Be Monday- Do you want to be yourself? Do you want to be true?

Life is hard. We are being dragged in every direction before we even get out of bed. Not very often do we get these sweet moments where we feel really true to our selves. You know the feeling, that euphoric light love feeling where you are just completely.....happy.



Unfortunately as we get older we often lose sight of that person and that feeling. The good news is it's never gone and if you want you can have it back as often as possible. It's very important to tap into this as often as possible. This is the secret of truly happy and successful people. You will be a better wife, husband, mother, friend, daughter, niece, neighbour, coworker..etc.
So how do you do it?

There are a number of ways and it will vary from person to person. I find meditation helps, Florence Welsch suggests you dance the devil off your back, and visulization can also help. But take it slow, there is no room for being hard on yourself here. That's conteractive.

So if you want to try you can simply close your eyes for a moment and breathe. Consciously follow your breath down to your belly and back up and think of one of the happiest moments in your life. The birth of your daughter? That moment at the cottage last summer when you woke up early and went out to the dock and really felt the morning, the evening your husband proposed, that time you stepped off the plane in a foreign country and felt this is it.

This seriously only takes maybe 30 seconds. You can pause and do this in the lineup at the grocery store. Or in the washroom after you wash your hands before you come back out or even right before you fall asleep.

Soon you will see this changes such as easier smiles, a happier heart, becoming more understanding and more yourself! (and don't get too excited now but you will also start to crave more!) Pausing will become wonderfully addictive. You will take the time to love yourself and then the skys the limit to your happiness!

So come on people "stop dragging that horse around!"

Please please please let me know if you tried this or what you think of it! I am dying to know!


Love and Hugs


P.S Thanks so much to Becky at Disasterous Jane for sharing this music video! It is so inspiring and beautiful!

Do Thursday- White Yoga at the Eiffel Tower

Last Sunday morning we woke up early and drove into Paris for the White Yoga event guided by Elena Brower.

I got there early and took a place near the front and tried to take it all in. We were set up in between École Militaire and the Eiffel Tower.

And then I made a friend with the lady sitting next to me. Anne is a lawyer from Neuilly who wants to be a Yoga teacher. She was so smiley and kind and we got along straight away.

Finally it was time to start. Elena said a prayer reminding us about International Day of Non-Violence and Gandhi's birthday and how coming together in peace like this was such a beautiful gift to the world.

This is a video of Elena guiding us. I felt a big release and my heart open up like never before. It was completly overwhelming and felt so good that I cried. (through most of the practice and I'm not embarrassed, well maybe a tiny bit) But honestly she had the most emotional powerful voice and energy or maybe it was the people around me or the space but something special was happening. It was a happy cleansing cry. You know those ones where you just feel better after? Like that and I think that can never be a bad or shameful thing.

This was our view. Check out the late comers and extras that came after it was full. (We were 2000 people all together!) They laid out in the grass and joined in!

She had us all laughing as we were trying to get into the traingle pose.

During the whole time Elena was teaching she had a musician playing softly on the contrabass. It was as intuitive as her practice. I felt like neither the musician or Elena knew what was going to happen next. It all just kinda, went.

On our way home I called my Mom to catch up. As I was trying to describe how it felt I thought of an 'e' word but I couldn't find it until today. I meant to tell you Mom that it felt Euphoric. Perfectly Euphoric.


Please tell me, have you ever practiced Yoga in a large group before? Or outside? What did it feel like?  Did you ever cry?


Love and Hugs


P.S Thanks so much to my husband Vince for driving us in, taking photos and then feeding me lunch. You're so awesome and I love you.

6 ways to burn 300 calories at home

I read this on Fitsugar this morning. It's great for me cause the only exercise I do do is done at home. It's usually a work out video for 30-45 mins where I change between cardio and strength training. But it's always fun. No more punishing my body and feeling like crying anymore. If I'm not laughing or smilling when I workout than it's no workout for me!

• Get your stretch on: unroll your mat and practice yoga. An hour and 20 minutes of light yoga burns 315 calories.
• Pop in your favorite cardio DVD such as Bob Harper's Ultimate Cardio Body or Tracy Anderson's Cardio Dance Workout; you'll burn 310 calories with 45 minutes of high-impact dancing or aerobics.
• Jump rope: it doesn't take much. In just over 30 minutes you'll burn 305 calories. Pass the time by jumping rope in front of your favorite TV show.
• Walk up and down the stairs: not only will you strengthen your heart and tone your legs and booty, but just under an hour of doing the stairs in your house burns 313 calories.
• Grab your dumbbells: you'll have to do a lot of bicep curls and push-ups, but after an hour and 45 minutes, you'll burn 310 calories.
• Hit the machines: if you haven't lost power and you have a treadmill or elliptical at home (lucky you!), go for a run. At a pace of 10 minutes per mile, you'll burn 300 calories in just over 30 minutes.

What about you guys? Do you like to exercise at home or at the gym or outside?

