Are You Waiting Until New Year's?

New Year's is just around the corner. In 3 days, actually. A typical time for people to make resolutions (that they usually don't keep; I'm not usually cynical, but this is reality!). Me, I'm taking a different tack and focusing on the next 6 months.

What can be accomplished in 6 months? In 6 months of focus?

These are the questions on my mind today. Actually, they started yesterday as I realized that yesterday marked exactly 6 months until my brother-in-law and his family head off to Hawaii for a week. My family is hoping to go, too, so we may very well be leaving in 6 months, minus a day, as well.

Kaanapali beach on Maui. Yes, this is where we are hopefully going!

 

6 months. Hawaii. Yes, this brings to mind definite physical and health goals! Financial goals, as well.

What would I like to be free of in those 6 months? Just off the top of my head:
*the extra 10-15 lbs I think I have
*body pain: knees, neck and shoulder area
*low fitness; weak muscles, especially in the derriere ;)
*glasses; I improved my eyesight a bit some years back by following natural vision improvement techniques, so I know I can improve it even more, perhaps even to the point of not needing my glasses at all
*fears of not having enough money to go; I would love be financially free!!!

So, what does that mean I would like to accomplish in the next 6 months?
*get down to what I perceive as my ideal weight (this will require a definite change in eating habits!)
*use yoga, Pain Free, massage, tackle trigger points, tapping, Healing Codes, exercise, etc. almost daily to have a happily functioning body.
*be able to run 5 km (that just seems like the number to achieve)
*use the natural vision improvement techniques faithfully!!!
*make more than enough extra money to pay for a nice trip (Air Miles are covering our flights at least). I'll need to set a $ amount for best results

I will need to sit down and do proper SMART goals (Specific Measurable Action-Oriented Reasonable Timely) for each of those desired accomplishments and start working out short-term goals to accomplish on the way to them. And perhaps create some trackers that I can post in my house (or on my computer screen? lol) that will be in my face and remind me! Regardless, I'm starting right away. I'm not waiting until January 1st to start resolutions. Today is as good of a day as any and if I wait, I'll have that much less time to achieve what I want.

What about you? Are you waiting until New Year's to work on some goal? Change a habit? Or will you begin now?

30-Day Challenge - Day 7 - Quick Check-In

I have been doing the challenge! (What about you? :) It's not too late to start! You could do a 21-day challenge instead!) I haven't updated in part because I had my laptop monitor start going which involved a mad scramble to try to transfer things and figure out how to use Gmail (and if it's worth using Gmail over Yahoo Mail) so that I can have everything web-based and not have to worry again about losing emails and such because of a faulty computer. (Although, I admit it, I still worry that Google could lose everything on me! :o )

In any case, I'll keep this short and sweet: I did my 7th day in a row of the last sequence in the Pain Free book. I'm amazed at how quickly the exercises work! I went walking up stairs and escalators the other day at a good pace and it was so much easier--and painless--than I so often experience. I couldn't do as many repetitions as he said to do on Day 1, but was able to do all of the reps today. Still can't get to that 90-second mark for the wall bench (and he wants you to actually hold it 3 minutes), but I remember a year and a half to two years ago, I could not even get into a proper wall sit it hurt my knees so much. I'm glad to see this progress! If you have any kind of chronic/recurring pain condition, I strongly urge you to get this book!

30-Day Fitness Challenge - Day 2

Did you start with me yesterday? If not, it's not too late! You can start your own 30-day challenge today and end a day after I do or you can start today and have a 29-day challenge. :D

As I mentioned yesterday, my main challenge is to do a sequence from a book I have Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain. I not only did that yesterday, but also did a few sets of stairs and ended the day with the yoga sequence in the video below (I see now I've been leaving out the arm stretch at the beginning! and I hold each stretch for several breaths, as they say to--don't actually do the sequence as fast as in the video).

I find this yoga sequence helps a lot with my IT band problems. If I haven't been doing it for a while and I have a day where I can feel everything around my knees tightening up or perhaps the IT band itself is hurting or tingling, I do this sequence and it feels sooo good. By last night, I was starting to feel things in some muscles. I'm feeling things even more this morning! I have already done my Pain Free sequence this morning and hope to remember to do the stairs and yoga later on.

