The journey of #Tishspiration has been an adventure, with many twists and turns along the way. Right now, it really feels like an uphill battle. You know what I mean, you are on a narrow path, climbing a mountain one step at a time.
When this happens, you have two choices. You can stop for a rest, or you can choose a different path. I choose to rest when I need to but keep aiming for the top of the mountain.
I have been working towards the dream of launching my own business since January. While I am on this path, I am meeting people, in the areas of personal and business development. I have been in a constant state of learning for three years. Becoming an entrepreneur alongside of being a published author is the direction I must keep moving towards.
Why DIY?
Here is the thing. For the last three years, I have been learning as much as I can from free online training programs. I have to confess, that first one with the pitch at the end really threw me for a loop. I had never experienced a sales pitch for an online program before.
In this realm of online training, you have two choices. You can choose a program to invest in to have professionals help you get your business idea up and running, or you can do it yourself.
If you only have time and energy to invest in your business, it makes investing money into your dreams difficult. I started with baby steps to invest in myself financially. Quite frankly, in the online business world, it comes highly recommended.
I have had good experiences, and I have had good results after paying more than I expected. There are lessons to learn as I work towards bettering myself.
What have I tried?
I tried an online coach hot seat. I would be able to talk about my business and the coach would ask questions and offer advice. The really cool thing is that participants like myself also offered help and advice. It may have been my nervousness which caused them to want to offer support, as I was visibly nervous when my turn came around.
The coach was gracious and encouraged me to talk more about my business plan. (It has changed entirely since this session). She knew from my application that there was more to my business plan than what I was saying when the spotlight was on me. Except for my nervousness about being in the hot seat with someone I follow who is confident and has an incredible sense of business, this experience was a positive one, which I would do again if the timing and price were right.
What else have I tried?
I took a paid online challenge. There is no disputing that I did indeed get value from working through this challenge. However, the cost of doing so from a financial point of view was more than double what I expected to pay.
The series of unexpected charges which kept adding up made me feel like I was not treated fairly. I was aware of the exchange rate and having to pay a little more because I live in Canada, not the USA. After the first unexpected charge on my credit card, I asked some questions. They answered, and I was okay with their explanation until the postman delivered a book to go with the challenge, and I had to pay more money.
The work done with this online challenge did lead to a breakthrough for me, and for that I am grateful. I didn’t sign up for their next challenge, as I had a bad taste in my mouth when the sales pitch came at me.
What Lessons Have I Learned?
Sometimes I get really nervous. It can impact my experience both positively and negatively. It positively gathered more support for me than anyone else in the group coaching session. My authentic self has the ability to surprise me in what it can do, even when my palms are sweaty and my words are not conveying my whole message. I will go for it again and be less nervous the next time because I have tried it before.
It is good business sense to set the expectations for your clients in all aspects of the services you are providing. If I had known how much that paid online challenge was going to cost me in the end, I may not have taken it. Or, I would have been expecting each charge, and not becoming upset when I experienced each additional fee.
Now, some of you may be thinking I should have refused the package. It was tempting, but I want to read this book to see if it is worth the extra cost. I went to my husband one more time, as he does our household budget and I explained that there was yet another unanticipated charge on a credit card. We were both ticked off at the financial consequences of my signing up for the paid online challenge. After our discussion, we also agreed that the lessons to be learned would not be easily forgotten.
Surprises are everywhere.
Regardless of the financial impacts, I have crossed a toe over the line into paid online training. The value of what I have learned outweighs the charges on the one hand. On the other hand, I had a breakthrough with personal growth and I was amazed when people started offering to help me from an unpredictable source.
Tishspiration is The Art of Surprising Yourself. When you push your boundaries and limits, even in a small way, you might just be surprised at the results. It will not be a big deal unless you choose to learn the lessons life delivers to you and you are open to the possibilities of success. When you find your own Tishspiration, please do celebrate it with me! It is a feeling like no other when you accomplish something you never thought you could do. I would love to celebrate with you, so please share your wins in the comments so I can.
