Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Week One Update

Week One Update

Today I celebrate and embrace the loss of 8 pounds.



On my frame, with the amount of weight I have to lose (over 150 pounds), 8 pounds doesn’t seem like a lot and you can’t see it when you look at me. But that’s ok, because this weight loss journey is about me and my body. Do you know what kind of impact just 8 pounds can have? For every pound over weight we are, that’s 4 pounds of pressure on our joints. I just eliminated 32 added pounds of pressure on my joints! That’s fabulous!

I also made progress on my goals. Progress is part of what fuels our passion to keep going. When I can look back and see how far I’ve gone, that’s what’s going to help me get through those tough times when I feel like nothing is happening and I’ll NEVER meet my goal weight.

So how did I kick those pounds to the curb? I joined a challenge group hosted by my awesome BeachBody coach. It started last Monday and every day I earn points by being accountable and supporting the other people in the group. The group doesn’t teach extreme weight loss or how to starve myself to get fast results that will come back later (and bring friends). No the group teaches me small healthy daily habits to work on and supports me through the fitness program that meets me at my level and provides a little challenge.

What are those small changes? Things like drinking my water each day. Checking in for my daily work out, even on rest days (and actually taking my rest days). They help me in making healthier food choices and getting in my recommended amount of protein and vegetables. When I have a rough day, that group has my back. They’re the ones reminding me that I can do this and that it takes one small step at a time. They lift and encourage me and when I need to, they give me that quick kick in the rear to get moving.

Challenge groups have done wonders for my personal life as well. I started posting ‘sweaty mug photos’ that’s the selfie you take after you’ve worked out when your hair is a mess and there’s sweat dripping down your face, you’re breathing hard and your face is red. Who celebrates photos like that?!? My awesome group of fellow challengers do! We all take those photos. There’s no priming or adding make up or trying to look “sexy”. This is the real thing. I swear it’s almost more of a “who can look worse after working out” competition and its awesome! No one judges me for how I look. They congratulate me for looking happy or exhausted or like a royal mess. They congratulate me for taking another step along my journey to a healthier, happier me. How amazing is that!?! Talk about a confidence booster. I even find myself feeling more confident about taking and posting photos of myself. Something I’ve never been able to do. I look in the mirror now and find good things to say instead of degrading self-talk.




I still have a long way to go. With my weight loss and my health. I struggle with getting the right portion sizes and eating enough of the right things. I struggle with emotional eating and binge eating. I struggle with getting that daily exercise in and feeling like I matter. But every day I get one step closer to being able to do the things I dream of. And this January Challenge group is really helping me take the steps I need.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Childhood Dreams Defined My Future

When we’re young we have big dreams. We have plans and goals and sometimes we make decisions that affect our lives years later based on those dreams of youth. At one point I wanted to be like Janet Jackson.






 She was the only strong, beautiful, and talented African American woman I really looked up to (let’s face it Whoopi Goldberg was awesome but she wasn’t a role model for girls in middle school). I stayed up late one night, way past the time my mother had told me to go to bed, so that I could watch Janet Jackson on tour. It was glorious. I found her captivating. She was beautiful, she could dance, and she could sing, all things I dreamed of being able to do. During one of the interviews they asked her about how she stayed so fit and she talked about how she did 75 sit-ups every single day. Every day! No matter what happened, or where she was, she carved out time in her super busy schedule to do 75 sit-ups. So, in true pre-teen mental fashion, I decided I wanted to be awesome like her and the way to get there was through sit-ups. I knew I had a ways to go when it came to fitness, so instead of 75 sit-ups a day, I would do 100. For years I kept up that habit. I wasn’t always consistent with a daily practice but I was pretty consistent in doing 100 sit-ups multiple times per week. I even developed some abs. I didn’t have Janet’s rocking ab definition but I did have 2 ab muscles that were clearly defined, nestled right under my breasts. Years later, when I lost the habit and started gaining weight, I still had definition of those two muscles. I don’t have them anymore. I lost sight of my goals for a while and gained a bunch of weight, seriously, it took tons of weight gain before those muscles disappeared. But something I find even more interesting is how that one choice has affected so much of my life. I’m 32 and even now when I’m needing to burn some energy or craving a nice work out, my first thoughts are still “Oooooo sit-ups! Must do sit-ups…” 
Which has all lead me to my current passion for health, nutrition, and fitness. However, that's a topic for another day. I think I'll go do some sit-ups now...

