Better Living Starting Now

I’m not sure if this post belongs here or on my main blog. That’s but one of the many problems with trying to maintain multiple blogs! The biggest issue, of course, is finding time to update them. A few years ago blogging was, very truly, my life. The times I was away from my computer I was either mentally composing posts or stewing about reactions to previous posts. I thought about Tumblr constantly, and almost everything I experienced was considered fodder for my blog. Now, I find I have to really push myself to post each day.

The blog in particular has become tricky to keep current, because I simply don’t have constant updates to share. I go to the Farmer’s Market every Saturday and pick up, with a few variations, the same things each time. I wash my face with honey now. It works amazingly. I take hot yoga classes twice a week. I feel great. How often can I possibly update the status of these things?!

More than that, though, I find myself (oh man please forgive me I do know how this will sound) wanting to just live in the moment. I want to experience my world, my life and just…leave it there. I don’t want to record every minute detail of my existence. Why should I? Isn’t it enough to make a beautiful loaf of bread and then quietly savour the fruits of my labour? Must I then blog about it? I don’t really want to anymore.

I like the idea of sharing my experiences, in the interest of giving other likeminded individuals tips on achieving our goals for living differently. And certainly, as I have new things to share, I will. But barring that, you can expect this blog to be fairly quiet.

In terms of updates….

For now, my weight loss goals are totally on track. I broke 140 last week, weighing in at 139 for the first time in eons. I’m still trying to get to about 130 in the next 4-6 weeks, and then (I hope) I can just relax and try to maintain that weight and gain strength. Outside of one shampoo and condition at the spa for Mother’s Day, my hair hasn’t been touched by nasty chemical laden products since March 1. It looks and feels amazing. Using honey on my face has not just cleared my skin, but actually given me that smooth, soft, glow that drugstore products promise. That means I can wear less make-up, which may be the closest I get to giving it up. I still haven’t found a great bread recipe, but I won’t give up until I do. I have, however, started milling my own flour.

And that’s that. Still living better, still loving it – just not needing to blog about it ad infinitum. Okay? Okay! And that’s that.

I made the most delicious lentil soup (will post the recipe and pictures tomorrow when I have a moment!) and then some muffins to go with and then some yogurt. Eesh! Gotta remember to keep things DOABLE and not throw everything into one night.

Even though the muffins were from a mix (hold on now, an organic mix from the farmer’s market, using freshly ground ancient grains!) I’m still totally exhausted now. And the original plan was to try and fit in another hot yoga class at 8:30!

That’ll have to wait until tomorrow night. This girl needs to rest!

I’m really, really hoping that at some point soon I can go make-up free. Okay, well, foundation free at any rate…I’m always going to need eye make-up!

The biggest thing keeping me from this goal, outside of just being used to wearing make-up, is difficult skin. When I have blemishes and uneven skin I rely on foundation to make everything look a little better. So far, I haven’t found a facial cleanser that does what I need it to. That is, keep my skin consistently clear.

I loved the feel of the olive oil/castor oi/tea tree essential oil cleanser, but after a month of use I realized it was definitely the cause of my breakouts. So now I’m trying…honey! Just honey. From what I’ve read, it works for a lot of people and because of its natural anti-bacterial qualities and mild skin bleaching effects, it keeps your skin clear and glowing.

Admittedly, it seems strange. When my sister told me about it I was pretty skeptical. But I tried it last night and I really liked it! And I’m cautiously optimistic…because already, my skin looks better this morning than it did yesterday. I’ll keep you all posted!

I love our new Wii Fit a little too much. I want to use it obsess about using it for at least an hour every day. Except! I already work out every morning. Plus hot yoga once a week. Plus spinning once a week. JL, JL. Addiction is never okay…even if it’s an addiction to a good thing. Le sigh. In positive news, I’m down six pounds!

If I’m going to make bread every week (and I want to!) I am going to need a good bread recipe. I’ve never found one. I want a recipe for whole wheat bread that ideally has some grains and seeds for texture, but could be used for sandwiches. (A lot of the breads I’ve made crumble easily or are just too dense for a sandwich bread.) Also, one without sugar. Is that so much to ask?!?

