Monthly Archives: July 2011

This n that

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  • I am trying to train my bugz to go to sleep before 8pm, because starting Tuesday, we have to be up at 5:30am. So far, it isn’t working…
  • I’m 6 days in to my 90 day challenge…but really only on Day 4 due to the blender that dropped its bottom out and ruined one of my shakes, running out of samples while I waited for my own stash to arrive in the mail, and being one shake short of 6 days anyway ;) But my stash arrived today, and I am shakin’ it up! More info at MagzDHealth…
  • I found myself getting bored this weekend and did what anyone else would do: I went and bought a quarter gallon of pink paint and painted a border in the bugz’ room.
  • I’m addicted to the Kobo e-reader my parents gave me for my birthday. I love that it is small enough to fit in my purse so that I have dozens of books at my fingertips at any given time! And I may also love the fact that I can read cheap, trashy novels without anyone knowing…
  • I had the opportunity to do some pelvic floor/prolapse coaching today. What an honour it is to be trusted with such an intimate problem – a huge quality-of-life issue that too many women ignore or are ashamed of. I am so blessed to be able to help women
  • It’s raining, raining, raining still, with these tricky little breaks of sunshine that get your hopes up. Thank goodness for Vitamin D and my flower essence blend from My Nature Baby!! 
  • I’m heading to Key Lime clothing tomorrow to get a rain jacket, on that note!
  • I love singing Rainbow Connection with my bugz at bedtime. It was their lullaby as babeez, and now it’s their bedtime song.
  • I’ve slowly been restocking my non-workout wardrobe for my new job – thank goodness everything is on sale right now!!
  • Speaking of new jobs, I went in to HR today to sign all the paperwork and get my ID card. It’s official!
  • I went for a delicious run in the cool rain today. I don’t know where I find the strength or energy, but the fact that I can pull off 30-minute continuous runs after taking 15 months off amazes me! I think it’s the world’s way of telling me I was born to run.
What’s new in your world?

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{30 days of truth} Day 3

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Something I need to forgive myself for: _uacct = “UA-4888259-1″;urchinTracker();


I’ve been stalling on Day 3 for a long time because I haven’t been able to think about something I need to forgive myself for. Finally, in the past few weeks I have found it:
I need to forgive myself for the past 12 years of being a dreamer at the expense of my responsibilities.
Now before you step back and wonder what has me so jaded, let me assure you that I am not. I am still a dreamer, and I will always search for the things in life that make me happiest and I will never settle.
But every time our family has faced a hardship of some sort, I always find myself questioning the selfish motives that have moved me through my career paths. I left a perfectly good 4.0 GPA at MacEwan University (then Grant MacEwan Community College) to pursue dance, which I promptly quit 11 days into the semester because I was scared. I taught dance and worked menial retail and service jobs to support my passion. I took over my own dance studio when I was 21 without a lick of business sense, passing up an acceptance into the Science program at MacEwan to follow my dream. When dance crashed, I went back to school and became a personal trainer. I passed up an incredible job opportunity in the last 6 weeks of school because it would have meant that I had less time for my outside passions. 
Over the next 3 years, I dabbled in little things, afraid to push myself and afraid to fail. I kept a safe bubble around myself, refusing to step out of my comfort zone and get a full-time job to help our family while Leith busted his tail to support the four of us. He was (and is) always supportive of me – I am so grateful for that. But every time we slipped behind, I heard this voice gnawing at my conscience, telling me I needed to pull my own weight instead of chasing dreams.
Finally this past year, I was able to realize a way to keep building my dreams AND support my family as needed. Unfortunately, that position ran out. We spent all July trying to rearrange things, trying to budget ourselves into the smallest box possible so that I could continue to grow and realize my dreams. Everything became “if we can just hit this ____, everything will be okay“.
Then I got a call. I was offered an interview for a job that would take me from flighty and irresponsible dreamer to mature, responsible, contributing member of our household. I was torn, but decided to go to the interview anyway. After all, it was only an interview. What were the chances of even being offered a job?
The more I thought about it and the more Leith and I discussed things, the more we realized that this was an opportunity to finally fix our mistakes. While I don’t regret living in pursuit of any of my dreams, I don’t want to keep living in this limited little box, hurting my husband and kids. I am craving some stability, some continuity, some relief.
When I was offered the job less than 3 hours after my interview, I was floored. And I began to forgive myself.
I began to forgive myself for all the give-me-three-more-months promises. I began to forgive myself for all the times I’ve had to tell Leith “no” because my job or my business didn’t give us the money for him to play. I was living out my dreams and he was living at work. It wasn’t fair.
So I am beginning to forgive myself.
I start my full-time position after the long weekend. Monday to Friday, 8:00-4:30, salaried, benefits, vacation, the works. 
HAWT Fitness will still live, which is the best part. I won’t be the face in the classrooms, but I will continue to develop and research and promote everything that I am so passionate about. But if registrations are slow, it won’t give me a heart attack. I won’t lose sleep, wondering if I’ll meet my registration quota, wondering if I’ll need to shut everything down. I already have one fabulous instructor, and I will hire another to teach the extra classes. I can focus on what I love: being an expert resource in my field.
I’ll be in a big company, with huge room for growth. I will know where I need to be on any given day and what to expect (to a degree, of course). 
I’ll be able to forgive myself for all the dreams I haven’t realized and safely pursue the ones that still matter.
I’ll be able to forgive myself for  all the times I’ve let my family down while chasing my own dreams, ignoring theirs.
I’ll be able to find that elusive balance between nurturing my passion and being a responsible adult, wife and parent.
I’ll be able to forgive myself and breathe deeply for the first time in years.

