Me?!?!?... EXERCISING?!?!?!?.... hahahahaha

so the last time i blogged i was just starting the daniel fast... it was a tremendous success... i completed 21 days of vegan living... then... lol... i began eating regularly again... i'm now so far from vegan living it isn't even funny... but it hasn't been all for naught... i'm learning about me continuously... so for the last 2 and a half months i've been devising a plan for myself... i have such great will power... i can do whatever i set my mind to for a defined period of time... i've done a 10 day master cleanse where all i lived on for 10 days was organic lemonade with cayenne pepper in it... i just completed the 21 day daniel fast... i've been 100% raw for 30 days... it's not about IF i can do something, it's about if i can incorporate something and allow it to become a part of my lifestyle by developing a habit instead of white knuckling it and jumping right in... so over the last couple of months i've decided that if all the stars were aligned, if everything in my world were perfect, i'd be going to bed at a reasonable hour, sleeping at least 7 or 8 hours a night, spending time meditating on God and His goodness, studying my Bible, eating healthy meals regularly throughout the day, consuming my superior nutrition twice daily, exercising at least six times a week, growing my business, volunteering regularly and living healthy and free... that's what would happen if all my stars were aligned... lol... well, i somehow seem to be able to do only one or two of those things at the same time... but i've never had it all together... not even for ONE DAY... so i've devised a plan for myself... i'm going to try to create an environment and a plan that will allow me to experience what having all of that feels like... my date for achieving at least ONE DAY of alignment of all the key factors in my life is December 24, 2011... when i thought of this it was a little over 6 months away... so what i've been doing is making small, easy to achieve changes... after the daniel diet, i began to feel like i no longer had any excuse not to exercise... it used to be the back pain and the ankle pain and the knee pain that prevented me from exercising, but with good nutrition, my pain is significantly reduced and it is so much better that i can function without meds and i can walk and i can stand up straight :) ... i'm truly blessed... i began to talk to myself and tell myself that being able to exercise is a privilege and i should be ecstatic to be able to do it pain free... so that's been the self speak for the last couple of months... i also know that success doesn't necessarily require HARD work... what is required is that i take CONSISTENT, DELIBERATE, INTENTIONAL ACTION... so, how am i doing this... well... two and a half months ago i asked myself to simply begin a deliberate, consistent and intentional exercise program... i asked myself to do something that seemed silly, but guaranteed that i would succeed... failure would only come if i chose NOT to take action... i asked myself to do intentional exercise for FIVE MINUTES just 3 times a week... lol... really??... five minutes???... lol... yep... that's all i asked of me... and those first five minutes were the hardest five minutes of exercise that i can remember... i was on the stationary bike pedaling and sweating profusely wondering how long i'd been pedaling when the display flashed to the elapsed time and said "30 seconds"... lol... it was CRAZY... i had to psych myself out just to get all the way through... five minutes is NOTHING... but it was a lot for me in the condition that i was... i did that for a couple of weeks... then worked up to 10 minutes 3 times a week, then 15 minutes 3 times a week and did that for about a month... i'm talking baby steps... the week of july 4th there was a setback because family came to visit and we all went to visit more family and a whole lot of eating went on and i didn't exercise for a week, but july 10th i began my next phase which has been exercising SIX days a week for AT LEAST 15 minutes (which means that some days i exercise for longer periods of time... today was 30 minutes)... my endurance has picked up so much in the last two months that i now find myself having to kick it up a notch in order to start sweating... :) ... i'm doing stationary cycling, treadmill walking, and i have some favorite dvd exercise programs that i'm using that have varying levels of intensity and workouts that are challenging... i'm exercising and actually loving how i'm feeling... i'm also beginning to love the exercise... it is as essential to me as brushing my teeth daily... it's a MUST DO... so now that the exercise layer and "habit" has a solid foundation, my next layer is bedtime... i'm a night owl and so much of my poor eating habits are wrapped up in the fact that i stay up too late... who wouldn't be hungry 6 or 7 hours after dinner time if they were still up?... it's just crazy to say "nothing after dinner" and then stay up and remain active for 7 more hours and expect NOT to be starving... so i figure if i go to bed 3 or 4 hours after my last meal, i should be able to avoid some of the bad late night eating and kill two birds with one stone... lol... anyway, i've written a book today... this is way too long for anyone to want to read, but i guess this is what happens when i don't get on here too often... gonna set my calendar on my blackberry to remind me to post more regularly... one day, perhaps i'll get back to the raw food, which is why i began this blog... but for right now, i think it's more about raw emotions and my quest for health and real freedom...

