Journaling

A few weeks ago a friend of mine at work gave me some books that related to creative writing and journaling.....I didn't know what a wonderful suprise awaited me when I got home.  As I began to pull the books out from the bags I felt like a kid in a candy store. Books that gave prompts, books about different styles, books about truely artful journaling...Oh my....

 There were so many books and journals that were so much of an interest to me...it was wonderful.  That night I stayed up very late, exploring all the amazing books that lay before me.  There was not enough time to look at them all but it was all I wanted to do.







Ultimately this is what I ended up with....a bed full of books....and a night full of pure bliss!

I hope my friend knows just how much all this means to me and how privilaged I feel to have such wonderful books now in my home.  How greatful I am that he wanted to share these with me.  It touched my heart in a way that often life is without.  I will treasure each one of them.  I look forward to exploring each of them for inspiration and ideas.  They have made a permiment home with me.

Thank you

Lydia

The Confusion of it All

So I have embarked upon the eating healthier and man alive is this stuff confusing.  Don't eat this, eat that, no wait don't eat that, eat this.  I'm slowly learning that it comes down to fruit (though not too much because of the sugar) and veggies and meat.  Wow...that's a lot of choices.  I know this is not really true, there are more options and I have to take the time to find them, but at this very moment it sure is what it feels like.

A while back I found this really great website about this girl who lost a lot of weight eating healthier.  http://undressedskeleton.tumblr.com/.  She has some really great ideas and she is very inspiring.  The only thing she does that I don't like is she uses jello powder as a sugar replacement.  I'm not a fan of jello because of what it contains.  "Jello has gelatin which is a protein in the animal connective tissues. The gelatin, itself, comes from a non-kosher source such as the pig."  (http://top-10-list.org/2011/10/23/top-10-non-kosher-food/.)  Instead I think a better alternative is Truvia which is a sugar replacement that is made from stevia, which comes from a leaf.  The nice thing about Truvia is that it is not overly sweet like sugar replacements can be.

I've been trying many new things.  Some work out.  Some don't.  The other night I made egg muffins which had egg whites, turkey bacon, green pepper, mushroom, and fat free cheese.  They came out really yummy.  Today for lunch I took a red pepper, spread fat free cream cheese on it and topped it with ham.  This did not taste yummy.

It's been a learning process and I have a long way to go but with each success I feel more sure that I can tackle this eating healthy business some day down the road.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Thanks for reading.

Lydia

Time for Change

On Wednesday March 7th, we had a health screening at work.  I was very excited and only a little nervous about what my "numbers" would be.  I mean I knew that my BMI and body fat were not going to be pretty.  I mean hello I'm not THAT blind.  So the morning came, we all did the screening, I went to have my coaching session after my results came back and I almost had a heart attack....well more like apparently I WAS a walking heart attack.  Bad, really, really bad.  I'm going to be 100% honest here for the integrity of....well being honest.  At 36, I have a cholesterol of 268, a BMI of 28 and body fat of 33.9%.  How stellar are those numbers!?  Yeah so talk about a wake up call.  I realized in an instant that all the things I had "talked about" doing need to actually really happen.  I immediately changed my diet and began working out a minimum of 4 days a week.  I needed to lose some serious weight....like 40 pounds of it.  And I didn't want to find it again. 

  
In an effort to keep my overly large bum in check and on track, I'm going to tell you where I am, how I'm doing and all the ins and outs between.  I'm going to talk about recipes I make, workouts I do.
My hope is that by sharing the sometimes not so pretty details, that I will be forced to be honest with myself and work hard.

Thank for reading.

Lydia

A song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5uiFQKqTA

This song right now imbues all I feel