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Challenge Accepted Day 2

Well, what a weird morning! Oh and OH MY GOD! T25 was a killer last night! I had forgotten how hard it was, all I can say is thank god for Tania! The fact that I could modify saved me.

Now, where to begin? I guess a little background information on me. I have hypothyroidism. Not too severe, but there are definitely side effects and it’s definitely not fun! What really pisses me off about having this disease is the way people treat me after they find out I have it; “but you’re too thin to be hypothyroid.” “Oh, you only have a mild case of it, that explains it.” What the hell! Seriously! I was diagnosed with it in early 2002, after moving to Bahrain and working as a flight attendant for Gulf Air. All of a sudden, I started putting on lots of weight. There was no particular reason, I wasn’t eating more or partying more than usual but everyone kept saying to me that all the new girls put on weight when they come to Bahrain, it’s normal. Not for me it wasn’t, especially when there was no real reason. We’re not just talking a couple of pounds here or a kilo or two, we’re talking 13 kilos (25+ pounds) in a six month period! I hated myself! I started feeling down about everything! My Mum and Dad came to Bahrain to visit my sister and I and were shocked when they saw me. It was truly awful & you know in your heart of hearts when you’re at fault for putting on a lot of weight and when things are going on in your body that you cannot control! I took exercise pills (dodgy things from various local stores and some I bought in South Africa) I even went to the gym (if you knew me at all at that time, this was a huge deal) but nothing worked. I started smoking 2 packs a day hoping to just not eat at all & still the kilos piled on. Finally I went to the Bahrainy Gulf Air appointed doctor and told him about it, thank god for him is all I have to say! The first thing he said to me was he thought I may have been hypothyroid. I had no clue what that was but read up on it. The results of the blood tests were back within 3 days and yes, my thyroid gland was not functioning as it should be. I went on 50mcg synthroid and within 5 months, had lost all the weight I had put on and was finally feeling like me again, just in time to move to Italy after hubby proposed (but that’s all for another day). This is when people started asking me what I did to lose all that weight and when I told them, they were like “oh, I need to go and get tested, maybe that’s my problem,” or “is that some sort of miracle diet pill?” “Can you get some for me?” Unfortunately they didn’t see all the other things that went with it, my lethargy on days, not wanting to get out of bed. My unexplained sadness that I thought was related to the weight gain, my irritability and mood swings. On top of everything else, I have suffered from insomnia since I was 17. I have tried every ‘natural’ thing out there on the market, I saw a doctor about it finally only a year ago and her advice was to take Benadryl. So that’s what I do, now I take Benadryl every night but unfortunately, it seems to be not working anymore too!  So that’s how last night and the night before went. I really didn’t sleep but had that Benadryl tiredness over me that makes me cranky if the ‘drug ‘ hasn’t done its job. I took two last night thinking that I’d hardly slept the night before so surely they will work tonight, then at 11ish, I got up and had two melatonin because I knew I needed to get some sleep. At about 1am, I finally fell asleep, awoken by my hubby having a very weird dream and looking like he was writing on the headboard (he has never done anything like that before since I’ve known him) and that was it, sleep finished again for a while. I played on my phone and finally drifted off again to be awoken by my alarm going off.

Ok, so about my weird morning; I got up this morning and just felt drained, I felt cranky. And I’m not really on any diet right now so it’s not anything like that, but it was a drained to the core feeling! I got the girls ready for school and thought I had better go and run whilst I had a little bit of energy, so I did. One mile and man was that tough! My hubby was home with the little one (we’re talking 7:30am by now) & I finished running, with the good intention of starting T25 day 2 & promptly closed my eyes & fell asleep. He came up to tell me he was going to work, so I came downstairs and told the little one to come into bed with me & play on his tablet or I could put Netflix on, and he and I both fell asleep, I awoke at 10:30am feeling better but not great! Very bizarre but one of the combination of things that sometimes seems to happen to me to me due to where hypothyroidism meets insomnia! 

