Right now i feel like i need to focus on what i love about myself first. I love that i’m comfortable for my son to cuddle…he always picks me over anyone else. that might mean i have weight to loss, but it also shows me that he loves me and that he knows i’m a comfort. I love that I have a background in counseling because it makes me easy to talk to. i have alot of friends IRL who feel like i’m the only person who they can say whatever to and i value that alot. oh, and i love to run and i love that i can do it! It feels so weird sayiing what i like about myself, because i don’t want to sound boastful, since that’s basically the exact opposite of how i am.

Now on to what i’m working on… of course my weight is my number one focus. I want to be fit and healthy. I want inner peace…i want stabilty…and the only reason i don’t have it is because of myself. i make problems for myself on a regular basis. i spend out of control, i say things that are out of control to the people i love, i react in an out of control fashion all too often. to make my relationship with my husband better i need to work on me…and the aspects of my life that i can control. As much as I would love to say i can’t control my mood, that’s not true. Exercise helps keeps my moods pretty stable and i have been putting that off for MONTHS…even after my knee was in a condition that could handle it. Exercise makes me feel more content in general, i sleep better, it helps me eat better, it gives me time to myself- my exercise time is time where i’m doing something that’s totally for me. I need to be a better housewife, since for now that’s the job i’ve choosen. i need to make dinner on a regular basis…i need to clean more often and just generally take better care of the house. I know these things aren’t generally enjoyable, but they do give me a sense of purpose. if that makes sense. it makes me feel like i DO play an important role in my family, that i am capable, that i’m not just a useless object.

Can I just say that eating out, eating, thinking about food, etc. has been so much EASIER since confessing to myself, you, that I am a compulsive overeater.

God…it was like doves flew out of my chest, the angels sang, and the sun poured through the clouds.

Ok…that maybe a little melodramatic. But can I just say the freedom from having the knowledge of what I am battling with and knowing that it’s something that I can overcome is more powerful than anything I’ve ever experienced before in my whole life. In fact, it’s what I have been talking about, praying for, lusting after, and hoping that someday I’d experience.

Why not test out this feeling with food?

I hope that you check out her blog and show her some international love.

~M

————

“Triathlon Baker”

Thankyou to the lovely Michelle for giving me a chance to provide a guest post on her blog.

My name is Lisa and I regularly blog at www.bakebikeblog.com. Michelle enquired about my journey into fitness, which got me wondering just how I got to where I am today…

MY STORY

I was always an active child. I played tennis for 8 years, and tried my hand at athletics, gymnastics and dancing. I also have fond memories of camping and hiking with my dad, anything outdoors really. I was young, active and healthy, and body image was not something I ever worried about.

When I hit 13, things seemed to change. Yes I was still playing tennis 3 days a week, but I became conscious of my body and critical of what I saw. I can’t remember anything particular happening to make me feel this way, it was just as if I woke up one day and didn’t like my reflection in the mirror. Looking back now I just want to give that 13 year girl a big hug, and tell her that all will be ok.

I moved interstate when I was 17, to start university. Suddenly I was in a new city, with no family, yet with a freedom I had never had when living at home. I was working to pay my way through uni, making poor food choices, and ‘fitness’ had all but disappeared from my life. Sure I played social sport (netball, touch etc) but I had no regular routine. I would find myself in cycles where I would restrict what I ate, try some crazy diet, only to have it all come apart. Not surprisingly, this left me feeling worse than ever. I was tired, unhappy and unhealthy. Deep down I knew that something had to change.

After I finished uni and started a full time job, I met Mr BBB. Suddenly my life was not just about me, but about this wonderful man I had been lucky enough to meet.

Around this time I realised I had a choice to make. I could stay an unhappy party girl, or I could grow up. Simple as that. And guess what? I decided to change.

CHOOSING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

I chose a happy and healthy lifestyle. No longer was I spending the weekends (and some weeknights) at the pub. Rather, I was enjoying my new relationship, cooking meals and generally living life. I loved cooking healthy meals.

I joined a gym, developed a regular fitness regime, and was generally happier with who I was becoming. I could feel the “young” active Lisa coming back and I loved it. Basically, I started to love me again.