What about you? What will you do today? Even if you aren't doing the 30-day challenge, what will you do to nurture your fitness level today?

30-Day Fitness Challenge - Day 1

Today is Day 1! Are you going to join me today in a 30-day challenge to improve your fitness?

My friend who set this challenge up is going to be doing Jillian Michaels' 30-Day Shred.

Given my knees are bothering me a bit from doing more stairs than usual in my house yesterday, I don't even want to know what this 30-day shred would do to me. So, I'm not going to try it.

But, I've been thinking a lot lately about how I do want to really be in good shape. In better shape than I've ever been in. I've never been the athletic type but I was watching something the other day and a person was running and it just somehow hit me that I would like to have the freedom that being in shape would bring: I can play physical games, run with my kids, run with the dog or chase after her and not get tired so quickly... So many things. I had never had the desire to really be in great shape before; just kind of fit was enough. That's changed.

Right now, I'm not free due to my IT band issues and knees. So, I'm starting with that by using sequences in this book:

I have found in the past that a combination of doing an appropriate sequence (could be knees or even shoulders or just the final sequence), some stairs repetitions and a yoga sequence focused on stretching the IT band have really helped me progress. I'm not sure I can commit to doing all 3 at the moment, so my commitment for the 30-day challenge is one of the Pain Free sequences, with the intention of adding in the others as I remember them.

 Do you have a fitness goal you will commit to for the next 30 days? Please join me and share in the comments!

A New 30-Day Challenge Starting Tomorrow!

A friend of mine says I inspired her with my previous challenges and she not only finished a 30-day fitness challenge just recently, she's starting up a second one and is inviting friends to join her. (Well, she's being a little stricter: You get one rest day a week and if you miss otherwise, you've got to give everybody else who's participating a $10 gift card! Yikes! lol)

I have not done any consistent exercise in ages and have decided that with things starting to calm down around here, I do have the motivation and the time to do it and post about it.

The challenge starts tomorrow. Do you care to join me?

A New Flab-Free Challenge

LOL. (Yes, laughing at myself at my choice of titles.)

All right, it's not even 2013, but I stopped by the library and a book on display has become my next fitness challenge guide:

Clicking will bring you to the Amazon US listing.

I had a look at it and it looks like it's easy to do and is based on how much a person can push themselves, which means for things that may aggravate my IT-band, I just do what I can and leave it at that. It's designed to be for everybody, including those of us who haven't properly exercised in ages. My kind of book! lol. It has a devotional component which suits me just fine, but someone who wasn't interested in the spiritual fitness aspect of the book could ignore it. I won't be following the food options since I'll be working on my own individualized food goals and with food allergies/sensitivities and strong dislikes, there's too much I just wouldn't eat. The book also goes into an additional 28 days, so it's really kind of a 56-day program, if someone decided to do it all, which I will if the first 28 days make a difference. :)

One thing they say to do is to journal: write down each day how many of the exercises you did, how long it took and all that. I haven't decided if I will post that all here or on the forum they have on their website http://www.prayfit.com. It doesn't seem used much, which means if I post there, I don't know that I'll have the kind of accountability that could be useful. If I post here, you all might get pretty bored. We'll see.

I see no reason to wait until January 1st, when I'll be tired from having stayed up late and less motivated to get it done and the waiting will just encourage procrastination, so I started today! Today's exercise, after a 3-minute walking warm-up, was just to provide a baseline, and here's mine:

Inclined push-ups: 10 (so sad... lol. I have a decent amount of strength to lift things, but my shoulders aren't very strong, apparently!)
Crunches: 27 (not horrid...)
Time: 1 minute 47 seconds

The way the program is set up is that there are 4 mandatory workout days each week. These are the exercises for this week, if I've previewed properly. That's it. The goal: Beat each previous day's number of reps and/or time.

Are you waiting to start some fitness goals? What are they?

Day 17: Pre-Christmas Challenge--Progress

Already at Day 17! Yikes!

Borrowed from http://yogabellystudio.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/17.jpg

It's a little past the mid-point, but I figure it's a good time to assess. Have I made progress? Have my goals helped?

