yoga and a run?! Bliss....

Vinyasa yoga last night and a (albeit) short run this morning?  Bliss is the word.  Running has been on the backburner, still trying to heal that darned ilipsoas thingy up.  But Sarah is having a session in O'ville on Friday evenings, which works well for me.  I felt so great this a.m. that I thought I'd go for a treadmill run too.  And it was a bit painful, but not where I thought it would be.  It will get better.  Back at it baby!

After run breakfast?  A smoothie made from:  3/4c mixed frozen berries, 2 Tbsp (heaping) ground flax, 1 Tbsp chia seeds, 1/2c soy yogurt, 1 scoop vegan vanilla protein powder mixed in water, splash of almond milk, 2 big handfuls of baby spinach and about 1 & 1/2 Tbsp of coconut oil.  Blender.  Yummy.  I've been reading about coconut oil helping with blood sugar stabilizing and weight loss, coupled with my need to ingest healthy fats so I thought I'd try.  I also want to get more greens into my diet.  Smoothie is a fantastic way to get both.

Trying very hard to practice gratitude every day.  It's an uphill battle some days.  But I'm getting there.

Amazing how much better one feels when eating well, eliminating allergenic and inflammatory foods and taking all of the supplements recommended by the ND.  And having a much needed B12 + immune shot.  And a massage.  Makes for a pretty good week!  No wheat is proving to be fairly easy, when eating well  I'm not a big wheat eater anyway.  Biggest plus?  Absolutely no dairy.  Constant throat clearing is going away.  Mucous be gone!

Setting a new intention for the upcoming week.  Instead of vague "move every day" resolution, setting clock for 5 o'clock and getting up and moving.  Running, yoga, weights, Jillian Michaels dvd, it doesn't really matter, as long as I'm moving.  I will feel the better for it.  Even if 5 comes too soon some mornings.  Truthfully, I'm awake anyway by about 4:30, enough dreaming (obsessing?!) about the day.  Jumpstart the day!

Another plus?  Sarah is offering a drop-in, pay what you can vinyasa class at a cafe in O'ville on Tuesday evenings.  I can go the weeks hubs is on days and I'm not on b-ball duty with Shim.  2 days of yoga class a week?  Divine!

The real upside of all of this positivity?  My too snug pants and tops will once again fit comfortably.  How do I keep getting myself into this mess?  Not moving.  Not eating well.  I'm done with that.  For reals.

Weekend blessings!

a pain-free day!

I had a pain-free day today!  And even though I'm dying to get moving, I am going to give my self a couple more days before I run.  I will go to Hatha yoga tomorrow, it's so gentle I should be fine.  And I will LISTEN to my body.  Not listening is what got me into this mess.  Well, that and being pregant 20 years ago, and not knowing that you should always draw your knees into your chest to sneeze when your belly is already straining all of those muscles, tendons and ligaments.  I really didn't think that the injury would still be rearing its ugly head, all these years later.  And I guess that it wouldn't be, if I had the good sense to listen when my body says enough.  Sadly, I am a slow learner when it comes to these things.

I've restarted my detox diet.  My dietary negligence is apparent in a few not so nice ways.  Time to get real.  I don't know why I'm struggling so much lately.  Stress?  The research shows that stress impacts hormones, and starts a nasty vicious cycle of cravings, weight gain, which in turn impacts the hormones...and the cycle perpetuates itself.  Nice.  Or not.  Either way, time to get my head out of my butt and pay attention to what I'm doing to myself.  Lots of water, liver detoxifying foods and of course my supplements.  Too much estrogen rampaging through my system is causing mayhem.  Time to throw in a little extra ground flax too.  The key is to manage to get through the first couple of weeks and then you start to feel better.  I`m all for feeling better!

Enough blogging, I have to write a huge IEP (that`s boring teacher talk.  If you don`t know what it means, don`t worry about it!), for a fake kid, filled with fake details, to satisfy a requirement of my course.  It is a valuable exercise in many respects, but I tired of doing this much work for fake kids.  I have enough work to do to appropriately program for real kids.  But, alas it must be done.  And since I`m resting my sore iliopsoas, it`s good to get it out of the way.

Stay tuned for a running blog post!  I`m hoping for maybe Thursday or Friday--it will be painful, but I will be running!  

www.fitday.com & food and activity journaling

My naturopath has asked me to keep a detailed food journal.  I have to say, keeping a journal for her seriously makes me clean up my diet.  I am not going to send her a food journal that is full of crap food that no one should be eating, let alone someone with food allergies!  Summer has been a little hard on my diet.  I'm a stress eater, and it's been stressful.  As already blogged about!  But time to get serious.  Seriously.

Anyway, Lia suggested I use http://www.fitday.com/ to log my food.  I checked it out and it's awesome!  I am not only going to log my food, but also my activity.  It's a great tool to use if you are looking for lose a few.  And of course, as I have for my entire adult life, I am trying to lose a few.  Or maybe more than a few.  Whatever. 

Part of my personal happiness project is taking a look at what's keeping me from being happy.  If I spend 1/2 of my waking hours obsessing about my weight, how much weight I want to lose, how my clothes are fitting, whether outfits are making me look fat....anyone who knows me, knows the drill...how could I possibly be as happy as possible?  Right, I can't be as happy as possible with all of that going on in my head, all of the time.  I want to be happy.  And right now, the biggest impediment to my happiness is how I feel about myself, my weight, and my body image.  So time to get serious about changing it, not just for physical health, but for my mental/emotional health. 

I'm happy to say, that no matter what's been going on, I have maintained my running schedule.  While away over the weekend for lacrosse provinicials, Rick and I did our long run on the treadmills at the hotel.  And it felt great!  This morning's run, well, I did it, but it didn't feel all that great.  Actually I felt like crap, but I did it anyway.  It did feel good after I finished.  I didn't felt very good while I was stretching afterwards either.  No run tomorrow, so I'm going to take the dog for a long walk, followed up by a long yoga practice.  I need to get in more yoga, as well as the running.

Hoping all of my Canadian friends are enjoying the last day of the Civic holiday weekend.  It's a hot one, make sure to stay hydrated.  Words to live by.
Namaste.