Month One Cleanse Results - May 2015

It's the end of May already!  My husband and I have completed our first month of nutritional cleansing.  I was weighed and measured at the gym the day before I started the program a month ago and I was weighed and measured again this morning at the gym, and in one month, I have lost 9 lbs. and 5% of my body fat.

  

I am loving the fat loss I am receiving from nutritional cleansing. My weight loss had stalled for two whole years even with a beautiful diet. This didn't bother me much, really, since I had reached, even exceeded my weight loss goals, and I could be as active as I wanted.

But then my energy levels took a nose dive.  I could hardly make it through my workouts.  I'd get dizzy and cold and shaky while I was teaching classes.

I needed carbs, I thought. I tried adding healthy carbs, but that didn't work for me.

I needed supplements, professionals and healthy, active friends told me. I bought bottles and bottles of supplements and things improved, but not enough.

Athletes I knew told me about nutritional cleansing. People I trust were using it. But I wasn't sure. The products appeared to be very processed and packaged.  I wanted to get everything I needed from whole foods.  I hesitated and I started eating even more spinach.

Then my gut started causing me pain almost every time I ate. I knew nutritional cleansing was known to help with inflammation like that, too.  So that's ultimately why I tried cleansing. I have had friends who have had serious problems with their guts and I wanted to avoid medication or surgeries.

After a month, the pain and inflammation in my gut is gone, I am losing fat again, and my energy levels are almost unbelievable.

Nothing will ever replace healthy, whole food in my life.  I still tell everyone that whole, healthy foods are the answer.  Healthy, whole food helped me lose 70 pounds in one year.  Healthy, whole food helped me maintain my healthy weight since then.  I thought healthy, whole foods would provide everything I needed. But fitness is a journey, after all. And I believe, as in all areas of life, truth can be found in balance.  Right now, I am trying to find that balance between whole foods and healthy supplements that provide the essentials things needed for being as active as I want to be.    

Mothers Day 2015

On the morning of Mothers Day, Dwayne gave me a gift certificate to the spa. I don't know yet what I want to do with it, but I'll probably get a facial next month or something.

Later in the morning, we went to church.

It was quite hot outside after noon, so went to the beach for the first time this season.  We took snacks in our cooler. One of my new favorites things to eat are fresh, sliced, bell peppers dipped in fresh guacamole. (I don't even miss tortilla chips.)  We enjoyed ourselves for a little more than an hour, and came home before any of us were burned.

May Adventures

At the beginning of this month, we traveled to Virginia to stay two nights with Dwayne's brother, his wife, and their kids.  While the brothers and cousins visited on Saturday, my sister-in-law and I went kayaking at the Paddle for the Border event.  The course was approx. 7 1/2 miles of the Dismal Swamp Canal. It was my first time in a kayak. We also enjoyed many good conversations and card games with our family before we left.

Next, we traveled to South Carolina for two nights.  Late Monday evening, Dwayne had to participate in a presentation at Charleston Southern for graduate school. CSU is where he I met, where we got our undergraduate degrees. But in our free time in town, we took kids around campus and visited with my mom, dad, brother, and sister, who all still live nearby.

We were back in Connecticut less than two days later, so it was a quick trip.

We listened to two books on our drive. The first was Pursuing God by A.W. Tozer.  I can't recommend it well enough.  I just couldn't listen to it without exclaiming "Bam!" or "Wow!"  every so often. Tozer was an incredible skilled, knowledgeable, spirit-filled rhetorician.

We also started listening to 1776 by David McCulloch.  But we couldn't finish it in time. We plan to listen to the rest when we go back to Virginia in a few days to see our niece graduate high school.

Here's a photo of our youngest in the van, wearing headphones, watching a DVD, holding the stuffed mermaid she brought for comfort.

Update on my Bodypump and Bodycombat Journey

I attended a recent Les Mills Webinar with Sheldon McBee.  I took away two specific things.

I make sure my shoulders are farther down, in, and back when I am doing chest presses in weightlifting classes now.  What he said helped me understand that my shoulders, until that point, were too high, up, and away from my body.

Also, I have started watching my class members more closely, making eye contact, letting my eyes go over their bodies as we work, and making remarks accordingly.  When I am under physical pressure because my weights are heavy in weightlifting classes or I am out of breath in cardio classes, I still tend to look down at the floor, but I am more conscious of it now.

Speaking of work, starting mid-June, I am taking a break from teaching classes for a while. Right now, all my regular classes are scheduled at times when my kids have to come to the gym with me.  Until recently, that hasn't been much of a problem.  They enjoy the gym and still do.  But lately, it has become a real stressor for me dragging three kids ages 10-3 to work with me every time I have to go.

And there are other, even better reasons.

Homeschool is becoming more time-consuming and intensive as my kids continue to grow, making it more difficult to be flexible, especially with precious weekday morning hours.

And my husband is planning to have surgery on his other foot soon. This time 'round, it will be on the foot he needs to drive. So, for many weeks, I'll have to drive him everywhere he needs to go, including to and from physical therapy sessions. So, while I was able to work after his first foot surgery and recovery earlier this spring,  I don't want to work through the second surgery and recovery.