Challenging nutrition

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Most of my long-time readers and real life friends know how I feel about nutritional supplementation. I really, truly believe that you CAN get all your nutrients from real, whole foods. I am a notorious ingredient-label reader, and nine times out of ten I’d prefer to make my own food rather than buy it.
Hence Sunday’s massive baking spree in the +27 heat…yikes!
Unfortunately, I lack daytime organization. I’m really great at planning fabulous, healthy dinners for my family that are whole and balanced. I’m also really great at making informed, healthy decisions when I’m out and about (unless I decide I really don’t care, which I’m entitled to do once in awhile!!). The thing is, I’m usually so busy thinking about 10 million other things that I neglect to plan for breakfast and lunch. I always know what I’m making for dinner the night before but breakfast, lunch and snacks are completely forgotten.
So while what I do put in my body is very wholesome 90% of the time, what concerns me is what I don’t put in my body. When it comes to supplementing my diet, I am also very leery. I take a multivitamin, but most of it get eliminated because most are not balanced properly to allow for maximum absorption. I have a hard time spending good money on something that only offers me vitamins and minerals without the carbohydrates, fats and proteins that my body needs to function.
Time and nutrition led me to talk to my physiotherapist, an endurance athlete who uses the Visalus/Body by Vi shakes. Much like a multivitamin, I’ve been leery of shakes. I see so many people downing their protein shakes after a workout when they don’t really need them – they’re just packing on extra calories because they think they need them. Very few individuals need to supplement their diets – protein shakes have a purpose in the industry, but it’s not for Average Joe. I am also aghast at diets like Slim Fast that encourage a hugely calorie-reduced diet to lose weight by replacing meals with their shakes. 800 calories a day is not a sustainable, healthy lifestyle choice, which is why those programs have such high turnover and low long-term success.
Once we chatted though, I found the difference: there was actual sustenance for a normally-active person, not just someone with above-average nutritional needs. The beauty of this is that it is a nutritional supplement that you add to your shake much like a multivitamin. It replaces the need for my no-energy-provided multivitamins. I’m also mixing it with milk, fruit, and a package of Starbucks VIA in the mornings. Calorically dense enough to satisfy my breakfast appetite and sustain my activity levels at about 400 calories. Nutritionally balanced, between the food itself and the shake mix. And the kicker? Tasty as can be! I’ve tried making shakes before to counteract my time deficiencies (some with a mix-in, some without), but they tasted like dried garbage to put it mildly. This one didn’t. Texture-wise, I was also impressed. I have a strong stomach, but I cannot drink anything that tastes remotely yogurt-y. Yuck, yuck, yuck!! This was more milk-shakey in comparison – YUM!
Like I said, leery, skeptical, whatever you want to call it. But I did my research, and everything that I’ve read has pushed me in this direction to fit into both my beliefs and my hectic lifestyle. The closing argument for me was reading Jessica Zapata’s blog about her 90-day challenge. I have respected her position in the fitness industry for a long time. She is educated, intelligent and does due diligence to her clients and her business. She isn’t one of the weekend-warrior trainers that drive me batty ;) Reading her personal and professional experience, and seeing how closely they matched my own thoughts, concerns and beliefs was a huge motivating factor for me – here is someone who has also done the research, has the education to understand it, and has come out with a positive review.
Thus, I am giving the 90-day challenge a shot! There are 2 options: 1 shake a day and 2 shakes a day. I’m opting for the 2-a-day road, because it really is those 2 meals a day that lack. On the days that my mornings are uncharacteristically calm, I may opt to just shake for lunch ;) I’m going to blog about it and post my findings. This isn’t about weight loss or performance for me (although there are people who use their Visalus for that); it’s about finding a nutritional balance that I am happy and satisfied with.
I hope to find that!

