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My mother is the survivor of a massive heart attack.  She is a walking miracle to begin with.   Her heart is operating on only about 30% of its capacity, but she has the energy of a teenager and has never let it slow her down.  So ANY surgery or procedure is touch-and-go for a woman who literally died and was shocked back so they could do emergency open heart surgery.  And now they have to put her through it AGAIN!  When the device was implanted last week, the doctor sung the praises and said everything looked great, went great, and was a complete success.  Psych!!!  Guess not, huh?

She said tonight that it was so upsetting, because she was doing so well.   Then she went in for a checkup, they ran their little tests, and said that some number had dropped and they scheduled this ICD to be implanted right away.  Granted, with her history, having the defibrillator is probably not a bad idea, but still the surgery is stressful.  Plus they pump her full of antibiotics and other drugs, and of course there is the anesthesia–all of which is very rough on the body and hard to recover from, even for the healthiest person.  She was really out of it last week when she came out of the surgery.  She didn’t remember talking to us in her room when we first visited.

Now she has to go through it all again.  She can’t raise her left arm, because she is still so sore and bruised.  She can’t resume normal activities for six weeks, which will now be six MORE weeks, instead of being well on her way to recovery.  The surgeons aren’t gentle putting these things in.   They make a 3-inch incision between the left collarbone and shoulder, and then reach in with their hands and ‘hollow out’ a pocket for the device.  They just ream it out by scooping a space out of the flesh.   Well, that’s not particularly pleasant!  And it leaves the patient very sore.  Mom has bruising reaching all the way from her left shoulder down her left ribcage.

I guess you can tell I am upset.   As anyone who knows me is well aware of—I don’t trust conventional medicine, doctors, drugs, and hospitals at all.  And I refuse to see a conventional doctor for anything.  This is another example of why I feel this way.  I have observed the idiocy, arrogance, and incompetence all my life, starting with my grandmother’s heart attack when I was 11 years old.  (That’s an entire blog story in itself.  I will have to share that sometime so you can understand where all my skepticism and distrust of doctors stems from.)

Allopathic medicine is great for crisis management.  If I am in a car wreck, then the emergency room and surgeons are the best thing in the world, and the things they do to save people’s lives is truly astounding.  God bless them.  But conventional medicine is not only completely ignorant and horribly inept at promoting and maintaining good health and preventing disease, they actually CAUSE much suffering and needless pain, sickness and incredible expense in terms of outlandishly expensive treatments & drugs, lost time, lost wages, etc.    You get a six-minute encounter with someone in a white lab coat, quickly tell them your symptoms and POOF!  They magically diagnose you and write a prescription for the latest and greatest drugs with the best kickbacks, perks, and golf vacations to Hawaii.  Many doctors DO care about their patients and truly want to help, but the system is so broken that it just can’t be fixed.  It needs to be scrapped and a new paradigm arise in its place.   A paradigm of partnership, where physicians are trained in holistic nutrition and treatments, so they can help their patients achieve and maintain vibrant health, before resorting to toxic drugs, unnecessary surgeries, and especially ‘treatments’ (term used extremely loosely) that make patients sicker, like chemotherapy. 

I feel so powerless.  I want to rip someone’s throat out, but what can I do?  What recourse do we have?  The thing is misfiring and needs to be fixed, and the only way to fix it is to reset it through another surgery.  Now that the cursed thing is implanted, there’s no going back.  I just wish it had never been done in the first place.   But if it isn’t there, and she does suffer another defibrillation in her heart, then she could die before she receives treatment.  They live an hour from a major town or medical facilities.  So what do you do?  It’s too late.  She already had the heart attack.  The prevention wasn’t done and so the consequences have been suffered. 

The price for the years of poor nutrition is brutally high.  And it’s not just the person who suffers.  The ones who love them suffer deeply, as they hurt when they see their loved one suffer.   We have all heard of people with emphysema and lung cancer who will take off their oxygen mask to smoke a cigarette, because the ‘addiction is too strong’.    How selfish.  They are hurting the ones closest to them more than themselves.  It’s the same with food.   People know they are sick and yet refuse to give up the very things that caused the sickness to begin with. 

