Tag Archives: healthy-living

Insane

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I’ll admit it: I have a tendency to over-commit to things when I’m stressed out. It’s somewhat crazy, but it also gives me a welcome distraction at the same time.

This time around, I’m over-committing myself to the Insanity 60-day challenge. 9 weeks of intense plyometric and cardio interval training 6 days a week, with a fitness test every 2 weeks to measure progress. Oh, coupled with 2-3 Burlesque Boom classes a week, two of which I’m teaching. Oh, and you know, teaching dance.

Ahem. Insanity.

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Right?

Wrong.

Let’s just say this: I am 4 days into a workout program that I thought would drop me to my knees and drown me in a box of cheap wine. Because seriously, I wouldn’t be in any shape to pour wine out of a bottle. Surprisingly, it has been FANTASTIC. No, really. Fantastic. I’ve done the fitness test and 3 of the Month One workouts, and I have really loved every single workout.

This is why:

  1. I’m kind of crushing on Shaun T. Not because he’s hot, but because I really dig his personality as a trainer. I was really expecting a jacked-up jackass trainer: a male version of Jillian Michaels. Shaun T is not. He motivates, he encourages, he pushes, but he is not a jackass. Maybe it’s his credible background (check out his bio here), or the fact that he actually smiles. Whatever. It’s working for me!
  2. Encouragement to STOP when you need to and push when you CAN! Unlike some pushy trainers, the program is really quite sane! It’s really reasonable, encouraging you to listen to your body and do what you can. There’s no guilt for slowing down – it’s all about pushing yourself at your own level. I love that. I hate, hate, HATE trainers who tells their clients they can’t stop. Self-evaluation is key, and Insanity covers that constantly!
  3. Lots and LOTS of pointers about form, alignment and mechanics. Almost every move is broken down and explained. I was really surprised by how many downgrades were given! Never once did I feel like I HAD to do the full-out version if it was completely beyond my capabilities. Even though Shaun T has some visible imbalances, he really takes care to tell people what to do, and show other participants good form!
  4. SO MUCH FLEXIBILITY TRAINING! There is a real, true emphasis on flexibility training as part of the program – not just the whatever part of the warmup/cool down. So many programs miss this, but Insanity really focuses on stretching warm muscles. The program includes static and dynamic stretching too, which was really impressive. Maybe it’s because Shaun T is also a dancer? I don’t know. But what I do know is that this type of emphasis on flexibility is severely lacking in any other program I’ve looked at!
  5. Body weight plyometrics! This is killer, but I love the trend towards traditional BODY work. No weights, no equipment. Just an incredible workout using your own body weight. The stuff that sports teams have been using to condition their players for years. Dance in itself is a giant ball of plyometric goodness, so this is right up my alley! Don’t get me wrong – I HATE basketball drills more now than I did in grade 9, but they are fantastic. And I love to jump. And hopefully by the end of this nonsense, I’ll be able to do a few more real pushups ;)
  6. Their full-on admittance that this is NOT for beginners. Thank you!! Not just “check with your doctor”. Nope – this is NOT for beginners, so please do something else.
  7. Fitness tests every two weeks. 8 exercises, timed for one minute and recorded. Oh yeah!! I like performance measurements, not waistline and scale measurements. I’m doing this for pure fitness – I want to see if I’m getting better, not skinnier. Although I will gladly take the skinnier too… And the tests are built right into the calendar as part of the workout.
  8. Start to finish, the workouts are under an hour, including lots of flexibility and well-timed water breaks.
  9. There is a ticker at the bottom of the screen that tells you how much time you have left, and what intensity the current and upcoming sets will be. I love the visual!!

The first time I did the 30-day Shred, I wanted to punch myself in the throat. That is how much I hated it. I hated the “trainer”, I hated the music, I hated the words, I hated the set, I hated all of it.

I was terrified as I started the first DVD – I expected yelling, demeaning, army-bootcamp style intimidation. Instead, I’ve found a really challenging but SMART workout that pushes me beyond my abilities without making me feel bad. I am pushing myself, I am working hard, and I am really enjoying the time. It’s a true fit for me.