Hmmmmm... Here We Go Again...

so a lot has happened since i last posted anything here... i was actually looking up a raw food recipe to send a friend and clicked on my bookmarked link only to discover that i'd left a comment nearly two years ago on the site with the recipe... then i clicked on my pic and landed on this blog... lol... hmmmmm.... perhaps this is a good thing... or not... not sure right now, but here i am and i've decided that a post is in order... it's kind of cool to send this out into the universe even though no one is really reading it... but i get to come back and see how far i've come... i get to see my successes... and i get to see my failures... the one thing i know about myself is that i don't give up... every time i fail i learn something important about myself and one day--ONE DAY, i'll be successful in this quest for health... so monday i joined my sister on the Daniel "fast"... she started on sunday and i decided to join her to support her... it's way easier than doing 100% raw and now that i'm taking the best supplemental nutrition IN THE WORLD (in my opinion), my cravings are gone and the week has been a breeze... what am i fasting from?... well, i'm enjoying fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains and tofu products... i've eliminated white flour, white sugar, white rice and all animal products... so i'm pretty much living vegan for 21 days... i'm permitted to cook the food too... so it's actually very easy... went out with a friend to the cheesecake factory yesterday and ordered a very tasty "legal" meal... i had a portabella mushroom burger (no bun, no mayo, no cheese) which came with a grilled slice of onion, slice of tomato and some lettuce... i asked for brown rice, grilled asparagus and some snow peas and vegetables sauteed with ginger in sesame oil... it was awesome... anyway, i'm recovering from my back issues... the nutritional stuff i'm taking allowed my body to begin healing itself... my blood sugar is dropping, blood pressure is now 100% normal, inflammation and pain is almost completely gone... i can walk like a normal person again... i'll make it a point to post again... but for now i have to go... need to go to sleep before i start feeling hungry again... it's way too late to be eating...

This is really hard....

not sure what i'm going through right now, but this sprained back is still not completely healed as yet and it's been nearly three MONTHS now... i don't have to take any pain meds anymore, but i'm still not totally pain free and i'm having trouble walking for more than about a hundred feet at a time... it totally sucks and i think i'm going into some kind of depression or something, but i'm trying to ward off those feelings... i feel like my progress has been sabotaged and i feel like i'm volunteering myself for the slaughter... i keep making bad choices when it comes to food and my relationship with what i ingest is not a good one... this is so hard... i just need prayer for complete healing and restoration so that i can get back to my regular exercise routine... in the words of Smokie Norful, Lord, "not another second, not another minute... I need you NOW"...

Getting older sucks!...

ok... so the day after my last post my left knee became severely inflamed and i ended up laid up in my bed using crutches to get 10 feet to the bathroom... i had to take two days off work and couldn't figure out what went wrong... ultimately i thought the whole multiple meals per day with protein at each meal worked well, although it did make me a little nauseous... and then i did some online surfing to check out why my knee was inflamed and found out that there is some correlation between high protein diets and inflammatory joint disease... great!!... so i was bummed, but felt that i should have "listened" to my body when i got queasy with all the protein... i didn't and ended up with knee issues... my knee is now almost 100% fine, but leaning precariously forward on those crutches threw my back into a severe spasm which is still causing me issues... i've been on pain and anti-inflammatory meds for the last two weeks and having to use riding carts in stores to get around... i've become nearly vegetarian in the last three weeks and it seems to be helping somewhat, but i've been reminded of something that i already know... "if it's not broken, don't fix it"... i was successfully healing and losing weight simply adding a large amount of raw whole foods to my diet without rules or restrictions... i didn't have any colds, sinus infections, inflammatory issues, etc... i tried to make an "adjustment" and add protein to my plan and now i'm nursing a sprained back with a serious spasm... i just want to get back to being pain free and independently mobile... not sure when i'll post next... hopefully i'll be feeling better soon...