Is it really that the addiction is so strong, or the will to live is so weak?  Are most people so unhappy that their very instinct to survive is lost?  Is it that the addiction provides so much relief from the pain of life that they are willing to accept the suffering of disease and degradation of their bodies in exchange?  Is it that life isn’t worth living to them, so the greatest joys they have are destructive habits of food, cigarettes, alcohol and drugs?  It has to be.  It has to start with emotional breakdowns.  No other animal on earth purposely destroys its own body, taking in substances that it knows are harmful and toxic, and yet continues to do so despite the known consequences.   Only humans seem to enjoy destroying our bodies, defending the toxins vehemently and refusing to stop the behaviors, making jokes about it and knowingly continuing to ingest processed foods, chemicals, toxins and pure-out poisons. 

Life is so precious.    Yet the world today treats life with no respect, no value, and no love.  Someone very dear to me recently lashed out at me for my eating habits, saying that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and that what I was doing was stupid.  That I should ‘enjoy life’ more.  I responded that if I do get hit by a bus, that I would die in the prime of my life, free of pain, free of disease, fully functioning in every aspect of my physical body, in vibrant health and boundless energy, enjoying life and love.  To me, enjoying fabulous health beats the heck out of the transient pleasure of toxic foods that lead to disease and suffering.  Been there, done that, got the surgery scars.  No thanks.  I choose a vibrant life.  Nobody controls the length of their life, but they certainly control the quality.  This person responded that they didn’t wantto live very long, and that they were going to enjoy theirselves while they can.  How incredibly sad.  Do most people feel this way?  That life isn’t worth fighting for, isn’t worth living?  

I could go into a diatribe here about how to create meaning and purpose in life, but many people go before me who are much more articulate and educated than I am.  Seek them out.  Learn from them.  Apply what you learned.  I just feel that to have a great life, you have to have a great purpose.   Otherwise, what is life but mere existence?  Maybe your purpose is enjoying your great-grandchildren and being able to play with them as well as you did with your own children.  Maybe you want to reach out in love and generosity to help those less fortunate.  Maybe you want to accomplish great things and change the world.  Maybe you just want to relax and spend time soaking up the sun enjoying the fabulous beauty of nature.  Whatever it is, your purpose is the key to a life worth living.

And remember, when you are the most down, focus on others.  There is no better way to feel better than to help someone else.  Never look down at anyone unless you are helping them up.   

So many people are hurting right now.   They are losing their jobs, their homes, their possessions.  I can certainly understand why they feel life is a painful prison and isn’t worth living.   Life is full of challenges, and some of those are horribly painful.  I wasted many years of my own life focusing on the pain and negativity, before I learned that it was my choice.  By changing my focus, I began to attract beauty, happiness and love into my life.  If you haven’t seen or read  The Secret, get it  now.  It’s so true.  You get what you focus on.  Focus on your strengths.   Focus on your power, your freedom, your unique qualities, and most of all the blessings you have now.  Be grateful.  Every day look for things to be grateful about, and focus on those. 

I am grateful I still have my dear mother here with us.   The last three years have been a miracle, and I am grateful for that.  I am also grateful that nearly losing her shocked me and forced me into the mindset of treasuring every moment.  Loving without boundaries.  Spending truly quality time.   Being fully in the moment, every moment we are together.  Having the opportunity to be of service and to help her when I can.  These are all blessings that have arisen from near tragedy.  This is what I choose to focus on.

And as for the ‘sickness’ industry, watch out.  I am going postal on you.  I am fighting for my health, and for the health of all those I can reach.  I will not stand by quietly.  I will misbehave, I will cause a ruckus, and I WILL defy you.

Fight for your health.  Be Defiant!

Blessings, love and light to you all,

Christy

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This week has been very busy.  We finished up the Boat Smart class—Yay!   It was an awesome class with over 25 people attending.  Several of the class members joined the Lake Murray Power Squadron, which is great.  It’s wonderful to have great new members join us, as LMPS is already one of the greatest groups of people I have ever met.  I am proud and honored to be a member of this incredibly generous and kind group of people.  We had our Advanced Piloting class last night, which Michael and I take together.  I am really getting this charting thing down pat!   but to me it’s easy.  Geometry and related areas have always come very easy to me.  Now, algebra is another story.   I am good with shapes and visual things, but finding ‘X’ in a crazy equation is just insane.