Credit where it’s due – I got these tips here. They absolutely, totally, definitely work. I work out every single morning, and every day it’s the same story. Once I’m done the workout I feel amazing – there’s nothing quite like knowing you’ve already accomplished something by 7am. But despite setting the alarm for 6:00 am, my fiancée and I inevitably press the snooze button three or four times and end up dragging ourselves out of bed at best twenty minutes late, resulting in a rushed, miserable morning. I decided this week there’d be no more of that, so I googled some tips for waking up early and decided to try them out. As of today I’m three for three on getting up right at six – and already I’m finding that I’m less reliant on the alarm clock. How’s that for results?!

1. First things first, if you want to get up early you really do need a reason. For me, it’s my workout. I hate feeling rushed and I hate running out of time. I want to be able to do a quick Wii Fit body test and then get right into my workout. In Body for Life, Bill Phillips really pushes the morning workout on an empty stomach. My type A personality needs to do everything by the book…so waking up and working out immediately is, to me, necessary. If you have a reason to get out of bed you’ll have the incentive to obey the rest of the tips.

2. Trying to wake up early is pointless if you haven’t had enough sleep to begin with. Your body needs sleep to function well. Your brain needs sleep to function well. You definitely don’t need to stay up watching The Colbert Report to function well. Besides, all of the good bits will find their way to Tumblr the next day anyway. Not everybody needs the standard eight hours of sleep to feel rested – but that’s something you need to sort out for yourself. For me, eight hours is too much. Six to seven hours is my sweet spot. Any more or any less makes me feel significantly more tired throughout the day. I try to be in bed by eleven and asleep by eleven thirty. That means not going out on the weekdays and not staying up watching television…even for the super late Canucks playoff games. A small price to pay for feeling rested in the morning!

3. Perhaps the most important tip is to stop – STOP – using the snooze button altogether. Does anybody ever press it once and then get up? Does anybody ever feel more rested after they’ve pressed snooze once, twice, or even five times? I certainly don’t. The last three days I have chosen to stop entertaining the snooze discussion in my head. This takes a bit of self control, but if I can do it I genuinely believe anybody can. I’ve simply taken the snooze option off the table. I will not press it once, I will not press it ten times. When I hear the alarm clock the first time, I get up.

4. No really, when I hear the alarm clock the first time I get up. Up! Out of bed! No quick cuddles. No grabbing my iPhone to check my e-mail. The alarm goes, I stretch my body and I pop out of bed. Because our alarm clock is across the room we already have to get up to turn it off. The trick is to stay up once you get up!

5. How do you fight the urge to get back into bed once you’re up? First, I remind myself that I’ve done the hard part…I’m out of bed. But I also have to get myself out of the bedroom. The further I am from my bed, the less it seems like an option to get back into it. Because I usually have to pee in the morning, I head straight to the bathroom. By the time I’ve washed my hands I feel awake, and going back to bed is just out of the question.

That’s it! That’s all! Seems like nothing, right? But it works. I’d love to be able to wake up without the alarm altogether, because I feel it is just begging for bad energy for the first thing you hear in the morning to be an awful, obnoxious beeping noise. Already I can see the results of training my body for just these three days, and this morning I woke up before the alarm went off! We’ve also hooked up a timer to a small light in our room, because we live in a basement apartment and without any light coming in it can be SO difficult to get out of sleep mode. It cost a couple dollars at the dollar store, and I find it really helps. The light isn’t bright enough to be jarring when it turns on, but rather your body gradually seems to sense that the light is on and it is time to awaken.

If you work 9-5 out of the house, you know that your day doesn’t belong to you. The moment you arrive at work you belong to the man. So don’t you think you owe it to yourself to have a peaceful, calm, rush free morning? Getting up right at six means I never have to sacrifice my workout, my shower, my coffee or my sit-down breakfast time with my fiancée and my daughter. It gives me two full hours to psych myself up for the day. And that, friends, is invaluable. Try it for yourself! You won’t believe how easy it really is.

