t get the concept of eating right to get fit). I told him that was far too dangerous. Instead, I stocked up on fruit, hot chocolate (which I’ll drink with nonfat milk), coffee, low-fat cheese and greek yogurt. I recently had a tea party with a bunch of my girlfriends, and as often happens I was left with plates and plates of leftover goodies like scones, sweet bread, chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cups. Yes, it may seem wasteful, but into the trash it went. I have tried to give as much of it away as possible, and yes, I’ve been eating some of it myself. But I just can’t risk early diet sabotage by keeping it in the house.

2. Laundered all of my workout clothes so they were fresh and ready to go come Day 1. Dirty workout clothes can easily become an excuse not to work out.

3. Replaced the battery on my heart-rate monitor – one of the key foundations of my workout routine. I love my heart rate monitor because it helps me understand when I am really pushing myself and when I need to up the ante. My heart rate monitor died awhile ago, and it really hurt my workout schedule. It definitely held me back and became an excuse. “Well, I need to replace my heart rate monitor battery before I can really work out in earnest.” Finally, I made myself go and buy replacement batteries for the watch and chest strap, and voila, it is working again.

4. Got out the other items I’ll be using on a daily/weekly basis and made sure they’re ready to go. Does my Withings scale have plenty of battery? Am I wearing my FitBit to track sleep and calories burned? Do I have easy access to my Myotape to make body measurements to track progress every week?

5. Make sure I have plenty of time in my schedule for 9-10 hours of sleep. I sleep a TON when I first start working out. My body is slowly rebuilding itself from the inside out, and sleep is a huge part of it. I find myself sleeping a lot at first, between 8-10 hours per night. I don’t mind this. Eventually, I end up having way more energy from working out than I do from being sedentary. It’s worth the initial time loss.

I can’t even express how excited I am to have re-started my fitness routine.

Being a product junkie, I’ve decided I should start blogging all the products I’m trying out so that you, the masses, can glean insight from my experience.

These nail polish wipes are, in a word, AMAZING. SO AMAZING. I can’t stop raving about how amazing they are. I ordered an 8-pack a few months ago, and I’m about to order a second set of their 18-pack. So many things to love about this product:

• Eco-friendly (biodegradable).
• Smells heavenly, like a ripe orange and not at all like nail polish remover, which I’m sure my boyfriend appreciates.
• They actually get nail polish OFF. Completely. Your nails will look so clean and virginal people will wonder if they’ve ever been polished before. This is true even of the toughest nail colors, like red and dark purple or green.
• The convenience factor cannot be overstated. I find myself doing my nails on my own so much more often. It’s so easy to just whip out one of these babies, clean off my nails and paint on another color.

I also keep one in my purse just in case I need to wipe away a chipped nail job. At an interview for my first job in San Francisco, I was coming in on BART and realized to my horror that my nail polish was chipping horribly and looked completely unprofessional. I kid you not, I chipped off all of the nail polish BY HAND so that not a trace remained before I walked into the interview. If I had had a La Fresh remover pad with me at the time, this would have been a problem easily solved.

Here’s my starting plan:

1. Favor long-form content. The world seems to be largely going the way of the tweet, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I get out of Twitter, whether it be pithy comments from my favorite bloggers, good industry articles from friends, humorous statements or important news. That said, it should only be one part of my content food pyramid (err, plate). What I would like to do is dive into fewer topics more deeply, and really get to understand a concept instead of glossing over it. I have a subscription to the New Yorker, and some nights I just love to curl up with an issue and really dive into it, immersing myself in the topic at hand. The articles are often insanely long, but afterward I feel like I have such a better understanding of the world and more context/story around the topic, which helps me remember it better too.

2. Read fiction. Did you know that reading fiction helps you develop stronger empathy? And that this is a good thing since my generation apparently lacks empathy? It’s not surprising. I feel like many people my age (including myself) have nurtured a “me me me” mentality, and look out for #1 before thinking of the needs of others. I want to change that. Reading fiction is a small step toward that goal (volunteering and donating to organizations I support is part of that plan too). Plus, it really helps me relax and escape from the stresses of normal life. Can’t be anything wrong with that. I recently read The Hunger Games trilogy. I greatly enjoyed the plot and the complexity of the characters, and the storyline–where a rich, lavish capital city lords over 12 poor, but essential districts–very much reminded me of the current political landscape. The book created a range of emotions in me, from searing rage to utter sorrow. I truly felt for the downtrodden in the book, and it made me think more deeply about the plight of others. While I had never thought about how fiction affects empathy, it makes sense that the emotions you feel for the characters in the book allow you to step in their shoes and feel what they’re feeling, making you more sympathetic to what others are going through.