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Lessons from Freya

The first time I saw her she was walking away from me. Head hung low to the ground while she emitted a low keening sound that occasionally crescendoed into an outright high pitched howl before dropping back down. She had tiny feet at the end of her abnormally long black legs. Her long lean body was marred by the slightly protruding belly that made her look pregnant. Her blocky head appeared too big for her body and her floppy ears hung listlessly along the sides of her face. She was so ugly she was adorable and her history and refusal to desire anything from humankind made her an instant sell to me. I had to have this awkward man hating puppy.
            At 3 months old she had already acquired a lifetime of experiences. Having been abandoned in the woods near Hoonah Alaska at only 6 weeks old, she had had to fight for her continued existence while watching the eventual deaths of 4 of her siblings. April in Southeast Alaska isn’t always kind in its weather. While we get the typical April showers, we’ve also been known to frequently get snow and ice as winter tries to hold onto it grip upon the land. With temperatures ranging from 26 degrees Fahrenheit to 36 degrees, it continues to amaze me that any of these defenseless puppies managed to survive, let alone two of them.
Black Labrador Retrievers are known for their high spirits, athletic ability, fierce loyalty, and high intelligence. All traits that were needed when they were originally breed to be companionable duck hunting dogs. I learned quickly that, despite the boasting from the owner of her mother, my dog was NOT a Black Lab. My first indication of this was the small white patches on the backs of two of her feet and hidden on the center of her chest. According to the American Kennel Club, Labrador Retrievers come in three solid colors with no markings. This, and her strong independent streak, confirmed the rumor that her father had been a husky.
I gave her the name Freya. Freya is the name of a Norse Goddess, patron Goddess of women. She is known for her beauty, her outgoing friendly nature, and in some legends her fierce support of fighting women. It seemed rather appropriate that my Freya was none of those things but chose to respond to this one, of the thousands, of names I tried out on her. My Freya was awkward, strongly independent, and wanted nothing to do with human companionship.
Despite Freya’s determination to be self-reliant, she immediately glommed onto my 9 year old husky Dytie. Much to Dytie’s despair, she could not shake the small furry beast that would follow her and lick her relentlessly. Dogs are curious creatures. I’ve always heard that one of the great things about them is their almost endless capacity for forgiveness and love. It was only with her reaction to Dytie, and my mom’s 8 year old 130 pound Black Lab Malamute mix Monty, that I began to see that Freya’s tough exterior was masking a quiet inner strength and secret desire to be loved.
            Frequent trips to the trails of Juneau revealed another side of Freya. The second she would see the towering Evergreen trees her head would droop and her tail would be tucked so far under her legs as to give the first impression that she was actually a ‘he’. Then she would start to shake, and if she wasn’t in the close companionship for Dytie or Monty, the low keening sound would begin again as she started to panic from the memories of those three horrible weeks of her puppyhood. I never knew dogs could experience something as complex as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). But she managed to exhibit clear signs of it. These signs were also present at home.
            A common way to house train a puppy is through the use of a kennel. A kennel is a plastic crate with air holes and a metal grate that latches. The perfect sized kennel is one in which the dog has plenty of room move around comfortably, has space between where they lay in it and their food and water dishes, and when they sit in it their heads down touch the top. To train them you start by taking them out and having some kind of verbal command such as “do your business” or “go potty” as you walk them in a designated bathroom area. If they do their thing, then they get some free time before they’re returned to their kennel. This turns the kennel into a safe place they can always go and helps establish that the kennel is like the rest of the house and messes should not be made in them. Over time their free time outside of the kennel and the designated bathroom area gets extended until they’re consistently making messes outside and the kennel becomes just an extra hidey hole for them. The use of a kennel also gives us humans an added bonus of a safe place for the dog to go when we have to leave the house so they can’t destroy things. This concept did not work well for Freya. From her first moments in the kennel she discovered that she was alone in a potentially dark place. This brought on more screaming and I do mean screaming. She managed to emit a high pitched kind of yell that sounded like someone was torturing a baby. The sound was such that you could hear it outside and 3 houses away and would go on for hours or as long as you left her in the kennel. However, if you left her outside of her kennel she would quickly discover something the needed to be eaten.