I bought my Diva Cup about two months ago, shortly after beginning my better living challenge. Several years ago I tried a similar product, called Instead, I think – but I didn’t really find it easy to use, and I eventually went back to tampons. The Diva cup is a tad on the expensive side, retailing for about forty dollars. Of course, that one time cost is negligible when you consider the monthly expense of tampons or pads.

The first day that I used it I was totally confused by the directions, and while I did manage to get it inserted, I had it too far up and it actually hurt a little when I was sitting. Worse, though, it seemed to be causing me serious dizziness. When I stood up from my desk and almost fainted, I took it out and decided to try again the next day. On the second try everything was fine, and I haven’t had any issues since then. Yay! Now I’m totally converted.

The Diva Cup is basically a small, plastic cup that you insert into your vagina. It suctions onto your cervix to provide a seal and collects your menstrual blood. Insertion is admittedly a little tricky at first – you have to fold it up, push it in and then rotate it to make the cup unfold and secure the seal. That’s the difficult part – knowing how far up to push it and then trying to rotate it once it’s in. After a couple tries, though, I totally mastered the maneuver. Once it’s in place you’re good to go. No leaks, no discomfort. And you only have to change it twice a day.

I suppose if you’re skeeved out about menstrual blood or touching your vagina it isn’t going to be very desirable to use? Like, to change it you have to reach in, squeeze the base of the cup (very important step! If you don’t squeeze it the seal doesn’t break and you will actually feel like your cervix is being pulled out of your body!) and pull it out…then dump it out. For me, though, it’s actually really cool to get a more accurate sense of my period’s life cycle.

Anyway, I totally recommend the Diva Cup. Go get one today!

But suffice it to say - I heart my diva cup.

After week one of Body for Life…I gained two pounds. Blah! Discouraging.

Last Sunday at the grocery store I gave in to the lure of cheap, non-organic food and I bought two containers of strawberries for five dollars rather than paying five dollars each for the organic strawberries. When I bit into one, it tasted as though it had been marinated in nail polish remover. Ugh! I don’t even know what would have caused that, but it was awful. Next time I won’t be so cheap!

food that you cook/boil/microwave in the bag. Like, oh god. I won’t even store leftovers in plastic containers. But cooking your food in them? Insane.

Day two of Body for Life and already I feel SO MUCH BETTER about pretty much everything. I slept beautifully last night! The jog hurt this morning, but in that awesome you’re doing the right thing way. I’m back to viewing the food I take in as fuel instead of a guilt inducer. (Yes, my emotional relationship with food is problematic at best. Working on it!)

Here’s a rundown of the Body for Life program:

On the exercise side, it’s all about HIIT (high intensity interval training). We have six workouts a week, alternating strength training and cardio. Day one is upper body weights (chest, shoulders, back, triceps, biceps), day two is a 20 minute jog, day three is lower body weights (quads, hamstrings, calves and abs), day four is a 20 minute jog and on and on and on, for twelve weeks. The strength training workouts can run a bit long – from forty minutes to a little over an hour – but they are still doable. And the breaks between upper and lower body workouts really give your muscles a chance to recover.

In terms of food, the rules are pretty simple: six small meals a day (I usually only eat five though) with one carb serving, one protein serving and vegetables at least twice a day. And of course, one day a week you get a free day, with no exercise and permission to eat whatever you want. I’m not being as strict on the diet front this time as I was last year when we did the challenge. Basically, I’m working more on portion control than anything. And I’m not going to obsess over each glass of milk or, say, avoiding dark meat from the chicken. I do really want to reduce my booze consumption, though, to two days a week max.

Hopefully, posting here about doing the challenge will keep me more accountable!

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Have I talked yet about the amazingness of tea tree essential oil? I don’t think I have! Oh man, let me tell you – this shit is miraculous. I’m still working out my face care, but for some reason in the last few weeks my skin has been a MESS. Like, acne-riffic. I thought at first it was because of the olive oil/castor oil mix I was using to wash my face. It is probably also a side effect of not being on the pill. Anyway, I’m dying. But I really didn’t want to give up the oil cleansing system, because it feels good? And I believe it should work? So I’m still doing that every day – but the last few nights I’m putting tea tree oil straight on my blemishes and leaving it over night. And they’re rapidly disappearing! It’s amazing. I’d say it takes two full days to get rid of them, but it works. And the way it seems to dry them out actually makes for pretty easy hiding with makeup. I really, really wish I’d known about this as a teenager!