In 2007 I decided to compete in a short triathlon. This was definitely another turning point . I bought a bike, developed a training program, and loved the variety of training for a triathlon.

My first race was, well, rather unimpressive, but I finished the race and it only made me hungry for more. I returned to that same race in 2008 and shaved nearly 20 minutes off my previous time. To say that I was elated is an understatement.

Since that time I have made health and fitness a big part of my life. Sure I have days / weeks where I don’t spend any time running or hitting the gym. But, these moments are generally fleeting, and I no longer equate such moments with failure or inadequacy.

FINDING MY STRIDE

Competing in races has shown just how strong my body and mind can be, and allowed me to feel a sense of achievement. They also give me motivation to train, and to keep training regularly.

I also made a conscious decision to throw out the scale and learn to be happy in my own skin. And to be honest, I have never been happier. Are there days where I overindulge? Of course. But do I let these days drag me back to the self loathing state I was once in? No. Was this an easy transition to make? No. Is it still a work in progress? I think so.

So what would my advice be to the “old” me? Simple. Don’t waste time focusing on the bad, but celebrate the good. Every day can represent a new beginning. Be excited about what the future holds, and know that you have a CHOICE as to what sort of future you want to have.

I am truly excited about what the future holds. I am lucky to have a great relationship, a wonderful family and a body that is strong and a mind that is sound. I can’t wait to have more fun-filled adventures in fitness and in life!

A shrinking violet.

Stuffed with VEGAN food. As you know I have vowed February as Vegan month. I haven’t really been talking about food, much. I have screwed up only four times in the past 25 days. Ok..so that’s about an 80% rate. I’ll take it. I think it’s MUCH more mental then it is physical lusting after meat. Each time I eat meat I feel sick…I think of the poor animals in sub-standard conditions. I immediately feel guilty.

My friend Sarah invited me over for a vegan feast. Oh.My.VEGAN..it was amazing.

Vegan pizza, all kinda you can imagine.

Then a Espresso ‘Cream Cheese’ Cake w/ Cashew Cream topping. God Lord, I loved it. I even have a piece sitting in my fridge. Patiently waiting for me to eat it with a deep appreciation for it’s heavinlyness.

It was pretty funny cause we are sitting there eating vegan food and watching Ultimate Fighting. Hilarious. I grew up with a Dad who LOVED to watch boxing. Ultimate fighting is a WHOLE other level.

I looked over at Sarah and mentioned that sometimes I feel like I am in a cage with food/bingeing/dieting/body image issues etc. However, I feel like the fight just isn’t worth it anymore. As I have written before I had a relationship which distorted my body image/relationship with food/self-esteem. There is a potential man on the radar and I made a commitment to myself: To not let the issues of body image, food, weight be the central and f-ed up focus on any other relationship. I don’t want to be thinking about my weight while I am dating someone.

There have been moments throughout the early stage of this ‘courtship’ and others when I’ve aced myself out of the fight, succumb to the beating of negative self-talk. I wasn’t thin enough, pretty enough, slender enough, etc. It’s SO damaging.

All of this had my reflecting on a piece written by Gena today

While I battled disordered eating, this urge was an enormous part of my illness. I’m often asked if what I wanted from the disorder was to be thin. The answer, naturally, is yes: of course thinness is what I wanted. But it was, in retrospect, only a surprisingly small part of what I wanted. When I look back on those years, I see that a lot of what I wanted was to quash my own needs. Overcoming this–connecting with my hunger for food, for sex, for vitality, for physicality–took a long time. Being able to declare to myself and to others that I not only needed to eat, but wanted to eat–and all that eating implied–demanded that I overcome a great deal of unconscious shame.

If you’re fighting with food/dieting/bingeing/disordered eating….what is outside of the cage that you’re not feeding?

~M

What I love about myself:

1. I love that I have been binge-free for over two years and feel comfortable in my own skin.
2. I love how I feel at the gym – I feel strong, fit and confident. (Sadly, I do not feel confident outside the gym, not sure why that is.)

What I have come to love about myself:

1. I love that finally, at the age of 41, I am gaining so many types of awareness about myself, things that are helping me to grow as a person.
2. I love that I have started to, for the first time since I was a very young child, tune into my body and listen to what it needs.