Freya’s idea of food included things like rocks, towels, socks, shoes, chairs, and her dog bowl. Yes, the bowl itself was a representation of food and therefore needed to be eaten. I believe this view of food steamed from that same traumatic puppyhood experience. As a 6 week old puppy she would have just started eating puppy food and being weaned off her mother’s milk. Ideally a puppy should be weaned at 8 weeks old or older. Historically speaking, this is when they have developed puppy teeth that are tough enough to make an impact on the skin, meat, and bones of the wild animals they would have been being taught how to eat by their pack. Having had no such training from her wild brethren, Freya and her litter would have had to try and figure out what food is for themselves. As anyone who has been around young animals or young children know, what constitutes as food is a supremely broad term to them. Anything that can be put in their mouths for possible consumption, will be.
            Training was another painfully sad experience in the first year and a half of Freya’s life. Normally having an older dog around helps immensely in the training procedures. The younger dog will watch the older dog go through commands and get treats and pick up on what they need to do to get treats as well. Once again Freya exhibited her complete desire to go against the norms of doggy society by not learning from her elders. She would watch as commands were given to other dogs and they were treated but when it was her turn she would stare blankly and do nothing. My thought was that you could clearly see that the hamster in her head was not running on his wheel like he should have been. I once told a dog trainer and behaviorist about this and was told how wrong I was. That all dogs, especialy Black Labs, had an inherent intelligence and I just didn’t know how to train dogs despite the classes and training I had done and the years of working with different dogs. Once she met Freya and spent a very frustrated hour trying to teach her, she dubbed Freya the ‘simple dog’ and never spoke of it again. I now know that the behaviorist was correct in that we just hadn’t found a way to communicate with Freya yet. This lack of learning was, once again, one of Freya’s external ways of dealing with a deep rooted fear of dealing with humans and the betrayal that could stem from such interactions.
            My first indication that Freya was starting to warm up to me was demonstrated in her new found love for eating my clothing. Only my clothing and she was very specific on which parts of clothing were eatable to her. The crotch of pants and undies, the cups of bras, the back of the knees of pants and the elbows of my shirts, jackets, and sweatshirts. Also the left shoe, only the left shoe, not the right one, and preferably the ankle of the left shoe. The left ankle is where I’ve had extensive surgery due to my own reckless youth and my need to refuse to conform to the norms of society that lead me to constantly injure myself from doing things such as jumping off the roof of second story buildings and down stairway shafts.
            Over the last few years Freya has slowly learned to love and find excitement in the natural world around her. It started with something simple. Freya watched as the pounding rain that poured off the corner of our roof would strike the ground and bounce back up. I watched as she decided the flying droplets were attacking her and so tried to bite them before they could bite her. This was her first decision to explore the natural world around her that I observed. It didn’t take long before she was running through the rain and trying to catch the water drops on her long drooping tongue. Her feet splashing through the puddles and turning the grassy yard into muddy dibbits. Not long after that short terrifying walks through parks turned into long hikes through the temperate rainforest surrounding Juneau as she learned that she could crunch through fallen leaves, chase after the chittering squirrels, and still have a safe place to come home to in the end.
            Her vomit inducing fear of car rides become exciting outings in which her head could hang out of the car window and her nose could quiver as she took in the intoxicating smells of damp dirt, sweet leaked coolant, and the icy wind that blew off the Mendenhall Glacier that would freeze the nose hairs, if she had had any.
            Freya grew into a beautiful dog. Her tiny feet grew out, her distended belly shrank as the parasites that infested it were destroyed. Her body caught up with her long legs and turned her into a sleek lanky dog with the softest fur the color of midnight. So dark she disappears when the lights are turned off and is known to frequently scare the daylights out of people by popping up in random places, unheard and unseen until the last moment. Freya discovered the joy of having a soft place to land and a nice dark kennel to hide in when she needed to feel safe.