So here I am, it’s now 11 & I’ve still got to do my morning R+F regimen and T25! So, I’m going to go and do those things and come back to writing this when when I’m done and can report to you that I’ve done what I need to do for the morning 😜

Ok since starting this, I have now done my morning R+F regimen and T25 Speed 1.0! I actually really enjoyed this day, though the fact that I am not in shape did make it a tad more difficult than it should have been!  My skin feels lovely and my body is aching. I did also have a marvelous lunch if I must say so myself! I’m going to include a photo of it because it was that good!

  
Doesn’t that look wonderful? I never take the time to make myself a yummy lunch and to be honest, I’m a bit of a fuss pot so there’s a lot of healthy food that I don’t really like, but everything on this plate was so simple to put together and tasted amazing and filled me up! I think that’s a pretty good win for a Tuesday! The chicken is from the cans of chicken meat from Costco, not something I’m normally into but who has time on a weekday to cook up a fresh breast of chicken? Not this lady, I can assure you! Anyway, with a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar over it, the whole thing was not only yummy but good for you too! It’s taco Tuesday, so I thought I’d better eat something to fill me up until dinner and something that doesn’t have a whole heap of calories in it, not that I’m dieting, let me make that very clear, I’m just trying to eat a little better because for over two months we did nothing but eat out! Hence the extra rolls I am now trying to tone down. 

Ok, so I think that’s me for the day, tomorrow I’ll focus a little more on the skincare side of  it, particularly the Amp MD roller as I think this really needs some extra time and focus, but for right now, I must keep unpacking so that chaos does not surround me! I hope you have an amazing day and I’ll see you on day 3! By the way, the photo below is the only one I have access to right now that gives a bit of an indication as to how big I got during that time. Of course it was the same time as one of my dearest friends got married! 

 

Challenge accepted Day 1

Ok, so after my big decision to take part in a 60 day challenge of my own doing, I have given lots of thought to how this is going to go. I have been concerned about doing a Beach Body program and I have been worrying about the angle I should approach the Rodan and Fields challenge. A friend suggested I do a challenge group and although I love this idea, I thought: A, I don’t have enough time to get people to participate and B, this isn’t that sort of blog. But, and this is a big but, if you at any time want to come on board with me and do either or both of these challenges, then please let me know and we can get you all set up with products and/or the beach body program of your choice. 

I hummed and haahed about which beach body program to do and my hubby wanted to do Insanity but if you know anything about that program, you know that you have to be in reasonably fit shape to be able to do it and complete it and I didn’t feel like I was there yet so I asked him instead to do T25 with me. As the title implies, this is a 25 minute program (as hubby also pointed out, there are no breaks in it, so it could be considered as hard as Insanity) with a 3 minute cool down. The fact that it only takes 28 minutes total though is what I really like about it. I’ve done it before and enjoyed it. But as with so many other things and probably one of my biggest flaws, I didn’t follow through. I finished the program but didn’t take after photos, or my weight or measurements or anything. Why wouldn’t I do that you might ask, I don’t know! But I think this is another reason why I have taken on this challenge; I want to commit to something and do it properly and finish it and I expect all of you to hold me accountable! 

As with every challenge there have already been some hiccups; we spent all weekend cleaning and putting away all the ‘stuff’ that just arrived and I mean all weekend! It was a mammoth job! We are a few thousand pounds over our weight allowance coming here so we’re going to get a nice bill from the US Government unfortunately. On top of that, we went from a 3800 sq ft house in Colorado with a big back yard to an 1800 sq ft house here so we had to sell some of the stuff we brought with us (that we’re going to have to pay for) before we could even begin to unpack! We are definitely not on top of it as far as being ahead of our impending bill with the sale of a few pieces, so I am not very happy with myself right now (but the hoarding side of me is for another blog on another day)! Anyway, we got enough room upstairs to be able to exercise, yet hubby reminded me this morning there is no DVD player up there to be able to use! In my haste/working m.o. I completely forgot I had given away the DVD player we had in Colorado! We have one in our bedroom and one in the main downstairs tv room, but none in the upstairs area. Luckily, we do have an all-region pioneer did player from my Bahrain days (it’s about 14 years old) but I’m going to have to find it today in the crazy mess that still exists downstairs! 

