My Reminder

Today’s health and beauty segment is brought to you by my weekend of carb overload, followed by sickness and a massive migraine headache.

 

It is lady time and during lady time I always want to eat everything in sight, the worse for me it is, the better. I spent from Thursday of last week, until Saturday night eating loaded baked potatoes, mashed potatoes (with a little bit of chicken) and gravy, rolls, Sonic and lots and lots of Chinese food. Oh, and we can’t forget the ice cream and the ice cream sandwiches. Not really a problem for most people, just a little bit of guilt and then they move on, but for me it was worse.

 

I have been eating so much healthier lately, that introducing this many carbs (which turn to sugar when they break down in your body), sugar and greasy fatness into my body was making me feel rather sluggish. For a girl who is insulin resistant, you can imagine the war it was playing with my pancreas as well. Normally, I drink about 10-12 cups of water a day, however, I had not really been doing that last week either, so when I got thirsty, instead of grabbing my normal bottle of water, I got a Lipton Green Tea with Citrus. Sounds kind of healthy, right? Wrong. It has 21 grams of sugar per serving! That is more than Dr. Pepper! I did not read this before I drank half of the bottle. With the other sugars and carbs in my system, that half a bottle of green tea was my undoing. I crashed, hard, and got very nauseous. I almost threw up behind one of the nurseries buildings here in town and I got very flushed. (Another side effect of me not drinking any water, my hair and skin are so dry! It is breaking like mad today!)

 

Since that moment, I have been back on my regularly scheduled eating habits, but I haven’t fully recovered. I am still nursing a huge migraine that I have not been able to kick for two and a half days now. When your body gets used to certain things, like eating healthy and consuming a lot of water and those things are suddenly taken away or replaced with crap your body reacts just as drastically. Before this weekend, I hadn’t noticed how much better I felt and how healthy my skin and hair was becoming. Now, all I want is to go back to feeling good again. How I ever functioned in my life feeling this way before is beyond me.

 

This was definitely a reminder for me on why I chose to change my lifestyle and why it is important to maintain that change!

More Gardening Fun with Flowers!

I have spent so much time in the last three years in front of my computer writing papers and studying that I haven’t made it outdoors very much. Now that school is over and I have more time to go out and enjoy the outdoors, I am really trying to find activities that allow me to do that. My new obsession is gardening. I know I showed you guys’ pictures of my vegetable garden, but this weekend I did a different kind of gardening. I planted flowers!

 

This morning we planted the flowers into our front flowerbeds with our regularly scheduled perennials. See, we keep all the bigger stuff the same; the same trees and bushes. Then, every year, we go out and find different annuals to put along the border and in the hanging flower baskets, just to spice it up. So, yesterday, my mom and I spent the day at various flower nurseries around town picking the perfect flowers to add to the front flowerbeds. We ended up with petunias, dahlias, moss roses, bleeding hearts, a columbine, snapdragons, a calibrachoa, darla whites, lobelias and dianthus’. (There were two others but I can’t find the tags and can’t think of their names).

 

 

 

 

 

I know, it is kind of hard to see some of the new flowers just yet. They are still so small!, but It is going to look great once all the rose bushes bloom and the flowers start to grow!

My work is not over just yet though, as I type this, my dad is cutting out some wooden timbers we are going to use to create a raised bed for the strawberries here in the back vegetable garden! Speaking of the vegetable garden, it is coming along nicely, despite two hard freezes between now and two weeks ago. Gotta love Oklahoma weather!

 

 

It is almost time to start planing tomatos, cucumbers, corn, green peppers and the herbs! Look at all the pretty little starts just waiting for their turn!

 

Developing A Habit

They say it takes 21 days to make a habit and that is what I want, habits. The sad thing is, I need to make the things that I used to do every day, things normal people do everyday into habits. Here is why. In grad school, sleep, work and school became more important than anything. Showering went from an every day activity to every other day, and then only during the week. Brushing my teeth went from a twice a day thing to whenever I remembered thing. Flossing became a thing of the past, so did make-up and doing my hair. Ponytails became my friend. Eating healthy was traded in for a stop at the local fast food place in between jobs, internships and class. It is all very gross, I am aware.

In order to turn these things back into habits, I have made a list of all the things I want to do during the day that I had stopped doing previously. I am doing pretty well on most of those little habits I want to develop. I have put on make-up every day for two whole weeks…AND I have curled my hair every morning for almost a week. GO ME!

I’m eating healthier again and feeling better about myself because I don’t feel gross and disgusting all the time. I still have a long ways to go but I am learning to develop better, healthier habits. I mentioned before that I joined SparkPeople.com. Well, I also have been learning how to develop healthy hair and skin. I have started to treat my hair to decrease breakage and increase strength because of the heat that gets applied to it. I have also started to put lotion on every night before bed to make my skin healthier.

I also started on my list of 101 things in 1001 days. Well, I started on that list back in September when I started the other blog, but since it only had one post and I wanted to be able to manage them both under one account, I moved that one post to this new blog and updated my 101 things in 1001 days to reflect the things I had accomplished.

