My Journey to a Healthy New Beginning

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved music. I started singing when I was about 7 and quickly learned to appreciate how music can speak to you- one could say it’s a window into the soul. Music has helped me through many moments in my lifetime already. I’ve gone through many phases along with great and bad times and music has been there through them all pulling me through when there were times when I had no one to speak with or share my secrets with. Today, I wanted to share with you a song that has always given me hope. With a new year drawing close, I’ve been waiting for my newest them to come to me as well. Last year on the eve of my 31st birthday, I knew it needed to be my year of “No Excuses.” After all I’ve been through I needed to stay true to myself, stop procrastinating and follow my dreams that meant the most to me. With each year I grow stronger and step closer to being a better person than I already am. This coming year I will be turning 32 in April 2009 and I feel even closer to my dreams… I’d like to share a song that I adore with you. It’s from the movie A Walk to Remember which I love and this song spoke to me loud and clear when I heard it. The movie was released in 2002 and although 2002 was an incredible year it was followed with much heartache and the lyrics of the song that spoke to me with such hope soon were faded to almost forgotton. I watched the movie again the other day and with everything I have learned and sought in the last few years I see hope ahead for my love life in 2009- as much as it scares me I want to open the wounds and expose myself to that type of vulnerability once again. I hope you enjoy this song as much I do:

Only Hope (performed by Mandy Moore)

There’s a song that’s inside of my soul.
It’s the one that I’ve tried to write over and over again
I’m awake in the infinite cold.
But you sing to me over and over and over again.

So I lay my head back down.
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours
I pray, to be only yours
I know now you’re my only hope.

Link to Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8f8RHWMPyY)

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What a Christmas! Christmas Eve the kids and I headed out to Kirk and Michele’s place to spend the holidays. We were planning to take the kids to church in Constance Bay where they live so decided to check what time mass was at so Michele called the church to check… as she was listening she found out that mass was at 5PM. We looked at the clock and it was 4:45PM…. Funny enough I thought it would be a good idea to grab all the kids and head out- I rounded up all 5 kids (yup- 5 of them) and jumped in the truck and off we went dressed as we were. Kirk and Michele stayed behind to cook dinner and yup that left me with all 5 of them to Christmas Eve mass. I had my 2, Nicholas (13) and Hannah (4) along with Hannah’s step sisters, Andrea (13) and Gabby (9) along with Hannah’s sister Kaylee (3). All in all they were pretty good but it was hilarious showing up at 5:05PM with 5 kids.. at the end of the mass a woman came up to me and told me that I was the most amazing mother with a lot of patience.. God Bless me she said.. OMG, too funny.. they all thought that all 5 of the kids were mine! hehehehe…. We got back to the house just after 7PM and Kirk and Michele had a bunch of amazing appetizers. Even though I wasn’t supposed to have my free meal until the next Day I was out of options and enjoyed some carbalicious appetizers.

We rounded up all the kids and got them into bed before Santa arrived and woke up at 7:30AM to all the amazing gifts he left for all of us. I have to say that even though I didn’t have any of my family with me spending it with Nicholas and Hannah in a relaxed and fun way was pretty special. It was also nice for Hannah to have both her Mom and Dad with her for Christmas.

I made a pretty awesome Christmas dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes and yummy gravy to list a couple and man oh man did I enjoy it! I polished it off with lots of yummo red wine and some of my homemade fudge. It was DELICIOUS!!!

In the evening my friend Jay stopped by and the adults challenged the kids to a game of Cranium.. we kicked their butt 2 games to 3 and then we played Twister… OMG, did I laugh and have a great time! Although the little ones went to bed around 9PM the adults with the 13 yr olds stayed up until the wee hours of 4AM playing games…

All in all Christmas was a success and I had a truly enjoyable time. It`s so nice to be able to spend it all together and have a good time. We came home on Boxing Day and boy oh boy we were tired… well, I was exhausted! LOL- it`s nice to be home and back on track with my healthy eating lifestyle. I made it to the gym for my Day 3 cycle yesterday and it kicked my butt again although it felt good to be back on track! Next workout day is Monday.

Now that my 14 days are over I am on a 6:1 ratio for eating healthy with every 7th day I am able to have a cheat meal. The cheat meal is for 45 minutes after I consume my protein I can have anything I want within the 45 minute period. Nice eh?! Currently I am on Day 3…

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!
xoxoxox

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Hard to believe it’s only 1 more day until Christmas… I’d like to wish everyone and their families a very Merry Christmas! I’m just heading out the door over to Hannah’s Dad’s family to spend the holiday’s at their house. I did make it to the gym today and will be back in the gym on Saturday as they are closed on Friday. I am pretty excited to be having my cheat day on Christmas and looking forward most of all to spending it with my son and daughter.