Half-baked

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Today is one of those rare Summer of 2011 days where the thermometer has actually risen above 22 degrees. To celebrate, I decided to turn my oven on and bake my house full of love. _uacct = “UA-4888259-1″;urchinTracker();

Beignets were first on the list, since they were such a success on Friday and I’ve had a few requests to share ;)
Next was banana bread, since the banana I went to eat for breakfast was at that gross stage between ripe and overripe – it just tasted awful. Mash, mash, mash!! I used the traditional Company’s Coming recipe, with an extra 3/4c or so of rolled oats (not oatmeal!!).
Then I decided I would try my hand at real whole-wheat bread. I still have whole grain, fresh milled whole wheat flour in my freezer from our food co-op last summer. I’ve wanted to make break from scratch for awhile, and I gave my mom’s bread machine back to her last year.
Let me tell you this: punching and kneading dough for 10 minutes in a house that is NOT air-conditioned is a crazy-good workout. I’m starting to really understand why our society is heading to the land of Wall-E…imagine that being only a part of your day’s work, every day?? Phew!
So the beignets are proofing, the banana bread is baking and the bread dough is rising. I’m taking a blog-n-blueberry-beer break while I wait. 
There is also cranberry-orange-BBQ chicken cooking in my slow cooker. I plan on making pulled chicken sandwiches tomorrow night after yoga. I’m also soaking a couple of cedar planks to grill salmon on tonight, to serve with dilled baby potatoes and corn on the cob.
You may now wipe the drool from your chins ;)

Down in New Orleans

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Between Princess and the Frog and True Blood, I’ve been craving a visit to the deep south of Louisiana. Unfortunately, our budget and babysitters don’t seem to agree with my whims, so today I took the plunge and taught myself to make homemade beignets. _uacct = “UA-4888259-1″;urchinTracker();

