Comfy Pants Challenge

On Facebook I'm starting a challenge to help get back in shape now that I have moved to North Carolina.  I've taken some time off and if you've followed my blog, I'm back to my original weight.  That would have scared me years ago, but now I know that bodies change, you gain and you lose and I know how to lose it in a healthy way.  The challenge is open to anyone, so if you'd like to join, let me know and I'll send you a link.  

My plan for this week is to incorporate more vegetables and fruit and quality meat into my day.  I will also do some sort of workout 3 times this week.  To make sure that happens, I have them scheduled into my calendar.  If I miss one for some reason I will reschedule it, not skip it.

My goal is to be able to fit comfortably back into my work clothes.  If I take this challenge seriously and don't fit into them at the end I will buy myself some bigger more comfortable ones.  However, I believe if I make some healthy habit changes I won't need to do that.  

Good luck to everyone who is participating!

May Updates

Sorry for the hiatus, I know you've all been dying to know what I've been up to lately.  ;)  I have mostly been blogging on my new site, Find Your Joy.  One of my New Year's Resolutions for this year was to work on my Spirituality and this new blog focuses much more on that.  I didn't mean to wait 5 months to update on my resolutions, but better late than never, I figure.

The big resolution that I have been working on, other than what is addressed in my other blog, is being less anal about my diet/nutrition.  I have not weighed myself since January.  I stopped using my weight to track how I felt about my body.  I decided that I would relax the rules on the paleo, eat what I felt my body wanted, and get more in tune with how my body feels, rather than how much it weighs or even how it looks. This has been an up and down journey.

Not weighing myself- turns out this is no big deal.  I never did throw my scale out, I have a feeling that as soon as I chuck it, I'm going to want to weigh myself and go buy myself a new one.  So it sits in the bathroom corner, forgotten.  There was a part of me that was afraid that if I didn't weigh myself constantly the weight would creep up and all of a sudden I would weigh 175 again.  The truth is, I can tell very easily, by looking at myself in the mirror and by guaging how my pants and shirts are feeling, how I am doing.  In the morning, I do a quick naked flex in the mirror (come on, don't lie to me, you know you do, too!) and check the size of my belly and arms, because these are the parts of my body that seem to get bigger first.  I make sure to admire what I'm seeing.  I don't focus on the negative.  I just check in.  It may sound silly to you, but I ask my body how it's doing, if there's anything it's trying to tell me.  If there's pain I check in with it, too.  I'm a lot more in tune with my body now than ever.

Relaxing the paleo rules- this one was harder.  I am very good when I have strict rules to follow.  Do eat this, don't eat that.  Takes a lot of the pressure off of deciding.  It's a yay or nay.  But with that comes the feeling of rebellion.  Sometimes you just want a little alcohol or a donut for Pete's sake.  And when I go strict Paleo, I don't allow myself to have it, and then when I'm "done" with my whole 30 or I relax a little I buy a 50 ct. of red velvet with cream cheese chips cookies and eat the whole thing in less than a week.  This has just not seemed to me to be the best way to go about things.  So in January, with the new year, I was motivated to eat well and I didn't do a challenge.  I just listened to my body.  It went extraordinarily well for about 2 months.  I prioritized the paleo foods, meat, veg, fruit, nuts, and then just checked in with myself before eating anything "non-paleo."  I would have a donut here or there, buying one from the grocery store, instead of a dozen.  I would enjoy it, then go on my merry way.  In March I began to notice that this was happening more and more often and in April I really started to go overboard and I actually got sick.  Not sick from the food directly, but my energy got lower, I wasn't sleeping as well, my mind was getting foggier, I was feeling more and more negative and then I literally got sick and caught the bug that was going around the school I work at.  And because my energy was low and my stress and negativity were high, I got really sick.  I took off almost a whole week of school, which is not usual for me.  I don't mind taking off when I get sick, but I usually heal up in a day and can get back to work.  This knocked me down.

