Rock 'n Rolla

This is a totally random post, but the photo was so crazy adorable I had to share it. This is my fur baby, Rama.

Does he not look totally badass, rock & roll, like hey Mister DJ?

Here's a little rap he wrote -

My name is Rama, 
I shoulda been Obama,
but my dad said no, 
said it sounded like Osama.
So my name is Rama.
Woof!

He's not really a rapper. And it is true, I wanted to name him Obama. We got him just before President Barack Obama was elected and I thought it would be brilliant to name our boy after what I was sure was going to be the first Black President (and I was right. Ha!) but 'he who shall not be named' was concerned that people would think his name was Osama - like the infamous terrorist of the day - so we named him after the virtuous Hindu God, Lord Rama.

In any case, here in Vancouver we're in the middle of the Celebration of Light - which is a three day massive fireworks show that takes place in the harbor a block from our house.

Turns out my pup, like many of his fur buddies are not fond of the sparkly flashes of light and loud bangs. In fact it's so loud, the windows in our apartment actually shake.

To prep for the first show, we took him on a three hour hike to exhaust him. Then a few minutes before show time, we put on some groovy tunes and got him the biggest juiciest meatiest bone ever and he dug in. We thought we were going to be home free. Nope, it wasn't enough and he was freaked.

A friend said that he'd seen a few little babies (people babies) wearing these industrial strength ear phones during the fireworks and suggested we try them out on Rama.

We put them on him and he seems okay with them so we'll give it a shot. We'll still take him for a really long hike and get his favorite bone, but this time, we'll block the noise with these bad boys and hopefully it will do the trick!

On another note, I've had a couple of comments here and there mentioning that no one is talking about TAM anymore, more specifically no one is talking about Continuity. So I am here to say that you've been heard and we're gonna get back into this week! Stay tuned. Today marked the official last day of my reboot on Meta (redid levels 1-3) and actually can't wait to weigh-in and measure up tomorrow!

Rock on, people!
Shan 

All in good time.

We're winding down yet another month, the seventh month of the year. Was anyone else shocked to look up and see that it's August next week? 

As July comes to a close, I'm feeling rather positive about the steps I've taken to get myself to more even ground. I think I was spiraling for a little bit there. My eating habits had become unmanageable -- actually outrageous would be more accurate -- I'd become disenchanted with Continuity and my weight was quickly creeping back up. I just generally felt like crap and was looking for a way off the merry-go-round. Add to that the uncertainty of my work and I felt like I was running out of options.

It can be so easy to remember when things were different, when they weren't always so difficult. Those carefree days of my twenties weren't perfect, but I had nothing but time ahead of me, possibilities were endless, hope was abundant and my diet and weight were the last thing on my mind. Fast forward twenty years and things don't always look quite so chipper. Change can be hard to swallow and actual changes even harder to make. Sometimes even those changes that you once made to "fix" the problem no longer act as a solution, so you fall back into old habits, bad patterns and suddenly you find yourself in a rut. You're back at square one and you find yourself wondering where it all went wrong. The beauty of square one is that it differs from rock bottom, square one is a starting place, it's not the worst place you can find yourself. Believe me, I've been to both.

I had my work cut out for me. 

The issue with exercise was solved with some simple backtracking. By revisiting day one of level one of Metamorphosis, I was able to rediscover my passion for the Tracy Anderson Method. The whole of this month has been dedicated to rebooting my mental stamina and recharging my battery by going back to those workouts that surprised me, challenged me and got my middle-aged butt into shape in the first place. My feeling was that if they did it once, they could do it again.

It was fun to see where I'd improved and where Tracy still squashed me like a bug. Level 3 is still the reigning Muffin Top Slayer workout and I'm happy to see my expanding measurements finally beginning to shrink back again. Whew. But at the month's end it will be time to move on again. Back into Continuity 2.1.3, the last disk featuring Tracy before master trainers Stacey and Maria take over. I think it will be a great way to end the summer. I've already done much of level 7 with the ball, but I'll go over it again before tucking into level 8. 

Curious me, I've given level 8 a sneak peak and it looks good. Many of the moves in the leg sequence are heavily choreographed and while they look difficult, I can see the framework of those early Metamorphosis moves holding them up, so there is a quiet confidence somewhere inside that I too will be able to perform these moves. I think I'm up for this challenge.

As for my wildly out-of-control eating habits of late, I feel like something has finally shifted. I'm five days clean. The pep-talk helped. Don't think it's been easy, it hasn't. I just feel less resistant to the whole process of cutting sugar out of the picture. I know now that there is no other choice. It won't matter how few calories I consume, or how little fat I eat or how much I increase my protein or greens, if I continue to binge on sugar, I won't stand a chance. I've had mad cravings, my mind's put up a real fight. I've had the symptoms of withdrawal: headaches, achy flu-like body and I've been feeling extremely tired, yet I'm somehow stronger. Getting to the other side of any hill takes a climb, some are trickier than others, but all can be mounted.

I'm ready for a fresh start. I finally feel as though the slate has been wiped clean. It's what I'd tried to do at the start of the year with my juice cleanse. It's taken seven months. But better late than never.

Thanks a million for your help with all of this. You support, your voices, your experiences have been invaluable to me. And without you, I likely would have abandoned the Method, clean eating and my skinny jeans a long time ago.

Have a great weekend.
Shan  

Stuffed Mushrooms... YUMMY!

I'm a fan of personal growth, of a high learning curve and of self-evolution. Growth and change are very often scratchy and uncomfortable, but the view from the other side is often worth that struggle and those lessons we had to bear. What the hell does that have to do with Stuffed Mushrooms, you ask? I'm getting to that, patience Grasshopper!

