Toxins ...

I've been doing a lot of research into why my body isn't releasing fat even though I am eating very clean and exercising almost every day.  It has been a frustrating journey to say the least and I think I am finally opening up a window of help for myself.  I've talked before about energy healing and I am a firm believer of it working well to help people reach their full potential.  One of the things that is on that energy healing level is a toxicity group.  Our bodies are thrown toxic waste from every direction these days.  It is in everything we eat, everything we use as cosmetics and in just about everything on the earth.  It is normal and nothing really to be afraid of but if your body isn't functioning on a wonderful level, which mine wasn't, you can easily build up a toxicity in your body that will inhibit you to lose more fat.  It literally locks up your fat cells and doesn't let anything out because your body thinks you are under attack from foreign objects that it doesn't recognize.  Crazy, right?

Some of the ways to release the toxicity build ups are cleanses, another way is to sweat a lot, drink lots of water, stay 'regular' and take vitamins.  All great ways!  Another way is to do it through energy healing, which is the way I've been able to release a lot of toxins.  For one example of mine I have always sweat A LOT especially in my underarms.  Sometimes it was so embarrassing because in warm weather it would soak through my undershirt and my shirt!  I wouldn't want to even raise my arms.  Because of this I always used antiperspirant thinking that would help my problem.  Until I did some research, I had no idea it was actually making things worse.  Antiperspirant has aluminum in it and I have a reaction in my body towards aluminum and it was making my body go crazy and actually just building up the aluminum in my body without getting rid of that foreign object in my body!  So crazy!!  I stopped using my antiperspirant and released the toxicity in my body, started using a natural deodorant and even though I am in the hottest climate I have ever been in, I am not longer sweating through my clothes.  Hooray!  No more embarrassing armpit sweat circles...only a healthier body!

This lead me to research more into what other toxins are in my body inhibiting me from release fat cells...I ran across this great article.  Check it out!  

---Have you had an experience with energy healing?

---Have you ever looked at toxins as cause for your problems?

An emotional journey part 4 ...

Here is part 1, part 2 and part 3...


We were kind of in a stressful time in our life deciding what would be best for our family and hoping it would all work out to travel with my husband instead of me being a single Mom for months.  Well, it did work out and we were on our way to living in Italy for 2 1/2 months!  We were all so excited.  In the hustle of trying to get ready, I didn't take time to take care of myself.  I was ready to be committed while I was in Italy though or so I thought.

A while ago I had stumbled upon a book called The Emotion Code.  My friend had told me about it again so I thought I'd revisit again while I had a little more time being in Italy.  Basically what it talks about is that our energy fields get blocked with trapped emotions and our health suffers from those bumps in our energy tracks.  The book teaches you how to muscle test so that you can learn to release these emotions to put yourself on a better track of health.  I dedicated time each day to find and release these emotions.  I had some BIG ones related to weight and self-sabotage. I released some that were trapped in my neck causing me neck pain and it literally has not come back since I released those, which is HUGE for me.  I firmly believe in this homeopathic idea and am so glad I came across it.  It has helped me have a better attitude towards my weight loss and goals.  I have been able to stop the self-sabotage that I used to have by sneaking candy or chocolate thinking nobody would know if I ate it so it wouldn't hurt me.  I have been able to stop beating myself up for every little 'mistake' I make.  I have been able to move forward again in my healthiness journey with a new found goal, a new found attitude and a desire to break the bad habits that have put me where I am today.

I know it wounds so, so crazy and weird, but The Emotion Code and it's 'sister' The Body Code have literally helped save my life from things I didn't even know where sabotaging it.  I am so grateful for finding it and the help I know it is going to give me on my healthiness journey.  Some day, I will become a certified practitioner for these systems and cannot wait to help others on their journey as well!

My emotional journey to health is not complete.  I will still have cream added to my bucket that I will have to churn into butter, but I am still swimming.  I am still not giving up. I still have faith that some day I will find the key to unlock my fat and become fit and fabulous!

---What cream has been added to your bucket lately?  How do you keep swimming?

--Have you done anything lately just for you?

An emotional journey part 3 ...

Part 1 and Part 2 of my emotional journey...

Did I mention I cried?  Well, I did to several people.  One of those people had a friend who had a story similar to mine and had finally found Ideal Protein and did that diet and lost a lot of weight.  I felt like this may be my answer, so I gave it a shot.  Well, it worked, I dropped a lot of weight.  I was amazed to see the scale go down, 5 pounds after only one week!  What? I had been trying for months just to lose 5 pounds.  This was my answer.  This was what was going to make me happy, right?  I guess it did for a while.  I loved going to weigh ins each week knowing I'd lost pounds and inches. BUT, I wasn't really happy.  It is hard to explain because I was happy, but I wasn't.  I was focusing only on the scale and not in other areas of my life to complete my happiness.  I only had a few months to do the diet because I had set a goal to complete a triathlon that summer and I needed to start training and on the Ideal Protein diet they encourage you not to workout hard, I had tried and my body didn't really respond well to it, so I knew I would have to phase off and do just my workouts for my triathlon, which was okay.  I had gotten close to my goal weight and I figured my working out for a triathlon would help me get to the rest.