I can't say my raw morning focus has made much of a difference. Well, no, at first, I was feeling better, "cleaner". But I was eating more fruits and greens at that point. Aha! My raw morning yesterday consisted of a tiny clementine and my standby of Ani Phyo's Coconut Breakfast Cakes, topped with blueberries and maple syrup. That's been a pretty consistent breakfast this past while, so low fruit intake and little variety! I had said before that I needed to eat more fruits and veggies. It's very clear today that I do!

For the exercise portion, while I didn't see a difference when I put on my bathing suit the other day (;0), when I first started doing the exercises, I could barely do 10 repetitions of some of them. I made my way up to a set of 15 of each and just last night, started with two sets of 10. Definite progress, even if it's not exactly visible. This is very good on my part: I have had a tendency in the past to go too quickly, exacerbating the IT band and knees further, which set me back and forced me to stop. No need to stop! I do think continuing to do yoga after the exercises definitely helps, too.

No, not my suit, but it's cute, isn't it?
http://www.forthoseabouttoshop.ca/2012/05/23/beyonces-one-piece-and-modest-swimwear-trends-2012/

Yes, the bathing suit. Do you know, I think a bathing suit can have two potential effects with a goal: convince you that you might as well give up or spur you into a more dedicated action!

My kids and I went to a recreation centre on Friday where we spent some time in the pool and some time in the gymnasium. My IT band ended up having some burning here and there. I'm not sure if it was because of overuse or because it was being released. In any case, put my bathing suit on before we left and had a good look in the mirror. I have to be honest with myself: my challenge's overall goal was to improve habits but I know deeper down, I would really, really like to be in better shape much more quickly! Am I prepared to dedicate myself to that at this point? I'm not so sure. I am really trying to be more careful about what I eat, be more aware. The food diary kind of helped, but just paying more attention during the day, not grabbing something out of habit is more helpful. I took a couple of Christmas cookies after lunch the other day and five minutes later thought, "What did I eat those for?" It wasn't intentional, it was "they're there on the counter, mmm, they'd taste good" and I ate them. Bah. I was tired and craving something sweet last night but did not give in. Within about 5 minutes, the desire had passed. But exercise... With Christmas nearly here, my busyness is crazy. I haven't even been keeping up my novel writing. This may have to be an after Christmas challenge.

What is this Sunday morning babble about? I hope it's about something. About progress, about not giving up, about seeing things for what they are and taking the next step.

Only fifteen days left until Christmas Eve! Just over two weeks to take another step and make even more progress. I can do it--and so can you. :)

Day 4 - Pre-Christmas Challenge: Water!

Like all other flowers (lol), I need water. Every so often, actually, fairly often, I don't make sure to get enough water. When I don't, like other flowers, I wilt. And I sometimes set up problems with my sinuses and get nasty headaches, too.

Today being Monday, let me look ahead at a typical Monday and my water consumption: Monday afternoons, I teach a French class to a group of homeschooled children. With preparation and busyness in the morning, my attention on the class for the full two hours of the class in the afternoon, and then I rush off to pick up my nieces and nephew from school, a process that takes about an hour, I have a tendency to not drink enough water on Mondays.

Not getting enough water is a common problem, it seems. How many health resources out there say, "Drink your water!" It's important for so many reasons:

• your skin (especially with winter hitting us here in the northern hemisphere and dare I say, very clearly here in the north-central Canadian prairies)
• your brain's ability to think
• your digestion
• your kidneys and liver
• inflammatory conditions (sinusitis, arthritis, etc.) become worse when you get even a little bit dehydrated
• many cite it as important for weight loss
• so much more... 

It's important to drink your water! Maybe you can't have filtered water or bottled water or whatever. Getting enough water is important regardless of the quality. (Says the person who's issues yesterday came from days of not getting enough!) So this is my challenge to you today: Drink at least 8 glasses of water! Fill a pitcher with the amount you are going to drink during the day, keep tally somewhere, do something to make sure it happens. I find I tend to do even better when I drink more than that, but it does depend on what I've eaten during the day.