So, the plan for today is this: I’ve already run a mile on the treadmill, I did a 5 minute warm-up, with an 8min 37sec mile in between and a 5 min cool-down. I also found out this morning that during our move, the movers have broken the incline part of the treadmill, surprisingly that’s all they broke on it, given the state it arrived in! Not happy, but what can you do. So, I shall spend my day putting more stuff away and getting more organized with the intent to find the pioneer did player so that when hubby comes home this afternoon, we can do T25 together. I don’t like exercising in the afternoon though, so this won’t work for me in future, but for today, it will have to do. As far as the mile goes, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, I didn’t push myself super hard, just ran with it not really worrying about my pace. My plan is to do 1 mile daily for the first week of this challenge and see how I feel and go from there as to whether or not to increase my miles. I really need to see how my body goes with doing both T25 and running. On a more personal note, I am putting out some before photos of my body below. This is a huge deal. Yes, very raw photos, just like the one of my face as the article’s featured image. It’s scary. These are going out there on the World Wide Web and normally we do everything we can to make ourselves look beautiful and perfect and hide our flaws and I am putting mine out there for everyone to see! I’m not going to go so far as to share my weight or measurements with you though, but I will let you know how much, if any, I have lost at the end of 60 days. And I will of course put my afte photos out there as well!m

   
 
Now, onto the skincare side of it, well I started with the Redefine Daily Cleansing mask, followed by step 2, the Redefine Pore Minimizing Toner then step 3, the Redefine Triple Defense Treatment. Tonight, I shall use the same first two products followed by the Amp MD roller (do a YouTube search for how to use this tool, I’ve seen some amazing results on other people when they use this consistently so I’m really excited to use it) followed by what I like to term ‘liquid velvet’ aka Redefine Night Renewing Serum, followed by the Redefine Overnight Restorative Cream. I have taken photos of all of the products I intend to use and attached them with this blog (well hopefully I’ve got everything, when I opened my box containing the Redefine Macro Exfoliator it wasn’t in there, so let’s just hope the movers just decided to hide it somewhere else shall we)! I know these products are expensive and it’s a big investment- the products in this photo are worth over US $500, but I want results on my neck, I want results on my face and I don’t want to have to see a plastic surgeon and spend thousands getting those results, I also don’t want to go in and have an acid peel or anything nasty like that, so I’m hoping my investment (both in this business and in these products is well worth it). 
  
Well, that’s all from me right now, my before photo shows all the wrinkles/blemishes on my face I’d like to get rid of. Spending a long time as a smoker has given me wrinkles around my mouth and eyes also (you have no idea how much I regret ever starting that stupid habit)! So there’s a big ask from these products. I forgot to mention the eye cream as well, now this is a product of R+F that I do absolutely love already and will continue to use for the rest of my life, I used just a tiny bit after I finished his morning’s regimen and will use it again tonight. So that’s all from me on day 1, I’ll you know tomorrow morning how T25 went and how the nightly regimen felt. Ciao for now!

Challenge Accepted! 

So I’ve been thinking about the direction my next blog should take and I’ve had numerous ideas but it just hit me when I was in the shower; I’m going to test products (one of which I actually sell) & let you follow my 60 day journey. 

