An Update, that is long coming!!! :)

Those are all the the supplements I am taking to balance my body again, change my thyroid and help my Adrenal glands. He said to stay away from anything Chocolate, so even in the Ultra Meal plan, I can not have chocolate or in the Soy Milk. Vanilla tastes really good though so give it a try!

Some of the vegetables and this is not all of it!

All the fruit! Do you know that you should be careful about the fruit you combine and fruit should be eaten separately and make sure to give your body a full hour to digest it before eating anything else.

When you cook meat, make sure it is on low and let it slowly cook, to maintain the most nutrients and you should only have a 4 oz serving of beef or steak, and 8 oz of Fish or Chicken is 6-8 oz.

This is day four on Al's' diet and I have lost 4 pounds! It is really restrictive in that you have no starches, grains (for right now), a TON of vegetables and three servings of fruit a day, meat two servings and 2 replacement meals in the form of a drink. I also am taking 37 supplements right now, including a liver detox. I feel so GOOD!!! I work up this morning, my stomach flatter, my vision was clear and my mind felt amazingly alert. I also am not having any more stomach problems, bloating, pain in my digestive track, all of the past ten years of problems are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!!!!!

My friend Michelle, who works there is doing it too, and she told me my weight is directly attributed to my thyroid and it not functioning properly and it explains the outrageous amounts of weight I have put on in the last two years (because 80 percent of the time, I was eating healthy and exercising so it was frustrating to put on this weight and so quickly!). that would be 43 pounds! I have never been this heavy and so I feel like the Lord is helping me to get my body back. The cool thing is you are not hungry and its all about timing, combination of foods, organic food as much as you can afford and lots of protein! I can feel a HUGE difference in my body.

Al is the dietitian at the OC Doctors Wellness center. I will post a post about them, they are amazing, I feel like I have a whole team to support me. Many of them are on his diet and losing weight from it too! It feels like home there! So I met with him for two hours last week and left feeling empowered. Friday, I geared up and went and got a few things I was lacking, like a steamer, storage containers, etc... and then went to growers direct, it is the cheapest place in orange county to buy your fruit and vegetables, it does spoil faster, so only buy what you can eat in a few days. I went a little vegetable and fruit crazy and it only cost me $44 dollars for all that I bought in that department. I went to Ralph's for the meat, soy milk and salad dressing. The first day, I was extremely exhausted and spent all of Saturday at home, watching movies and reading. Sunday, I felt a lot better and Monday has been great!

I also went through my DVD collection and I am proud to say I can fill a whole CD book of G and PG movies so that made me happy. On the other hand I can fill another CD book of DVDs with PG-13 movies. I have felt the Spirit SO many times this past month, I feel it every Sunday, when I have been to the Temple. I spent all of Saturday, playing 5 church Cd's over and over and it was so peaceful and comforting! I love how the Lord pours out his spirit when we desire it and show him our desire to be close to him. I think it also helped me in preparing my talk last week for church! This is down to one of my last weeks of the challenge and I am definitely continuing in many of the things that I was doing during these weeks.

Does any one have any tips on how to make your own salad dressing that is healthy, has no fat, has natural herbs and is tasty? I know I am asking a lot!

Can I also say that I bought some bottles of cleaner that is all green and it is really amazing! It cleans well and without all those fumes! My body has never been happier when I am cleaning :) Which is everyday so thank goodness I found these products :)

If you are still reading this, have a great day!

Love, Em

My Nutrition and Body Assessment Visit

I am so happy I met with Al Fusco today. He is amazing, he evaluated my assessment and immediately told me what I had expected all along, which is I have many symptoms of a hypo thyroid problem. This is also affecting a host of other things in my body, mainly weight gain. I do not feel so bad anymore that no matter how hard I have tried, my weight does not seem to come off. There is a reason! Thank the heavens for that; cause I have been extremely frustrated.

So I feel blessed to get it diagnosed correctly and have the power to fix it now. I am repeating what I heard, and my facts might not be completely accurate with what he said; but from what I gather, my body is working over time to compensate for my thyroid not working properly and is sending out mixed signals to the rest of my body causing it to not function correctly. It basically makes anything I eat turn into fat and my insulin levels are off causing sugar cravings and the horrible cycle continues.

He also explained why my weight does not reflect how I look, I have a lot of muscle, larger bone structure and my body distributes weight very evenly then most people. Not that I want this, but it is good all things considered. At least I know I can weigh more and look thinner! :)

Today, I felt full of hope, he says he can get me back on track, in six weeks we can clear up my thyroid and I do not have to take medicine my whole life for this to get better and back on track. We are doing blood work tomorrow to check my blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, DHEA,Hormone and Testosterone levels.

A lot of things has to do with PH levels in the body and acid in food. He is going to have two customized diets one is a fast track diet and the second is a life long diet that has more choices.

