Donna posted a great video the other day. It was a 10 minute cardio workout from Spark People .com

I followed the link to the site, because I enjoyed the video and I found a TREASURE TROVE! No kidding when you sign up you answer a few questions about weight and your goals, and the gosh durned thing designs a program for you including meal plan, exercises and so much more.

This is great for me, because I like a program that gives me some daily suggestions on what to eat, what to do and etc. Go check it out. It might not be for everyone, but it is a perfect tool for me!!

Weigth Loss Update

10 pounds gone since September 1st. :-))

Hurray it’s Weigh Day!

OH I am excited! DESPITE a very unstructured week of discovery, and a big bag of Salt and Vinegar chips, Friday night at the Mexican restaurant, and several of those disgusting chewy granola, ‘yogurt’ dipped bars that people REALLY want to believe are good for you, I STILL managed to be down 2 pounds!

When you have 65 pounds to lose, 2 pounds does not seem like much, and I am quite sure no one will notice it, (although my husband, God bless him, will SWEAR he can!) but still it is progress in the very first week. My mind vey quickly calculated that if I lose 2 pounds EVERY week I will reach my goal in 8 months, which is 4 months earlier than my goal date of one year!

How did I do yesterday? Well yesterday was my best day, and I think is going to set the pace for what is to come. I have been flirting with the idea of going vegetarian for health reasons, and not because I have anything against eating meat. But I was thinking, if I made vegetarian choices whenever there was a choice, and raw even better, then wouldn’t I be much healthier?

Anyway, yesterday was a critical point in my fascination of the raw food, and vegan/vegetarian way of eating. All day I made raw food choices. (My healthy chocolate is cold processed and heated only enough to pour into the molds so even IT is raw!) I ate a ton of fresh fruits and vegetables and drank lots of alkaline water from my ionizer. I also had a great big mug of Waiora‘s Detox Tea before I went to bed. I will admit that I woke up at 2:30 AM and I was hungry. So I got up and cooked a small bowl of large flake oatmeal in a bit of milk and ate that. It filled up my belly and I went back to sleep quite peacefully.

This morning I will admit to waking up energized EVEN THOUGH my night sleep was broken. THAT is a huge deal for me, since I have been exhausted for months and months now. I even NAP most afternoons for heaven’s sake! So today I feel so great! I am going to go shopping this afternoon and get better prepared for my raw, whole food, vegetarian experiment. I already have a juicer, and yesterday I ordered a dehydrator. I am going to see if I can get a coffee grinder and a grain mill. The coffee grinder should be relatively easy to find, but I suspect the grain mill will be a different story. (I really live in an area that is know for their ‘meat and potatoes’ lifestyle… fishermen, farmers.. you get it!)

I am also going to be on the lookout for a good raw vegan recipe book. I MAY get lucky and find something like that here! There’s always Amazon, or Chapters online if all else fails!

Have a great day all…. I’ll be back later on with my articles of the day. Today I might do one about juicing since that’s going to be on my mind! :-)

Ok so I’ve had almost a week to get used to daily journalling ONLINE about my darkest secret. Do you know how easy it is to be who ever you want to be from behind the protection of your office computer? I suspect many of you have experienced the power of cyber anonymity and it’s intoxicating feeling of being judged by words alone. No one to look at you and form a first impression of you based on your hair, or your lipstick (or lack there-of) or your hip size. It’s a great feeling that allows you to be very unselfconscious! There is something about openly documenting this journey that has left me feeling exposed. (So I hope you appreciate the effort! ;-))

 Yesterday was NOT a good day! We ended up NOT boating because the morning clouds and fog never lifted, so I hung around the house all day (feeling sorry for myself! hehe) I did exercise … I am up to 30 minutes on the bike, and I was in so deep to the book I was reading that I kept pedaling until I finished the chapter, so ended up 45 minutes. Then I did some resistance exercises. It really isn’t enough though. As I mentioned earlier, my goal is 3 planned exercise periods  every day because I sit on my office chair for about 12 hours every day.

Then I ate chips :-( A LOT of chips! I ate salt and vinegar chips until my tongue was SO sore! ARGGGGGGGHHH WHY do we do that to ourselves?? Ah well… that was yesterday! No biggie and I am not going to sweat it. (Or maybe I AM going to sweat it!)