I started this little blog "Mastering the Method" to keep myself accountable while on Tracy Anderson's 30-Day Method program (my last name is Masters so it kind of named itself). It then spread into writing about the challenges of my 90-plus days on Metamorphosis. I love that I've learned so much about myself along the way and I truly hope that you are all learning about yourselves right along with me. We discovered our sense of commitment, we learned how to create new habits -- healthier habits, we've shared victories and heartbreaks and a myriad of frustrations all without judgement. That's pretty amazing. The blog has evolved as much as we have.  I feel as though I am always learning through all of you, from your experiences both positive and negative, you help me to grow, even when that growth gets scary.

So when I reached out in my utter confusion around diet and how to eat for life, you did not disappoint. There are a million roads to the same destination, some rockier than others, some more scenic so they may take a little longer, but the point is, if you stick to a path, eventually you will get to where you're going. Since that discussion, I have really been making a concentrated effort to include more protein in my daily diet. (as well as eliminating sugar but that's for another day)

As many of you may well know, getting protein as a vegetarian can be a little tricky if you don't want to be eating excessive fat or carbs while doing so. I also try to limit my dairy consumption, especially cheese, but what about cottage cheese? It wasn't something I generally ate. I mean what do you do with it? Again, a few of you offered some suggestions so I tried it out with a fresh salad and I was nice. But day in and day out if you drop a dollop of cottage cheese on your salad, nice can quickly become boring.

My girl Janice, who I've written about numerous times for being a computer whiz-kid and all around genius, as well as the general voice of reason has surprised and impressed me once again. For as long as I've known her, Janice has been a fan of the Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno. Last year, Janice switched from doing only the Method to full on weight training and her diet became more important than ever. She was putting on muscle, but as anyone who's done this knows, you've got to be lean for that muscle to look good, otherwise... you just kinda look firmer and sometimes bigger. So Janice really knuckled down in the diet department, eating several small, well balanced meals a day and it's working for her.

But there was a drawback. Like many of us, all this nice clean food she was eating was getting a little boring. Yet many of the recipes she was finding in sources like the Eat Clean Diet were tricky and complicated and used ingredients that normal busy working women don't have on hand and simply don't have time to track down. What to do? If you're a mad-capped creative genius like Janice, there's only one thing to do. Create your own. That's when Easy Tasty Clean was born. Through trial and error, hard work and determination, Janice has set about on the path of creating her very own cookbook filled with easy, tasty and clean recipes, that girls like us (I mean the clueless ones like me who have no idea anymore as to what the hell we're supposed to be eating) will find a snap to use. Even you Auntie Anne!! The best part is that as Janice has been creating, cooking, photographing and eating all of this great food... she's not only maintaining her weight, but she's lost those last few pounds and she's staying there! I think this cookbook is going to be revolutionary and you can someday say "you knew her when".

Lucky us! Janice has agreed to let me share a recipe with you. A really fucking good recipe I don't mind telling you. I've made it twice now in less than two weeks. It's so easy and so tasty, it's actually a little hard to believe that it's clean too. Bonus, 'he who shall not be named' loves it too! You can even do a version of this with smaller button mushrooms if you're hosting a dinner party, asked to bring appies to a get together, or just want to impress the inlaws. You guessed it, it's stuffed mushrooms. 

I should just get on with it, then shall I? I do have a tendency to waffle on a bit. Sorry about that, but if you're reading me at work, I do make a great distraction, no?! Ha. Okay. Here you go.

EASY TASTY CLEAN

JANICE'S STUFFED MUSHROOMS 

Ingredients:
4 Portobello mushrooms (large, flat)
300g tub low fat, low sodium cottage cheese
1 clove of garlic, minced
½ small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 banana shallot or 2 small regular shallots, finely chopped
Ground black pepper, to taste
10 walnut halves, finely chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5.
Cut off the stalks of the mushrooms then lay them upside down an oven tray.
In a small bowl, mix together the cottage cheese, garlic, shallot and red pepper.
Spoon the mixture onto the upturned mushrooms, pressing it down slightly and making sure it is pressed into all edges.
Add freshly ground pepper to the surface of the cottage cheese mixture then top with the finely chopped walnuts.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes, turning half way through the cooking time. Once the walnuts start to brown the stuffed mushrooms are done.
 
You may find that quite a bit of water is released from both the mushrooms and the cottage cheese, this is quite normal and the water can be discarded.
 
Serve immediately. Use either 2 mushrooms per person or serve 1 mushroom per person with some green vegetables on the side.

Two stuffed mushrooms gives 219 calories, 21g protein, 13g carbohydrates, 10g fat (2g of which is saturated fat).
 

I hope you love this dish as much as I did. Mine actually turned out like Janice's right there in the picture. How great is that? The first time I served them with a side of steamed broccoli and carrots. Last night when I made the button mushroom version, we had wild rice with garlic. So yummy!

Enjoy! And thanks Janice.
Shan

Note To Self...

Hey there -- Queen of Denial, the jig is up. It's time to screw up your courage, draw your line in the sand and stop listening to the myriad of excuses that the voice in your head comes up with to continue to feed your addiction.  

"It's not an addiction." It's not an addiction?  

Pft, whatever. Listen to yourself...

I'll do better tomorrow. I'll start Monday. This month is just too busy. The fifteenth looks like a good day to kick off a new plan. As soon as I turn 41.

Awe, there it is. There's the rub. Tomorrow never comes. It's Tuesday, why haven't you started? The fifteenth has come and gone. Next month isn't going to be less busy... you've turned 41.

There isn't a nice way to say this. You are not the sort of person who can eat just one cookie. You're not. It's time you accepted that. You are a woman who at the very least is of average intelligence. You know what sugar is doing to you. You even wrote about your liver less than a month ago and you vowed to give it up. You lasted two days. So what? Don't use that as an excuse for why you can't today.

