This will make you smile

This will make even a bad day go away !! A baby horse on its mom's lap Some pictures just don't need captions. There is nothing like Mom's lap no matter who you are. This is precious !!!! This is a newborn offspring of Taskin, a Gypsy Stallion owned by Villa Vanners of Oregon . These pictures were taken immediately after his birth on April 6. The mare laid down, and then he trotted around and crawled right up into her lap. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It's just one of those Animalriffic days Mom, Dad, Uncle Jim ~~ ~~ ~~ DON'T MOVE YET!! He's not my brother ~~ ~~ He's just HEAVY!! I promise I won't do it again, Momma! Just wait a couple'a years and try that again! YEAH!! Come on, throw the ball, throw the ball, ~~ ~~ I'm ready ~~ ~~ yeah ~~ throw it! Hmmmmm. I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure that what you heard is what I actually meant! We gotta get a bigger bed! Hey, can I have a bite'a that? HEY!! What's with this 'warm spot' ? You woke me up to tell me THAT?? HIIIIEEEEEEYAAAAH!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This one is destined to become a classic! Send it to a friend who needs a smile

Self Talk

I know I’ve talked about this before but I think it is very important to bring up again. How many times during the day do you find your self saying negative things about yourself? If you were to carry around a notepad and put a check mark down each time you had a negative inner dialog with yourself – how full would that page be?

It is so important to change your thoughts to positive ones. Keep telling yourself you are fat and your body just agrees with you and keeps you fat. Keeping negative images in your mind, keeps you in that state. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. Stop judging yourself. Stop comparing yourself to others.

When I’ve lost some weight and I am feeling good about myself,  my motivation is high and I’m raring to go. But when I’ve gained weight, my clothes fit tighter, and my motivation is low, I am my own worst enemy and it drags my mood down. It affects almost everything I do. It is important to me to stop this chain reaction of negative self talk and start talking my way back to where I want to be.

While reading a blog on Paleo, they were taking about breaking through these negative barriers and I came across this link:   It’s a bit long, but this lady is amazing and has such an important message to share - Aimee Mullins

As Dr. Wayne Dyer states “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life”.

Turn Around the Negative Self-Talk (lots more links at the bottom of this page)

You Are What You Think

I am a beautiful, healthy, fit person – how about you?

Barefoot Woes

Every summer I love to wear sandals. I have several pairs that I find extremely comfortable (most days anyway) and I love it when I don’t have to wear socks.

As a child I used to run around barefoot all the time. I think the soles of my feet must have been as tough as leather because I remember running down the back alley between my home and my grandmothers…. barefoot. I remember being chased by the boys and getting away even though I was barefoot. … hmmm.. how come I hate running today?…Ah how I digress.

Quite a few years ago, I suffered severe pain in my feet. It got so bad I could hardly walk and when I went to a podiatrist, I was fitted with some orthotics. They saved my feet. I was suffering from Plantar Fasciitis.

It is a very common ailment and I know a lot of folks that suffer from it (and I’m sure some of you do as well so you can relate to what kind of pain I’m talking about). Over the years I’ve had several different types of orthotics. Some that worked, some that didn't and the unfortunate part of it is that they are darned expensive – anywhere between $250 and $500 dollars. Not something that is easily put aside if they are working right.

Last year when I walked the Kidney March (100Km Walk over 3 days), I started out wearing my newest pair of orthotics but they actually started to hurt my feet more than they did any good. So I bought some arch support Asics and I loved them. I got two identical pairs of shoes and an extra set of inserts and between the two pairs, I trained and walked the March last September. My feet survived and did fine.

But then came the summer of 2011 and my sandals again. Did I mention I LOVE wearing sandals? Unfortunately though this means my feet start hurting all over again and this summer has been especially hard on them. My new home has hardwood and linoleum floors and with all the unpacking, organizing, cleaning, renovating going on, I should have been wearing my running shoes. Does not help that I’ve gained 15lbs either.

As of today, I can hardly walk on my left foot. It is so painful. I spend a few minutes stretching my foot/heel before I get up and start walking or I wouldn’t be able to walk at all right now. Although this discomfort has been going on for awhile and I stopped wearing my sandals about a month ago and back into my runners, it is not getting better – but worse. I have a feeling my Asics are wearing out.

So I’m back to my neutral shoe with my prescribed orthotics (that hurt my feet last year) and I’m going to have to remember to wear them ALL the time and not just when I’m away from the house. With trying to increase my activity by walking (getting in more exercise), my feet hurt quite a bit after. Hence why today they are giving me grief – I’ve been getting in extra walking sessions lately.

