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Enter: Flax Seed

29 Mar

Alrighty so not only do I write a blog about weight loss I read a lot of other people’s blogs about their weight loss. I tend to veer away from blogs that are done by trainers, so called fitness experts, companies etc cause I feel those ones are mostly trying to make me buy into their system of losing weight and buy their products which in my opinion, so not cool. People who are trying to lose weight are a tad desperate (generally) and even once they have realized that the best way to lose the weight is in a slow and healthy manner they still wish and want and beg the universe for a quick fix. Heck, even though I’ve tried diet pills, powders, shakes, diet foods and extreme diets and I know from experience they don’t work doesn’t mean everytime I see an ad for something new like that I don’t immediately google and wiki and yahoo and just in general research the shit out of it in the hopes it might actually be legit…sadly, they never are, sigh.

Huh, totally veered away from what I was meaning to type, oops! lol

What I am getting at is I am not in some sort of bubble while on this weight loss journey, I read and research and learn, I get advice (solicited and unsolicited), I try things I would never of thought of on my own in an attempt to not only lose my excess weight but to live a healthier lifestyle.

So, in an attempt to live my healthier lifestyle I am adding Milled Flax Seed in to my eating plan…sounds oh so yummy huh? *wrinkled nose* It’s not that I’m not open to trying it, I did buy it after all, I’m just…hesitant to start adding it to my foods cause, well, it’s flax seed, just the name alone evokes images of dry mouth, icky flavour, weird texture, blech! 😛 In fact, the only reason I finally bought some was because I was reading an article online about weight loss and healthy living and it mentioned adding flax seed to your smoothies and since I drink protein shakes I realized I could most likely add the flax seed to my protein shakes and not really notice it but still benefit from it. Awesome thinking right? *raised eyebrow*

In general I don’t feel the need to hide healthy additions to my eating plan within other foods so that I can tolerate them but just the idea of this flax seed is making me make faces that remind me of a kid whose faced with a plate of brussel sprouts. Yeah, that face! I am well past the age of making that face and yet, this flax seed is inspiring the muscles in my face to morph in to the disgusted look reminiscent of a child.

I placed the bag of flax seed with my protein powder so I can’t even “accidentally” forget it tomorrow when I make my shake…I know that will irritate me tomorrow when I make my shake but for now I am patting myself on the back for thinking ahead lol.

For those of you that are wondering, some of the so-called benefits to having flax seed in your diet are:

  • Omega-3 essential fatty acids, “good” fats that have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.
  • Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities. Flax seed contains 75 to 800 times more lignans than other plant foods.
  • Fiber. Flax seed contains both the soluble and insoluble types.

Also, consuming flax seed will apparently help me to not get cancer, help protect me from heart troubles, help decrease inflammation, regulate blood sugar levels (this goes towards type 2 diabetes which I do not have but hey, ya never know!), regulate hot flashes (something I am a looooong ways away from worrying about) and lots of other things. It is important to note that consuming flax seed doesn’t magically make you lose weight, or boom! become super healthy. It is just one more tool to be used by those wanting to live a healthier lifestyle. Not that I believe by not eating it you are not living a healthy lifestyle…I don’t have a set opinion about it yet since I haven’t started eating it yet I just don’t want you to read this and think “oh hey, a super food, if I sprinkle this over my donut it makes my donut ok to eat”, sorry to say it just doesn’t work like that!

The so called experts say women who are preggos or breast feeding shouldn’t eat flax seed but it seems like women who are preggo or breastfeeding are restricted from a lot of foods so guess adding one more to the list won’t freak them out all that much. 😉

There are countless websites you can visit to find tips and tricks and suggestions in regards to flax seed, everything about how to eat it, how to store it, differences between the types of flax seed blah blah blah. I won’t retype all that info here since (1) it’s easy enough to find on your own (2) I won’t bore the bejeebus out of you who are reading this who have no interest in trying flax seed and therefore don’t care how to store it etc and (3) it’s late and I’m tired. 😛

Hopefully my little flax seed experiment works, otherwise I’m stuck with a bag of the stuff and no one to unload it on to lol I’m hoping to eat it daily for a month, I figure that’s a good length of time to monitor myself and see if I feel any differently because of eating it. It will be a completely subjective rating of the flax seed since I’m not tracking any changes within my body with medical tests etc (cause uh, who would do that?? *rolls eyes*) but at least by tracking how I feel, how much of it I eat etc over the next month I will be able to decide if it is something I want to continue adding to my food or if I can cut it out and thereby save the money of buying another bag once this one is gone. 😛

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Hello Seawall, I’ve Missed You

27 Mar

Ahhhh, today was a day of getting back to activities I haven’t done since oh, last summer, and I’m so happy to be doing them again! 🙂

The day started with brunch, well ok, that isn’t an activity I’ve neglected over the winter months lol but it’s always a nice way to start the day. After that I went for a 3 hour walk along the north shore seawall/ambleside area. It has an off leash dog park area which I care nothing about but since the person I was with has a dog it was good for them…and the reason we went to that area. I enjoy dogs in the you-are-so-cute-I-want-to-take-you-home-omg-don’t-get-me-dirty kind of way. 😛

Here is a pic I took while we were chilling mid-walk and letting the dog run around like the little nut ball she is lol

I don't know any of the people or dogs in this pic lol

I don’t know any of the people or dogs in this pic lol

Then I went and met up with KL and we went to the other seawall to go get our fitness on lol. She is awesome, she got accepted on to a roller derby team and could surely kick everyones ass but she unfortunately had to leave the sport due to other obligations (she is a super busy wonder woman!) but even though she’s not on a team anymore she still loves to skate and keeps in shape so she was roller skating the seawall and I was being more boring and biking it. This is the first time this season I have pulled my bike out and while I haven’t physically been missing it (it lives in my living room so I see it everyday) it was so nice to actually take it outside and get to use it!