There is no easy way to do this. You've been pounding back boxes of cookies and bags of brownies since before your earliest memories. Who cares why you've done it. It doesn't matter if sweets were a reward, a treat, comfort on a bad day, a fun way to celebrate a victory. Today, they no longer serve you or your best interest. I'm here to tell you that you need to find another way to celebrate. Find another form of comfort. One that isn't so bloody self-destructive. If this sounds like tough love, it should, because it is. I love you and I don't want to see you doing this to yourself anymore.


Everything else really is going to be so much easier for you once you just give it up. Make it non-negotiable. There is no bargaining with the voice in your head. In the same way that you are not the girl who could be a social smoker, you're not a once a week or occasional eater of sugar. You are an addict. That's okay. It's not a bad thing. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're not bad for seeking the pleasure that once came with the rush of sugar hitting your blood stream. You just must now realize that the high is no longer there. The pleasure you seek no longer comes from just one cookie, one bowl of ice cream, one slice of cake. It doesn't even come after two or three or the whole box. You aren't getting from it what you once were, and if you're actually brave enough to be honest with yourself, you'll see that.


So once again I am going to ask you to take a particular situation - this situation - and reframe it in your mind. You don't have to try and make this about doing something "good" for yourself. You do plenty of that already with your Glowing Green Smoothies and your vegetarian lifestyle. No this is about choosing to no longer hurt yourself. It's about choosing to stop the pain in your gut caused by eating way too much sugar. This is about empowerment and about taking control, about taking back your life by creating space in your head where the obsession over sugar once lived. Think of all of the creative power you'll have access to once the obsession is gone. It will be freedom for you.


You might not feel ready to do it now, but there is literally no other time that you have access to other than this exact moment. You cannot afford to wait. I am asking you to trust me, to take my word for it that once you conquer this addiction, once you rid yourself of this yoke around your neck and you're no longer held prisoner by it, you will feel so much better. You'll sleep better, you'll have more energy, less headaches, you'll be way less moody and dependent on an outside thing to make you happy. Please just have faith that this will be win win and that once you get rid of your addition, you really will find pleasure in other things, in things that you simply cannot see now because of your blinding fixation on sugar. You're so much stronger than you think you are. Don't let anyone tell you that there is a middle ground or that moderation is key. You know better. There is no grey area for you, my love. You are now and always have been an all or nothing girl, it's what makes you you, but in this case, it's what's killing you. Release the mania, stop the crazy-making and open yourself up to a new way, a different way. It could even wind up being a better way if you allow it to be.

Your mind will come up with a million different excuses, it will play tricks on you and tell you stories about why you shouldn't be doing this, about how much you love sugar, about how fun it is, or why it might not be bad. Do not listen. Don't fall for any of it. You can hear the thoughts, watch them pass through your mind, but don't attach yourself to them. Don't relate to those thoughts, for that's all they are, nothing more and they have no more power than you choose to give them. You are not this addiction. You are a strong independent woman who can think for herself and you have long thought that the sugar has to go. Remember that when things get hard.


And finally, I want you to know this... You are loved and all is well.


Take care of you.
Shan

Drop and gimme 20, Maggot!

Thanks so much for the overwhelmingly positive response to my dilemma of what and how to eat this week. I've got some work to do.

While many of us are wrestling with our dinner plates and what to put on them, how about if we turn our attention to something we can control? Our workouts.

Last week I threw out what I'm calling a "Body Challenge" by asking you to go visit a foreign mirror or two to see if you couldn't find a better view of yourself. I took the challenge and found a decent reflection in the changing room at American Eagle Outfitters. Staring at myself in the full-length mirror wearing a pair of daringly short shorts (not short shorts, but shorts that were short-ish), I thought, "my legs look pretty good" and I was happy to leave it at that. But then it occurred to me, I'd just turned 41 so as far as those shorts were concerned it was now or never. They came home with me and my legs saw the light of the afternoon sun for the first time in years! It took courage to wear them out, but I did and it felt okay. It was a nice little victory.

How did you girls do? Any striking thoughts? Interesting reflections? Positive reviews of your gorgeous selves?

Let's give this weeks Body Challenge a go then, shall we? Have any of you seen the film G.I. Jane starring Demi Moore? 

It's a film about a woman who's given the opportunity to try out for Navy Seals training with the whole world watching and expecting her to fail. I won't give it away, but suffice it to say she pushes herself harder than even the toughest Drill Sergeant can push her. And that's kinda what I am going to ask you to do this weekend.

Ladies, your Body Challenge this week, should you choose to accept it, is to go that extra mile. No matter what your workout, try to muster up a tiny bit more energy, push a little harder, go a little faster, crank out one more rep, run one more lap, dance through one more song. If you never risk anything, you risk never knowing what you're capable of. Make your mind up this week to do better than you ever have, come hell or high water! 

You can do it! You are capable! Now get out there and prove it!

xox
Shan

You Spin Me Right Round Baby...

Remember that song? You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round round round, by Dead or Alive? Were you singing it just then? Well I'm spinning and it ain't from love or music, it's from not having a clue how to eat. It's the theme of my broken record blog. Somebody save me.

It's been a few days since being here because I had the great pleasure of my sister's company. She and her husband came through (during my birthday week) on their way to Alaska. But just prior to her arrival I did my test results from my first ten days of revisiting Metamorphosis. Initially I was soooo excited to be starting over as the first time through I dropped the weight and whittled my waist and all was right with the world. Slowly since my graduation I have regained a few pounds and inches and wanted to see if the workout was a miracle bullet or what.

Just my luck, weigh-in and measurement day was on my birthday and I awoke that morning with hives all over my face. Icky. Are the two related? Perhaps. It could be that I am developing an allergic reaction to the scale and tape measure. I'm just sayin' it's possible. The tape measure was kinder than the scale. I gained two more pounds! Eeeeep!! I did have a little come off my muffin top and my waist but nothing to write home about, yet here I am writing. 

So I guess it's me. The first time around the program worked because I followed the diet. This time around... well... it was birthday week. Need I say more?

But here's my issue and I really need some experts to weigh in here. I've been getting some seriously mixed messages diet wise.

