LONG LOOOONNNNNG UPDATE :)

I know it has been a while since I have written a blog, but I am not writing this to send out an appology or to make excuses because it was my choice to not write and if I should apologize to anyone it should be myself.

Overall health wise, to be honest, things have been good! They could be better of course, but they are good. Two weigh ins ago I gained the 3 lbs that I lost prior, but since then I have managed to maintain over the last couple of weeks, which is shocking really.... Yes I may have not gotten too far into my weight loss/towards my goals, but that is no ones fault but mine. I am making improvements and I just need to get more serious, which I plan on... I HAVE A PLAN! lol I'll get to that later, want to update on everything that has been going on in my life.

On the Saturday of the Thanksgiving Long Weekend I lost a friend. Her name was Alina Carere and she was 23 years old. We grew up in the same town and played baseball together for years. She is a beautiful, smart, kind, caring, loving person. She never judged anyone and was so very proud of who she was. She loved all her friends and family and treated everyone with nothing but respect. I can honestly say she was an outstanding human being. On Thursday October 8th she was driving in her car when a van being driven by a 17 year old male ran a stop sign and hit the side of her car. She then hit two trees. Alina was airlifted to the London hospital. There she was put on life support and after breathing on her own and making some progress (apparently just enough to get her organs in good enough shape to be a donor which was something that Alina wanted very much so). She then passed on Saturday October 10, 2009. It really all hit me when I went to the visitation on the Tuesday night... seeing pictures of her in her uniform or at parties and just enjoying life was hard enough, but then seeing her family. Her older brother Adam who I was friends with as well and her other siblings and parents were strong, but you could def see the pain. Seeing Matt, her boyfriend, and his heart ache was almost too much to handle. I had my mom there with me as she too knew Alina through years of baseball and having her over to our house. She was a great support for me there. The funeral was on Wednesday and it was beautiful. It was held at the Catholic Church in town, where Alina and her family attended, she was a very proud catholic. My friend John and I went to the funeral and he was a great support for me at the cemetary and although it was so hard to deal with losing her I did feel better after that... like not only I, but everyone else could let go because she was okay and she was happy. She will always live on in all our hearts!

Thanksgiving weekend, other than the bad news mentioned above, was very nice. We all went up to the cottage... My mom and dad, hubby (josh), brother (calvin), sister in law (andrea), niece (cadence), grandma, grandpa, aunt pat, uncle merv and of course the three dogs! :) It was a full house, but we all had a great time! The weather was nice, cold, but nice! :) The dock got taken out for the winter, some fishing was done of course, many games of crib between my mom and myself, cottage prepped for winter, went to the church service at the Tobermory church, had a HUGE turkey dinner, which was DELICIOUS! :) It was a great weekend spent with family!

Hmmm what else has been going on. OH! I got a virus on my computer and it was a bad one too! Damn bugger completely messed up the whole comp and I had to restore back to factory and therefore had to re-install everything and all my work crap, it was NOT FUN!

Andrea is going to pop any day now and Bucky, which is the nickname that we have for my nephew and she HATES it lol which makes it all that much more enjoyable ;) hehe I know, Im bad! :) Her official due date is November 18th I believe, but it doesnt look like she is going to last that long! We have been over to their house trying to help them prepare and finish renos for when he decides to come out! I CANT WAIT! :)

Cadence is getting SO big... here is the most recent picture I took of her on Monday (Grandma and Grandpa were watching her for the weekend while we worked on renos at Cal's house)...

I heard that Grandma (Josh's Mom's Mom) wasnt doing so well and that she is in the hospital. Him and I havent gotten many updates and what we are getting is mainly from Facebook unfortunetly, but last we heard she is doing better.