A few weeks ago, a friend and I reconnected, and we decided to plan a camping trip. Labour Day weekend was only two weeks away when we got together, and we wanted to take full advantage of the long weekend so that we could enjoy our escape into nature.
We booked our lots at the Seaside Campground in Saint Martin’s, New Brunswick, Canada. One lot had water and electricity, while the other was without. As we planned to share our camping adventure, naturally, we agreed to share the utilities between ourselves.
Check-in was at 3 pm on Saturday, so we started packing on Friday night. I had the idea to make homemade pizza and pack the leftovers. It was great to be able to sit at the picnic table after pitching tents and have cold pizza ready to eat. We planned to camp from Saturday to Monday.
When you camp over three days, you really only have the middle day for the full camping experience. The first day is busy setting up the site, and the last day is when you tear it all down to pack up and go home. As a result, the middle day becomes the highlight of the whole trip.
Coffee
I love 2-3 cups of coffee every day because I need the coffee to do all of the things. Me packing coffee for this trip is not a surprise, however, packing Bailey’s Irish Cream to have in my coffee was a treat. On Sunday morning, I discovered that I did not pack my french coffee press. (It was still home on the kitchen table, waiting to be packed). Consequently, this created a dilemma.
There were options to go get coffee on the site and at Huttges General Store, across the road from the campground. I am known to be a bit stubborn at times and was ready to cry when I realized I had left my coffee press at home. Determined to make my own pot of coffee, I trudged over to the store to see if they had any way to help me out.
We had a kettle and a pot. We had already started boiling water on the camping propane BBQ when I discovered that the coffee press was missing. I went with a plan to see if there was a way to buy a sieve and some paper filters. Not only did the store have the very items I went looking for, but they also gave them to me without charging for them. The coffee dilemma was resolved, and I happily made a pot of coffee. I was also delighted that my friends packed some Jamieson’s Irish Whiskey to create a true camping Irish Coffee experience!
Two walks on Sunday
After a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and blueberry pancakes topped with pure maple syrup, we cleaned the dishes before heading down to the beach. A short walk from our tenting site brought us to the shore, and the beach is not very sandy when the tide is in. It is a rocky beach.
My friend Pat walking his dog Logan along the shoreline.
My friend Kayla and I sat by the water to chat for a bit. I am not in the best physical shape of my life, and I appreciated the rest. The rocks were warm to sit on, which we did until the tide got too close to where we were sitting.
I also tried to film ocean waves while we were sitting still. I learned earlier this summer that I should not be near people who are talking when I do this. This time, I learned that the wind can be picked up on the mic louder than the sounds of the ocean. In the future, I will try to get my ocean waves video again next year. One of these times it will work.
Roy did not join us for this walk, as he had gone to the beach by himself before anyone else was up. When we came back, we found him waiting at a picnic table.
Roy waiting for us to return from the beach. There were bumblebees in the flowers behind him along the fence all weekend.
After we were all together again, Roy, Pat and I decided to walk to an ice cream parlour. Along both walks, I had my camera, and I decided to take pictures of whatever inspired me throughout the day. Here are some of those pics.
White Wildflowers
Pink wildflowers
A monarch butterfly taking a rest
A bush with berries
More pink wildflowers
A colourful bench with a Little free Library
The bench between the two edible plant garden boxes.
What a neat idea!
A tree along the path to ice cream
An unripened chesnut
More chestnuts in the chestnut tree
A larger view of the whole chestnut tree
A single chestnut, almost fully ripe.
A dogwood tree with berries
A decorative wreath
The tiniest little pink flowers I have ever seen!
An evening hike
Kayla, Pat’s wife who is the friend from the beginning of this blog, wanted us to go on an evening hike. She wanted to show us where the Caves of Saint Martins were. We decided to drive closer to the destination, and as we found a parking spot, we saw tourists all over the area. There were also tourist shops, a cafe, a restaurant, a food truck and another ice cream parlour.