What I need to work on:

1. My self-confidence
2. Loving myself as a whole, believing that I bring a lot to the table.

Who is the Compulsive Overeater? I have been drawn to their blog, because sometimes I feel it would be nice just to write and not have a known identity. There’s something pure about the story with they’re sharing below, about how they overcame over-eating, that gives me hope that I to will be able to write a SUCCESS STORY someday. Their words are honest, fresh, and so important to read for anyone who may have disordered eating patterns and/or who may need to reach out for additional help. I think it’s a fabulous testament on how to overcome and succeed with food.

Thanks COE

~M

———-

I am utterly honored that Michelle asked me to guest post on her blog. While I am certainly no expert, I would be happy to share my story of how I have been binge-free for over two years, after being a compulsive (over)eater for over three decades, and tell you how I deal with food these days.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN…

Unbeknownst to me, I became a compulsive eater when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Closeness was not fostered in our house between my parents, older brother and I, and I turned to food to find the nurturing and comfort that I needed. In addition, my mother would go food shopping, buy junk food for the family, but she would hide it from me because she knew I would never just eat a “normal” share and leave enough for the rest of the family.

I found out a couple of years ago in therapy that my mom, unknowingly I’m sure, was giving me the message – you cannot be trusted with food. So the bingeing began at a young age with trips to the store to buy junk. I would eat it when no-one was home, stuff the empty bags/containers/wrappers back into the supermarket bag, and then bury that in the trash can. I had low self-esteem and was pretty insecure (as many tweens, teens are.)

As I got older, I continued binging off and on. I thought I just had a sweet tooth. My weight yo-yo’d up and down throughout my life, going from 105 lbs to 172 lbs and everywhere in between. Mind you, I am only 5’3”.

INTO ADULTHOOD…

As an adult, at parties my goal was to get back to the dessert table over and over again. How good the party was to me was based upon the foods that they had, not the people or the conversations. I would talk to people, but in the back of my head I would be thinking about a certain food and would ultimately make up some excuse to get away from that person so I could go eat some more.

When I was married and we entertained, I loved to clean up after everyone left so that I could devour the leftover desserts. I have pulled food out of the sink, the trash, you name it. I would shove food into my face without even really tasting it. I would just shovel and shovel until I was sick and sometimes that shoveling didn’t stop even with that horrible bloated feeling. Of course after I was done, I would vow that it would be my last binge and that I would be “good” the next day, but sadly, I was only sometimes able to actually pull that off.

Fortunately, throughout my life, I had always exercised. So I am certain that I would have gotten much heavier if I hadn’t been working out.

THE TURNING POINT…

So one night at the end of December 2007, I was home alone watching TV and somehow the idea of compulsive eating popped into my head. I went to my laptop and started googling. I eventually ended up at the Overeaters Anonymous website. They had something on their site that asked “are you one of us” or something like that, and I answered “yes” to just about every question. This was horrifying, yet thrilling to me at the same time. Being an A-type personality, I was thrilled to finally have a term and a compartment to put this part of my life in. I wrote a long letter to my husband telling him about this new revelation about myself and did a LOT of crying over the next few days. Years of shoved down emotions had finally bubbled to the surface.

So then the real journey began. I embraced the eating disorder, started going to OA meetings, got myself into therapy, continued with my working out and have not gone on a binge ever since.

HOW TO WORK WITH IT…

While I do have a lot of things that I’m still working on, thanks to my therapist (a recovering compulsive eater himself) who has opened my mind to SO many things, I deal much better with food these days.

As most compulsive (over)eaters do, I have control issues. I weigh and measure my food, and I have been a calorie counter since I was a teenager even though sometimes the calorie counts were astronomically high.   I have also been getting on the scale every day for decades, but have recently gone cold turkey on that. That was my first step in letting go of some of my white knuckle control.   I hope one day to be able to stop the weighing/measuring/calorie counting, but I can only take one baby step at a time.