3. Read biographies. I love biographies. I find them utterly fascinating. I think it is interesting to take a close look at someone successful in society and analyze the way they lived their live. I can learn from their mistakes or emulate their positive behaviors. My favorite biographer is Walter Isaacson. He wrote a bio on Benjamin Franklin that I ate up, and he is also writing one about Steve Jobs that I can’t wait to read (particularly in the wake of Steve Jobs stepping down from his role as Apple’s CEO). I also enjoyed reading Warren Buffett’s biography by Alice Schroeder. The next biography I want to read is on Grace Hopper, possibly the most famous woman programmer and a pioneer of the computer age. I also want to read this biography on the famous physicist Richard Feynman.

How do you keep your mind from atrophying?

I close out of everything when I leave my computer.

This was a choice of necessity. I now have a laptop and a desktop computer that depend on various mechanisms to sync software and documents with each other. Not closing out of a program on my desktop and opening it on my laptop can have dire consequences, so I started closing out of all applications whenever I was going to leave my computer.

This has required a lot of letting go. Letting go of articles I wanted to read in more depth (if I really want to save them I clip them to Evernote), letting go of emails I have open that I want to give more attention, (momentarily) letting go of my to do list in Things for Mac, letting go of levels in a game. Yet doing so has been incredibly freeing, and now that I’ve started doing it, I realize that it is essential to my sanity and peace of mind. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way now.

Perhaps the biggest revelation is that in doing this, I am letting go of my ridiculous delusions that I will somehow come back to my computer and tie up all the loose ends I’ve left there. I know this is not logical. If I do go back to my computer, I will have moved on to another project, another email, another distraction.

It’s a way of putting everything back in it’s place, digitally speaking. A good practice in the physical world that I’m finding applies perfectly to the electronic landscape.

I love using what I own, down to the the very last drop. There is something so satisfying about looking at an empty bottle or jar, and knowing that you squeezed every last smidge of value out of a product.

And it’s not just about that feeling of accomplishment, but also the realization that you have earned the right to buy something shiny and new to replace it.

This is the way things should be used, the way they end up ending their days in your care if you actually put a lot of thought into the purchase and the day-to-day use of the product. Life is too short to have items cluttering up your shelves and gathering dust, until the day that you are in the midst of spring cleaning and realize that whatever you bought so long ago has now been in limbo for so many ages that it has gone rancid or is past its expiration date.

This is no way to live, friends. I have had far too many of these moments of regret in life, which is why I try to apply a more careful approach to everything else I buy now. And also, not buying something new until I’ve used up the rest of the old. For beauty products, I also like to buy trial sizes of something if I can, to make sure I really like it before plunking down cash for the full-sized real deal.

Once I burn through this Voluspa candle, I plan to use the beautiful glass jar as a pen and pencil holder.

I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of routine, perhaps because I’ve always felt my life lacked it. But over the past few years, that has started to change. I read the teachings of The Fly Lady, who advocates making routine checklists for before bed, in the morning, throughout the week – it is a central part of her program to organize your life. I’m also a big fan of Maria Menounos’ book, The Everygirl’s Guide to Life, which also has a big section on the importance of checklists and writing down everything you need to accomplish as part of your routine.

For the sake of posterity, I want to start documenting my routines for myself. Right now, my most important routines are related to fitness, since that is my #1 focus at the moment. I’m currently in the middle of a round of INSANITY, the Beach Body DVD cardio workouts. They’re very intense, but the results are fantastic. The fat just seems to melt away when I’m consistent about the workouts, and I also feel incredibly strong, healthy, and energetic as a result. I want my workouts to become a habit – something I can’t imagine starting my day without – and I think establishing a routine is going to be a big part of that. So here’s the routine I’ve been [loosely] following:

1. Put on workout clothes. I have a section of my closet dedicated to workout clothes so it is easier to grab them and put them on. I want as few barriers as possible between me and my workout, so this is an essential step in my mind.