We could see the Caves from the beach at our campground, but it was really neat to explore them more closely. After crossing a stream and finding our feet all wet, we had to pick our path carefully as some of the rocks were slippery. It had been a few years since I had been rock hopping on the coastline, and never at this location.
The Caves of Saint Martins as seen from the campground beach. The tide was high, we had to wait for it to go out to go on our evening hike.
A closer look at The Caves of Saint Martins from a distance.
Now that we were committed to exploring after walking through the stream…we were able to get into the caves and take some pictures. If you aren’t familiar with what the locals in every area call tourist traps, it is very difficult to get a picture of what you are there to see without other people being in the shot.
People in one of the caves
Tourists also out for an evening hike
Looking from the beach towards the caves. Here you can see the stream we had to cross to get there.
I did my best to not take pictures with people in all of them.
A closer pic of one of the caves
Looking up from the base of the cave
Inside the mouth of the cave looking up at the trees growing on top of the cliff
I thought the trees hanging down would make a nice picture
Looking at the rock formation and the seaweed
Looking back towards our campground.
Looking out to the Bay of Fundy when the tide was out
Pat and Logan overlooking the Bay of Fundy
Looking back to the trees outside the cave
Inside a cave
Another look at the trees. I found them to be resilient and fascinating.
Just outside the first cave.
Getting closer to the first cave.
Heading back towards the first cave
A natural path between the caves.
A trickle of water falling down from the cliff.
The precarious stone path we took back across the stream.
A little waterfall
The sunset over The Bay of Fundy.
We did pose for a few pics as well!
Me with Logan
Pat, Logan, and Kayla
Me at the very end of our evening hike
Even though we had a very busy day, we made time for relaxing and for fun. If you don’t make time for these things, consequently you will be less likely to want to pack up and go on another adventure.
Pat, Logan and Kayla at the beach.
You can camp all year round, however, it is a different type of adventure after the snow is on the ground. Personally, I prefer to camp in the summertime, when the nights are not so chilly. It is also nicer to camp for a longer stretch, although I was really pleased with how well our trip went over the long weekend. As a result of reading this blog, I hope this inspires you to go camping too. If you want to see what I packed in more detail, you can read all about it on the Coffee House Writers website. My article will be published there on September 9th, 2019. Here is the link for 7 Categories Of What To Pack For A Short Camping Trip, to help you start your own list of what to pack when you go camping!
Do you enjoy hiking and camping? Have you got any great stories about your own experiences? I would love to read all about them in the comments 😉
This week, I am reminding myself that minor setbacks are minor. I gained a couple of pounds after losing for a few weeks in a row. It is going to happen, and that is a fact of life. Fluids are going to be retained, no matter what plan you are on.
I am writing today to let you all know that I am still on the right path, even if I slipped a little. Some junk food made it into the house, and I am certain it is what caused this minor setback. It is okay, as long as I make a recovery plan.
It is summer. Ice cream.
I am human, and I will sometimes go for the ice cream. The trick is to make it a treat, and not an everyday event. I got bagels and cream cheese. I do like bagels and cream cheese and want them from time to time. It is better for the budget to buy them at the grocery store than at a cafe. I will do this from time to time. It is okay.
What isn’t okay is throwing my hands up into the air in a sign of defeat.
We all have those moments. The days when everything is going wrong and all you want to do is go get some fast food to make one thing easier on ourselves. Guess what? It isn’t true. If you give in, you are giving up on yourself when it becomes a pattern. If you get fast food every time things are not going well, it is going to become a bad habit, with some nasty side effects.
You will feel bloated, and you will retain fluid. Then you will get on the scale, and see it went up. What a nasty cycle of negativity.