I currently have two bottles of essential oils that I use daily: lavender and tea tree. I bought the lavender e.e. from a store near my work called Vital Planet, and the tea tree from a store near my house called Etherea. However! Buying essential oils in stores like these is expensive. So from now on, I think I’m going to try to purchase all my supplies from The Sage, which seems to have a lot of supplies available and for really great prices.

I would be thrilled to find a Canadian supplier, however, so if you know of any please let me know!

remove your engagement ring before attempting to make your own pasta, or you’ll be picking bits of dough out of it for days!

Better living, for me, has to include exercise. My guy and I started working out together a year ago, doing the Body for Life program. We both had a great experience, and though it was often fodder for fights (I am, I won’t lie, a super bitch when I’m in the workout zone), we were both thrilled to have worked together as one another’s support and encouragement over the 12 weeks. (We lost a combined fifty pounds!)

Once we finished the program we took a little break, and then we decided to try Harley Pasternak’s Five Factor Fitness. It just wasn’t the same! It kept us active, I suppose, but I started to gain a little weight and I just never felt like I had really worked myself as hard as I could.

Now that winter is over and we can - FINALLY! - jog outside again, we are both so ready to start another round of Body for Life. Our planned start date is April 4.

I don’t want to lose too much weight…I’d be thrilled with 10-15 pounds. Mostly I just want to get back into the habit of watching what I eat (there’s been a lot of ordering in the last few months!) and starting my day with a great workout.

Not only does it make me feel good all day (seriously, there’s nothing so satisfying as already having a sense of accomplishment by 7 in the morning) but it really helps my sleep patterns.

Because we’ve been suuuper lazy about exercising in the last month, we’re going to ease back into Body for Life by jogging every morning until April 4. I can’t tell you how ready I am to get myself back in the habit! It’s really not enough to nourish your body with care - you’ve gotta challenge it physically, too!

Homemade body scrub using olive oil and kosher salt. I tried it last weekend before I went out, maybe because I spent the day doing spring cleaning? I just felt a serious need to exfoliate! So I mixed up some salt and olive oil (I just eyed it, but basically add enough kosher salt until the oil is absorbed), got into the shower and started scrubbing. It felt great in the shower…though it made me crave pasta.

Anyway, after rinsing the salt off and finishing my shower I couldn’t believe how soft and moisturized my skin felt. And it lasted for days! You’ve absolutely got to try this yourself!

So I’m not so sure anymore about using baking soda to wash my hair and apple cider vinegar to condition. It works…I’m just not loving the feel of my hair. My sister uses lavender essential oil only – like, nothing else. So I’m now trying that. I think maybe before I quit shampoo I should have done some sort of, like, clarifying shampoo or something? It kind of looks/feels like I have a lot of product still in my hair that’s not getting cleaned out with my current method.

Yesterday I used lavender essential oil and then let my hair air dry, and my curls were stunning and awesome. But the roots look a little gross. I’m thinking about maybe using a clarifying shampoo this weekend to start fresh, and then go strictly lavender essential oil from there. (Basically you just need to put a few drops – say 5 drops give or take, depending how much hair you have – on your hand, rub it through your hair, and then rinse. If you don’t like the smell of lavender, though, you may not like this method very much!)

My sister’s hair is poker straight and, though thick, fairly fine. I think? Anyway, the opposite of mine. And it looks amazing. In fact, she got her hair cut recently and the hairdresser commented on how healthy and beautiful her hair is. Apparently she totally went silent when my sister said she doesn’t use products and only uses lavender essential oil! Given that my sister’s hair and my daughter’s hair are very similar, I’m going to try this for my little girl and see how it works.

Pending this experiment, I’m also looking at making some actual shampoos and conditioners from a recipe book for natural hair and beauty products. If we go that route I will for sure update with recipes and the results!