We got a later start then we had planned on, and even though the weather is nicer now it does still get darker semi-early-ish so we couldn’t go around the entire seawall. Before you get all judgmental and say we could have let me point out not all areas of the seawall are well lit (or lit at all!) and neither of us have night gear which means no reflective clothing and no lights which as it was getting darker and darker I think was pissing off other bikers who were on the seawall, oops!  We ended up biking about 8km (that’s almost 5 miles) so not a crazy huge distance but pretty decent. 🙂

As much as I wish we could have gone the entire way I think having to cut it short was maybe a good thing for me, well, for my knees. I always forget over the winter months how much biking hurts my knees, sigh. I don’t get it, I have great shocks on my bike but I always end up with killer pain. Not cool. 😦 On a kind of funny note, my ass is killing me! Also due to biking! lol I have a gel filled bike seat cover and a lot of shall we say “natural cushioning” on that particular area of my body but despite all that riding a bike hurts my butt! Always has. Probably always will. I don’t know how long distance bikers can stand it, I stand up in the pedals sometimes just to avoid sitting while going over a little bump cause I just can’t take it anymore, lame and wimpy I know. *big epic sigh* My butt may be wimpy but you just try taking a jab at me when I’m boxing, I can take that and hit you back without a problem!…which I guess means my face is stronger then my butt? Now that’s a weird sentence…

Here’s a view from the other side of the water from the above pic, from the other seawall, notice that it really did get darker and I didn’t exaggerate? *raise eyebrow*

same bridge but from the other side of the water

same bridge but from the other side of the water

So now I am home, and relaxing, and as soon as my laptop is off my lap I will have my heating pad on my knees in an attempt to ease their suffering…it won’t help but I hafta try, lesson in futility I suppose lol 😛

My eating was a bit weird today, as I suspected it would be what with being out of the house from about 10am onwards. I had wanted to eat a healthy brunch but we went to this place that has a yummy breakfast, served all day, that is $3, I can’t bring myself to order something more expensive when that super cheap option is there lol. Only thing is they don’t have turkey meat so the meat options for the dish are ham, bacon or sausage, yuch! I don’t eat pork so this is a yuck not only on a holy-fatty-meat level but also on a yuch-I-won’t-put-that-near-my-tastebuds level. The only items I could swap out for were another egg (there are already two on the plate though so no way am I eating a third!) or mushrooms, which were not an option I was expecting but I took em. So my brunch was 2 eggs over easy, two pieces of brown toast with margarine, hash browns and fried mushrooms. I mean, it was tasty, but it was basically two eggs and a whole lotta carbs, sigh. I’m trying to cut back on those! It actually left me feeling a bit um, icky? Slightly unsettled tummy, which is unfortunate. I don’t know that the unsettled tummy is due to the food, it could be cause of anything but regardless, it happened after eating which is now leaving me with the association of that dish and not feeling well which I’m not gonna lie, I don’t mind (even if it is wrong) cause it’ll help me resist ordering it if I go there again…which I might not since I can’t get a turkey meat option. shrug. Later I had a vegan organic power bar, home made (not by me! lol) from a coffee shop, it was tiny, and had no nutritional info, and was weird, I got it cause I really wanted some protein but was still full from brunch so I wanted the protein to come in a small package lol. After the ambleside walk but right before the seawall bike ride I got a six inch turkey sub from Subway, hey, don’t judge, I needed actual food otherwise I wouldn’t make it through the bike ride! Even with the sub in me by the end of the ride I was quite hungry so KL and I split a chocolate covered pretzel we got from Starbucks on our way back home and I guess I’ll confess, I also got a grande half sweet peppermint hot chocolate made with skim no whipped cream. I hate having such a long order request, makes me feel like a snob lol. By the time I got home I wasn’t hungry anymore (totally thought I would be) so I decided not to eat anything but now it’s almost midnight I of course feel hungry and want food, which is so not gonna happen, it’s way too late to be eating, so I’ll have water instead and hope the hunger pains are a signal fat is leaving my body. 🙂

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Kick Ass Week

24 Mar

Ok, so right now I’m not feeling so great, not sick, just not well…if that makes sense? It’s not like I caught a cold or something, I just feel off, I have a bunch of little things that are wonky right now that don’t add up to any one illness, and by themselves wouldn’t be that big of a deal buuuuut when combined, and when I’m uber tired I become cranky and less able willing to deal with them by continuing on in my regular routine. 😛

None of that matters though because it is almost the end of my week and my week has been beeawesome! 😀

Tuesday afternoon, I was informed that I may be done physio! DONE!! Finally! YAH!! I am super excited for this for a couple reasons: (1) it’s freakin expensive and I couldn’t afford to do anything else while paying for physio, (2) it means I am better so I don’t have to worry about my neck and back anymore and (3) it takes a decent chunk of time out of my life twice a week and I want that time back! I mean c’mon, I could be sleeping…which is an excellent use of my time because it makes me happy and doesn’t cost anything! 😉 lol The small print to this news is that my being done physio is dependent on how I do for the next 3 weeks, sigh. I have to gauge how my back and neck deal with the crap I put them through and if at the three week mark I have experienced pain, discomfort, loss of agility blah blah blah then I have to go back, ugh. Soooooo, I am really trying to not screw this up and do something that’ll mess with my neck and or back again…I have decided, the way I am going to look at things, is that I am done physio because that thought puts a huuuuge grin on my face!

