Beyond Willpower

Blood work. My cholesterol is high, my triglycerides are ridiculous, my sugar (A1C) is 6.1, all as of last October. I have an appointment for my yearly physical on January 26th. I've been doing all I can to improve these numbers. I'm eating between 7-13 servings of fruits and veggies daily. More on days I'm off and can stay home and munch, and less on days I work. I've decided to start prepacking baggiges of fruits, veggies, and nuts, to snack on while I'm at work so that I can get as many servings in a day as I can. I wasn't going to weigh myself for 3 months, but then realized I need to weigh myself NOW so that if what I'm doing isn't working I can adjust it somehow. I've lost 5 lbs so far on this particular Way Of Eating, and I've lost a total of 25 since my high weight. Woot! Nothin' to sneeze at! I feel like my body is so sick, and I am doing what I can to make it well again. That means eating ALL the fruits and veggies, whole grai...

DDP Yoga, "Not your momas yoga" Joey and I were laying in bed the other day talking about exercise and yoga and such. He had suggested I give DDP yoga a try. I was feeling pretty down on myself because of my physical limitations. "My stomach is too big for yoga." I said "When I lose 50 lbs I'll try again" I said. I know that yoga helps my fibromyalgia. I used to do it a lot and I had actually gotten pretty good at it. Now though, I'm way bigger than I was the last time I was trying this stuff and it all just seemed terribly hopeless.  So when Joey was at work the other day, right before he came home, I went out and fired up the DDP Yoga video that we have. If you aren't familiar with DDP , or you need to be inspired, here ya go, you're welcome: Anyhow, I decided to give it a try. There was more 'on the floor' stuff and pretzeley stuff than I could handle.  So it was a little less this:  ...

Well, I'm still losing!!!! I will update my ticker once a month after my study appt. But just wanted to let you know that I'm back in the game and still going strong! Tonight will be about a week and a half on Lyrica. I'm feeling good. I plan to do yoga tonight. It will be my first time doing it in a long time. But once I get off here I am going to go ahead and get to it! Tonight for dinner I made gluten free, vegan spinach alfredo. Yum! Be sure to check out my recipe here: "Nothing to say but Mmmm", vegan alfredo There is a strange peace in not struggling with your emotions and motivation (or lack thereof) or you're willpower or whatever it is you want to call it. I feel truly hopeful for the first time in over a year. I just can't believe the difference coming off that bc made. Thank you portia! It's much better.  Anyhow, I'm off to do some yoga! Might go for a walk later too if joey doesn't get home too late. ...

So, other than the fact that I'm on plan and exercising and not losing a single ounce, my week has been pretty good. You know why? Because I'm on plan and exercising. I know the weight loss will come once I reduce the abilify, but I missed my last appt, so that hasn't happened yet. I'm trying to just be positive, and relax, knowing that even without the results I so desperately want, I'm still doing what's right for my body. I've been doing yoga almost every day. I find it helps my fibro so much that I don't want to stop doing it. It's amazing the difference adding yoga along with my physical therapy has made. Anyhow, yesterday was my birthday, I meant to take some food porn pics, but even though my camera was with me most of the day I entirely forgot until my last meal. We had rice with chopped portabella mushrooms and tiny potatoes, gold, red and purple. It was drizzled with truffle oil and blueberry balsamic and it was fabulous!: I also mad...

Today is one of those days where I'm thankful to have an all or nothing mentality. It's one of those "all" days. On days where I'm more ' nothing', like I have been for the last few months, I'm not quite so thankful for such a mentality. How many of you have this mentality? You throw yourself into getting healthy 110% and then once you start to slip you don't watch at all? What causes this? Augh. I wish I could break this pattern. Although I must say my 'all' did last 10 months, and my 'nothing' only lasted 3 months or so. I'm spending more time in the 'all' than ever before and less time in the 'nothing' than I ever have. I've gone YEARS in the 'nothing' with only a few weeks in the 'all' zone. It's such an odd head space. But, here I am, just trying to make it work to my advantage. The other day Joey and I went grocery shopping. We are all stocked up on healthy food, and I have t...

I want to talk about fitness! My fitness has SO improved this month. In minutes, in strength, in endurance. I Now do anywhere from 30-60 mins on my bike 5-6 days a week and I've just started adding in yoga. I just want to say, I hate Jillian and the biggest loser, but a friend recommended bob harpers biggest loser yoga video to me because I wanted something good for beginners. I tried it and I must say, he's great, way more fun/tolerable than Jillian. Anyhow, the instruction is great, the fact that not everyone on the video is some sort of yoga master and you can see them trying to balance and shaking because their muscles are on fire just like yours, it really helps me not feel so much like a failure. ha. Weight Loss Yoga I have tried yoga many times over the years. I've never found a video that I liked since regardless of being vegan, I'm not really a crunchy granola hippie type person. All the talk of spirituality and the skinny 7 foot tall women in full body le...

So, I started physical therapy earlier this week and although my pain is worse this week than last, I'm dealing with it a little better, I'm a bit more hopeful. Last week in comparison I had almost no pain, so it's not that bad this week, mostly waking with sore shoulders. Anyhow, since I'm feeling better, I'm exercising more. I had insane fitness goals for myself for this month. They aren't going to happen. Not yet. But, I have been doing 3 or more days of 30 mins of cardio + 1 day of strength/toning for 15-20 mins. I'm getting there. This is in my very near future: (by very near I mean I'm ordering it asap! Hopefully today or tomorrow!) I know that improving my endurance and fitness will help my pain. I'm hoping since the weather is finally getting warmer, that I can increase it all through spring, summer and fall and by next winter I can deal with the pain inflicted by the weather far better than I did this year. Which was, to be fair, f...

I think I've mentioned on here that exercise is difficult for me because I have fibromyalgia . Anyhow, for about a month I did really well with exercise. I went from doing about 5 mins a day of lifting very light weights and doing wall push ups to doing 45 mins of dancing and Your Shape Fitness cardio and yoga. For awhile, I felt like this:  This month has been difficult pain wise and it's hard to say, but I think now that I'm gluten free and not due for my monthly visitor for awhile (low estrogen can cause flares), I might be okay for at least a month. I want to take advantage of that. I am seeing my pain doc in February to discuss my lady time pain flares. I have heard  progesterone cream  can help. I also need to get on  seasonique  so it comes less often and lasts a little less time.  After all that I felt a little more like this: Within a matter of days. I had to stop exercising entirely, which undid any progress I had made ...