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I had the best time yesterday!  I attended a food show at the Convention Center, along with a dear friend of mine who is a professional chef.  I was looking for suppliers for the Living Well Cafe who have excellent raw organic foods.   They are hard to come by, and expensive, but I made some great contacts and hope to be able to bring better food at a lower price to the Cafe very soon.

There was food everywhere in this show, but I just starved.   There was almost nothing I could eat.  Just being raw vegan was tough enough, but now I am also pre-contest, so it’s even stricter.   Most of it didn’t appeal to me at all, so passing it up wasn’t a problem.  But one thing DID get to me—-these luscious carrot cakes in a couple of the dessert booths.  Oh my goodness, I love carrot cake so much and since I was starving, they were very tempting.  (Thankfully, I had a delicious Green Smoothie waiting in the car, so my resolve was strong.)  But as soon as I got home, I made up a Living carrot cake with cream ‘cheeze’ icing.  Cravings satisfied!  And it has tons of nutrients and even some superfoods!  Boy, did it ever turn out delicious.  I need to write down the recipe.  This was one of those that I kind of made up as I went along.

I was very saddened by what I saw at the show, in the way of attendees.   At least 90% of the people there were gravely overweight, and were chowing down on all the free food in what was basically a nutritional wasteland typical of the Standard American Diet (SAD).  That’s such an appropriate acronym, as I felt a sadness in my heart all day.  I met several people that had serious health problems, and one fellow had just had heart surgery two weeks ago.  He couldn’t even get up and move around much, but bless his heart, he was there working so he is one dedicated employee!  It hurts me deeply to see people suffering like that, especially because the answer is right there and it’s so obvious, but these people truly do not see the connection between what they are eating and their health problems.   They don’t understand that the food is causing the damage and the ‘disease’ is merely a symptom of the toxicity and oxidation taking place in their bodies.   They think the ‘disease’ is something they are genetically predisposed to, or maybe something they catch, like a cold, and they just lost the Russian Roulette game.   But the real Russian Roulette is played with their food.  They are literally digging their graves with a spoon and fork.   So SAD.

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I bought a basketball yesterday, and started working on my dribbling and ball-handling skills today.  I am working on how I am going to incorporate the skills into a ‘routine’ for the contest.  It’s not really a routine.  It’s more just a model-walk on stage, but we are allowed to use props, so I am planning to actually use the basketball and show off  at least a few mad skills. 

I haven’t made the gym in a couple of days.  I rested yesterday, to allow my pulled ab muscle and strained hip flexor some time to heal.  That helped a lot and both felt much better today.  I did a quick intense interval workout this morning, incorporating the stationary bike in between different bodyweight, dumbbell and exercise tube sets.  I focused on shoulders, but also did a little chest and tris with different sets of pushups.  Then I practiced the basketball drills for an additional 20 minutes.   That got the heart pumping, and all I was doing was bouncing around in my garage.  No wonder basketball players have such great lean ripped physiques.  Basketball is one big high intensity interval training session!

Today I also showed Lake Murray houses to some of my favorite clients who are moving here from out of state.  I have been working with them for about 3 years now.  They have been looking at homes for a long time, and hopefully are getting ready to make the move to the lovely warm weather and gorgeous lake we have here.   They are awesome people, and are looking at a house right near where I live, so I would have great new neighbors if that works out.  Say a little prayer for me!  A home sale would be a godsend right now!

Have an awesome day, and Be Defiant!

Love, blessings, and hugs to you!

Christy

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The site will have a great new home page with links and pictures, and I will be able to add much more content and links to the pages.  I hope to be offering you some great products–both free information and for purchase–in the near future.   So please bear with me as I learn and experience growing pains, because it will all be worth it in the future.

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We were supposed to get a great snow yesterday, and it didn’t happen here.  I was so disappointed.  I have always loved the magical beauty of that beautiful blanket of white snow.   Of course, living in the South where it is generally 60 degrees all winter, snow is a fun novelty.  I completely understand how it can be horrible if you have to live with it much of the winter.   My nephew is 10 and my niece is 6, and they finally, for the first time EVER, got to see a truly great snowfall yesterday.  They live just outside of Athens, GA, and it snowed 7 inches there.  They went sledding for the first time and had a blast.  Unfortunately, they also lost power and heat, so that part wasn’t fun at all.  I wish I could have been there to see them, and do some sledding myself.  I used to go crazy when I was growing up and it snowed.   We had great hills near our house and I would play all day.  It sure did snow a lot more back then.  I remember that 3 years in a row it snowed or ‘ice-stormed’ on my birthday when I was growing up.  