So my #1 priority is to get this weight off and to heal my feet!

I’d get some Active Release done on it but then I’d need crutches to get around while they healed….. anyone ever had that done? And I’m open to any other suggestions on how I can make them feel better. I have this foot roller that I’ve tried on two occasions but I think I’m allergic to something in them because afterwards my feet are so itchy I can hardly stand it. Maybe latex?

I hope you have a FANTASTIC day!

ttyl

Sandra

W2D13 and On to Other Things…

I’m a bit behind on my journaling for my work BL challenge. Ok I’ll admit - I suck at it. I’m all gungho and right into it in the beginning but then I get easily bored (and I’m sure you do as well) with reporting the same things over and over again. It’s boring… blah blah blah blah

So I’m not going to anymore. Instead I’m going to share stuff that I’ve been reading/investigating and maybe you will find it of interest as well.

I’m learning some stuff. So before I get to the good stuff, here’s my recent update on what I’m now working on:

I’ve always known that I must eat more protein than carbs. My biggest downfall has been drinking beer in the summer. I didn’t drink every single day, but I did on the weekends and especially while camping (never mind the Mexico trips). Even though I was not eating a whole lot of calories, didn’t eat a lot of bread or pasta, I was downing the brewsky and the empty calories weren’t doing me any good. Even when I switched to the lower calorie version which cut the calories in half, it didn’t make a difference. There is something in beer that was still making me fat … I’m pretty sure it was Sugar. Not that beer has sugar per se but the body’s processing of the ingredients in beer and how it converts it to sugar.

Almost a year ago I bought this book – The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain. I didn’t pick it up to start reading it until about a month ago. It’s pretty detailed and so I haven’t gotten all the way through it yet. Mostly because I started to read Primal Body, Primal Mind. And again it has a lot of detail so I’ve started The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf and it so far is my favorite one to read. I like how he explains things and adds some humor into it as well. I’ve got about 4 books on this subject on the go.

I’ve not been counting calories (too restrictive and my brain/body rebels), but I have increased my protein intake and decreased my carb intake. I eat fruits and veggies but am trying really hard to cut out the rest of the stuff. It’s not easy as I still have to feed Mr. Sandra and he likes his Rice and Potatoes. It is amazing just how much junk goes into your body once you really start looking into things.

So far what I have noticed is that  I’m not that hungry as often and I am much more alert – when I am on track. It’s all about developing new habits (or getting back into the old ones that you know work) and getting into the flow of things for me. I’ve got to make the right choices and sometimes what is in front of me isn’t exactly the right choice – but they are getting fewer and farther between (the bad ones that is). I’m still learning… You’d think I would have had this down pact by now…

Here is some stuff I’ve been reading/watching:

I found this website from another website I was reading through and thought a lot of the short interviews they have published are quite interesting. Here are just a few of what they have posted:

Why You Got Fat

Big Fat Lies

The Food Pyramid … hmmmm -  Sugar and Starch

Another link on Sugar

And of course while watching the above video’s I found the below link as well.

The amazing story of a woman who lost 500 pounds

I guess this is why we all blog and love getting comments/support from each other.

I hope you are all having a fantastic day!

ttyl

Sandra

Ms. Katie was bad :)

I got up to a wonderful mess on my rug this morning. Ms Katie must not have felt very good. And upon further investigation I discovered just how much she likes my Wheat Grass.

She munched it all down.

Devil child :)

Why I Like Where I Live

Unfortunately the blackberry doesn't show the Mountains but they are there.

W1D4,D5,D6

Yeah, so the weekend didn’t go as I planned. I headed down to the basement to workout first thing Saturday morning but my exercise equipment was surrounded by boxes and I started to move stuff around and ended up organizing some of the space so that I’d feel comfortable exercising…. Then I had to get ready to leave the house and went shopping with my daughter – walking the malls counts as exercise doesn’t it? Sure as heck didn’t do what I planned that morning that’s for sure.

Food was pretty good all weekend. Problem I have is that I don’t drink enough water (I talked about this on Day 2) and I don’t eat often enough. I find I get busy and forget to eat. Then when I do eat, it is a larger meal. Not good, not good at all. I need the 6-7 smaller meals a day to lose weight and ALL of them must contain protein.

Sunday, I did no exercise at all except cleaning the house. I had my grandson over for the weekend and when he gets up early I tend not to abandon him to go into the basement to exercise – unless he can join me. In this new place, that  isn’t the case … yet. I know excuses excuses.