Halloween is next weekend and I am so excited about it! I think I pretty much got my whole costume together and it is gonna look super sexy and awesome! I am not going to go into details cause some ppl that read this blog are going to be there and I want it to be a surprise or at least for some ppl a surprise... Anywho, I had a weight loss goal by Halloween and I didnt reach it and to be honest there is no humanly possible way to reach it by then, BUT I am okay with that

NEW PLAN!!! Starting November I am going to be eating less processed and more raw. This means no fried foods, no refined sugars, no alcohol. no nothing! I am not going to be drinking, smoking the cigars while drinking, NOTHING... I am cleaning out this body of crap because I know when I have done this in the past I felt much better! I am not going 100% raw becasue I do not believe that that is a managable thing to do, but I am eating all whole grains, lean meats, and tons of fruits and veggies. Limiting frozen foods/meals and eating out for sure! I have a feeling that someone may thing why start in November and not now!? Well first, cause I want to.... that should be a good enough answer, but I know for some that isn't. I am starting this in November because over the next 10 days I am only going to be home for 4 of them. With all the traveling and visiting and then of course the big party on Halloween where I would like to enjoy a few beverages I think it woul dbe difficult to follow my new rules. I am still eating smart and being sensible and doing all the things I am already doing, but gotta do something else casue THIS is not working, at least not the way I want it to :) I am though happy to report that I HAVE been able to reduce my insulin intake slightly.... So for those of you that think that your successes are only shown on the scale CHECK THIS OUT! lol because this is my BIGGEST accomplishment in a long time and one of the most important things for me to look at. I must be doing SOMETHING right ;) hehe

Congrats to those of you who have been losing weight, keep working hard and keeping it off. To those of you that have been struggling like me, I know... I know exactly what you are going through and where you are coming from! It is not easy, it is a lifelong battle. Some expect me to lose all my weight and change my ways overnight... well this is not going to happen overnight, this is not going to happen in a week, or even a month! Its a lifelong lesson/learning experience and I know that I will get to a place where I am proud and happy of where I am and who I have become and you will to!

Well it has been a stressful, action packed, fun, exciting, sad, crazy couple of weeks, but I came out of it a stronger person as everyone should :) Stronger meaning mentally and emotionally by the way ;) but hey I am sure physically too!! I hope that everyone is doing GREAT and I will be back to record another blog VERY soon! Stay happy and healthy! x

Ooopsy Forgot :)

I did want to mention in my last post that although i weighed in yesterday with a gain of 3 lbs overall from last weeks weigh in.... I stepped on the scale again this morning. Now I am well aware you should not weigh yourself more than once a week as this is not mentally healthy for you, BUT at the same time I gotta keep a close eye on what is going on with me and my body so I stepped on this morning. I was down .2 of a lb from yesterday, which is SMALL I know, but its something... But the other thing that I LOVED was that my body fat % has gone down now!!!!!! Since my first recording of body fat %, which was on October 2nd my body fat % has dropped a total of 1.2% which I am SOOOO excited about because that is the number that is very important to me. I may not be seeing a drop on the scale, but the body fat percentage is showing me I am at least doing something right and I am doing this by getting my butt moving! :) Thanks again for reading! xx

Weigh In - Diabetes - etc etc

Good Morning Everyone!!!

My week overall was pretty good :) I had some mis-haps when it came to counting calories of a new night time snack that I have been loving, but ugh! Live and Learn ;)

I weighed in yesterday morning and I knew I shouldn't have. Why? Because well on Wednesday night I had a larger meal than normal and we all know that you should not eat a larger meal the night before weigh in, like ever! But I did, silly me! So some would say that what the scale says the next morning after having a larger amount of food than what you body is used to that the weight that you have gained isn't actual fat but yet food stored in your body waiting to become waste and it totally felt that way too. Not making excuses for myself whatsoever, it was my own stupidity to have that meal the night before weigh in and I could have done many things to change that, which I am aware of, but I didn't and thats that :) I stepped on the scale and gained... well it said I gained 3 lbs, which is what I lost the week prior, grrrr! The thing is that I weighed myself the day after weigh in last week so I weighed myself on Oct 1st and I had lost 3 lbs from the week prior. THEN I weighed myself on the 2nd and I had gained 1.4 lbs from the day before, which I don't get! 1.4 gain in one day! eeeek! I wasn't even bad on that day so wth?! Anywho from the 2nd to the 8th (yesterday) which was my next scheduled I had actually only gained 1.6, but if I go from the weigh in on the Thursday and add that 1.4 in the first day after the weight in it totals 3 lbs exactly! grrrrrr!! I don't get it.