But we got SHAFTED here!  No snow at all.  It did start coming down in big flakes last night, but they only lasted 20 minutes, and didn’t even stick.  But in the typical panic mode of Southerners faced with snowfall, all schools, government, businesses, etc had already been canceled.  So we wasted an entire beautiful sunny day.  It’s hilarious.   The folks here absolutely lose their MINDS if it even thinks about snowing.  They run to the grocery store for milk and bread (horrors), and if it actually does snow, it seems that they implant their heads firmly up their behinds and then attempt to operate a motor vehicle.   South Carolina drivers are bad to begin with (Note to those unfamiliar with SC:  turn signals are optional equipment on the vehicles, and a red light is merely a suggestion), but the incompetence reaches a crescendo if a flake of snow falls.  Ordinarily, they would be out like on a Sunday drive, creeping along and holding up traffic, usually in the fast lane of the interstate.  But if it starts to snow or really get treacherous with ice, that’s the time they pick to do their best NASCAR imitations, speeding and trading paint.  That’s why Michael and I stay home.  We know how to drive in snow and ice.  We just want to keep the cars in the garage to protect them from the demolition derby that is a South Carolina snow day.

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As usual, Michael and I hit a hard back workout, since it’s Monday.  I love working back on Monday for some reason.  Maybe it’s because I usually rest on Sunday, but I did intervals on the stationary bike last night, with dumbbell shoulder exercises during the recovery periods.   And last Sunday, when I flashed back to high school and ran sprints and bleachers, I pulled an ab muscle.  It was better by the weekend, but I pulled it again helping my father put out hay for the cows on Friday.   And then I strained a hip flexor doing my bodyweight workouts Saturday.  Hmmmm….I think my body is telling me I am 40!  Ha-ha!  Not really, I have always managed to hurt myself over the years.  That stupid ab pull is aggravating.  It hurts every which way I move.   I was afraid I would have a hard time working out, but the back exercises didn’t bother it at all.  Now tying my shoes, that’s another story.  Go figure.

Back workout:

• Warmup on elliptical, until the pulled ab muscle screamed enough to make me quit
• Pullups, wide grip for three sets and neutral grip for three sets
• Seated close-grip rows.   I actually got 100 pounds for 6 reps on my last set!  That was a benchmark for me.  Four sets of 12, 12, 10 and 6 reps with increasing weight.
• Wide-grip lat pulldowns, 3 sets of 12
• Dumbbell rows, 50 lb bells, 3 sets of 10 each arm
• Rear delt flyes, 3 sets of 12
• Reverse-grip low rows on Hammer machine, 3 sets of 12, 10 & 10 reps, increasing weights
• Cable bicep curls, isolateral, 3 sets of 10
• Hammer dumbbell curls, 1 set with 17.5s, dropping to 15s, and then 2 sets with 15s

Wow, that was a long workout tonight.  It was good too.  I really felt my back working.  For our post-workout smoothie, we had banana, mango, vanilla Sun Warrior protein, fresh-from-the-farm organic spinach and water.  Yum!

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This morning, I tried a superfood smoothie that Mike Adams posted on NaturalNews.com.  It was an avocado, raw cacao powder, carob, green ‘superfood’ powder, stevia, and an Asian pear.   I also added cordyceps mushrooms (from Elements for Life), coconut water, and chocolate Sun Warrior protein.  It was surprisingly delicious.  I love avocado and chocolate, though.  One of my favorite pre-workout meals is to blend an avocado, chocolate Sun Warrior, and honey or stevia to taste with enough water to make a thick pudding.  Yum!   Chocolate pudding that builds muscle and burns fat—cool!   Try it sometime!  Avocados are SOOOOOO good for you.

I will miss you all until I can post again.  Please be sure to visit and see the new look for the site.   Please give me your feedback and suggestions. I would love to hear from you!

Have a fabulous day, and misbehave until we meet again—Be Defiant! 