Doing this a little differently, I'll end this post with my Day 3 recap:

I posted early morning (early morning for here) yesterday, but I already had a sinus headache causing me problems. Part of this issue seems to be tied to my neck muscles, which I tried to work on with my yoga the night before, but clearly all kinds of different factors mixed together and left me almost incapacitated. It's not the level of pain in my right sinus but somehow just how the pain was, if that makes any sense. I had at times pressure and pain going in behind my eye, into my ears, no balance at all if I was standing and my eyes were closed... I thought about my self-imposed challenge and how would I be able to do the exercise if I was in that state?  I tried alternate-nostril breathing (a yoga technique) which helped clear some things out a bit, but didn't do enough. I tried to find trigger points and massage them. I tried massaging my head, which felt fantastic, but only went so far. I tried taking two Advil; it might have helped take the edge off a bit. Typical OTC sinus medications are not an option for me (ended up in emergency last time with severe heart palpitations!) A few people have told me a neti pot is the way to go when it flares up like this, but I don't have one. I finally ended up with a heated magic bag on my neck and base of my head, propped up in a specific way on the couch where it still hurt a bit, but I could function, at least function as much as I needed to laying on a sofa with a laptop. Sitting in a normal position meant me constantly massaging my head and around my eyes and cheekbone. It wasn't fun. And the sad thing is that it was the second time this past week. The other time? Thursday evening, after a day of 4 hours of French classes and getting even less water than usual.

You see where my recommended challenge is coming from today? Do not do as I have done! Especially if you have sinus issues!

I was hungry and decided I had to eat. This was before trying everything to ease up the pressure. I had some of Ani Phyo's coconut breakfast cake batter left, so I plopped it on a plate, put some maple syrup and... could barely eat any. Made me feel sick to my stomach. After easing up the sinus issues, I was able to finish it but still didn't have much of a desire to eat, even though my stomach was saying it wanted food. It did, however, make it easy to be raw for the morning. (I know maple syrup isn't raw, but that's a nitpicky thing I don't count. Just like the pasteurized orange juice that goes into my green smoothies.)

The avoiding junk was hard. Because I was feeling blah and tired, I really wanted junk. I saw frozen tart shells in the deep freezer. "Mmmm, 'butter' tarts would be delicious." Then I thought about making chocolate chip cookies. Neither times did it hit me they would be considered 'junk'. When it did hit me and I was still craving something, I thought about making Sarma Melngailis's chocolate coconut truffles and was so close to making them when a little voice said, "Wouldn't that count as junk, too?" Does it? I don't know. I decided it wasn't the healthiest way to satisfy the craving, so I didn't make them. But boy, was it difficult to stand against it! I eventually made myself a little trail mix with raw pumpkin seeds, raw sunflower seeds and some raisins.

Late afternoon, my headache and sinus pain had eased enough that I could do some other things, but not too much. In retrospect, a day with the laptop helped me read blogs I haven't read in a while, blog, and write something like 4800 words for NaNoWriMo. The things I can get done when I'm not busy with everything else!

It hit me that I had still to do my exercises. I finally managed to get to them. I decided to still focus on my glutes, but I kind of created my own sequence from different exercises. I just think it's important to not do the exact same thing every single day. I also did some yoga.

Despite most of the day being very rough, I still managed to accomplish everything I set out to do--including avoiding the junk! A little voice is saying to me, "Avoid it today, too!" I might as well. But the main focus will be the raw food in the morning (I don't even know what I have in the house, eek!), get the exercises in and water.

Are you going to make sure you hydrate yourself enough today?

Day 2 of the Pre-Christmas Challenge

Did you join me in starting a pre-Christmas challenge? What did you decide to do?

Recall that my goals were:

1) Start the day off with raw food (trying to have nothing but raw all morning).
2) Do some exercises for my ITBS issues/tone my glutes.
3) Maintain the yoga habit I already have

How'd I do for day 1?

*I drank green smoothie--orange juice, water, banana, baby spinach and frozen blueberries--all morning, so that goal was achieved!

*I did some searching for ITBS exercises. Some people swear by them, others don't. I eventually just picked a routine I found in an October 2011 issue of Fitness magazine. There is an online version here: http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/butt/exercises/butt-shaping-exercises/ 

Because my glutes are so out of shape, I did only one set of each exercise and only 10 reps per set. I know my glutes are going to feel it!

*Followed up with some yoga.

Friday's fitness and food goals achieved! That is not to say that I ate super well later on... I'll have to be careful or I'll sabotage the good I do in the morning. At the same time, I know from past experience that once I get into a habit of morning being pretty much only raw, I turn to the crud less. In any case, it was very easy to achieve. Perhaps too easy, but if I can stick with this easy stuff, it's still a step better than what I've been doing for ages.