I have a food plan that I follow pretty strictly, although I’m finally to the point where I do allow myself some slack and realize that going over my calories a couple times of month is not going to make 10 lbs automatically fly onto my body. This food plan allows me the freedom of not having to worry what I’ll be eating that day. It’s quite freeing and comforting.

The newest thing I’m working is on tuning in to my body to listen to its hunger cues. This is so new to me as I have always been very regimented with my eating, i.e. eating a snack at 2pm simply because it’s 2pm, whether I’m hungry or not.

I do not deprive myself. The foods that I eat have been tested and chosen over the past couple of years and I really love to eat them. I eat chocolate every single day without fail.

Also, I’m a big planner. I try to leave very little to chance when it comes to food. If I know I’m going to be out of the house doing errands or something, I always pack a water bottle and a healthy snack. I don’t want to be caught starving and have to be faced with making choices between things I know aren’t good for me that will leave me hungry (and feeling bad) five minutes later.

STAYING ON TRACK…

I have definitely had a few slips here and there, but the have never led to me tossing all my hard work out the window, saying – screw it, then eating everything in the house that wasn’t nailed down as I was prone to doing in the past.

I have this great bracelet that I wear, that is a constant reminder of my abstinence. When I first started wearing it, I first used it to mark the days, then weeks, then months and now years of my abstinence. It is a silly thing of black string and beads I bought at a craft store, but it means the world to me.

I still have my struggles, but most of those times are when I’m at an event or party and am faced with foods that are enticing and that I know are triggers for me. But with my therapist, I’m working that. He tells me that if I expand other things in my life, my obsession with food will get less and less. He’s right. He has also told me that how I frame certain foods is very important. For example, I have often said something like – brownies are my kryptonite. He has shown me that by framing the brownies in that manner, I’m already setting up a tense and often losing situation for myself.

So, slowly but surely I am learning how to deal better with my food addiction/obsession/compulsion. I weigh the least amount I have ever weighed in my adult life and have maintained this loss for over a year now. It feels wonderful to look in the mirror and like what I see. It feels great to be comfortable in my own skin, something that was foreign to me for TOO many years.

WHO AM I?

Happily married with two kids, I feel like discovering that I was a compulsive overeater almost two years ago was a giant stepping stone in my personal growth as a woman. OA and therapy have been invaluable to me. Every day is a struggle, but I do think it’s getting a bit easier as time goes on. My gym workouts help to keep me sane and give me balance.

If you would like to read more about my daily struggles of being a compulsive eater, I invite you to check out my blog at www.confessionsofacompulsiveeater.com

I have to admit something to you. I have been bingeing. In a weird f-ed up way, I have been totally caught up in this over-eating/bingeing cycle at night. I am NOT listening to my body. I am NOT enjoying being satisfied. I want to be stuffed. Stuffed to my gourd. Wake-up with a totally upset tummy.

In fact, I can’t remember the last night I woke up without feeling bloated, went to bed without feeling stuffed.

However, last night I had enough of this shit.

I took everything and I mean everything from my house and throw it away. The frozen muffins, cookies, etc. I throw away the granola bars. The cheddar covered rice crackers.

It’s all in a bag.

I have NEVER EVER done that before. I have thrown away the pan of brownies that I had eaten half off. I have thrown up the 1/2 of blueberry bread batter that I had eaten. But I have NEVER taken control of a situation, demanded that I be accountable, and found peace in putting my food down.

What happened last night is the release of the old me. In some weird twisted way, I am sad to say this, I feel like I am still STILL stuck in the old. Finding comfort in old patterns/habits/personal expectations of behaviour.

However, last night I honestly, in my gut—not in a moment of frivolous desperation or lust—, decided that I’ve had enough of this bullshit that I put myself through.

I may binge again. But you know what…I don’t think that I will. I am convicted beyond measure. The quite, unshakable calm is reigning over me.

When have you put your food down?

