Getting my Skinny Ass Moving

A brief recap from the previous blog “Slow Start or Screaching Halt – My Fat Loss Plateau.”

In the beginning of February, the onslaught of stress, additional sleep deprivation, and inability to stay on track with taking my slim correctly sent my fat loss progress into a tailspin as I closed down my business, starting a new job at the same time and was trying desperately to maintain my composure while narrowly avoiding a nervous breakdown.

I was getting barely 4 hours of sleep each night, eating at random hours whatever I could grab and basically working from wake up to sleep time. I have been taking my slim randomly. Sometimes once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. I have never in my life been more stressed out, not even when I went through boot camp for the US Army. Being that stressed out also affects your hormones, which I experienced with the erratic behavior of my menstrual cycle last month. Exercise during this period was completely out of the question, unattainable…I tried not to even think about it.

Well March is here, Thank God! The crunch time is done and I’m making great strides in my effort to get back on track with my life.  Both my acupuncturist and my Man Mate assure me that it will take some time to recover and that I should not expect to be perfectly back to normal after only two weeks of working just one job…but per usual..I am pushing to see results even with relaxation.  (Can you say Type A?)

So here is my plan.

1. Drink More Water
2. Get More Sleep
3. Move my “Skinny” Ass.

So far I’ve got the more sleep down.  I’ve been getting between 7 and 9 hours a night!

Next…drink more water.  My new water plan goes like this.

1. Drink 1 16 oz glass of water before bed, refill glass and place on nightstand
2. Before getting out of bed, drink the next 16oz glass of water.
3. Insert hygiene / wake up ritual here
4. Take Slim, Make breakfast (high protein of course + a cup of coffee) and drink 1 more 16oz glass of water.

That takes care of 6 of the required 8 glasses of water a day.  I easily take down 2 more at work with a bottle of water, or just sitting around the house.  Water Ritual Success!! I’ve been doing it every day for about a week and a half now.  Its going great and I’m feeling MUCH MUCH better.

Now that I’ve got the sleep situation, and water ritual under control, its time to get moving.  UGH. Work OUT? I don’t wanna! For whatever reason..I hate working out.  I hate sweating.  I am NOT a gym rat.  I know, I’ve been told, that if you do it every day you get addicted to it, but let me tell you.. I WAS IN THE ARMY!!  I DID do it everyday..and I hated it every SINGLE day. I was in great shape.  I ran miles and miles and miles.  I never got used to it and I never liked it.

Here’s what I do like.

1. I love yoga.  Yoga saved me during culinary school.  It gives me balance, it gives me energy, it makes me feel more connected and focused. I freaking love it.
2. I like walking.  Did you know that walking at a brisk pace gives you 90 percent of the benefits running does AND its easier on your joints? Walking is nice, and it gets me outside.
3. I love to be outside. Hot or cold, sun or clouds..outside is good.  If I could figure out how to see my laptop screen in the bright Texas sunshine, I’d be out there right now.
4. I would rather talk with my friends than do any kind of exercise. I hate to be alone. I am a social creature.  Exercizing with friends makes me infinitely more successful because of the added bonus of jaw jacking.

In order for an exercise program to be successful, I truly believe that you have to like what you are doing.  If you hate running, don’t run.  If you hate lifting weights, don’t lift weights.  There are other ways to get exercise I promise.

It is my intention to move my body everyday in one form or another. Starting TODAY. (I have in fact already started, even before today but I wasn’t commuted to a daily ritual until today. I’ll write another post about rituals here very shortly.  I’m learning all about them from a life success coach named Eban Pagen as I take his “wake up productive” 90 days to a twice a productive you course Its really useful and pretty inspiring)

Here’s how I’m gonna do it.