What I’m going to to do later today is sit down and think about some small goals I want to achieve. I think striving towards meeting small attainable goals will help motivate me. If I do stretch goals, that take months and months to reach, I’ll get bored and move onto something else (or nothing at all). Maybe I will do daily and weekly goals to start.

In the end my goal is to be healthy and fit at whatever weight that is but to get there I need some stepping stones.

Do you think setting goals helps you in your journey?

Day 3

Oh how boring that title is…

The reason I need a treadmill is because I’m not that comfortable yet walking the country roads. Our road is not paved per se but is oiled and compact so it is much better than gravel. But truth be told, I am afraid of dogs. Yes I have a dog but she is my dog and I am completely comfortable with her. Other dogs that come out on the road barking at you make me uncomfortable. And on our road, I’ve seen quite a bit of this. I must get over this though because it is a perfect road for walking/running as it is starts out with a hill on my side of things, then about 4K down the road towards the main highway, you walk up another hill and to do that back and forth to get in at least an 8K walk would be a good session (I hate hills therefore I must do more of them).

So… I want a treadmill…

So back to dogs… Our Ms. Katie is a lovely dog, and has been raised as a hunting dog. (Oh don’t be fooled by that – she is a princess through and through). She is good for upland birds (Pheasants) when she goes hunting and doesn’t do so well retrieving heavy ducks and geese out of the water. Katie is thriving living out there and she loves it. We had considered getting a pet safe fencing system put in as we weren’t sure if she would wander but so far so good. She is such a home body, and such a people dog, she never leaves the vicinity of the house. And she NEVER barks unlike all the other dogs in the surrounding farms/acreages (one in particular can keep me awake at night). Katie is such a good dog it is impressive.

So Mr. Sandra wants a dog that will retrieve game birds out of the water and make it a bit easier for Katie (she won’t have to work as often or as hard).And since we are now in the country rather than in the city, I’m all game for it.

Let me introduce our newest family member -  Maggie – a Charcoal Lab (not quite black, more silver/grey)

One week old

 

 

 

 

Almost 4 weeks old

This was taken on Sept 4th. We went out to pick her and we introduced Katie to the pups at the same time.  She didn’t mind them but they weren’t moving around much. Won’t be the same when Maggie comes home.

6 weeks

Look at that face

 

 

 

We are going to pick her up at the end of the month and go through all that new puppy stuff all over again. The training, the chewing, the puppy sillyness and both of us are looking forward to it! Ms. Katie on the other hand will need some delicate gloves as I’m sure her nose will be out of joint. We will work through though.

Not a darn thing about my diet in this post was there ….

I hope you all have a FANTASTIC weekend!

Sandra

Day 2

I’ve decided I don’t do so good when at home when I’m not busy moving around. I’m working from here today as I have a sales consultant coming over this afternoon to give me a quote on my house windows (oi vey it is expensive).

I notice I get the munchies and I don’t drink enough water.

I haven’t exercised yet but went downstairs, moved some boxes around and got the Tv and DVD plugged in for use when I’m done working. I really need to hit the basement and get all my equipment setup the way I like it. With moving the country, it is a good thing I own every thing except a treadmill… I miss my treadmill…. I want a new treadmill..

My focus today is to try to get in lots of water – which seems to be easier at work than it is here. I bought a new water dispenser and the water tastes like metal. I’ve cleaned it, soaked it in vinegar, ran almost an entire 18L jug of water through it to wash it out and the water still tastes funny. I am very very fussy on the taste of my water. Up until now we’ve been buying small bottles of water but they require more recycling and storage for the empty bottles. I like the bigger water bottles with dispenser…. except mine. If it doesn’t get better after this next bottle, I’m buying another new one and this one goes into Mr. Sandra’s shop. He smokes, he can’t taste the metal taste.

We are on a well, and although the water is fine it is very hard. I could drink it, it doesn’t taste funny but I want it tested before I consume large amounts of it … ya know what I mean.

I went for a massage last night as I need some work on my hips. She was a new RMT for me and I’m not sure how much I liked her method. She does deep tissue which is what I wanted but she really really digs deep. Which hurts so much you tense up through the entire thing and then it hurts even more. I had to ask her to back off a bit a few times. It was what I asked for, and it is what I needed but it sure hurt. There are a couple other places in town that I want to try so will schedule with another practitioner for the next one and then evaluate how I feel between the two. It helps me so much to get it regularly done so it is important to find the right one. Mine is on mat. leave and will come out here after she has had the baby (she will work part time for a few select folks and I’m one of them… yeah). But in the meantime I still need a work over.