Christy

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I just got back in from visiting my parents in Georgia today, amid the worst winter storm we have seen here in balmy South Carolina in a long time.  My mother had to have a preventive measure done to help protect her heart.  She had an ICD installed, which is a combo defibrillator/pacemaker.   As most of you know, she suffered a massive heart attack 3 years ago, and is a walking miracle today.  She is doing so well, but the doctors felt her heart had weakened and wanted to install the ICD as a pre-emptive strike if she were to experience an arrythmia.   Her energy is so good and she just works out in the garden and on the farm as much as she wants to, so it’s hard to believe that she is operating on only 30% of her heart capacity.   Hopefully the electrical stimulation from the device will jump-start some of the inactive tissue.

I took a few days to go stay with my parents and help them out, and to be there for the surgery.  The doctors kept saying that it was ‘nothing’ and very simple procedure, but with my mom’s miraculous history and delicate health, there is no such thing as a simple procedure!  The incision was bigger than we thought and it certainly isn’t just ‘nothing’.  The anesthesia was just local but it still really knocked her for a loop.  She was still really groggy and out of it until the evening.  And she slept a lot the last couple of days, but she needed it so that was great!

I had the opportunity to prepare food for us to eat for the entire weekend, so I loved that!  When I arrived on Thursday evening, I immediately took over the kitchen and made lots of delicious food.  All raw vegan Living Cuisine, of course.  I brought my entire kitchen over to Georgia with me.    I made Mom’s favorite Broccoli Salad, Sweet Potato Soup, Avocado Salad Dressing, a yummy Apple Cobbler, and the hit of the weekend—Living Ice Cream made from coconut, cashews and bananas.  The ice cream turned out incredibly awesome!  Mom tasted it Thursday night, and at first I wasn’t sure of the reaction because she really rolled her eyes, but she turned to me and said that it was delicious and that the coconut and banana was right up her alley!  I was so excited that she loved it!

I got even more excited the next day.  My father and I came back home mid-afternoon after the surgery on Friday, because he still needed to check on the cows and put out hay on one of the farms.  We hadn’t had lunch, and much to my surprise he tried the Sweet Potato Soup and really liked it!  And then we had the Apple Cobbler topped with the ice cream for dessert, and Daddy went wild over that.  He just kept raving.  And when Mom came home, she did too.  I had to make a second batch of the ice cream!

I was so happy that they really loved the Living Foods.  That’s an awfully tough audience to please. I still don’t know if I can get them to actually make some for themselves, but I am working on it.   But I told them, I was raised with my mom’s delicious down-home cooking, and I loved it too.  However, that diet is the reason we have had the health struggles that we have.  I like good food, and I don’t make bad-tasting food!   I have the same cravings and struggles as anyone else.  I have to fight it too.  Defying cravings is part of my life, just like anyone else’s.   The best way I have found to fight cravings is with awesomely-delicious Living Foods that are so satisfying that it’s fairly easy to overcome the cravings.

That ice cream would certainly go a long way toward helping overcome a craving.  And the best part is, there is no dairy, sugar, or harmful ingredients in this ice cream.  I used the recipe from Everyday Raw by Matthew Kenney, except I just made it plain vanilla, with no additional flavors.  I definitely want to try making chocolate ice cream now.  I have never been much of an ice cream person at all, but one I have always loved is Rocky Road, so that is next on my agenda as well.  The nut cream and young Thai coconut meat creams up and freezes to almost exactly the same texture as dairy ice cream.  That was what amazed my father, and he kept commenting about that.  It’s not as pure of a white color, though.  It’s a bit off-white because of the nuts.   But if it had chocolate or other flavorings, the color wouldn’t matter at all.

On the last batch of ice cream, I split a bit off and added spirulina and cacao powder to it.  Yum!  You know I had to get in my spirulina fix!  I didn’t even offer it to my parents.  I don’t want to completely freak them out and deep green ice cream might just push them over the edge–haha!   And the other success I had was how much my father loves my green smoothies.  He was really raving about those too.  And Mom even liked the one I made this morning.  I am chipping away!!!