The test will be to see if I can make it for 60 days amidst dance festivals, recitals, and classes. But my goal is to take it one day at a time until May 12!

See you at the end :)

Veg’d out

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I love my fruits and veggies. I really do. Given the option, I’m more likely to order a big salad or a double side of vegetables when I’m at a restaurant than a potato or meat. I add crazy things to my culinary creations to up the veggie ante. Most days though, I’m a coffee hound with a side of a couple lazy fruits and a bowl of cereal.

Our family has been falling far behind on our 5-a-day. My bugz aren’t thrilled by anything other than an apple, banana, or fresh berries. They don’t particularly “like” vegetables…although they will eat them over meat. They are definitely (wheat-free/celiac) grainovores. They want cereal for breakfast, peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch, and noodles for dinner. And sadly, gluten free options aren’t always the cleanest food choices. It takes a lot of additives to make some foods taste good without the gluten!

And Leith? He just wants meat sticks from the 7-Eleven. And beer.

Sigh.

I can only sneak so much into my kids’ diets. Until I had a moment of genius: smoothies. My kids love smoothies! They beg for us to stop at Booster Juice whenever we are at the swimming pool. So last week, I introduced the idea of Smoothies For Breakfast, and they went NUTS! They have been having a veggie- and fruit-filled smoothie every day for 5 days now. They get about 2 servings of produce each, and then some. Each smoothie has pomegranate juice, almond milk, a whole carrot, 2 handfuls of spinach, parsley, a whole banana (or half an avocado), frozen berries, a few tablespoons of Greek yogurt, chia seeds, and hemp hearts.

BOOM!

Lots of real, organic, natural foods. No mixes or powders, no fake vitamins, no fibre substitutes, no sweeteners. Just real, whole foods. And they LOVE it! The rest of the day, I can sneak peas into their noodles or throw some baby carrots on the side of their sandwiches. I always take an apple and banana with me to my dance classes, and I get 4 servings of fruits/veggies in my smoothie because I’m not sharing it ;)

To make an awesome change even better, I finally signed up for the Organic Box! They recently expanded their service to Spruce Grove/Stony Plain, and they have a drop-off location. I’m currently spending about $45-50/week on produce, and only half of it is organic. For $55/week, it’s all organic. Not bad!! I’m really looking forward to having more variety, and being able to custom-tailor our orders each week.

How do you get your family eating more vegetables and fruits? What are your tips and tricks?

When life happens

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I’m still alive. Honestly. My mind has just been consumed with dance class wear orders and canning carrots and making pickles. And more class wear orders. And more pickles. And house-breaking the chiweenie. And parenting. And working.

And stuff.

So, what’s new? I’m on quite the motivation kick this week, and feeling great! Monday was sheer chaos, as I had to cancel $6000 worth of dance wear orders, resize them for a different company, and reorder them on a rush.

Yesterday, I canned EIGHT LITRES of dill carrots. All of the were from my garden. Yes, my garden grows carrots, zucchini, and potatoes. Nothing else. All my onions, peas, beets, radishes…nothing but greens. And truthfully, I only got one bowl of potatoes from twelve hills of potatoes, and only 5 small and 2 monster zucchini from six plants.

Yes, that is PURPLE cauliflower, from the St Albert Farmers’ Market!

But I have carrots!

Today is all about getting back on a health kick. I haven’t been running since my 30k at the end of July. I’ve been eating horribly, and if I get a litre of water a day, it’s a miracle. Ugh. I’m back on My Fitness Pal (add me: magzd), tracking and logging my food and activity. I may even start running again!

Then there is the house! I’ve finally narrowed down paint colours for my living room and I am getting rid of my red wall. It’s just too aggressive. I’ll keep my red accents, but it’s getting toned down. I’m also buying us an early Christmas gift as well:

And thanks to my dear Sku, my office is functional and tidy again!! We spent Sunday purging and organizing everything! I finished up on Monday, and it is SO nice to walk past the door without feeling massive anxiety… Yes, there is still a couple of boxes to put away, but as of yesterday, the desk clutter was completely gone!