Also, in other failed experiments…my sister and I tried this face cleansing method that uses a 3 part to 1 part mixture of olive oil and castor oil, with a little bit of teatree oil to fight breakouts. It…did not work. Although it felt great, after only a couple days my skin started to break out. Eek! I want to find a recipe for a super gentle cleanser similar to Cetaphyl, which is my absolute fav for my skin. Until then, I’m going to go back to using my mom’s soap.

So here’s the thing. Are you aware that there are no good birth control options if you are opposed to pumping your body full of hormones? Let me tell you. There are no good birth control options if you are opposed to pumping your body full of hormones! And of course I’m not just pumping them into my body – I’m pumping them back into the water supply, too. I don’t want my fucking to fuck up any fish, I really don’t.

I’ve been on the pill regularly for only a few years. Outside of the fact that I am a terrible rememberer it’s been a great thing for me. There was a time in my life when I got pregnant a lot. Like, a lot. Because that is what happens when very fertile people don’t use any birth control at all. So the pill has been a good thing for me. Also, it keeps my skin clear.

But I don’t want to use hormonal birth control anymore. I just don’t feel good about it. So a couple days ago I discussed my options with my doctor. She didn’t seem to understand the part about my aversion to hormones? Because she suggested, in order, an IUD (yes there is a non-hormonal option but I also don’t feel cool about introducing copper into my body? Oh, and it just sounds awful in terms of side effects.), the patch, and the nuva ring. All of these, in case you’re not clear, are forms of hormonal contraceptives. Sheesh!

The obvious answer, I suppose, is to use condoms. But I hate condoms. They have this wonderful way of totally killing all my natural lubrication and they make sex painful. So what ends up happening in reality is that we start with a condom, I start wincing, the mood dies, and we end up taking it off halfway through and either pulling out or just hoping against pregnancy/freaking out until I get my period. I’m also not down with flushing/throwing into the garbage several hundred condoms a year. There’s gotta be a better way to not get pregnant. Right?

Sigh. Maybe not. The option I like the best is a diaphragm. (My doctor originally brushed this option aside for no better reason than that “it isn’t very popular anymore.” But when pushed a little more she said it’s certainly an option that’s still available to me.) It’s a method I can control, it’s reusable, and there are no hormones involved. Seems pretty green and pretty alright for my body. But the failure rates are…not what I’ve grown used to. The research I read this morning puts the failure rate at 4-8%. That scares the shit out of me. I do not want to get pregnant. We’re not ready to have a baby right now and I made a promise to myself several years ago that I wouldn’t set foot in an abortion clinic again. As well, they recommend that diaphragms be used in combination with spermicide for them to be really effective. Obviously, I’m not eager to put into my body a chemical ending in “cide”.

So then what? I don’t know! I left the doctor’s office with a prescription for three more months of the pill. Three more months to find a better way. Any suggestions? Anybody?!? At this point I’m seriously considering the advantages of the rhythm method…

(The other, less pressing, issue is that I don’t want to give up my nice blemish free skin. And I know that I’m giving that up when I give up the pill. My skin isn’t terrible, but it isn’t reliably clear when I’m not on the pill. So regardless what method I end up choosing, I’m also going to have to find a way to keep my skin clear. Le sigh. I’m already discouraged.)

I haven’t bought soap from a store in well over a decade. It’s been that long since my mom starting making her own! I remember, really early on when she started experimenting with soapmaking, learning about the perils of the multitude of nasty chemicals found in most every hair/face/body product out there. It was really easy to stop purchasing soap – not only do I get it for free, but it is genuinely a billion times nicer to use than store bought stuff. (Super soft, silky, non-drying soap….mmmm it is such a luxurious feeling to use it!) But it’s taken me until now to really examine the rest of the products I use on a daily basis.

I have no problem admitting this – I am a total product whore. I am exactly the target for every single beauty product on the market, and probably most of the products deemed too ridiculous to market, too. If you tell me a product will do something amazing I will believe you. If I buy it and it doesn’t work I will assume the failure resides with me. I used it wrong, I didn’t use it long enough, I use something else that renders its powers ineffective….and on, and on, and on. Generally, drugstores are very dangerous places for me. I just love products. I love the smell of them, the feel of them, the promise of them. So it is not easy for me to just say no.