1. YOGA!! As previously discussed I love Yoga.  I also enjoy pilates, Nia, and dance of all kinds. If you haven’t looked into taking yoga classes I recommend you at least try it once.  Its amazing. The one downside to yoga classes is that they are really really expensive.  A monthly unlimited yoga memebership at a studio can cost anywhere from  $99.00 – $150.00 a month. UGH.  No thanks. Not an added cost my current lifestyle is willing to bear.  That being said I am trying to make yoga part of my daily ritual, so I went on a search and found, to my utmost BLISS MyYogaOnline.com
I love, LOVE, love this website. Membership cost not $10.00 a class, but $10.00 a MONTH!! Beautiful videos…unlimited access…yoga whenever I want. I’m totally in. I’ve been doing the classes in the morning as part of my “morning ritual” Just after brushing my teeth and just before breakfast. Its awesome. It gives me energy to start the day, it gets the blood flowing, and clears my mind. Its perfect. My yoga online rocks because they have SO many classes. Beginning to advanced, small workshops and varied lengths of time. So if I’m in a hurry I just do a 15 minute class, and if its my day off I can do a full on 90 minute, get down to the nitty gritty class. They also have pilates, belly dancing capoiera, and more. This is a great way, my favorite so far, to get my Skinny Ass moving.

2. If I’ve skipped yoga for some reason I sometimes I walk to work. If its a nice day I’m all for it. It takes me about 30 minutes to get there, and when I arrive I’ve had plenty of time to think and clear the cobwebs out of my brain and I’m ready to rock and roll. I realize this isn’t an option for most people as many of you live pretty far from work, or in bad weather for a lot of the year, but its good for me. If you live within a couple of miles from your workplace, I recommend it. Its refreshing and gives you a new perspective on the world. You smell things you don’t smell in your car, good and bad. You see things from new angles (ground level), you have more time to look around, and you have more time to think. You may even get to interact with OTHER people. Surprisingly most people are nice. I think we spend too much time avoiding “strangers”. America is becoming Isolationist…get out of your house people. If you life too far to walk to work, you can get some walking in by simply NOT searching for the closest possible parking spot when you go shopping.  Park as far away as you can.  Sprinkle your life with these mini workouts.  It all adds up and its kind of fun to watch peoples faces as you pass rows of empty spaces to get as far away as possible and then briskly walk in as if you’re running late.  😉

3. I’m doing my own yard work. Raking, Mowing, bagging leaves, weed eating and trimming the shrubs are all a great work out. You can read about it in my post The weed eater saved my purse from a couple of days ago. There’s even a link there that will tell you how many calories you burn doing yard work. You can do other household chores briskly too, to burn more calories, or take on a project like painting your privacy fence, re-staining the deck or the pick nick table, or simply scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. In addition to getting some exercise, you will also have the satisfaction of beautifying your homestead. I highly recommend this.

4. Walking and Talking with friends. I started a group called walking and talking with friends. Its where a group of us get together at a predetermined location and meet new people while we walk around and get some exercise. This is good for me because, like I said, I’d rather talk than work out. Talking makes me forget I’m getting exercise. I slacked off a bit on the follow up with this group over the last stressful month, but I’m about to get it started again, so let me know if you are interested. You can join the group to get all the updates by visiting the facebook fan page HERE.

There you have it folks…I’m moving my skinny ass.  All rituals take at least 30 days of doing them every day to become habit, but once they are ingrained you just won’t be able to live with out them.  I am totally going to make moving a ritual.  I’m keeping a calander and checking off the days until my ritual has been ingrained as a habit.  The Yoga is the one think I intend to do every single day.  Everything else will be added benifit.

Inspired? I hope so.  Join me in my daily yoga ritual by signing up for MyYogaOnline and see how it makes you feel to get that blood flowing in the morning.

Want to join me for a walk? Drop me a line or join the Walking and Talking with Friends Group.

Let me know what you are doing to get your skinny ass moving.  Leave a comment below.

Love Ya, Mean It!

Skinny Kari

Beauty is more than Skin Deep… so is this blog post.

So…..
At the beginning of this year I decided, no, I CHOSE to give up my business. I gave it my best shot. I worked A LOT. I made some new friends and I think I made a pretty good name for myself, but after 2 years of 16 hour days and not getting to see those friends who helped get me started, my family or my man mate I chose to give it up.

With that in mind I have now chosen to focus my life in another direction. My two main intentions are to focus on my relationships and taking care of myself. This blog’s intention is also to focus on those two same intentions of my life.

The first is obvious. Taking care of myself. The name of the blog shows that….Skinny Kari… I’m trying to drop a few pounds, and I’m chronicling my trials, tribulations and successes here for you all to see. I also intend to touch on other health points along the way, like eating and exercise, but alas I’ve just gotten started so I haven’t got that far just yet. Stay tuned, its coming.