And so I declared that May first I would begin to eat better again.  Again, I have decided that I am not going to do a "challenge."  I think nutritionally this has become a crutch for me and I am determined to be able to eat without stressing myself out about it.  Well, today is May 6.  I have been eating very well.  Last night, my husband brought home from the grocery store, two slices of Lilikoi cheese cake.  This is a most delicious dessert that we have had before.  I had a decision to make.  Do I want the cheese cake?  How do I want to handle this?  I decided to go for it.  I savored every mouth-watering bite.  I took my time.  It was scrumptious.  And my husband got to enjoy that I enjoyed the cake.  Today, I do not feel any worse for the wear.  I don't feel guilty.  I don't feel bloated.  I don't feel like I am going to rush to the grocery store for a 50 pack of cookies after work.  I planned ahead this weekend and got healthy food for the week, so my lunches are planned out for the week.  I just ate a pear.  The experiment continues to be a success, although it is seriously not easy to move from strict counting calories or restricting food to listening to your body.  I have a feeling that this is another one of those skills that will get easier over time.

I continue to focus on my Core Desired Feelings in every moment of every day.  Living authentically and making an effort to feel how I want to feel all the time, not just when I'm on vacation, has been splendid.  I highly suggest you decide to make that commitment to yourself, too.

How have you been doing in 2013?  Where are you in your New Year's goals?  Now is a good time to recommit.  Be sure to comment on your progress below!

Crossfit Oahu Nutrition Challenge

Left side: 2006, Top 3: April 2012- pre-challenge, Bottom 3: May 2012- post-challenge

So I realize I haven't blogged in a really long time.  Work got really stressful and I was just trying to enjoy all my other time.  Since I last blogged Anna left and that is really, really sad.  While she was here I did so much fun stuff.  I had more fun packed into a couple of months this year than I've had in years.  She convinced me to do a lot of stuff.  It reminded me that life is short and you only live once.  Just some of the stuff we did:  Hiked everywhere, searched for squatch, wore lots of knee socks, crossed lots of fit, did tons of pullups, started our own crossfittish supplemental workouts, ran with a slosh tube, lay on the beach, frolicked everywhere, parkoured, ran a Swamp Romp and a Warrior Dash, drank Guinness, dance, almost hiked the stairway to heaven, got my nose pierced and some of us got tattooed.  There was tons of laughs and late night talks.  I'm suprised we never fought.  And I know there's tons of stuff that I left off of this short list.  It was pretty amazing.  Around the time Anna was leaving I started the Crossfit Oahu Nutrition Challenge.  Normally I don't like to pay money for things, because I'm a cheap ass, but I knew this would be worth it.  I paid 75 bucks to be weighed in and have my body fat tested with a very cool ultrasoundish machine.  We got great advice and feedback from our challenge host, Courtney Johnson.  She also created an amazing spreadsheet that allows you to track points you get for eating at the level you chose, for sleeping enough and for working out.  I know I work with kids and star charts every day, but I'm still amazed at how motivated I was and still am by earning points.  It helped me make hard decisions several times.  I was like, I could eat that, but I'll lose 5 points!  It turns out I'm quite the points whore.  And it wasn't even a challenge where the person with the most points wins.  Each point is a chance to win the pot of money at the end. Either way, I was very motivated.
The other cool thing about the challenge is that it gave me a new way to look at food.  Instead of "that's not on the list of allowable foods" that you get with most diets, lifestyles, ways of eating, whatever.  Instead it was, here is your priority list.  On the bottom of the list is the junkiest, most bad for you foods and as the levels increased your eating got healthier and healthier.  I decided not to cut out sweet potatoes and squash, so I was at a level 7.  I could have tried to be more strict, but I wanted to spend the 45 days getting into eating habits that I could follow for life.  Every time I went shopping and considered a meal, I didn't "have" to eliminate anything.  I just chose how healthy I wanted to be at the time.
It was a very succesful challenge for me.  I wasn't eating all that great before the challenge, but my poor eating is still pretty healthy by the Standard American Diet's standards.  Throughout the challenge I lost 13 pounds, and 4 inches off of my waist.  Pretty awesome in 45 days.  Especially since eating paleo, I'm never super hungry.  I never get the high/low blood sugar spikes.  I don't feel like I have to limit how much I eat.  I love the food.  And it makes me feel really strong.  Just saying for all the people who think cutting out grains is hard, well, yeah, it's hard because eating grains is a habit.  It's what we're used to.  But if people didn't try to shove grains in my face all the time, I wouldn't miss them.  The hardest time I have is when well-meaning people make me feel like I don't appreciate them because I won't eat their damn cookies or bread.  I'm amazed how offended people are when I won't taste their food.  But that's another story.
So that's what I've been up to.  Living life, hard.