As you know, my parents don’t have any internet access, so I couldn’t post while I was there.  I really miss not having the internet, but honestly it was nice to have a true break, away from all things work-related, and to truly enjoy spending the precious time with my parents.  I don’t know how much time we have left together, so I want to make the most of it while I can.  It’s such a different life on the farm, slower-paced and calmer.  The animals require a lot of care, and we had some excitement when a couple of calves broke through a fence and escaped, but otherwise, it’s a really nice tranquil retreat.  I really want to simplify my life, and spending a few calm days just reinforced that with me.

I am getting excited about my competition!  It’s only about a month away, now.  I did get a workout on Saturday, just bodyweight interval exercises, but I worked hard and really got a good sweat going.  I did the ‘variety of pushups’ workout I like so much, interspersed with cardio leg exercises like jump squats, jump lunges, step ups, one-legged squats, etc.  It felt good to move around.  The weather was so bad with constant pouring rain, so I couldn’t get outside and shoot some hoop, ride the horses, or do anything in the garden.   I don’t like being cooped up inside when I am there, when there is so much to do and enjoy.

But I am glad to be back home.  I missed Michael and Jukebox very much.  And I am so grateful that my mother is doing so well.  She is a blessing, an inspiration, a miracle, and a testament to the power of nutrition.

Blessings to you all.  Please take the time to tell the ones you love how much you love them.  Things can happen so fast, and our loved ones can be taken away from us in an instant.  Treasure the moments you spend with them, and truly be there in the moment for them.   And above all, be grateful for the loved ones in your life, and for the love and joy they bring you. 

Be Defiant!

Christy

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I even had one fellow order the same food on the spot for pickup next week.  So that was great!   Many of the people who sampled were initially very resistant to the idea of raw vegan cuisine, so they were shocked when they loved the food so much. I served Mexican ‘Quiche’, a gorgeous organic mixed-greens salad with Cilantro Vinaigrette and Spanish Avocado Dressings, and an Apple Cobbler for dessert.  I made up the quiche on Friday, and was pleased when it turned out so well.  It was really creamy and delicious, and several even commented they couldn’t believe it didn’t have any meat in it.  They were really surprised to find out it didn’t have any eggs or dairy in it, either!

I have managed to get in some good workouts in the last few days.  Friday, Michael and I had an excellent shoulder workout, very heavy.   Michael was caught up at work yesterday, so I had to do legs on my own.  Since I didn’t have a spotter, I decided to do a plyometric workout with high intensity intervals, to burn some bodyfat as well as work legs.  My show I am planning to compete in is April 11th, so I am starting now to work on losing the bodyfat and get ripped!  In a couple of weeks, I will get really serious about diet and probably go on a green smoothie cleanse for about a week.  Then I will start to cut down on fruit (    ) and eat more vegetables, especially things like asparagus, which are great cleansers and diuretics to help shed any excess water.

I have to have a costume for one segment of the contest, which is kind of like a modeling segment and we are supposed to wear a costume that represents a sport or hobby.   I had to think on this a while, but with my background, it wasn’t too hard of a decision.  I used to be BIG-TIME into basketball.  I mean, I lived and breathed basketball in high school.  I practiced hours a day, and was really good at shooting and ball-handling.   I just wish I was six feet tall instead of 5’4″.  Believe it or not, I was not the point guard.  I was the ‘power forward’ even at my height.  First of all, our team was small–I was third tallest.  And secondly, I have always been blessed with great jumping ability.  I have an impressive vertical leap, and always won the long  jump in the track meets.   So I could get up and get rebounds pretty well.

So I have decided my costume will be a very sexy Harlem Globetrotter outfit.  The judges are still wanting to see our physiques, so it won’t be the big baggy shorts and tank tops like the real Harlem Globetrotters wear.  It will be more like hot pants and an athletic bra-type top.  But I plan to decorate a basketball as a prop and actually do a routine with it.  Let’s see if I can still do all those cool tricks and dribbling exercises like I used to!  I can spin the ball on my finger, and I was always good at the behind-the-back dribbling and all that.  So I thought that would be a lot of fun, and something different to stand out in the crowd.