For tonights blog though I want to introduce more thoroughly the second aspect of both my new focus, AND this blog, and that is relationships. What does that mean anyway and what relationships am I focusing on? The answer? All of them. That may seem like a pretty big step but I don’t really think it is.

I wanted to start first of course, at home, with Norman. So far so good. All the crazy hours and the constantly being on call to the muffin trolley had started to wear on Norman and my working 16 hours a day had started making me a bit cranky. Those two things do not make for a life full of romance and bliss. Norman is amazing and extraordinarily patient, so to my utter amazement and PURE bliss, he didn’t leave me. That being said, just because he didn’t leave me doesn’t mean I don’t have some making up to do. Since leaving the trolley, we’ve spent a lot more time together and we’ve both gotten a lot more sleep. We’ve had some long talks and have started actively working on and planning the direction of our life together. We’ve also gone out with friends, cooked a few meals, slept in and had more sex. As I said, so far so good.

That brings us to the next relationship focus…Family. It was my intention to go spend the summer with my Mom, Sister and Niece and get in some true family time. Unfortunately, its not in the cards, financially, quite yet. For now I’ll have to settle for staying on those weekly phone calls and paying closer attention to what’s important in their lives, However Norman and I are planning a longer than the usual 5 days at Christmas, trip to go up and spend some time this summer. I am also focusing on getting to know Norman’s family (the “outlaws” – since we’re not married they can’t be “inlaws”) better and have gone into business with my Dad and step mom. Thats bringing us together in new ways for sure. Gail (my step mom) and I have probably had more conversations in the last 2 months than we’ve had in the last 3 years and its great! She’s great! and I love that we have this mutual project we can all brain storm together.

Last but no least, my final relationship focus, is my relationship with you. My friends, old and new. I truly believe (and always have) that relationships…true connections… are the most important thing we have in this world. I believe it is our purpose here on this planet. Relationships, true, solid, real, deep relationships are what make this life worth living. Knowing people, and loving them for who they are. Knowing you have someone to count on and feeling the satisfaction of knowing others can count on you when its needed. Knowing you are not alone in this world, and that none of us are. Knowing that you can love each other despite the differences we all have in political view points, in sexual orientation, in color, religion, creed, career, or even geographic location. Building communities. I mean isn’t that why we are all glued to this glowing box? and that glowing hand held device we carry around? Isn’t that why we are constantly watching movies, listening to music? staring at the news? Aren’t we all just searching for that connection? I think the answer is yes.

Its with that in mind that I write these blog posts. I don’t do it just to hear myself talk…I can do that without a machine I assure you. I write these words on this screen because I want to put myself out there for you to get to know me…the real me..the raw me. I hope I can entertain you, and I hope I can sometimes inspire you. At the very least I hope that I am giving you someone to relate to so that you know you are not alone out there in the world and so you know that other people are going through things like you are.

What I’d like…what I hope for in return…is for you to read this…and respond, to reach out, to connect with me. Tell me if you found what I’ve presented useful or at least amusing or even stupid. I’d like this blog not only to be a forum for my silly rants, and a chronicle of my losing fat (and sometimes not losing fat), but also an open forum …an opportunity for us to get to know each other.

Are you listening? Are you out there? What do you care about? What do you want to hear? Talk to me. Invite your friends. Drop a line and let me know.

Much Love,
Kari

The weed eater saved my purse

As I was working in the yard today, I got to thinking about money.  Shouldn’t I just PAY someone to do this?  Well if you’ve been reading along, you may already know that I recently shut down my business, and while I’m working now and doing just fine, I’m not exactly in a position to be spending any extra cash.  We have a lawnmower, weed eater (gas powered at that) and even a leaf blower.  To my utter surprise and enjoyment we even had some lawn and leaf bags in the shed. So I set out to do the lawn myself…and saved the $40 bucks some random guy would’ve charged me to show up and do it half as well as I did it myself.

On a slim note (since thats what this blog is SUPPOSED to be about)…Doing my own yard work counts as a work out for the day.  According to THIS article, I  burned about 500 calories, mowing, edging, raking and bagging up the leaves in my front yard.  That Freakin Rocks!! So not only did I save the money I would’ve spent on a landscaper, I also saved the money I would’ve spent on a yoga class or at the gym!

