Taking care of me...

Today's NHBPM prompt was about redesigning a doctors office. All I'd really do is make it colorful and fun. It's an office, as long as it's functional I don't much care how it looks.

So, I'm taking on a bonus prompt as it's important to where I am today.

How you take time for yourself.

So, this is something I'm not great about doing. I will run myself in to the ground if people don't tell me to slow down. I've been running myself ragged the last few weeks. Work stress, Zumba, extra workouts, training for my 5k this weekend, it's been a lot of stuff going on.

To top it off, I got an ear infection and upper respiratory infection this past weekend.  I woke up Saturday morning with a fever and immediately went to immediate care when they opened.  They gave me antibiotics and told me to rest.  Not so much. I'm not good at that.  I felt better by Monday, but still drained.  Then I wound up working until 2:30 this morning and didn't get home till almost 4am and was worn out enough that everything feels worse today.  

I still taught my Zumba class tonight because that's part of how I take care of myself.  My workouts are very important to me.  I get both physical and emotional therapy from getting sweaty and losing myself to my music or the cadence of my run.  If I don't get my workout, I feel awful. It's just not negotiable anymore. I need my workout.

The other ways I take care of myself include trying to find time that is truly me time.  As much as I'm a social person, I am still kind of an introvert. I do need time alone to recharge my batteries so I can be chipper, happy me when I deal with people. 

Of course, also important, is a good diet, taking my medications regularly, and my multivitamin regimen, and Shakeology. 

Shakeology has saved my tail so many times.  So good for my stomach, my skin, my hair, my nails and it helps to curb all the bad eating habits. It's one of the linchpins of my healthy lifestyle, 

I've been bad and only doing shakes a few times a week at most for a while and this infection and the general sense of ice lately has renewed my vigor around my Shakeology. Can't wait to get back in to my normal schedule with it.  Tomorrow, Vegan Strawberry with berries and ice and blueberry acai fruit juice, mmmm

Most important in taking car of myself is sleep! Sleep is so important and I will skimp when things are crazy and I cants d that anymore. Sleep is non negotiable! 

Good times... Good times.

Friday was the perfect day of me time. I took a vacation day to rest, relax and get my head back on straight.

I started my day off with a full body massage.  My first ever.  And it was AMAZING.  Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhmazing.  DeeAnn is a fantastic masseuse and she's also just an amazing person.  I met her through Zumba at the Y and I'm so glad I did.  The massage was a full hour of just pure relaxation.  She spent a good amount of time on my back and hamstrings since they've been so sore in the last week or so.  I felt relaxed and rejuvenated at the same time.  Best hour in a long time.

I followed that up with a manicure, pedicure and eyebrow wax.   It was nice to be so pampered. 

The evening was even more awesome.  When I was younger I found and fell in love with MST3K.  Well, parts of the cast and writing crew have gone on to two different awesome projects.  RiffTrax and Cinematic Titanic.  Well, last night I got to go with Marshall, Matt and Chip to see the Cinematic Titanic crew LIVE.  It was unbelievable! I laughed so hard I cried a few different times.  So awesome. 

We also got to have dinner at a pretty cool Irish pub called Bull McCabes.  I, of course, had to get Shepard's Pie.  MmmMmM.

Today we had a kick butt Zumba class to start the day off and I've spent the rest of the day working on Zumba routines and hanging out with Matt.  We just finished watching the Winnie the Pooh movie and I feel like a kid again!

We also did a bit of shopping earlier.  I bought some more workout clothes and some various food stuffs for tomorrow and the upcoming week.  Tomorrow I restart TurboJam and I'm also doing a 24 hour Shakeology fast. I want to try to get the salt and fat from the last week or two out of my system.  The steroids got my eating all wonky and I want a day to try to get back on track.    So, tomorrow I will have 3 Shakeology shakes, snacks of fruit and veggies and green tea and that's it. I may do a salad for dinner too.  Depends on how I feel.

I'm in the process of setting up another 30 day Shakeology challenge to start April 1.  So far the March ladies have been seeing amazing results.  I can't wait to see their final results at the end of the month!!

Weigh In and Adventures in Tropical Shakeology

I finally got my Tropical Shakeology in Thursday and I was so extremely excited to get to try it. 

Friday morning I blended up a smoothie that was Tropical Shakeology with the Shakeology Fiber Boost, V8 Strawberry Banana Fusion, a frozen mixed berry blend (strawberries, bananas and peaches) and ice cubes.

Tropical: Take 1! Strawberry Banana!

It was super tasty and almost overly filling!  Towards the bottom there was a bit of a gritty taste/mouth feel but I was overall very pleased! So yummy, yummy!