Well, it didn't.  I completely enjoyed my triathlon training and the struggles and strengths I found while doing it!  I felt amazing.  I was over coming fears, I was doing something I didn't think was possible.  You can go HERE to check those out.  I actually didn't even weigh myself during the summer because I didn't care.  I felt great, I was doing fun things and I was happy.

Triathlon season stopped and so did I.  I was burnt out from the effort, both emotional, physical and mental.  I thought I'd give myself a break of about a month or so and then start back up so I could keep up my fitness level and hopefully eat good and lose more weight ... if only our best intentions always panned out.

My husband started traveling, he was gone for most of October and all of December and you know what those months do to you food wise anyway!  Ugg, it was a very emotional, very hard time for me.  I'd start to try to work out, get too tired, stop, try again ... all the while pretending I was eating well but sneaking things I knew were not going to help me get where I wanted.  But I was lonely and tired and frustrated all at the same time...it resulted in weight gain ... AGAIN!

An emotional journey part 2...

 Go HERE for part 1 of my emotional journey...

I have a friend who was probably the sickest person I know.  She could hardly eat anything and she was always sick too.  She had been going and doing some alternative medicine things and I felt like this might be my answer since Western Medicine wasn't helping me anymore.  They were telling me I was normal and that I would just have to function the way I was...or take anti-depressant pills.  No thanks!

So, I started to do some alternative medicine things.  My adrenal glands were not functioning, so I took pills to try to help them.  My iron was obviously still low so I took pills for them.  I took pills for my kidneys because they were not flushing all the toxins out of my body.  Yada, Yada, I took whatever my body tested that I needed.  I wasn't completely satisfied with this either, although I was starting to feel better.  But, I wanted more.  I didn't want to be tied to pills for the rest of my life so my same friend had started trying something new as well for allergy treatments.  Basically the idea is, that our body has reactions to all things that we put it in contact with, some good, some bad.  If you have 'allergies' to these things, your body will react negatively to them each time you come in contact with them.  This treatment is called NAET and it literally changed my life.  It is crazy and amazing all at the same time.  They 'treat' you for your allergy so that the next time you come in contact with that thing, your bodies energy says oh this stuff is okay, I'm not going to act crazy this time.  And it works.  I went through countless treatments and the brain fog I had disappeared, the tiredness diminished, my energy levels started to come up and most of all my iron levels finally stayed normal and I wasn't even supplementing it!  I was so happy!  But, I still had a ways to go for my to be completely satisfied.  I still had some headaches, jaw pain and I still could not drop weight which was frustrating.

My husband had started going to a new chiropractor who also used a muscle technique that he loved.  It helps get your muscles to fire correctly as sometimes they fatigue and will go into a secondary muscle to help the primary muscle.  Anyway, I decided I should go check him out and see if he could help me.  He helped me so much!  He helped my jaw, neck and head pain diminish!  What a miracle to not be in constant pain in my head.  Loved that!  Another answer to prayers, but I was still so frustrated with my weight.

I was working out, eating what I thought was right and I still could not drop weight, which is ultimately what I wanted.  I wanted my energy levels up. I wanted to feel great, but really, I wanted that scale to go down.  At one point, I figured if I worked out more I would lose more weight so I worked out twice a day for a whole month and still nothing.  I cried.  I cried a lot!

An emotional journey part 1...

My journey into healthiness has been a long one.  I started feeling completely miserable shortly after I had my fourth child.  Looking back now, my body was starting to give me these same signals after my third, but I didn't listen then.  I just settled thinking I was tired from having 3 children so fast.  I had tried between each child to lose weight, successfully getting down to around the same number each time, only loosing 5 or 10 pounds each time and then getting stuck.  I'd get frustrated, start to not care and then it was time to get pregnant again...the circle always turning.  After my fourth was born, I was exhausted, I was completely sick of feeling awful.  There were days I wouldn't even want to get off the couch to help my children.  Everything was exhausting, every day a struggle.  I ended up having surgery on my foot 6 months after having my 4th child as well.  I think that completely put me over the top of feeling crappy.  

 

After I felt like I had had enough and after a good crying session with my husband, we started to work out together.  He did it to help me try to stay motivated, plus he likes to be fit too and it is hard to take the time unless you have a reason.  He helped me put together a weight lifting routine and I would do cardiovascular stuff too.  Well, around that same time I had an IUD placed thinking it would be an amazing thing for my body because I wanted to wait awhile to have more children, if ever, so why not?  Well, that DID not go well for me.  I bleed, I cried, I had it removed and then I had the most painful pain in my abdomen after lifting one day. I thought I had just pulled a muscle so I laid low for awhile.  It didn't go away, so I headed to my doctor.  I had an ovarian cyst, a big one.  They said to just watch it and see if I could tolerate the pain and it should shrink and go away.  Well, after one week I was in a ton more pain so they decided to remove it via surgery.  Another surgery, another loss of blood, another set back in my goals of becoming fit.