One reason why I do not weigh myself every day is that I would become obsessed with my weight. It is not a healthy obsession, for me. It can cause a spiral of events that would have terrible side effects. Always wearing black clothes, and avoiding social events. When you don’t feel good about yourself, you want to hide. In case you haven’t learned this about me yet, hiding is not something I want to excel at.
While it is okay to have that treat once in a while, it is not okay to have treats every day, or more than once a day. Unless that treat is a salad. Fill up on healthy foods, and more than once a day is acceptable for healthy food choices.
What is working
I have been drinking a lot less pop, or for the south of the border readers, soda. I still have one every so often, but I am getting it less frequently than ever before. We are drinking more water, and of course, I am drinking coffee. I sometimes have a cold-brewed coffee or an iced coffee, and these beverages can be sugar-free. If I choose iced tea, it may or may not have sugar, depending on which one I choose.
I have cooked a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts today.
When I bake them in the oven, with greek and feta salad dressing, there are a variety of ways to make meals with chicken. I can then add it to a garden or pasta salad, casseroles( my favourite recipe is here) or make my own version of Buffalo chicken nachos. Not being a fan of anything super spicy, I add a smoky or hickory BBQ sauce and blue cheese dressing in place of the salsa and sour cream. Of course, I add chicken, tomato and green onion, but you can adapt nachos to include whatever options you prefer. It makes a nice change from ordinary nachos, and I haven’t made them often lately, but I do love my nachos. As long as they are mild.
When it comes to making casseroles, I stick to the Trim Healthy Mama recipes. They are found on their website, but if you search for them, many bloggers make their own THM recipes, and they are really great. I do need to focus more on cooking at home, and I have started.
What can you do?
It all goes back to doing what works for you. If you don’t know what that is yet, it might be time to try something new. I recommend checking with your doctor before making any serious dietary changes, to be on the safe side. Keto is really popular right now, but as a type 2 diabetic, I cannot eliminate carbs. That is exactly why THM is working for me, it is low carb, not no carb. I do not buy their products, except for the first book, I bought a while ago. I would buy all of their cookbooks before ordering their products. They do sell high-quality products, and I have no qualms about them. My reasons are that if I can find similar products locally, I will try to go that route first.
If you can make your meals at home, from scratch, it will make a difference in your health. I do enjoy cooking. The cleanup, not so much. Certain foods are optimal to batch cook to have leftovers, such as the chicken I cooked today. It will help me make better meal choices because it is ready to use. If I prepare food and have it ready to grab when I need it, I make healthier choices, and I do see results. If you aren’t a fan of buying chicken breasts in bulk, you can buy a whole chicken, and roast it in your oven or slow cooker with this recipe.
Start with one meal a day.
With THM, they recommend you start with breakfast. I am currently eating a smoothie bowl breakfast almost every day. A small container of yogurt, a small container of unsweetened applesauce and a raisin, nuts and seeds mix all together. I have been adding 20 almonds as well since we had bought some on sale and I want to use them up. There are plenty of other options out there, I also like eggs and avocado for breakfast. When I have too many meals in a row without carbs, I do notice a difference. So, I mix them up, to make things balance better for me. I choose to eat Silver Hills sprouted wheat bread. It is not on the plan, but I still use it. I like it, and that is important, too.
What changes can you implement to start your path or add variety to your journey to become a healthier version of yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I am curious, and always looking for new ideas.
Hi. It has been over a month since I last wrote anything at all in my blog. For those of you who have been patiently waiting for me to return, thank you. July has been a difficult month, along with being the good kind of busy. I am ready to start writing here again.
Yes, it is usually Thursday when I post, and it is in the wee minutes past midnight here; technically it is Friday. I have something to write about, and I don’t want to wait another week.
You see, the difficult part for me in July revolved around what I am calling the plague. Both Roy & I have been fighting it and we are finally starting to feel better. We aren’t at full health yet (gamer reference for the geeks out there), but we aren’t fighting brain fog from being sick anymore. The summer cold, sore throat, plague whatever we are fighting is a nasty bug.