Today I went back and did another Shakeology concoction that was similar but even better!

Tropical: Take 2 - Cranberry Yums!!

Tropical Shakeology, Shakeology Fiber Boost, V8 Cranberry Blackberry, Dole Mixed Berries with Cranberries and ice. It's delicious and filling and I blended it extra long and it's far less gritty than the first round. 

I can't wait to try some more creative recipes to see what other tasty things I can enjoy for breakfast!

Today was also weigh in day and I weighed in at exactly 313 pounds.  That's 2.8 pounds down from last week.  The weekend after next I'll do measurements and pictures too and I'm nervous and excited too.  Right now I'm down a little more than 7 pounds in 2 weeks so I think it'll be a good weigh in/measurement/picture experience. 

I'm just so excited to have found something to add in to my weight loss routine that seems to really be helping. 

Mission: Spoil Myself!

As part of working on me I have to learn to spoil myself from time to time.  As part of that goal I took myself out today for a day of me time.

We had an amazing Zumba class this morning! 33 people on a Saturday morning is pretty bad ass to begin with but the energy was through the roof.  After a long hot shower and lunch with Marsh and Chip I headed off to be a girl!!

I got a manicure, a pedicure and I got my eyebrows waxed AND I got my hair trimmed and shaped up.  I felt positively girly and I liked it. 

After that I went shopping for some groceries and some more organizational stuff.  I got a lot of personal business stuff organized and I want to get my actual work stuff in the same state of organization.  When I got home I put stuff away and curled up on the couch and caught up on some DVR. 

Around dinner time I headed to a birthday party for a friend and that's where my day stopped being awesome. I developed a shellfish allergy a few years ago and it's not severe but it's annoying.  Well they had a good old fashioned oyster bake and had lots of other shellfish on hand.  I stuck to what I knew was shrimp and oyster free but I must have accidentally eaten something because my mouth started to feel funny and I got queasy. 

So now I'm home, doing laundry and waiting for the Benadryl to knock me out. 

Other things I've done this week to spoil myself?  I went to see Nunsense at the Nash Arts council last night and we did dinner at Outback and I didn't worry about calories and just ate what tasted good. 

Then I bought a new purse, a new wallet and a new lunch tote from ThirtyOne. 

AND I spent a good chunk of change on my business cards and new checks and on some base product to keep around to share the Shakeology love.  I cannot WAIT to get my hands on Tropical and I NEED more GreenBerry.  I just need to keep from drinking EVERYTHING I bought!

30 Day BeachBody Challenge: Results!

HOORAY!

Weight: -9.8 pounds
Chest: -.05 inches
Waist- -1.5 inches
Hips- -2 inches

Almost 10 pounds and 4.5 inches in 30 days?  Bring on the next 30!

Pictures to come... eventually!

My Achilles Tendon is my Achilles Heel.

My Achilles tendon really is an Achilles tendon. It's going to be the death of me.

On November 12, 2005 I fell in my drive way while getting in to my car.  I broke my ankle.  Specifically I snapped off my Lateral malleolus.  I broke it off. SNAP.  (Yes, it made that noise.)

Something like this happened. It hurt.

In the process I did some ugly things to my Achilles tendon and the other tendons and ligaments in my ankle and foot.  It was not a pleasant injury and the recovery was fabulously awful.

Since then I have periods of time where my ankle decides it just wants to be a pain... literally and figuratively. About this time last year I came down on my ankle roughly and got my tendon all inflamed.  It took probably 3 months to get back to working out without pain.  This time?  I tweaked it stretching! STRETCHING! Last week when I said it hurt to teach HHH it was because of this silly tendon and it's currently inflamed status. 

Here's the thing - I am doing everything I know to do to in order to get this silly tendon to heal up.  I rest it (outside of teaching, obviously), ice, compression, elevation, anti-inflammatory meds and massaging the tendon before bed time.  It's not getting worse but it's not really getting better either.

It feels better for a day or two and then I'm walking down the hallway at work and it goes "OW! NO WALKING LADY!" or it feels fine all day and then I get up to pee at 3a.m. and it says "Saaaam! Get back in to bed!!!!" Ungh! I just want this to stop being so schizophrenic. 

Aside from dealing with the bum ankle I've been enjoying getting my hands in to the Team Beach Body coaching arena.  I'm really excited about the release of Tropical Shakeology next week.  I need to call tomorrow and get my autoship changed to Strawberry. MmMm. 

I'm really falling in love with GreenBerry too! The sample I got has wound up being addictive.  It's all about getting the right fruit juice behind it and the right fresh or frozen fruit to get the right consistency.  Favorite GreenBerry recipe so far?