Tuesday evening, omgomgomgomgomg first dragon boat practice of the season!!! Hellz yah! It was awesome, and cold, and rainy, and dark, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything! By the time warm up started, which is held outside, it was still pouring rain and while it had been raining earlier but wasn’t cold it was now raining and cold, lovely. Kinda made warm up interesting as we were all wanting to keep moving more than normal lol. We had to rebuild the team so this first practice was more a getting used to the feel of the team in the boat, seeing how strong we were, stuff like that. We didn’t focus on form or strength or speed but we will, oh how we will! I fully expect our amazing coach to kick us all in to gear and make us a winning team! Personally, I think we already are a winning team, we felt great when paddling and that was only the first practice of the season! so how can we not win when we will just keep getting better and better? *raised eyebrow*

Wednesday, I had my volunteer dealio, I am a Big Sister…as in The Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program, know it? I don’t know why but people don’t recognize the organization when I just say Big Sisters, they only get the lightbulb of understanding when I say “ya know, big brothers and big sisters…” what’s with that? I think Big Brothers has better advertising then us…? Ah well. So my little sister, who incidentally is a bit taller then me (which is kind of rare in my world since I am 5’8″ ) turned 16, ahhhh, sweet sixteen, remember those years? Cringe a bit? Yeah, I did too! lol. Why do people get all excited about being a teen, and reminisce about it so much when being a teen sucks? You can’t do anything adult yet, can’t drive, can’t work, can’t decide when you are going out or for how long, can’t decide what your cell phone plan will be or if the house will have internet or cable, depending on the parents you don’t get to decide your own wardrobe, can’t randomly get tattooed, generally don’t get to choose what’s for dinner…there’s all kinds of things that as adults we can do that we don’t think about, that teens want to be able to do but are denied and yet! Adults expect teens to act like, dun-dun-dun, adults! Double standard I think, shrug. But regardless of that, she is super happy to be 16! She’s one step closer to driving (her thoughts, not mine) and getting a tattoo (also her plan) and is constantly trying to figure out how to survive as an adult once she is an adult. She wants to be a teacher and live in a co-op but also do her art (she’s a wicked awesome artist!) and she basically is like every single 16 year old in that her life plans change almost weekly and she wants to do everything possible and is only now realizing she doesn’t know how she is going to manage all these dreams and ideas and goals. I am loathe to say that some dreams she will have to drop in order to pursue others, so I keep my mouth shut about that and encourage her weekly in what she has now decided is her new plan.

Thursday, the weather was amazing, like super amazing, as in sunny and warm but not hot, no wind, gorgeous! So I did what any normal person would do, I skipped the gym and went for a hike! 🙂 I was slightly misled about the hike so the workout wasn’t exactly what I planned for but that’s ok, it was such a lovely day and I had such a great time that I am cool with how things went down. The hike starts about 25 minutes drive from where I live and I was told it is 2 hours, now, I took this to mean 2 hours up and 2 hours down so I planned for a 4 hour (give or take) excursion. Yeah, no, so didn’t happen like that! Even with my pausing at the top to admire the view, sit and chill and actually just be in nature (turned off my music an everything! shocking!), also with my pausing on the way down to take pictures of pretty waterfalls etc the whole thing took me an hour and a half. I feel whoever climbed this thing and gave the time estimate for the climb must be a hobbit and take super itty bitty steps, cause anybody taking 2 hours to do that is either going so slow they might as well be going backwards, somehow manages to get lost (which me being me I almost sorta kinda did since I veered off the path and into the bush a couple times, oops! lol) or like I previously said, is the size of a hobbit. But it’s all good, it was a great hike and I’m glad I did it. I think I will use it as my go to hike during the summer when I don’t have a lot of time but really want to do something outside. 🙂

Friday, I got to take part in a make-up thing a friend is doing. She’s in school to be a make-up artist and she used me as her model, she made me up into total glam, it was sweeeeeeet! I looked great, all thanks to her! don’t take that as me being all valley girl vain (like omg, I am like, sooo hawt I practically sizzle! giggle…gag me! lol) I don’t have copies of the pics yet but I will and they will be a superb addition to my portfolio…even if they don’t do anything to minimize the look of my eyes (long story).

Saturday and Sunday I worked and both days I was in this not feeling sick but not feeling well funk so I didn’t hit up the gym, opting to sleep and hope my immune system figures out what the frak is going on and fixes it…so far that plan is a failure but never lose hope! All in all, I think I had an awesome week! I didn’t write about what I ate but everyday I tried to make healthy decisions, and I feel I managed it for the most part. Sure, I had some chocolate one day, and maybe definitely ate more bread then I should have (seems I’ve totally jumped off the no bread bandwagon as I keep buying the freakin stuff!) but I also made healthy meals, chose healthy options when eating out, was physically active (some days lol) and all in all, just feel good about most of the choices I made. 🙂

the view from the almost top of my hike! :)

the view from the almost top of my hike! 🙂

Not sure what those lines on the bottom left of the picture are…I’m going to pretend I chose for them to be there, creative licence an all! 🙂

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So Many Things

18 Mar

I have so many things I want to blog about tonight it’s crazy lol I have had post ideas almost everyday since my last post but never had time to write them up so now they are all circulating in my head and want to be released in this one post, how oh how do I pick just one? Maybe little bits about everything and in the future I can elaborate if I want to write more? Seems as good a plan as any! 😛

I said in my last post I want to be physically active daily and boohya! (that is so not how to spell the marine sound is it?? lol) I was! *happy dance* Not always in an organized gym visit type of way but in some way…oh wait, I had one day of rest I think, hmm, yeah, yeah I did, due to scheduling and muscle pain (from the previous days workout) but I don’t feel bad about it cause I was active all the other days and ate better then I had been so all in all, I made a lot of improvements in my “healthy living lifestyle” this past week. Personally, I think that deserves a happy dance, don’t you?

