hello all.  it has been a while since i have updated my xanga.  i again fell off my fitness bandwagon.  i sporadically did a workout here and there.  but then i became sick.  for me, common colds 99.9% of the time land in my chest.  this doesn't seem to be a big deal, right?  i am an asthmatic, and for me to shake a cold out of my chest is very difficult.  even walking my dog a block to the dog park caused my coughing fits to multiply... no way was i going to be jumping around.  even with an inhaler.  anywho, latest news....

i joined team beachbody and became a coach!!  yay!!  i am so excited for this opportunity to coach people in fitness.  i at times lack motivation... and i have severe allergies and asthma that get in the way of fitness goals sometimes.  i have been there.  i know what it feels like.  and so i am also leaning on the support of my fellow coaches and team members to keep me going in my fitness goal.  simply put, i want to be healthy.  i am getting married in about 7 months and i want to be the healthiest version of me that i can be when paul and i begin our new life together.  i want to be there for him for as long as i can be, and ditto for our future children.  but this begins with me getting fit, active and healthy.  i cannot wait! 

today, i began my fitness journey.  i did a 20 minute turbo jam workout to test out my rusty wheels.  needless to say, even after a few weeks, i am rusty.  but it felt GREAT!  i ate healthy today and had a net calorie intake of 312 calories!  woo hoo!  anywho, i hope to update this site daily like i did before. to be continued tomorrow....

Ah, day two!  Let's roll!

Today began with a rough start.  My digestive system woke up on the wrongside of the bed at a bright an early 7:10am.  I drank my Greens+ Orange Greensicle drink... but I soon regretted putting anything into my stomach.  To put it discreetly, I had to run to the bathroom three times this morning.  Even after the explosiveness was over, my stomach still felt all woozy-like.  I divulge this information to say two things:

     1.  I did not follow my workout plan today.

     2.  What the hell caused the sudden bout of diarrhea?!

My workout routine should have been running.  I made the decision, though, that running in already high heat wasn't a good idea for me today given my digestive upset.  But I did bring a set of 2lb. weights with me to work tonight to do some light lifting.  I also plan to do a little stretching.  I don't want to go the day without exercising at all... so this was the best solution I could think of.  Anyway, let's look at my numbers today.

target calories: 1,853

total calories consumed: 1,530

total calories burned:  1,514

total net calories:  16

overages:  fat, sodium, sugar, protein

So my net calories were low again today, but I still don't feel totally good about it, and I will tell you why.  I ate kinda sorta crappy today.  I had 2 bagels with butter today.  :-/  Otherwise, I ate pretty good.  I did eat kielbasa, but it was turkey kielbasa which has alot fewer calories and such as regular kielbasa.  Who knew it existed?  Tomorrow I really have to buckle down and do a little better with the nutrition. 

Okay, so I sat and thought hard about why I could have possibly had such a bad morning.  I came to the conclusion that maybe it was due to the fact that I drank 2 glasses of water more than I normally do?  Maybe I over-watered myself?  A fun fact: there are tons of websites out there dedicated to calculating your daily water intake needs.  Neat-o.  What I wanted to know was... is it possible to get diarrhea as a result of drinking too much water?  The results were conflicting.  Some sources say "no, impossible."  Others says, "DUH!"  Here are some of the arguments:

     1.  Too much water can upset your body's natural water balance. 

     2.  Hyponatremia: (say what?!)  Basically, this is the depletion of sodium from your body.

     3.  Too much water can increase the total blood volume in your body.  Think about it... our bodies are a close-circuit system for our blood (there are no outlets).  Increasing the volume of blood in this closed-circuit, will increase the pressure on your heart and other organs.  This can cause some pretty serious damage. 

     4.  Damage to the kidneys can also occur.  In the kidneys there are specialized capillary beds, called glomeruli.  Too much water can put strain on these capillary beds, causing them to tear. 

     5.  There is a type of diarrhea that is called Osmotic Diarrhea that is caused when water is drawn in to the bowels.  This can sometimes happen when your kidneys are working overtime to flush out all of the extra water, and the water it can't keep up with has nowhere else to go.

Seems to me like too much water can be plain bad for you... diarrhea or not!  Despite the confusion, I found out some interesting facts about water and our bodies:

     1.   Water can decrease hunger cravings.

     2.  Water flushes out the toxins in our bodies.  (Bingo!)

     3.  Our skin looks more supple and free of break-outs.  (Yes!)

     4.  Downside?  Water can flush out the important vitamins and minerals that our bodies need!  (Those that we feed our bodies in the form of food and vitamins...boooo!  All that money for vitamins down the drain!  Literally!)

     5.  It is recommended that humans consume anywhere from 8 to 12 eight ounce glasses per day depending on weather conditions (high heat, extreme cold), exercise, and even some common medications.  (It is so so so  important to know what the medications you are on can do to your body!!)  The key is to drink slooowwwlllyyy.  Don't gulp it down!  That is how you damage your insides (as stated above). 

