Taking Better Care of Myself...Starting With My Hair

As I mentioned in one of my other posts, I had a tendency to 'punish' myself when overweight by not pampering myself.  I always justified this lack of interest in my appearance by saying I'd do something special once I lost weight.

Well, 20 years later, I'm pretty much as basic looking as you can get.  My life consists of ponytails or buns, a pair of jeans (if I'm lucky) and a t-shirt that has probably been changed 3 or 4 times because my son smeared something all over me while 'playing'.  No makeup.  I'm lucky if I showered that day.  In retrospect, I can admit it was pretty bad.

As part of my weight loss journey, I've committed to taking better care of myself, which is why I do product reviews.  Since I've been out of the game for so long, I have no idea what is good and what isn't.  So, rather than spending hundreds of dollars on different products in hopes of figuring out what works for me, I'm able to get a product for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Something that has always bothered me about myself has been my hair.  Of the 10 children in our family, half of us had thick, luscious hair (after my father) and the other half had thin, limp hair (after my mother).  I was in the latter group.  My hair's only redeeming quality was that it's curly, which helps to camouflage the limp state of the strands.

Among the products I was allowed to test was a product called:

• Regenepure NT Hair Thickening Shampoo for Hair Thinning Treatment In Men and Women from Salonceuticals Regenepure.  You can buy it on Amazon (in case you're interested).

First off, let me preface this by saying I didn't know what to expect.  I certainly didn't expect results to occur in any less than 2 or 3 weeks.  Don't ask me why. That's just a number I had in my head. And, at best, I expected the results to be minimal at best.  But, I'm an optimist, so I gave it a try. 

Let me just say I'm impressed with the results.  

My long, brown curly hair falls to the middle of my back when it's wet, so there is a lot of it.  When I put the soap in my hair, there weren't many suds (which are just chemicals anyway), but I could feel my hair getting squeaky clean.  It was a different experience than I'm used to.  Normally, the shampoo would be out-of-control sudsy, then you'd wash it off and think nothing of the texture of the hair.  But it was the other way around this time. 

There was no discernible scent either, which is nice if you've got issues with smells, or are tired of having a different scent for every item you use leaving your body with 15 different scents when you walk out of the bathroom. 

When I was done styling my hair, I was thoroughly impressed.  My hair felt cleaner and not weighed down, plus it was less dull - I had a bit of shine to it.  And, because it wasn't weighed down, the curls bounced into place and STAYED in place much longer.  Normally, I'll do my hair and it will go flat in an hour. But the curls were almost obnoxious today - I finally pulled my hair back into a ponytail.

To summarize, I like this product.  I haven't used it long enough to see actual strand thickening per se, but I did notice cleaner, healthier hair, that was lighter, thus giving me more volume and the appearance of thicker hair.  I even have pictures to prove it! Ha!!

Sunshine and Blood Thinners

For those of you who don't know, I have two children who had heart defects.  One we discovered pre-natally and were able to fix the massive hole in his heart when he was three months old.  You can learn more about Jacob at http://www.downrightliving.com - my non-profit organization created because of my experiences with him.

Our second child, Elisha, didn't discover her heart defect until she was in college training to be a Division I thrower for Track and Field. She had a mini-stroke and we began searching for answers, only to discover she had a hole in her heart that needed to be fixed.

As a result, she has been on blood thinners for several months as her heart has been creating scar tissue over the device used to fix the hole.  One of the side effects of blood thinners is that she is hyper sensitive to sunshine and burns easily.  This is not a good thing for a girl who participates in outdoor track, loves to sunbathe, works at an outdoor concert venue during the summer months, or does a variety of other outdoor activities.

After coming home from an afternoon in the sun with a new sunburn, I gave Elisha some suntan lotion to take with her wherever she goes.  It was given to me to test and I figured if anyone could validate it's ability, Elisha could.

She accepted the bottle and went off on a week-long trip with her friend.  When I asked her how it worked, she said it was great!  There were no problems at all and the SPF 30 seemed to be just what she needed to keep from burning during her outings.

Wahoo! This stuff passed the test!