Love and Hugs

Operation Beautiful

Yoyo! It's true! I know you are doing it. (I'm doing it) You are probably doing it right now and not even noticing it. Stop it. Say something nice to yourself. Look in the mirror and be nice for once. Geeze! :)

This is from Caitlin's blog The Healthy Tipping Point. She has a book and a blog and a campaign to leave sticky notes in ramdom places with positive encouragments on them for other peope to see. It's called Operation Beautiful! Beautiful indeed!

Love and Hugs

"Yep, still fat!" The mystery of Phatom fat.

“We become numb to how mean we’re being to ourselves,” Ressler says.

Even though Kellylyn Hicks has lost about 85 pounds over the last year and a half, and gone from a size 24 to a tiny size 4, she still worries she won't fit into chairs.

While out shopping, she fears that she’ll bump her hip into a shelf and break something. A few years ago when she was heavier, she accidentally knocked over and broke a wolf figurine and had to pay $60 for it.

And every morning when she looks in the mirror while getting ready for the day, she sees her former, heavier self. “My brain says, ‘Yep, still fat.’”

“It's been really hard to change my self-image,” says Hicks, 37, of Chesapeake, Va. “I still feel like I'm this enormous person who takes up tons of space.”

While many people are thrilled when they lose excess weight, not everyone is as happy as they expected to be — or as society assumes they surely must be.

Body-image experts say it’s not uncommon for people, especially women, who have lost a lot of weight to be disappointed to some extent to discover that they still aren’t “perfect.” The excess fat is gone when they reach their goal weight, but they may have sagging skin, cellulite or a body shape that they still deem undesirable. Like Hicks, some even continue to see themselves as though they are overweight.

Some specialists use the term “phantom fat” to refer to this phenomenon of feeling fat and unacceptable after weight loss.

“People who were formerly overweight often still carry that internal image, perception, with them,” says Elayne Daniels, a psychologist in Canton, Mass., who specializes in body-image issues. “They literally feel as if they’re in a large body still.”

Daniels and other experts suspect this may happen because the brain hasn’t “caught up” with the new, leaner body, particularly for people who were obese for many years and then experienced rapid weight loss.

“Body image is a lot harder to change than the actual physical body is,” Daniels says.

'Waiting for the other shoe to drop'
Another contributing factor, especially for yo-yo dieters, can be fear of regaining the weight, says Joshua Hrabosky, a psychologist at Rhode Island Hospital who studies body image and counsels obese people undergoing bariatric surgery.

“They’re still in the back of their minds maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he says. People who’ve gained and lost and gained again may be less likely to embrace a new image that they worry won’t last.

Still focused on the fat

Though she’s lost 50 pounds, Nell Bradley, 25, of Atlanta, says she’s more weight-conscious now than five years ago when she weighed 200 pounds.

“I’m so afraid of being that size again,” says Bradley, who exercises three to four times a week and watches her diet to keep her weight in check. She’d like to lose about 10 more pounds.

Even five years later, she still hasn’t shaken the image of her heavier self. “Now I’m down to 155 to 160 and I still feel like I'm at the weight that I was before,” she says. “It's weird because sometimes I'll shop and immediately look for clothes in my size when I was nearly 200 pounds. I always have problems seeing myself in the mirror or in pictures.”

Experts say part of the problem in our body-obsessed culture is that many women — and increasingly more men — have highly unrealistic expectations of what weight loss can do for them. Too often, they think hitting their ideal weight will make them look like a swimsuit model in a magazine, and they’re disappointed when that’s not the case.

People who expect perfection can “get stuck in dichotomous thinking that you’re fat or you’re perfect, and there’s no gray area in between,” says psychologist Leslie Heinberg, who counsels bariatric patients at the Cleveland Clinic. “So if you’re not perfect, you’re ‘fat.’”

'Blind spot' about own body
Heinberg says a lot of her patients who’ve lost large amounts of weight know they have a “blind spot” when it comes to their new body, so they really have to work at believing they look the way others see them.

“It can take years after surgery, after losing weight, for people to really buy that,” she says.

Think of getting a dramatically different hairdo and then doing a double-take upon seeing your reflection in a store window, Heinberg says. “Losing 80 pounds is much more of a cognitive shift than getting new highlights,” she explains.

Counseling may involve challenging distorted ways of thinking about one’s appearance (by studying before-and-after photos, for instance, or bringing out the “fat pants” and seeing the difference in the mirror), learning how to think about oneself in a more positive manner, and working to engage in activities one’s been avoiding.

“You have to look at retraining your brain and understanding that you have been reinforcing this negative image for probably a long time,” says Adrienne Ressler, a body-image specialist and national training director for the Renfrew Center Foundation, which has several eating disorder-treatment facilities around the country.

“We become numb to how mean we’re being to ourselves,” Ressler says.

“We need to learn to appreciate our bodies,” she says. “If we could all look in the mirror and say, ‘Hello, Gorgeous!’ I just think the world would be a better place for women.”