One thing I did look up was Egoscue itbs and Pilates itbs. Both methods can apparently help with ITBS. Egoscue is usually best done first thing in the morning. I'm thinking I might use my Pilates book and start doing that, especially the legs sequence, before yoga. If I do a Pilates sequence would then not be getting just a legs/butt routine, but a whole body workout. Sounds good to me! Of course, I can mix it up between the Pilates and the Egoscue and the butt-shaping exercises above.

Now onto:

It's Saturday today, which means, for me, there's no real routine. Every Saturday is different for some reason. I have NaNoWriMo to fit in today, I have to go to the library, stop at the grocery store, avoid all the other stores during the newly founded Canadian "Black Friday weekend sales", get laundry done, all the usual. We have a family birthday party tonight, which means we likely won't be home until late. Fitting in 5-10 minutes of yoga before jumping in bed is doable; adding on actual exercise might not be. I think I need to consider doing Pilates or the sequence shared above during the day rather than in the evening, at least for today. Of course, I also need to make sure to get as much raw as I can this morning!

But right now, I'm going to indulge in a little me-time and play Sims 3. :)

Btw, it's never too late to join me! Why don't you set yourself a pre-Christmas goal and share?

Pre-Christmas Challenge

The other day, I celebrated my 100th day in a row of daily yoga! I had set a goal, was determined to reach it and did. No, I still haven't dropped the yoga: yesterday was day 102.

I feel the need for another goal, something other than the NaNoWriMo I'm also currently working on and whose writing habit I would like to keep up when it's done. Something physical. Christmas is in 31/32 days (we start on the 24th in my family) and that seems like a decent amount of time to make some sort of physical progress. But what do I want to do? That's what I'm here to babble about.

My yoga goal worked because, for whatever reason, there was this determination to do it. I knew yoga was something that would help me a lot with my ITBS (iliotibial band syndrome), even if it was for nothing more than 5 minutes some days. And it has helped tremendously. I'm now scared to stop doing yoga each day because of how much it has helped. But that determination was there and I'm not sure how to create that sort of determination, kwim?

I think we often set ourselves goals that sound good or are things we think we should do, but because we're not properly connected, properly determined, we don't do what we need to do to accomplish that goal. I had such strong determination to accomplish that goal that there were a few times we'd gotten home late, I'd gotten into bed and realized I hadn't done my yoga that day. Well, it was either start over or pull myself out of bed and get it done. I did the latter. That's the kind of determination I want on my next goal!

So, with that in mind, I'm thinking it's got to be about something I do rather than something I don't do. For example, "No more junk food." Well, I know myself. Maybe you're like me: You set that goal and you're busy or distracted and take something out of habit and before you realize what you're doing or remember your goal,  it's too late--that bite is in your mouth and down into your stomach.

One thought I had in the shower this morning was a weekly progression. Have it all written out, maybe with reminders in iCal or even my cell phone. It could be a food thing, which is something I do want to improve on because it's not been fantastic lately and I've been getting illness after illness. (Flu and pink eye at the same time a few weeks ago! :( ) It shows up in my one thumbnail. I tried to take a picture, but I can't get it to show up right. Whenever I get sick, it's like my thumbnail doesn't form quite right under the cuticle and as it grows out, there are these lines. They kind of look like Beau's lines, but aren't quite the same. It's like a form of splitting horizontally on the surface. Sometimes it's just a little thing a couple millimetres long; other times the line covers over half the width of the nail. When it gets to the point of being almost grown out, I always have to cut the nail short because it's just a mess. I had gone for sometime that I had only one little mark on that nail. I have signs of 4 periods of illness on that nail now. And for someone whose nails grow quickly, that's not good.

Excuse my Friday morning babbling. Back to what I was saying: I had the thought in the shower of having some sort of progression rather than 31 days of the same goal. So, week 1 would have a food and exercise goal (other than yoga); week 2 would bump it up a bit; and so on. I'm not sure it's wise to have a food and exercise goal, but at the same time, I'm thinking, "Hey, I managed to do 100 (102) days of yoga; surely I can manage two simple, yet progressive, goals?" And I know it all comes down to my determination. Am I determined to do this? Maybe once I figure out the goal I will be able to answer that question. ;)

Food goal ideas: raw mornings (at least, as much as I can handle), progressing to raw mornings and lunches, progressing to... Hm.

