Good old fashioned advice

late/tardy/delayed/unpunctual/overdue/not-on-time

So I was late yet again for Innovative today...for Keith - let's just say it did not go well. I have been getting in "trouble" for being late my whole life, but truthfully the trainers at Innovative are the first to really sit me down and review it as an issue that needs changing. Keith gave me his point of view today which included mostly points about respect and commitment...really fair points. It certainly made me thoughtful because my poor time management habits certainly aren't meant to be disrespectful or show an attitude of not giving a *$#& about whatever it is I'm late for - Hmmm. Later in the session he pulled out a little notepad to talk about scheduling and I see that the first note written down is "fix Leah being late"...hahaha. So rad.
As I said a few months ago - I'll be soooo impressed if the guys from IF can turn around this lifelong habit and they may just be on their way!
I just received the following email from Keith....geez, I guess I'm dealing with it now!
              
How not to be late!

1. Schedule the event into your calendar.

If you block out time to be somewhere then you won't be doing something else when it's time to go. I amazed myself when I tried to do this. I discovered I had enough on my schedule to last 48 hours a day. It would have been impossible for me to be on time for anything.

(Note: could read Getting Things Done in order to be better at time management)

2. Practice saying what you need to say.Here's a great thing to say: "Excuse me, I hate to cut you off, but I have an appointment." It is hard to cut someone off, but they will respect you for sticking to a schedule. The higher up you go in corporate life, the stricter the people stick to a schedule. The good news is that this means it's perfectly acceptable in work life to say this short speech. Get comfortable doing it at work and then you can do it at home, too. Often saying no takes forethought and practice.

3. Be a time pessimist.
Assume everything will take a little longer than your first estimate. This will either make you right on time for everything, or it'll make you a little early. People who run early are calm, organized, and always ready. Not a bad place to be.

4. Prioritize.
Some people are late because they simply don't have enough time to do everything. The only way to change this is to stop doing so much. Face the reality that you cannot get your whole list done. Figure out what's most important and just get that done. Tell the people who depend on you that you can only do what you have time for, and things at the bottom of the their list of priorities will not get done: a reality check for everyone in your life.

5. Be honest with yourself.
Why do you let yourself be late? It is disrespectful and makes you look unorganized and out of control. Why are you not getting control over your time. So much about being on time is actually about self-knowledge. Often, we are scared to make the decisions that we must make in order to get control over our time and become someone who runs on schedule. But there is no other way to run a life. To run on schedule is to plan the life you want to live and execute that plan

Blood tests are extra stupid

So not only was my blood test completely traumatic (well not the test itself, but certainly the time leading up to it), but it came back with no answers whatsoever. Turns out I'm healthy as a horse (a pretty unhealthy horse).  The doctor looked at me like I was a crazy person that I was upset about this result but really I still have no answer as to why more of my hair is falling to the floor than staying on my head. There is so much hair on my body that I would be totally fine to see fall out, but head hair is pretty important to me. Apparently there is another blood test I can go get to see if my body is not storing iron properly (the iron flowing around in my bloodstream is A-ok)...yep, that's so not happening.
I am going to get a haircut and chat to the hairdresser and am going to focus on decreasing stress and see if either of those things get me going in the right direction. If not then I will try a naturopath to see if the hair and fatigue can be combated from a nutritional or natural direction (I don't suppose that Cheetos for breakfast is really the best for energy levels and hair-growth support?)

Blood tests are stupid

MIA

Why has it been so long since I added to my blog you ask?

Answer: Not really too sure

Nutrition - breakfast

Today is the first day in quite some time that no one from Innovative Fitness checked in to see what I had for breakfast.....good thing since I had Cheetos.

Enter Sandman

I'm a night owl by nature and attempting early morning workouts has been a little challenging at times. Not that I ever get up very late, but trying to get myself to sleep in time to get rest before leaving my house at 6:30am the next day is tricky business. Today I just can't get to sleep....not sure if it was the camomile tea, bath, or relaxing music that woke me up haha but I've been staring at the ceiling for an hour.
Getting my butt kicked by Keith in a few hours should be a shiny fun time.

Although I'm currently listening to Bobby Brown's classic Humpin' Around, I am going to focus on a little Metallica - Enter Sandman as I crawl back into my bed...
Exit light
Enter night
Take my hand
We're off to never-never land

Inspiration - the change room lady

Today after I was done running and lifting and dragging a tire around, I ended up chatting with a lady in the Innovative changing room (where quite a bit of inspiration has come from truthfully). She told me her story of training helping her go from not being able to walk to being active and then being able to come off of multiple medications, losing weight, etc - inspirational really. And then....she went on to tell me I shouldn't get discouraged...some girls just wont ever be thin and some body types are just bigger than others....ummmmm.....hmmmmm....if she hadn't been a nice older lady who clearly intended well, I may have kicked her right in the hoop. Who tells someone "that's nice that you are working hard but don't feel too bad when you stay a big girl"....this is not my first time around the weight loss block and I know where I can be...when I get back there I'm going to march up to that lady and rub her face against my rock hard abs.
It's times like this that I see my mother in me....she's a pretty feisty lady and she would likely go and lose 20lbs just to spite someone who tells her she can't. With her genetic codes floating around in my system, I shouldn't be shocked that someone telling me I'll likely fail is more motivating than "doing it for myself". Whatever gets you across the finish line I guess?