I’m a Rodan & Fields Consultant and I’ve lost my vibe over the past couple of months because we’ve been in the middle of a massive relocation from Colorado to South Korea, I’ve had three kiddos to take care of in between the big move, we went on a cruise, my hubby has been away for a fair amount of the packing side of this move, we had Christmas in between, I said goodbye to quite a few wonderful friends, and we’ve only just had our household goods arrive here (with my R&F products included). The other challenge is an exercise challenge. I was a heavy smoker for a very long time only giving up smoking forever when I found out I was pregnant with baby number 3! Exercise was something I really didn’t do. I put on a lot of weight with my only son and ate and ate and ate! When he finally came I was bigger than I could ever remember being and I knew it wasn’t going to just drop off me given I was that little bit older now (unfortunately age has a way of slowing down all things weight related). I started to run and found I really enjoyed it. I rigged up a stroller/carrier to hold the baby and my 4 y.o. little girl so I could run after walking my eldest DD to school. We lived in Hawaii right near the beach so it was very easy to enjoy my daily run! I decided I wanted to take part in the Great Aloha Run and I did, eight & a half months after my son was born and I averaged 9.05 (or thereabouts) minutes per mile for the 8 mile run. It was wonderful! I was so proud of myself. I did another run prior to leaving Hawaii and averaged just over 7 mins per mile on that one. Then we moved to Colorado. 

Hills became part of my run. I continued to run but not as much as I used to. Then one day the wheel of my stroller came off as I was running and that brought an end to the outdoor running. We didn’t want to spend the money on another jogging stroller given our son was now almost three so we bought a treadmill instead. It wasn’t the same, but it helped. Unfortunately though, we went to Australia for 5 weeks and I didn’t run as much. We came back and found out we were moving so I repaired and renovated and packed and sorted and ran less and less. Then winter hit and I ran less….. and less. Finally I just stopped with only an intermittent run on the treadmill. We went on a cruise on January 2nd of this year and I did run in the onboard gym on the boat but honestly it makes you feel queezy when you run on a treadmill in a gym and look at the water going by. And it was too cold to use the outdoor track. We came back, packed up, moved to hotel after hotel and started eating out every day. Running went by the by and here I am in very cold South Korea with my newly arrived treadmill.

Where am I going with all of this, where does Rodan & Fields meet running? Well, I am challenging myself to 60 days of running 5 days/week & doing some sort of exercise program (probably a Beach Body program like T25 or Insanity) & to taking the 60 day Rodan & Fields Redefine challenge for my face! I turn 42 years old on May 7! 42! How did that happen? If I can’t get the results I want from my Rodan and Fields products then I’m going to get Botox as my birthday present to me for this horrible verticle wrinkle I have in the middle of my forehead and I am sharing this journey with all of you. As far as the exercise goes, no I’m not going on some crazy diet, I just noticed things getting a tad flabby and I need to tighten them back up as well as reinvigorate myself! Anyway, let’s go on this journey together, let’s see these products/programs in action! If, in 60 days we see the amazing things happen with my skin that I’ve seen happen to others who have diligently followed the prescribed regimen, then you can order your products through me (😉) & I have a friend who’s a Beach Body Coach so I can send you her way if whatever program I choose gives me some good results! So come along with me on this journey. I’m starting on Monday (March 7, South Korean time of course) and I can’t wait. I’ll post daily photos and what I’ve done that day and how I’m feeling as far as both body and skin go. Don’t worry, there will be other blogs in between, I’ve got so much to say and very little time now that my house is in chaos! But more on that later…..

The Unknown War in South African Schools.

Imagine living in a world where your kids cannot safely go to school. It is far from most people’s minds yet it is a reality for so many throughout the world. We in most parts of Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, don’t have to worry about that but for some in South Africa, it is a sad reality.Let me first give some background on where this story started from:

A few months back, an article came across my news feed called ‘Chase’s Teacher’. It was part of a blog by a woman named Glennon Doyle Melton in her blog titled ‘Momastery’. Here’s the problem though, I clicked on it, read it and shared it and afterwards it looked like I had written it. What I mean is, I paid no heed when sharing it; it wasn’t credited to anyone when it came on my news feed, anyway when I shared it and was notified someone else had shared it, it had my name written at the top of it. I mentioned it to my husband at the time but honestly gave it no further thought, thinking it wouldn’t go far and people would know it wasn’t my writing because on the most obvious level, I don’t have a son called Chase, I also didn’t expect it to go viral in South Africa.