After that surgery, I seriously hit my lowest point.  I had a crazy huge massive headache every day.  I got dizzy when I stood up. I couldn't think straight.  My brain was always foggy.  I was grouchy with myself and with almost everyone around me, including my children.  I went to the doctor and they wanted to put me on anti-depressants.  I knew I wasn't depressed, or maybe I was?  No, that answer didn't work for me.  I went to a different doctor...I forced him to check my blood levels for SO many things.  They thought I might have MS, so we did a CT scan.  Nothing turned up. I was deemed normal.  HA!  This is not a normal way to feel.  I went back to an internal medicine doctor thinking maybe I had diabetes.  Nope.  So, I finally asked them to check my ferriten levels (iron) and I was so extremely low that they almost admitted me to the hospital.  Wow, really?  I'm not just normal?  So, iron infusions came, double dose, twice a month.  Rechecked my ferritin, still not normal.  Another month of twice a month double dose, back to a closer range of normal.  I feel great after I get the infusions for about a week and then I start to feel crappy again. I went through this for about 6 months and then when my levels wouldn't stay normalized I needed something more.

At this point I was exhausted.  I was tired of being told I was normal.  I was tired of feeling like crap and thinking this was going to be my normal.  I was tired of being grumpy all the time.  I was JUST TIRED!  Then, an answer to a prayer...

Discouraged ...

Why is it so easy to get discouraged?  Why is it when you let one doubtful thought creep in, all the positive and happy ones LEAVE so quickly and more mean ones come rushing in?

 

I couldn't sleep last night my mind was so full of crap and what ifs and why can't's that I was feeling very bogged down this morning already.  That isn't a great way to start the day.  Then I happened upon this quote...one of my favorites!  

I have to believe in my abilities, to not doubt, to be happy with where I am even though I am striving for more, I need to not let the discouraging thoughts creep in and KNOW that things will work out and I will succeed in the things I want to.  It may not be a smooth ride, but it will be worth it.  There will be bumps to get out of, hills to climb over, but the feeling of success will be very worth it after conquering all of those obstacles.  Now to change my outlook and have a GREAT day!

--What helps get you out of a funk?

--How to you keep the discouragement at bay?

Getting the hang of it...

Oh boy what a weekend/week.  I have had so many temptations, so many chances for cheating, so many delicious looking foods to have to pass up and so many times I had to make sure I was very prepared.  Guess what?  I did it!  I made sure to make a meal to take with me to Friday's nights party for my in-laws 40th anniversary and bonus, it was YUM!

(this was my little 'baby' at the party wearing a mustache in honor of his Grandpa)

I made sure to have my meals decided for Saturday because it is always super busy.

I made sure to take my salad/veggies/shake to lunch on Sunday because I knew what they were serving wouldn't fit with my Ideal Protein Guidelines.  You know what happened?  Everyone wanted my yummy looking salad!

I made sure to take a cauliflower pizza crust and all my own toppings measured out to Tuesday's night pizza party so that I wouldn't be tempted by my most tempting temptation :)....pizza.  You know what happened?  Everyone wanted a taste of my cauliflower pizza crust and liked it so much they want to start making it too!

I feel like I have been super prepared to succeed and I cannot wait to see the scale keep moving!

Ever feel lonely?...

I do a lot of my working out at home because I have to be able to fit it into my very busy schedule each day.  I work from home as a medical transcriptionist, I volunteer in my kids classroom as a music specialist, I do BoxTops for our school, I have to keep up on house work *this more times than not doesn't get done*, I have an endless to do list....so to make exercising work for me I have to do it at odd times.  

Take for example yesterday.  I did my strength training (Jillian Ripped in 30) right after I sent my oldest 2 out the door to school.  I have a little cheering section when I do this with my 3rd (we will call her Blondie) either trying the exercises with me or like yesterday, taking a "rest" day and telling me to jump higher :).  By the time I am done sweating it out, my 4th (we will call him Cheese) is awake and calling for me to get him out of the crib.  I am just so proud of myself for getting it done! 

But just strength training isn't enough right now.  I am training for a 1/2 marathon, as seen on yesterday's post, and I need to cross train too.  So I go take a quick bath/shower to get the sweat off and go about my day running my 2nd child (we will call her Brownie) to all of her activities.  When we get home, everyone goes down for a nap while I get my typing done and get on my bike that is hooked up to a bike trainer.  I cycle out 25 minutes and sweat lots more.  This time, I need a full blown shower.  Biking is much harder than I ever thought!

Anyway, with all that craziness built into my life, I sometimes get lonely in my goals.  I want to be able to run with people, work out with people and all that comes with being social, but it just doesn't work into my schedule right now. I have really been working hard and am lucky I have a husband who supports my efforts but he is super busy training for a crazy race season starting off with a 70.3 Ironman in May but I want more involvement. None of my immediate girl friends are runners or really work out much. I know I need to embrace my time of life and be content that it will not always be like this, working out whenever I get an extra minute but in the meantime I need some suggestions on how to get social without having time.

So my question today is....are you a social work outer?  Do you like to do it alone?  How do you get past feeling like you are all alone in the fitness world?