Getting ready for 2014

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday and the end of 2013, where are you focusing your thoughts and efforts? Are you focused on your lack of finances to cover your holiday expenses? Are you focused on the holiday weight gain that is sure to come between now and December 31st? 

Or are you focused on wellness and financial freedom? Are you focused on abundance, joy and happiness? 

I asked myself that question this morning and over the past few days, I realized I had been focused on lack and weight gain. Why? I didn't do a great job saving for this holiday as I had in the past and I'm still carrying around the extra pounds I had when I started 2013. Boo hoo. Whoa is me. 

Pity party time, right? 

Absolutely NOT! 

I decided this morning, to change my mindset. 

I'm a Fiji Fanatic!

I recently posted about the benefits of drinking more water. A few days later, one of my favorite bloggers, Nadege, wrote a post about what happened when a woman began drinking 3 liters of water a day. 

Drinking three litres of water a day took TEN YEARS off my face

A picture is worth 1,000 words! After reading about and seeing her results in just four weeks, I immediately went out and purchased liter bottles of water. However, I didn't just purchase any water; I stocked up on bottles of Fiji water. Lucky for me, they were on sale at Target. I bought every bottle on the shelf. 

Why Fiji water? What's so special about it? Glad you asked!

Natural Artesian Bottled Water

Fiji water just tastes better than regular old water and it contains natural minerals - the most important being silica. This is the only brand of bottled water that contains these minerals naturally.

BENEFITS OF SILICA

As we get older, the source of silica in our bodies becomes exhausted, resulting in wrinkles, dry skin, dull lifeless hair, and brittle nails and bones. Research shows that silica is nature's building block and is our answer to healthier, younger looking, more radiant skin, hair and nails.

In short, silica is the bomb beauty solution!

After two days of drinking 3 liters of Fiji water a day, my skin appeared to improve drastically. Even my boyfriend said my skin had a glow. 

• The bags under my eyes seem less harsh (they are still there, but they seem less prominent)
• My skin texture improved
• My face doesn't turn into a grease ball 30 minutes after applying makeup

Seeing those results in just two days was enough to get me hooked. I promptly proceeded to raid the Fiji water section at two other Targets. 

My current Fiji water stash on my kitchen floor. This will last me 7 days.

I can't wait to see how this new addition to my life will benefit my overall body as well! I'll keep ya posted!

Cheers!

Water, water and more water!

The older I get, the more in tune I am with my body. There are few tell tale signs that tell me when my body is becoming dehydrated.

•  My lips begin to crack and peel
• The space under my eyes begin to look like big ole suitcases
• I wake up in the morning with pillow creases on my face
• My energy levels are low

Unfortunately for me, when the temperature begins to drop, I don't consciously drink enough water. Exposing my body to constant buzz of the heater can also be drying to my body. When any of the above symptoms appear, I realize I need to start chugging. 

My goal is to preempt these symptoms of dehydration and consciously drink more water through out the day...every day. It's pretty easy for me to drink water during the week while I'm sitting at my desk, but the weekends throw me off completely. To combat this issue, I will do the following:

• When I'm at home, I will set my egg timer to go off every 60 min. When it goes off, I must drink an 8 oz glass of water. 
• Every morning, I drink a warm mug of water with lemon. Going forward, I will use my biggest mug to make my morning concoction and fill it to the brim with water. 
• When I leave the house, I must have a bottle of water with me. I normally take one to the gym, but I need to have one with me at all time.
• When I'm out and about, I need to drink that bottle of water (not just sip it) and make sure it's empty when I return home.
• BONUS: Keep my humidifier on ALL day and move it next to my desk during the work week.

Counting ounces of water daily doesn't motivate me, but having baby smooth lips and glowing skin DOES motivate me. I will continue to drink until my dehydration symptoms disappear.

WebMD.com compiled a lovely list of 6 Reasons to Drink Water. You can read the details on their website, but the quick summary is as follows:

1. Drinking water helps maintain the balance of body fluids.
2. Water can help control calories.
3. Water helps energize muscles.
4. Water helps keep skin looking good.
5. Water helps maintain normal bowel function.

Drink up!

Something is not right

The acne, bloat and brain fog is back! 

Not in a major way, but enough for me to take notice. There are lots of little bumps on my jaw line and the breakouts on my chest have returned. I also got a nasty little cystic bump on my chest which was pretty painful and there are a few breakouts on my back. 

And this week at work, I could not get my thoughts straight during a status meeting. My brain was just all over the place and I was getting my programs confused. Very embarrassing. Darn brain fog. Losing the brain fog was one huge benefit I noticed when I gave up wheat the first time. 