            I’ve learned a lot from Freya. Though the world can be a scary place, we should take the time to find things of beauty and inspiration in them. Like the smell of  wood fire on the breeze and the sound of fall leaves crackling under out feet. We need to find joy in the small things that help us move forward from fear and into forgiveness. Freya has shown that through love we can overcome the memories that haunt us. Freya has now become my Fearless Freya as she boldly encounters new experiences with confidence and curiosity and takes delight in the knowledge that she will always have a safe place to come home to and a family that loves her.  Freya has also taught me something profoundly impactful upon my own life: I am Freya.



Saturday, August 22, 2015

The Shakeology Difference

I have always struggled with energy issues. And as some of you know a year and some months ago I started on a Thyroid support pill that has greatly increased my energy levels and focus. But despite that change there are still days when its a huge struggle to get through the day and get anything done. I frequently have days were all I want to do is sleep or I don't feel like I have the energy to do anything. I live off of XS Energy Drinks, Vitamins, and Supplements. When I get excited about something and show energy and compassion, I spend 2-3 days recovering from an hour or two of showing the person I really am.

For the past week I have't experience this problem, except for yesterday. Yesterday I could barely get through the day. I had cleaning and cooking to do and my mom was coming over for a girl's night. I spent most of the day fighting the impulse to go back to sleep and to cancel on her. She was only here for a couple hours and we kept it really low key. But despite that I crashed the second she left and slept for 12 hours not-so-straight. Not so straight because I have a 14 year old dog who needs to be let out for frequent bathroom breaks and I'm a light sleeper so I wake up at every noise. The wind has been strong and beautiful today so its been knocking over things all over the neighborhood and waking me up constantly, amongst other things.

This morning at the ripe time of 11am I finally dragged myself out of bed and struggled through taking my thyroid pill and letting the dogs out. Then I sat in a fuzzy existence for an hour before I ate. Having no energy to do much I grabbed a scoop of strawberry Shakeology, added a banana, some ice cubes, a couple shakes of cinnamon, and some vanilla almond milk to my little single cup Ninja blender and buzzed up breakfast before hobbling back to a darkened corner of the livingroom to bask in my fuzzy existence.



15 minutes later. Can I shout that to you? Imagine me shouting that to you "15 MINUETS LATER!" I am snapping pictures, working on my goals for the next week. Playing with my dogs, watching TV, posting on Facebook, bouncing off the walls and waiting oh so not patiently for when my stomach calms down so I could do my PiYo workout for the day. I felt awesome, powerful, strong, POSITIVE. Life is amazing, I'm amazing, I love life, I love me, I love my dogs, I love my friends, I love those awesome people who introduced me to Team BeachBody recently... That was and still is my frame of mind. I was dancing around the house to the bellydancing music in my head and sipping on my smoothie. Bah bah bah bum bum bumpy bum dah dah dah is it too early for the neighbors to pull out my drum and shake the world? Ooops I just shook part of my smoothie onto the wall. And with that I had a light bulb moment.

Have you ever had one of those? A light bulb moment. Those times when our subconscious finally gets our conscious minds to hear what its been trying to tell us. A sudden realization that changes your world. For a week now I've been drinking Shakeology daily. Once a day I mix a smoothie with it in it. Usually in the morning. Then I'm busy busy busy all day long. I do one or two workouts, I think of amazing things to do. I sleep well at night and wake up inspired with an idea for another book. I've had so many ideas for different books this week I'm having trouble keeping them straight. I feel happy, positive, ready to take on the world. I feel...I feel like I could be a super hero. That is the power of Shakeology, Thats the difference its made in my life in just one week. Concentrated nutrition that tastes amazingly great. If this is how I feel after just one week, I'm excited to see how I feel at the end of this 30 day challenge I'm doing!





Wednesday, November 5, 2014

November!!!

