BOOK LAUNCH!

Your DIET is tres important (tres is French for very, it's like molto in Italian, muy in Spanish). Some of you out there would like to believe that if you log enough cardio and do enough mat work or lift enough weights, you'll be able to eat whatever you want. And for a few of you, that may even be true. I was one of you once. Both the believer and the "being true" part.

In my blessed teens, twenties and even the first half of my thirties, I could do a bit of yoga, go for a jog and voila, I could pack away pizza, cookies, ice cream - you name it. Do any of you know those Duncan Hines freezer cakes? No word of a lie, on a typical Friday night I could polish off one of those babies and a two liter tub of rocky road and still slip effortlessly into my skinnies. I'm now secretly jealous of girls like me, so don't feel bad if you resent the young me too.

As my thirties clicked on toward my forties, things began to change and this was no longer the case. But I still believed. I believed Tony Horton when he said do P90-X and you can eat like a footballer, I believed Chalene Johnson when she said Turbo-Jam would set my metabolism on fire. I believed Tracy Anderson when she promised that there would be French Fries in my future.

Now before you go getting all defensive and tell me that none of those people ever promised any of that, or that you were the one person who did the workout and can now eat anything you like, you should know that:
A) I'm really happy for you and even a lot jealous. And...
B) I am being a little tongue in cheek here to make a point so lemme get to it.

All of the above are excellent trainers whom I respect and admire very much and incidentally all of their programs include a diet you should follow for optimum success. But as you know, I am not a "good little dieter". I suck at it. I have gotten so bruised and battered from falling off the diet wagon it's amazing I can walk at all. But after a visit from my sister and my best friend a little over five weeks ago, I came to the realization that I was no longer that girl who could eat anything she liked. It finally sunk in, but with that came the intense desire to learn how to eat because I do NOT want to be a yoyo dieter for the rest of my bloody life thank you very much!

I reached out to you lovelies in a post to get some answers and from there made the very tough choice to give up sugar. I think deep down inside I secretly hoped that by giving up tummy enemy number one, the sweet stuff, I'd then be able to go back to eating as much of anything else that I wanted. Getting off sugar is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but I'm here to tell you it isn't the cure. It's harder to admit than it is to hear believe me. But that's the reality of middle age, I'm sorry to say. Maybe if I did do an hour of cardio 7 days a week, I might be singing a different tune, but I don't so I'm not.

Which brings me back to my opening statement, your diet is very important. 

But that does not mean that you have to be on a diet! You don't have to just eat salad for the rest of your life or only drink smoothies, purees and juices to fit into your favorite pair of jeans. I am here to say that help is indeed on the way!

I gave myself a month off sugar to go ahead and eat whatever else I wanted in order to cope with the anxiety of dealing with my addiction to sugar. The great news is that I didn't gain any weight. The not so great news is that I didn't lose any either. 

But since then, I have made some other changes. I've cut out the junk like chips and fries and I've been keeping track of the amount of protein I get each day to ensure that I'm getting enough. And low and behold, three pounds have come off. 

I haven't been eating like I'm on a diet, I've just been eating cleaner and taking in more protein. But what does that actually mean? We all think we're eating pretty clean and still we don't lose the last five. So what have I been doing? Not going it alone for starters. I've had help.

My girl Janice over in the UK has been working on a brand new cookbook designed especially for people like me! Like us! People who want to eat clean, who want to know what's in the food they're eating, and who just want to enjoy meal time without a whole lotta fuss and without feeling like we're on some damned diet or other. I want to eat food that I can share with "he who shall not be named", or my parents or friends should they come to visit. Since I started this whole journey nearly two years ago, I have been searching for a balanced lifestyle. For a way of eating that I could enjoy for the rest of my life and Janice's book is the perfect jumping off point.

   
Please do yourself a favor and check out her new Website -- Easy Tasty Clean -
where you can have a look at her new book Easy Tasty Clean, Recipes to Support a Healthy Lifestyle, and get a copy! As Janice admitted herself, since cooking each and every one of these recipes to photograph and prep for the book, she found herself now weighing what she did when she was twenty years old! How great is that?!

The book goes on sale tomorrow, Saturday September 1st! Why not kick off a new month with some new recipes to fuel that red hot body you've been working so hard for. It's a busy back to school season for many of you and I promise that most of these recipes can be whipped up and on the table inside a half hour!

If you're a fan of the Method, you know that Tracy assures you that with her strategic muscle work and her dance cardio you don't have to worry about spending time creating a butt and thighs that you don't want. Her Method was designed to keep you lean. Well now you have the perfect cookbook to go along with it. You can make the dishes in Janice's book without having to worry about cooking food that's going to make you chubby or that's going to taste like bland boring diet food. Not to mention the foods featured in the book are every day items you've got in your own kitchen. I've already road-tested a few of the recipes, you can read a review here, and I'm looking forward to getting a copy and trying out a lot more! 