~M

It started out as a ‘weight loss’ vlog
1/3 of the way through I got rid of my scale
I decided I wanted more than to be attached to weight
I have found myself somewhere in these 8 minutes of vlogs

Measurements:

• Bust: 39.9″ —> 37.6″ (-1.3″)
• High Waist: 30.2″ —> 30.3″ (+.1)
• Belly Button: 32.6″ —-> 31.8″ (-.8)
• Hips: 42.3″ —> 42.2″ (-.1)
• Thigh: 24.8″ —> 24.8″ (-.0)
• Calf: 15.2″ —> 15.2″ (-.0)

To be honest I was shocked that I had lost anything. I have been SO stuck on weight, that I haven’t realised that losing inches is a good thing. A measurable thing. A sense of accomplishment. They always say that “you gain it from the bottom up and lose it from the top down”. Well, it looks like I am starting something pretty awesome.

I have NEVER EVER done something and stuck to it. I have never completed a marathon training schedule. A work out routine. A week-free from bingeing.

I completed this.
I feel accomplished.
I feel transformed.

Ever done something, stuck to it, seen results? What was it?

What I love about myself is the fact that I can laugh at myself and that I possess the ability to make others laugh as well.
It’s interesting to me that, as I type this, it feels almost as ‘prideful’/boastful/uncomfortable to me as saying I HAVE A ROCKIN BOD! or something along those lines as well. Yet it is my favorite thing about me.
I dont take myself overly seriously and, to that end, can quickly help others around me feel both at ease and—I hope—begin to take themselves & life a smidge less seriously as well. In a good way.

Once upon a time I lived in Guatemala for a while.  One day I was ambling around with my daughter on my back in a sling when outofnowhere (as happened frequently there) a parade sprung up and someone (in excitement) tossed a firework our direction.  I RAN, like the awkward gazelle that I am, quickly in the opposite direction and we were fine.
It was in that moment that I realized I may be ENTIRELY uncoordinated (I am. Hence the love of the weight training over, say, cardio hiphop class) but my body works pretty damn quickly & well when I ask it to.  For that I am grateful & love it.

People often ask me how I can help other people in the realm of fitness when I don’t struggle with it myself to a great degree.  To me the notion of struggle is universal and I can easily translate mine into a different realm.  I’m working on loving myself where I am TODAY with regards to my career & *not* comparing to others and thinking I should/must/ought to be where they are already.

Ready from combat?

Today has been A LOT better than yesterday’s carb load. I actually woke up this morning and thought ‘I really don’t want cereal for brekky’. So I listened to my stomach, my body (WOOT!) and made this:

• 100g (3 oz) firm tofu
• 1 tsp EVOO
• 1 c. frozen veggies
• 1/4 c. Jasmine rice
• 1 TB crushed walnuts
• 1 TB almond butter

My almond butter supply is dwindling WAY too quickly. I entertained my taste buds with two cups of tea. One the candy cane and another green tea w/ jasmine.

Lunch: 1/2 c. of this amazing little salad I made

unpictured salad w/ a little avocaodo, sundried tomato and heaps of veggies. 1 c. grapes.

I was full, but old patterns die hard. I had 1 Carrot Cinnamon Muffin and 1 orange.

I was stuffed. I realised that I had over-eaten and said ‘that’s interesting…note to self. I then made a cranberry spritzer

• 1/4 c. pure cranberry juice
• 1 1/2-2 c. sparkling water
• 6-8 drops stevia
• ice

Then of course 3:30pm rolled around and I had two of the gluten free cookies w/ 1TB almond butter on 1/2 of a carrot and a handful of these fried snow pea things.

I went to the gym, snuck in a quick 15 minute arm and plank workout….. but I walked into the SPIN class and left instantly. Why the hell would you be teaching a SPIN class with an f-ing stop watch and say to the class ‘I am not going to SPIN, I am just going to stand here and count out your intervals.’ UMM no thank you. I wish Rachel was there to whip me into shape. So I walked upstairs and went to Body Combat.

It was AWESOME, but then again I LOVE boxing. When I was more cashed up I had a personal trainer and whenever we got to box, I felt like it was a treat. I was a SWEATY mess and it was great.

Dinner: 3 c. of cereal (I KNOW) and 1/2 c. canned pineapple, 1 orange, 1/4 c. of pumpkin

SNACK ATTACK: a little more of the rice salad, a handful more of the snow peas, 1 more cookie. Then I stepped back and thought of the comment that Jo-Lynne left ‘I don’t stand up or eat at my computer anymore’ on the How Do You Eat post.