© 2010 msnbc.com

From this article

30 Day Shred is Done and Done!

Good Morning Every body! Here are my final stats:

weight- 215.6 pounds Final- 209.9 pounds
bust- 47 inches Final- 45inches
waist- 40 inches Final- 36.5inches
hips-46 inches Final- 44inches
thighs-24 inches Final- 22.5inches
dress size- 16 Final- 16/14

For the frenchies:
poids- 98 kgs Fini- 95.4 kgs
poitrine- 119 cms Fini- 114.5cms
taille-102 cms Fini- 93cms
hanches- 117 cms Fini- 112.5cms
cuisses- 61.5 cms Fini- 58cms
taille- 46 Fini-46/44

Yesterday was my last Shred day! Thank goodness, It was so hard. I missed one day and had to make up for it and extend it to 31 days. I am really pleased with the results! What do you think? Can you tell a difference from the first picture? I lost a total of 5.7 pounds and 9 inches! Whooohooooo! Also the best part is that I am so strong! I can do a push up now! A real one not a knee girl one. It's so hard but I can make it. I have found muscles on my body I never knew existed and Jillian certainly pushed me to places I never thought I could go. I think that's what is the best. She kept telling me that you have no idea how strong your body really is until you try. And boy do I believe her now! I feel amazing!
Love and Hugs

We're coming to the end!

Alrighty kids today is my last day of the 30 day Shred with Jillian Micheals! Tomorrow I will post my results. It's been hard but I feel stronger than I have ever felt and man that's a great feeling. What are you guys doing to stay healthy?
Love and Hugs

If Tony can do it I can too!

Good Morning everybody! I just got done reading Tony's story at That'sFit. He's just amazing! He did this all on his own while counting calories, food journaling and exercising. He says that he eats what he wants just uses a fork instead of a shovel now! He said when he started walking he couldn't even make it around the block.
I only have 54 more pounds to lose. I look at my stomach every once and a while and even though I know it's changing it's still the big apple shape I have lived with and loathed all my life. I feel like I work out so hard! I often do Jillan's Shred in the morning than another aerobic video in the afternoon. And I still feel like this belly will never budge. But look at Tony. He is a clear example that eating healthy portions and moving your body more works. I just have to keep this up.
If Tony can find the strength and will to lose 229 pounds I can surely find the determination to lose 54 and really believe in it.
If you want to read Tony's personal blog on his continuing weight loss you can find it here.
Love and Hugs

Do you find this as interesting as I do?

Good Morning Guys, I know I am obsessed with pictures of soft boiled eggs lately! What's up with that? Anyways.

I love Svelte Gourmand. It's a beautiful blog about, yup you guessed it cooking gourmet health food that tastes like gourmet food. Also there's a lot of info on the health effects of food and yesterday Sara wrote about "Why we shouldn't stress about cholestrol in our food." Here's what she had to say:

"Yesterday I had eggs for breakfast, a shrimp and crab salad for lunch, and some cheddar cheese with dinner. And I didn’t think twice about the fact that these were all high-cholesterol foods. That’s because lately, I’ve been reading a lot of information about just how wrong we’ve been about what cholesterol is and what it does in our bodies.

Let’s start with cholesterol in food itself: For decades, we’ve been told that eating food high in cholesterol will increase our bodies’ own cholesterol. But especially in recent years, study after study’s shown that’s not the case. One Yale experiment by Dr. David Katz, for example, found that eating two eggs a day for six weeks had no harmful effect on healthy adults–even those who already had high cholesterol.

The same’s been shown with shellfish, and, as Camille’s previously posted, butter. A lot of experts say this is because the cholesterol we get from these sources is just different from what’s in our bodies. Katz has a different explanation.

He believes that since our early ancestors ate an incredibly cholesterol-rich diet (organ meats, shellfish, etc.) it makes sense that our bodies have evolved to handle the substance at high levels. What really does raise our cholesterol, he adds, is food that’s high in saturated or trans fats.

If you’re running with this idea, it leads to an interesting question: If we can effectively process all the cholesterol we eat–why do we sometimes seem to overproduce and not process the cholesterol we make in own bodies?

Yesterday, I read a Huffington Post article that really got to the meat of this. In it, columnist Joseph Mercola, MD, argues that high cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease–it’s a byproduct of another problem: Inflammation. When our bodies get inflamed, cholesterol is released in huge amounts because one of its functions is–believe it or not–to repair cellular damage. According to Mercola, it’s the weakened artery walls that are the real concern. Reduce inflammation so you protect those walls, and you’ll control your cholesterol. How do you do that? By following, among other things, David Katz’s advice: Monitoring your saturated and trans fat intake. (There are also a whole lot more you can do, like cutting down on sugars, simple carbs, and processed foods.)

The inflammation argument makes a lot of sense to me; I especially like Katz’s point about how cholesterol’s been part of our diet throughout time. It stands to reason that we’d know how to process them a whole lot better than, say, a Twinkie or bag of Pringles."

This makes complete sense to me and is so interesting. I think another thing that can add to the inflammation is daily stress. I see this in my Dad's side of the family and am conscious of being effected as a result.So, keep my stress levels down, keep my trans fats and high frutouse syrup intake low and I will live a long healthy life......Right?

Love and Hugs