Now I totally understand that my Diabetes works against me in this matter. For those of you that are not aware of what I am going through... Here I will fill you in a bit! Type 2 diabetes (diabetes mellitus) occurs when the body can not produce or can not use the produced insulin. As a result you have to provide insulin to the body for diabetes cure and improve the symptoms of diabetes. I personally am a Type 2 diabetic, but I am insulin dependant. I was originally put on a drug called Metformin and after upping my dose over and over I was finally at the maximum daily allowance and we had to do something else. That was when I was put on a newer drug to Canada called Januvia. They had me on a butt load of Metformin and Januvia and when both those drugs werent working they then put me on Metformin and a long lasting 24 hr insulin which I took through injection morning and night. Still my sugards were FAR too high and we kept upping the doseage of insulin I was injecting at each needle. When this wasn't working they left me on the long lasting insulin and took away the Metformin and in place of the Metformin they put me on a fast acting insulin which I inject at every meal. I am currently still messing around with the doses and finally starting to control my levels with the long and fast acting insulins, 5 needles a day! OH JOY! But, there is a negative side of insulin as well. One such side effect is weight gain. The main work of insulin is to improve the ability of your body to use and store sugar (glucose). When your blood glucose levels are hgh, your kidneys try to remedy the situation by excreting glucose in your urine. Insulin provided from outside reverses these processes as blood glucose levels return to normal, which can contribute to weight gain. Therefore it is proven that Insulin plays a major role in weight gain, and even keeps us from losing weight. Insulin is responsible for the storage of all the foods we eat: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. However, high glycemic carbohydrates cause blood sugars to rise very rapidly, therefore causing the pancreas to release insulin very rapidly. In some people the body overcompensates and releases too much. The insulin will store these carbohydrates/sugars very quickly. The good side is you get a quick burst of energy; the bad side is most of what is eaten will be stored as fat. Since the blood sugars rose very rapidly, the insulin will try to bring the blood sugars within normal ranges very rapidly, causing the sugars to be pushed by the insulin into every cell, including fat cells. So now you see how this is all so hard and so frustrating for me… I look to people that are losing weight and doing all the things I am doing, some are doing them better and some aren’t, but that’s not the problem here… The problem is that it is SO frustrating for me because its not that I am being a complete pig or not exercising, its that I have this HUGE factor working against me that many of them do not and when I see others losing weight (both on my own personal weight loss groups and in the public ones like YouTube etc.) and I am not its hard for me to swallow, but at the same time I want people to realize what I am going through and what this is all about. So anyways, that’s my story :)

Sorry I have def rambled on enough about all of this :) moving on.... My exercise this past week I was very happy with actually. After last week I found that I was doing the Learn and Burn easily and decided to move on to the Turbo Burn, which is a 20 min intense calorie burn. I have done that every day Mon - Fri this week every early morning :) I am starting to notice that I am able to do this workout now with little strain. Hopefully next week I can move on to bigger and badder things. I have also been finding myself moving more throughout the day and night at home, which is obviously a bonus!

This weekend is Thanksgiving so happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We are going up to the cottage with the family and I am very much looking forward to this. Hope that everyone has a wonderful long weekend and I will be back next week! xx

Bodybugg - Update - Turbo Jam

Its been nearly a week since my last entry, yes I am well aware and it was completely intentional too :) Everything is great on my end though :) I just... well its hard to explain, but I get sick of hearing about it over and over again sometimes.. I'm DOING it which is what matters most right, not TALKING about it ... I mean I love to talk about it otherwise I wouldn't be doing this blog and my vlogs, but sometimes I just don't want it to be an every day thing is all :) I'm sure everyone understands! Anywho! I have been working out pretty intensely to my TJ (Turbo Jam) I have already graduated up to the next level which is the Turbo Burn and then eventually I am going to incorporate the Ab Jam and Turbo Sculpt in on certain days here and there to build some more muscle...

I got my Fat % scale... don't know if I mentioned that in my last blog... but yes, it came in and I was so excited to see what it would tell me. My body fat percentage is MUCH higher than it should be or than I thought it to be... although seems very realistic. Just like my weight I prefer to not tell you all the exact number, but when I wright my weigh in blogs I will now not only include my weight, but my body fat % as well.