2. Put on my heart rate monitor. My heart rate monitor is crucial to my workouts. It helps me to see how hard my heart is working and whether I can step up my intensity or I need to take it down a few notches. It also provides me with a fairly accurate calorie count at the end of my workout. I use a very basic Timex heart rate monitor (it was the recommended budget heart rate monitor on consumersearch.com) and it works great. Sometimes the heart rate is off and seems way too low or high, but for the most part it works fine and is a perfectly acceptable and very affordable solution. Eventually I plan to upgrade, but for now it fulfills my needs.

3. Put on socks and sneakers. I have three pairs of sneakers, two Mizuno shoes (one basic running shoe and a trail runner shoe) and a pair of the New Balance Minimus shoes. The Minimus shoes have very little support, as they’re essentially a transitional shoe for barefoot running, so I only use them for runs and not for my INSANITY workouts since they require better arch support. I switch between my Mizunos so that I’m not using them too often. It is said that your shoes should get at least a day’s break in between workouts so they don’t fall apart, so I try to abide by this rule.

4. Set up my hydration station. I have a hard time drinking plain water, especially during a workout, so I sweeten my H20 with U Natural water tablets, which I love. My favorite flavor is Goji Berry Green Tea. It takes a few minutes for the tablet to dissolve in water, so I like to get that process going before I set up for the workout. Once I’ve filled up the glass and dropped the tablet in, I bring it out to the living room and set it on the table as my “hydration station.”

5. Grab my yoga mat, move the couch and lay down the mat. I need to push back my couch in order to create enough room for the workout, and the mat really helps cushion my feet during the workout.

6. Press play! I did P90X last year, which was my introduction to Beach Body workouts. Tony Horton, who leads the P90X workouts, had a saying: “Keep pressing play.” That’s a big motto of mine, because once you press play and you start to hear the instructor giving orders, it’s easier to get going. One of the things I love about Beach Body workouts is that the instructors are very encouraging and provide me with the feedback I need to keep pushing myself.

7. Follow the rules. I have a few simple dos and don’ts I try to stick by for my workouts:

• Do stick with the workout the entire way through without pausing or taking a break. Never press pause! Even if I need to run in place because I can’t do a particular exercise, I need to be there and present for the duration of the workout. When I first started taking bikram yoga, my instructor, a lovely British woman, used to say “No matter what happens, just stay with me for the entire 90 minutes. Even if you need to lay down and rest, stay with me and don’t leave the room.” I never left class early even when I really wanted to quit because I kept remembering her words, and I never regretted sticking it out and not giving up.
• Don’t check my calories burned on my heart rate monitor. I feel like it’s a hindrance for me staying focused during the workout. I would rather focus on keeping my heart rate up and pushing myself that way instead of fixating on calories burned.
• Do check my heart rate monitor to make sure I’m pushing myself without overdoing it. During my INSANITY workouts, I like to stick to a 165-180 heart rate for the intense parts of the workout. During warm up and cool down, I’m usually in the 125-140 range.
• Do drink water regularly and get refills as necessary. INSANITY really makes you sweat, and I find myself drinking 1-3 glasses of water throughout the workout.

Once the workout is done, I follow up and:

8. Put everything away. The yoga mat goes back in the hallway closet, the couch gets pushed back into its original placement, and the workout video is closed and the TV turned off. This is an important part of my overall philosophy that you should put things away as soon as you’re done using them.

9. Prepare my recovery drink. Beach Body has an orange creamsicle recovery drink that helps you replenish nutrients after your workout. I usually don’t do the full serving (2 scoops) because it’s a little much for me. Eventually I want to start using a more natural recipe with whole ingredients instead of a processed powder, but for now Beach Body’s recovery formula is working just fine. I use my KitchenAid hand blender to mix it up (it’s pretty much the most amazing device I have in my kitchen), drink it at my counter, then rinse the blender parts, put them away, and put the dirty glass in the dishwasher. Again, putting away things as I finish using them.

