Moving is Not for the Faint of Heart! :)

After posting 37 Reasons to Stay Motivated in my last entry, I can say my motivation has gone out the window - but then we are in the midst of packing and moving - and this is by no means a small move!   We're moving from West Texas to North Texas, to a small town named Argyle, which is located off of I-35W, less than ten miles south of Denton, and 30 miles north of Fort Worth - but from where we live now, it's over 600 miles away!

I have to say packing is very physical!  There MUST be WW Activity Points associated with moving as I can say I've probably developed muscles where I didn't know I had muscles!  Lifting boxes, bending over boxes while packing, reaching for articles on shelves at all levels...and those are only a few of the calisthenics attributed to packing a household on a cheap budget!  :)    Yep, we're moving in style - with U-Haul!  We're now exactly six days away from loading the truck, and seven days away from our departure date from El Paso...still lots to do before d-day arrives.

What's kept us going is "keeping our eye on the prize" - as we're moving to a lovely 1.6 acre property which we will be sharing with our daughter and her family, including two of the most precious granddaughters a grandma could possibly have!    We are looking forward to this new chapter in our lives which will no doubt be filled with lots of challenges, but lots of new adventures, as well!

Here are a few photos of our new home-to-be:

37 Reasons to Stay Motivated!

 
Wow!   I love this!  We all have our "lazy" moments so this will be my reference point when I start stagnating and/or making excuses. In fact, just so I do have it handy, I'm downloading it to my desktop!  

Motivation + Habit = Success!

I could not have said it better!   We were motivated in February by watching a documentary by Joe Cross, and here it is three months later, and it's definitely become a habit!  We continue to have a spinach/berry/banana yogurt smoothie and/or veggie juice nearly every day.  For variety, we also make big salads as a main meal.  We eat meat a few times a week - mostly chicken and fish.  Our dairy only consists of feta cheese and yogurt - and we have eaten light Laughing Cow cheese on occasion.  We often have veggie omelets or oatmeal for variety in the mornings.  We now only drink coffee on the weekend - otherwise, we have herbal teas.  As for breads, we have home-made bread occasionally.  When we eat out, we try to make healthy choices.   All of this has become our "norm" and both of us have felt healthier and more energetic since we've made these changes in our eating regime.

Overcoming those Vacation Indulgences - or Taking Off the Fluff!

It goes without saying that unless one is going to a health spa for vacation, weight gain when is nearly inevitable - and for me, that meant a three pound gain!  I will say that I indulged more than once - my downfalls were huckleberry ice-cream!  What saved me from gaining more weight is the fact that we often prepared our own meals in the condo where we were staying - and tried hard to fix only healthy and low calorie meals - soups, salads, etc.  We also splurged by eating out - especially during our travel excursions, but didn't do too badly in our food choices.  In fact, we ate twice at a cafe in Flathead, Montana because the vegetable soup was "to die for" - but then we also had their home-made sour dough bread!

Now that we're back home,  it's time to get the "vacation fluff" off.   We found that we actually missed our daily Juicing and were more than happy to return to our healthy nutrient-rich veggie juices.   We are also back to eating light meals - soups, salads, veggie omelets, etc.   As a result, I've lost 1.5 pounds this week, and expect to lose the other half of my weight gain quickly.

I've also made a "monumental decision" in my own program.  I decided to cancel my WW online subscription as I've found that WW doesn't jive well with Juicing as a way to lose weight and keep healthy.   This is not a "program" for us as it's become our eating lifestyle, or maybe we should just call it our new "norm".  We enjoy it, it keeps us healthy, and it's helping us lose weight.  We've decided to continue having our veggie juices and/or a smoothie along with one light meal each day during the week, and have one juice per day and two meals on weekends.  We also plan to continue this "norm" with our kids when we move together to North Texas this summer - as they are in agreement that this is a healthy lifestyle. In fact, it was my daughter who first introduced me to Juicing last summer although I didn't actually adopt this lifestyle until I watched the film by Joe Cross, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" in February.  I am now reading a book by Jason Vale entitled "Juice Yourself Slim:  Lose Weight Without Dieting".  It has given me a lot of motivation as well as ideas for adding healthy soups and other meals along with Juicing.

I will end this with a quote from Jason Vale:
True transformation to a healthy eating and juicing lifestyle is going from "what you want but can't have" to being grateful for what you now have (i.e a healthier body, etc).  It's also changing one's mindset to "what you can have but no longer want".   


EDITED (just two days later!):   I lost 2.7 of the three pounds I put on during our vacation within the first week home - YAY!!!!

