Sick before I even started! Day 1.

Well here we are on Day 1 and wouldn't ya know... of course I get sick! I started getting sick for a few days now, and finally it kicked in yesterday, so I'm spending a lot of today in bed... Thats ok. I think its better to rest and let my body heal itself than to go gung ho and not get better. I made a video last night, you can watch it here:

Juice Fast Eve!

I'm gonna take another nap now.

nite nite ~ jamie.

P.S. Here is one of my juices for today:

Starting again is always better than stopping forever

So... it's that time again. In 2 more days I will begin a long haul juice fast/detox/overall body, mind and soul cleanse. And I can't wait. My body has been fighting me lately... many signs that I am long overdue for a starting over, a refresher, a begin again. 

When I did my 28 day juice fast awhile back, I found that I had so many benefits: I had clarity of mind, my skin cleared up, I lost weight, I felt energized... buzzing with energy in fact! I loved how I felt during and afterwards. The biggest difficulties I found were that I was not prepared for any backup plans (my fast got cut short from a power outage.. and honestly.. I felt pretty ready to stop at that point) and also that I was not prepared for how to handle my mind and body during this time. 

So, this time I have been prepping for about a month now, and I can honestly say I am SO ready to go. Sunday it starts. And I'm going for a full 60 days. We will see at that time if I need to reevaluate my end date... I may just go ahead and go on longer up to 100 days. We will see. I'll be blogging AND vlogging like I did before. I'll lay out further details on here this weekend so you guys can know what to expect. Okey dokie, thats all for now!

xoxo ~ jamie

Time to take a few more steps forward...

I've been MIA for awhile, and I admit, I've been off of my own path. Well, its tome.to.move forward. I've been learning about myself, and seeking truth in.my life, and areas of my life which I was not entirely sure of before. Well, to be honest, I don't know if anyone else has felt like this before, but for me, I think that my whole life's journey is finally peaking and is gaining momentum. My eyes are seeing things clearer and my heart is feeling stronger.

I feel like my life is becoming my own.

what is it about size?

I was thinking about something on the way home today... as I pondered the {awful} thing which happened last weekend...

So here's how it went... 

Girl has been working out... not too consistently, but enough to feel like she's doing better than the past. The last time the girl bought jeans, they were a size 18... well, that size 18 split in the booty after wearing them (near daily) for a very long time... (They were comfy...what can she say?) Anyways... so, she expected to go into the store.. Tarjay to be exact.. .cause she's obsessed with that store.. I mean, c'mon, who isn't... 

but I digress..

So, this girl looks through all the racks and racks of clothes... most of which are way too small yet... but she figures she's still gotta be a size 18, so she pulls a pair off the shelves. She buys them and takes them home, and the next day, before the event she was going to attend, she goes to put them on. And wouldn't' you know... they must be sized wrong! The last pair of the same brand and style were 18s and they were much larger. These suckers wouldn't even get up to the top of her thighs! 

And so, chocking it up to bad luck, she traipses back to the store and returns them. This time around, spending much more time than last time, she preys on them.. a huntress in her hunting ground. seeking the "perfect fit"... and she finds a cute style, and so she pounces! Just in case, she figures she should get both an 18 and a 20.. (in case these are poor fitting also)... and she goes to the dungeon ~ (aka "dressing room").

Then she tried the 18s.. wouldn't budge. She tried the 20s.. she'd have to suffocate to even get them up over her rolls. And so she succumbed to going back out to the floor and getting a... 

duh duh duh...

22!

It was awful. It was saddening. The girl was depressed. She could barely believe it. And since that dreaded day, she has thought of how yucky it felt to have to buy the biggest pair of jeans she'd had to buy in a LONG time. 

So... yeah. Bummer. But it's a work in progress, you know?

Anyways, so I started wondering today... what is it about women and size that is so much a part of our identity, so much a part of "who we are"? I mean, we say things like, 

I am funny. I am smart. I am pretty. I am fat. I am ugly. I am 33 years old. I am a mom. I am a wife. I am a hard worker. I am tired. I am a woman. I am an adult. And we also say: 

I am a size 22. 

Why is this such an identifier for who we are as people? Shouldn't those I ams be used for more telling identifiers such as our personality, our intelligence, our life roles.. but our jeans size? Who made that a piece of who someone is? I dunno.. maybe I'm on a tangent, but it kinda ticked me off when I started thinking about it. I mean, this isn't just coming from a fat girl's perspective. I know plenty of skinny girls.. you know... the ones who us thick girls assume LOVE their little tiny bodies? Well, NEWSFLASH: This is what a lot of their "I am's" sound like:

I am short. I am bony. I am small. I am flat-chested. I am boy-shaped...

True story, ladies. All women... big, small, flat chested, big boobied,  young, old, hairy, plain, high maintenance, moms, girlfriends, daughters, friends... 