Hugs to all and God Bless!
Xoxooxo

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Happy Monday! Hard to believe that Christmas morning is only 3 sleeps away!!!! We had our family Christmas exchange with my sister and mom on Saturday. Everyone had a good time and my sister cooked a lovely dinner for all of us. Hannah was pretty excited when she opened her present from Aunt Candice and saw that it was her long awaited ice cream maker… we made fresh ice cream early Sunday morning! LOL

I thought it would be tough with the holidays and sweets all around but it’s really not. EFT tapping has really changed my life to the point that I don’t even feel as if I am missing out. Strange but true and believe me I am very thankful that EFT has entered my life!

I brought my own food to my sister’s on Saturday making sure I ate every 2 hours and on Sunday I made sure I timed my meals around a birthday party on the other end of town that I had to take my 4 year old to. Before I left I put on a homemade spaghetti sauce at 9am so it would be ready for our family dinner at 5PM- everyone ate my yummy homemade spaghetti with garlic bread while I ate some ham, spinach and salad- for dessert everyone ate the homemade ice cream and I had my cinnamon tea. Man alive did I tease myself today though.. I made homemade fudge with the kids to take with us for Christmas Eve.. I am going to make sure I have some homemade fudge AND ice cream on my cheat day which is still on Christmas Day! Yipppeee!

Today I joined a new gym near my home and had a tough but amazing workout.. I beat my own time from last week’s cycle #1 and felt more empowered as I pushed through each 10 minute complex. I made sure to stretch for a good 15 minuted to ensure I could walk the rest of this week.. hehehehe

With the holiday schedule I’ll be working out on Wednesday and Saturday of this week. Oh I almost forgot I took my measurements today and I am down 1″ inch in each area- waist, hips, bust, thigh and arm! AND I was able to put on 2 pairs of pants from my closet I haven’t been able to wear in quite a while! HOORAY!!!

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OMG, my workout was soooo tough today! My legs were burning and shaking through both complexes today but I pushed through. Afterwards I stretched for almost 20 minutes so that I could walk out of the gym.. LOL

I am switching gyms on Monday.. I am finally through with GLFC! I have been a member since 2002 and I have found there is no such thing as customer loyalty. I have been fighting to get money back from them since June and now today the clerk told that they had suspended my membership until I started to pay my account balance that is past due.. How infuriating! Are you serious?! Well, I still intend to get my money back from GLFC! In the meantime I’ve had enough and will be switching gyms to a local gym near my house - go in and have a workout without the hassle!!!

Looking forward to the weekend off and I just found out that I was mistaken about day 15 of this eating plan.. On day 15 I get the entire day off to eat whatever I want! The reason I am so happy is that day 15 falls on Christmas Day! Woooohoooo…. After day 15 I start a 6:1 plan where I eat 100% on plan on the 7th day I get a cheat meal. Here is how my cheat meal on day 7 will work. I eat my protein and consume my omega3 oil and then I have 45 minutes to eat and drink whatever I chose. I have only 45 minutes. If I get up from my chair before hte 45 minutes is up then my cheat meal ends. LOL… hehehe… I laughed when I heard it but I like the way it works and I think it will work very nicely for me

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My grade 8 son Nicholas had his Christmas talent show today and he invited me to come and see his 2nd performace where he was performing to the highschool students. I arrived and got seated to the right of the stage…. His highschool has an AMAZING performing arts theatre with orchestra pit and all! It’s pretty spectaculor! As the highschool students piled in around me I started to get tiny butterflies thinking of how Nicholas would be received by all the highschool students.

Nicholas is a very funny and goofy 13 year old boy. He’s always been pretty shy but when he’s on stage performing he turns into a different person. I saw it first hand- his amazing transformation at my Dad’s wedding in October when he gave the best man speech. I can honestly say that he amazed everyone- it was a heartfelt and well spoken speech.

…. so back to today’s talent show. Nicholas was doing a magic show and even though I knew the tricks he was doing I didn’t want anyone to laugh at him, boo at him or not like it. As the students started to perform music and dance acts my nerves rose to butterflies so bad I thought I was going to vomit. After about 10 performances they introduced Nicholas with his friend Jonah assisting him. As soon as the curtain opened he really engaged the audience… they were screaming and lauging and really loved his act.

