Lisa’s Quest for Fitness

Wow the days are just whizzzzzzzzing right by and so is this detox! It is hard to believe that I am already on day 6…I have definitely made it beyond the cravings stage and I have to thank working full time for this. I am VERY sure that if I was at home trying to do this, I would have tortured myself at every whim! Being at work allows for me to have the usual breakfast, snack, lunch, snack and then go home for dinner and a snack. I can understand what they mean by having 6 small meals a day-but that isn’t always easy if you are in a different environment! When I go back to teaching I won’t be able to have all these little break times but that is ok. (There is more where this came from … )

I woke up today feeling pretty good and the sun was shining so that really helped in the end.

I started the day with my usual Kashi grains, soy milk and nectarine mix-the healthy cerea as I like to call it. It was very tasty and the necatarine was SO sweet that it almost tasted like sugar was in my cereal! Yay!

Throughout the morning I had a few bouts of the runs…not the MAJOR runs but the runs all the more (look out Michelle, it is crap talk time!!!) I don’t know what it was from…maybe the beans? Maybe too much fiber from the grains and my system isn’t holding it well? All day I have felt the odd pangs here and there but nothing has happened. (There is more where this came from … )

So it was back to work this morning and I guess I had to wake up. I made sure to not screw myself over with making a gross shake, so I tried something different for breakfast. I boiled up some whole grains called KASHI a few days ago and decided to have them as my cereal. I like them because they have some “ass” on them-you get all sorts of healthy grains that you can chew on and taste a bit odd, but are good enough when you don’t have anything else. I threw in some Soy milk (I don’t love this stuff since the Vanilla kind is better, but again…I am screwed for a while) and mixed in a nectarine as well. It was really quite tasty especially with the natural sugar of the fruit sweetening the grains!

That also kept me full for a good while and of course, so did the snacking on almonds.

Lunch was the usual-plain salad with oil and pepper along with my corn thin sandwhich which was taaaaaaaasty-funny how even a sandwhich like that tastes so damn good when you can’t eat a really nice hero submarine from Subway or something.

The day WHIPPED by sooooooooo fast that it was already time to leave only to find myself in an hours worth of traffic. Oy!

My mom was making my black bean, rice and corn loaf for the entire family so it was great for me to come home and find that cooked up. It was really interesting except I wasn’t too thrilled about tasting the actual garlic in it-otherwise it is an excellent little dish. The brown rice that was used was very moist and the beans were excellent. My mom accidentally mixed in her sauce WITH the bean and rice instead of using it as a dressing, but everything came out really nice and soft. I added some tasty fried potatoes to the dish as a side..so what if they were fried-haha I enjoyed them because they were nice and crispy!!

And now as I type…I am hungry so I may have some popcorn or my rice cake with almond or cashew butter.

Once again, Day 4 went off without a hitch! Tomorrow I will try that recipe for the Chickpea and Squash patties that I so dearly love. Yummy!

I just realized that when I was posting up my Day 1 and Day 2 entries, I somehow managed to delete my very FIRST entry in the Detox section about the whole process….ooooooooooooops!! Ah well…I will keep these nice and short if possible regardless. (There is more where this came from … )

I woke up this morning feeling much better than I did the other morning. After a nice run to the bathroom (because when you are on the detox, until you have had your morning poop, you don’t know WHEN it will hit you-and when you gotta go, you gotta go!!), I got ready and had a nectarine. I had to be up earlier than normal because I had to do 2 mystery shops far out in the south (where I saw 2 of my dream homes..stay tuned to my usual blog for pictures!). I made sure to bring along with me some of the left over popcorn from the night before (I made sure to not add butter to it), some carrots and of course, the staple…almonds with a few cashews. (There is more where this came from … )

Well here I am just about ready to eat lunch…but not just ANY old lunch…a detox lunch! Yup, that is right. I decided that I could start this detox while being at work because it is a Friday, AND the most important part-I can go to the bathroom any time I want! haha. That is the one thing I was worried about-not being able to leave my office to go just incase I would have to get the runs. With this detox, when you gotta go do the #2, you can’t just hold it…it HAS to come out and you get about 1 minute of stretch time as well. I was very ready to start today anyways as I am sick of eating whatever…when I start losing my appetite for eating then I know that I need to change things up a bit. (There is more where this came from … )

Today is August 22nd..and what did I eat for dinner? Pizza-Coco Brooks pizza at that…doesn’t sound much like detox food to me does it? I was supposed to start my detox today but was so busy this weekend that I didn’t get a chance to go out and buy the necessary food for it. I was going to start tomorrow instead because I could go out tonight and get some things-my mom was going to start as well. I got 2 calls today from the staffing agency-one was to start work downtown today and tomorrow for 12.50 an hour. I sorta wanted to go but dreaded the whole downtown thing. I had to think about it but said no in the end. It was only a hundred bucks I would be not getting.

Then I got another call in the afternoon to start at a safety place as an admin assistant for 13.00 an hour. Very appealing-it is even closer to me than the other job-about 15 minutes away. Ironically enough it is about 1 block away from my old music school so I know the area very well. The assignment will go on until September 2nd with my starting training tomorrow. So it looks like I will be doing another 1.5 weeks of full time work from 8:00 am-4:30. I like that the job is right on the busy strip so I can have somewhere to go..Timmy’s is right next door too!