Fitness

Today I worked out with Meyrick in West Van and no word of a lie I had to drag a tire up and down the alley. Another trainer Jeff-crazy-idea-Iwanaka was heading outside to make the poor girl he was training Erin drag the tire around and then *bam* somehow I was going also?
Forwards, backwards, forwards again....backwards again....who doesn't want to drag a tire around??
Actually...weirdly I kind of like exercises like this one ha - it's a great stress release to just power-out drag a tire around like a donkey.
My new goal is to be able to do a length of the alley with Meyrick riding on my tire?

Nutrition - Innovative Fitness

I got two emails this week from trainers at Innovative (Ivan my new Monday guy and Keith my big bald Wednesday man).  Keith and I will chat this week about all of my compiled nutritional advice and then I'm going to organize the heck out of my meal schedule.
Here's what they're saying....


Keith:
Big thing we need to do, is cut out a lot of the CARBS, especially in the morning and at night.
It would be amazing if you could also start on a fish oil, drinking 3L of water a day and eating protein at every meal.

Breakfast DO's:
-animal protein (eggs, left overs, meat :-))
-20 almonds
-water
-coffee
-veggies
-piece of fruit or small handful of berries 
Breakfast and general Don'ts:
-juice
-grains
-wheat
-gluten
-dairy
-sugar
AM and PM Snacks:
-veggies and small amount of clean hummus 
-nuts (20max)
-any breakfast do's
-If you need a sugar fix go for 70% organic dark chocolate (30g/day max)
-If you need a booze fix go for an organic Spanish red wine (2glass
max/serving)
Lunch:
-look at the list above
Dinner:
-look at the list above
All you can eat veggies (he sent quite the list): best raw

Ivan:

• Eat at least 3 meals daily and 2 - 3 snacks. Research in 2009 has shown to be no difference between people that ate 3 or 6 meals per day, but a significant difference when individuals ate less than three meals per day, dramatically slowing down their metabolism and increasing fat storage, so make sure you eat at least 3 main meals a day and introduce some snacks to 

make it 5 or 6 !

• Take a high quality multivitamin every day, unfortunately food that you buy in the 
supermarket will not give you all the nutrients that you need for your new active life style.
• Start your day with a glass of water. • Increase your daily water consumption; I recommend 
drinking at least 8 to 12 glasses.
• Make the first meal of your day protein and complex carbs eg: low fat plain greek yogurt 
(ummm ew gross) and granola and some unpasteurized honey for sweetness. 
• Minimize consumption of any and all refined sugars and sweets 
• Reduce your caffeine consumption. Caffeine dehydrates your body and increases
levels of anxiety, if you are going to have coffee have one cup in the morning or
try green tea, green tea will wake you up, but will not give you a crash afterward.
My favourite is "matcha" this is a pure and powerful type of green tea, it contains
an EGCG an antioxidant that increases resting metabolism and stimulates fat burning.
• All heavy starches including pasta, rice and bread should be consumed by your
second meal of the day, unless after exercise.
• Limit your dairy intake to your first or second meal. 
• Protein should always be your first choice then carbohydrates and/or vegetables
should be added to your meals. 
• Limit sugary and fatty condiments such as salad dressing. Balsamic, olive oil, and lime
or lemon juice are a better choice for your salads. 
• Eat nuts as snacks 
• Limit your consumption of fruit juice. 
• Limit your carb consumption after lunch. 
• Limit your consumption of alcohol to one glass a day and make it a red wine,
polyphenols in the red wine help your body block fat absorption. According to a recent
study, red wine marinates work too. 
• Include essential fatty acids omega 3 in your diet, like salmon and chia seeds

Nutrition - trying again

Time for major attempt #3 at a nutritional re-vamp since January.

I have been doing really well with increasing my fitness but as I've already mentioned, nutrition is an ongoing challenge and it really is why I am losing weight by the ounce rather than the pound :) I have gone up and down for as long as I can remember with my ability to be consistent with healthy eating....I'm going to consider these "relapses" as often happens for people working through changing major habits. I grew up connected with Alcoholics Anonymous - my mother is 31 years sober this year and through her I have encountered countless success stories from people who have moved through the process of changing addictive habits and their lives. Although my vice isn't alcohol, I feel like I am working through the same process. For me thus far counseling, addictions support, etc has not been particularly successful but I really do feel like I have all of the right pieces happening in my life to finally be able to conquer this madness.
I figure that if all else fails, I'll succeed just because I'm being so public about this journey... eventually I'll be too embarrassed to fail again! ha

Thoughtful

The response to the bike post has been pretty outstanding - apparently I am not even close to alone in my biking discomfort! Not many people comment in-blog because "following" is such a pain in the bum (much like bike riding) but I get lots of emails and messages (nearly 1000 hits last month woot!) and it is great to hear responses, stories, and opinions. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to support or join in my journey in some way!
I've been really thoughtful about people's responses and this project in general and here's a summary...
What I heard daily in the first few weeks was "you're so brave to share this story", "I'm inspired to make change along side you" etc, and now mostly I hear funny stories (which I love of course). I think that although I have been completely open along the way, I for sure have been focusing mostly on the parts of the story that are entertaining. It's been pretty difficult for me since I started this journey and the challenging parts are always the hardest to share...I think it's human nature (for sure it's mine) to hide things that are embarrassing or show weakness. What I really do want, however, is to share a clear picture of my story and help remove the stigma from some of the many issues people face every day with physical and mental health. If everyone felt open to discuss their challenges and supported rather than judged others for theirs, we would all be so much more free.  I have lived my whole life dealing with my challenges quietly or only with the people who know and love me the most...Now I'm aiming for more happiness and way more freedom (from judgement - myself and others, from the need for perfection, from food, from anxiety, from weight, from fatigue, from fear)...and I am planning on kicking some ass as I go back to being brave :)