With diet in mind, I've got a new body challenge for you, but more on that this weekend. 

As well, the 11th of September marks my two-year anniversary blogging about my trials and tribulations on the Method and a few of you have been wondering what's going on with my body. Do I still look the same as my after photos? Have I morphed into the before girl once again? I am going to say that I'm neither - I am some place in the middle and plan to share some new photos so you can get an idea of what maintenance, my maintenance, actually looks like.

Until then, thanks so much for reading and sharing this journey.
Love,
Shan 

Keep it up!

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination." Tommy Lasorda

How determined are you to keep going? This lifestyle we've chosen isn't about an end game, it's not a quick fix. We're not here for the short term. We're lifers! 

Be dedicated to doing something physical every day. Push yourself a little further, dig a little deeper, try a little harder. The Method paves the way so you don't even have to think about it. You don't have to wonder if you're doing it all for nothing. Your workout is going to change every ten days and your body will continue to change right along with it.

I don't know about you, but I want those abs!

It ain't called a WORKOUT for nothing. You've gotta work for it! Don't quit. Don't give in. Keep it up!
xo
Shan

MidLife...

It's the weekend. I don't know what it is about Saturday mornings that make me want to reflect back on life, but today I am going to climb out onto the skinny branches and share.

In my profile, I write myself as a curious soul with lots of opinions, feeling my way (often blindly) from the carefree days of youth into the uncharted waters of maturity, remarking that this is also know as the midlife crisis. But other than the diet and fitness aspects of that change, I don't actually write about what it's like growing up (read growing older).

I recently read a post by my blogger friend Martie who writes a fun blog called Spunkyrella. Something that she tossed out casually in her Friday post was that she was hoping to get out and about this weekend, have scrumptious food, listen to great music and just be myself for awhile. Sounds like a perfect weekend plan Martie. But what struck me, was the last part of the statement...

Just be myself for awhile.

I couldn't help but wonder, did I even know who myself was anymore? 

Not everyone has this issue I suppose, perhaps it's an affliction reserved for the artistic. But as I left the apartment and headed for a walk along the beach with my dog, I considered it. I thought about the women I'd known over the years, the pretty girl in high school who never had to work for anything. She was so pretty it seemed everyone was clamoring to fulfill her every desire. She never had to go on and do great things because she was pretty. But what about that fateful morning, when she woke up and looked in the mirror and realized that she wasn't really that pretty anymore? Who was she, if not the pretty girl?

Or the girl who always knew deep down in her very soul that she would become a mother. It's all she ever wanted. Find a good man, get married, have babies and live happily ever after. But years later, now in her 40's, she's looking around and realizing that Prince Charming never showed up. She never got married, still hasn't had a baby. Who is she if not a mother? 

Meanwhile, there's the girl who did get married, who did have babies and who now has a nice house in the suburbs and drives a minivan, but is so busy shuttling between soccer practice and piano lessons that she hasn't touched a paint brush or canvas in years. If she's not painting, is she still an artist?

Who are we really and what is it that makes us Us? 

I've often seen women lose themselves in relationships or to their families. You know the ones. It was you and her that used to spend your Saturdays eating those scrumptious meals together, listening to that great music, dancing around your apartment... until he came along. Now you never see each other. You're lucky to catch up with a text or an email.

Does it become harder to hang onto ourselves as we age? Maybe the bigger question is, should we even try to? Isn't midlife about change? Just as the baby becomes the toddler, the child becomes the teen and the teen becomes the adult. These are all clear stages that we cannot seem to wait to morph through. Why don't we face our golden years in the same way? Is there really anything in the caterpillar worth hanging onto for the butterfly? Or should she just spread her wings and fly away? Do you think she looks back on her lazy days in the long grass and remembers when? That maybe she longs for the warm afternoons spent stretched out along a branch sunning herself?

I guess spending the weekend being myself used to mean something so different ten years ago than it does today and there's a part of me that misses that. Ten years ago, I lived in the city. It wasn't New York (how I wished), but it was for me the Canadian equivalent, Toronto. Open-mic nights at Free Times where my friend Jeannette would play her guitar and sing, Saturday mornings were practically a religious experience having fried breakfast with the girls at Kos on College Street West, and Sundays were spent stretched out on a yoga mat in the company of all my yoga teacher buddies at our yoga center, taking a class with our teacher, then chatting over chai and a home-cooked Indian meal. Like my girl Martie, I used to live for the weekends.

But I was still soul searching. I wanted to make movies. A film festival in San Fransisco stopped me in my tracks. It was the American Indian Film Festival. I saw a very powerful short film made by a Toronto production company and it was there and then that I decided I would work for them. I contacted them, and miracle of miracles, their office manager was running off for six weeks to do a play and had no one to cover at such short notice. I told them I'd take six days if that was all they had and a new me was born.