Exercise goals: My mind's all over the place with this one. I know there are some exercises that would very much benefit my ITBS. Part of my problem is my glutes are not up to snuff, which is kind of sad since I did figure skating years ago and pre-pregnancies, kind of liked my derrière. (lol. Did I just admit that?) With pregnancies, posture shifted, those muscles--gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus and gluteus medius--did not get properly used. I could see a simple first week goal of having an exercise sequence that I do before yoga.

Maybe that's as far as I should go for now? My first week? Get through the first week and keep that as the minimum I do? It might not seem like it would do much, such small goals like that for 30 days, but building the habit will help me much more than creating a more challenging goal that I can't stick to. I can have a minimum requirement--and then desired "add-ons", like 10 minutes on the treadmill or a strength training sequence I've found or 5 minutes of skipping rope... I just need to take the next step(s) right now. Especially with the craziness of Christmas preparation ahead!

What would my ideal be? Well... :D I would love to be 10 lbs down from where I am now by Christmas. I know at least 5 of those lbs are water that are the result of my food choices/sensitivities. So, really, I have at most 5 lbs of fat to lose. (And really, it could be I have 10 lbs of water retention to lose...) I would love for my glutes to be toned. There is no tone to them right now, let me be honest about this. I would love to just feel healthy and stronger.

Now to the important question: Am I determined to make this next step? Am I determined to start each day eating raw? Am I determined to do those glutes exercises each and every day for improvement with my ITBS and a more tone? *pause* Yes. Yes, I am. Let me get started right away! Let this be Day 1. Day 31 will be Dec. 23. I'm thinking I ought to share daily my progress--it would be a great way to make sure that I stick with this and keep thinking about it. I used my FB account for my yoga challenge; I don't feel much like sharing this challenge in FB. But I know that having the accountability in FB helped me stick with the yoga during the first month: I didn't want to have to admit to them that I'd missed a day and had to start over! This blog will be my accountability for this pre-Christmas challenge of mine. And if you would like to join me with your own challenge, please do--and share in the comments! :D

Day 1 Tommy Europe's 10-Pound Shred

I've been trying to get into my summer clothes lately. They're not very flattering--and some don't fit at all. *gulp* As I am wont to do, I have been making progress and regressing and making progress again lately with food choices, but the inconsistency isn't helping me any and I'm not getting any exercise in. I really don't like how low my fitness level is.

For the next 31 days (including today), I will blog about my experience with Tommy Europe's 10-Pound Shred: From Flab to Fit in 4 Weeks, which I started today. (If you have this book and are reading and have been procrastinating doing it, or maybe you have some other program you are procrastinating, please join me!) Tommy is a Canadian fitness trainer and former pro football player. I learned about him when I was watching The Last 10 Pounds Bootcamp on TV. I saw his book last year in the store and picked it up, started it and... I'm not sure what. lol. I do remember starting the program and then realizing about a week in that I was not repeating the daily sequences as indicated. Oops. I restarted a few times, but don't think I ever made it to the end. I can't remember if I just found it too challenging or what.

I am sooooo out of shape that I know I will have to modify the program, but that's okay: I can do it all again afterwards at a higher level. Today was just the "get yourself oriented" day. I took my measurements (gulp) and did the fitness test. I had to modify it and still had a time score of beginner. Ah well. I knew my fitness level was low. Modifications were in part because I could feel my knees telling me no more (squats and lunges) and there was just no possible way I was going to do as many sit-ups and push-ups as he said. It was simply not possible. Not unless I was going to be working at what is supposed to be about a 5-minute (okay, in my case it was closer to 10-minute) test for 30+ minutes. I wrote down the modifications so that I have something to compare to next time.

As part of the program, I'm not allowed to weigh myself again for 2 weeks. And I'm supposed to follow his meal plan, which I can't do due to food allergies and there are some foods I simply don't like. :P And I have a family to feed and they definitely won't eat some of the supper options (salmon? curry chicken? nope). I'm going to have to fiddle around with it.

So, here's to day 1 of my flab-free life. lol. Please send positive thoughts my way because I'm going to need all the help I can get!