 

 Last week, I started getting a number of friend requests from people in South Africa; I couldn’t for the life of me, work out why. I looked at these people as they friend requested me and realized they were all honest-to-goodness real people, not some sort of scam. I googled my name but nothing came up, I upped my privacy buttons on Facebook friend requests and left it at that, until I received a private message from a lady begging me for help. Her message read:

 

“Morning from cape town. I just came across your post about “chase’s teacher” and I would like to share it please. This is my son, (the name and photo of her son, I have kept private). He is six and gets bullied for being kind. After many fruitless trips to the school and him receiving death threats, I would love to start an online platform where we share experiences and support and your post is one of the few with practical solutions. Please consider my request. Kind regards”

 

I am a mother, this message broke my heart. I also realized that this must in some way be linked to the friend requests I had been getting from South Africa. I responded to her message by saying I think she has me confused with someone else and that I would love to help her but I don’t know what article she’s talking about. The dialogue went back and forth until I finally realized it was this woman named Glennon whose article she was referring to. What a terrible person I was taking credit for her hard work, even if quite by accident. I have since shared her name with my new South African friend and I hope she will be in touch with her, but I too have vowed to assist in any way I can, starting with this blog.

 

Bullying. It is something that has come to light over the last few years and something that is quite possibly shoved in our faces for anything and everything, particularly in the USA. It is an excuse for everything, unfortunately though, when it is really happening, it is not taken as seriously as it should be. I think the media in the States has overused the word bullying. It is a serious word. And this situation is so serious, it can be deadly.

I am talking about a woman who purchased a house in a nice area because of the school district, a woman who knows that in most schools in South Africa, there are major problems, but a mother who wanted to give her children the best she possibly could so she stretched everything to be able to move there yet found the problems were no better even in the ‘wealthier’ school districts. This blog is about this huge problem in South African schools that no one is doing enough about. About a girl who was 6 years old and told to cover up because there were 8 known sexual predators in mental interventions in her class. About children having their earrings ripped out of their ears; children being bitten, shaken and pushed. About an eight year old boy who was thrown off a balcony in November of last year by a fellow eight year old pupil. The boy, Faidh Jacobs, suffered a cracked skull with internal bleeding, yet I can find no further articles on the punishment of the pupil who did this to him! How can that be? About a father who was banned from entering his daughter’s school by the High Court in Pretoria without prior arrangement because he protested outside of the school after she had been the subject of victimization and bullying to such great extremes that she no longer wanted to go to school. The father said the school wasn’t serious about investigating and stopping the bullying happening to many students and his only action was to protest with banners and pamphlets outside of the school. The school of course denies this, but to me, the fact that a father had to resort to such extreme measures to be taken seriously, speaks volumes about the bigger issues going on.

 

The South African Schools Act of 1996 states that all schools must adopt a Code of Conduct to which all learners must comply. Included in this Code of Conduct should be the school’s policy on bullying yet it seems that so many parents have complained to teachers and to school principals with no further action being done because they are either too scared themselves or don’t want to believe there is a real problem. So much is being pushed under the rug in South Africa and until someone starts standing up for these kids, nothing is going to change.

There is some hope however; a young girl named Kelly Gibson was bullied after she wouldn’t take part in an initiation ritual which included running across a beach naked. She went from being a popular, sporty student, to a girl who was consistently victimised. Like my South African friend also mentioned as being a regular occurrence, her belongings were stolen, they even set up a Facebook group against her. Kelly’s Mum eventually moved her to a different school as the abuse got so bad, but Kelly is now speaking up against bullying and has started her own website at:

http://www.respectme.co.za

To my South African friend I say this; the article Ms Melton wrote is incredible. Chase’s teacher is incredible. What a wonderful way to ensure no one is being mistreated, to engage every student, and to ensure bullying is not happening in your classroom. This is a far more proactive way to stop bullying in the classroom, it needs to start from an early age and it needs to be practical. What a great way to monitor the health and well-being of your students and what another great burden to throw on our poorly-paid teachers. This is where it needs to be a societal effort. This mother in Cape Town is suffering because her little boy is suffering and if she doesn’t do something soon, the kindness he is being bullied for, will leave; we can all only tolerate so much. I don’t have the answers, all I can do is make some suggestions, judging by the number of people who tried to friend request me and the number of published stories in South African newspapers, you are not alone with your son’s plight. And you are doing the right thing by wanting to band together with other Mums, bringing a complete halt to this abhorrent behavior.