I was able to sit back while videotaping (of course!- will share it with you soon) and truly enjoyed the performance. I laughed along with the other students and watched as he amazed them with his magic tricks. He only performed 2 tricks as he was limited to 4 minutes on stage but I have to say that I was impressed and soooo relieved that everyone liked him.

Tomorrow is Day 3 of my new schedule for my workout and my legs are still pretty sore but not as bad today. Today was tough for eating. I had my first meal at 9am and was running to Nicholas’ performance and missed my 11am meal. I didn’t have my 2nd meal until 4PM! Yikes! I think I’ll only be able to get another 2 meals in today which falls short of the 6 that I was supposed to have. Tomorrow is another day so there is no point in beating myself up. Life happens and so far I’ve given up my social life to get through this 14 day trial again. Tomorrow I am having a drink with a friend of mine that I normally have beer (lots of yummy beer) but I’ve let him know I am off alcohol for now- he was pretty sweet and supportive so we are meeting tomorrow night at Starbucks where I know they have some green tea.

…until next time

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What a day! Got up early this morning to another 10cm of snow on the ground… Nicholas was hoping for a snow day but gloomily made it to the bus on time. My called me at 7am to let me know that the roads were to bad to make it to Hannah’s Christmas sing a long at school for 10:45am- not a big surprise coming from my Mom. Then Michele (Hannah’s stepmom) called me as I was walking out the door to the gym to let me know that her car couldn’t start so she asked if I could come and pick up Hannah at the gym at 10am so she didn’t have to drive into town and then over to the gym. So it began… Roads all yucky but not too bad made it to the gym for Day 2 of my new schedule… Sucessfully completed complex 1 and all 20 reps of each.. was feeling pretty great and started complex 2. About 6 minutes into complex 2 Michele came up to me to let me know she was there with Hannah… 4 more minutes to go.. headed over to do my 2nd set up elevated push ups. I went to push over the bench under to do them and lost my balance pushing it into the MIRROR! Yup.. you guess it! I smashed in the mirror. The lady beside me told me that I needed to tell the staff and I said I would… I completed the 20 reps then rushed back over to jump into my reverse lunges to finish off my 10 minute complex… I could see the lady watching me like a hawk probably thinking I wasn’t going to report the broken mirror. As soon as I finished I walked to the front and showed the manager the broken mirror even letting him know I would pay for it. He was more concerned if I had hurt myself and told me not to worry about… that was Super nice of him!!! I felt like and idiot but it was a stupid accident!

Picked up Hannah from the childminding and rushed over to get her to school for her School pagent. Just in the knick of time we made it! OMG, she was adorable! They sang about 4 little Chistmas songs then we headed back to the classroom for refreshments… even though I was the only one there with the weather and other obligations it was a perfect Mommy and daughter moment! To keep in the spirit I brought Hannah home with me and we spent afternoon, cooking, building forts and playing Christmas games online!

The day might have started off rough but it turned out to be an incredible day! 2 new workouts down and 1 more to go on Friday! Yippee… today was 7 full days of eating as well with only 7 left of this new meat routine… Hard to believe only 8 more sleeps until Christmas!!!! Very exciting!

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Today I have some wrapping to do for Christmas and much shopping left to do.. this year will be very last minute but I am ok with that… I woke up this morning and my legs are burning and still so stiff from yesterday’s workout. Thank goodness I have today off as I need it to recoup! I heard from an old friend of mine last evening by email- a friend from Australia that I adore to pieces! We used to talk all the time on the phone and I miss those days but every time I hear from him I smile. We talked back and forth by email for a bit and he told me how much of an incredible woman I was. For the first time in a long time, I just thanked him and took a bit of time to reflect on what is going on with me these days. It’s hard to explain but since I have been using EFT in my daily life I have become very at peace with myself and with very little effort.

I’ve been in heavy therapy for the past 5 years on and off but steady through my cancer treatments. Somewhere in 2005 I decided that I wanted to feel “whole” I wasn’t sure if I had ever felt whole before- ever. With a lot of help from my counsellor Lana I was able to deal with a lot of emotional trauma, forgive and more forward with my life. I called it the “Bandaid effect” I ripped off everything and exposed myself raw in order to start the healing process… it came with a lot of crying, a lot of self doubt, anger and emotions I wasn’t used to exposing. At times it made me feel weak and pathetic but somewhere through the process I started to feel whole again- for the first time really. I didn’t hide from my feelings and I faced them head on.

Fast forward to the present and I felt confident in ways that I never knew, stronger and vibrant. I had made peace with my daughter’s father and had forgiven him. I learnt how to set personal boundaries which led to a healthy relationship with my Mom. It’s still not my ideal relationship that I would want between a mother and daughter but it’s healthy- I learnt that I can’t change her nor can I change anyone. The only person I can change is myself. Once I learnt this valuable lesson everything became so easy.

