Motivational Monday

How do you like my 9mm XD? :-D


From Denise Austin
Motivational Monday
Rethink Your Habits One Step at a Time!
I am a big believer in the power of small victories! The best way to get healthier and more fit is to take baby steps, to introduce good habits a few at a time.

When you try to overhaul your entire lifestyle overnight, it's easy to burn out. But when you start with one small change and put your energy into making it a habit, the chances are a lot better that it will stick! Did you know that it takes about three weeks to establish a habit? If you can take a small, achievable step and make it a regular part of your life for three weeks, you should be able to stick to it permanently.

If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by the number of changes you want to make in your life, or if you're not sure how to get started, try this: Make a list of the changes you'd like to make, big and small. Include anything you can think of. Now go over the list and pick out one change to start with. Make it something that you feel is achievable at this stage of your life — for example, you may not be able to make over your entire diet, but maybe you can fit in one more vegetable each day in place of a less healthy food. Or you may not have time to join an aerobics class, but maybe you can start taking a walk most nights after dinner. Pick something you think you can accomplish, and put your energy into making it happen! You'll be so happy when you can check this item off of your list.

Once you feel confident that you've accomplished this small change, add another item from your list to your efforts. And don't forget to keep track of the changes you've already made! Nothing is more inspiring than knowing that you can — and have — accomplished changes in your life. Be proud along this journey!

Here's a pic of the pearl ring I got in remembrance of mom.

Flat Belly Diet

As most of you know, I've had great luck with the Flat Belly diet since I started it on Feb 9th of this year. Prevention Magazine has so much awesome nutritional and health info, I enjoy the magazine and truly learned a lot by doing the FBD. I haven't felt at all like I was on a restricted diet.

There's a lot of info on the website where you can learn about the FBD to see if you'd like to get the book, which has pages for journaling throughout the 32 days and SO MANY recipes to choose from, you'll have no problems finding things you like.

The JUMPSTART is the first four days. It gives you specific foods to avoid to help with belly bloat and lose initial water weight. In the book, there's a shopping list for the specific menus for those 4 days.

Top 10 belly-fat-fighting foods

25 Flat belly meals

How about some Flat Belly diet chocolate desserts?

And here's a 1-week meal plan

I've posted July 4th photos on my family blog.

Happy Birthday, America!

For all Americans - get out your copy of the Constitution and read it. Believe it. Love it. And let's get rid of the buffoons who've weaseled their way into office, pledging to support and defend this beloved document, and then totally chucking it and betraying those who voted for them.

You say you don't have a copy? Yes, you do. You are online right now. So go find it.

Summer weather

We continue to have daily thunderstorms, but the morning is lovely. So this morning we (my sister, her kids, my hubby and I) went for a hike in the Nat'l forest behind our neighborhood. I did just fine with the exertion. This is the BEST kind of exercise. :-)

This is the highest point to which we hiked.

The local wildlife - an itty bitty chipmunk.

My nephews and niece

My little sister and I

Me and my honey

Doctor's visit

As I expected, got no wisdom from the medical community. Sigh. When I told my doc what the ER visits entailed, she did order a holter monitor for 48 hours. Go in to get that on the 13th.

I find it totally predictable that with the 3 doctors I've seen in the past month with shortness of breath, dizziness and racing heart - not ONE of them asked me about my diet or exercise habits. Grrrrrr.

I've felt better after starting the past couple of days with toast and eating crackers during the day. So I think part of this is the lack of carbs. And remember that study that found women had memory problems when they were doing low carb diets? Wonder if that was why I was having trouble finding words and getting paper towels when I needed toilet paper? Hmmmmm????

I'm going to see my regular chiropractor tomorrow. I'll see if she has any ideas.

Hubby is home. YAY!

Ugh

Yeah, that time. Hideous headache and cramps. Bleah And up a few pounds, but still down from the pre-diarrhea day. I consider that a victory. ;-)

I was looking back at my food journal and I may have been kind of light on the carbs and starches. So I started my day with toast and made sure to eat crackers later, too. Not sure if that will make a difference with my light-headedness or not. I have my follow-up with my regular doc tomorrow (Tuesday) morning so we'll see what she says.

TOM blues

OK, I'm due to start my period tomorrow. I'm not only retaining water, I'm retaining other things since my horrible day last Sunday. ;-) Yuk! We had our pistol course on the range today, so it's been a long, hot day and I feel even more bloated because of that. I actually only went for the second half of the day when we did individual shooting instruction with a student. I don't think I'd have made it through a full day! But I had an awesome student who scored 237 out of 250 on her qualification. Time to get to bed now!

Good news - the other day, I went to a local Kmart because they carry the long Lee Riders jeans. Well, turns out that store is closing, which was nice because everything was at least 25% off, but bad that they didn't have a very good selection of jeans left. I did get some khakis, capris and shorts - all in TENS - which was REALLY REALLY good. (Happy feet dance!) But I am disapppointed they are closing down. And I did notice that they had NO longs in size 8, so I'd better quit dropping sizes. :-D

GREAT news - hubby gets home on Tuesday. He's been gone for over 2 weeks and it's been years since we've been apart for that long. I don't like it! (And bad timing because of the first issue I mentioned!) ;-P And then my sister and her kids will come on Wed or Thurs. It will be fun to have them here for the 4th. Our little town has an awesome fireworks display and the adjacent small town has a fun street fair and parade during the day.

My cat is lying on my arm and she keeps biting my thumb. I'm thinking it may be because I'm typing and not petting her??? Goofy cat.

Not sure if any of you out there are fans of the channel TCM, but they have had some AWESOME movies on all weekend. Yesterday was Hitchcock all day. I LURV me some old movies!!!! :-D Hitchcock totally ROCKS! I DVRed the ones that were on in the middle of the night.

Well, really need to get to bed. G'nite all!