So far, so good :)

Whole Life Challenge – First week DONE

so far, so good 🙂 notes from the week:

• I no longer think about gum every minute I’m awake
• I think I’m finally sleeping better after a rough first few days. Although this likely had nothing to do with the WLC and everything to do with work stress.
• Oatmeal is back in my life 🙂 it makes me feel a bit nauseous, but I’m not giving up. That will hopefully go away!
• I do still crave a chocolate chip cookie dough Quest bar pretty much daily, and I do still eat more watermelon than is likely recommended, but I haven’t caved to the first and I’m accepting the second. It will be out of season soon enough and I’ll have to move on…
• Made a whole chicken in the crockpot this week.  If you haven’t tried that, I recommend it highly! So good!! And easy too 😉
• pinterest has joined YouTube on the list of not pre-work activities. Friday I went looking for something to do with the 4 zucchini in my fridge and after 20 minutes pulled myself away with 100 treat ideas swimming through my head, 3 DIY ideas for my condo, and nearly convinced I need to work on my muffin top. I was almost late for work, and I have no new ideas for the zucchini.
• this week’s lifestyle challenge is 10 minutes of meditation. It started rough, but once I learned there are lots of guided meditation videos on YouTube, it got easier 🙂 What hasn’t gotten easier is 10 minutes of mobilization. Especially when I don’t get it in at the box! As soon as I lay on the floor at home, Yuko wants to help. Ever tried stretching with a dog sneaking up to lick your face every chance he got? My favourite moment was the attempt to turn away is when I realized he was standing on my hair! Well played Yuko 😉

View from the floor

Living the Whole Life

                   www.wholelifechallenge.com

Sat. Sept. 19:

Today starts a new mission. The Whole Life Challenge. At first I wasn’t sure I had any desire to try this, but I liked the idea that for once I may have found something that inspires me to find a better frame of mind rather than just a new way of eating. That’s my biggest challenge. While, yes I could use to lose some of the extra weight and poor eating habits I fall into at times (like chocolate has been my best friend way too many times recently) but food has had control over me for too long.  Funny part of that, my thought has been for some time now that when it comes to living with MS, diet was the one thing I could use to make my life better. Food was the one thing I had control over. IN a way this was true, but at the same time so incredibly wrong. Food has control over ME. Anyways, if I’m going to do this I figured I better be prepared!  Solid grocery shop happened Friday, as well as my last piece of gum 😦  Just like Whole 30, I know the gum thing will be tough but I’ll get over it.  Cooked a huge batch of Teriyaki zucchini noodle stir fry too!  So easy and so good.  And yes it’s legit 😉 none of the store-bought sauce, just a combo of sesame oil, rice vinegar, coconut aminos, ginger and garlic.

Day 1 in the books.  The weekly lifestyle challenge is 10 minutes of meditation which I’m choosing to interpret the term loosely.  Time spent wandering in the woods with my boy is all the meditation I need 😉  10 minutes spent stretching  on the other hand was a bit of a challenge.  Yuko was thrilled to see me laying on the floor!  Any opportunity he attempted to climb in my lap, step on my hair, stick his tongue in my ear (NOT a fan!) LOL!  But I made it through what seemed like a looooong 10 minutes anyway.

And I thought about gum all day…

 

1 step forward, 10 steps back

About 10 days ago I headed out for my morning run at the favourite trail with wonder pup.  It had been a week of tough workouts mixed with a few other trips to the same spot for the same purpose.  This was one of the hardest runs so far.  My head was battling a few other wars as we trotted along, but the biggest one had to do with my decision to join in on a group Whole Life Challenge at the box.  I was intrigued when the idea was first thrown out there, but not completely sold even after I had coughed up the $$ and registered.  I figured, what have I got to lose?  It was when I logged my starting measurements that my commitment was LOCKED IN.  When the hell did I get so FAT??  And more so, how did I let it happen??  I’ve been down this road before.  I’ve been along the path of getting rid of clothing that no longer fit, but last time I was getting rid of stuff that was too big.  Recently I realized it was time to get rid of the skinny clothes I will never again fit in to.  Not that I want to be a stick, but everyone wants to look good naked.

I took my frame of mind as the reason for my run struggles.  There was a point on one particularly gnarly uphill where my legs screamed “I hate you.” but were quickly silenced with “I hate YOU more!”.  That was Saturday.  By Monday I could hardly walk.  If you’ve been around a little while, I’ve complained about my hip before.  I’m coming to the realization that when it comes to any sort of war you fight with your own body, sometimes having the last word is not a win at all.  I’ve pushed on and scaled WODs to be able to keep exercising, but the hip is still angry.  It finally came to the point yesterday where Coach Sharon asked me to make a deal with her to only mobilize and work on accessory stuff until at least Thurs.  Give the hip some time to recover.  I know she’s right, but my head needs crossfit.  I was happy with the compromise that at least still allowed my to go to the box.  Today I spent an unbearable amount of time on the Airdyne.  Sally, as Dave calls her, and I might become friends over the next week or so.  She’s a dirty b*tch and I feel like I could barf pretty much every time I get off, but she’s also the only form of cardio that doesn’t require hip extension.

Bla, bla… boo-hoo…

Exciting bit!  Last week I did Cindy as Rx for my first time!!  Completed 11 rounds + 5 pull-ups!!  My lats and chest hurt for days.  It was awesome.