I stumbled onto EFT one day. I read the ebook and it made sense to me. I decided to give it a shot and voila….. the results are amazing! What I called the “Bandaid effect” took a lot of emotional turmoil to get to where I wanted to be… with EFT I literally tapped away in a matter of 2-3 minutes hurtful emotions and BAM!- they were gone! and never came back. When I began EFT I was using a tap along technique. Using EFT set up’s which other’s had used that made sense in my life. Recently I began tapping for my own emotion issues- very specific events that had a huge emotional charge when I thought back to them and again the results astounded me.

Last evening as I was falling asleep a very painful memory came back to me (they usually do at bedtime) which was related to how I never felt as if I belonged in school. It was around grade 4 when my parents had moved my schools AGAIN- it was my 2nd school for grade 4 and I wasn’t too happy about it. I was a shy girl back then and very much the tomboy- didn’t fit in with the girls and desperately wanted to. Anyhoo… these painful memories came back to me with such force last night that I felt very vulnerable and my stomach was in knots.

I sat up and decided to tap the emotion away. I rated the emotion at a 10 on the scale of 1-10 as concentrated on where i felt the emotion which was in the pit of my stomach and in the back of my throat as I felt like crying. My set up statement was “Even though I never felt as if I belonged, I deeply and completely accept myself” I started tapping and after my first round felt no relief- I contined with the gamut and then started my 2nd round of tapping…. as I tapped through the meridiens I could feel my negative feelings leaving. By the end of the tapping session I was able to rate my emotion at a ZERO!!! Took a deep breath and recalled the events that only 5 minutes ago had me on the verge of a panic attack.. Now 5 minutes later there was no negative emotion attached to the memory… I love how easy and effective EFT! It works for me

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Well, I was going to choose last Friday as my first workout of my new routine but after heading to the gym and driving around for literally 15 minutes with no parking spaces I went to the grocery store and then had to drive the kids to my sister’s place for a sleepover Friday night.

I had a relaxing weekend with both kids away- Nicholas went snowboarding with my sister and Hannah was at her Dad’s this weekend. I spent my weekend relaxing in my jacuzzi with nice candles and a good new book.

Today I dropped Hannah off at school then heading over to the gym to begin my new routine… it’s a series of complexes within each day with 3 new routines in total. Basically I work through the complex for 10 minutes and push myself to do as much as possible in the 10 minutes with no breaks. Well I pushed myself through the 2 complexes I had today and OMG did they kick my butt! I had to run home to ensure I wasn’t late for meal 2 of the day. I am eating every 2 hours, 6 meals a day. Eating every 2 hours is quite difficult to prepare and ensure different meal is consumed @ each meal.

It felt good to get through the new workout and to be on track with eating and my new supplements. I opened up my email and had a very supportive and encouraging email from my trainer.

“Hey Tasha, wow you impressed me!
I’m proud of you and very please to see how committed you are!
You’re a champ!”

I am really proud of myself as well and looking forward to the new photos I will take on January 1st [I am in the process of getting a photo slideshow up of my results taken every month]

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I received my new total workout schedule from my trainer on Tuesday and I start today. To say I am a bit nervous understates my feelings right now. I always get myself worked up sometimes when starting something new. My trainer “Joe” (not his real name) provided me with my new schedule on Tuesday and it was a bit overwhelming when I actually looked at what he gave me. I actually had to call my brother to figure it all out!

For the next 14 days Joe wanted me to eat NEW meats other than turkey, salmon and eggs which I had been eating. I had to eat every 2 hours, 6 meals a day and I can’t repeat the same meal twice in a 3 day period. He allowed me though to make 3 meals a day and repeat them as long as they weren’t in consecutive order. Oh my!

Well… with the help of Ryan who I called on my way to the butcher we figured out the math! I needed 9 meats (combination of fish and meat) 4 meat selections times 4 portions plus 2 extra and 5 selections of fish times 5 portions. Basically 42 meals over the next 14 days!

Holy moly.. let me tell you that eating every 2 hours is a difficult thing to do! Trust me! Yesterday Nicholas and I went to the CHEO Dreamhouse and I had to make sure I ate just before we left and we were rushing home so I could have my next meal that I still needed to prepare. It turned out I went 3 hours in between meals. Oh boy!

Anyhoo, I’m off to the gym with my new workout in hand and both nervous and excited.

In the past 5 weeks I have lost 14.5 lbs and I’ll find out my inches (which are the most important) this coming Monday

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