Top of the morning to ya...

This weather has been so nice this past few weeks. They are calling for rain all weekend but we will see what we get! This is my first weekend in a bit that I do not have anything planned - well a few things, but for the most part it is just taking it easy.

I started my new sleep routine on Monday of this week and so far it's actually been really challenging. Like anything it will take a while until I notice a difference but for now I will keep sticking to it. I have been spending 9-10pm doing relaxing things, like reading, visualization, etc. then being in bed by 10 with lights out. I have been having a hard time staying awake until 10. I am waking up at 6:30, but also having trouble with that too, I have been rolling out of bed at 6:50am and leaving myself very little time to get ready for work. It will be interesting on the weekend to see what happens with waking up at 6:30. Hopefully it will give me a chance to get more stuff done.

Tomorrow is June 1st which means that my May HBL challenge will be "officially" over, although I still plan on continuing to follow it. I have not been able to drink the tea because it has been so hot but I have been drinking a lot more water than normal it try to keep cool.

That brings us to June's challenge. My goal is to lose 8 pounds this month. I have been doing really well with my eating and I have been slowly increasing my exercise to help me get back to where I was and then hopefully better than that. I have been doing activity every day. I am looking forward to next week because it is very open so I plan on getting lots of activity in. Sean is back on days next week so I am going to try to find some activities for us to do together. We both like playing tennis (and we both equally suck) so hopefully we will be able to get some of that in as well as some hiking and who knows what else. I switched gyms so now I can workout with my sister, and some other friends so hopefully that will give me some more company to keep things interesting at the gym. If not, I will always rely on my trusty ipod to keep me company!

Tara and I are going to start really planning our NYC trip this weekend. We know the dates we want to go, and we know we want to do one day shopping, two days site seeing, but that is about it. My reward for losing the 8 pounds will be extra shopping money to spend on me. If I don't lose the 8 pounds then I will just be window shopping, which will not be near as fun. We plan on getting a lot of exercise while we are there by doing lots of walking and possibly even renting bikes! It is bound to be a great time!

Overall my summer is shaping up quite nicely since I have a lot of things to look forward to between, NYC, camping, BC, and more! My calendar is filling up with lots of fun and healthy activities! The thought of summer gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Fresh fruit and veggies, the smell of BBQ's, crispy salad, warm skin and a slight breeze, chasing after the soccer ball, swimming, driving with the windows down and music up, and so much more. Other than the humidity, what is not to love about summer?

Give it time...

This weekend was very busy but overall pretty good. On Friday my physiotherapist recommend that I start back doing more exercise than walking again. On Friday night I had a session with Lee at the track and we did a fairly easy session compared to normal, but I woke up Saturday very sore.

I went to weight watchers on Saturday morning and then to our walk in the park with our women's ministry. After that I was so tired I took a nap. When I got up, Sean and I went on our date night to celebrate our two year anniversary, and we had a really great time!

Sunday I was up early and went to Church - I was on nursery and the kiddies were so well behaved and cute. Afterwards we went out for lunch, then I did some errands with Tara. I ended up switching my gym membership to Goodlife from The Athletic Club, just because they have so many more locations and I know a number of people that go there. After running around I had a short rest before my soccer game. It was a good game, I feel I played pretty well, and I got a goal! I was very close to a second goal but had my ankles taken out by the other teams goalie.

I have started to notice a difference from keeping on the HBL vitamins. Although my energy has not increased I am starting to feel better health over all, especially in my nails, they are so strong and nice looking! I am also noticing a difference in my joints! I have some extreme exhaustion, which I have had for a while. My doctor is sending me to a sleep doctor to see if they can help me figure out why I am SO tired all of the time. I have also been making better food choices, and tracking everything honestly. Every day that I track honestly I give myself a sticker - a princess sticker non-the-less.