And I took my long-neglected SCOBY, separated the layers, made a SCOBY hotel, and started brewing kombucha tea again, much to the horror of most of Facebook and Twitter :)

You can see that, while I’ve been absent from my blog, I haven’t been absent from life! I hope to be posting much more regularly now that dance is in full-swing and life has calmed down. I miss you all – and I have the winner from my 1000th post contest to post too!!

Now for the big question: did you miss me?? ;)

Sink or swim

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Sooo. I’ve decided to try and swim laps during my bugz’ swimming lessons this summer.

For real.

Twice a week, I spend 35 minutes poolside, reading trashy books and playing on my phone while my darling children splash and dive. As adorable as they are, it’s starting to get a little…old.

I was under the impression that because the preschool parents have to stay in the facility during lessons, we also had to just stay and watch. Today I finally asked the front desk if this was the case. She said no! If I want to pay the drop in (or buy a pass or membership, or whatever), I can absolutely use the facility during my bugz’ lesson time.

Score! I need some cross training to compliment my running, and biking is a bit too inconvenient for me right now. I used to love swimming. I was a regular fish!! I passed all my Red
Cross levels before grade 6. I was a born swimmer. However…

I have only swam twice since I was 15 years old and failed my Bronze Cross endurance swim by 2 minutes. Don’t even get me started on that: I mean really! 24 lengths in 14 minutes is totally valid when someone is drowning in your 25m pool. Totally reasonable grounds for failing me when I was stellar in every other area.

Whatever. I’m not bitter about it 16 years later.

Oh god. I just realized it’s been more than HALF my lifetime since I was a regular swimmer. Oh god.

I swam lengths twice in 2010 when I thought about trying a triathlon. I also swam at the Grant MacEwan campus pool once when I was 18. That, my friends, is the grand sum of my swimming-as-exercise since November 1996.

Now I’m more freaked out about this than I was when I started writing this post!

Thanks, blog. You’ve reduced me to a flailing, drowning mess. While we’re at it, let’s also remember that the swim club also practices during my kids’ lesson time.

I can’t WAIT to go swimming during my bugz’ next lesson. Oh freaking yay.

12k to go

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I ran 30 kilometers today. It was quite honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

It was hot out, to begin with. I also “lost” my dad around 24km- he was on his bike, stopped to stretch, and we missed each other. It was also right when I ran out of water…

I’ve never needed water on a run until today…and I ran out right when my training buddy was gone!!

The next 5km were the biggest psychological game I’ve ever played with myself. I *get* the wall now. If my dad hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have kept going. I was mentally done. I wasn’t in pain, for the first time ever, but I was done. I still had energy in my muscles, and my endurance was fine: I was keeping my “slow pace” at around 7 min/km.

But my brain? Done. Fried. I was counting down by 100m on my GPS. My dad tried to talk me into pushing past 29.3km (18 miles) and just doing 30km. Ha!

Then some trail-nazi decided to stand in front of my dad’s bike and freak out at him for cycling on his trail. Right. When. I. Was. Supposed. To. Stop. Running.

I was so pissed off that I RAN THE NEXT 700m JUST TO SHOW HIM. What a jerk.

But yay! I ran 30km with only fatigue!!

And then, on the kilometer-long walk back to my dad’s truck, the real test came. A dull ache spread down my fatigued legs, from my hips to my ankles. It hurt so much that I was in tears. It took so much strength to just keep moving and not completely lose it right there on the spot. The only thing I can compare it to is that awful ache of a sleeping limb waking up – not the pins and needles, but that take-your-breath-away ache that makes you still so very still until the blood and feeling returns.

It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt. But my dad? I’m so glad he was there. He didn’t crack a smartass comment about it. He just kept cycling and kept me moving. He kept me going.

So, 30km is done. It was scary. It was a huge mileage jump, and I’m exhausted. I slept on my mom’s couch for an hour before I could come home. The good news is that I only have 3 more long runs before the Okanagan marathon, and the only increase by 2 miles at a time…not 5 miles like today!

I need to sleep, eat, hydrate, and lick my mental wounds. I’m still in the game though, even though the game is suddenly a lot scarier!

Only 12 more kilometers to go!