Now, what did I do for exercise? That is the fun part! I went to the gym a couple times, one of those visits was after a work shift that ended at 9pm, certain days my gym is open till 11pm, sweet huh? I didn’t get to complete my entire workout because I didn’t get to the gym until 9:45pm and I requested some help for the stairmaster (I wanted to try a new piece of cardio equipment) and the help was long in coming and not really that great, sigh, oh well! I also ran on that visit and used some weight machines aaaaaand did some free weights. I was that annoying person who worked out till literally the last second the place was open lol. You should’ve seen the guy working, he was so irritated but whatever! You are open till 11pm so I am staying till 11pm! neener neener 😛 lol

I also had a great time with my friend KL. Normally when we hang out we go to a movie or dinner or something else sedentary. Not that there is anything wrong with those activities but now that weather is theoretically getting nicer and while we are still young enough to have energy in the evening after a day of work why not do something active? The evening we went out it was pissing rain so no outdoor activity for us! We did something way better though, we went to this boxing class thing. I can’t call it boxing cause it wasn’t us with a boxing coach actually boxing in a ring or anything. It’s basically a twist on that Curves place – ya know, that place where you show up, do a 30 minute circuit training exercise deal and then leave? Ok, so imagine that idea, the 30 minute circuit training but based around boxing, oh, and only for women so no intimidating smelly men to get in the way, lol. Cool huh? I had a lot of fun, it was a really great workout, we were both sweating by the end and neeeeeding water. There is a trainer there who kinda helps push you along, motivationally I mean not literally, and there is a buzzer that lets you know when to not only switch stations but when you are at your station when to switch from normal speed to double time. See, you stay at each station for 2 minutes and in 15 second intervals you go from normal speed to double time. Oh, and the stations are organized so you go from a high intensity activity to a lower intensity activity, so the first station is hitting a punching bag using a left-right jab combo, the next station was abs I think…I can’t remember the order but you know what I mean right? Please say right! lol If you already having boxing or kickboxing training like we both do it is a breeze form wise to get through the circuit and you can really focus on speed and intensity. If you don’t have any experience it might take a bit of adjusting but you’ll get the hang soon enough. 🙂 I would like to join there, switch it up between the gym and that place buuuuut it is expensive, I think it was $50 or $60 bucks a month, something like that, just to do a 30 minute circuit where you’re mostly hitting punching bags and cushions, no sparring or anything…so I am hesitant to join…I think it’d really help me with getting in shape and being stronger for dragon boating but if I do join it won’t be till next month cause of budgeting.

The other exercising was using my exercise bike and doing stuff at home, I didn’t wimp out though, I was doing high intensity and then low intensity exercises to get my heart rate up and get real benefit from my at home workouts. Sidenote, the cat thinks I am nuts, lol, and he sits behind me when I do a sit up so when I go down I bump him and then he has hurt feelings and I have to give him a treat later to make it up to him, brat. 😉

The abso best workout I am going to get though is tomorrow when, dun-dun-dunnnnn…Dragon Boat  season starts!!!!! You can not find a person more excited then me right now! We start training tomorrow so at 7:30pm I will be out on the water, rain or shine, warmth or cold, in sickness or in health lol Seriously, so psyched for this! 😀

hmm…I didn’t get to all my post ideas and already this post is pretty long, guess I’ll have to leave the rest for next time. Let me leave you with a picture of tonights dinner which I actually cooked! No buying dinner for me tonight, I slaved away 😉 and made a healthy meal of grilled red and yellow peppers, steamed asparagus and three skinless boneless chicken tenders that are sweet thai chili sauce flavour. Oh heads up, there is a story behind those, which I guess I am saving for another day lol

Tonights homemade dinner! Mmm!

Tonights homemade dinner! Mmm!

OMG! I almost totally forgot! I watched the finale of The Biggest Loser tonight and am so psyched that Danni won! By one freakin pound! Holy crap! She was always my fave contestant and I am so so so glad that she won! I am going to use her as my inspiration for the next while, when I have a day where I think I can’t do it I’m gonna think of her and how she kicked ass and decide that if she did it then so can I! 😀

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To The Gym – Finally!

11 Mar

WooHoo! I am finally allowed back to the gym!…on a conditional basis but whatever! I’m allowed back that’s all that matters to me! lol It’s not that I miss the gym exactly, more like I miss working out and not feeling like a huge blob sitting in my living room getting bigger and bigger and bigger…I mean c’mon, who wants to feel like that? Not me!

The conditional basis for my return to the world of exercise is this: I am allowed back for two weeks and I must ease in to things, sigh, I’m not good at “easing in” to things, I like to jump right in but fine, *pout* I’ll try to ease in…kinda 😉

After two weeks I have to go back to my physio and he has to reassess me to see how my back and neck are dealing with my normal routine. I don’t know what happens after that…

I’m not sure how well my body is dealing with my normal routine to be honest. I am lifting heavy stuff at work again, I am doing my normal activities, admittedly I haven’t been to the gym as often as I would like because life got in the way and I am totally out of the habit of prioritizing exercise in to my life (I plan to fix that!) but if I don’t make it to the gym I try to use my exercise bike or at least do some core work on my living room floor. I made a rule that if I am watching more then one hour of tv I have to ride the exercise bike for at least an hour while watching tv, and well, me being me, once I’ve done an hour of cardio I’m not going to stop there so then I do push ups, sit ups, core work, stretching, ya know, the normal stuff. However, by the end of the day my neck and back are hurting quite a bit and that is not normal…if I use a heating pad and rest it it seems to do a bit better but it shouldn’t be hurting right?