I have been doing some research on the internet about sleeping and I am going to try to set a sleep schedule this week. I am going to spend from 9-10 winding down and getting into a bedtime routine, and be in bed by 10. I am going to wake up at 6:30 every day (which allows for a 30 minutes of falling asleep time, and still gives me a full 8 hours.) I am going to make my bedroom into a place that is just for sleeping, and tidy it up (I know that always makes me feel so much better when it is tidy). I have a relaxation CD that I will play to set the tone of relaxing, make sure the room is completely dark and most importantly - NOT USE MY PHONE! I am going to set a nightly timer for 9pm and I will have to turn everything off at that point (even if I am in the middle of a show).

I will keep you updated on how things workout! I have a feeling that just like my HBL vitamins, I will have to give it time and not give up!

Chicago

On Friday night after work Sean and I headed to Detroit so that we could stay at a park n’ fly before we caught our flight to Chicago.

The line up to get into the states was a bit long, an hour and 20 minute wait, but we had a good time joking and laughing so it went by quickly. We went to the Golden Corral in Port Huron for dinner where I had two plates of salad (with dressing on the side) and a small amount of roast beef (very, very good there). After that we headed to Detroit. On the way to Detroit we were in bumper to bumper traffic, in what seemed like construction.

Sean was getting really annoyed but it didn’t really bug me so I thought it was funny how upset he was getting. After we were bumper to bumper for almost an hour and got almost no where the traffic started getting a bit light (keep in mind this was about 10pm at night, not rush hour traffic!) Once we were out of the bumper to bumper we were annoyed because two of the three lanes on the interstate were closed for NO REASON! There was no construction going on, no holes in the road, NOTHING. So they wasted our time for nothing. But in the end we arrived safely and went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up early and ate breakfast before catching our flight to Chicago. Our flight was good, we were in the front row of the plane and had big seats. When we touched down my dad met us and we went to the hotel to change to the OBS conference.

Let me tell you this – I did NOT want to be there. I was miserable. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say, because to be honest I didn’t want anything to do with the business at all. There was a product training with one of the Presidents team member that taught me a lot more about Herbalife products and started to plant a little seed of excitement. It is reassuring to know what high quality materials they are made from. I know I have been taking them regularly for about 3 weeks now and haven’t noticed a big difference, but they do take time to work, especially when I had some of my symptoms to the extreme. It  will still take a bit of time, but I am going to stick it out and I am going to get rocking results!

I was still very uncomfortable sitting so long and so I kept getting up and walking around at the back of the room while they were talking. Slowly, little bit by little bit I started to think more and more about keeping doing my business. Our chairman gave a really good message about stretching yourself and not giving up. The people in our lives who think we are going to fail are what drive us to keep going.

The Sunday morning training started at 9am but I was just SO exhausted and tired and miserable I decided to sleep for a while and then go to the training for the 1pm break out sessions. At this point I was still wishy washy about starting again because of everything I have been through the past year. Then listening to Tanya I started to get really motivated and excited and I knew at that point that this business will be a big part of my life for ever. I was understanding concepts that hadn’t clicked before and things started making sense and I wanted to jump in with two feet and just go for it!

There was a voice in my head though that was telling me just to wait a bit though. I ned to still give myself some time to get better and focus on me before I jump back in and go for it. I have given myself the deadline of the August training which is in Georgia. I am going to keep working on myself and put all of my effort into my product result and personal health. After the August training I am going to jump into this full and give it everything I have. I will use the August training as my pump up and really give er.

After we left the training yesterday we went to dinner and of course we got deep dish pizza. I knew that we were going to be having this and was so looking forward to it. I ordered a salad because I knew that I only wanted one piece of pizza. It took about 40 minutes to cook, which was fine, and when it got there I was salivating.

We just got a regular and this was ONE PIECE! I ate it very slowly and savoured every single bite. I stopped and ate my salad in between bites and of course I was talking a lot too. I can honestly say that when I was done my 1 piece, and ½ of my salad I was stuffed. It was SO good and worth every single calorie. I tracked honestly and tried to over estimate a bit so hopefully I was able to get it right. I had planned for this for a long time and felt very good about my choice to have 1 piece, my salad, and water.

