Friday, July 13, 2012

From a new smoothy to honoring my hormones.

Loren, saintly morning person that he is, has been making my coffee every morning and sometimes also my morning smoothy. Today we were out of frozen strawberries, so he made it with frozen blueberries YU-HUM! Definitely recommend trying that variation!

Towards the evening I realized my hormones were trying to get my attention and, since I have a lot to do to prepare for a trip next week, I decided to ignore them and keep plugging away.
Of course I should have known better. I kept finding myself getting sidetracked even more than normal, until I realized I was on Facebook, on an emotional high, re-posting and sharing at a feverish pace, sobbing over every photo and every halfway moving status update, while listening to "Not Over You" on repeat. 

That's when I finally gave myself permission to just be, just feel, just enjoy.
I almost forgot how much better, smoother, and peaceful "that time of the month", as well as ANY time of the month, is when you honor the rhythms of your body.

And yes, I did exercise, that's 10!

9 days and counting


Left the house at 6:30AM, drive work drive work drive get groceries drive run errands drive some more drive work drive, finally get home at 8:30PM, change into exercise clothes, do stuff do stuff get sidetracked do stuff, realize you still have to exercise and it is 10:00PM!
Try to get computer to play exercise DVD, the whole thing freezes.
Fight the computer, whine, try a few things, finally restart...
Exercise at 10:30PM... get a second wind and find yourself blogging at 12:13AM

Force yourself to make the entry embarrassingly short and go try to get some sleep...

(Close computer and go to bed smiling for having stuck with it for 9 days straight)

Monday, July 9, 2012

Exercising, this time it's for my Golden Years

Exercising has never been my favorite thing to do, not by a long shot.

Walking? Sure! as long as there is something beautiful or interesting to look at, or if I am trying to, you know, get somewhere, but call it exercise and you've taken the fun out of it.
Dancing? Absolutely! at a party, at a club, at a concert, heck, even in the grocery store (c'mon, that Muzak can be pretty hard to resist huh?), but make me follow a particular routine being shouted out by a cutesie little instructor in spandex, and I would rather be interrogated by the CIA.

Yes, I DO feel better when I'm done (and not just because I'm done!), and yes, my body starts to love me more after a few days, but it takes a lot to make me stick with it. Worse than that, it takes A LOT to make me start after a hiatus.

Most of the times I have started exercising have been out of vanity, most of those didn't last very long. A few times it was for my mental health, those efforts lasted a bit more, I'm talking months. And every time I sang an opera professionally, I exercised religiously, every day, a lot, really well, and got a lot of benefit from it; it was for my Job. Go figure.

But here lately I've been witness to some less-than-graceful and much-less-than-healthy aging, and I DON'T WANT THAT TO BE ME. Much of it has to do with attitude, what doesn't? but so much of it has to do with simply not caring for the body 10-20 even 40 years ago.

Ugh.

As those of you who have read this blog before know, I am very good about eating a healthy, balanced and mostly locally grown diet... most of the time ;)  I still don't drink enough water or get enough sleep, but I'm working on those, and I have, I am SO PROUD to announce, reduced my stress level and my addiction to worry and drama by a good 75%, thanks to having grown in my faith, studying a lot of metaphysical-woo-woo stuff, taking full responsibility for everything in my life, and practicing the meditation technique taught as part of The Silva Method.

**(I am not exaggerating or kidding. I truly feel it changed my life. I have bought several study-at-home programs from them, but the Silva Life System is my favorite. However, Shhhhhh!, don't tell the Silva people this, but my favorite meditation is the first one I tried, the one they send out with the FREE program they offer!)**

BUT, exercising has not really been a consistent part of my pursuit for a healthier life, and now it has become OBVIOUS to me that I have no choice anymore. It *has* to be if I am to enjoy my 60's, 70's and even 80's the way I want to.

So, I am happy to share that I have now done my favorite Leslie Sansone walking DVD workout five days in a row! Woo hoo...

I can hear your eyes rolling all the way over here, yes I KNOW five days is a ridiculously small achievement to be celebrating, but I will take my victories where I can!! Aaaaand, for your information, before the cool-down, I've been rewinding and doing extra time, making sure my heart rate is up for 20 minutes so there *raspberry*

Now I'm going to bed, after midnight, again, so hopefully in a few days you'll also read a post about how I've gotten 7 hours of sleep every night for 5 nights in a row???

We'll see. At least I'll be telling you about how I feel from the continued exercise and mostly raw diet :)


Saturday, July 7, 2012

Awesome resource for going raw!

I just found this resource to help you in going raw and wanted to share...

Eating for Energy

My favorite part of the video is when they show you a special photo of broccoli that shows its energetic field and compare it to a piece of broccoli after it has been cooked.

If you've been thinking about going raw, or adding a lot more raw food to your diet (which is what I would recommend after my experience), I HIGHLY recommend watching this video and trying this resource.

Here's to healthier and more energetic living in the simplest way possible!

Ilse

Monday, March 12, 2012

MY heartfelt apology for a defective link to a disgusting blog!

I have been absent from blogging for months. Tonight I came back to the blog to read a couple of old posts, to see if they would inspire me to exercise and lay off the coffee for a while (the jury is still out on whether that is going to happen), and for some reason (had to be God!) the "Blogs I Enjoy" tab caught my eye. I decided to check out my friend's blog only to discover -in HORROR- that I was led to a blog full of raunchy photos of African American women!!!
I don't know when her blog changed or what happened but I shudder to think how long that link may have been leading people to that trash! and they thought I "enjoyed" it! UGH!!!!
Please accept my apology! and notice I am not even mentioning the name of the blog now because I really, really, REALLY don't want you going there!