I am currently tucked away in bed ready to crash. I would call today a success. I am learning to listen to my body. I realised that this arvo’s snacks and tonight’s snacks were caused by me avoiding dishes and laundry. Hey, I am just being honest.

Have you ever tried a work-out that you didn’t think you’d like and you did? Tried one you thought you’d like and didn’t?

I love that even though I have fallen off the wagon hundreds of times, I’ve gotten back up every single time. I am learning to take every negative occurrence and every challenge in life as a stepping stone to grow from the inside. We are presented with challenges in order to learn life’s lessons. If everything went perfect all the time, we would be content with a lackluster life.

I’ve working on learning to appreciate my body for the things it DOES and not the way it LOOKS. This body gets me through hours of workouts each week, free of injury! I can’t think of any other machine that actually gets BETTER the harder you work it. I have to learn to be thankful for my body, and it will thank me in return.

When you eat, do you actually intentionally eat?

I woke up this morning to a post by MrsFatAss (I love this women more than a man who can dance). She talked about eating. I like to talk about eating. I like to talk about food. More importantly, I like to think of my journey in finding a new love and passion with food and how I enjoy it.

We are a family of eaters on the run. While most of our meals are actually taken together, my two year old doesn’t sit for long and eats most of her food walking around. My son sits well with us, but inhales his food and talks the whole time. My husband and I both eat fast, usually while taking a work call or driving a kid somewhere or cutting a kid’s food into pieces or studying BIOLOGY flashcards. And while I am clearing away the dishes and shuffling everyone off to activities or homework or bathtime I take mindless bites of food left on plates, because I very rarely feel full or satisfied after a meal.

Yes. I said it. I very rarely feel either full or satisfied. I sometimes feel stuffed, because I’ve eaten so fast or so mindlessly that the only thing that cues me to stop is that feeling that there’s just no more room. And satisfied? Nevah. I can’t remember the last time I actually savored a meal, considered the flavors, appreciated the textures, taken in the atmosphere. And I’m a foodie! Seems like EVERY meal should be a real experience for me.

Do you feel like you need one of these?

MrsFatAss has me thinking?

• Do you sit down to eat?
• Do you sit in front of a computer? TV?
• Are you actually hungry when you eat?
• Do you stop when you’re satisfied and not FULL?
• Do you actually enjoy what you’re eating?

There was this book

And this article ‘Stop when full? You much be French’

In deciding when it’s time to push away from the table, it seems that the French may be responding to different eating signals than Americans. In a recent study, researchers from my Cornell Food Lab asked 133 participants from Paris and 145 from Chicago to complete a brief survey on their food habits, posing the question “How do you know when you are through eating dinner?”The Parisians said they knew they were through when they no longer felt hungry or when the food no longer tasted good to them. Their answers suggested that they’re influenced by internal cues — whether they liked the taste of the food or whether they wanted to leave room for a later dessert — to tell them dinner’s over.

In Chicago, it was a different ball game. The 145 Americans relied on external cues of satiety. They said they knew they were through eating when they cleaned their plate, when everyone else at the table was finished or when the TV show they were watching was over.

The Americans were more influenced by their environment than whether they were actually still hungry. Since most of the signals in our society, from TV commercials to our best friends, tell us to “eat, eat, eat,” it can be difficult to control intake if we’re ignoring our own bodies.

WE ARE NOT LISTENING TO OUR BODIES! How could we? We’re constantly being thrown around from work, trying to squeeze in fitness, TV, blogging, school, laundry, etc. We are constantly on the go and what suffers is our ability to actually listen to ourselves.

I usually eat my meal on my bed in front of twitter, shoveling it in and then like MrsFatAss looking for something else. However, today I actually stopped. I said a prayer a moment of reflection. Switching gears to be present in eating. Listening to my body and being honest with myself in knowing that I could and AM present.

So, how do you eat? Do you feel like MrsFatAss? How do you enjoy food?

This brings me to some HUGE ANNOUNCEMENTS

SELF-LOVE

I have made a new tab for it. I literally was washing dishes this morning in PJs, bed head and day old mascara when I thought to myself ‘why not have everyone that I can think of write about what they love about themselves!”