I felt so comforted when he said that I have been trained incorrectly with weights. He said I have too much muscle and have built it incorrectly causing it to enlarge my muscle and not slim it down, and he said anyone who tells me to tone up is crazy! In order to get it down the inflammation has to go down and then we can reshape my figure through correct exercising for my body type and get it to where it is redesigned. He is also customizing what supplements my body needs to be balanced again and will be teaching me the food that my body needs, where to shop, what to buy and he said he is available for counseling 24-7 and will answer my questions.

He also thinks I might have a wheat allergy, so we will see what happens. This is just the first assessment, but we will be going over all the information in a two hour session, where I will get a notebook geared to my health and body needs! I feel so blessed to have this opportunity. He told me some really great news, but I will keep it to myself and see if it actually happens (the results I should expect to see in the next three months). It will take about 5 days to get the blood results back and then once he looks those over and creates a customized plan for me then we will meet and go over the blood work results and what the plan is, then I can get started with it.

He paid me the highest compliment ever, but I would feel a little vain to write it, if you want to know I will tell you personally! He is also very to the point and will not sugar coat anything, he straight up told me I need to lose a certain amount of weight and it is what I knew all along, I just feel like he has given me the power to fix internally what is causing the weight gain and help me to manage it so I can be healthy, fit and slender again!

An update on my progress

I think this journal only benefits me and I am going to write about anything and everything so you don't have to read this unless you really want too. I just want to record how my progress is coming along.

I am behind in this, because I am doing everything that I need to and it gets me behind! I had a successful weekend! I did not eat any of the donuts, cookies, chocolate, animal crackers, cake offered too me in these last past few days! I went to FHE on Monday, it was fun. I have been reading the scriptures daily or listening to them. I am making a minor change and that is to include all scripture in my challenge instead of being specific about which ones.

I listen to the Book of Mormon on CD while I cooked and cleaned tonight, it was great. It was interesting that when Moroni mentions, (2nd generation, after the coming of Christ) that it is the wearing of costly apparel that started the pride and the people that lead to the different classes of people, they were no longer equal and it stirred up the hearts of others to wickedness and leads to their destruction. It also talked about greed! I just found that interesting as I was listening. I think it could be anything that we think makes us better than others that creates the pride. I don't think costly apparel is bad unless it creates the feeling that a person is better than someone else or they take to much pride in the label they are wearing.

I also was able to make it to the Temple yesterday and it was so wonderful and peaceful. I felt the spirit so much while I was there. The only funny thing is, I have been drinking so much water (64 ounces, the daily recommended) that I am constantly using the restroom! So, hopefully my body will get used to the water treatment! I am going to bed before 11 every night, the goal is 9:30, but it ends up being 10:30 instead. One thing that I love is going to the chiropractor, I get to workout for free in the exercise room under the guidance of the physical therapist. Dean helped me on Monday and gave me sound advice. He told me to exercise all areas of my body and just focus each day on a different motion. So I have been doing that this week. He also said warm up on the treadmill for 5-7 minutes and then get into the weights and then end with at least 20 minutes of cardio. So that is what I did today and my trainer was Lynn who was Awesome as well. She had me doing more work with the exercise ball and strengthening my hamstrings, core, butt and arms. I also learned to use smaller weight and more repetitions.

I have been recording everything I eat and my workouts and water intake. So it has been fun and motivating to track it. I also write when I go to bed, extra so I can get the whole picture. I am meeting with the Al, the nutritionalist tomorrow to go over my free assesment so that should be good to see what I need to improve. The hardest parts of this challenge is not watching Gilmore Girls (I miss this the most!). The best part is I have more engery, more sleep, no sugar cravings, I feel the increase more of the spirit already and I know that Heavenly Father is pleased with me. I asked him if he was when I was in the temple and I felt the spirit so strong and it was wonderful to feel that and to know he answered my question. I am really trying. I really love watching father knows best. Its this old TV show, back in the fifties. The one I watched last night was a Thanksgiving one in season one and he says a prayer of thanksgiving at the end with his family and its the most beautiful prayer. My heart ached for TV to still be like that today. I am just grateful for DVD's that allow for the option of watching cleaner TV from way back when!
Tomorrow, I am working out on my own at the gym and that should be fun. Friday, I am going to my Aunts, I won tickets to a horse show and I am taking my Aunt Kath with me and so it will be great, we get to sit in our UOP sponser room and watch it from there and I am excited to experience this. I feel so blessed to feel so motivated right now. The only discouraging thing is knowing how far I have to go to reach my goals and I am trying to look at it bit by bit instead of the looming task ahead of me to get into great physical shape so I can be confident in dancing come fall. I realize everyday how impatient I am when I want something, I want to dive in until I get it and this type of thing takes months to earn and progress at and so I am trying to set daily goals that I can win at. Like the water thing. A great thing that I have learned is to purchase three 20 ounce water bottles, I fill them up everyday and when I have had all three I know I only need 4 more ounces to make it to 64 and I am set!