As for my food intake these last few days.... since I have so much to catch up on I will just clue you in... With my new workouts I am burning about 3200 - 3300 calories per day every day .. at least during the week, obviously more on weekends cause I am not stuck at a desk. I have still been aiming to consume around 2000 calories for a deficit of at least 1000 every day :) Now I have found a new snack that would be healthy for me if I limited my intake of it and that is whole grain tostitos with shredded cheese on top, but with a snack such as that it is very difficult to accurately measure your calories... difficult yes, but impossible no so I slacked there and it may affect me on the scale, but live and learn :)

Exercise - as mentioned above I have been doing the TJ 5 days a week and this is week two. Also yesterday at lunch I went out for a little stroll and at night I am doing some serious cleaning some nights and others... well just relaxing hehe On the weekend I went to the market and did a lot of walking there.. so I am def getting my exercise in for sure! :) FINALLY ;) hehe

My Bodybugg has been doing some amazing things for me... see before I had this nifty device I would go on websites or to books to tell me how many calories I was burning. I would input my height, weight, sex, etc. etc. and tell the computer that I did oh I don't know like 30 mins of brisk walking, medium intensity (I used to use fitday.com or fatsecret.com for this) and the computer would usually tell me a number like 400 calories burned... when in all reality I will put my bodybugg on and do that same exercise and I only burnt about 210 calories.... Same with the treadmills... a lot of the nicer treadmills tell you how many calories you are burning. A treadmill would tell me I was reaching 400 calories burnt and my bodybugg would tell me 190. YOU CANNOT TRUST THE WEBSITES, BOOKS, OR WORKOUT MACHINES TO TELL YOU HOW MANY CALORIES YOU ARE BURNING.... Nothing is as accurate as a clinical setting and Bodybugg's technology has been proved to me the next best thing. Anyone that is serious about losing weight I would HIGHLY recommend one of these... There are other alternatives too, knockoffs so to speak that are cheaper! :) Everyone generally speaking overestimates how many calories they burn on a regular basis and this tends to be worse with people who are in a lower weight range. The bigger you are, the more calories you burn. Now these sites and other things are very helpful when you dont have something else to tell you how many calories you are burning, but you cant treat them as gospel and you must know that they are FAR from accurate! Just wanted to share that with everyone and throw a little Bodybugg plug out there ;)

Weigh in is tomorrow... I hope to see a loss in my body fat % at least, but the weight too would be EXCELLENT :P hehe Regardless... I am feeling better, feeling healthier and I AM DOING THIS :) I am doing this slowly, healthy, and learning along the way and I am happy and proud of myself for this :)

Have a great day everyone!

xx

Thursday... WEIGH IN DAY :)

THREE POUNDS!!!! Oh... sorry I suppose I should have had some sort of an intro there, but I was just so excited to see a number that was more than a single pound hehe

Soooo its October 1st and I have been going at this for about a month now, a slow start, but I am down 5.2 lbs.... baby steps! :) hehe Today I started the Biggest Loser with some girls online through a Beachbody Coach... super excited about that... Send her my before weight and pictures and lettme tell ya, it was hard sharing those pictures, but it had to be done :) I also find out if I got the spot on the collab channel One Step Closer on YouTube.. Check em out because even if I don't get a position with them, it will still be an amazing channel! :)

Yesterdays Eats

Breakfast

Protein Shake with Milk and banana - 351 cals

Snack

100 cal lorna doones - 100 cals

2 x hot rods - 90 cals

Lunch

Blue Menu Shep Pie and salad with dressing and bacon and onion - 455 cals

Snack

Cheese String - 60 cals

Dinner

Pita Pit Club Pita and fixings - 566 cals

Snack

Low Fat Frozen Yogurt and Waffle Cone - 363 cals

Late Night Emergency Sugar Drop - EEEEK! 1/2 caramilk bar - 125 cals and although this brought me over my calorie budget for the day by 62, which is minimal of course, it got my sugars up fast and was delicious hehe but I stuck with half of it! I burnt extra calories yesterday too!!

Exercise

Turbo Jam

Shopping - Walking

House Cleaning - Hardcore ;)

Calories Consumed - 2110

Calories Burned - 3602

Difference - 1492

Im super happy with my progress, especially the work I have done on my mind more so than my body :)

Have a great night everyone, see you soon!

xx