We also knew that we were going to a donut shop too that had a very large selection of fresh donuts. When we got there we decided to order ½ dozen and I got a knife so I could take a small bite of each one. I LOVED all of them but 1 (I tried 5). The one I didn’t care for I only took a small bite then left the rest, and the others I took pieces of and really really enjoyed them. Again, this was something we planned for and I tracked them as accurately as possible.

This morning we went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and I had a really healthy selection that has left me quite satisfied.

I know that most of this post is about the food I ate this weekend, but I am really really proud of myself for planning and tracking, and sticking to it. Given that we were sitting so much and in the car a lot, I didn’t have a chance to get my exercise but I am going to kick that up this week for sure.

Since our hotel was 30 minutes away from downtown Chicago we didn’t get a chance to see anything there. After pizza we were going to do a drive through downtown howeverpolice had everything blocked off for the NATO summit that was happening.

Now we are on our way home and I have made myself some new goals, that I will share with you over the next few posts.

Tomorrow is Sean and my two year anniversary so be ready for a bit of a sappy post J

Talk to you all soon!

This would be the life...

It is day 3 of working on taking care of myself and it’s going pretty well so far – although tough when I am at work. My job is busy and has a very large learning curve; in fact I have been here for 10 months and am still not fully comfortable. I often think I am not doing a good job because there are so many little steps for everything and missing a little step is easy but creates problems. I know that I will get it, and my co-workers are very patient, but it does create some extra stress in my life. So the ideal situation to be able to FULLY take care of myself would be if I did not have to work…of course, this would only happen if I won the lottery!

But hypothetically if I was able to be home from work to take care of myself this is what my day would look like:

8:00 am - Get out of bed and walk the dog for 1 hour

9:00 am - Have a healthy, homemade breakfast, cup of tea, read a book or the paper

10:00 am - go to the gym, do one hour cardio, one hour personal trainer

12:00 pm - Have a healthy, homemade lunch

12:30 pm - Spend time grooming ie shave legs, pluck eye brows, moisturize, paint nails ect

1:00 pm - Hot bath or shower

1:30 pm - Walk the dog for 30 minutes

2:00 pm - have a nap

3:00 pm - play with Levi

3:30 pm - go to the market and get fresh food for dinner

4:00 pm - sit on the balcony and relax with a glass of wine and a book

5:00 pm - prepare a fresh homemade dinner

6:00 pm - enjoy that dinner with husband

7:00 pm - catch a 1 hour evening yoga class

8:30 pm - snuggle with husband and dog

9:00 pm - lights off

Sounds pretty great eh? It gives me lots of exercise but also lots of rest too! I would clean the house on the weekends and switch some things up a bit – but if my life were like this, I feel like I could fully take care of myself.

Now that being said, things have been going well so far by taking baby steps. We are well on our way to paying off our debt (all things going well our goal of March 1, 2013 will be moved sooner), I have been getting up a bit earlier to put on some make up and do my hair, I’ve been putting effort into my clothing choices, and have been focusing on healthy eating.

I hurt my back 4 weeks ago today and it has made it very tough to do much physical activity. I am able to walk but that’s about it. I have been trying to rest the injury and use the ice/heat method but it’s not helping very much. Tonight I am going to sit in the sauna at the gym and hopefully once my muscles relax and loosen I can try to stretch them out a bit.

As for the HBL challenge, I have still been taking my vitamins and having my shake(s)/tea everyday but I am still not noticing a huge difference in energy, and no difference in my pain yet, but these things take time sometimes – I’m not ready to write it off yet!

If you don't take care of yourself...

...no one else will.

I have a lot to share with you tonight so hopefully you're up for a long read.

Over the past two years I have been all over the place with my weight loss. I have tried many different things only to get discouraged over and over again. I would eat really well and write everything down for a few days and then fall off the wagon and binge. My blogging has been all over the place too - making it hard to follow me and know when I have posted new posts, and for that I am sorry.

So here goes, I will try to get out what I have been thinking in my head.

Weight loss is a journey, and I get so frustrated at myself for putting back on weight after I worked so hard to lose it. I want to try to lose it overnight and get back to the closet full of great clothes that I have, but that is not going to happen. I am not going to wake up tomorrow and be the size 8 that I was two years ago this very day. And you know what? That is okay.