Oh, sweet beignets. 
The southern donut, coated in a film of powdered sugar, calling my name ever since I popped that Disney DVD into our player…
Just the name on my lips makes my mouth water…how could anything with a name like that be anything other than sweet culinary pleasure?
With two bugz at home and an over-worked brain on my day off, we ventured into Beignet-Land.
I knew that it would be a time-consuming undertaking. The dough had to rise and proof before we could fry the beignets. Nevertheless, we set about making them around 1pm and were able to taste the efforts before 5pm. Not bad at all!
I found a basic recipe here, but I’ll post it for those of you who want to save your energy for kneading the dough ;)
Using a stand mixer with a dough hook, combine 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast, 3/4c warm water and 1/4c white sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes until frothy.
Add 1/2tsp salt, 1 beaten egg and 1/2c evaporated milk, and mix on low speed. (I never have evaporated milk on hand, but you can use 2/3c skim milk powder and 3/4c water to make 1c evaporated milk. Remember that you only need 1/2c for the recipe though!!)
Add 1-3/4c all-purpose flour, mixing until just combined. Add 1/8c (2Tbsp) shortening, mixing until combined. Add another 1-3/4c all-purpose flour, again mixing until just combined.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead, using just enough flour to achieve a smooth, non-sticky dough. Place in an oiled bowl and cover loosely. Allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size. For me, this was between 90 minutes and 2 hours sitting on the counter.
Once the dough has doubled, punch it down and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface again. Roll it out into a rectangle that is approximately 1/2″ thick. (Mine were a little thinner, but they turned out fine ;) ). Cut diagonally in 2″ strips, then cut again on the opposite diagonal in 2″ strips to make diamond shapes. Place on a floured cookie sheet (or 2) and place in a gently warmed oven to rise – you can use your oven’s bread-proofing setting, or just set to 100 degrees, and leave for about 40 minutes.
Heat about 1L of canola oil in an electric frying pan set to 350 degrees. When the oil is hot, place 2-3 beignets in the oil, being careful not to poke or squish them. Watch them, and turn them when the bottoms are golden brown. Fry on the other side until golden brown and remove to a baking rack lined with paper towel to drain.
Dust with lots of powdered sugar and serve hot with coffee. Or red wine.
It was that kind of day ;)
Enjoy!!

Baby, I’m back!

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And a lot happier than the last time we chatted! _uacct = “UA-4888259-1″;urchinTracker();

First of all, I am happily typing away on my brand-new iMac which I purchased today from WestWorld Computers. Let me just say this: I was blown away by their customer service. They hooked me up BIG TIME. Now I can work away in peace at my desk, rather than hunched over my iPad or crying over my dead MacBook.
*happy*
I also had one last product key to use on my Office for Mac software, so I can actually work instead of just staring at the interwebz wishing for $140 to fall out of the sky…
Excellence :)
But I know that you are all waiting with bated breath to hear the future of HAWT Fitness. Well, never fear, dear bloggy friends! We found a way around the chaos of last week and HAWT will live on without my family needing to beg for food or live in a cardboard box! Woohoo!
I won’t get into the details, but suffice to say that with some clever budgeting and taking the bugz down to only 2 days a week at the dayhome, we will be able to make HAWT work with a lot smaller class commitment than we’d originally calculated.
I know, I amaze myself!
I’m also expanding my HAWT services a bit to fill in some holes and fluff up my bank account so that we can live comfortable instead of frighteningly – you know, in case there are emergency expenses like *cough* new computers.
All is well and good in the world of Meaghan today :)

Shift

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Here I am, typing away on my iPad like a woodpecker. A lot of people have been asking a lot of questions, and rather than reply to a dozen Facebook and Twitter inquiries, I decided to blog.

After all, blogging is what I do.

Yesterday involved several very difficult decisions in my life, none of which I’ve enjoyed making. Unfortunately, the first decision I had to make was to resign from most of my position at the dance studio. There were a lot of factors involved, and we tried our best to overcome the obstacles but eventually I had to choose my family’s needs over the studio’s. It breaks my heart because that is my happy place, and I love everyone there so much. I will miss my daily dose of squishy babies, but I needed to step up and acknowledge my responsibility to my family. I’ll still be teaching a couple of evening classes, but that’s all for now.

Leith and I had agreed at the outset that this would be my last attempt to make health and wellness a full-time career, outside of a position in a major, well-established institution. So with my choice came the consequence of now needing to find a full time position that provides enough income to support our needs, and also our child care needs that come from that. It seems ridiculous, but I have to pay so much in child care to be able to make enough to pay our bills in the first place. And keep in mind that we have already cut back and paired down every bill and expense we have by over a third…this is literally as tight as we can get.