So back on track

My Muscles are Gonna Be Huge

Thank God for the paleo challenge I'm doing again.  And thank God Keysa is doing it with me.  I was just reading through my blog posts from 2011.  I was doing fantastic at the beginning of the year, and stayed on track until about July.  Then I started to really veer off of the healthy eating.  I wonder if it is because Tae Kwon Do was not challenging enough.  Either way I gained weight, and then started eating horribly, starting with the HalloWine at the YMCA.  Then straight through December and the end of 2011.  It's pretty awesome how quickly it happens.  2012 has again been a great start.  Crossfit has been fun, although some of the Group Elements classes have been extraordinarily boring.  I think I've mentioned that before.  It's cool though, because now we know what the hell they're talking about when they set forth the workout and I don't feel like a complete idiot.  The other day we did Cindy, I did 13 rounds.  I had a lot of modifications, but I'm okay with it.  I know that TKD allowed me to get really weak.  It's no excuse, I'm just not the type to keep up with workouts on my own.  If we didn't do pushups or cardio during a class, I certainly wasn't going to do it on my own.  So my Cindy was pretty weak, but I have something to work towards now.  At some point I'd like to be able to do a straight dead hang pullup.  Maybe even a few in a row!  I want to be strong like I used to be.  It would be a lot of fun to be able to pull myself up the pullup cage or up the rings ropes or up the regular old ropes and just fucking climb all around.  That's right, like a freaking monkey.  That's my goal for the next few months.  Sweet abs would be great while I'm at it, but being able to climb like a monkey is a-number-one priority.

Not Like This One

Like This Monkey

I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane!

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go
- John Denver



So, I'm headed to the East Coast tonight! My plane leaves at 7:25 my time and arrives at 10am your time. I'm going to do my best to sleep on the plane so I'm not exhausted when I get there. I've got lots of plans and I'm going to do my best not to get sick, lose my voice, get really bad headaches or cramps. I'm not sure how my hair is going to deal with the cold, dry weather, but it should be interesting to say the least. I'm excited for pedicures, dresses, makeup and dancing. I've been listening to my Miss Saigon CD to prepare for the trip. It's being imported to my Ipod as we speak. I think I've got everything packed that I need, and still am only taking a carry-on bag. Pretty awesome. I'm a simple person. Plus if I really need to I'll buy a pair of jeans or something. We all know you can wear jeans every day for 2 weeks, no problem.

In the meantime I'm doing my best not to gain 20 pounds. The bread from that damn store smells soooo good. I hate delicious bread bakers. They make me fat. Damn their soft, yeasty dough and their blueberry and white chocolate chip pieces. And damn them for baking it just the way I like it, just slightly under cooked at the corners, so you get that little bite of chewy goodness at the end. Le sigh. Life is so hard. Honestly, I'm most worried about my stomach on the plane. My body is not used to this level of white flour and my stomach has been, well, ah hem. Not good. Need to find a snack that I can bring with me and try to avoid being triple bloated when I board.

Love all you East Coasters, hopefully I'll get a chance to see you in a few days!!

Two Days of Horrible Choices...