10. Shower and put on clean clothes. Showering post-workout is so important to wash the sweat off my skin and prevent breakouts. If I don’t have time to shower, I at least wipe my face, neck, décolletage and limbs with Yes To Carrots’ Brightening Facial Towelettes, which are fantastic – they smell delightful, provide good cleansing and a gentle exfoliant, and also moisturize my skin. It’s the perfect multi-tasker if I’m in a pinch, a hurry, or just plain lazy. Then, putting my workout clothes away (or throwing them in the laundry if they’re too sweaty) and throwing on clean clothes is a way of signaling to myself that I’ve accomplished my goal of working out and it’s time to continue with the rest of my day. There are few things worse than hanging out in stinky workout clothes and procrastinating on getting clean and dressed in fresh clothes.

And that is my workout routine to date. I’m consistently thinking of ways I can improve on this routine and make it even better. What type of checklist do you use when doing your workouts? I’d love to hear any ideas on how to improve the process.

I am a big fan of physics-based puzzle games, like World of Goo, And Yet It Moves and Trine. Portal and Portal 2 are the ultimate of this genre, and I’ve spent countless hours playing them on Steam for Mac. I’ve played Portal all the way through twice, and am now working my way through the advanced chambers and challenge maps. I’m determined to master every aspect of the game.

I’ve played Portal 2 all the way through once, and just started playing it through again this week. I also gave it a shot at the team play, which I’m pretty sure I played with a high school kid (we turned on our mics and he taught me how to enable cheat mode and access the developer console – I finally understood why all my college guy friends were so obsessed with collaborative play in Halo! It’s a lot of fun).

Imagine my surprise yesterday when my boyfriend received a package from ThinkGeek with some Portal-themed presents for me: a plushy weighted companion cube (be still my heart!) and an Aperture Science T-shirt.

Aperture Science - for science, you monster!

Salt - Asbestos - Curtain

My very own weighted companion cube!

Me snuggling my companion cube in my Aperture Science T-shirt

For the past two and a half years, I have been moving toward a minimalist lifestyle. I thought I was making solid progress. Until I moved out of my apartment at the beginning of this year and realized how much crap I still have in my life.

Moving out is a wake-up call to the true volume of your possessions. There was so much stuff I had crammed into nook and crannies or shoved into boxes and forgotten about. Piles of paper I didn’t have a clue what to do with. Sentimental nick knacks from ex boyfriends, friends, coworkers and bosses. Clothes I was emotionally attached to that didn’t fit me or my current style. The sheer volume of items to go through, sell or get rid of was absolutely overwhelming. One evening, while packing things up, I got so frustrated with making Goodwill trips and figuring out what to sell that I started dragging stuff to the curb in the hopes that some blessed soul would take it off my hands. Luckily, I was able to get rid of a ton of stuff this way.

It made me realize how much I hate the clutter in my life. I literally felt choked by everything around me, especially since so much of the stuff wasn’t even stuff I loved or felt I needed for my ideal lifestyle. I became very angry. Angry, most of all, at myself, for allowing my possessions to overrun my life. I had wanted a minimalist life before, but this was a real lightbulb moment for me where I realized what was at stake. All of this stuff isn’t just an annoyance. It is literally a huge roadblock to me getting what I want out of life, and it’s just not acceptable to me anymore.

In the process of moving I got rid of a lot. And I’m really happy about that. But I still have a lot to go through. Here’s one example. Up until a few days ago, I hadn’t yet unpacked from SXSW. Wow. It took me over a week to unpack from a short trip! That’s kind of crazy. But I know exactly why I procrastinated on doing it. It’s because my tiny closet is stuffed to the brim and it can’t fit all of my stuff. I’ve taken bags aplenty to Goodwill, but I still need to get rid of about half of my closet to get it to a manageable size.

Funnily enough, my paper clutter has been the most difficult to deal with. I’m working on scanning all but sensitive documents, but right now I have a backlog of nearly 15 years-worth of paperwork to process, scan, shred or file. The most recent documents are scattered about my apartment in little piles.

It takes forever to go through all of them, scan them, and shred or file them. I already have a great filing system in place, but I’m still searching for the perfect filing cabinet. Until then, files are temporarily housed in small plastic file boxes from Container Store.

This year, 2011, will be a year about really purging anything that doesn’t fit into my lifestyle. Ideally, I’d like to know every single possession I own, where it lives, and why it is important to keep it. I’d also like to reevaluate my possessions on a regular basis to make sure I never get overrun like this again. It’s going to take a while. But I’m taking baby steps and working toward my goal.