All the same, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t love products so much that I’m willing to disregard the dangers of the chemicals they contain. The first to go are shampoo and conditioner. Currently, I’m using a baking powder and water mixture to wash my hair once a week and an apple cider vinegar and water mixture to condition it whenever I shower. Disclaimer/Things that are relevant to this discussion: I have super thick, rather coarse curly hair. My hair just doesn’t get greasy the way that I know thinner, straighter, finer hair does. So this method reeeally works for me where it might not work for other hair types. My daughter has straight, fairly fine hair, though, and we’ll be experimenting with something that works for her – so I’ll keep you all posted!

Anyway, the first thing you have to get used to when you go “no poo” is not having that nice lather you get with a regular shampoo. But that’s a good thing! You don’t need a lather to wash your hair, and the chemicals that create the lather (Sodium Lauryl Sulfate [SLS ] and Sodium Laureth Sulfate [SLES]) are really, really awful. Do some research on them – it’s terrifying! The thing is, these chemicals aren’t just harmful to you, they’re actually bad for your hair, too. They dry it out in a big way, and dry hair is hard to manage hair.

Washing your hair with baking soda and water feels weird, no question about it. But it works. After not washing my hair at all for about a week, it was super gross and oily and stiff. You couldn’t identify a curl in it for a thousand dollars. I tried my new method and I was shocked by how good my hair looked after. The curls were super bouncy and there was little to no frizz. And it looked and felt clean! My hairdressers have been telling me for ages not to wash my hair so often, and damnit, they were right. Now when I shower through the week I just rinse it with apple cider vinegar and water, and I love it. As soon as you put the vinegar in you’ll notice your hair feels silky again.

As you can see in the picture, there’s a little bit of frizz today. I think that’s because I was touching my hair a lot while it dried. I typically try to just clip the top bits with a squeezy clip thing and let it air dry after showering, but this morning I was short on time and I braided the top to pull the hair back from my face. When I took the braids out, it looked like this. Not bad, but not great. That’s when I’d normally throw some silicone product or something similar in. Instead, I’m going to pick up some lavender essential oil this afternoon and run a few drops through my hair. Hopefully that will help!

Although the official launch of my new way of living is March 1 (I am severely type A and my brain simply cannot fathom starting anything except on Mondays and/or the 1st of the month), I actually started to make some of the major changes as of yesterday. First up: grocery shopping. We already get a weekly delivery of local and/or organic produce from a company called Wanigan, but in the last few months we’ve been getting most everything else at Costco. Bad news! Oh, the allure of amazingly inexpensive (and very nice) meat is strong. It’s very difficult to resist filling up the freezer for a month from just one shopping trip. But more and more, each time I glanced at a super thick steak or massive turkey breast I was cognizant of the badness of it all. Not local, not organic, not ethically raised. Le sigh.

The most obvious hindrance to switching over to organic food is the cost increase. My guy and I had a…heated discussion…in the dairy section when he saw that the milk I was picking up was over nine dollars for four litres. At first it does seem a little bit insane. But when you stop to think about the cost of other things we purchase without a second thought….a six pack of beer, for example…it doesn’t seem so bad to spend ten bucks on milk. Personally, all I have to do is consider how many packs of cigarettes I’ve purchased in my lifetime (also ten bucks a pop!) to be able to rationalize it. I don’t smoke anymore, but I’m still very aware of just how much money I threw away when I did.

All in all, though, our grocery bill wasn’t outrageously more expensive than usual. This week, between the grocery store (Fiesta Farms) and Wanigan, we’ll spend just under two hundred dollars. Higher than average, but not a great deal so. The real test will come next week, when we start buying our meat and eggs from the local farmer’s market at Wychwood Barns. The meat is substantially more expensive there, but I’m hoping that if we eat a little less of it the transition won’t be too difficult. We’re also going to try to go vegetarian once a week. Better for the earth, better for our bodies (both my guy and I are reeeeally big fans of red meat) and better for the wallet.

I just keep trying to remember that, of all the things on which we spend money, the food with which we nourish our bodies deserves a reasonable share. Milk is worth spending ten dollars on if it means we’re not taking in pesticides and hormones and antibiotics with each glass. Our bodies deserve to be treated better!