I guess that means that my detox will be moved aside for a while. The last thing you want to do is start it when you have to be working-because you never know what kind of reaction you may end up getting. I might start it sometime over the weekend just to get going because I DO want to start this…but I feel bad for eating all the bad foods because I assumed I could start it today and be on my way. Shoot. Oh well, going to work will actually give me a better eating schedule and water drinking tolerance as well.

I also wanted to get starting back to the gym before life REALLY gets hectic…I could always go after work, but I will have to see how awake I feel-it technically will be easier to get TO the gym from where I work this time as opposed to the other location where I was at. I will just have to put in the effort-I want to be all healthy for my physical examination on the 2nd of September.

So much for the detox…

I went to my Chiro this weekend for another appointment and brought along the Xrays with me. He had a look and saw that my spine was out by 30 degrees-Scoliosis. My neck has traces of whiplash as well which makes me NUTS cause I SOOOOOOOOOOO should have claimed it back in the day-but we learn, the hard way! My Chiro said that my spine grew that way as a result of genetics. I had asked him if it was a result of my having to carry book bags that were super heavy all my life, and he said that wasn’t the case. I guess what happened is that my spine grew out that way during my teen years which would make sense because that is the formative stage. As a result, my body grew around the spine in that position. Very interesting!

I guess what is next is to just keep that back moving, which means that my Chiro will have me as a patient for the rest of my life. Right now I will be going in every week until I can stabilize and then every few weeks-my neck is doing SO much better than 2 weeks ago-I am even starting to get used to having it cracked back in place which is digusting. The good news that I found out is that my U of C healthcare plan will cover up to 300 per benefit year for my visits-AND the Alberta Healthcare covers up to that amount too I think. So I should be able to get down there and then submit my forms to get most of my money back! That will help out in the end.

I am just glad I can stay with my Chiro and not have to shell out 31 bucks each time-I think that other place just does the same damn thing and makes it look like a wellness clinic instead. Whatever works is good for me, and so far, my Chiro is the place to be!

Btw-tomorrow starts my going back to the gym-just cause I have been away for a long time now and have NO excuse to avoid it! It was just too tough to have the energy to get down there after 9 hour days at work. I guess when I am in school I will just designate Weds and Thurs after school for sessions and Friday afternoons and Sundays for sessions. At least until the hardcore winter hits. I did pick up a dvd for intense abdominal workouts-I am intent on having some form of shape in my midriff-hell, to even HAVE a midriff would be nice! I will just have to get back on track yet again-slowly, but surely! I want to be prepared for my Monday start up of my detox….yikes!

Yep-summer is almost over so I think it is time to rejunivate for the September season. For the past 5 or 6 years, I have detoxed over the summer-no, not from drinking (if you can call one Bellini in 4 months hard core drinking! haha) but from unhealthy foods and toxins in the air. The detox is from WILD ROSE and is formulated by Dr. Terry Willard who has a health clinic here in Calgary. We had heard about him a while ago from a friend of ours and many of his herbals that he grows himself are in your local health food store. There is this Detox in a box that he has formulated as a cleanse. This is a very tough one in the sense that you have to follow it to a T for 12 days-but the plus is that you can actually eat food-REAL food. You don’t have to drink these weird orange looking drinks or eat carrots all day-you can actually eat a steak and fish etc. (There is more where this came from … )

I am SO glad that I went to visit my usual Chiropractor! He is the greatest-simply put! I went in for a visit on Saturday and we talked over what had happened-since the other Chiro place was closed, I couldn’t bring in my Xrays with me or even get them-my Chiro said that the digital scan was no big deal because a computer can’t say what is going on with my body! He is right. I am going to get the Xrays tonight before that place closes so that I can bring them with me on Saturday. My Chiro cracked my hips back in to place and they felt better-then he started on my neck. I told him to do what he needed to do, I didn’t care anymore. I HATE having my neck adjusted-it is disgusting and feels weird. But he tried it out on one side and it didn’t pop. ARGH-I hate that-so he tried the other side and I heard 3 lovely pops-WHEW! It felt gross but the pressure was off my neck instantly!

I told the Chiro that he is the only one whom I would trust my neck with. As he massaged the back of it, he put his finger right on the left upper side of my neck OWWWWWWWWWWWWW is all I can say. Apparently I have a pinched nerve which is right under an inflammed muscle. EW! I had to go home and ice it on Saturday-I didn’t do that on Sunday but maybe I should. I feel MUCH better-100 times better now. Even though there is a bit of a pull, he said that I need to see him again this week to get working on it.

Because of the fact that he works waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the poop down in the South and I finish work waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the poop down in the North East, I cannot get down there before 5:30 during the week which stinks. I have another appointment for this Saturday in the morning so that I can have my neck worked on and get the Xrays looked at.

Other than feeling very fidgety at my desk right now, the day is going by fast and the DASANI LEMON WATER I am drinking is REALLY gross-overly lemony but not naturally so! Blah!