Bleacher Laps: Feeling the Burn

I've been working out pretty hard trying to get back into shape.  I've been playing with the same 4 or 5 lbs for the last week or two, so I decided to mix things up a bit and hit the bleachers for some bleacher laps intermixed with walking around the track while my oldest son worked with his track throwing coach.

I put in 6 bleacher laps and a mile around the track before the 90 degree F weather finally caught up with me and I had to stop. I think I worked out for a good 45 minutes in the sun.

The interesting thing I noticed as I was working out was that my lungs never got to that point where I was gasping for breath.  The majority of my effort was in the legs.  They were burning and cramping something fierce.

Yes, I was doing stairs.  And yes, I stayed hydrated.  An interesting tidbit about being so severely overweight is that underneath all of that fat (at least there is for me) there's a bunch of muscle already.  You NEED that muscle to heft around all this extra weight.

For example, halfway through my bleacher laps, an athletic guy showed up and started running the bleachers.  Good for him!  He's in shape and he's putting forth an effort.  And one day I hope to be running the bleachers just like him.  The difference right now, though, is that I'm traversing the bleachers with 20 lb weights on each leg.  20 lbs of FAT covering the muscle I possess.  With each step, I must lift that extra 20 lbs.

Consider this for a moment.  How far do you think that same man (or a women) would get with a 160 lb person on their back?  Would they be able to run very far before they get winded, or body parts begin to ache?  Could they even do the bleacher laps with someone on their back? That's what it's like for me.  I'm an athletic person with 160 lbs of dead weight hanging off my body. And until I lose that weight, my muscles will constantly be burning and aching, slowly lessening as ounce by ounce, that dead weight is burned into nothingness.

So, this morning, when I began to walk down the stairs and felt my quads screaming in agony, I smiled.  Because for the first time since I began, I was feeling a GOOD pain.  Lactic acid had built up and my body was building more muscle.

I have surpassed the hardest part of the 'torture' phase of my weight loss faster than anticipated.  Now I can begin the burn & build stage:  Burn the fat and build the muscle.  Yes!!!!!

 

How I survived a Weekend Out of Town Without Completely Trashing My Diet

OK, let's get one thing straight right off the bat.  I still gained weight. But, I'm not set back two  week's worth of dieting because of a weekend out of town. Meh.

But when the dust settled, and I weighed myself, I was only up 2.9 lbs, which in my estimation is friggin' FANTASTIC considering I had to eat out THREE MEALS per day, and couldn't work out. So let me tell you about my weekend.

My oldest son had a basketball camp in Montana, and we decided to go watch him play.  The weekend consisted of 6 hours of driving and 6+ games.  When we originally made the reservations for the hotel, we chose a basic hotel without a swimming pool with the understanding that just my husband would go and I'd stay home with the little kids.  At the last minute, Nate expressed interest in having me come support him and I willingly agreed.

So, off we went on a little family trip to watch big brother play basketball.  When we walked into the hotel room, we discovered that not only was there no pool, but there was no mini-fridge or microwave. There was no means of food prep or fresh food storage.  Ugh! Time to get creative.

In the past, the whole trip would be a catastrophe from the moment we got in the car. Snacks would be junk food and pop, consumed on the go until we stopped for fast-food along the way.  This time around, I had a bottle of water and a couple handfuls of trail mix.

Dinner was a grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy's and anther bottle of water. It was the best option considering the circumstances.

We stopped by the grocery store for food when we got to town, but what are your options when there's no fridge or microwave?  So I picked up a case of bottled water and some grapes for myself, juice for the kiddos.

To spare you the boring list of foods I ate, I'll just say that some choices were good and some choices were bad (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have gained weight!).  But, it was progress from past trips, and I managed to consume almost zero soda pop, which is huge for me!

 I have several weekends this summer that will require me being out of town.  And now I have a baseline. The goal will be to make each trip better than the last until it no longer affects my weight and I can make the best possible food choices even when I'm away from home.

So tell me, what do you do to stay on track when you go out of town?  I'd love to know so I can use them for myself next time!