It's that time again! OMG it's November. Do you know what that means? That means 30 days and nights of crazy novel writing. For those of you not in the know, November is National Novel Writing Month. Where you attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in just 30 days! It's absolute total awesomeness. I am once again participating. Yay!


If you choose to join me you should add me on the website. kdreamer. I hope to see you there!

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Sleep deprived, No More!

I've had sleeping issues for years. Insomnia, waking up a million times a night. OK, not a million but waking up constantly like every hour or half hour. I had gotten used to it. It was just a normal part of the night not to sleep well, to have night mares. I started thinking a good night's sleep was when I didn't have night mares and I only woke up once every hour. Awesome right? Hah! Some of you can relate. Not getting enough sleep sucks. But when you've been living like that for years, it just becomes a normal part of life. Which is totally lame.

I've tried all sorts of things. Like teas, essential oils, sleep routines, no electronics for an hour before bed, etc. Sometimes I felt down right desperate. Desperate for a decent night's sleep. Especially when its been days of insomnia and when I did sleep it would only be for an hour or two and I would wake up a tons of times during that short period. I talked to my doctar about it and she prescribed me a sleep aide. Luminesta. Have you looked at the possible side effects of that stuff? Holy crap is that scary. But I was desperate, however, I never got to try it. My insurance company, TRICARE, said we needed to try other things first or I would have to pay 100% out of pocket. Yikes! Those pills are freaking expensive. So I said forget it and and suffered on in silence.

Now I've always been a light sleeper. Those of you who have known me before the past 5/6 years are probably thinking. So you're waking up because of noises outside or inside or from the people in one of the adjourning apartments or or or. Yes, since I lost Zeus and some other stuff in my life went to hell. I have been even more of a light sleeper, waking up at every little noise since I don't completely feel safe. But that is a different kind of reason to wake up and my constantly waking up all night long wasn't just because of "things that go bump in the night" and my trust issues.

This was life and it wasn't getting better. I missed the nights of wonderful dreams of fighting bad guys and saving the world. Where when I woke up in the morning I would have to fight to get up, not because I didn't want to face the day but because I wanted to finish the story in my dream. I had places to be and people to save and, heck, when I'm awake my totally awesome super powers no longer exist.

And then, something changed...Two months ago I was scanning through the numerous daily facebook messages for my graduating class at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and I stumbled across a post. One of my classmates had a client who had been struggling with sleep. After talking to the client about all sorts of things relating to sleep he/she found out that the client uses her cell phone for an alarm clock. He/she explained the client about the signals that our cell phones are constantly giving off and how it can affect us. He/She explained all sorts of stuff about why and how but I was no longer paying attention (bad me) I got stuck on the cell phones for an alarm clock thing. Then there was the client testimonial. The client had decided to give it a go. Putting the cell phone on airplane mode at night so she could still use it for an alarm clock. At night, she and her husband would either move anything with a wifi signal out of the bedroom or they would put it on airplane mode for the night. Voila! At the two week check in with my classmate, she told him/her (I don't remember which) about how she and her husband had been sleeping soundly every night and no longer had sleep issues.

Well, what the heck! It was worth a try right? So that night I told my husband about it and explained that I wanted to give it a try. We both use our cell phones for alarm clocks. So before bed we set our alarms and put our phones on airplane mode. OH MY GOD!!! I had the best sleep of my life. The best sleep I've had in years! YEARS!!! It's been two months. I've slept through every night, only waking up occasionally to investigate weird noises (or when Dytie was having stomach issues and was throwing up throughout the night). I've had one night of insomnia ONE! I used Lavender Essential oil on my feet and spent a few minutes meditating and then was able to go to sleep. I've had a couple nights of issues waking up constantly. Both times we figured out that my husband had forgotten to put his phone on airplane mode. I started thinking about things and reading back through my journal and dream journals and was able to pinpoint when my sleep went to hell.  That's right, you guessed it. Everything goes back to when we started sleeping with our cell phones next to the bed at night. It was before we ditched the alarm clock. Hmm...