Weight loss is a journey, a life long battle that I am going to fight. The past few weeks I have been having a lot of joint pain and feel like I am 70 years old. I'm actually very thankful that I have the pain because it has taught me a VERY important lesson. This is NOT what I want to feel like at 70 years old. I want to be one of those seniors that you see out riding bikes and speed walking to keep healthy and keep their joints from stiffening up. 

Again, I am not going to achieve this over night. I am going to have to work hard to break down the real reasons behind my weight problem. It is not going to be easy, in fact it will be the hardest thing I have ever done - but I know at the end of it, it will be worth it. I hope you will join me on my journey and I hope that I will inspire you to find your own health. Leave all excuses at the door because there is no habit that you can not break, nothing you can't accomplish if you are willing to put in the time.

I have been doing my HBL challenge for the month of May and I will give you a bit of an update. My body still really hurts, but I have been taking small steps to feeling better (stretching more, walking, hot baths ect.) I am still not noticing a huge different though with one exception. My knees are not hurting any more because I am not crossing my legs at all or pulling my legs up under me - which is VERY hard on your knees. My back is still bad but I did go to my doctors this week and I am going to do physio to strengthen the muscles. He also gave me a prescription for a med that helps with inflammation. This should also help my joints too.

This weekend I decided was the best weekend to do the La Bamba diet. It's a 3 day cleanse that helps to kick start your weight loss. A lot of people get great results by doing this but I am going to give you my honest feedback about it.

The first day you are to drink two 1 gallon jugs of the mixture of protein juice, tea, and herbal aloe powder. I had one jug of peach juice and one jug of wild berry. You have to consume 1 16oz glass every 30 minutes for 8 hours.

The mixture was not TERRIBLE - however it wasn't exactly "good". It tasted like very watered down camp juice. I drank every half hour and I was told to and was quite satisfied. I did not feel hungry once while I was drinking the juice mixture. Near the end I did start to feel like I was going to float away. I felt like my stomach was a balloon of liquid and I did not feel good - but I was still not hungry. I finished my last glass around 5:45pm. On the first day you are allowed NO food - just liquid.

I went to bed around 9:30 and was VERY hungry. I thought maybe if I go to bed I won't think about it and then tomorrow will be good because I can have a shake. Well a few things happen when I am hungry. First of all I get MISERABLE. I whine and cry and pout - I pretty much act like a child. Second I start to get really bad headaches that often end in vomiting. So I tried everything I could think of to get to sleep but I was just SO hungry. I tried drinking a few glasses of water, but since I already felt really sick that didn't do much of anything. I was laying in bed dreaming of salad so at 11:30 I finally got up and went to the kitchen to have some salad. That worked well until about 12:15 am. As I was still laying in bed miserable - my headache was getting much worse to the point where my whole head was just throbbing. I said enough already and went and had a peanut butter sandwich.

So I did not even last one day of the La Bamba diet, which is only a 3 day weight loss jump start and I will never do one again. However, it did make me realize a few things. That is not the way that I want to live - doing fad diets. I want to eat right, exercise and just be healthy - and still have treats sometimes. I want to be able to have a treat and be in control and not have that lead to a binge, which is what happens when you deprive yourself. I also go myself a nice new hair cut to be a symbol of my starting fresh. It's not too short, but to my shoulders. I can still get it up in a pony tail but it gives me lots of new things I can do with it!

Today I woke up and still did not feel good, my back was sore and I still had a bad headache. I had a good breakfast and took today one step at a time. Sean and I wrote a list of things we wanted to get done and tackled it one thing at a time. We ended up going on a hike today which was more than my back could handle so now I am paying the price for that. However, I was happy to get the exercise in and time with my hubby and my pup pup.

Sean and I rented a movie tonight and I plan on snuggling up with him on the couch and just relaxing. The weather today was so beautiful and I feel so blessed to have been able to live this day.

I will be posting my Elton John blog soon - I was just waiting to get all of the pictures. I can't believe that happened two weeks ago. I wish it had lasted forever :)