Sunshine In a Bottle: Lemon Essential Oil

I had read an article a few years back that said smelling citrus makes a person less hungry, and makes them happier.  I guess that's why the smell of lemon is so popular.  Ever since I read that article, I've thought of lemon-scented products as sunshine in a bottle.

Recently, I was offered a 4 oz. bottle of pure lemon essential oil for free in exchange for an unbiased review. And, since I'd read the information about how lemon helps with weight loss, I accepted.

The container it arrived in was a high quality amber glass jar with a glass dropper, separately packaged to avoid any breakage.  When I opened the bottle, my mouth watered at the tangy citrus smell.  It was fantastic! I can honestly say that by merely smelling its scent, I was invigorated, and happier.

Not only did I receive the bottle, but I received a couple of follow-up e-mails, one of which included a link to 20 recipes that can be used with their products. Some of the recipes were an acne mask, dishwasher pods, anti-itch cream, lemon facial, anti-aging mask, household cleaner, air freshener, laundry soap powder, insect bite cream, lemon seaweed cellulite wrap, furniture oil, and a several other recipes I hope to try in the future.

I was truly impressed by the quality of the product and their interest in making sure their customers were satisfied with their product.

It is certainly something I would recommend to others.

All this talk of lemons has me hankering for some lemon juice.  Until next time...

Sometimes You Just Have to Pull Your Big Girl Panties and DO IT!

Yeah, it was one of those days.  I started the day FANTASTIC.  But somewhere between picking up messes, teaching a class at church, and work, I lost all motivation.  Oh, and the 5 friggin' brownies I ate for lunch.  Yeah, that was all I had. Brownies.  My body rewarded me by being sick for the rest of the night (serves me right).  I've had issues with chocolate ever since my 4th child was born.  It upsets my stomach.  Does that stop me? Nope.  I'm a woman for Pete's sake!  The only thing I desire more than chocolate is pizza.  And we've already had that conversation. :(

So, when 9:00 pm (my designated work out time) came and went, then 10:00 turned to 10:30pm I realized I had to make a decision.  Was I going to put my big girl panties on and do what had to be done? Or was I gonna wuss out and go to bed instead?

Yep.  I got off my sorry butt and worked out.  Not only that, but I added .2 mph to my speed, another 12 minutes (almost 50% longer than yesterday) to my time, and doubled my distance - 2.7 miles.  Not bad considering I started at 1/2 a mile a couple weeks ago. 

Any bets on what my weight loss will be in the morning??  I'm hoping karma will reward me by ignoring those stupid brownies today. 

4 Things that have changed in my body after losing 12 lbs

It's crazy to think I'm already down 12 lbs since I started this journey.  Already, I'm beginning to see and feel changes in my body.

For instance, in the beginning, I used to be able to walk only 7 MINUTES before my lower back was in such excruciating pain that I had to stop and rest before continuing.  Guess what?  Yesterday, I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill with only minor pain.

Guess what else?  My clothes are beginning to be loose.  Not just 'gee the thighs in my pants are baggy', but 'Holy freak!  If I have to hitch up my pants one more time I'm gonna scream!' sort of baggy.  Shirts that used to be my last resort, are suddenly being considered for the Goodwill pile.

And, wonder of all wonders, I have MORE energy.  You may think, "Hey, that's kind of nice."  But one must remember that I already only get about 5-6 hours of sleep per night.  For the last two nights I've fallen asleep around 1 a.m. (it takes me longer to fall asleep - not the other way around like most people) and I'm wide awake around 5 a.m.  That equates to about 4 hours sleep.  Plus, I'm off all forms of caffeine.  No coffee, no tea, no caffeinated pops, or even chocolate.  Yet, I'm usually able to get through the whole day with only a 30 minute nap around 6 pm, then I'm good for the rest of the night.

The numbness in my hands is going down.  It's not gone yet, but it's also not constant any more.  That, alone is worth the 12 lb weight loss.

All in all, I'm satisfied where things are headed.  I wish I could drop my weight faster, but I'm also aware that it takes a great deal of effort to get the boulder rolling.

Stay with me!  There are many more amazing things to come!