So you might think this sounds a little hokey. But if you've been having sleep issues I say why not give it a try. I don't have all the facts but you can look up all the reasons why having your cell phone next to the bed at night is bad. You can spend lots of time researching it yourself. Or you could give it a try and see what happens. If you don't want to put your cell phone on airplane mode, or you need to have it on at night for some reason. Move it out of the room. Get an alarm clock. Put your cell phone in the living room (or some other room then the bedroom) and just turn up the volume so you can hear if it goes off at night. There are a million reasons why having a good nights sleep is so important. Heck, there are probably billions of reasons. Your health, your sleep, your life is totally worth giving it a try.

Monday, May 5, 2014

It's May!

It's May. As in the fifth month of the year. Oh my God where did the time go? As with the beginning of each month, I sat down to put together my goals for the month. But this time I started getting depressed. It's the 5th month of the year and I haven't accomplished what I wanted to by now. I started looking at all my monthly and weekly and quarterly goals. Yes, I like lists, and goals and I love the sense of accomplishment from achieving those goals. Of working each day towards a better tomorrow and an awesome future. But as I sat there and saw all the lack of check marks next to my many goals, I started to bum hard. But then, something hit me. Yeah, so I haven't checked off many goals this year, but why not look at all the positive things I have done so far this year. If you look at my yearly goal list, there are some things already checked off. But I've done more then just those things.

As I teach my clients, so I started to do. I started looking at all the positive things I have been doing. All the good. And I started to feel better. So what if I haven't accomplished the big things. I have gotten closer to all of them. I have made a bunch of positive changes one step at a time. Changes I haven't been thinking about because they've become habits. Like eating healthy breakfasts. 5 out of 7 days a week I manage to eat a healthy breakfast. This is a HUGE accomplishment for me. Since in the past I couldn't even say 5 days out of the month I ate any breakfast, let alone a healthy one. But this isn't something I think of much now. It's just something I do. I wake up, take the totally awesome thyroid pill, put together my breakfast smoothie to blend and drink in a few hours and move on with my day. And I change things about my smoothie depending on how I'm feeling that day. Or I even change what I eat. I no longer eat instant oatmeal as the only breakfast I remember to eat later. Why? Because I actually paid attention to my body and realized that every time I eat that stuff it totally drains me. Slows me down, gives me brain fog, takes away all my energy and ability to focus on ANYTHING. I'm more aware of what I eat and when I eat it. I'm making much better choices with my food. I eat better things and I eat in better portion sizes. Eating better makes me feel better. And my life is ruled by feelings. So eating better = feel better = better day = better life.

But the good choices are going beyond just food. I'm spending more time outdoors. Even when the weather isn't awesome (which it totally has been lately) I notice the desire to walk my dogs and spend the evening outside, so I do it.  I'm happier, healthier and I've found the inner peace that I've been searching for. I'm not saying the peace is always there or that its always easy to find, cause there are times when I'm taking deep breaths and counting. Telling myself not to strangle someone who is being astronomically stupid.

I've reached out of my comfort zone and embraced some of the things I used to do years ago. Things I stopped doing as my self confidence dropped. Like talking to people in the grocery line and well, anywhere I happen to be at. I'm not an extroverted person. I like small intimate gatherings and I like spending a lot of time by myself or with my dogs in the middle of no where. But ask any of my friends and you'll find that most of them were people I felt a need to randomly strike up a conversation with. This is something that has happened very few times in the last 5 years. But over the last few months its happening more and more. And when I run into someone and start talking about things, I don't feel the urge to run away as soon as I can get the conversation stopped. I take the time to talk to them, to learn about them, to connect to people. Over the last few months I have met some amazing people and made great connections that will help me, my family, my friends, and my business in the future. I've also embraced that some times it really is not what you know but WHO you know. And I'm getting to know people. Stopping for a smile and a short chat. Brightening their day and in turn they are brightening mine. I'm once again learning to trust my intuition, my inner voice.

I challenge you to take a few minutes, just 10 or 15, and think about the positive things and changes that you've made in your life. Nothing is to small. It's so easy for us to focus on the bad but it takes effort to focus on the good. So put a little effort into thinking about the good things in life. You'll appreciate it in the short and long run.