So I have e-mailed some bloggers. If I haven’t e-mailed you I probably don’t have your e-mail and/or I spaced out–I am a blonde

Here’s the premise:

• Answer ‘what do you love about yourself?’ -and/or- ‘what have you come to love about yourself?’ -and/or- ‘what are you working on?’
• Send to me or leave in comment space of ‘Self Love’
• I will compile all that are sent to me (eatingjourney at gmail.com) and each day I will post a new snipet from everyone who sends them to me through the month of February.

I wrote about being your own Light (it’s Christian based) and it’s true regardless of what you believe in. The most important thing is that you let your light shine. I will discuss more about this later. But really..get your love on would ya!

VEGAN

I am going Vegan. Yep, that’s right. Why?

• MamaPea
• I have survived Vegan 4 A Week!
• I can’t afford organic eggs/meat–so I will NOT be eating anything that I can’t afford
• I don’t eat dairy anyways
• I feel better
• I almost vomit every time I see videos of slaughter houses and I will NEVER be able to get the image of how they de-skin cows out of my mind.

YOGA: ‘A Month of Tree Poses’

I am going to be doing at least ONE 20 minute download form yogadownload.com five days a week. This will in addition to my cardio/weight routine that has been laid out by my trainer and I. After doing my handstand the other day (and practicing all weekend long) I realise that my mind/body/soul needs-wants-desires yoga more!

HUGE announcements. If you want to join one, two, or three of them this month–I would love for you to join with me. I can send you the graphic file for you widgets on your blog.

I know it’s seems a bit EPIC, but let me tell you. I am back. I am shinning. I am healthy. I am ME!

When in your life have you challenged yourself?

It’s The Chic Life Bake Sale for Haiti Today. Oh.My.Heavens. The stuff looks amazing! Please go there, bid, then come back

I have been blessed with an amazing package of goodies from Yes To Carrots…read below..cause their stuff is Organic and amazing.

I read through MamaPea’s post

Sure, there are other reasons why I prefer that my kids don’t eat meat, reasons that have to do with the 27 billion animals that are slaughtered each year in the United States, the torturous conditions at factory farms and the environment depleting methane gas, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia that are produced by farmed animals.

I am currently living in residental hall as a supervisor (it’s saving me about 20,000), and the food is sub-par. The meat is DISGUSTING! I mean chicken pieces that aren’t really chicken, that has been over-salted and over preserved.

I got thinking to myself, after Dinneen@EatWithoutGuilt mentioned the breakfast experiment. Basically switching up your breakfasts each day for a week and see how your feel intitally and then two hours later.

As I wrote yesterday, I felt like I was in a haze with my food choices yesterday. I thought back to when I felt great after I ate. It revolved around either a juice or a fresh meal. Juices which are solely vegetable based.

I got thinking, why couldn’t I heal my body with fruits, vegetables, nuts? That’s what our bodies have evolved from eating. Some will aruge that meat was also part of this. However, what was only when it would have been caught. I am going to a new naturopath tomorrow who specialises in vegan diets. I am so excited!

Started my vegetable and fruit filled day with a fresh juice: 2 celery, 2 tomatoes, 1/3 cucumber, 1 carrot

I ate oranges, apples (hurt my tummy), pears today. With meals and between snacks. I also had about 3 TB of nuts as well.

For dinner I had a salad w/ 1/2 c. of quiona, 1 tsp of tahinni and evoo, w/ some sauteed veggies, chickpea and bean salad. I finished off with an orange and apple.

I then came home and had an INTENSE sugar craving and massive withdrawal headache. Part of my detoxing means that I do get headaches sometimes. However…I juiced again. 1/2 cucumber, 3 stalks of celery, 1 tomato, 1 small bunch of spinach.

Then I dug into my LOOT from Yes To Carrots! I was not only feeling like I needed to get my gut under control with my juice, but also my face. So I busted out this bad boy!

What I LOVE about their products is that the ingredients are organic, it’s affordable and it smells good. Oh did I mention, they don’t test on animals and they also give back to planting veggies gardens in under-resourced communities.

What beauty products to do you have, that you LOVE?