So with the job hunt in full swing, I’m left with a beautiful HAWT mess. A full-time/daytime job means that I can’t run daytime HAWT classes this fall. I am utterly torn in my decision. I can’t think of a combination of scheduling that will work with our family, allow me to work full time AND give me 4 mornings off a week. My heart is breaking. HAWT is my life’s ambition, and it is finally gaining momentum. I have no idea where to go right now. Any idea I have sacrifices the key principles of HAWT, and I’m not prepared to trade my integrity or my vision for dollars.

And then, to top it all off, my MacBook died. The hard drive crashed, with all my life on it. It hasn’t been backed up since February. I can’t build a résumé or cover letters, or print anything. I sent last night at Sherrie’s and today at my parent’s house doing just that. Unfortunately, it takes a wee bit of planning and organizing. Sher has no Internet, Mom is in the city. Between the two, I was able to apply for 2 jobs today. There is a third I’ll apply for tomorrow, but I need to go to my mom’s first (Internet…printer…email…agh!). I did get a preliminary callback already for one job, so that is positive!

And then there is the stream of bills that have been held up during the postal strike that has seen fit to appear in my mailbox in the past 24 hours…I’m trying to keep my head above water, but every breath feels like it’s full of cotton and dust. I’m gasping, trying to physically breathe and keep the panic and anxiety at bay. For the first time in my adult life, it’s actually on my shoulders to sink or swim.

So I’ll just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

Health & Wellness

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I’ve been laying in bed following a Twitter stream about my friend, Jen Banks’ recent post about her weight loss journey on MomNation. I tossed and turned with this post bubbling in my head, trying to decide if it belonged here or on my HAWT Fitness site. _uacct = “UA-4888259-1″;urchinTracker();

