Sunday Start Again & Minus One Issues

One of the bummers of having your other half working away is the fact that you are rarely plus one-ing it.  In the situation of a friend's party it doesn't feel like a big deal, but something like a staff Christmas party is a bit different.  Last night was my work Christmas party, and I was the only solo one there!  Sometimes it doesn't matter, sometimes you feel excluded; last night was the latter.  Although it sucks and at the time was slightly uncomfortable, I am able to shake it off and move on.

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I got home decently early and raided my Christmas goodie bag for what looked yummy and ate, guilt-free, while watching Gossip Girl on Netflix.  I did not know there were so many different Hershey's Kiss flavors!... I am a huge Candy Cane flavor fan - and I wish I didn't know that :)

Sunday is the day to get ready for the upcoming week, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable!  On my list:
- Eat some protein pancakes
- Finish some more Christmas crafts
- Head into town for groceries (stay tuned on Facebook for what I'm buying)
- Food Prep
- Relax

This week is all about continuing to work on getting into those healthy habits I'm wanting:
Food is going to be clean, healthy, delicious, and readily available - I want zero junk and zero excuses. 
Exercise is back in my life... I have had pretty much no gall bladder pain lately so it's time to get moving again.  I want daily exercise, and the inside variety might be preferable as a black bear wandered through my yard two evenings ago... No dusk after-work walks are going to be happening in the near future!!  I am thinking of adding Jillian Michaels back to my life, and slowly working from 1 round of her workouts to the instructed 3.
Attitude needs to stay in the positive zone!  Lots of happy thoughts, self motivation, and appreciation of life are key to the success of everything else! 

Enjoy your Sunday!!!


XO - Michelle

Green With Envy & Name Changing

Happy Friday!!!!  I just love the end of a work week!  Even when I was away at camp and Friday wasn't technically a Friday, I would still get that Friday feeling.  There is just something magical about today.

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 So, you read correct.  I am green with envy.... of people who can eat greens!

I have been unable to eat leafy greens and certain raw veg for the past few years.  Crazy right?!  Honestly - within 20 mins to a day later depending on the circumstances, those greens make a hasty exit leaving me exhausted and dehydrated.. and super disappointed!

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 In my teens I really liked salads.  I found them fresh and yummy and crunchy, and they're so easy to keep exciting with all the different things you can add to them.  As someone who now strives to make healthy food choices, a salad would be a great option for eating at restaurants or at other peoples houses or just for when I don't feel like cooking.  But no.  No no no.  I can't.

I've talked to a ton of different health professionals and just people in general about what might be causing this.  There have been a lot of valid points and any or all of them could be the cause. Who freakin knows!  Two of the ideas I thought were really interesting are:
1. That I have a fiber intolerance
2. A body confusion (example: if I had a milk product and a salad at the same time, my body might have equated the greens as "bad" because the milk product is "bad" - for me)

What I do know is that Natasha of The Healthy Ginger suggested using greens powder, and I tried it, and it exited normally!  Whaaaaat.  Mind. Blown.

I had a little bit of trouble finding the exactly right greens powder.  We live in a small town, but there are quite a few health product sources so my excuse couldn't really be suppliers... it was more that I was so extremely nervous to try any of the different products!  Finally I went to Nutter's and asked for their advice.  They suggested Prairie Naturals Blueberry Greens Force.  It was recommended as the best tasting for someone who hadn't used this type of product before, and though it wasn't as chalk full of nutrients as some of the other more hardcore greens powders, it still had everything I needed.

I have been mixing a banana, almond milk, protein powder, ice, and greens powder and it's really delicious as a smoothie!  The bottle recommends 3 tsp as a serving, but I've started with 1/2 a tsp :).  I plan to up my intake weekly or so, small steps = big success.

In other news, I have been trying get everything in order with changing my name, and what a huge pain in the butt!!!!  Ok so I procrastinated a bit... like 3 or so months, but I had heard of the impending doooom of paperwork that would be set before me and obviously I was hesitant.  For anyone who will be in this situation in the next while, you MUST check out this website.  I have started following their list - don't try to skip ahead, I did this and wasted my lunch hour in the Access Center yesterday because I tried to change my driver's license before my MSP - and it is so detailed and well laid out, I'm really thankful that I found it!!!

Have a great weekend!!!


XO - Michelle

Choosing the Dream

What a great week it has been so far!  Normally I tend to sulk a little when Cody is away, but I've had so many fun things on the go that it's been pretty alright.  The holiday season is coming up so quickly and I feel really cheerful about the prospect of farmer's markets and Christmas light ups around town.  It gives me a little jolt of YAHOO to turn my Christmas lights on in the evening and to curl up in a toasty warm blanket.

