The thing about Pneumonia is that it’s not one of those “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” situations. It kicks you in the chest and it takes a while to get back up. So when I say “back to the gym”, that actually means walking the treadmill for an hour.

Everyone says I really have to take it slow and ease back into activity, but when you find yourself winded after a ten minute walk when you know you are (were) capable of running 5k in an hour, it’s that’s harder and more frustrating than it sounds.

So for now, I will keep walking. I figure if I can do an hour every day this week without the cough coming back, then (fingers crossed) I might be able to start back to some of my classes next week. Which would be good for everybody because frankly, it’s getting really hard to come up with comic ideas without my primary source of frustration inspiration.

There’s been a lot of helpful advice circulating about how to make this a fitter weekend, lower calorie snacks for parties, fitness breaks, that kind of thing.

While I’m all for including the veggie tray, I’ve been trying to imagine turning up at my brother’s annual Super Bowl “meatetarian” pot luck party and replacing all of the food with tofu and sprouts… I think it’s safe to assume that getting told off would be the least of my worries.

I’m going to use my brother, Jay as an example here. Generally speaking we don’t agree on much but he is a pretty smart guy (don’t tell him I said that) who throws really good parties (or that).

In this case, yeah, there’s going to be a lot of snacks and sometimes-foods at a Super Bowl party but beer and a piece of pizza once in a while isn’t going to flush an otherwise healthy lifestyle. If you’re that concerned about it, fill up the rest of your plate from the veggie tray and stay out of the chips.

The other great thing Jay does is the traditional halftime flag football game. Not because it’s great exercise, not because it’ll offset some of those calories but because it’s fun. Fun always trumps forced and frankly, I really don’t think I know anyone who could get into the Super Bowl Exercise Game which is surprisingly similar to the Super Bowl Drinking Game (except that when you find yourself on the floor you’re expected to get back up and then down again, and up again and down again and up again).

When I read that snow angels burn 240 calories an hour, all I could think was “How does one test that?” then the more important question “Why would anyone test that?” lept to mind and demanded silliness.

After my other overly-sentimental post about my gross old sneakers, it seemed appropriate to mention that this enormous transition had finally been made, but I promise I won’t make a habit of posting about my shoes.

Still can’t bring myself to throw them out though. I feel like I should get them one of those glass trophy boxes that people keep game-winning footballs in, or something.

In other news, The Baroness Knows Best has finally been updated! Thanks so much for sending in your questions and please, keep them coming! I’ve just started formatting the next Promises Promises book (yes!) and the advice column was such a fun feature of the first one, (Starting Tomorrow – available in the Promises Shop) I’d like to make it an ongoing thing.

The energy in this community is fantastic! Super positive and all about “leveling up” your life. I love that. No bullying, just a lot of really positive people and good information presented in a really fun way.

I recommend 7 “Healthy” Foods that Actually Suck to get you started. While I’m not a nerd-core paleo follower, this is exactly the kind of clean eating stuff I’ve been squawking about for the last year or so.

Reading through the forums has me thinking about my own goals. Last year it was to do the 10k Terry Fox run and that was great but this year I really want to try something new that I can get excited about.

My friend Dee and I were talking about doing the CN Tower stair-climb, but that’s in April and considering the state I’m in with the Pneumonia (basically zero and still not back to the gym ), that might be a little ambitious.

Then I found Warrior Dash! This looks like SO much fun and the end of July might not be an unreasonable stretch for training time. (maybe?) Anyone here tried it?