Since reading the Beauty Detox Solution, I have made some solid changes to my diet and it's cleared up a lot of bloat and gas. Yay! Miracles do happen. But my weight is now really moving in the wrong direction. Quoi??

My sister is a bit of a health nut like me and having not seen her in nearly two years, she looked Ah-maz-ing. When I asked her what and how she was eating, it was very similar to those of you out there that follow that school of thought that we should be eating several small meals a day and getting a good helping of protein at each meal or snack. She was also front loading her carbs, meaning anything carbie that she wants she has well before 3pm and she stops eating around 6pm. Period. It's working for her. Making sure you're eating clean and including greens and protein is also working for my girls Janice and Marie and a few others of you out there.

But this goes against some of the principals that Kimberly Snyder has outlined in her book, principals that make absolute and perfect sense to me. For example, if you have a big breakfast (as many experts say you should) then you are loading up your digestive system and are creating a situation that's ripe for a traffic jam (gas, bloating, stomach pain) whereas Kim says keep the detox of the night going by eating very lightly in the morning and save your heavier or mis-combined meals for your last meal so you can work on digesting them through the night. My sister claims that's the worst thing you can do because it will just sit there and create fat. If you eat it early, you'll have a chance to burn it off during the day. But what if having them early makes my digestion kick in and it robs me of energy so that I feel like I need a nap mid-afternoon? Will it get burned off then? Not likely, plus now I am not able to be productive.

The other thing I'm confused about is some experts say eating five or six small meals a day is best to fire up your metabolism, yet some others say we need to allow our system time to digest our meals before loading them up with more food - so having three meals with space in between is better. What do you think?

I'm hearing that lean animal protein is the key to burning belly fat in your 40s. On the other hand, animal protein creates an acid PH in your blood which ages you and is bad for pretty much everything in your body, including the calcium in your bones, which in your 40s you really need to watch out for. Plus if I am eating protein in the day, then again I am slowing down my digestion. But clearly my digestion still isn't working if eating light to heavy everyday is making me gain weight.

I just don't know which way to turn. I am so sick of starving or fad diets or the next greatest thing. I don't want to do a cleanse or a fast - I just want to eat healthy, be at a comfy weight and have energy. I honestly don't even care if I wind up eating the same thing every day, as long as it's food I like and it makes my liver happy. Are you seeing the broken spinning record thing happening here? Yikes! It's bad.

But listen up! There is no way in the world I am giving up my Glowing Green Smoothie - you can just forget it! I love it, my liver loves it and it makes me ever so happy. I did pick up some Hemp protein powder to try even though I am really sort of against getting food from a package. As a vegetarian I have got to find a way to increase my protein intake to see if this is the root of the belly fat issue I am experiencing.

If you have any tips, suggestions, advice or two cents you want to throw in here, I'd be grateful. I will eat eggs but please don't ask me to kill anything to fit into my skinnies. It ain't my thang. My girl Janice is creating a cook book - can't wait to tell you more about it soon - and one of the recipes she sent along has cottage cheese in it. Now I am not a dairy person (apart from the occasional Ben and Jerry binge) but cottage cheese has a lotta protein and my sister swears by it... so I am gonna give that a go. But seriously the info I am getting is horribly conflicting and I don't know what road to take. What's working for y'all?

Help meh! Please!
xo
Shan  

Friday...

Friday the thirteenth? How did my birthday week get one of those in it? Eeeep! As the calendar clicks over into a new year, yet another year older, it can make you look back on your life, the places you've been, the people you knew, and where you came from and how it all adds up to the person you are today.

I often talk about my Yogi background but I don't have many pictures from that lovely time period. Yoga is not exactly a spectator sport. But as I was sorting through some files on my computer this week, I came across a silly little film I made about "bending over backwards" to get into film school and was able to capture this screen shot from the film.

  

I remember shooting this, then watching it, and all I could see in it were the areas that needed improvement. Now I just think it's cool that I even attempted that posture. Life, like yoga, is definitely a balancing act.

There is a lesson here for each of us right now. Our scales might not read the exact number that we want them to every single day, our trousers might fit better on some days than on others, and there are always going to be areas that need improvement. Perhaps today we can focus on how cool it is that we get on our mats and even attempt these moves that Tracy has designed for us. Pats on the back all around.

Have a great weekend.

Shan 

 

Strange Reflections.

Hey girlies, 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend, did something fun, tasted something that delighted you and managed to get in some kind of physical activity. I have really been enjoying Metamorphosis this second time around. It's challenging and it almost feels like the first time all over again. A few more days and I'll have the first level results. I am anxious to see if it's made a marked difference or if it's all in my head.

In the mean time, I am going to propose a Body Challenge to all of you this week. It's something I've been thinking of and I may throw these out there on occasion simply because I think it's good to shake things up for ourselves to keep us on our toes.

What I would ask you to do this week is to:

Challenge your perception of yourself.

This idea sort of crept up on me. During the past month I've had a couple of road trips and therefore found myself staying in places other than my own home. (Duh, that's what a road trip is, dum dum) While I was away I discovered something interesting. When you're in your own bathroom or bedroom, you get used to the mirror in there, you get used to the lighting and you come to see yourself a certain way. But when staying in a hotel the lighting in the loo may stink and you think 'I look gawd-awful' or the lighting in the main room may be somewhat more flattering than home and you think, 'maybe my butt's not that bad'.

As women, we can sometimes have a one track mind when it comes to beauty and we're often guilty of being hateful meanies to ourselves when we look into the mirror. I recently saw the film Snow White and the Huntsman and Charlize Theron's character was a slave to the mirror mirror on the wall, so desperately afraid of aging. It was not only heart breaking to watch this poor character, but even sadder that I could relate to her. We're such a youth-centric culture that aging is frowned upon. As if it isn't even natural! Whaaaaaaaat? It's ridiculous. It's the same thing with cellulite. One day, someone somewhere said, I think a smoother bottom is more fashionable. Let's make the other 99% of women who have a dimple or two feel like crap, then we can sell them stuff. Ha, we're geniuses! 