I'll still be working out, though.

I've purchased a membership at a local, private club that has Les Mill classes and I've already started taking a combination of Bodypump, Bodycombat, Bodyattack, and Bodyflow. But the important thing is that all the classes are scheduled before my husband and kids even get out of bed in the mornings or well after dinner and/ or my husband is home to watch the kids.

I've never been a member of a gym with this many Les Mills programs. I've only ever subbed at a gym that has Bodypump and Bodycombat.  And that gym was a full thirty minutes away, so I found that I avoided going unless I was being paid to work.

It feels downright luxurious to just go as a rightful member of a gym and take my favorite Les Mills classes on my own terms.  I am so grateful.

I am certain I will teach again someday.  And I will probably continue to sub in the interim, considering the class, day, and time I am needed.  But I won't take on any more regular classes until this busy season has passed. And, in future, I know I will be a lot more picky about the class types and times I take.

In the meantime, I will be serving my husband, teaching my kids, and training really hard.

April Comes to an End

My husband, Dwayne, celebrated his birthday.  I bought tickets for us to see Andrew Peterson in concert.  We got a sitter and went out to dinner before the show, but before I left the house, I snuck one of my oldest daughter's colorings off the wall, so I could try and get Andrew Peterson's autograph for her. Peterson wrote a series called The Wingfeather Saga, excellent books, that our daughter has read many times over. Norah was thrilled when I showed her the autograph the next morning.

Now that it is spring and the weather permits it, we fixed our front steps.  A few pieces of slate had come loose over the harsh winter and were causing serious safety concerns.  We're not masons, but we're homeowners on a budget, so that makes us masons, basically.  After watching a few You Tube videos and visiting Home Depot, we worked together to remove all the old mortar, which was easy enough because it was crumbling to bits anyway, and then we set the old pieces back in place with new mortar.  Now it all needs to dry - thus the bucket, level, and milk crate to keep the mailman and other visitors from stepping on anything until it is set.

We are finishing up our second year of Classical Conversations. We were studying American history this cycle, so my oldest daughter wrote an essay, dressed up, and presented an oral report on Sacagawea. Here's a photo of her with the rest of her class.  You can read a little more about our homeschool at myeclectichomeschool.com, though I am not really blogging there that often either as I have been so busy of late.  

Dwayne and I have started a 30 day cleanse.  We have shakes for breakfast and lunch, snacks throughout the day, and then we eat a healthy dinner.  My reasons for doing this cleanse include digestive issues and the need for more energy to sustain my activity levels.  Of course, I will probably lose a bunch of body fat this month and that will be great, but that's not my main, motivating goal.  

April has been a full, busy, and at times, difficult, month.  See the previous two posts. Luckily, we are visiting our family in a few days and we should some new adventures to post about soon.   

April Continued

Our youngest daughter Adele turned three this month.  On birthdays, we always buy cupcakes from the bakery, one for each of us.  And we always give the girls one small gift for every year, so she got three gifts: a mermaid, a seahorse, and a set of play dough toys. Here's a video of us singing her Happy Birthday.  Prepare your hearts. She's a cutie.  

Dwayne and I also celebrated 14 years of marriage.  We hired a sitter, went out for dinner, and then went to the book store and browsed the isles without any kids.  It was magical.

April: So Far, Not So Good

I've had a virus for almost a week now- fever, congestion, post nasal drip, soar throat, cough, sneezing, you name it. I have no appetite, not even for coffee.  

That's how bad it is.  

My youngest daughters have fevers and coughs now, too.  The doctor tested for strep, but we're not that lucky.  It's viral. So we just get to suffer.

I also woke up this morning with a stomach bug. I won't go into details, but apparently, you can be sick in several different ways at the same time. 

Only two fifths of our family made it to church on Easter, my oldest daughter and my husband, three casts between the two of them.  

Notice all the durable medical equipment in the photo. We didn't place it there. That's just where it was when we snapped the photo.  

Needless to say, we are in the midst of a difficult season.   

Our dear friends from church, the Mccandless family-Tim, Robin, Katie and Matt, and Jean Semeraro, insisted on coming to visit even though we are so ill.  I have lost all confidence in the human immune system, so I wondered at their confidence. They brought dinner: roasted lamb, vegetables, ham, twice baked potatoes, homemade pies.  

My kids missed the egg hunt at church, so we had a makeshift egg hunt in the yard. Katie and Matt McCandless hid the eggs and then they proceeded to help the kids find them.  I bundled up to go outside and watch and wonder at how unobservant my kids are while coughing into my elbow.  

I take what joy I am given in life.  

We took a group photo before our guests went home.  I look like I am wearing a wet mop on my head and I was holding my breath the whole time so as not to breathe on Jean.

But I'm so thankful for our friends.  I cherish this photo.  My eyes are stinging with happy tears as I look at it.

I should probably take some more antihistamine.