My phone froze on Monday night and that was really horrible.  I hate to admit that I'm super dependent on my phone but I totally am!  First of all because Cody is away and obviously I want to talk to him (we had to settle for Facebook chat from my laptop), and second of all because we just use our cell phones and don't have a house phone, so a bunch of horrible scenarios ran through my head of reasons why I would need my phone (bad guys, medical emergencies, you get the idea).  Unrelated is the fact that I take pictures of all my meals and exercise adventures!  I was also half way through filming SweatADay Squat Kicks when it froze, not cool!  I had to revert to my camera camera, which had a dead battery, and ultimately dug out Cody's fancy DSLR.  Happily the lady at Telus restarted my phone and it's been fine ever since.

My friend Alyssa and I had the most excellent day of crafting yesterday.  We created some pretty cute stuff - gotta love Pinterest - and more importantly had a wonderful visit!  I really want to start being more crafty and making things myself.  I'm looking forward to the fact that every time I pull out my ornaments for the year, I'm going to have a memory of making them in Alyssa's cozy kitchen over hummus, crackers, and sparkling juice.  This is what I made yesterday:

I think my wreath needs some tweaking so I have some things to add to it. I made three of those Christmas balls and one wreath in a whole afternoon of crafting...  I didn't say I was fast, right?!  Check out my Christmas & Winter Pinterest page if you want to see what else I plan on creating!

Then, yesterday afternoon the owner of a store I used to work at called and offered me a pretty great job.  It all sounded very interesting and I gave it some thought but ultimately came to the conclusion that I would stay put where I'm at for now.  They needed an answer in one day, which completely stressed me out and so I had to mull pretty quickly, but I feel like I made the right choice.  This may sound like a crazy choice because I'm always blaming my job (rightfully so) for bad days, stressy days, unhappy days, frustration... and the list goes on.  BUT they gave me my 4 day week, they give me extra time off when I need it, and I am finally getting pretty good at what I do here (confidence is key)!  This new job would be 5 days per week which would require me to put my Natural Nutrition schooling on hold or to work on it much slower, in addition to learning a whole new job, and I decided to put my dream first.  I have wanted to do this course for YEARS.  I finally saved up the money, got the time I thought I needed off of work, and am enjoying every second of learning.  Why would I give that up?

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 By making this choice, I feel like I just brought on a HUGE whirlwind of positive energy.  I just chose my dream.  That's sometimes rare and not always possible for people to do, and I've had the awesome luck to do it a few times in my life.  I truly believe that choosing your dream makes your dream come true.  So this was a really big step towards believing in myself, to believing that I will do well in school, and to believing I will be successful in helping people once I graduate (and be able to make somewhat of a living doing it).  Today I made that happen, and I'm so proud of myself!

XO - Michelle

Weekly Goals

And here we are, at the end of another weekend. I had a productive day and also fit in a few mini naps (awesome), unfortunately I also had to drop Cody off at the airport so he could fly back to work (not awesome).

I've updated my goal board for this week and it looks like this: 

Blue Goal: create a bedtime routine 

This will entail winding down my day between 9 and 10. Things like shutting down the electronics, pouring a glass of water to bring to bed, putting cuticle cream on (must avoid gross winter hands!), washing face, brushing teeth, etc. My thought is that with time my body will recognize that all of this happens before I go to sleep, so it will know that it's time to be calm and relaxed and ultimately fall asleep faster rather than now when I'm just rushing around right before sleep time. 

Yellow Goal: daily activity

The key here is to not overdo it. I checked out the SweatADay challenge from Under Armour and am going to participate in it all week and hopefully continue to participate daily after that. Today's challenge - day 17, was a cow face pose. This is mine :)

Teal Goal: follow meals plan to avoid junk food 

I sat down today and planned my meals for the week and grocery shopped... No excuses, no need to stop for something unhealthy because I'm starving and didn't plan ahead. For me, the key to not binging is to not let myself become hungry, so healthy snacks are a must! I have fresh veg, hummus, edemame, apples, and sunflower seed butter ready to rock for this week and some baking plans to supplement my snack stash :) the sunflower seed butter I made fresh tonight!! 

I'm looking forward to a successful week and I hope you are too!!!

XO - Michelle

Gall Bladder Choices and Holiday Decorating

Friday was kind of a rough day, considering it was the end of the week and all. I've been struggling with my gall bladder again lately and it's really starting to wear on all areas of my life.

It has been bothering me since the end of August. I can best describe it as a consistent dull pain underneath my ribs on the right hand side of my body, and this pain serves as a daily reminder that I'm not "in my prime". It plays with my head and makes me feel so unhealthy, which in turn makes me feel uninspired to strive to be better. It's a constant circle of blah and I'm tired of it.

I'm not sure if this is related to gall bladder, but I've been soooo low energy since all of this started and I'm having a heck of a time functioning at full capacity.  My fear is that I choose to have it surgically removed and afterwards I'm still low energy and blah... 

I've been debating my options of having it removed or holistically treating the problem for quite some time. I've had trouble coming to a conclusion because I want to embrace a holistic lifestyle but I also want to feel healthy and live without fear of another serious attack...  I've pretty much made up my mind to have it removed.  In making this decision, I need to truly believe that it's the correct choice for me.  I am choosing to believe that having it removed is going to help me to regain normal energy levels and get me back to feeling like I'm functioning at 100%!!