Yeah, evil geniuses and silly us we fell for it.

What I would challenge you to do this week is to visit a foreign mirror. If the one on your wall has you believing that you'd be prettier or somehow better with a flatter tummy or slimmer thighs, go and find one that challenges that perception. I'm not saying you need to go put yourself up in a fancy hotel or even a cheap motel. Why not go try on some clothes at the Gap or drop your drawers at your sister's house? Be warned though, not all mirrors are kind, especially the ones where they sell swimwear. Try a few, keep going until you find one you like. Then drink in your reflection, smile at yourself and think good thoughts about how great you are, because you are great. You're here at this blog aren't you? Damn girl! You rock! But don't just take my word for it. Go, go on, get out there.

Your mission this week, should you choose to accept it, is to challenge that reflection staring back at you and to see yourself in a new light. Now go.
xo
Shan

 

Lil' Pep Talk!

It's finally a glorious Saturday morning here on the West Coast. We have sun. Hallelujah! Puts me in a great mood. I know that many of you are suffering with extreme heat at the moment, other than my Aussie beauties who are currently freezing, and I sympathize with all 'a ya, but it's been months, maybe even a year since I've seen weather this nice so I just had to take a moment to say thanks to the weather gods for finally smiling down on us. Brilliant!

So... here's something funny. Since going back to day one on Metamorphosis on Monday (I've thrown in a coupla C2 L7s in there too just for comparison) my diet has sucked to the tune of somehow managing to consume at least 500 MORE calories than I need daily rather than 500 less so I could drop a pound, and yet miracle of miracles I've lost a 1/4 inch off my waist and 3/4 off the muffin top. Curiouser and Curiouser. Is it a magic workout for Abcentrics? You know where I'm leaning but it's still too soon to tell, it could be water loss, coincidence or some other such thing so I'll keep you posted. But I am quite optimistic.

In the mean time I have gone and picked myself up one of those bona fide totally legit Diet and Fitness Journals. This thing asks you to figure out everything about yourself from your BMI to your RHR to the levels and duration of the types of workouts you do. Serious stuff. Uh... BH-what-now? I dunno.

Half of it I don't understand and the other half I don't care to concern myself with like how many grams of carbs or fiver are in the salad I ate for lunch, you know what I mean? There is even a place to check off how many glasses of water you drink along with the number of servings of veggies and fruits and what kind of mood you're in on a scale of 1 to 8. 1 to 8? Are you kidding me? What happened to 9 and 10? What if I was in a dynamite mood because it's finally sunny here? Then I guess I'd be off the charts but that's okay because there is even a few lines of blank space so you could write that stuff down. Now I know that there's probably an App for all this, that many of you are miles ahead and have been tracking and thereby maintaining your weight using these things for months. But it's new to me so naturally I am all excited and curious about it and I want to share it.

I am literally just using the book to see what I am really eating (without judgement) and how much I am actually burning off. I have never in my life tracked how many calories that I was burning during a workout and it's waaaaaay less than you'd think, dammit! Did you know that with my height, weight (such as it is) and age, I only burn 187 calories during 30 minutes with Tracy on the mat? If that's not motivation to get your cardio on, nothing is. Sheesh. There goes that extra brownie I was having after dinner... starting um today. I was getting off the sugar last week wasn't I? Yep epic fail! No worries I'll start by working on moderation before I quit cold turkey. Is that addict speak? Even if it is, I have this book to guide me so I'll see where I get.

Finally, the really great thing that the book offers, that perhaps a fancy App might not -- or maybe it does -- it's still cool -- are quotes each week to motivate you. So here's one of my faves so far.

Fitness --- if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body. 

Cher said that, gotta love her. I know I'd be buying it if it came in a bottle!
On a more serious note, Arnold Schwarzenegger says:

To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet, and mental approach.

Dude does not look Abcentric, what do you think he is? Omni maybe? Or hipcentric, his legs were kinda big, no? Kidding. I'm kidding, Arnie you're perfect buddy.

So here in a nutshell is your weekend pep talk. The journey to a great physique is hard work, and nobody rides for free. Have a great one.

Shan

The Fountain of Youth.

Hey Everybody,
Happy July. Is July like your favorite month of the year or is that just me? It's my birthday month and you might think at my age, I wouldn't care much for the month of July but au contraire! I have always loved it. It's summer, there's cake, what's not to love?

Contrary to what I may inadvertently lead you to believe, there is more going on in my day to day life than just this constant struggle with my eating habits and exercise routine. I mean I can be boring but I'm not a complete bore (I hope!). In any case I've been writing and waiting for news about two of my projects and writing and waiting and writing... okay perhaps I'm a bit of a bore. Anyway, I got news back on the first project and we didn't get the green light. It sucks, but the producers have not given up. They are looking to Europe for financiers but production has to be pushed by another year. Quel drag!

I have heard back on the second project and while it has received approval for the first round of financing (yeah!!!!!!) we still don't have word from all financial parties so at this point I suppose you could say the light is amber? Let's put it another way, she's on life support but the old girl ain't dead yet! So please please please keep your fingers crossed for me, say a prayer, make an offering to the funding gods or whatever it is that you can do to send positive energy, she is fighting for her life and consequently mine is hanging in the balance as well.

That said, while I continue to wait, I write. And I have just finished the first (very rough) draft of a new comedy. It's the most incredible time in this writer's day, that moment when you write those three tiny words... Fade to Black. It's so exciting. That is until the little voice in your head pipes up and says "You don't have a story there, you suck! Everyone's going to know that you suck when they read it so better not send it out."

Best way to silence that voice? Vino baby! And that's where the real story begins....