I’m trying not to think about it too much, I’ll just wait and see what the physio says next week. 🙂

Going back to the gym was…odd. I was actually kinda scared, something I was not expecting. I think the fear was partially because it was a new gym so I wouldn’t know where anything was and it’d take me a bit of time to get oriented and I didn’t know what to expect for how busy it would be or what type of people would be in there (I have noooooo desire to go to a gym that is full of snobs, ugh). The other reason was I have lost muscle mass, my muscle definition is not at all what it used to be and I am squishier around the middle, sigh. While I hate the squishy look I know it’s only a matter of consistent workouts and proper eating to help get that lessened but the big fear was how much my cardio ability and strength ability had declined. I worked hard to become good at running and to be able to lift weights I never thought I’d be able to lift. I was terrified to find that was all gone.

Guess what? It’s gone. 😦

After my first visit to the gym I was torn between being happy I went and feeling good about myself and wanting to cry because I wasn’t able to do as good of a workout as I used to be able to. I ran but not as fast or for as long as I used to, I just couldn’t do it, or couldn’t manage to push myself to do it. Oh, and get this, I totally blanked on my free weight routine. I thought I’d do back and arms but I get to the free weight section, I’m surrounded by buff guys who are lifting ridiculously heavy weights and I blanked on my exercises. I couldn’t remember everything I used to do, was worried I didn’t remember the proper form for some things, didn’t know what weights I should start with (cause I figured I’d have to start with smaller weights than what I used to be able to lift but it was a guessing game of what size) and something new, I was embarrassed to be lifting such small (in comparison to those guys) weights. That is just down right stupid, I am a girl, a girl who is soooo not a body builder so of course I can’t lift the same weights, or anything near! Plus it was my first time back after months away due to injury so nothing to be ashamed about!…and yet…I guess part of the embarrassment was because they were watching me and I was feeling kinda judged by them, not cool, but also probably all in my head so I can’t blame them for that. sigh.

Today was my second time to the gym and I wondered if I was going to feel the same way. I struggled on the treadmill, more then I ever have and that annoys me. Thing is, I think I could have pushed harder, could have done better, but I’ve lost that ability to push myself, to reach a limit I didn’t think I could. Where did that go? Where did that voice in my head that used to encourage me, yell at me, push me to give that little bit extra so I accomplished the goal I set for the day go? That voice is my version of Jillian Michaels, it’s not quite as mean, but it is what got me through some harsh running sessions. I miss it…I’m not sure how to get it back…I’m not even sure when I lost it…and more importantly, what does it mean that I lost it? Has some inner part of me given up? I know some days I feel like that, like I have given up on myself, my future, my goals. I don’t like the feeling, I don’t want to have given up but some days the fight just isn’t there and I don’t know how to get it back. Maybe just jumping in to my routine, starting back at dragon boat practice, just in general being more active will make me feel better about myself and that in turn will help me get that voice back? I dunno…I do know that I neeeeed that voice cause todays running session was lame in comparison to what I used to do. I’m a little lost…

So for now, since I don’t know what to do, I am going to start with the basics. I am going to be physically active everyday. I am going to eat healthier and do my best to follow the 80/20 rule. I am going to surround myself with motivational posters, youtube videos, phrases etc so that when I falter I can find inspiration where ever I am. I am going to research and reteach myself proper weight lifting form, create an actual strength routine so the next time I am in the gym it doesn’t matter if I blank because I will have something written down that tells me what to do. I am going to make this weight loss happen! I am going to find my inner voice! I am going to reteach myself how to fight! I am going to stop giving up and reach my goals! (I feel like I should make that marine noise they make in movies after all that lol)

 

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What A Day

21 Feb

Busy days are proof that the more you need to get done the more you can get done. If I am having a lazy relaxing kind of day I get almost nothing done, the dishes seem an insurmountable obstacle. Laundry? So not happening! Leaving the apartment to do errands? You might as well be asking me to cure the global economic crisis. But a day that is highly scheduled, has a lot that has to get done, those days I can do everything on my list and more! What’s with that? *confused face*

Today was an awesome day, despite the fact that it’s supposed to be my day off and it still started at 5:30am, ugh. I am soooooo not a morning person! And yet, today, my alarm buzzed and I got my lazy butt out of bed and started to tackle the first of all those many things I had to get done today…uh, the first being feed the cat, the second being hop in the shower lol

I was filming today and had to be on set, camera ready by 7am. Something I find very telling in life is that sure, for my day job I can get to work for 7am two shifts a week, I get there because I don’t want to be fired and I’m pretty sure consistently being late would (1) really piss off the person I am relieving and (2) really piss off management and get me fired…neither are things I want to happen, so, I get my butt to work for 7am, and while I really enjoy my day job, I hate those shifts. But! If I have to get up and be on set for 7am or earlier, it’s fine, it’s better then fine, I get out of bed the second that alarm goes off, no hitting the snooze button, no bitching as I fumble around for the lamp switch, no hiding under the pillow and wishing for a major catastrophe to happen so I can justify not getting up. I happily get up, mind already on what I will be doing on set that day as I trip over the cat on my way to his food dishes and then hop in the shower – seriously, that is how every day starts for me, dealing with the cat’s stomach then my cleanliness…:P

Starting to get off topic there, oops! lol

So, up early was I (and apparently I am now channeling Yoda lol) and off to set I went with a bag stuffed with changes of clothes, shoes, makeup for touch ups (just in case) and well, that’s it…normally I would pack a snack but I didn’t remember this time, my bad! I of course had my ever present travel mug filled with wonderfully hot tea, can’t start the day without that! I got to set, did the filming, had a blast, then actually got off early enough that I could have lunch before going to work. I don’t normally work Thursdays but there was a function being held at work and they asked if I wouldn’t mind coming in for just 4 hours so there was extra staff if it got really busy. Being that I am poor and need money I obviously said yes. 🙂 After lunch, which I ate at home with the cat on my lap (he was ignoring his food and was uber interested in my Subway 6″ turkey on 9 grain whole wheat sub, the mooch!) I changed, turns out I didn’t need to take my work clothes with me to set after all, and headed off to work. It felt very weird going there on a Thursday.