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Treat the Stollery

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It’s Miracle Treat Day today! That means that thousands of people will flock to their local Dairy Queen for a Blizzard treat to support the Children’s Miracle Network. In our area, that means supporting the incomparable Stollery Children’s Hospital.

We’ve made use of the Stollery several times, especially since our twin celiac diagnoses. We also called the Stollery’s cousin, the Royal Alex NICU, home for the first two weeks of our bugz’ lives. This network is near and dear to many friends and families we know.

You would think we’d be first in line for a treat today, especially with a charitable excuse! I love my Blizzards, especially now that they have a mini size – something manageable, rather than gargantuan to treat myself with. But no, we won’t be at DQ today.

Instead, I did what I do every year:

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I sent a text to 45678. Then, a $10 donation to the Stollery hospital will come off my cell phone bill. Done. No junk food necessary.

You see, Treat Day is an awesome reminder for me to donate to the Stollery. It brings awareness to the cause, which I love. What I don’t love is that everyone uses it as an excuse to buy junk food “for a good cause”. Yes, some of your purchase goes to the hospital. But most of it goes to ice cream. And while I love ice cream, I don’t feel obligated to buy it to support the cause.

Instead, I take the $10 I would have spent on ice cream and spend the full amount on the Stollery. And maybe tomorrow, I’ll take my bugz for a treat if we think we deserve it. Or maybe we will go to the park to celebrate that they are healthy thanks to the miracle hospitals in our community.

Ice cream is awesome. The children’s hospital in your community is awesome. I just can’t stand using junk food to support healthy causes. It’s right up the alley of ParticipACTION partnering with Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s sponsoring the Olympics. At the end of the day, it drives profit into fast food corporations under the guise of feeling better about yourself.

There is a healthy choice out there too. Take the awareness, and don’t feel obligated. If you really want a Blizzard today, then you should totally get one and enjoy that you are also helping a good cause. But if you don’t want a Blizzard (or wouldn’t get one anyway), don’t make a special trip. Text “Stollery” to 45678 and get more bang for your buck.

Wavering

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It’s Day Two of the Whole 30. I hate every living minute of it.

I have never, ever, in my whole life wanted to quit something so quickly.

I hate it. Yes, the food is tasty. Whatever. It’s not satisfying at all. At. All.

My reasons for doing this were varied:

  • Of course weight loss is always a little bit nice. I haven’t been able to break 135lbs, but I also haven’t been trying.
  • I like the paleo food lifestyle. We can’t eat gluten-y grains, and we avoid most dairy anyway. This provided some structure, which was much-needed and much-wanted.
  • I love doing stupid challenges, like my sugar fast. I wanted to see if I could do it.
  • I wanted to feel better.

But guess what? The Whole 30 is a HUGE, SUDDEN CHANGE, even for someone who eats 90% gluten/dairy-free already. The physical act of cooking and eating the super-strict Whole 30 food isn’t what’s hard. It’s the mental commitment to it.

You see, I’m already pushing my brain beyond it’s happy place with my marathon training. I have to run 18 miles this Sunday, and I have some serious mental energy that needs to unblock before then. This year’s training is taking more mental commitment than anything I’ve ever done.

I also have a husband who has been gone since Saturday, and now won’t be home until August 2nd. He was supposed to be home today. Surprise!!

There’s also the timing on top of the mental stress. I am going away for the August long weekend with two celiac kids. I already need to plan for their food, and I don’t know if I want the added stress of bringing my own food too. Plus, it’s kind of imposing and rude to my hostess (even though she’s a beautiful, accommodating soul). The morning after we get back, I leave for 5 days in Las Vegas. I’ll be dancing from 9-5 every day, plus three training runs. I’ll have a tight schedule around meal times, and I’ll be at a hotel the whole time. The hotel is at the edge of town – no time for grocery store trips or anything like that.

That, my friends, is 8 solid days of food stress. On top of travel stress, on top of training stress.

I honestly don’t think I can do this right now. I actually feel anxious about eating. THAT is not healthy. I actually want to CRY. It’s pathetic. I don’t want to run out and get a Blizzard and a bottle of wine. I just don’t want to feel trapped and anxious!