From Gokill.com

... And I liked it.  It tasted really good.  Halloween wasn't necessarily the problem.  It was the cookies that were on sale because they were orange Halloween cookies.  They hit my weak spot.  I ate almost a whole container of them.  That's a lot of calories.  Not that I'm counting calories these days, but dayum.  Then I spiraled and ate shit tons of the candy we bought just in case we had a trick or treater.  We didn't.  But we still have candy.  It's a good thing.  I wanted to eat it all.  I get this obsessive need to continue to eat.  I think it's the crack, er, I mean sugar in them.  There were chocolate chips and peanut butter... oh my god, I'm kind of drooling now.  Anyway, I spiraled int over eating and like a true addict I haven't written on my blog because I wanted to be alone with my guilt.  If I wrote about it, I'd have to stop and I didn't want to.  I wanted to stuff my gullet with sugar.  I had an amazing sugar hangover the next morning, which led to my addict thinking- maybe some bread and sugar, or maybe some wine will make me feel better.  Hmmm, I've never tried that before.  Lo and behold, no, more sugar and bread and wine did not make me feel better.  It truly makes me wonder what's in those god damn things.  I am a rational human being.  I make good decisions about my health.  I work out, I eat my vegetables, just like my mommy told me to.  So why is it that I turn into a crack fiend with just a sniff of peanut butter cookies?  Oh well, I'm human.  I'm fessing up to my weaknesses.  It's embarrassing, but true, my kryptonite is a dozen peanut butter cookies.
On another happier note, my Tae Kwon Do is moving smoothly and I will be testing for my orange belt tomorrow, woohoo!  They are letting me test early since I'll be on vacation on the regular testing date.  These guys really rock.  I did a pretest preparation yesterday, got some pointers and should pass with flying colors tomorrow.  I have a few things I have to memorize and I need to remember to do an elbow strike with all of my moves.  I've gotten lazy elbow.  I wish it didn't cost 105 bucks.  But that's martial arts.  It's the cost of the test, the belt and the videos for the next level.  The videos are a great investment.  Even if I don't continue with TKD, I'll always have the videos so I can review the moves.  And if I rejoin I can watch them to remember all my moves so I won't be totally embarrassed.  It was a great workout last night, my arms are still sore.  That's the kind of workout that I love.  I wish every TKD session was like that.  I would stay for sure.
I am going to go make dinner now, I think I can salvage the damage I did over the last couple of days.  I have lots of healthy food since we just got paid recently.  We have steak, broccoli, cauliflower, more beef, and lots of other stuff in the freezer.  I'll see if I can avoid the cookies.  Whatever is left is going to my school tomorrow, the office ladies can eat them.

Day 11 of Challenge

Well, the magical quality of my challenge is long past.  The first couple of days there is usually that psyched up feeling of yeah, I'm doing something awesome!  Then there's the next couple of days where your body changes if your challenge involves any big difference in health or diet.  Then the plateau comes.  I have hit that point.  The other day I couldn't help myself and had a taste of this cake from Costco.  That was the only time I've broken form in the past 11 days.  Otherwise, I've been doing really great.  Now it's just same old, same old.  The magic is gone.  At least I don't have dreams about eating cake or cookies or milk like I used to back in January.  That was rough!  Anyone who did the original Whole 30 challenge with me in January can attest to how horrible those dreams are.  The guilt!  I don't have that anymore.  I know that if I eat something like that my life will not end.
This latest challenge, I have discovered over the last few days, is not actually about eating 100% paleo or strict anything.  It is a way for me to learn how to eat healthy and remain that way at a stable pace.  This past year I have gone from strict paleo and skinny to alcoholic binge cake eater and 140, and up and down, and up and down... and now I'm trying to even it out.  I want to learn how to eat awesome and not be an asshole.  That means that sometimes your office will have something like Boss' Day, spend a lot of money on a cake, and be offended if you don't eat some.  Usually that would result in me being an asshole and refusing any, or having a small piece, and then a bigger piece, and then a BIGGER piece and then go home and drink and snack because, what the hell, I ate bad all day anyway, didn't I?  On Monday I had a small piece of cake.  It stared at me for the rest of the day because we had a meeting in the room with the cake.  Then I had another small taste, and then... I stopped.  I went home and ate some almonds and raisins.  I made my planned steak and salad dinner.  I didn't raid the fridge for dessert, although I have some 86% chocolate in the freezer for those times that I'm feeling a little desperate.  I have maintained and I think that lesson is even more important for me this time around then losing a lot of weight because I'm eating better.  I don't want to be the yo-yo dieter.  I want to always eat awesome.  But I want to be able to have a gin and tonic or a glass of wine.  Can I have both?  I think it's probably possible.
The other thing I've noticed over the course of this challenge is that, unfortunately, it's looking like Tae Kwon Do is not enough exercise for me.  Last night I had what used to be an intense workout for me and today I'm not tired or even slightly sore.  I'm no masochist, I don't enjoy the pain post-workout, but let's be honest, I don't want to be semi-in shape.  I want to be really in shape.  I'm thinking that I am going to test for my orange belt in November, maybe test for my green belt in January.  By that time I'll definitely be done.  I might not even continue after my orange belt.  I may switch to cross fit.  I don't really want to be that guy that changes sports like they change their underwear, but the truth is I need to find the right sport that meets my standards.  It needs to be a hard, challenging workout.  It needs to keep me entertained (nothing really repetitive or boring).  I need to have some friends with me.  And I need someone (a coach) to tell me what to do.  So far I haven't found any sport that has met those standards.  I would love it if my friends wanted to do volleyball or Tae Kwon Do, or Kickboxing, but they don't.  I love Tae Kwon Do in general, but it's often not challenging enough for me and they don't compete.  Which is good, cause I don't want to get punched in the head, but at the same time, I need something to push me forward.