Today I am sore but not as sore as I thought I would be.

Look 3 posts in a row…. Yeah!!

Have a FANTASTIC DAY!!

Sandra

Day 1

I did my weigh-in this morning. Different than what it is at home because I'm fully dressed and have eaten breaky and a snack but I expected that. But quite honestly I was a bit disappointed in how they are sharing information.

A few pamphlets included in the package but you are on your own for exercise and diet - which I am 100% OK with because quite frankly I know what to do. But there are folks that don't that signed up for this and I guess I was hoping for more for them. ?See here I am wanting more for others... :) I know what is good for me and how to eat properly. I just need to refocus and get it back together again to make it work. I know I need more protein than most diets call for, and most programs run by a health clinic would focus more on the 40-60% carb ratio. I need it less than that…..

Anyway….

So far today my food is on track and my blood sugars are right inline where they should be. Please note that I am not diabetic, nor do I have any borderline symptoms. I'm using my body as a scientific experiment (insert evil laugh here) and I'm testing my blood every two hours after I've eaten something to see how I feel and what my blood sugar is at. I had started it some time ago when Mr. Sandra was told he was borderline diabetic and I started testing mine too to see how different we were and how we reacted to food differently. It’s been interesting.

As for exercising – none done yet today and not likely going to be any either. I was going to go out at lunch for a walk but work got in the way. Can you imagine that …. Work stopping me from getting out and enjoying a nice break. If people would stop breaking things then I wouldn’t have to fix them (wait… it was me that broke it… and I must tell ya, when I break something EVERYONE knows about it. Today the folks in the EAST couldn’t access the internet. Imagine that… no Internet… and Yeah I did it and I fixed it too)… And then after work I have scheduled a massage with a new therapist in the town we live near. My massage terrorist is on mat leave and so not coming over anymore and I haven’t had a beating since May sometime. My hips and back are very tight and it is very uncomfortable so I need some working over to get my muscled moving again. Right now walking hurts.

So I’ll get on the exercise bandwagon tomorrow – I promise! Self – I hold you to this….

Hope you are all having a FANTASTIC day!

Ttyl

Sandra

Day Zero

Well if any of you are still reading my blog, I will be surprised. Not been too active on here lately have I?  But I have been busy… guess priorities were not the blog. But I’m going to have to come back…. it seems to keep me on track.

I have successfully gained weight over the summer. In fact, I am above what I ever wanted to be ever again and I am very unhappy about it. In fact I am up about 20lbs from where I was two years ago. My fat clothes that I gave away… well I need them again. I am uncomfortable in my body again and I really hate it because I remember how good I was feeling when I lost the weight.

Between entering menopause and not exercising, my body got fat and weak and boy can I tell.

So starting tomorrow, I am joining in with a group of people here at work with a 12 week challenge. The health department is sponsoring it and we can win prizes. But for me the best prize will be to get re-focused again. There are a couple of us here that are 50 and experiencing the exact same thing so we are going to work together to beat this.

I’ve got to start exercising again and I am still not finding time to do it much. Home time just isn’t going to work out until I can get the schedule a bit more relaxed. So since we have a “free” gym here at work, I’m bringing my workout clothes and will be spending some time down there – either first thing in the morning or before I go home after work.

My travel schedule changed a couple of weeks ago, well actually it truly did when I moved out of the city but there has been an additional change. I was driving right down town and parking (for free) and it took me about 50 minutes. Slower going home of course because more traffic. Well on Sept 5th I lost my “free parking” so am now taking the train. I drive to the city limit (35 minutes) and then hop on the train (40 minutes). So I’m getting here later than I like and leaving later which means I get home later. By the time dinner is done, I get ready for the next day and then head to bed because it has already been a very long day.

So really, my option right now is to take some time for me during the day and get it done. Work is extremely busy right now so I’ll just schedule it in like an appointment – it’s the only way until I get used to the longer days living out of the city.

As for food, I’ve got to clean that up a ton as well. I still eat fairly healthy but I skip too many meals, then eat the wrong stuff because it’s handy and quick. Too much processed food. I’ve got to get re-organized again and now that my big BD party is over and the stress and all the renovation headaches are less, I should find more time on the weekends to prepare for the week.

And speaking of renovations – there is a ton of work still to be done at the acreage but we have made huge progress so far and it looks so much better.

I was thinking of posting before and after pictures if anyone is interested in seeing them.

Feel free to kick my butt if I’m not posting more often – I need the friendly reminders to move my buttocks.

ttyl

Sandra