• 1 scoop GreenBerry Shakeology
• 1 cup V8 Splash - Mango Peach
• 1 cup frozen Mango chunks.

OMG! It's green and awful looking but it tastes so awesome. I've made this three times so far.  The third time I also added some fresh raspberries I needed to use up and it was too good for words.

Tomorrow is my 30 day weigh in and measurement meeting for my BB challenge and I am excited to see what the scales and tape have to say.

I feel like I'm on a real roll. Nutritionally I'm making good decisions, my exercise schedule is solid and I'm starting to work on some LifeKraze challenges to do 2012 crunches and 2012 push-ups in 2012.  I'm behind but I'm working on them day by day!  I can do this! I can do it all!

Christmas Joy.

Merry Christmas blog-land!

Yesterday I got my BeachBody package and ripped in to it like a kid on Christmas morning.  I was totally excited to get started on the Turbo Jam program.  I wanted to read all the stuff, look at the Shakeology recipes and give one of the workouts a try.  So I did!

I can't wait to try some of the stuff but I'm going to start off with the simple Chocolate Milk or Chocolate Banana shakes. I need to pick up some Via and try doing Mocha shakes!

Turbo Jam is AWESOME.  I watched the learn and burn without doing it just to see if it was any different than the moves from Turbo Kick and since it wasn't I hopped up and jumped right in to the 20 minute workout.  Of course that wasn't enough so I wore the weighted gloves while I did it! Talk about delicious! My arms were noodly afterwards. 

This morning I did the Cardio Party workout with the gloves and I'm kind of regretting wearing the gloves with it too.  Too much of a good thing? Nawww! Just need to be careful about overdoing it. 

Today we did breakfast with the in-laws while opening Christmas presents.  I got some jammies, some sweatpants, a new water filter, and of course the new refrigerator. 

Lunch today was awesome sauce.  Ham, broccoli with cheese, lima beans, carrots, fruit salad and olive bread.  Dessert was coffee and 1/4 slice of 4 different types of cheesecake.  The 4 of us decided to split the 4 types in the sampler - white chocolate raspberry, chocolate swirl, turtle and amaretto.  I could have eaten all 3 slices of the amaretto DELISH!

Now we're back at the house relaxing and I'm watching the Doctor Who marathon leading into the Christmas special.  I may do the 20 minute turbo workout again tonight to make up for all the cheesecake.  More than likely I'll just rehearse Zumba stuff since I've got a 75 minute class tomorrow evening.

OH! And for the ease of challenges and weight watchers I changed my weigh-in back to Sunday and today I weighed in at 326.8! Back below pre-vacation weight.  Go Zumba, Chalene and Weight Watchers!

Christmas week crazies. Bodybugg! and January 2012 goals.

Work was totally and utterly insane this week.  Year end stuff is just wild.  I got a ton accomplished and I feel good about where we are going in to 2012.

There was a bit of work related drama this week that put me in a bit of a foul mood.  I'm ready for the new year and the permanent team and standardization. 

Wednesday night after work I hit up two classes at the Y. First TurboKick! It was with a different instructor and Daphne is just awesome.  Different vibe to the class but I loved it and my body is STILL hurting!

Well, partly because of that and partly because of taking Zumba with Mrs. Fatass herself right afterwards! It was AMAZING! So very much fun!

Two fantastic hours of cardio with two amazing ladies!

Thursday was The Nutcracker and it was fantastic! I felt like a kid watching it.  The dancing was amazing, the costumes unbelievable and the magic stuff they added was just cool.

Tonight I had a kick ass Zumba class.  11 people, which is HUGE for a Friday night, and everyone left with a big ol' smile on their faces.

Food wise I've been doing okay the last few days.  Yesterday dinner was a bit weird as we had a weird schedule because of the ballet but all in all a good few days.

The most exciting thing?  Today I got my Bodybugg! EEEEE! I'm still getting used to it and I messed up logging my first workout using their workout tracker but I got the calorie count which is what mattered.  It's a nifty tool and it makes for a fitness video game feel.  I want to burn the most and eat the best and walk the most steps! It'll be interesting to see how I get to incorporate it over the next few weeks.

I also met with my new beachbody team members yesterday.  We took our before pictures and discussed goals and plans.  I remembered I took some pictures last December and I compared them. Maybe I'll get brave and post them.  Maybe at the end of the 30 day challenge.

Goals for January?  Lose 15-17 pounds.  Work out mornings with Turbo Jam and my normal Zumba schedule in the evenings.  I am also going to be doing Shakeology shakes.  Add in the BodyBugg and Weight Watchers and I think I have all the tools needed to reach my goals! It's going to be a wild month and I'm ready to everything! Right tools, right support, right time!