Well goodnight if you are still reading this post! So i am not posting everyday, I can't, I simply do not have time. So if you need encouragement then let me know and I will try to send some your way!

Happy 40 days!!!

Day 2

Today, I woke up feeling great, even though I could have slept more! I begrudgingly got out of bed and got ready for the day! I had another day eating well and went to the store and bought a lot of vegetables. Thanks Ashley for the suggestions! I will be using them and I bought sweet potato sticks from Trader Joe's to make baked fries with!

I have learned something very important this week, and that is I can only plan on doing things after 8 pm to give me enough time to get to the gym and then clean up after. My work schedule should be changing soon and then I can work from 8-5 or 7-4 and that will ease this problem of conflicting times with working out at the gym versus at home. My home workout tonight was less than spectacular! So I am working on improving my system!

I love recording everything I eat because it makes me so careful and think twice about what I am recording and my desire for perfection everyday in nutrition is increased. For example, tonight I discovered once again, that by 7 pm, I had only had one veg. serving. So I pulled out my vegetable platter from the store and preceded to eat from the five different sections to meet my serving recommendations! So I ended the day with 6 small servings of vegetables (still counts) and 5 servings of fruit! What else can you eat when you have ruled out sweets and junk food from your eating! Yeah for good health! I just looked at the time! Its time to get ready for bed! Hope your day went well! :)

Day 1

What a day is all I can say! I got rid of the junk food I had in my home last night which felt great :) Today was overall a great beginning to this challenge; I am a bit exhausted right now. My job is grueling. In the past two months, I have received a new load of students (about 175) plus my orginal 150 students, I have a new manager, location/desk, new co-workers, my emails and voicemails feel never ending and at 6:50 PM, I was still at the office and I finally cried, while listening to my students voicemails (all 27 of them). I was on the phone for 4 hours at least today. I also personally moved and had other changes in my life. Talk about all the stress factors increasing in my life.

Not all is bad; I also have increased my retention of students from a 57 percent to a 67 percent rate! This is incredible and is resulting in lots of kudos at work! I just feel really pressured to be the best counselor (my own internal pressure), while handling such a large load. Building those relationships and helping them achieve success is all I want to do and I feel completely torn about how to handle so many students at once who are vying for my attention and some are sorely impatient while others are purely wonderful for 8 hours straight a day. By Friday, I can hardly get out of bed I am so exhausted and normally want to do nothing on Fridays.

I hate having to deal with all the extra things that are being thrown at me right now and that take me away from my students. Give me a few weeks if not a month and it will all settle down (crossing my fingers that I am not just lying to myself). All of this is to say, I think I rely on my mid-afternoon chocolate boost to get me through the toughest part of my day! And not having that today, I am proud of myself for not crying earlier than 6:50 pm (I am laughing as I write this)!

I wrote down everything I ate today and looking at the fruits and veggies intake: 5 servings of fruit and one serving of vegetables is highly unbalanced, I will work on that tomorrow!

I went to the chiropractor office today for my adjustment and I set an appointment with the nutrition specialist to go over a free consultation next week. You fill out this comprehensive assessment and then he can determine how to best help you with dietary supplements.

Well, I have to go to bed soon and I need to clean and stretch. I will end with an encouraging scripture from D&C, 90:24

Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another.

I love that it says as we search diligently, pray and believe that everything will come together for our good (not necessarily what we always think is for our best good, but is good and it might take time to see that!).

1. Any tips on vegetables that are yummy, fast to cook or can be packed without cooking (besides carrots and celery)?

2. Also what office stress relievers does anyone have besides crying at the end of the day?

Purpose....

Tomorrow is the start of the 40 day challenge and so I decided to create this blog to track my journey, inspire others and ultimately express who I want to be and how I am getting there. There will be a daily post giving updates from the different parts of the challenge. This could mean a health tip I learned, a new workout I tried, a thought on a scripture I might have read, a struggle I am having with a part of the challenge. After the 40 days, this blog will be solely about changing life habits and becoming the best me that I can in the course of my life. As a disclaimer, my goal is to establish healthy patterns that will last a lifetime. This is not about hitting a number on the scale!

Yes, I want to and expect to lose weight, but it is going to take time. I will never publish my weight on this blog or tell anyone what I weigh, so don't ask! I might mention inches or pounds lost, but that is not the primary purpose of this challenge. I also am not posting "before pictures," but will think about maybe doing it at the end. I will include pictures in this blog, but just not an official picture.

When my calf muscle tore, it was tough because I realized my body needs daily, constant care and that I can not jump into vigorous exercise after being inactive. I think health encompasses many different facets from sleeping, nutrition, spiritual and educational pursuits. So in order to truly transform it has to encompass all of these things and more. Service, kindness, forgiveness, love and friendship all play apart. So your involvement in my journey will help me to succeed!

Remember my goal is to transform the way I feel and to treat my body as a temple of God that it is and push myself to greater expectations. Hopefully this will inspire and motivate others to embrace life and all that it holds.

Wish me luck!