 

If you have any ideas or real life examples that have worked in similar situations, please share them here so we can ensure bullying is not just an overused word but is realized as a real-life problem that needs to be eradicated! 

 

For the original article titled ‘Chase’s Teacher’, please visit: http://momastery.com/blog/2014/01/30/share-schools/

 

For help in South Africa

Call Childline 0800 055 555 or visit

http://www.childlinesa.org.za

Also, there is a great article on the subject of bullying in South Africa at http://www.childmag.co.za/content/bullying which has a link to download anti-bullying guidelines.

One more thing, Ms Glennon Doyle Melton, please accept my sincerest apologies- I had no intent to claim your incredible article as my own.

My daughter was teased today…

Parent learning situation today: It was pouring rain this morning and Madison has one coat with her that’s built for snow but not for rain. Me, in my infinite wisdom, thought I would make her a raincoat out of a garbage bag. I’ve done it before, I’ve worn them before, I didn’t even think about it. She likes it when I make them for her so thought it was in good fun to wear it and knew it would protect her from the rain. Well my little girl was teased all the way to school! “Are you made of trash?” “Is that a trash bag you’re wearing? It’s so ugly, why would you wear that?” And all sorts of other mean things! She said that even though it hurt a little bit, she tried not to care what other kids said to her.

When she came home and told me all of this, I’m not going to lie, I snuck off into my room and cried. I cried for my little girl being teased and I cried because I thought I had made a humongous mistake. All sorts of things went through my mind, including going and punching all those second graders who thought it ok to tease my baby (but don’t tell their parents okay 😜) I even thought about putting garbage bags on all of us and going to the bust stop next Tuesday morning and giving them all a good talking too. “I’m lost!” I thought. I didn’t know what the best thing for me to do as a parent was. Then my darling Madison came in and offered me one of her Valentine’s chocolate gifts. Honestly, I was so happy in that moment that she didn’t resent me for putting her in a garbage bag that I lost my train of thought for a while.

We sat together on the couch talking about her day (she learnt how chocolate was made and tasted it both pre and post sugar) and I wondered if I should even bring the teasing incident up again but I had some questions I wanted answered and I wanted to really know where she stood after everything that happened.

So I asked her if she was teased after she got to school and she said yes. But she didn’t take her ‘raincoat’ off until after she got inside the building where she proceeded to tell the other kids that she does have a raincoat but she doesn’t know where it is because our stuff hasn’t arrived yet. (We have just PCS’d – Army talk for permanently relocated, to South Korea) She told them they shouldn’t be so mean & she told me that she felt very sorry for Dolly Parton because of how the kids made fun of her coat when it was so beautiful! (See below for further info on this aside).

I asked Madison if she had thrown the makeshift raincoat away and she looked at me like I was a little loopy and I quote, said “Why would I do that?” I told her I just assumed she would have after everyone had teased her so much and that she would never have to wear one again and I was really sorry I had put her in that situation. My 7 year old daughter turned to me and hugged me and said “Don’t worry Mummy. I’ll wear one again. I don’t care what they think.”

It was right then and there that I was reminded how little it matters about what other people think. Here is my little girl in this situation not even of her own doing, yet she walked away from it in the end a stronger and wiser person. I couldn’t be prouder of her right now and yes, a part of me wants to still go and punch those little girls, but another part of me knows my daughter can handle them on her own!

The Aside:
One of my favourite songs of all time is Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colors’ not long ago when we were still in the USA, we all sat down and watched the telemovie and the girls found out the story behind this song as Dolly herself tells it. Obviously it really stuck with Madison but it also made me proud that she related the two situations and though her own ‘coat’ had gotten her teased, her thoughts weren’t selfish but were of this little girl who wore a coat made of rags!