I'll skip the once upon a time there was a little girl who grew up in the prairies and dreamed of one day becoming a writer and get right to the -- so I just finished writing my very first farce. Hardest thing I've ever written and just because the foundation has been laid does not mean that the house is built. In screenwriting, as with other forms of writing I'm sure, this is just the beginning, now come the notes, the rewrites and revisions before you even send it to your agent for her thoughts. It's a long road so I find it's best if you stop and celebrate these small milestones along the way. There are enough other people out in the world who will be more than happy to beat you up and tell you that you suck, you'd do well not to be one of them. What the hell does this have to do with the bloody Fountain of Youth?! you want to know. Alright, patience, I'm getting to that already.

So in the interest of celebrating my little victory, I went to the liquor store. Something I rarely do as I am not a drinker (unless it's champagne and god and those I owe money to know I can't afford that!) And I got myself the cheapest bottle of red wine I could find. And guess what? I got ID'd. No kidding. I laughed at the woman behind the counter and said, it's because of what I'm buying isn't it (I sorta threw in a kit kat and a twix bar as well, don't judge me I was celebrating). To which she replied, NO, Two pieces of ID please Miss. She called me Miss not Ma'am. Eeee, coulda kissed her.

I'm gonna be 41 next week and I just got ID'd and got called Miss! I thought to myself hot damn and holy Helsinki! This Glowing Green Smoothie really works! I've been on it now for a coupla months, so it's possible right? I even actually thought my roots looked less grey, could that really be true? Could all of these amazing vitamins and minerals that my body is finally able to absorb be turning back the clock? Is the Fountain of Youth actually GREEN?

Two words for you: Fiber Rocks! Two more words: Greens Rock! But could it be more than that? I mean think about it for a second. Remember I was talking about our livers the other day and how they work super hard to clear all the gunk out of our system and Kimberly Snyder says that our skin is like a big sponge that absorbs everything we put onto it? (I'm paraphrasing here of course, but you know what I mean) For years and years (I'm talking a long time here people) I have been plastering my face and body and hair with all sorts of chemically laden crap in an effort to look young, but six months ago-ish I made a New Year's resolution to stop using cruel cosmetics. Could it be that what's been good for the puppies and bunnies has actually done me and my fat fighting, youth giving liver some good too?

I'll be honest, when I first turned over this new leaf, I thought my skin was going to wind up like an apple cut open and left in the sun to dry. I asked around to people like my girl Andi and she redirected me to sites like Peta and the The Vegan Beauty Market. Thanks Andi, would have been so lost without you love. 

I tested out a bunch of natural and organic stuff, a lot of which did nothing for me but empty my wallet and break my heart. I needed more help. I asked some of you what you were using and many of you pitched in and shared, but my lovely sweet Morgan went over and above the call of duty and gave me some super awesome leads, one of which actually stuck! I'm as fussy with skincare as I am with food apparently. Like tailoring our fitness routines, we must also customize our own skincare. I was saying it's like finding Mr. Right, sometimes you gotta kiss alotta frogs first. Among the frogs I have kissed, the following products are the Prince Charming's I've found among the bunch! And since you were so great to share with me, I want to share back with you.


I love these products not only because they're nice to bunnies and puppies, but also because they're good to the planet and most of what is in each of these products you can not only pronounce, you could likely eat so as they protect my skin and hair, they also don't harm my liver. I heart my liver!


Unlike my workouts where I am faithful to Mademoiselle Tracy, I do not believe in sticking to one product line to serve all of my beauty needs. I dip my toes in a lot of different pools. So here are some of the things I've been using that I have found to actually work for me!


I love Philosophy. The whole brand is fantastic and they offer a wide range of products for all skin types but my fave is Miracle Worker.

The Miraculous anti-aging retinoid pads. I swipe one of these babies over my face before bed and wake up looking fab. Okay maybe not fab, but better than I would if I didn't use them. The retinoid rejuvenates the skin without irritating it.


In the morning after I wash my face, thanks to my girl Morgan, I dab a few drops of Jurlique's Purely Age Defying Facial Serum over my face.

I love this serum. It's completely natural, grown in a sustainable farming environment and whether or not it does anything, it smells like heaven and that makes me so happy. And believe me I am not a morning person so happiness in the AM is a bonus, but can you think of any better beauty accessory than a smile? I feel younger just thinking about it.


If, like me, you feel overwhelmed by all the choices and are afraid to go down the garden path of cruelty free because you've been using your Lancome or whomever for so long, why not ask the ladies at Sephora, they are such a wonderful resource to tap into and how I found this next item.


Korres Wild Rose and Vitamin C Advanced Brightening Sleeping Facial.

Just think about it. Sleeping Facial. Doesn't that sound divine?

Now I'll be honest here, unlike my Jurlique serum, this stuff stinks! It has a fragrance that may appeal to some but it is way too strong for my taste. Especially before bed. I had hoped that within a few days I'd become desensitized to it but no such luck. But I suck it up because I love the way it makes my skin feel and how it makes it look in the morning. It's glowy. In fact I don't think you can go wrong with anything from the Korres lineup. I use their Evening Primrose Eye Cream and their Wild Rose Moisturizer. Good stuff. 


I'm not really into make-up, don't know what looks good or how to apply it and fortunately for me, working from home I rarely have to wear it. So when I do go out, I pop on a bit of mascara and some lip gloss. For years I've been wearing the kid's brand Lip Smacker. Yes it's true, cotton candy and grape flavors, but I have no idea if it's cruelty free or what's even in it so when I found Hurraw I was over the moon. It's tastey and tinted and cruelty free. A trifecta of lipgloss glory.

One must remember that it's not just the skin on the face that needs to be protected, the whole body should be given some attention as well. I guess this is where it's really important to use natural things like simple coconut oil. But that can get really pricey when you moisturize as much as I do so I use Live Clean Exotic Nectar Replenishing Body Lotion with Argan Oil.