Work was fun, I enjoy my time there, and because it was a little shift during a fun function type thing it didn’t seem quite as much like work as it normally does lol. What can I say, I can easily trick myself! 😛 I had to dash out of there at 5pm on the dot though because next on my daily schedule was a physio appointment that I can’t be late for, if you are late you run the risk of not getting in because there are no vacancies to fit you in but you still have to pay for the session, eek! I had a painful, but useful, session with my physio, which lately is how all the sessions are. I learned something potentially interesting though. See, I can’t afford to join the gym because of how much I have to pay per week on physio. Today, my physio asked how I feel body wise compared to how I felt before the accident, he so shouldn’t of asked me that lol The first thing I said was I feel fat. I know he meant how does my body feel in relation to the injuries but ah well, he asked, I answered. He said I could start back at the gym if I go gentle and do the exercises approved by him, that it would most likely increase my recovery time because it would be helping the muscles in my back and neck heal quicker. I told him I want to go back but I can’t afford my weekly physio charges and the cost of the gym membership so I was kinda stuck. He said that the insurance company may pay for three months of gym fees because the exercise would help in my recovery and I should talk to my case worker. So of course, I added “email my case worker” to my list of things to do in the day and did that as soon as I got home after physio…which I almost fell asleep during, oops! lol The sessions always end with me laying on heat pads for my back and neck and the early start to the day caught up with me as I was laying there motionless and warm, almost dozed off! Good thing someone dropped something and it jarred me back to full consciousness…although at the time all that did was make me feel grumpy. 😉

After all of that I got to head back to the apartment, where I have since been dealing with student loan stuff and taxes, hanging with the cat, watching some tv, texting and talking on the phone with various peeps and am now seriously contemplating going to bed since I have pre-work plans for tomorrow and I want to be fully rested!…or at least partially rested lol

If I could accomplish this much everyday well, I’d be exhausted lol, but think of how productive I would be! Actually, let’s not go there, I like being lazy 😉

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A Slight Delay, sigh

18 Feb

Ok, so my plan for today didn’t work out but I have hope for later in the week, kinda lol.

I woke up this morning sick, ugh, talk about timing! My plan for today was to go to the gym after work, use my One Free Session coupon I printed off the website and assuming I liked the place sign up for a membership. I was so psyched for this (also kind of scared, but mostly excited lol). But yeah, so didn’t happen. All while getting ready for work this morning, and all during work I kept thinking maybe I’ll be ok by the time I’m done work, maybe I can still go! By the time I was done work though I was exhausted, and not the normal didn’t get enough sleep the night before exhausted but that lethargic tired you get when sick, and I was so so so cold and couldn’t get warm and my throat was killing me and…and…and…why go on listing symptoms right? We’ve all been sick so you know what was going on over here. Bleh.

I had no appetite all day but I made sure I ate a small breakfast and a provided by work lunch and I eventually managed to choke down some dinner. I’m pretty sure I could have gone the day without food cause that is how squashed down my appetite is but since I am trying to correct my not eating properly habits I figured it was better to force a mildly healthy days worth of food down my throat then not eat. Isn’t it feed a cold, starve a flu?…or something like that…or is it drown a cold as in I should have been drinking more fluids then normal? *confused face* hmm…I’ll have to google this cause I’m not sure which way it is supposed to go lol 😛

I am super annoyed that I didn’t get to the gym today cause I won’t have another chance to try until Wednesday, although maybe that is for the best cause that’ll give me an extra day to feel better…meh, whatever, I am still annoyed. I know some people think you should still work out when sick but I find that if I do that I take even longer to get better and the day after the work out I am in even worse shape then I probably would have been if I’d just stayed home and let my body rest. I figure each person has to figure out what works best for their body and go with that. 🙂

This cold is like a harassing little mosquito that won’t leave people alone. A couple people at work have also had it and it comes back, and back, and back! I was sick about two weeks ago, not so sick I was bedridden but sick enough getting through the work day was pretty hellish and on my days off I cancelled all my plans and just stayed home and tried to get better. I finally did get better, obviously, but then today was like some weird resurgence of the cold only instead of coming on gradually it hit me all at once. The same thing happened to two other people at work, they were sick with their colds 2-3 weeks ago and around the second week of being better they got sick again. So TF is sick again at the same time as me and CJ was sick for the second time last week, she said she only really felt sick for two days the second time around so I am hoping I only have one more day of this and then my immune system gets itself organized and kicks some invading microbes butts! *crossing fingers*

I don’t want all my plans to go out the window cause look at how long it took for me to stop being depressed about how I am and get motivated to change it! If I lose this momentum and end up down in the hole again thinking “what is the point so much damage has been done it is not fixable” can someone come slap me upside the head cause seriously, that is not a fun place to be. 😦

I did try to drink more fluids today but I don’t think I managed to drink as much as I normally do. See, I am a tea-aholic lol I drink tea like it is going out of style! I have a travel mug that I use at work that is constantly filled with tea, as soon as I finish one cup I make another, it’s like a never ending 8 hours of tea! 😀 Granted, I don’t drink it that fast cause the cup keeps it hot for a long time (the whole reason I use the travel mug and not a normal mug, sneaky huh? lol) but I definitely go through a lot of tea while working. Then when I get home the first thing I do is make a cup of tea and depending on my plans for the evening I either am out or home and if I am home I will be drinking more tea. Hey, there are no calories, it’s a fluid, holding a hot cup helps keep me warm-ish and I have English blood in my veins which basically means my blood is half tea 😉 being  a heavy tea drinker is practically my destiny lol. But today, I didn’t really want it as much. I wanted the hot cup to hold but that’s about it. My tea drinking was definitely not endless, shocking! When I got home I did have two cups of tea over the course of the evening and about a glass and a half of water, all of which were drunk in an attempt to make my throat feel better (fyi, totally didn’t work, sigh). As a result, now I am feeling mildly dehydrated and yet, my tummy doesn’t want anything in it so I guess it’ll be a battle of the body systems, wonder which will win? Will the body parts that want hydration be strong enough to tamp down the upset tummy feeling long enough that I will be able to drink some more water or will the tummy win and the water be a no-go mission? Ooooh, the suspense! 😉