While we were so sick, we realized that our water cooler had green stuff growing in it. Likely algae, possibly mold; needless to say, we stopped using it. I made an appointment with our doctor to verify if the antibiotics we were taking from a previous appointment were sufficient after this discovery. She advised that with no noticeable GI side effects, to stop drinking the contaminated water, we would be okay.
Even Jazzy, our new kitten was on medication in July.
Our going concern was hard to contain after she was spayed. Jazzy is a delight in our home but was so unaware of her surgery. She needed time to recover. The active kitten she is had ripped her stitches which caused her scar to become infected. So all three of us were sick and on antibiotics in July. It was indeed a difficult month.
Jazzy MacWebber, relaxing after she is completely healed and free to play like the kitten she is!
With all the illness in our home, it does not surprise me that I had good news on the scale. The up and down battle is finally going in the right direction again. When I had gone on vacation, I peaked at around 326 lbs. This week, I weighed in at 318.5 lbs. I am working hard to keep this going in the right direction this time. I am making some changes.
My journey is leading me down a path of self-discovery.
It is no secret that I have been working on myself for a while now. I am trying to improve my life in terms of my health, self-confidence, and building healthy habits as I do the work. One thing I am doing is taking part in a challenge recommended by some friends. While all of the material is not all new to me, I have made some discoveries about myself while doing the work.
I was bullied as a child, and at different times throughout my whole life. Since I am an emotional person, and I have written before about eating my feelings, I have already shared my thoughts about this subject. You don’t get to be morbidly obese because you have normal eating habits. Something is broken inside of people like me who are more than overweight. It could be related to another health issue, but chances are, if you eat your feelings, it is because you are not dealing with the real issue.
As I am working on my own backstory for the challenge, which is called The Unstoppable Influence Challenge, I watch videos, and do assignments related to what I am learning. I made several discoveries, one of which I am going to share here.
When I met Roy, my husband, I was damaged goods.
He has never seen me skinny. I have been overweight, and that has progressed to being morbidly obese in the 25 years we have been together. We will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary in under a month. I had put on weight after having mononucleosis and tonsillitis in my first year of university, and we met the following year.
After being so sick, I had to make sure I was eating, especially because of the sore throat, and I did. As a child, I would eat my meals quickly to be the first one done to get dessert. My sisters were picky eaters, I was not. Eating was something I became very good at, in a home where we strived for approval to be good all of the time. My parents raised us well, and we were good kids. My stubborn streak is something I come by honestly, and I wasn’t a perfect child, but we all turned out to be decent human beings.
I realized something else while I wrote my backstory.
When we started dating, I told Roy that I had a protective shell around my heart, and he was patient enough to wait for me to let him inside as we fell in love and learned to trust each other. I used that analogy at the time because my zodiac sign is Cancer the Crab. When I took a long look into my past this week, I learned something else about myself.
I eat all of my feelings, including negative feelings from things said to me and about me to hurt me. Using food to build a protective layer around my whole body. I eat the negative hurtful feelings to surround me to keep more of them from getting to me. My weight is a physical manifestation (this term is new to me, from the challenge) of the negativity that I have been holding inside for my whole life.
The person running the challenge, Natasha Hazlett, said her weight was a physical manifestation of the hate she had for herself. When I heard her say that, I almost believed that this was my issue too. What I realized, is that it isn’t hate I feel for myself, but that I keep the hate I have felt from others in my life. As a result, I have held onto it because I didn’t know what else to do with it.
What does this mean?
It means I have to let it go. All of it. When you are a child and people say terrible things to you, there is no way to know how to handle those words. I cried a lot during my school days, and thankfully, most of those negative experiences are in my past. As a child, I didn’t know how to handle the negativity. If I deal with it now, to let it go, consequently, I will let the feelings go. The negativity I buried in me, from the inside out to be released with my excess weight.