I’m a healthy person! I’m not overweight, and I’m very active. I have no discernible health concerns. This isn’t a do-or-die nutrition situation. But I have to stop and wonder: am I having trouble because of all the other stress it’s causing, or because I really need to do this for my body. Is this just withdrawal/cleanse, and I need to push through it? Or is it just BS and I need to take the warning signs and walk away, try again later?

And it’s not like I’ve been starving. I’ve eaten LOTS – at least 2000kcal each day for the past two days. But I’m forcing it in, and I’m still not getting nearly enough carbohydrates to support my training.

Ugh.

I don’t like quitting, and I quit too often. But it’s not worth the struggle right now. Even if I woke up tomorrow and it was an easy day, it’s not worth it right now.

I can go gluten-free and dairy-free. I can’t do this Whole 30 right now. So while the title of this post is “Wavering“, what it really means is “Quitting“.

I need some breathing room right now. I can’t do food guilt. I need to just eat and train and dance and run that marathon in October!

So, Whole 30? I quit.

The Moose is Loose

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I’m going to start this off with the biggest disappointment:

Despite the name, there was NO moose anywhere on the race course.

Sadness.

But I did get up bright and early today to run my second half marathon!! It was also my second half marathon in 2012, and my second half marathon in 6 weeks!!

I was a little disappointed in the course. I was expecting a rolling 21.1km of trails. Instead, I got a fairly flat course that was only about half trail. The rest was paved pathway. Not quite the “trail run” I’d been told about… The course volunteers were also less than enthusiastic for the most part, sitting in chairs, not clapping or cheering, barely acknowledging the runners.

But the sun was shining, and it wasn’t yet scorching hot out. Once the initial bottleneck thinned out, I had a really enjoyable 21k! My IT band didn’t bother me until 14k, and it didn’t stop me in my tracks until almost 18k. Even still, I was able to keep a normal gait this time ;)

I also ran the full distance! I took 5 seconds to walk and chug 2oz of water at 4 aid stations, and about 15 seconds when my IT band smacked me at 18k, but that’s it! My pace was awesome too: I varied between 5:30 min/km and 6:30 min/km for an average pace of 6:00 min/km. I was blown away! While my “burst” at Footstock was 5:30, I ran my last kilometer at about 4:15, with energy to spare!

All that speed meant that I knocked nearly FIVE MINUTES off my Footstock time! I finished in 2:05:56 by my Garmin!!

Crazy!

Half marathon #2 is done for 2012! I don’t think I’d do this race again, but it was still a nice morning. There’s no rest for the wicked though: next week’s long run is 18 miles in preparation for Kelowna!

Meanwhile, I have another finisher’s medal to add to my collection:

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Whole 30 – Week One

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My meal plans are set out for the next seven days! Today and tomorrow are my farewell-to-grain days, as I am preparing for the Moose is Loose half marathon in the morning. Monday morning is the start of my Whole 30 Challenge!!

Breakfasts:

  • Egg muffins with spinach, sausage, onion, and pepper
  • Ground turkey with onion, kale, and apples
  • Shredded chicken with yam/carrot/onion hash
  • Sausages with sweet potato hash brown cakes
  • Omelette with spinach, onion, peppers
  • Apples with almond butter, hard boiled eggs, left-over asparagus
  • Shredded chicken with apples, onions and carrots

Lunches:

  • Spinach salad with tuna, avocado, peppers, and cucumber
  • Spinach salad with salmon, red onion, capers, and olives
  • Peppers stuffed with tuna, carrots, peppers, avocado, mayonaise
  • Shredded chicken, sweet potatoes, fruit
  • Omelette with sausage, kale, and asparagus
  • Left-over beef roast with kale, onion, green beans and sweet potato
  • Left-over beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onion

Dinners:

  • Spaghetti squash with ground beef, diced tomatoes, spinach, onions, and peppers
  • Beef roast with kale, onion, carrots, sweet potatoes, and green beans
  • Beef stew with apples, carrots, sweet potatoes and onion
  • Turkey chili with tomatoes, onions, and kale
  • Cauliflower pizza dough with sausage, onion, tomatoes, and peppers
  • Sausages with onions, apples, kale, and cucumber salad
  • Crustless spinach quiche

I’ll be honest: looking at my meal plan, the estimated cost of groceries for this week terrified me! Nothing but fresh produce and meat! And this is my first week of living on cash only! What if it was more than the $200 I allotted us??