My life became about learning the craft. Working behind the scenes wearing a million different hats. I knew who I was going to be. I was becoming an Indigenous Filmmaker. Once I was sufficiently brave enough to show my work to someone I respected, everything changed. I became a resident at the Canadian Film Centre, while there I got married. I later became a fellow of Praxis, a screenwriting program at Simon Fraser University and was even the first Canadian screenwriter invited to participate at the formerly "American only" Tribeca All Access program at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. 

But like that girl you stopped seeing because she was dating "him", could it be possible that I was losing myself to the writing? I moved to a tiny cottage on east coast of Vancouver Island. I was isolated, but it was good, I was going to be able to practice my craft without distraction. But that's all I did. For four long years, living in an isolated retirement community, I didn't make friends, I never went out, all I did was write. I became convinced that if we didn't move out of there, things would soon spiral into something resembling the Shining or Secret Window.

I didn't want to be the writer gone mad. We moved to Vancouver.

But was it too late? Had writing taken over my life so much that I was incapable of getting back to the old me? Was that even something I should be considering? If the butterfly became consumed with her old life, surely her wings would wither and she'd die. Is there something in the butterfly that allows her to have the courage to leap off that branch, spread her gloriously colored wings and take flight? And do each of us possess that same something within us that will allow us to take flight too? Could there be something magical waiting just beyond the branch we're currently clinging to?

Can you tell that I've been watching Sex and the City and I have Carrie Bradshaw's voice in my head? Had I been given the chance, I bet I'd have been a great addition to the Sex and the City writing room. Now we'll never know.

It's taken ten long years, I've been swallowed nearly whole by this goal of being a filmmaker and now... in just a little over two weeks... I have a film going into production. 

After all this time... the little screenwriter (caterpillar) will become the filmmaker (butterfly) and if I can find that thing in me, that strength that gives the butterfly the courage to take her first flight, perhaps I'll take my own flight into a whole new world and I'll look back on that twenty-something girl with a smile, knowing that that girl helped me become the determined woman who became the produced writer. 

I wonder who'll I'll be when I'm no longer the struggling wannabe. For now, I'll just enjoy this Saturday on the beach with my dog.
xo

CONTINUITY 2.2.1

Heya,
Before I get into the details of the Shannonized Continuity 2.2 experience, I gotta ask...

Who wants to be my roommate in Hawaii for Detox week!!! Hello?! How fucking rad would that be? I know that no one says 'rad' anymore, but I'm bringing it back so shut it! I absolutely love Hawaii and have never been to the island of Maui before and can you just imagine killing ourselves in class for two hours then plunging into the pacific straight afterwards? I already have a huge list of you in my head that I want to meet, so why not in Hawaii? Four thousand three hundred dollars plus a flight might be why... but we could save up.

It's in the middle of things so all you beautiful Brits and Awesome Aussies could get there too! Just putting it out there, ladies. Think about it, 'kay?

Ahhhhhh. I'm there.

Alright, back to the actual work portion of the Method and Continuity 2.2, the Maria and Stacey workouts.

When I first heard that Tracy was expecting, I was happy for her until I learned that Maria and Stacey were taking over our at home training. Yikes. What? Nooooooo! I can't workout without Tracy, I thought. It's not the Tracy Anderson Method without Tracy Anderson I cried. She's the baddass fitness guru, the Muffin Top Slayer, the Spare Tire Slasher, how could I possibly go on without her???

With Maria and Stacey, that's how, you big silly.

Never fear, the Torso Twister is here. Yep, it's Maria. Maria Maria Maria. She takes the lead in level 1 of Continuity 2.2 and she's the Torso Twister. I just can't come up with anything meaner sounding for her because she's Maria and she's so incredibly sweet. And don't even get me started on her hair! Gorgeous, and those arms, want guns just like 'em. She's awesome.

Girls you are going to love this level if you're not here already. My best descriptive for 2.2.1 is that it is an Advanced Metamorphosis. If Metamorphosis were old, this'd be old school. For realz.

First off, we once again have the option for Voice over! Hooray! Not only is Maria super peppy and encouraging, her description of each move is well thought out and articulate and she even calls out the number of the move on occasion - so you sort of know how much more you'll have to endure before switching sides. 

The arms are no joke. I foolishly thought that now that I was going to be following a longer-limbed instructor, I might have half a chance of keeping up, but nope. No way, nosirree. Maria has arms that move the speed of a humming bird. Crazeeeee. She moves so fast at times even the camera man has a hard time keeping her in frame, but I am confident that by the end of the ten days I'll be able to do it too... just in time to move on to level two, rats. This is just like the good ole days, no? 

There is a full on series of abs on the floor and Maria is no slouch, she makes us work. Again, it's fast and there is good usage of the arms in this series on the floor that have you twisting and torquing all over the mat. But the name Torso Twister doesn't just come from the abs, oh no. Miss Thang has us balancing up on one knee twisting away from then toward the knee on the working leg. I kissed the ground more than once on that one. It's no joke.