As I am typing this out, I am shaking. It is hard for me to acknowledge this to myself, let alone the world at large. Since my word of the year is FEARLESS, and I want to lead by example, with integrity, it would not do me any good to keep this knowledge deep inside of me anymore.
I have a lot of work to do to lose the weight I need to lose. With this blog post, I am on the right path, finally, to be able to make the changes I need to make to become a healthier version of myself.
The biggest lesson I have been able to take away from this exercise is going to set me free.
I realized I don’t hate myself and that I never did. I love myself, and I always have. Now that I am an adult, and doing so much work on myself, it is a relief to me that my problem has never been how I feel about myself, but my reaction to how others wanted to hurt me. As a child, I did the only thing I knew how to do to protect myself. As an adult, I can face those negative feelings and chase them away.
In the challenge, we learn that we all carry metaphorical bricks in life, and they weigh us down. We learn how to deal with them, and of course, I put my own spin on this. Instead of following the imagery suggested, I have decided that I am going to grind every one of the bricks to dust, turn them to glitter, and let the ocean take them away. Sparkles in the sea, which are beautiful to me. What a way to release the things that weigh me down. Sending them to my happy place.
Good things are happening for me, and for some friends of mine. I started a small beta group to support people like me with regards to weight loss. It has been running for a while now, and I have asked for feedback to make it better for the users, and as my own research to prepare for the option of expanding to a paid membership group. I haven’t fully decided on what to do next, to be honest. I’m going to share a bit about the good things which are happening.
We are more of an accountability & support group. There is no plan we all follow, we each are responsible for our own choices in that manner. We are working on daily step count totals, and I have kind of fallen behind in our weekly totals. We are also working o water intake and healthy recipes. I post tips with articles once a week. Recipes are shared, and there is a weigh-in day, a non-scale victory day and feedback on Fridays. Other days allow for a spa day to treat yourself, and prep cooking meal planning prompts.
I create more graphics, which I did as a result of feedback, and I think the group likes them. Every so often, I make new ones. Scheduling the posts keeps them consistent. I can forget things when I am busy.
We had some milestones in June.
One member is in ‘onederland’ which is below 200 lbs, and two members are in ‘twoville’ which is below 300 lbs. For us, these are huge goals, and I celebrated their victories with them. I am not sharing their names, as it is not what matters here. The important thing to note is that we are holding each other accountable, and providing support to each other. With success!
I had a scare last week when I got on the scale at the doctor’s office. I was not amused. It weighed me at 330 lbs. I have never been that high, and I was quietly very upset by that number. I told Roy that I should have only celery for supper.
It was awful, even though I knew it was a different scale, a different time of day, and I had clothing on. It was still a nasty number to see.
Wednesday rolled around this week, and I prepared to step on my scale.
I was not 330 lbs. I weighed in at 320.8 lbs. What a difference! I had actually lost weight in two weeks. Things are not as bad as they appear to be, even if I am not at one of the major milestones, yet.
I am working towards that first milestone, twoville, myself. When people ask me if I lost weight, I really want to be able to say, yes. Some still ask. My answer is honest. I am moving more, and I am trying to make healthier choices. This week I feel like I did something right because I was down about 4 lbs in 2 weeks. However, I won’t feel like it is enough to talk about until I start hitting some major milestones.
I am waiting for my body to adjust to the highest dose of Victoza. The doctor recently increased it, and when I adjust, I start needing to lower both of my insulin injections. It is the reason to take this new injection, to lower the number of insulin injections. As a type 2 diabetic, my body still makes insulin but doesn’t make enough, or it isn’t being used properly. Taking less means my body is using its own insulin more effectively. It is another good thing. I was worried about nausea with the Victoza, but it only affected me for a couple of days when I started it a few months ago.
Hard work pays off, especially when you have accountability and a support system.