WE ALL FEEL THIS WAY ABOUT SOME PART OF OUR BODIES.

And it's not enough that I, or anyone says, You look beautiful honey, just know that... No. we all have some sort of insecurity, and until we battle our own demons these remarks we tell ourselves.. they will haunt us forever. These I AM statements will be forever who we are. 

So, here's the challenge: Comment below. You can be anonymous. You can say who you are. I don't care. Just do yourself a favor. Do us ALL a favor. Celebrate YOU. Finish this statement: 

"I AM ______"

Let's be more than just our sizes, girls. K?

xoxo ~ j.

if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes...

So, I've been working on Insanity for off and on... like 2 months. But this is the first REAL second week I have gone through... at least in a row ;).

....and let me tell you... 

It's kicking my Boo-Tay!

I love it though. I was looking in the mirror today and I was like hang on.. is my fat roll kinda tightening up? Then I sat down and I was like, WHOA! Whoa... whoa... is my stomach flab resting on a little less of my thunder thighs? And so, I was like... hmmm... I gotta see this...

So, I measured. (I had to know, right?) I know, Kat... (my Beachbody Coach) - I'm not supposed to be checking this stuff for like 2 more weeks.. but I just HAD to!

And, here's what I discovered....

(drumroll please)

In the last week and a half, I have completed 5 total workouts of Insanity (after each of which I truly thought I might die..). I have cleaned up my diet just a little... (there is SO much room for improvement). I have stopped drinking wine every night. AND...

I have actually LOST a half of an inch in 3 different areas of my waist!

How's that for results in a short period of time!



  YES!

So, I'm off to do tonight's workout: Plyometric Cardio Circuit...

Which although sounds mighty disturbing... I mean, c'mon.. "plyometric" - what kinda word is that?

I know it will all be worth it in the end...



















Toodles and have a beautiful night!

xoxo ~ j.

Source: tumblr.com via Jamie on Pinterest

Learning to Live

You know, it always seems like just when things seem to be picking up and heading a certain direction, our lives just flow right into another unexpected path. I mean, how often do we plan for the unexpected and are actually right? That's why it's called "The Unexpected"... makes sense I suppose. But, I guess what I'm getting at is that its so difficult to really make a plan for your life and have it always go just as planned. Why is that? I think it's because we subconsciously sabotage ourselves before we ever start things.. so when we do start, we are almost doomed from the get-go. That's why things are so much easier to be accomplished when we have things like trainers, teachers, coaches, etc- they hold us accountable. Because with them, we are two and therefore stronger than on our own. I know when I worked out with a trainer before, I lost way more weight and worked out much much harder than I ever had on my own. Why? Because I didn't want him to think I was not going to reach my goals. And in the end, I had lost more weight during those few short months than any other time in my personal history. Now, at this juncture in my life, I am in need of that type of commitment push again, and as such, have signed up for a 90 Day Fitness Challenge. The thing of it is, that I am really good at starting challenges and contests. What I have never been good at is finishing them. The reason is, that there are always these unexpected life circumstances which change plans, and thus I have a difficult time flowing with them. I have something happen and then Poof!- there goes my progress. So, this challenge is being led by a coach, which I think is just what I need. As much as I think I can go it alone and I am strong enough to do it by myself, I realize I do need help. And that without a coach of some sort, I will not get through this or any challenge. I'm learning about nutrition...learning way more than I thought I knew, because now I am learning how to implement it. I have been doing the modified juice fast for a little over a month now, and well, progress has been slow. And the difficulty I have found is retaining the energy needed to get me through the workouts. My body kind of goes haywire whenever I make any drastic changes, so I'm excited to see that my coach has some great tools including phasing out bad foods from your diet. This is going to be key for me because I have the desire to make those types of changes, but I also have a husband and two stepdaughters... and learning to make changes I can use for everyone is kind of tricky. So, lovely people, that is what's going on... I'm learning to make the dietary changes I so need, and I am following the Insanity workout. I have been starting and stopping Insanity for several weeks now, and so today, I am starting it again, and going to actually get through the 6 days this week without giving up. Then the next week, and the one after that... all the way until the end. I did my before photos.. they were scary. But, I will post them after I finish 30 days and then every 30 days after that. Same with my measurements. I'll be posting them starting at 30 days in, to show the change and then every 30 days after. I will also be starting a food journal, as I hear that it's the best way to stay accountable to what you are eating. Last but not least, I'm going to be making a visual aid today that will allow me to have a fun way of keeping track of my challenge. I'll take photos of it when finished and share it with you guys. As you can see, I've got a lot of ideas, now to condense them into one main thing and get started!

Talk to you guys soon!
xoxo- j.

Game on...

Hello lovelies!

So, I have started a program that seems to be working for me... and I'm pretty stoked about it!

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, so stay tuned!!

xoxo,

jamie