Action!!!

What a great experience!  🙂  If you ever are looking to get kick-ass photos, spend the $$ and get a good photographer!

I’m a lucky kid since working in a camera store I have some pretty talented friends.  Last night Dave and I finally got it together for the “fitness photo shoot” I had been super-pumped and completely terified about.  It was awesome!  There I was, standing in the classroom on the second floor of my store in nothing but a sports bra and little yoga shorts…  at first, I felt ridiculously awkward as I knew I would, but after a few minutes Dave made it all seem easy.  I’m used to being the photographer.  Completely at home behind the camera.  But although this had me way out of my element, it was awesome!!  We played around for 2 hours shooting a bunch of different stuff… here’s a sample…  If anyone lives in the greater Toronto area and is ever looking for an awesome photographer, Dave was amazing.  He came to the shoot completely loaded up with some great ideas of images he wanted to try, and also took the time to ask questions to determine what I was looking for too.  If anyone is looking for a photographer in the greater Toronto area, Dave is fantastic!  Check him out 🙂

www.dkfocus.com

Oh!  And yes, I cut off all my hair.  Just got tired of the mess and needed a change.  After seeing the pics I did realize I really should have done a little something more with it though!  Haha.  This is what I’ve trained so hard for though.  This is what has kept me focused on sticking to my nutritional conquests.  Not that I wasn’t still a complete chicken to stand in front of the camera, but the comfort I now have in myself made it a piece of cake compared to how I would have felt years ago.  Even fully clothed! Paleo has been huge for me.  I LOVE food again, without feeling guilty for doing so 🙂  I can actually enjoy exercise again without feeling like I absolutely cannot miss a day’s workout or all my hard work will be wasted.  Not only do I have MORE energy, more importantly for me (especially living with MS!) I have more consistent energy…  I try not to ramble on about it too much, but it’s changed my life and I just want to share this little “secret” with everyone so maybe it can do the same for other peeps too 🙂  Nuff rambling for now I think…

lights, camera….

Tonight’s the night!  Big fitness shoot :S  I’m so nervous, it’s ridiculous.  After years and years of being a bit of a chunky-monkey, the thought of standing in front of the camera in a sports bra and booty shorts is terrifying.  Pathetic.  Busted my butt this morning to get all psyched about it this morning.  Jumped on my spin bike for 35 minutes and ripped it through a 22+ km ride.  Then I did a good upper body circuit and finished things off with a little P90x style Ab-ripping.  Good times 🙂  Holy hell did I ever sweat!  Side note, Ange and I are gearing up for the MS Bike Tour in a few days.  75kms of road riding through beautiful Niagara.  Only down side to that deal, it always pours rain.  This will be our 6th tour, and so far we are 5 for 5.  If only we could do the 75kms on spin bikes…  I got through nearly a third of the distance this morning in half an hour while the real thing generally takes close to 3!  Good chance to be around people with a similar goal though, and raise some $$$ to help find a cure for this sh*t. 

I need a way to fit more hours into the day…  I wish I had more time to explore and grow my Paleo menu rather than just sticking to the favourites.  Not that I’m complaining, I’m pretty sure I could eat the sweet potato breakfast

and spaghetti squash/chili combo every day without getting bored…  doesn’t fit into the thought that variety is the spice of life theory though.

Gold rushed

 

 

Boo-ya!!  Another successful ball hockey provincials championship weekend 🙂 my team made it to the quarter finals before getting edged out.  All in all, 5 hockey games in 3 days.  Ran like never before!  You know you’re playing your heart out when the end of every shift leaves you dashing for the bench wicked breathless!  Nearly got the “Gordie howe hat trick” got a goal, an assist, and a penalty…. and no, contrary to the stories Ange was spreading, im not a goon :p i didnt mean to trip her…  (there was way dirtier stuff i did get away with though)  in my opinion, a good sport can dish it out, but also take it without whining much…  A great time 🙂 but…. All that’s fun and stuff, but the real excitement came in cheering on my chick’s team going for gold!  That’s right.  Ontario Ball Hockey provincials champions – Mississauga Moose and MY chick is the MVP goalie.  😀 Thought i may have a heart attack at moments, but survived and super proud.  Is it obvious? Hahaha.