Could all this be from the wheat I've been happily consuming over the past few weeks? It's funny, now that my pre-wheat free symptoms are showing up, I realize how much better my skin was and how the brain fog had disappeared.

I didn't consume a TON of wheat, but on Saturday, I did eat some foods made with white flour. My body was still processing the damage I did during my wheatastic weekend two weeks ago!

Ok, ok, ok, I get it. Wheat is not good for me. 

Digestion starts in the brain

BOING!

I just had a light bulb moment while eating my lunch. 

On my last blog post, I'm tweaking, not twerking, I talked about making tweaks to my diet by crowding out the "avoid" foods based on my O+ type blood. In preparation to do this, I purchased the Eat Right 4 Your Type cookbook for my iPad and this afternoon I was perusing the pages, looking for yummy recipes and making a shopping list. This is something I have done 1,000 times before. Whenever I would start a new diet, I would do intensive research on what to eat and what not to eat. I would scour the web looking for recipes so I could do meal planning. I would make an extremely long shopping list and head to the grocery store to buy all the "approved" foods. Then I would cross my fingers and pray that this diet would work. 

It's funny how it's so easy to slip back into the old diet mentality. 

This ritual of preparing to diet is second nature to me. I didn't realize what I was doing until I had an almost painful experience eating my "last meal."

Side bar: If you're a dieter, you know what the last meal is. It's that last meal where you eat the foods that you're about to avoid for the next [insert length of diet program] all at one time! Yea, I had one of THOSE meals for lunch today. 

Now, back to the painful experience eating my last meal which consisted of:

• A vegetarian fed hamburger patty (only grass-fed beef on the new diet)
• 2 slices of provolone cheese (no dairy on the new diet)
• the last 2 slices of bacon (no pork on the new diet)
• sauteed button mushrooms (no domestically grown mushrooms on the new diet)
• BBQ sauce (the sauce I used contains vinegar which is a no no on the new diet)
• 2 slices of brown rice flour bread (this is acceptable on the new diet)
• baked sweet potato fries (this is acceptable on the new diet)

As I sat down at the table to enjoy a yummy meal, I was plagued with negative thoughts about my meal. 

"Is this bacon going to react like a poison in my system?"
"What exactly is a vegetarian fed cow and is the one I'm eating going to mess up my stomach?"
"Oh, I should have put cheddar on this last meal sandwich instead of provolone."  
"Oh man, I may never eat cheddar cheese again."
"What am I going to eat on my eggs if I can't eat cheddar cheese? Oh wait,  I can't eat eggs."

While all these thoughts were circling around in my head, I still attempted to eat mindfully, by eating slowly and breathing between bites, but I wasn't able to enjoy the meal. About four bites into it, I felt the what-should-have-been-a-delicious-burger start to back up in my throat. I ignored the feeling and took another bite. Again, I felt something gurgling in my esophagus.  So much so, that I started to cough.

Do you think that stopped me from eating? Heck no! This was my last meal and I was going to enjoy it come hell or high water!

Wait? What was I doing to myself? My body was clearly telling me that something wasn't right and I chose to ignore it. Why? Because diet means deprivation and if I stopped eating at that point, I would feel deprived. 

That was my a-ha moment.

I fell right back into the same pattern which I have been trying to avoid. I started to stress about this new diet and the food that I think I should be avoiding, that my body rebelled and actually tried to reject what I was eating. 

Just today, I heard someone say that digestion starts in the brain and this is a perfect example of that. My crazy diet thoughts put my body in a low grade state of stress while I was eating and my body was unable to digest and absorb the meal. 

Crazy, right? Well, it's not. Digestion is inarguably a physiological process.

"Here's the deal: when you are in fight-or-flight mode (sympathetic dominant), you will not digest your food well. Period. End of story. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200."

Evidence that this is true: 

1. I didn't enjoy the taste of the meal like I should have.
2. I experienced acid reflux in the middle of my meal!

See, this is yet another reason dieting does not work. So what is my plan now, you ask? After this a-ha moment, I thought about this very question. Here's my answer. I'm going to decrease the frequency and amount of some of the food "avoid" foods, but I am not going to cut them out completely. Nor, am I going to categorize them into the good food/bad food choices; or as Dr. D'Adamo refers to them as beneficial, neutral and avoid foods. 

At the end of the day, my body will tell me what it needs and what it wants. The last thing I want to do is stress about the food that I put in my mouth. I'm going to focus on relaxing and enjoying my food and stop wondering what if...

Who knew eating would be this complicated!