Lets just say I rock. (I also moved a bunch of rock ha ha)

All that saving in mind got me curious though, about what other people are spending their money on.  I’d love to hear what you waste your cash on each day/month/week or year.  If your biggest Item isn’t on the list feel free to add it.

Thanks Y’all.

SK

Hello World, I’m back from Hell.

Wow.  So much for the teaser huh?  I know its been three weeks.  Thanks for being patient.

I’m not sure i can convey to you what the last three weeks have looked like for me.   The last little blog teaser was a glimpse at the light at the end of my tunnel, but it was merely a small break in the clouds of workaholism before the onslaught of the storm.  and wow. What a storm.

Basically for the last three weeks I worked.  I worked every single day. Some days from 2am until 7pm, others from 6 – 6, one day I actually worked from 2am until 10pm and finally got to sleep at 1am.  That was one hell of a full day for me starting with baking in the morning, going to work at Chris’ Litt le Chicago at noon, leaving there at 5 and transforming myself into something “fabulous” and then running off to help my favorite former employer and good friend Charles, host a table at Art Night Austin. I was averaging 4.5 hours of sleep a night, and had, oh about 2 nervous breakdowns.  To top it all off, I didn’t even call my very own niece on her Birthday.  Which Sucks.

My intention for this year being to focus more on relationships and on taking better care of myself took a sour turn for the worse over the last three weeks and I abandoned all friends, all family and all projects just to get through those final days at the muffin trolley.  Sunday was it my friends.  The muffin maker is on repreive.  No more muffins for me.  Time to kick it and bring the focus back to its intended path.

I still intend to fulfill my blogosphere promise of the last teaser and show you my boobs, tell you about the walking and talking with friends group and give you a bioslife slim update, AND I’ve got a few other topics up my sleeve to tell you about. But first…I’m going out to dinner to celebrate 6 years of loving the most amazing man I’ve ever met.  Without him I’m pretty sure this blog wouldn’t be getting written.  Muffins would not have been made and I certainly wouldn’t have survived those two nervous breakdowns.  Thanks Norman.  Happy Anniversary (whatever day it really is on)

Thanks everybody for standing by. More tomorrow.

Much Love,

a fast recovering S. Kari

Relationships, health and Joy.

Cheers! – Here’s a teaser

Hi Everyone.

This is not an actual blog post.  Its just a teaser to a blog post.  I wanted to say hi and tell you what a STRESSFUL week I’m having.  Well, It started last week, but its leaking over.

Right now I’m sitting here with a glass of malbec and its the first time all day I’m not frantically answering emails and running about time trying to take care of muffin Company business.  I can’t stay long because I’ve been waiting for my man mate to get done working and hang out with me for a few moments before I’m off to bed, and he just finished up.  I have another early rise tomorrow to bake muffins.

If you aren’t aware, I have (or rather had) a muffin company (www.tastenoevilmuffins.com) until about a week ago. We’re shutting it down.  So.. while I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things (like napping, and yoga), and I’ve already taken a new job (or 2 or 3) there is more work to do than ever.  And my hearts not in it.  My life has simply put become a scheduling nightmare.

Ok! So all that aside here’s a brief recap of last week, and a teaser of the blogs to come for you to look forward to.

Last week…

Rocked. I did much better with my eating AND started the Walking and Talking with Friends group on Facebook…we had our first group walk on Sunday. YAY super fun.

That being said you can expect 3 blogs this coming week if I can get my schedule straightened out a bit.

1. Double Boobs! You’re gonna love that one.  Its all about that phenomenon that plagues women around the world as they gain weight and their bras don’t fit them anymore.  In this blog you will actually get to see a picture of my real life boobs…in a bra of course.   Bet you can’t wait for that one huh?

2. The walking and talking with friends group and first walk blog.  It was awesome, I’ll give you the recap.

3. Week 6’s Bioslifeslim weight/fat loss update.

All very exciting stuff I assure you.

Keep your eyes peeled.

and I’m toasting you right now so lift up your glass and say CHEERS!

xo

Skinny Kari