Back in October of 2010 I went through everything I owned, including the stuff in boxes in the attic and picked out the things I needed to keep and the things I could toss or sell. We had a garage sale for three weeks straight! I made almost $200! And I got ride of some of the clothes that are too big, or don’t fit me or I haven’t worn in years. This is good for me. I am kind of a clothes hog. Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money, so I never really had more clothes than I needed for one week. When I got to high school and my parents were making more money, I started to get more clothes. I had never really owned more than one pair of pants before, so I guess I just didn’t want to give them up. I find I still do that. Hold on to things until they wear out or someone forces me to throw them away because I am afraid I will go back to those days of only have five shirts and a pair of pants. This was my first step beyond breaking that habit. Once I FINALLY move, I will probably go through it all again.

In October I also visited New York City. I went there for a job interview, and I was only really there for an afternoon, but it was pretty damn awesome. When I walked out of Penn Station and stepped onto the streets of New York City it was like a dream come true. I was in awe of how tall everything was and for a minute I felt the weight of just how small I was in comparison to the world. Living in the midwest, you hear the stereotypes of rude people and overcrowdedness. In the six hours I spent there, none of that seemed true at all. The buildings were tall, yes, but everything seemed to fit there and there seemed to be so much space. Everyone was very nice. I had a nice conversation in Subway with two people I had never met about the homeless in the city. It was a fun experience and I can’t wait to go back and do all those touristy things people normally do their first time in NYC.

Earlier this week, I did something else pretty major. I payed off my last semester of school. It was a $2000 bill and only working part time it was hard to get the money together. I did though, and I paid them, in full. I was very proud of myself! Next stop, pay off my credit cards and then no more debt! (Other than my student loans that I will be paying off until I die).

I have done a few small things, like back up my music library and gave a copy to my mom (she has been begging me for YEARS), start a personal blog and subscribe to a Word of the Day Newsletter. Well, actually, I downloaded a Word of the Day Application on my iPhone, but whatever.

I have also started a few goals that haven’t been completed yet. I got a savings account back in December! Of course, it is much smaller now than it was a few months ago since I payed off my school. I have worn make-up every day for two weeks. Part of the reason I never wore make up before was I hated the way it felt on my skin. And it always looked flaky and gross, but Maybelline just came out with their Fit Me Foundations. Love, love, LOVE this make-up. Not only does it fit my skin tone (which is super hard to do because I am ridiculously pale) but it doesn’t feel heavy or flaky. The same week I got my awesome new make-up, I took a trip to my local health food store. I hate taking pills because when they hit my tongue I can taste the medicine and it makes me gag. So, I asked about alternatives at the health food store. We discussed liquid vitamins and capsule vitamins. I decided to try capsules first because liquid is so ridiculously expensive and poor me can’t really afford it right now, but so far they seem to be working okay. I still gag every once in awhile, but it isn’t on every single vitamin.

I have done some other things too that I am slowly completing. I bought re-usable bags to take the grocery store (I just have to remember them when I leave the house). I am paying my bills on time and not waiting until the last minute to send in the checks for credit card payments. I wrote out a morning routine (again, I just have to learn to stick to it!) and I made a list of TV shows I wanted to catch up on. Right now, I am watching Being Erica. It is a Canadian show they air on SoapNet. I saw the commercials all the time when I was catching up on The O.C. and I got curious. It is pretty cool. Other TV shows I am going to eventually catch up on are Supernatural, Dexter, Castle (I still haven’t seen the first few episodes of the first season), Bones, House, and The Tudors.

I am also working on the “Do an activity outside once a week for a month” goal. My parents have a garden in their back yard and they plant all kinds of fruits and vegetables, then can or freeze them to eat throughout the year. This year, I am helping and even growing a few things of my own! In the next week, I am also going to start my walking goals. A mile a day will keep the pounds away!

Where I Am Now

My life is in a place of in betweens. In July of 2010 I graduated with my Master’s Degree in Social Work. I was confronted with this vast future where I was no longer a student and had to be a grown up for the first time in my life. The end of one chapter of my life and the beginning of the next. I craved a change. I am 25 years old, not tied down and looking for a “grown up job” as my current boss jokingly refers to it. I figured now would be the best time in the world to do the one thing I have always wanted to do, move to the Northeast. So, I began looking for jobs online and applying. It is probably the scariest and most exciting thing I have ever done.

I am also trying to develop a healthier lifestyle. A little over three years ago I was told I am Borderline Insulin Resistant, which basically means I have an increased chance of developing diabetes when I am older. If you add on the fact that my grandmother is a full on diabetic, you can see how it might be cause for concern for me. I have been attempting to get my diet and exercise under control ever since. I have tried Atkins, Low Carb, and a Low Fat diet but with all of those I found myself failing more than I succeeded. Then I found SparkPeople. I have only been on it for a short while but I am learning how to build a healthy lifestyle, not just go on a diet. It gives me a place to track my nutrition, fitness and water consumption while helping me track my goals and provides support. I have also been able to turn other people onto the site!

I also want to change things about how I live my life. I want to be more open to relationships, be more spontaneous, and do many of the things I have always wanted to do. For a full list of these goals, go here.

So, that is where I am now. I hope whoever reads this enjoys the ride as much I hope I do.