I love it because it's challenging but the moves are simpler than some of the previous paces we've been put through on Continuity. We use the towel in this level for a couple of moves, but no ball (thank God for small mercies) and no chair. Like I said, it feels like an advanced Metamorphosis. It's the perfect compliment to the Meta workouts I am doing along with it.

Word to the wise, if you're doing more than one level of Mat work at a time, DO NOT start two new levels on the same day. Ugh, even my arm pits ache. I moved into Meta level 6 along with this new 2.2 workout and yowzers, man alive am I hurting today.

With all honestly, this is the happiest I've been on the Method journey for some time. I mean to tell you that I loved the last level with Tracy and I am going to miss the tiny little devil, but I am really looking forward to mastering this level with Maria and seeing what Stacey has in store for level 2. You won't be disappointed ladies, I promise.

Love,
Shan

It's a Shocker!

Hello Lovelies.
Just a quickie to say, I can't believe that I have been 30 Days without sugar. High five me, somebody, please. I don't care if it's not cool.

A whole month. Actually I can believe it, PMS was a total Bee-otch this past week and last night was the hardest time I've had so far. I almost caved. That said the struggle seems to be waning a little bit and I feel like I have more space in my head. No, don't read that to mean I'm an air head, although I've been called worse I'm sure, I just feel less preoccupied with the sweet demons. It's good. I still want it, but I want to be off it more.

I started Continuity 2.2 with Maria today! And wow I loved it. Review to come including my reservations about working out with someone other than Tracy. Plus, just got my 2.3 in the post today, can't wait to rip it open and see what's in store. Eeeeee.

Can't wait to share it with you later this week.
xo
Shan

Tragic End.

I read the news yesterday that one of my favorite director/producers took his own life. I had to reread it. It couldn't be. 

Tony Scott, the man who brought us Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop II, an iconic filmmaker who helped define Hollywood action movies, who inspired me to write... had jumped to his death? How could that be possible?

I don't even know what to say about that. My heart breaks over the loss of another one of my heroes. 

My condolences to everyone at Scott Free Productions.
It's not going to be the same without the man in the faded red cap.

The Summit or The Climb?

I've recently been watching this program featuring a handful of novice climbers who've decided to take on the challenge of climbing Mount Everest. I bring it up because I often compare getting in shape to climbing that very peak. Curiously I've learned that the parallels are many.

When you're climbing a mountain of any sort, you have got to be committed, but none more than Everest, it's not for the faint of heart. Were you aware that the process can take months? It takes seven over night stops just to reach base camp. You've then got to make several climbs and descents over and over to adjust to the extreme altitude. It's a process. Like keeping in shape is a process.

If you want to lose a few pounds for a milestone birthday or reunion, that's one thing, but if you're serious about changing your lifestyle and health, it's quite another. You have got to put the work in daily. This is not a part time deal, nor does it have an end date - it's forever so better chose an activity you can live with -- literally.

What's interesting is that these individuals that do make it to the top, and like regular exercise not everyone sticks with it, only manage to stay at the summit for a few minutes or an hour tops, before they must make the treacherous climb back down out of the death zone. Having been with the Method now for a couple of years (wow, who knew I had it in me?) I've also come to realize that being in that lean perfect and peak condition is a little like making the summit - you can't really stay there forever. I'm not talking about maintaining a healthy fit body, I'm talking about being ripped.

Here's what I mean. Let's take Jessica Biel as an example. 

She has an enviable physique; fit, strong, yet feminine. She looks fantastic, right? Agreed. But in a recent interview, Jessica states that she doesn't look like that all the time. Of course she's fit and healthy and keeps up a routine, but she gets ready for the photo shoots by working out more than usual and changing her diet to get camera ready. She gets leaner and in better shape. It's no different with the Victoria Secret models before a big show. They'll drink protein drinks and cut carbs and train twice as long. They get to the "summit" for the show, but don't stay there permanently.

But saying that, just because a climber doesn't stay on top of the mountain indefinitely, doesn't mean they aren't constantly climbing to be ready for when they'll take the top.

Losing weight and getting your dream body is a great goal and it can be done - sometimes even in with a limited period of time, but it's the maintenance that's crucial. Eating well most days and moving every day are what's key. So for my money being fit should be more about the climb and less about the summit. You can go for the summit when the occasion calls for it, but don't kill yourself trying to stay there.



Cheers,
Shan.

 

Last Level With Tracy!

Heya,
Hope you've all had a nice weekend and managed to make it through your Monday (if you're not a fan of Monday's that is). This week marks the official start to my last Continuity level with Tracy! Yep, I started level 2.1.9! Continuity 2.2 kicks in with Stacey and Maria. Eeeeeep, I confess to being a little bit frightened. They look pretty tough.

So can I tell you about it? Huh?? Can I? Please can I?