     6.  Human kidneys can filter up to 15 liters of water a day!  WHAT?!  Again, drinking slowly is key here.  Yes, your body can filter out that much water daily... BUT not if you drink it all down at once.  Moderation, moderation, moderation.

     7.  Eating fruits and vegetables actually increases our water intake, because these foods naturally have water in them.  So that is something else to conside when trying to determine how much water you need to drink daily.

Well, that was a fun learning session, huh?  It was for me!  Oh, I wanted to make a correction on yesterday's post.  Paul went out and bought us a bathroom scale that tracks weight, BMI, and hydration levels for two people.  I set myself up in the scale this morning and found out that I weigh more than I did the last time I was wieghed (a couple of months ago).  My current weight is 133lbs, not 130lbs.  I weighed myself this morning fresh out of bed, and wearing only a t-shirt and underwear.  I wanted to be 100% accurate and honest on here.  This is my health we are talking about here! 

Alright, well, tomorrow is a new day.  New adventures await me.. can't wait to find out what... DUN DUN DUN!

i have decided to kind of change the "plot" of this blog from verbal diarrhea due to my occassional mental meltdowns, to an everyday log of my successes for the day.  currently, i am trying to change some things in my life that need improvement.  these would be:  overall health, fitness, diet, love handles, managing PMDD symptoms better. 

overall, i am a healthy woman.  i do not have any MAJOR illnesses.  i do suffer from severe allergies (indoor, outdoor, food) which cause me to have asthma (which is also exercise induced).  i have to work hard sometimes to avoid situations where i know i will have an alelrgic reaction to something.  as far as the asthma, i can say that i have not needed my rescue inhaler in.... months.  probably since the winter... so... almost a year.  i want to work to overcome the asthma... and i think i can do this by "training" my lungs.  i am taking greens+ on a daily basis to feed my body the good stuff it needs.  let me tell you, i have seen such an improvement in my body function already and it has only been a couple of days.  i am much more energized, alert, my body is ready for exercise.  i feel good.  it also acts as a "gentle detox"... which i have always wanted to do.  i also invested in a daily detox tea.  i think it is important to get rid of all of those impurities in my body.  i wanna have squeaky clean insides!   

fitness is a big thing that i struggle with.  i know that i can do it.  and i know that i will have alot of success doing it.  however, i find it so hard to stay motivated sometimes.  i have mad calendars for the next couple of months that schedule what fitness routines i am going to do for that day.  it includes running/other cardio program (other cardio program being used if the weather is bad or it is too cold... i am not THAT devoted to running... like some people), strength training (ChaLean Extreme) and yoga.  i wanna burn fat, build muscle and have a healthier heart and healthier lungs. 

my diet has been known to be TERRIBLE!  since moving out of my parents house, i do not have the money that i once did to eat out as much and buy fast food on-the-go.  also, my fiancee and i have kind of made a pact with each other to eat healthier.  we barely bring junk food into the house.  we eat alot of fruits, veggies and yogurt.  but i am going to really make the push to be even healthier.  whole grains and whole wheat all the way.  even though the prices are expensive with some items, i want to start bringing in more organic food items.  i have done some research on it and the biggest things are fruits, veggies and some types of meat.  i eventually want to do this when we have children... especially girls.  the hormones in meats and dairy products is being proven to induce puberty in girls as young as seven and eight.  that is absurd!  not my children!  but we need to start making the change now.  starting out small is better than starting out at all. 

ugh.  LOVE HANDLES!  need i say more?  i am not fat by any means.  i do, however, have love handles.  and i hate them.  but let me make one thing clear... my whole purpose on being more proactive with a healthy diet and fitness program is to be overall alot more healthy.  but i want to lose the love handles.  my jeans do not fit how the used to because i am cramming fat into the waistline in the back.  i believe that with the fitness program i created, that i will be able to say BYE, BYE LOVE HANDLES... and, hopefully, stay motivated to working out regularly to never see them again.

 at this time, i do not have any major issues with PMDD symptoms because i am birth control that regulates my hormones enough.  however, there are times during the year when my symptoms are worse than others.  i feel terrible for those around me that have to deal with me.  but i also hate dealing with it.  dealing with the overly-exaggerated physical symptoms, the mood swings (depression and anger mostly), the food binges.  i want to learn more about some hollistic approaches to curbing these symptoms.  perhaps changes in diet?  i am interested to learn and find out.

soooo.. blah, blah, blah get on with it.  i know.  basically, i want to turn this blog into my daily accountability log.  i already track calories and exercise on www.thedailyplate.com.  however, i want to make this a log of my exercise for the day, my net calories for the day, what i can do to eat better tomorrow, how i feel about my progress with the items listed above, new information that i have learned about and plan to utilize, etc.  so overall, it is going to be a journey of good health.  hopefully, doing this will make me even more accountable for sticking to the program.

to steal it from paul (and kind of modify it): HERE'S TO KEEPING THE PROGRAM GOING, AND THE EXCUSES STOPPING!