The best thing about this line is that not only is it cheap as chips, you can find it at your local Pharmacy. Here in Canada that would be Shoppers or London Drugs. I love the entire line.

I use the hand soap, shampoo, conditioner and leave in conditioner. And lemme tell you, nothing has left my hair shinier than their Exotic Shine Bali Oil Conditioner. 

And it all smells beautiful. Like a day at the spa. I haven't tried the restorative oil treatment yet, but I might.

For now I'll stick with my newest love, Ojon Damage Reverse hair oil.

Nothing says youth like a full-bodied shiny head of hair. This stuff really is a miracle in a bottle. I have loads of long frizzy fly away color treated hair that I do nothing with. I hate to blow dry and flat iron and style. My hair looks great when I do all that, but I want it to look great even when I wash and air dry it. Now it does. Seriously. One little dime or pea-sized drop of this oil warmed in my hands and run through the length of my hair has given me a new mane. This stuff's brilliant.

I first heard about it at Sephora when they gave me a free sample. I wasn't so much into hair treatments as it's all I can do some days to run a brush through mine. But I tried it and loved it.

So there you go. Those are my picks from the last six months' experimentation with natural cruelty free products. Combine good products with exercise, your GGS, and a good night's rest and apparently you can still get ID'd in your 40's!

Lemme know what you think. Have you tried any of these lines or have a "can't live without" product that you think I should know about? Drop me a line. I'd love to hear about it.

xo
Shan

SCARY! The Before Pics You NEVER Saw.

Have you ever looked at Tracy (Anderson, creator of the Tracy Anderson Method) and thought to yourself, I bet she was never fat.

Have you ever read my blog, looked at my before and after photos and thought, She didn't look that fat! 

First off, lemme say that it's all relative. Then let me add to that, being what Tracy termed as ABCENTRIC allows those of us with bellies to hide them under baggie clothes. Most Abcentrics have skinny arms and legs so we can put on a jacket or a sweater and hide some of our "fat". In reality, we look like a marshmallow on toothpicks. Or at least that's how I've often thought of myself.

But I've never had the guts to show you the "bare" before photos, the ones where I literally poured myself into my skinny jeans and took the picture. It was just too heartbreaking, too personal, too "much" of myself to put it out there.

But ladies.... this is what 15 to 20 pounds of excess looks like on an Abcentric girl. Five pounds on a bird-like frame can look like 15.

Never mind the roll, look how flat my butt is!!!!!!

Is it any wonder that when I started working with Tracy's Method I coined phrases like "The Muffin Top Slayer"or "The Spare Tire Slasher." I mean look at this. It's like ten pounds of sugar poured into a five pound bag.

I am not pregnant. I promise.

So why am I showing this to you now? I guess I have a few reasons. One is so when I write about being all worried about going back from whence I came, you'll understand why; that I really do have an ab-fat situation and it isn't all in my head or just me being too hard on myself. I'm showing you these so that anyone new to the Method can see that it delivers results, but I'm showing these photos mostly for myself so that I fully comprehend what a slippery slope choosing the wrong foods and wrong workout can be. 

(These aren't even the worst pictures, okay. Once I really got gaining, it spread from my belly into my arms and my face and chin, I just could never stand to have my picture taken at that point.)

After taking the 30 day challenge from Tracy's 30 Day Method book, I dove straight into Metamorphosis. Did it work? Hell yeah. Perhaps I may have lost more than was good for me at one point and I got a little obssessy over three pounds, but at a healthy normal weight after Meta - I looked like this. A fit healthy happy girl.

I had to show you one of these because God knows I can't just have the train-wreck ones up there. (Again, for those of you that are new, the Method works if you work it, like AA)

Now. What I think you should also be aware of, is that I don't look exactly like that these days either. I am somewhere in the middle. Let's call me PUFFY, shall we? So what am I going to do about that?

Over the past eighteen months or so since I've completed my Metamorphosis program, I've seen my ups and downs, had issues with my neck, issues with poor food choices, having had a sugar binge just last week, it's no secret that I struggle. A lot. I've been having a hard time with Continuity. First how bleak it was, then with that blasted ball, but when I rolled over into year two, the chair was introduced and things were looking up. Weeeeee! I hit a few snags, came upon workouts that were almost too hard and I wanted to quit. Instead,  following the lead of our lovely Amy and I went back to level two Meta and gave that a go for old time's sake. It reminded me of why I loved the Method and I was tempted to go back and start all over. In the end, I changed my mind and kept going with Continuity. Tracy had a plan, right? She always has a plan and I needed to learn not to doubt her.

I just completed level 6, disk 2 of Continuity 2.0. It was a pretty good workout. The arm section used dumbells and it was a challenge. The floor abs were a solid routine and the first 4 leg moves were terrific, standing ballet oriented moves. Awesome. But then it's down to the floor on your knees for some seriously fussy moves that had me banging my knees on the legs of the chair more than anything else, but I made it through. At the end of the week, I previewed level 7 and guess what? The ball is back.

Y'all know how I feel about the ball, right? (hate it) But I watched it with an open mind and truth be told it doesn't look that bad. Most of the ball moves also incorporate the chair. Here Tracy is really challenging our balance so it looks like it will be a really stellar core-strengthening workout. So why then, when it was time to get down to work, did I have a knot in my stomach the size of Toledo? I did not want to do this workout.

I revolted. I sat down with my computer and started to actually do research on other workout programs. OMG no! YES. I did. I looked up Physique 57. Before they came out with their DVD's, they used to do 5 minute pod-casts. I loved them and did their stuff before I found Tracy. Since her, I never looked back, until I found myself on their site. I checked out Jennifer Aniston's trainer, Mandy Ingber, and her yoga inspired workout, I even went so far as to purchase Women's Health Magazine and I did a run through of the workouts they were touting. Not only that, but I found myself doing a Bob Harper workout that was posted online at Baazar Magazine. I was doing burbees and squats for crying out loud! What was wrong with me?