Today I woke up feeling swollen, and of course I am swollen after all that salt so I will drink tons of water today, I’ll have a couple of mugs of detox tea, which I really enjoy anyway, and do my workout, and all will be as it should be. I also joined a weight loss forum yesterday to find some support on my journey. It is nice to know that there are other people out there rooting for you.

Oh and I ‘stumbled upon" a DELIGHTFUL blogger on my surf this morning. I came across THIS POST and found myself loving this fun gal. (I need to take notes on how to be more interesting!) Anyway, enjoy her blog while I head off to the bike. I’ll be back later…. I found a REALLY awesome way to get my raw fruits, veggies, sprouts etc in juice form without juicing! YUM…

Pop back later for the dish!

Many Blessings,

Diva

Boy Am I tired!

Anyway, I digress! Today I am tired and I don't really know why I didn't sleep well last evening. I feel vaguely unwell, which isnot really like me. Although I have read about people experiencing a 'depression' kind of feeling when they cut back drastically on the refined flours and sugars etc. I didn't have anything processed or refined at all yesterday except for that gra-candy-nola bar. That is pretty dramatic for me. Maybe my body is rebelling against all of that raw natural healthy food.

Anyway, I did my exercises yesterday… stretching, 20 minutes on the stationary recumbent bike, and some upper body exercises with the lightest weights I have (2 lbs). I am still kind of sore today but in a good way. A way that tells my body I actually did something yesterday. I haven't exercised yet today though, and I want to get to it before I put it off and then find an excuse to not do it at all.

So back to the 'depression' thing. I have found an answer to the 'deprivation' I feel and the associated 'down' feeling from denying myself the food pleasures I am used to. It's a healthy chocolate product that comes without guilt. It is actually recommended that you consume AT LEAST 3 pieces a day for 'optimum health effect'.

3 pieces of chocolate daily for HEALTH!

Hmmm Imagine THAT! I am going to write an article but in the meantime you can get a sneak peek and order some healthy chocolate by visiting    ChocolateDaily.com. If it is too much of an effort for you to eat chocolate every day on a healthy eating plan then this probably isn't the blog you should be reading! hehe

In all seriousness, cocoa has been shown recently to be packed full of antioxidants and other really good for you things. It also stimulates a "feel good" release of natural brain chemicals. Some scientists believe this has something to do with serotonin. It is the processing that makes it so awful for us. All that added fat and sugar, and all that cooking the LIFE out of it makes it something that harms our health. Hmmm sounds like US doesn't it? Taking nature's bounty and turning it into a Big MAc! 

Anyway, I don't care WHY this particular chocolate is good for you. I am just glad someone showed me this early on so I don't have to SUFFER needlessly! :-)

So I am off to exercise now. I will be back, hopefully later today with my chocolate article, and some new changes/improvements to the website.

Many Blessings,

Shelley

Well here we are. The second day of our  ‘walk’  together. I’ve been through this before, so I know that I should still be feeling motivated and excited. The drudgery of the day to day routine hasn’t kicked in yet. I am also somewhat obsessed (as I think many people are) with my weight, and body image, especially since I have started so publicly on my program. I go to sleep thinking about my fat, and wake up thinking about my fat. I am going to try to shift my thinking a bit. If I HAVE to think about it, I should go to bed thinking about my muscle! (more on that later!) I got a bit more of the website done yesterday and meant to get back to post what I did yesterday but didn’t get a chance. (TOO many things to do!) So I’ll just give you a run-down on how my first day went.

• Food -I made a decision NOT to diet! Been there, got the T-shirt (it’s too small now I might add). So I am trying to make a conscious effort to change my food habits and also my eating habits. See I work in my office pretty much all day long. Often when I get hungry I grab something quick, and take it back to my office. I eat while I am working on the computer, talking on the phone or whatever. Meal times have no real meaning to me at all.  So I’ve made a decision to eat ONLY at the kitchen table when I am home. I’ve also made a decision to try to make healthier food choices.
• Exercise - OK, well as I mentioned I spend all day in my office. I am a total workaholic. I love pattering away at the computer, I love my office, and I do not have any idea what to do when the power goes out! So sedentary is a mild word for what my life has become. I have to MOVE every day. I am going to work up to 3 planned exercise periods a day. It sounds like a lot right now since I barely move all day, but I think it is reasonable. I am starting with baby steps.
• Motivation – I need to do something to keep myself motivated daily, and I don’t want this to be as dry as a caesar salad  crouton for those of you who are reading, so each day 4 or 5 days a week I am going to try to do some research on a method, product, exercise, or anything else that would be helpful, funny, or interesting and we’ll collect them here as well. If you have suggestions as to what you would like to learn more about, let me know here.
• Support – I am very fortunate… I have a supportive spouse, and teenagers who don’t spend a lot of time at home, so there is no huge obstacle at home. Not everyone has that, so I am going to encourage you to join a support group, enlist the help of a friend, find an online forum or whatever you have to do to find a buddy to encourage you when you are down. I will have a forum here on the site eventually as our community grows.