Since I was so blah yesterday I really wanted to have a positive day today, and  I did! 

My day started off with a delicious breakfast of egg + egg whites, ancient grains noodles, green olive, daiya cheese, avocado, and hummus. 

After fueling up I headed into town to meet my friends Danielle and Kirsten for a workout at the Rec Plex! They planned to run stairs but I'm all about taking it easy these days so I just walked around the rink a few times. I left earlier than them but was so happy that I got to visit and get some exercise in. 

Next I did a quick browse through a few stores to get what I needed for a little holiday decorating, my afternoon consisted of making this happen:

By this time I was absolutely starving so I heated up some leftover bison balls and cooked some brown rice pasta, stirred in some olive oil and nutritional yeast flakes and chowed down! So good!

We finished off our day with dinner at Mom & Dad's with awesome homemade chili and chickpea flour corn bread. Mom also made chocolate squares that we topped with coconut whip for dessert. I'll find the recipe link and post it in the comments - I know it's from Healthful Pursuit which is always a win :)

It's Cody's last night in town before heading back to work so I'm going to help him pack (aka sit and watch) and get some quality time in before he leaves. 

XO - Michelle

Water Intake And A Dream Board

A rushed start for me this morning!  Oh man, I can't seem to keep it together for a whole week straight.  A little later to bed + a little later to wake up = a whole lot of morning rush!  Looking on the bright side of things, at least this is happening less and less frequently!

One of Natasha's suggestions in my last plan, as a lifestyle recommendation, was to create a dream board!  Well, I love these kind of things so I've been compiling the things that I dream of over on pinterest.  I was going to print everything off and make a board to hang on the wall, and I still may, but for now it's great to just pin things on as I see them and am inspired.  If you would like to check out what I'm dreaming for click here, it's a work in progress but so far I'm having a lot of fun with it!

Another thing I'm noticing courtesy of Natasha is a huge change in my water intake!!  I was always under the impression that the more water a person drinks, the healthier they are.  Not so.  Too much water can actually flush nutrients away, and that was the case with me at over 14 cups per day.  She suggested that I try increasing my electrolyte levels and since doing so I am down to about 8-10 cups per day.  Possibly the biggest change I've noticed is NO MORE HEADACHES!  Okay, still a headache now and then but not as bad and not daily.

I find it helpful to keep track of my water intake to see where I'm at, and have taken to marking each cup drank on a sticky note that I keep right on my water bottle!  I just calculate how many cups of water my bottle holds and before each refill I tally the according amount of cups onto my sticky note!  That's what the pic above is but it's really blurry!  Apologies.

Featured food from today would be dinner.  It was a joint effort which always makes for the best meal.  We had bison meatballs (recipe from Tosca Reno's blog - must try!  these are amazing!) using ground bison that we picked up at Costco in a green sauce that Cody created (avocado, garlic, lemon juice, red onion, basil, parsley, olive oil, sea salt, pepper) and I had brown rice spaghetti noodles while Cody went for good ol' Smart Pasta.

I'm getting ready to get my craft on next week with my friend Alyssa and have been writing down ideas and lists of what I want to make!  Stay tuned for results on Tuesday!

XO - Michelle

A Mid Week Update

Today was a pretty decent day as far as "Mondays" go. It's pretty awesome to know I have a 3 day work week and that day 1 of 3 is in the books :)

I was super beat after work today and ended up falling asleep for a short while after dinner, so Cody and I decided to take a nice walk instead of doing a workout. I didn't wear my heart rate monitor but we walked at a brisk pace for about 40 mins. It's so fun to walk around our neighborhood and check out how the new houses are coming along and dream about owning our own someday.

Noteworthy eats from today:

A key lime pie Larabar!!! I got it at Super 1 foods in Kalispell and it was sooo yummy! I love limes and this really hit the spot. 

Paleo walnut cacao cookies made with almond flour! My mom always whips up delicious paleo cookies and I was lucky enough to be there for lunch when a fresh batch came out of the oven. I had two, thanks Mom!!

Dinner! I am a lucky girl because Cody cooked dinner tonight, and he is quite the chef!!! On my plate: bison patty (bought locally from Centex) topped with hummus, a few drops of sraricha, and sautéed onion and mushroom; garlicky dill pickle; 1/4 avocado; pickled jalapeño; and broccoli slaw with homemade dressing (mayo, lemon juice, maple syrup, sea salt) and topped with cranberries and sunflower seeds!

I'm proud to say that I also remembered to take my arsenal of pills!! A digestive enzyme with each of my three main meals, a vitamin c, a multi vitamin, and a probiotic! I notice a huge difference in my digestion, immunity to bugs, and energy levels when I'm diligent with this. 

Cody and I are going to watch White House Down now so enjoy your mid week evening!!!

XO - Michelle