To be honest, right now I don’t really care, about the missing out on the gym or the possibility of being able to drink something or anything cause I feel like crap and the only thought I have in my brain right now is going to bed…which is where I am headed riiiiiight now! *yawn*

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A New Start

17 Feb
I'm the pink bird...

I’m the pink bird…

I have been feeling like that pink bird, all round and fat and failing at losing weight…not even just losing weight but maintaining my weight, watching my food choices, getting daily exercise…a failure at every aspect of my so-called healthy living lifestyle. I’ve gone a bit off the deep end lately with trying extreme things to get back on track and ya know what? None of those extreme things worked, shocking right? 😉 lol They didn’t last, how could they? They didn’t get me results, even if they had they’d of been false. They didn’t make me feel good, both physically and emotionally. I wasn’t giving my body what it needs to function at peak efficiency and then  I was somehow surprised that I wasn’t getting the results I wanted? *sigh* How dumb am I? 😛

Well today I took the first step towards fixing this. What was my step? I went shopping! 😀

Yes, shopping. You read that right lol. But it is what I went shopping for that matters.

I hit up Popeye’s, the store I buy my protein powder and other supplements from, I haven’t been there in aaaaaages! I was almost out of protein powder right before I moved and decided to wait till I had moved to buy another container cause those containers are just too big and annoying to want to deal with when moving lol. Buuuuut, after I moved I never got back in to my exercise routine and my eating habits changed and before you know it I’d stopped even pretending to try to remember to go buy some more powder, epic fail on my part. While picking up the protein powder I also got my NutraSea Omega Oils, normally I get the one with Vitamin D in it but the one without Vitamin D was on sale so I went that route. I figure summer is eventually gonna get here and I’ll get enough Vitamin D then lol 😛 I also bought something I have been hearing great things about, its called VegeGreens, it is a powder that you can put in your protein shake or add to a glass of juice or water and it gives you multiple veggie and fruit servings without having to eat all your veggies and fruits. Now, I know some of you might be thinking “why not just eat the veggies and fruits? it’s got to be the healthier more natural way to go!” and you know what, maybe you’re right, I can’t say for sure because this one time I leaped before doing all my research but I’ll tell you why I decided to try it. I don’t get all my fruits and veggies in a day that I am “supposed to”, I fall quite short, when I am following my eating plan my veggie and fruit intake is guarded because of how many carbs are naturally occurring in them. Also, I just don’t eat that much food, that’s right, I confess! So sue me, I don’t eat enough food in a day that I can fit in all the fruit and veggie servings the Canada Food Guide says I should have as well as all the protein and dairy and blah blah blah...it’s too much freakin food! lol I had been toying with starting to take a multivitamin but I don’t agree with multivitamins and after speaking to a doctor I am even more convinced I don’t want those in my body but this product is all natural and sort of like a better version then a vitamin…theoretically! I’ll give you an update on it once I’ve been taking it for a while, let you know what I think of it. Cause we all know my opinion matters! lol 😉

So that was Stage 1 of shopping…yup, there were 2 stages! Two! Yah! 😀

Stage 2 was hitting up Walmart, it was originally going to be a trip specifically to buy the ingredients needed to combine with the protein powder and omega oil to make my protein shake but they were having some really good sales so I also bought some other healthy foods that I am quite excited about! 🙂 See, part of the shopping is for powders an stuff, the rest of the shopping is for food, normal food, healthy food, food I’m not embarrassed to have in my shopping basket…it’s been a while. I used to go grocery shopping and actually feel a little smug about how I had only healthy items in my basket and other people had cookies or crackers or chips or cakes or some seriously processed foods of some sort. Oh how the smug have fallen. *sigh*shakes head in shame*, lately when I do shop what I have been buying has not been anything to be proud of. But that changed today! I bought some fruit, fresh and frozen, frozen veggies, almond milk and real milk, healthy soups, skinless boneless chicken breasts, cottage cheese, all kinds of yummy good for me things! 😀 I actually took a picture of everything I bought today after work, take a look:

The results of my shopping today

The results of my shopping today

Doesn’t it look great? Well, think what you want, I think it looks great! 🙂 In case you are wondering, I only bought the already sliced mushrooms cause they were on super cheap, and I also got the chicken for the same reason, it was a good sale day at Walmart. 🙂

The soups aren’t strictly in my eating plan, ok, fine, they aren’t anywhere near to being in my eating plan lol but I am trying to be a little less dictator-ish and a little more realistic this time. There will be days I don’t have time to cook the chicken, days I don’t want to eat the fish that is already in my freezer, days I am tired, or running late or just plain ol lazy. Those days I will lean a bit on what is technically processed food and therefore supposed to be forbidden but is on the healthy end of the scale for processed foods and items I feel aren’t that bad for me. The soups I bought are all vegetarian, loaded with veggie servings (ya know, those things I never eat enough of? lol) and tasty. They are all soups that I could eat when on Weight Watchers, heck, I could have the entire can or box of soup and not blow my points out of the water if I had wanted which is probably why I still feel they are ok to eat now. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t always go as planned, and those soups are for those days. A decision I feel comfortable with. I may change my mind a couple months down the road when I’ve been eating healthier, maybe they will become a thing I can’t tolerate anymore, who knows? I can’t predict the future so I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  🙂

Stay tuned to find out what I am doing tomorrow to continue with My New Start! dun-dun-dun *teehee*

 

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The Fake Film Festival

13 Feb

Hi all you lovely readers! I was asked to be in a short film that was going to be entered in to a “fake” film festival. You may be wondering what I mean by fake, well, the rules are this, you take a pre-existing movie, condense it to sixty seconds, and voila!