I stopped. This was insane! *@#%* How long had I done the Biggest Loser workouts with Bob and Jillian with no results? (No results for me, they obviously work wonders for some people, don't get me wrong, I am not dissing them at all, love Bob and Jillian.)

I had convinced myself to stay with Continuity initially because I could see how much stronger I'd become. I am able to perform moves that I'd have never dreamed possible when I began this journey. Beyond the mat, I've also become so much healthier in terms of my cardio vascular fitness as well. I started running in mid-April and on Sunday, ten short weeks later, I ran my first ever 5K, I actually ran 3.25 miles. How great is that? So not only does Tracy's program help us to get the weight off, it makes us stronger and gives us more endurance. That coupled with my better (not perfect but better) eating habits, my daily GGS, vegetarian diet and proper food combinations, I should be in better shape than ever, right? Should be able to laugh in the face of my skinny jeans, right? Wrong and wrong. 

The exercises I am performing on Continuity, while making me stronger and more capable, are no longer giving me the desired results. Let me be clear - this is not currently working FOR ME. I have no doubt that countless other people are looking and feeling their all-time best. I am not. And I have given it an honest effort. I even do dance freaking cardio here people, okay? And I hate that nearly as much as the blasted pink ball.

When I stopped panting from doing Bob's burpees and I'd exhausted all possibilities of a new workout online, instead of throwing myself a pity party, I grabbed those Meta disks again and I thought, I wonder if level three, Thee "Muffin Top Slayer" can still kick my ass? So instead of sucking it up and getting on with the new ball workout of C2, L7, I did Meta level 3. And guess what?

Eeeeee!! It kicked my ass totally, fully and completely. Still made me want to vomit on the mat and had me crying Uncle and the very next day I could feel that workout in all the right places! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Three fucking cheers for Metamorphosis.

It's July! It's my birthday month! I am going to be 41 and I don't want to go into it with a middle-aged spread thank you very much.

I had to ask myself, What would Tracy do? I'll tell you what she did...

When she danced her heart out and gained weight, she went to the gym. When the gym bulked her up, she did more cardio. When everything conventional was tried and failed, Tracy Anderson tried something else. She experimented on herself. She found what worked for her body and did that. So I am about to perform an experiment. You ready for this?

If I chose to stay with a workout based solely on the fact that it improved my cardio function and made me stronger, I'd still be swinging a kettle bell. I want results. I want consistency. I want to have a smaller waist. Once I'd finished Meta and got into Continuity, I quickly gained ten pounds and several inches that I have not been able to shed. For 18 months I've had nearly the same measurements and my weight fluctuates by only a few pounds. You might say - that's where your body wants to be. You might say that is a healthy range. You might say that super models don't always look super - they fast or juice or work out twice a day before a shoot to look that thin.

I understand that. I don't intend to look as thin as I did in my after pics that are posted under my photo link above. I get that 110-112 is too thin for me to maintain naturally and pleasantly. It requires too much work. I don't need to be that thin. But looking as I did above (in the nice pic not the big belly pics) at a healthy 114-116 is achievable and with the right workout, maintainable. It is therefore why I have, at this time, elected to go back to day one, level one of Metamorphosis. I am choosing to do an experiment on myself to see if it is indeed the workout itself, or if it really is my body wanting to be "puffy".

Part of me was scared to do that. I was afraid I was going to be missing something great on Continuity, that I would fall behind or mess up my "progress". News flash, Shan, your progress is already messed up. Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses or whomever and do your own thing. Shamandment Number One - Be Shannon.

So in the interest of being Shannon, I'm going back to Metamorphosis.

So far in just two days in, here's what I can tell you. I am once again excited by my workout, I feel leaner already. Ha ha ha. Seriously though, listen up. I thought about skipping the first level because I remember it being sort of slow and easy. Thought it might be too easy for the level I am now at. But I reconsidered and decided that if I am to start over, I'd do it properly and start at level one.

And something really exciting has happened. The best way to describe it is like learning a foreign language. Having done it and practiced it now for over two years, I thought I was getting pretty good. It would be the equivalent of having built up a broad vocabulary in another language and having several phrases that you feel comfortable using. You can understand a few words and follow along with really simple conversations, but you're not really speaking the language.

Now going back to day one and listening to Tracy explain the moves and watching her do the arms and abs - it's like a light came on - I could actually "see" those moves for the first time - it was like suddenly "understanding" that foreign language and being able to really communicate for the first time! Amazing. 

I didn't remember the workout at first, apart from the snake-skin leggings (which initially I'd hated and now I find really endearing), but then came a move where she says - you might not be able to keep up with me on this one --- back when I'd first done it, there was no way I could keep up. It was one of those moments where I'd sat back on my heels, stared at the TV and thought, WTF? But now I can do it! Same speed and topped off with a Ta da ballet pointe and everything. What a feeling! The best part was that she does 40 reps in Meta and I couldn't do them all. It's still really hard. But these Meta workouts -  I've revisited 1,2, and 3 recently are far more balanced and Abcentric than Continuity. They include standing free arms and weighted arms, they have standing abs and floor abs, they do a full series of leg moves at 40 reps rather than the 20 or 30 of these complicated moves on Continuity, and you can actually feel your abs being targeted from many angles during the leg session. This isn't to say that I have stopped my Continuity order yet or that I'll never go back to it. I very likely will. But for now, it isn't doing it for me.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, complicated does not necessarily mean better. I am a simple girl. I like things to be simple and straightforward. It's why I love the Method and why I love The Beauty Detox Solution - do this mat work and cardio, you will have the body you desire, drink this green drink and eat these foods separate and you will no longer be bloated. Simple. Not easy, but simple.

So I guess we'll see. I'll keep you posted. For now, I am elated to be moving in what feels like the right direction for me.
xo
Shan