So what exactly did my day look like yesterday?

Food- I didn’t do too badly. As I mentioned I am not dieting. I am just trying to make better choices overall, and become aware of the amount of calories I take in. I am going to be moving towards a mostly raw, live food diet, but right now I am about as "average North American" as I can get, so I think ‘slow’ is the key. One of my biggest problems in the past has been that I tend to go full steam 100% and then crash because I can’t keep up the pace. The real secret is to gradually make changes and let them become a habit. All of the research I’ve done on diet indicates that we should be consuming an 80% raw diet made of mostly fruits and vegetables, so that is what my ultimate goal will be. The biggest problem I have now with that is that my blood sugar tends to crash if I eat just fruits and/or vegetables without protein. I suspect that by gradually introducing the new way of eating my body’s insulin response will adjust. Right now, it’s used to refined carbs (white sugar, white flour etc). I am going to be switching to protein shakes and I have ordered them. (I am not really into raw meat and eggs! haha)  I’ll tell you which company I chose for the shakes and why in another article. So on to what I ate:

I started the day with a glass of water, then my coffee! Give up coffee??? HA no way! I don’t put sugar in my coffee, just a bit of 2% milk. Breakfast was an orange, 2 whole wheat toast with real butter and an egg (poached yummy!). I had a big fresh salad for lunch, and some hard cheddar cheese. Supper was another huge fresh salad and a small fresh cut of pork grilled on the barbecue. I also had a granny smith apple, 2 tangerines, and a chocolate frozen treat on a stick (like a fudge-sicle only the no name kind. hehe) Then I had a bowl of cheerios in the evening with milk.  I am pretty fortunate that I mostly drink water all day anyway, and not a lot of anything else except my coffee (3 or 4 cups) in the morning. I am going to try to add green and herbal teas for health benefits, but summer in Canada is not a good time generally to want to drink hot beverages any time of the day besides morning.

Exercise – Man I am in SUCH bad shape. Just coming up one flight of stairs from the lower level of my house with a basket of laundry leaves me short of breath. I can hardly believe that I’ve allowed myself to get to this condition. This might be the time to confess that I quit smoking 4 months ago after smoking since my first cigarette at 12 years of age! So imagine my totally inert lifestyle, coupled with over 30 years of cigarettes and just imagine the shape of my body! I know I need to get moving, but again (for me anyway) the key is going to be slowly adding things that I can continue to do every day. I also don’t want to over-do it and pull a muscle or be so sore that I need 4 days to recover.

As soon as I got out of bed, and flipped on the coffee pot, I went to the livingroom and just did some body stretching. WOW I can’t believe how good that felt. After I felt ‘stretched’ I did some simple marching in place while I moved my arms ‘jumping jack’ style. I did that for about 10 minutes. Then I did some stomach crunches with feet flat on floor. (I didn’t count how many… just did as many as I could…. a little less than 2 minutes) then I place ankle on knee of other leg and crunched across my body, then changed legs and did the other side. I then stretched out on my side, head propped, and did some lateral leg raises both sides.   Later in the day I did 20 minutes on my exercise bike. I have a recumbent stationary bike from Sears a couple of years ago. I paid around $400 for it so it isn’t ‘top of the line’ but it works great. I also have some hand held weights in a variety of sizes for strengthening. You can pick them up quite readily just about anywhere.

So that was my day yesterday, and I feel pretty good about it. I am going to try to weigh myself just once a week or so. I may not even remember to weigh myself regularly, and I am not going to focus on it. An acquaintance of mine says (wisely I might add) that we should not be concerned with weight loss, rather our focus should be ‘fat loss’. This is a reminder that our goal is to gain muscle, which helps increase our metabolism and in turn burns even more fat. Muscle weighs more than fat , and it looks nicer too. You can see why we have dimples on our rear ends from this piture! HEHE

Now I am going to go do my exercises for today. I am also going to write my first article on "WATER" so watch for that later today!