As part of my search for lunch recipes on Stone Soup, I alighted on this delicious-looking vegetable & white bean stew recipe. I love zucchini and tomatoes together, so the fact that this recipe included both sealed the deal. My mom used to cook sliced zucchini with onions and chopped tomatoes, and after you sprinkled cheese on top it made for an amazing side dish. I liked the fact that the dish included so many vegetables, so it was a light meal, but the fact that it was a hot stew would make it filling and satisfying. It seemed to stand up on its own as a meal.

One of the ingredients that Jules has in the recipe is smoked paprika. I have never used smoked paprika before, but was able to pick up a bottle at my neighborhood Safeway for about $6. The moment I opened the bottle, I understood why she recommended it. It smelled almost like smoked meat. The scent was very bold, and even though to the taste it was very bland, once integrated into the stew it added a meaty flavor that contributed to the heartiness of the meal.

Since I love zucchini so much, I opted for the max amount. I definitely stole one or two slices and ate them raw. They were very tasty.

Slicing the zucchini was the most time-intensive part of my prep work. Along with the sliced zucchini, I used canned beans and canned chopped tomatoes, including the juices, to make the base of the stew. The starchiness of the beans added a lot of body to the liquid. Once the zucchini was soft, I threw a few handfuls of fresh spinach on top of the mixture and waited about a minute for the leaves to wilt. Then I was done and lunch was ready to eat.

The bowl of piping hot soup just screamed for some cheese. I happened to have fresh, local mozzarella that my boyfriend picked up from Molinari’s in North Beach, so I chopped it into thick slices and placed them on top to finish the meal off. It complemented the tomato perfectly.

I felt so full and satisfied after eating my stew. And I had leftovers for three additional meals! It took longer than I expected to make–it needed more like 20 minutes for the zucchini to soften than 10 as the recipe stated–but the fact that I can store leftovers for other days more than makes up for it. Prep work was quick and easy, and the dish required very little seasoning thanks to the smoked paprika.

Since I’m on a bit of a zucchini kick, I’d like to take a stab at another Stone Soup recipe, zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting, sometime soon when I feel like treating myself. If you’ve never checked out Stone Soup, a food blog by food scientist and minimalist cook Jules Clancy, you should. The meals are quick and easy to make, use mostly unprocessed ingredients, and are delicious to boot. Even if you don’t cook, the mouthwatering photos themselves are worth a visit.

No more, I told myself. But I know how difficult it is to find the time to cook, so I wanted to stick with easy meals that only called for a few ingredients. I also wanted to cook meals with as many whole foods as possible and stay away from processed ingredients if I could. That’s why I am loving my new cookbook, Glorious One-Pot Meals, which provides a great solution for dinner. The hearty polenta and sausage recipe I tried out earlier this week was a perfectly complete meal.

For breakfast, arguably the most important meal of the day, I’ve decided I really enjoy one of the meals in the Insanity recipe book, Proatmeal (Protein + Oatmeal. Get it?). It takes me about 10 minutes total to put together this delicious, nutritious breakfast, so I’m making it a habit to do this every morning when I get up to get the day started right.

The ingredients are simple. Oats, fresh or frozen berries, milk and walnuts. I can’t rave enough about the quality of these organic frozen berries, bought from Costco. They taste amazing and warm up very quickly so you don’t feel like you’re chewing on ice cubes.

The recipe also calls for protein powder – hence the Pro in Proatmeal – but I really hate putting protein powder straight into my meal unless it’s a smoothie. Instead, I use a strawberry-flavored protein powder from GNC and blend it with water so it’s like a mini smoothie.

I like to throw in the oats with water and salt before I boil the water, since I prefer a creamy texture to my oatmeal. Once the oatmeal is done, I put the frozen berries on top of it and let them sit in the bowl for a spell so they warm up. I then pour some almond milk over the mixture and sprinkle the chopped walnuts across. The result is a fully satisfying breakfast.

I am still figuring out how to handle lunch. I have an almond butter and banana sandwich recipe I like, but I’m worried that will get old fast. Breakfast is something that can be pretty routine, but with lunch it is hard to eat the same thing every day. I’m on the hunt for good, quick lunch recipes that will keep me going. My first stop is going to be one of my favorite cooking blogs, The Stone Soup, where I’m sure I’ll find plenty of lunch recipes to keep me occupied for now.