Crossfit and Paleo

I'm feeeling pretty freaking good this morning.  I've been going strong paleo for a full seven days and I'm past the initial "this is hard" whiny faze.  It's not really hard.  It's delicious.  My fridge and freezer are also better stocked, so I have something to shove in my face when my husband is eating vanilla ice cream.  I weighed in at 134 this morning.  Anybody who tries to count calories or tries to starve themselves to lose weight should really try this way of eating.  I am never hungry.  I have tons of energy.  And I don't feel guilty for eating too much steak and broccoli.  So that's my healthy eating challenge plan.
Yesterday morning I also tried Crossfit in Kailua.  It was an intro class and I'm sure it was only a taste of the craziness that Crossfit entails, and we were using the lightest weights, but I have a good soreness in the body.  Not too horrible, I can just tell which muscles I used yesterday more than others.
This morning Nathan and I walked the beach with the dogs, not too far, and Jak and I are going to hike Nuuanu Judd trail in 45 minutes.  Then off to Savers to buy a Halloween costume.
All in all I'm feeling pretty good.  I'll have to take another picture in the same outfit that's on the site.  My belly looks more tight already.  Eating grains and beans just makes me bloated, so when I knock them out of my diet, my stomach tightens up pretty fast.  That's worth it, even if I didn't lose any weight.
Hope everyone else is sticking to their 30 day challenge!  Myia has challenged herself not to eat any fast food, including french fries!  That's hard, but she's gonna do it and when the challenge is over she's gonna make another change towards a healthier diet.  Arin's been running like crazy and I can't wait to see her!  So stop being a pussy and do something for 30 days to make yourself healthier!  We can do it, so can you!

I am Freaking Awesome

From picturesof.net

I got home from work yesterday and I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was take a nap.  I still made a burger and fries for Nathan and a burger- no bun with pickle and onions for myself.  I opted not to go to Tae Kwon Do.  I hate doing that.  It's only twice a week, but I was really, really tired.  I watched TV, snacked on some sunflower seeds and dried prunes (seriously, don't knock it til you've tried it), drank a lot of water and went to bed early.  This morning I slept in a little later than normal and took my time getting ready for the day.  I took a few sick hours so I can pull myself together and be ready for the three back to back meetings I have in a little bit.  What a good idea.  I'm a genius.  I had my cup of coffee and my eggs with sausage and now I'm feeling really good.  I could have done what most people do- suck it up and go to TKD and go to work on time instead of taking care of themselves.  I could have gone to TKD and been really off.  I could have gone to work on time, but I wouldn't have felt like talking to anybody or been able to concentrate on paperwork.  I was really tired.  But now I'm getting ready to go and I'm feeling energized.  The people that I meet with later are going to get way more energy, motivation and effective feedback from me because I took a little time for myself.  Our world is a little backwards when it comes to the job force.  We are encouraged to watch the clock, punch in and out at exact times, we are not given reinforcement for doing a good job.  I certainly don't get any incentives for any of the awesome stuff I do.  I've decided over the past year that it's my life and I am going to steer it in the direction I want it to go.  If for some ungodly reason I got let go for taking sick hours for self-care instead of being vomitous or snotty, then they will just be kicking themselves in the asses again anyway.  Cause I do a good job.  And when I take care of myself, I do a better job.  Anyway, just another aspect of health that sometimes we forget about.  Exercise is important.  Eating healthy is important.  Taking care of yourself mentally is also very, very important.
Oh, and I lost another pound, even though I didn't go to my hard core exercise class last night.

It's too early

Woke up super early this morning cause of cramps.  Hope the day goes okay even though I didn't sleep very well.  Writing because being tired is one of my easy excuses to eat terribly.  Too tired to prepare lunch, prepare good breakfast, prepare good dinner.  Tired so I feel like snacking to make myself feel better.  Not gonna do that today.  I'm at one of my schools today, so I'm going to have to make sure I get out and walking around to give myself some energy, instead of slumping in front of my computer.  That's the plan, we'll see how it goes!