Many Blessings,

Shelley

This is the start of a journey. You are welcome to take it with me. In fact, I would rather enjoy the company! I am not really sure how I got here at the starting line, in the condition that I am in, but that really doesn’t matter. I am here. I’m ready to go.

I weigh 210 pounds!
 

Let me start by giving you a bit of background. I am going to be 45 years old this year; October to be precise. Over the last few years I have been ‘concerned’ about my weight, and overall health. It’s a passing thought… you know.. “my jeans are getting tight” and “I better go shopping, I don’t have anything that fits.” I’ve been shopping quite a bit lately. It seems that nothing fits quite often these days. I knew the weight on the scale was creeping up. I also know very well what to do about it.

You see, I am a nurse, and I have also written health books, and done a lot of research and study on acid/alkaline diet, live raw foods, exercise and etc. I retired from nursing 10 years ago to pursue other things, but I am still educated and intelligent enough to not be able to use ignorance as an excuse for my current condition. In fact, if my readers saw the shape I am currently in, they would never read another line of my ebooks! Before I left nursing I was feeling less well, and knew I had all the symptoms of fibromyalgia, and at that time I applied some techniques that helped me lose some weight but more importantly, allowed me to sleep better, get through the days without exhaustion, and the pain gradually eased. So I do know what to do, and I also know I can do it.
 

It is so much different now though, then it was then. In those days I was getting out of the house every day, I was looking after elementary school children, and I was working a busy nursing job full time. My job and my life situation made sure that I was up and moving a good portion of the time.
 

10 years ago I left nursing to work m own business from home. I was still out and about though, as my kids were still in elementary school. Over the years, the kids have grown, now driving their own cars, and my work has become much more computer oriented. In fact, if I didn’t go out to get my nails done, or buy groceries, I wouldn’t ever leave the house, except for the occasional date night with my husband.

Anyway, over the past months I have been slowly preparing myself for this day. Mostly it has been sub-conscious, or perhaps I have simply been in denial! Never-the-less I have been accumulating some of the tools I am going to need for this journey, without actually admitting to myself that I was mentally preparing myself.

“So why today?”, you may be asking. HAHA Good question. The best answer I have is “Why NOT Today?”
 

Yesterday I got on the scales. 210 pounds screamed back at me! My scales are old, and have always weighed lighter than the doctor’s scales, so I am closer to 220 pounds, truth be known. Yesterday I was doing laundry, and after coming up the stairs just once, only one flight, I could hardly breathe. I mean I was literally struggling to get some air in. That shocked me! I’ve noticed other things lately that have just added up in my mind. My achiles tendons are very tender…. you know that chord that goes from your heel up the back of your leg? Sometimes women who wear high heels all the time get a tight achiles tendon, as it is shortened because your foot is always in that extended position. In my case, it is because I sit in the office, with my laptop on my lap, and my feet up ALL DAY LONG! Boy, when your tendons start shortening because you aren’t even walking enough to keep them normally stretched, that isn’t good.
 

One of the other things that has happened to me is my chronic depression is much worse. I’ve had a history of depression since my 20′s and have pretty much been on anti-depressives since then. I’ve done well, aside form the occasional back slide, and adjustment of medications. Now though, I am in a continuous sad, slow, dark mood. It has become my habit to sleep every day in the afternoon, and then I sleep sporadically through the night. This pattern ensures that I am tired all the time. Physically, aside from my weight being very high, and being short of breath, my cholesterol is high. I don’t know how high right now, but I had blood work done a few weeks ago and my doctor’s secretary called to book another appointment to talk about my high cholesterol.

So now you have a bit of a picture of where I am at. I know, without a doubt that there are many people in the same predicament, as I am, and I hope that the people who need to will find me, along this path somewhere, and decide to walk with me. I am not sure I can do it by myself, and that is one of the biggest reasons I am making this public record.

I have so very much that I want to say! The hardest thing for me will be just not saying it all at once!

I will probably post a lot at the beginning. I will not just share my journey and my feelings and results, but I am also going to share the stuff that is making my journey a little easier. If I come across a good book, or website, or product I will use it first, and share it second. I already have a number of things I will be personally using… tools to start with, if you will, so don’t be surprised if you see a lot of changes to this site early on.

I am also working on the website as I work on myself. What you see now is not what the end product will look like (in either case!)

So WELCOME to Day 1! Let’s be naturally well together and start DEFINING our own life!