A Pictorial Essay of Montana = Relaxation, Rejuvenation and Spiritual Renewal

We recently returned from a 10 day trip to Montana which was not only relaxing but proved to be rejuvenating and spirtually uplifting as well!   While this blog entry does not address "weight loss", it is about holistic health - mind, body and soul.    The clean mountain air, exhilarating scenery, relaxing excursions and walks, healthy meals we prepared together in our vacation condo, and the shared quality time with my husband  - all added up to a rejuvenating and spiritually uplifting vacation.   So often when we distance ourselves physically from our everyday responsibilities at home, we are re-energized!   Montana proved to be the perfect venue for one of the most relaxing and re-energizing vacations we've ever had!   The scenery is extraoordinary - majestic mountains, serene lakes, and beautiful evergreens, as can be seen in the photos that follow which were taken at Glacier National Park:

In addition, we visited Flathead Lake, also in Montana, and Lake Pend d'Oreille in Sandpoint, Idaho.   Here are photos of both:


                                          Flathead Lake in Montana
                             
                                         
                             
                                     Lake Pend d'Oreille - Sandpoint, Idaho

                                       

Finally, we encountered wildlife - first when we drove through Yellowstone Park on our way to Montana, and then throughout Montana, itself.   Here are a couple of our wildlife encounters:

                                          

                                         Mountain Goats in Montana

                                  Elk seen in the woods on our way to Idaho

All in all, a vacation to remember!  We came back fully energized and ready to address the many challenges of our impending move to North Texas!   We expect to be moving sometime toward the end of June so we will be spending the next several weeks packing.  Lots to do but we are looking forward to this next chapter in our lives!   After all, "Life is a Journey, Not A Destination"!   

Getting Back on Track ~ Again!

Wow!  It's been two weeks since my last blog entry!  Definitely time to "get back on track"!  Truth be told, even though I hadn't been keeping up with my blog, I had stayed on track until last Friday when we took off for an impromptu trip to Dallas/Fort Worth - a nine hour drive each way, so two days on the road and two days actually there!   We met my son and looked at over a dozen properties together - trying to find the "perfect one" for our family!   It's been a challenging venture but it does  look like we're getting closer to making this happen!

The fact is each time we take off on a trip, we do get off our program somewhat. Too much eating out does tend to sabotage our efforts at times, even when we try to make good choices.   I came back with a two pound gain - probably half of that being water retention (sodium in restaurant food as we all know is atrocious!).   But we are back on track - combining juicing with eating small meals.   Today I started the day with a wonderful spinach and mushroom omelet and a thin slice of home-made oatmeal bread, a wonderful veggie juice for lunch, and our dinner will be a large veggie salad with spinach, romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery mushrooms, avocado, and a 1/2 cup of canned salmon.

Returned to my fitness routine today - 45 minutes of lap swimming.  Felt great to return to swimming after being away from the pool for a week!   I plan to return on Saturday morning as tomorrow I have a funeral to attend.   Next week, I'll try to get in two days of swimming as we are heading to Montana on Thursday.  More challenges with food choices - but we'll do the best we can!  However, staying at the condo in Montana will help us avoid eating out more than we need to - at least that's what I'm hoping!

The Journey Continues

    As I mentioned in my previous post, my husband and I needed to make a decision as to whether we would pick up our journey where we left off, or change it up - now that the 5 Day Juicing Spring Clean was over.   We made our decision today - and what we've decided to do is Juice for the next three weeks for three days each week...three days all day juicing, and four days only partial juicing.   The reason is we'd like to take off my pounds before we leave on our vacation in early May.   We will most likely return to a 5 Day Juicing Fast after our vacation - more as a detox.  Then we'll decide again how we want to proceed with our Journey.  I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating - it makes it so much easier to do this Journey with my husband than without him.   We are truly each other's "support system".  

   We do intend to continue being adventurous with our juicing - by using a variety of recipes.   For example, on Monday, we're trying out two totally new recipes - one is apple, pears,  parsnips, along with with mint and lime.   What a melody of flavors!  Another new recipe for us on Monday will be:   apple, carrots, beetroot (just one for both of us as it does have a strong taste as we found out when we tried making a juice with beetroot last week).  The apple, carrots and beetroot are first juiced in a juicer,  and then blended in a blender with blackberries!   Sounds wonderful!   We will also try something we didn't do during the past week (yet it was in the program so I'm not sure why we omitted it) - having the "Ginger Shot" at the beginning of each day - a shot glass filled with apple and ginger root juiced together.  Jason Vale describes this as "a shot with a massive impact"!  He actually learned about this juice while in Denmark - and has this to say about its effects:

"Regardless of whether I am on a particular juice plan or not, I make sure that the first nutrition to hit my system everyday is a Ginger Shot. Not only was this super shot responsible for curing my severe hay fever, but it’s also a natural antibiotic; a wonderful decongestant; natural anti-inflammatory; great for travel sickness; it inhibits the formation of blood clots and helps to lower cholesterol. Ginger is also loaded with minerals, including – copper, potassium, sodium, iron, calcium, zinc, phosphorus and magnesium. Ginger juice is simply one of the finest health tonics on earth."

And so The Journey Continues....