I was even a good kid and packed my lunch every day to avoid the non-Paleo temptations…  if it makes me a poor sport for not joining in with the post-game shots of fireball and sour puss in the dressing room after each game, yes even our 9:00am game wasn’t spared, I’ll get over it…  And YES, Lisa Simpson, you can make friends with salad.

Untitled.

Thank you Paleo for giving me the determination to weather the storm!  More than four months into my Paleo lifestyle journey, I’m faced with a challenge that is a hard one to take.  First, I’ll throw a little disclaimer in here: my head is all over the place, so please excuse the parts of this rant that may not make any sense.  I’m pretty sure almost every female on the planet at some point in their life has turned to food for comfort.  I shouldn’t generalize like this, but come on… it’s true.  In the past, when life would throw me on an emotional rollercoaster, I’d often turn to chocolate, candy, or whatever to numb the pain.  A few weeks ago, we learned that my dad has lymphoma.  It was like getting punched in the face and kicked while you’re down.  While the news itself was hard to take, the hardest part for me was bearing witness to my dad having to break it to my little sisters.  Seeing my littlest sister cry broke my heart.  Anyways, I haven’t done much in the way of posts lately… now you know why.  I walked around completely numb for the first 2 weeks.  Still in shock.  Still don’t believe it’s the truth.  HOWEVER, there is a positive part of my story today… my dedication to my health through nutrition has kept me from falling back into old habits.  I have NOT turned to food for comfort.  If anything, exercise is my release.  Getting all sweated up is often the time where my head is the clearest.  Ange and I have gotten back into the routine of running in the morning, and the companionship has been wonderful.  🙂  I’m usually the type of person who is more than happy to hit the gym alone to kick my own a** without needing someone to talk to, but right now, it’s been therapeutic…

Bear with me for the moment.  I will be off the wall and crazy again soon I hope.

don’t shoot me…

bit ironic my subject is I suppose…  coming from a photographer 🙂  I actually made an “appointment” with a co-worker for a little fitnessy photo shoot coming soon.  Hoping to get some good pics to share showing my Paleo transformation.  He penciled me in to his day timer as “shoot Kate” haha…

I have to correct a mistake I made yesterday.  My fatasticly fuzzy brain did me wrong once again.  “BRING IT!” is actually the catch phrase for Tony Horton’s P90x workout system.  Also a great workout, but not geared towards the specific result I am looking to achieve.  Shawn T belts out “DIG DEEPER!!” as you sweat your way through the insanity of Insanity.  Even though I reeeeeally didn’t feel like today for whatever reason, I popped in day 2 – Cardio Power & Resistance and commit myself to the 40 minutes of craziness.  For anyone who hasn’t tried it, let me tell you… it’s awful and awesome all at the same time.  After the 10 minute warm-up (which for many newcomers I’m sure is horrifying as I have to admit the first time I tried “holy F*** that was only the WARM-UP?!?!” went through my head), there is  stretch session where (if we have something in common) you will leak sweat profusely for a few minutes before getting into the actual workout.  Then when you feel as though your heat could pound out of your chest and/or you may hurl at any moment, the glorious cool-down session brings another insanity level of sweating which really doesn’t seem to let up for 30ish minutes after you turn the awful/awesome thing off.  Once it’s all said and done, I can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow.  I’m just sick and twisted like that though.  :p 

Day one of my sugar detox.  I was rather peeved when I woke up thinking about dried cranberries and walnuts.  I told myself to get over it.  It’s a bit like quitting smoking…  but I’m telling myself it will get better.  And yes, I talk to myself sometimes.  Don’t even try to suggest you don’t.  😉