I love love love love love level 9 of Continuity 2.1. Like I struck gold, won the lottery, got a new puppy, sort of love. This is the best workout ever. Perhaps part of the reason that I love it so much is that I can do the whole thing without needing to use a mat. Since we moved into this apartment nearly a year ago (wow time flies) I have an area rug over hardwood over cement floors. So the floor is pretty hard, but the thing that gets me is that the mat is constantly slipping and moving on the carpet, but because the floor is so hard I can't remove the carpet. It's too big to move anyway. 

That being the case, with this workout, there are no floor abs (but believe me you won't miss 'em one bit in this routine) and most of the leg series is done standing upon the chair. Good times! I love how it forces you to balance and automatically calls upon all those stabilizing muscles in your core.

But can we please talk about the arm sequence? It's fun. It's fast and really choreographed. If you weren't wearing weighted arm bands you'd think you were dancing.The best part is, after all this time doing the Method, I was able to pick up the moves pretty quickly and didn't feel so much like an epileptic chicken!

The whole workout just moves and swings and has rhythm and before you know it you're onto the other side and BAM it's over. It's very likely my most favorite level ever! So glad that I didn't give up before getting here.

In addition to this, I am also now on level 5 of Metamorphosis (as I am currently doubling up my MS) and I'd forgotten just how effectively this level targets that midsection and those love handles. Lots of torso-twisting action going on. Most of the moves on this level have 40 reps, so on the days that I just cannot muster up the energy to do two full MS workouts, I've decided that I can do 20 reps on one side and quickly switch, doing 20 on the other before moving on to the next move, that way I get it in but it only takes 20 minutes. Genius me.

I do have a bit of a sore neck as both of these levels demand a lot from you in the way of planks and balancing so I am going to have to be careful not to injure myself. But overall I'm loving it and expect to look like this by month's end.

Ha! With the way I eat? Not bloody likely. But it's good to have something to shoot for.

I'll leave you with a quote from the lovely Salma Hayek:
People often say that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have dared not look, including inside ourselves. (Hence this weekend's Body Challenge) 

Honestly I realize that I'll likely never have abs like the woman above, I'm not her. But I am learning to love my own body and appreciate it for all of the magical things it's able to do, especially the Tracy Anderson Method!

Cheers, 
Shan

Weekend Body Challenge.

Hey girlies!
Somehow it's the weekend already and I've let the week slip by without giving myself and all of you our Mission Impossible, our Body Challenge for the week.

I'm the kind of girl that likes (needs) to have the proverbial carrot dangling before me to get me motivated and going. I don't naturally wake up each day with a dazzling white smile upon my face ready to stand up to any challenge that the world throws me. I'd prefer to hit snooze, roll over and sleep for another ten, twenty, thirty... is it noon already??? Life requires so much discipline, I need all the help I can get.

I don't like to eat well, I'd prefer a fried breakfast, a Starbucks mocha and some cake. Exercising is a huge pain in the ass; on most days I've got to beg, bribe and bully myself to get on the mat. None of this stuff comes easy. I suppose that's why I write a blog - so I can bitch about it with people who get it. He he he, that's not entirely true. I also write to keep myself inspired, to glean inspiration from all of you and to try to come up with little tips and tricks to make it easier to choose salad over French fries and workout instead of taking a nap. 

This led me to my goal of trying to generate at least one little challenge a week that will help me/us gain some perspective, feel better about ourselves, love ourselves a little more, or to dig a little deeper into ourselves to see what we're actually capable of when we put our collective minds to something. Which brings me to this week's challenge - better late than never, right?

This week's body challenge, should you choose to accept it, it to pick a body part that perhaps you're not particularly fond of and make a list of five things that you can learn to like or appreciate about it! I want you to write them down. I want us all to do this this week because I think it's vital for us to realize that: 

1)There can be something to appreciate in even the thing we like the least about ourselves and 
2)we are not that body part so we should not continue to let it define us

Five things??? I hear you asking. It's not too much, I promise. Ten might be too many but two or three are definitely not enough. Just to prove it can be done, here is an example.

Let's say you hate your nose.



It's hideous, you think. It's too long, or too big, or it has a bump in the middle or it's hooked, or it has a doughy ball on the end, whatever it is about your nose, you can't stand the sight of it. How the heck can you come up with five things to love about your schnoz?  You write 'em down, here's how.

1) I appreciate my nose because I actually have a nose. Think about poor Michael Jackson and what all that plastic surgery left him with. Whew, thank goodness I didn't get that nose-job.

2) My nose is great because it can smell gas or smoke, alerting me to danger and potentially saving my life.

3) I love my nose because when it smells that amazing scent of freshly baking bread, it takes me straight back to Saturday afternoons spent in my grandmother's kitchen. Thanks for the lovely memories, nose!

4) My nose is alright because at least it has the decency to not be red and therefore stick out even more.

5) The skin on my nose is fantastic, not a black-head in sight.