It is a low budget film (ie. almost no budget lol) but we worked hard and it turned out to be pretty funny. We did Thelma & Louise in sixty seconds. Yah!

I am putting a link below and if you have an urge to click on it, watch the sixty second video and then hit the “Like” button underneath the video (essentially, voting for the video) I’d appreciate it. The top 25 videos get shown in a proper screening! Exciting! And the winner gets a trophy, bragging rights and $10K. I am more excited about the exposure since as a newbie actor that is oh so needed. 🙂

Thanks in advance to all that vote! 😀

Thelma & Louise in Sixty Seconds

*crossing fingers* that the link works lol

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Dreams

12 Feb

Dreams.

We all have them, some people don’t remember them, others remember in vivid detail. Sometimes they tell great stories, help you sort through something you can’t face when awake, scare the crap out of you or are just plain weird.

I am a master of weird dreams, no seriously, I have always had vivid weird dreams. They usually turn in to nightmares at some point, you wouldn’t believe how many ways and times I have been killed in my dreams, sigh, those dreams I don’t like, duh. The other dreams though, usually those I like.

My dreams are always a story, shown in chronological order that I remember in vivid detail for a couple hours after I wake up. If I make a point of remembering a dream then I’ll remember it longer, if I don’t dwell on it then it fades by about hour three of my being awake and I don’t think of it again. I’ve never been able to continue a dream the next night which is annoying when I am woken mid dream and don’t get to finish a story lol I wonder if anybody else gets annoyed over that?

Last week I had a dream where mermaids are real and were portrayed much the same way vampires were in the Blade movies. So, limited numbers of humans know about them, they operate sneakily in our society, they are like a sub-culture that if you discover them odds are good you are gonna die. In the dream, the mermaids had learned of a way that they could walk around on land for limited amounts of time which meant they could basically mess with people and then escape back in to the ocean. Mermaids are also basically one big mafia group so in my dream two cops were chasing a group of 4 people through a store, wanting to arrest them when they realized they were being lured in to a bad situation and lo and behold the guys being chased turned on them, shot them all and then dived in to the conveniently placed ocean where they turned in to mermaids, reported to the head of their organization (which, fyi, was Ariel from the Disney movie lol) and well, it kept going from there but you get the idea. lol.

This, in my world, is a fairly normal dream, least I was on the planet the entire time in this dream…I’ve died while saving the starship Enterprise D from exploding…yes, I watch Star Trek, no I don’t look like I do. 😉

Why am I going on about dreams? Simple. I had one last night that was about my body and it freaked the hell out of me!

I was going to work out and hadn’t done so in a long time, for some reason I took a pair of capris I use in the summer to wear while working out. I was with a bunch of people, my mom, close friends, a random grouping that will most likely never happen in reality as they don’t all live in the same city. We were all changing to go run on a track (something else that would never happen lol) and when I put on the capris they were oh so tight that I could barely close them and when I looked in a mirror I was horrified by how I looked. Not only were they super tight I was way bigger then I am now, a completely different body shape then what I have ever been, I was super round, super large and round all through my torso. I am far less accepting of flaws in myself then I am in others and I started panicking about how I had let myself go. I put on a loose fitting shirt to try to hide how bad the fabric stretched across me and all I could think was “start running! start running! all you need to do is start working out and it’ll go away!” in my dream I knew with that certainty you can only have in a dream that all I needed was one good workout and it would all go away and the capris would fit properly again.

Oh if only it was that simple, *big epic sigh*

In reality, I am horrified by how I look right now, and sometimes I do feel that all I need is one really good session in the gym to alter how I feel about how I look but I know it will take more then that. I hate that it’ll take more then that since I am a needing instant results kind of girl lol. You’d think after my nice an slow, healthy weight loss I’d be used to not getting instant results when working on my body/health but…I’m not! lol 😛

I think this dream was my unconscious mind bringing to my attention just how unhappy I am with how I am looking right now. The dream exaggerated how large I am, and exaggerated how I feel about my looks and exaggerated how easy it would be to fix what my laziness and then not being allowed to exercise due to my car injuries has done to my body. I was at a point where I was proud of how defined my arms were, how perky my ass was getting, how my thighs were noticeably thinner, how my cardio numbers kept improving and my strength was increasing. Now? Now I am nowhere near proud. In fact, I am terrified about how long it will take to get back to where I was and then keep improving.

I so desperately want to go back to the gym, I finally got clearance from my physio (admittedly for a way limited exercise regime but whatev! it’d be exercise!) but I can’t afford even the cheapest of memberships because of having to pay for twice weekly physio sessions. It’s driving me insane! I do what I can at home but it’s not the same as having access to a treadmill and free weights and a freakin bosu ball, how insane is it that I want a bosu ball so so so much?! lol I keep thinking once my physio is over and I have money again I should look in to investing in to some work out equipment so I’m not so reliant on access to a gym to get to use decent equipment buuuuut once I have money again I have other things it has to go towards and oddly enough, bosu balls are kinda pricey. *rolls eyes*

Ah well, I know I shouldn’t bitch and complain about it, there are lots of people out there who have things a lot worse but some days I just get so frustrated with how stuck I seem to be. 😛 But hey, I won’t be stuck forever right? 🙂

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