I had a handful of the ingredients already (5 peppers, green beans, cucumbers, riced cauliflower, diced tomatoes, almond butter, and capers) but I needed to buy everything else. When the cashier at Superstore finished ringing up my items, I was shocked!


Shocked!!!

Now, I still need 2 rotisserie chickens (those are my lazy-protien days ;) ) and a spaghetti squash, so my final total will be closer to $150. I’m sure I could do a little better on the produce if I went to H&W Produce, but I didn’t want to make 2 trips into the city today.

Not bad, hey? And this is for ALL FOUR of us!

Switching to gluten-free grain flours and products bumped my monthly food bill from $600/month to $850. It kills me to spend $4-8 on a loaf of bread. This will take a huge chunk off that total, AND it will also keep Leith from buying lunch every day. $8-10 a day, 5 days a week?? That’s another $200 a month saved right there!

I am so excited, and my mouth is watering just looking at the menu. I can’t wait to start…48 hours to go!

The No’s: any grains/rice/quinoa, seeds (including peas and corn), soy, dairy, legumes, sugar, caffeine (other than tea), and alcohol

I can’t wait to share the results with you :)

The Whole 30 Plunge

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I’m a little bit excited, a whole lot nervous, and very indecisive about when to start…

I read a great book this past week, in keeping with two other foodie books I read this past year. The first was Wheat Belly. This was my insight into the problems caused by eating grain. I needed to understand more about celiac and gluten, and this was a great resource.

From there, I moved onto Robb Wolf’s paleo bible, The Paleo Solution. It was another interesting read, but quite frankly, I didn’t like his tone. It was too casual and condescending for me. I know too many of “those types” from my fitness background. But I liked the material and the theories. Between that and Wheat Belly, it all made sense.

But of course, I like dairy and I love wine.

Unfortunately, 6 weeks into my naturopathic journey, I still feel blah despite strengthening my adrenal system and trying to improve my quality of sleep. I’ve thought about doing another sugar fast, and other than two oversights, I have been gluten free for all of July.

That’s when Laurie pointed me in the direction of It Starts With Food. It’s another paleo-style book, but I found a greater connection to the why: why I shouldn’t be eating dairy, or legumes, or grains. It also lays out a great 30-day purge, if you will, to challenge you to eat within Paleolithic nutritional guidelines and what to expect.

More importantly? It didn’t end with 30 days of meal plans. I hate meal plans. I won’t follow them, and I know that my family won’t follow them. I’ve tried to get eggs into my kids at breakfast. Not. Happening.

But guidelines? Perfect! Help me implement a lifestyle, instead of follow a chart! That I can do. I need that kind of flexibility.

I already know that nutritionally, I have something funky going on. My celiac test came back negative, but I feel better when I follow my girls’ celiac diet. One of the next steps my naturopath wants to take is eliminating dairy. Between those two, I’m halfway there already, so why not take the full Whole 30 plunge?

I just can’t narrow down the when. You see, there’s nothing stopping me from starting tomorrow. The problem lies in my Vegas trip in just under 3 weeks. I know that it will be a hard thing to follow while staying in a hotel, revolving around a conference schedule. I don’t know how easy it will be (time- or convenience-wise), and I don’t want to set myself up for failure.

What would you do? Would you commit to the full 30 days, and hope for the best for 5 days in Vegas? Or would you wait until you got back and just make small changes in the meantime?

I really want to try this. I want to buckle my diet down to good food that my body was designed to digest. I am SO sick of feeling sick and tired and unwell. I’m tired of feeling achy, dehydrated, sore, swollen, and inflamed with no discernible cause.

I’m giving myself until Monday to (decide to) start. My next half marathon is this Sunday, and I don’t want to change anything right before a race. But in the meantime, I’d love some feedback. And, if you’d like to join me, I’d love to have a team to survive with ;)