Here it is ;)
I soap-box about fitness a lot (like that’s any surprise to my wonderful readers!), but I am so passionate about lifestyle choices and the barrage of misleading/confusing/conflicted information that assaults us on a daily basis about what we should and should not be doing with our bodies.  It leads to a mountain of questions and confusion, and unfortunately, there are far too many “professionals” waiting like Red Riding Hood’s wolf in the woods.
Trickery.
I approach fitness like I approach most things in my life nowadays: is it something that humans have been doing for thousands of years to maintain their health and well-being, or is it something manufactured and marketed.
If it’s got its own marketing division, I stay far, far, FAR away.
**which isn’t to say that things like walking don’t have marketing teams…I am speaking more to the flash and sizzle of “the industry”**
Our bodies were designed thousands of years ago.  Evolution doesn’t allow us to change our daily needs that much over the course of a hundred years or so.  Unfortunately, our lifestyles haven’t acknowledged that, and the industrialization and globalization of the world has caused some MAJOR kinaesthetic and biomechanical problems for our poor bodies!  We sit more, we expend less energy, and we eat more.
Thus, we get stiffer, fatter and more sedentary.
It’s a vicious cycle, and one that leaves our society vulnerable to the well-meaning diet and fitness industry.  Of course, I say “well-meaning” with tongue firmly planted in cheek… It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, based solely on the fact that we are not active and live manufactured lifestyles.  It makes simple sense that we are then drawn to manufactured, simplistic “cures” for over-weight and its co-morbidities.  If it’s that easy to put the weight on, shouldn’t it be that easy to take it off?
*pops pill…waits for miracle*
Oops.  No.
As I already mentioned: our bodies were designed thousands of years ago for an active, survivalist lifestyle.  My beloved Vibram has a fantastic copy on their Facebook page: 20,000 years ago, people who didn’t believe in barefoot running got eaten.
Simple.  Truthful.
One could replace it with any other lifestyle choice:
“People who didn’t believe in healthy eating died”
“People who took supplements…um, didn’t, because they ate food”
“People who didn’t believe in exercise were eaten”
“People who didn’t believe in _____________”
You name it.
Our bodies have not adapted to the 21st century lifestyle in a positive manner, so it only stands to reason that the 21st-century “cures” won’t work.
How many clients have I met with who told me, “I did the XYZ diet, and it worked really well! I lost x-number of pounds!!” or “I did the (horrible, ‘doctor-supervised’, starts-with-a-B, shall remain nameless) treatments and it was great!“?
Too many. 
It begs the question: if you spent all this money on something that worked so well, why are you sitting across from me today?
Because it didn’t actually work.  It tricked your body for a short time into believing that you were making lifestyle choices, and your attention-starved body clung to it for dear life.  Unfortunately, Solution XYZ was either a) too costly, b) too time-consuming, or c) too dull/repetitive/painful/unchallenging/challenging/whatever for you to stick with it in the long run.  And as creatures of habit, you slipped back into the 21st lifestyle that you were already accustomed to; voila! Back to square one.
That reason alone is why I am IN LOVE with Jen’s journey at MomNation.  She is making huge but sensible lifestyle changes.  She isn’t losing unrealistic amounts of weight or inches.  She isn’t on a crazy, restrictive diet.  Everything that she is doing is healthy.
Healthy.
As in, for health and wellness benefits.
Health. And. Wellness.
Fitness has two components, in my opinion: wellness and performance.  Very few people actual fall on the “performance” end of the fitness spectrum, yet most people seem to focus on that result.  Instead, we all would benefit from focusing on the wellness end: the end that provides both mental and physical health benefits, reduces the co-morbities of a sedentary lifestyle (heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc) and increases quality of life.
Do you know how good it feels to have energy to live your daily life?  It isn’t about how many miles you can run, or how much weight you can lift, or how many back-to-back spin classes you can handle.  Can you enjoy an unrestricted lifestyle?
Can you maintain your healthy weight range without sacrificing foods that you enjoy?  Or are you so restricted in your nutrition or your time that you cease to actually live??
There’s a happy balance: it’s called lifestyle.  It looks different to everyone, but I encourage you to find what makes YOU happy on a regular and continuous basis.  Not short-term; find what makes LIFE enjoyable.
Then you’ll be fit.

A few of my favourite things

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  • July is so beautiful! It may just be one of my favourite months of the whole year: everything has settled into the lazy waves of summer and it feels relaxing no matter how much I need to do.
  • I went for a Reiki treatment yesterday morning, and it was an incredible experience! It’s hard to describe, and people experience it in many different ways, but I felt (and still feel!) very content and balanced. I went to see Kim at My Nature Baby – I highly recommend her!
  • My breakfast of choice lately has been thick-cut oatmeal cooked with blueberries and dried cranberries, then topped with a splash of almond milk.  So very tasty and so very healthy! Yum :)
  • My Vibram shoes have become my fast-foot friends. They are so comfortable. I’ve been wearing them everywhere. When I finally took them out for a run, it was like magic! I am completely sold on barefoot running!
  • My summer drink of choice has been gin with lime juice and club soda. Yes, I know that tonic is the fizzy water of most gin drinkers’ choice, but club soda just seems to fit for me. It’s perfectly refreshing on these hot summer days. 
  • If you are looking for a fantastic local jewelry artisan, check out Vanash on Esty. My friend Vicki makes gorgeous, unique pieces. Many of the pieces are up-cycled from various materials. LOVE!
  • I am completely addicted to True Blood. I can’t get enough. That is all.
  • I switched Bailey to a raw food diet about 4 weeks ago. I can’t believe the difference it has made in her energy and overall health! Wow!
  • My two favourite remedies right now are tea tree oil for mosquito bites and colloidal silver for anything (colds, cuts, sunburns, you name it). I also bought an aloe plant – finally! My sunburn-prone skin is happy :)
What are some of your favourite things right now?