Continuing on...

so i've been doing different things this last week... read a book about alternating daily intake to "confuse" the body and also began reading a couple books about carb cycling... so i tried my own modification of it and yesterday i got on the scale and i'm now officially back to my 25 lb. weight loss... i like the concept so far, because it requires me to be unrestricted some of the time... makes it easier to "be good" for a period of time, especially if i know i'm going to HAVE to "be bad" for it to continue to work... i know this sounds confusing... but i'm just experimenting with it right now to see if it works... i'm almost sick of protein though... so not sure how long this will last... but i'm happy that i got rid of my "holiday weight"... anyway, there's a whole lot more "me weight" that i have to try and eliminate so i hope that i'm able to continue on this path... haven't been eating as much raw food as i think i should these last few weeks so i have to make a concerted effort to do that... so just needed to check in today... been a while as usual... i'll be back whenever... lol

Insanity...

ok... so i did the ten days sugar free and then had my three free days -- or rather three binge days... i found myself eating things i just don't eat... like i had a "suzie-Q" (kind of like a chocolate twinkie)... i had several different hamburgers in the three days... about three... i had chinese food... i think i ate enough rice to feed a family of four for a day... i bought keebler mint chocolate grasshopper cookies... crazy... if i hadn't set a limit on the "free" days, i might have landed up in the hospital in a diabetic coma... funny, but not... i don't know what i was thinking... i wasn't even physically craving the sugar... it was like i was trying to get as much sugar as i could get in my system... not sure why... anyway, my binge was over and yesterday morning i checked my weight and BGL before starting another sugar-free cycle... i was 357 lbs with a BGL of 246... whacky... that was NOT the plan... anyway, this is the end of day two and i'm feeling better already... i think i'll do this for at least the weekdays... maybe i'll do free weekends... not sure yet... anyway, it's time for bed...

Day 10 Sugar-Free!

ok... so last night i ALMOST blew it!... i was feeling like having something sweet and i almost pulled out a package of sugar-free gum (which might have triggered my hunt for real sugar although i don't know why that happens)... i actually held it in my hand and looked at it, then i thought it would be so sad to come so far and fail in the last 36 hours... so i put it back and had some diet root beer instead and then fell asleep... so today is day ten... my last day for this cycle!!!... and this morning i woke up with a BGL of 136!!!... that is truly awesome!!... the "dawn effect" is getting better... i'm planning on not going overboard on my three "cheat" days... i'm supposed to just eat regularly, but i hope i don't lose it... anyway, i have to get on the scale in the morning so i think i should be ok for the day... i have less than 24 hours to go... can't wait to have a fruit smoothie WITH agave nectar in it tomorrow morning... lol... crazy isn't it?... eating all this protein is great for the first few days, but right now i'm almost feeling like being vegetarian is a distinct possibility... never thought i'd get tired of eating or tired of eggs, beans and meat... i've still been eating about 50% raw on a daily basis and i'm not tired of the salads or greens yet... :) ... go greens!!... go fruit!!... i think that eating multiple small meals per day is a good thing... i'm contemplating just eating small every two to three hours and i want to see if just doing that helps me control this "dawn effect"... by noon my BGL is always SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the morning and stays that way the rest of the day... i go to sleep with decent levels and then wake up with crazy numbers... i know i'm not eating in my sleep, so i'm always confused about why my body is dumping sugar into my blood while i'm sleeping... well this morning was great!!... it's about 84 points lower in the morning than it was nine mornings ago... if i can get to morning numbers in the double digits i'll be ecstatic!!!... anyway, i need to plan for the weekend... :) ... i'm feeling GREAT!!!