There, see? Done. And suddenly you feel better about your nose.
Alrighty then. I am off to write a list of five things I can appreciate about my love-handles. Good grief! I'm sure it can be done, it just may take the whole weekend.

Have a great one.
Shan

Coping WIthout Sugar

Hey guys,
It's been a couple of weeks since I decided to boldly go where no Shan has gone before and cut out sugar, no negotiations. That was big and huge and scary and there were a couple of you who echoed my desire to be free of the obsession. It's for that reason I thought I'd touch base and let you know how it's been going. 

Sometimes we make these decisions followed by radio silence, leaving the noble reader to wonder... has she fallen off the wagon? Knowing her, probably... or... she just gave it up and it was so easy for her, the beeotch! I assure you neither case is true.

Many of you have offered up support in the way of the book Potatoes Not Prozac and the website Radiant Recovery. I've found some wonderful tips there to help deal with the physiological issues of giving up sugar. Things like having protein at breakfast and actually having that breakfast within an hour of waking up. But no amount of supplements or protein will help if you give in to the cravings.

But for me the biggest challenge, which as it so happens is also the biggest victory, was to just decide to do it with no start date, no pretox, no deliberation. It was time, I'd run out of excuses for hanging on to sugar like a security blanket.

Believe me when I tell you it wasn't easy. My brain was freaking out and screaming, but I'm not ready! I don't want to! I am not my mind. I am something so much stronger than that. And so are you.
 
By choosing to not allow any mental debate, I took away the sugar's power. What I mean by that is, and forgive me if I'm being redundant, if there is no sugar allowed, there is no gateway drug, no wiggle room and no negotiation. I've found in the past when trying to give up my addiction to sweets, I'd try a few squares of dark chocolate. That resulted in eating the entire bar. So I then got the bright idea to try mini bars. It worked for a short time before I found myself gobbling up a week's worth of little bars in one sitting. Finding myself defeated, I'd run to the shop for brownies or cookies or both, sometimes in addition to chocolate covered almonds or M&Ms, it was a full on binge. You can see why this didn't work. It was like offering an alcoholic an "occasional" beer, or the smoker that "social" cigarette. Soon they're running off with the whole case or pack to repeat the vicious cycle over and over.

So that was the primary objective - no debate. On the other hand I am a firm believer in trying to achieve balance. I didn't want to become obsessive in other ways. I understand that when one learns they are allergic to peanuts or wheat, they must do everything in their power to avoid these foods at any and all costs so initially they may be forced to be neurotic about the whole thing. This is not the case with me. I won't die if I accidentally ingest sugar. So I am taking the broad approach. I still make my granola with cane sugar and maple syrup, I still eat bread, rice and pasta -- for now.

I will never give up granola, I get too much goodness from it. The iron in the pumpkin seeds, the calcium from the sesame seeds, the fiber from the oats, the protein from the wheat germ and nuts. As a vegetarian, it's a perfect food (for me). Plus I enjoy it.

However, I have decided to approach my dietary changes in stages. One of the ways I have gotten around my sugar cravings, and there are a lot of them I don't mind telling you, (it's a constant battle) is I have allowed myself liberties where other food is concerned. For this first 30 days, I am not saying no to anything else. So if I want that toasted cheese sandwich for dinner - I'm going for it. If I want a handful of popcorn or Pringles at the movies, feel free. What I am saying is that I haven't axed the junk food altogether. This helps assuage my worried mind when it starts to wonder if I'll ever be able to eat anything fun again. But I am also aware that this is a slippery slope and therefore it must be temporary. I don't want to run the risk of simply swapping out one food addiction for another.

Once this 30 day period is up, it will be time to cut out the junk like potato chips and French fries. I plan to do this by continuing to allow other "less than ideal" things like cheese and pizza. Pizza isn't an ideal food, but if you get a good one made with wholesome ingredients, it's not horrible either. In fact we have an organic gluten free Pizza joint just up the street - God I love Vancouver!!

Days 60 to 90 are going to be the tailoring phase. It will be taking a hard look at what I'm eating that's really keeping the extra few pounds on, deciding what I can and cannot realistically live without and in the same way I made the choice to be a vegetarian and not eat meat, I will choose not to indulge in certain things. Potato chips will probably be one of those foods. I'm not such a salt-lover anyway so it's likely one of those foods that I'll be able to live without.

The idea behind all of this - which has been part of the entire quest of finding a healthy lifestyle in my forties -- is to find a way of eating that I can live with for the rest of my life that will also benefit my health and my fitness goals. Because as you know, I've already found my fitness routine, The Tracy Anderson Method. It works with my lifestyle, but I've yet to find eating habits that compliment all of the hard work I'm putting in on the mat.

So there you have it. I do cope with sugar longings and cravings daily, sometimes so much so that I want to crawl out of my skin, but the headaches and flu-like symptoms are gone. I survive the cravings by knowing that I can eat absolutely anything else that I want to. Luckily for me, nothing else can satisfy that craving so most often, rather than stuffing it down with other food, I ride it out and wait for it to pass. But ladies, the good news is that the cravings do pass.  I think getting the sugar out of the way frees my mind up to really decide what foods I want to include on a regular basis rather than just stuffing my face blindly so eventually I hope to settle into a comfortable healthy routine that's all mine.

If you're dealing with an addiction to sugar, you should know that if I can do this, you can totally do this too.

Big hugs,
Shan 

Continuity 2.1.8

I'm going to just get it right out there, Continuity 2.1.8 is killing me! (In a good way). You likely know that last month I went back to Metamorphosis to more or less kick-start my lagging motivation toward working out. It was amazing to revisit these earlier sessions with Tracy Anderson and see that she could still kick my butt no matter what level we were on, but it was also a clear indication of my personal growth and transformation. Sometimes we girls need a reminder that transformation takes place in the inside too, not just the outside.

I enjoyed it so much that I've elected to carry on with Metamorphosis while doing Continuity. What?! That's right. It means an hour of muscular structure a day. Believe me, I've been kind of a slacker, I'd let my diet go, I wasn't doing cardio, I was a mess. (I need the tough love approach.) In April I started running and that helped a little, but it wasn't enough.

So here I am four months later, more than two weeks sugar free (16 days to be exact) and I am working my way back into fighting form. My diet needed the overhaul too and sugar was the beast that needed to be shown the door. I'm not eating perfectly, but I'm tackling one issue at a time and that feels like an accomplishment. Baby steps, right?

Now here's the thing, doing level 8 of Continuity 2.1 after doing level 4 of Meta is hard work. Let's just say that C2.1.8 makes M4 look like a cake walk. But there has also been an interesting mental shift taking place here. Knowing that level 4 is the opening act seems to make getting through it much easier. 

Sure it has planks and balance moves that the first time around I couldn't do all the reps on, but now I manage all of those reps knowing that the next 30 minutes will involve not only balancing but backward leg rotations and one knee tricks that acrobats perform. If I were just doing the one level, by the end I'd be kaput. Knowing that I have to keep going for another 30 minutes keeps some mental stamina reserved somewhere in the nether regions of my mind that I am able to tap into when tackling the last section. Is this business of endurance really all in the mind???

In addition, I'm now sweating so much that the palms of my hands can barely hold a plank position. Perhaps I should have been working this hard all along? Yikes.

I don't really have a plan at this point. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up, but for now it's where I'm at. Perhaps once I get into the Stacey and Maria workouts of 2.2 I may drop back down to 30 minutes. I'll keep you posted.

In the mean time, here's a little bit of inspiration.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.  

ARISTOTLE

Dr. Martica Heaner (nutritionist and exercise physiologist) says: 

Most important, wrap your mind around the idea that you need to be active for the rest of your life. Walking may melt off the weight you want to lose now, but if you stop moving once that extra heft is gone, it'll soon be back.

We are the habits we create. Let's create pathways for better habits.
xo
Shan

Dog Day Afternoon.

Ahhhhh, summer. It's finally arrived in our fair city.

A few weeks ago, I threw out a Body Challenge asking you to challenge your perception of yourself by seeking out a foreign mirror and having a look at yourself in a new light.

I took my own challenge and wound up with a new pair of shorts. The idea of exposing my legs in pubic had been a truly frightening one, until I realized that I'm 41 and I was like, what the hell, it's now or never.

Taking my best buddy out for a walk yesterday I had an opportunity to wear said shorts. Mind you don't blind yourself on the pale skin of my legs. I did mention that they'd not seen the light of day in years, right?

 
Hope the start to your week's a great one.
Shan

It's Okay to Fall

Hey no one is going to fault you for falling down... as long as you pick yourself back up.

Have you fallen off the diet wagon again? Have you fallen out of sync with your workouts and not managed to get your groove back?


Your Body Challenge this week should you choose to accept it is to get back up! Get back on! Re-motivate yourself to start again!


Cheers,
Shan
 

Contemplating Continuity

You are fierce. You are a warrior goddess. You do your best to work out everyday. And if you don't, I know you want to. That goddess is in you and you can feel her fighting, kicking and screaming to get out. You have a desire to maintain this lean and strong body that you've worked incredibly hard to build or you are dreaming of the day when your body will morph into that lean strong work of art. You have that desire within you, that passion to make it happen so it WILL happen. You only need to access that power within you, to tap that inexhaustible resource we call spirit and use the tools that have been given to you. Everything is possible.

I love Tracy Anderson's Method. There is nothing else like it. For all the love days and hate days, the ins and outs of trying to keep up a workout on a continuing basis, no one makes this more doable than Tracy with her Metamorphosis program. You might find a level that you can't wait to tear into, you might find some others test your strength and push your limits, there may be days where nothing seems to change and you want to quit, but you don't because there is always another level to conquer, another sequence on this Method that you know you can Master. She has awakened that fire within you that has given you an acute awareness of who you can be in this world.

You are beautiful, you're passionate, you're capable and you're strong. There is fight in you because you are a woman! This program was designed for you!

2012 has definitely been a year of spectacular growth and growth isn't always comfortable, in fact it can be downright painful. We know what we're supposed to do. We have a map, we have guidelines. Spend 30 minutes on the mat, spend 30 minutes doing dance cardio, eat lean and clean and presto - magnificent body manifested. But you know that's not always the case.

There are long days at work, exams to study for, sick children to take care of, houses to clean up, birthdays to celebrate, there's a deadline, the flu, the in-laws coming to town, there are snow days, new clients to wine and dine, there is PMS, migraines and cookie binges, there are school plays, football playoffs, anniversaries, weddings and funerals to attend, there's that night course, the online course, the second language to learn, the instrument to practice because the recital is coming up, the family dinners, the family meltdowns, the triumphs and the tragedies... there is often and always will be something that can get in the way.

So you do your best each day. You juggle, you compromise and you cope. But one thing that is always there for you when you come looking is the Method. You can rely on it, it's dependable and supportive. You can take your frustrations out on it. You can whittle away worries on the mat. You can celebrate with some great tunes as you dance around the room. It will never let you down.

It took me a great deal of time to fully understand that. There were days where I didn't trust the Method, couldn't stand some of the paces it put me through (the pink ball? hello! hated that, but I did it) Over the past seven months of this year I have seen my results come and go, ebb and flow as many of you have too. For me this struggle was a heart breaking contest of wills between me, myself and I. The problem was never with the Method or Continuity, they've been steadfast, the problem was with my relationship to food. But during that murky struggle, I became disenchanted with Continuity. I wasn't seeing results, I was unhappy, but there was nothing else that I wanted to do instead. I wasn't about to jump ship on something that I knew was so good for me and my soul.

So I went back. That's why I haven't been taking about it, that's why I hadn't been doing it (Continuity). I took a little journey back in time to set my world to right, and set it to right I did. July was all about going back to the program that gave my inner goddess the key to the lock that kept her caged within and it set her free. 

Metamorphosis. Levels one, two and three have recharged me. There is definitely some magic there, I promise you that. It was on the 23rd of July, smack in the middle of that Metamorphosis with the help of my bestest ever friend that I had an epiphany, I had the awakening to the thing that had been sabotaging me all along, sugar. Had I still been doing Continuity, I might have ignored this insight and continued to blame the workout as ineffective. Instead I was doing the program that had worked for me before so I knew definitively that my addiction and obsession had been to blame. I cannot thank Tracy enough. Words cannot express the relief I feel in the freedom of being ten days clean. (off sugar) My body is beginning to return to her warrior goddess state, it is our natural state as women, we are all warrior goddesses. It feels good to be home.

It's now August and I am ready to get back to the more advanced levels of Continuity. I left off on Level 2.1 workout 7, it works with the ball. I did it a few times during July and had planned to redo it this month from day one. But why start on anything other than a love day?  So it's level 8 for me. However, I have been having such a great time revisiting Metamorphosis, I am not quite ready to give that up yet either. I watched Meta level 4 and I had to do it. The only answer for me is keep up with both and that's what I intend to do for now, time permitting.

Continuity 2.1.8 is fast, it's challenging and it's back to good old fashioned mat work. No ball, no towel, and other than the abs on the floor, no chair. The moves are similar to the moves we've performed during Meta, but it's like they're on steroids. Tracy provides arm work with weights, standing abs and floor abs, which as an Abcentric girl I am extremely happy to welcome back, but she also incorporates those uber challenging balancing moves during the leg sequence. She has once again upped the reps from 20 to 30 and it feels like a complete workout covering off the whole body. Two thumbs up.

What is so incredibly powerful about doing both is when you go back over an earlier level, you find that your strength has increased exponentially, which is a testament to how brilliantly the program is designed, and how you can actually see the framework from those earlier levels being built upon in Continuity. Sometimes it can feel like these moves are so crazy complicated that you feel like you're wasting your time learning them. However, seeing and actually doing an early level allows you to understand these new angles better, you can recognize the ghost of an earlier move at the heart of this new move and it is suddenly a whole lot less complicated. Its just the same as learning a new dance. You master a few steps, then build on that to learn a few more and a few more until you have a whole new routine down. Tracy's method is rooted in dance so it makes perfect sense that the mat work should be built up in the same way as a dance. There is actual choreography here. And if we're paying attention, it becomes evident.


This is a system like no other and I am looking forward to continuing the journey. The goddess in me craves it.


You have a dream within you, a vision of you in that healthy beautiful body, otherwise you wouldn't be here my beloved blog reader. You can achieve that vision. You are capable. Tracy can help. This community helps. Girls taking care of girls, goddesses supporting goddesses. Remember, that goddess is already inside of you, you already are her.


Love,
Shan