Speaking of vertical leaps, in my workout yesterday, I really challenged myself on a couple of plyometric exercises.  We have several platforms that can be used for jumps, step-ups, etc.  They are metal with a rubber top, and I have seen a couple people miss on them and scrape their legs pretty badly.  I don’t want a big scar on my leg, so I had never really tried to jump on the higher ones until yesterday.  I sucked it up, faced my fear of busting my butt and hurting myself, and jumped. The first one I didn’t get it.  But then the second one, I did.  Then I made it through the first set of ten.  And then my mind was finally on board with me, instead of holding me back, (telling me it was too high, I was too old, I would get hurt, I couldn’t do what I used to do in high school, etc.).  I gained the confidence, and realized ‘I can do this.’  So the next two sets, I did really well and got twelve good reps each.   I really had to ‘Be Defiant’ and defy my fears and the negative self-talk from my mind.   And then once I did it, after that it was fine.  Still challenging, but achievable.  Face your fears, push yourself, and break through to new levels of achievement.

I was still kind of beating myself up for not being quite as ‘good’ as I wanted to be when a very tall gentleman walked up to me and commented “That’s impressive.  I know a lot of guys who can’t jump that height.”  I thanked him and said I was still feeling a bit wimpy, and then he told me he played college basketball, so after that I felt pretty proud.  It just showed me that sometimes we may not think we are doing much, but to other people what you are doing may be really impressive and inspirational.  That’s why it’s so important to be yourself, do what you can, stretch yourself to go farther and farther, and don’t worry about how you stack up.  You never know who you are inspiring. 

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Shoulder Workout (Friday):

• Hammer Overhead Presses
• Free weight Barbell Military Presses
• Standing Upright Rows
• Lateral Raises with Dumbbells
• Reverse Flyes with Dumbbells

Leg Workout (Saturday):

• Warmup with intervals on recumbent bike for 10 minutes
• Vertical jumps on platform, giant-setted with kettlebell squats on the balance board & stiff-legged kettlebell deadlifts, still on the balance board, 3 circuits
• High Step-ups holding kettlebell, supersetted with Kettlebell Squat Swings
• Giant Set of Squat Jumps, one-legged squats, and one-legged wall sits (30 seconds), all at bodyweight, 3 circuits
• Crunches on exercise ball between circuits
• Finished off with isolateral hamstring curls on the Hammer machine

Post-workout smoothie:  Apple, banana, kiwi, celery, kale, honey & Sun Warrior Vanilla Protein.

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This leg routine took a while to do, and I am very sore today.  My heart rate was really high during the intervals, so I feel like I ignited some fat-burning.  I am going to have to do more cardio now.  I have not been doing very much, because I am concentrating on gaining muscle.  I still won’t do long sessions.  High-intensity intervals are the best way to go!  These burn much more fat, over a longer time, while preserving muscle, and only take 15-20 minutes to do.

I don’t want to make this too long, so I will sign off for now.   Have a fabulous Sunday, and remember “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world!”

Be Defiant!

Christy

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Hopefully the new site version will be up and running in the next few days.  I hope you like the changes and the new format.  I hope to be adding new products and features as well, to give you more resources for health and fitness.

I have managed to work out some this week.  I was really tired, run down and so busy last week and this weekend, that I took a few days off to rest and recover.  There’s no crime in that–just don’t make it a habit!  Our muscles are built when we REST, not when we are working out.  Mine needed a break, as I have been beating them mercilessly.

I had a leg workout Monday, Back and Biceps yesterday, and Chest and Triceps today.  I am really sore from the legs.  I can tell I laid off for a few days!  But I did work hard and also incorporated a lot of plyometrics, so that probably made me sore, since I changed the routine.

I am getting ready for my big jewelry party and brunch coming up this Saturday.  Here’s your chance to try my Living Cuisine for free, plus shop for awesome jewelry from my friend Kelli Fowler.  She sells Premiere Designs, which I can’t get enough of!  Come by the Living Well Cafe and see me!

Blessings, love and light to you all.  Stay Defiant and keep Misbehaving!

Christy

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It was so nice to have a quiet evening at home.  It seems I am never here except to sleep, and there’s not much time for that!  Between work and classes that I am attending, I don’t ever get home before 9PM.   And then I try to get all the computer work done, which usually lasts until the wee hours of the morning.   So NOT going out for Valentine’s was a luxury for me.

Honestly, since I have been eating Living Cuisine, I have lost the desire to go out for food like I used to do.  I hardly EVER ate at home for many years.  Now I actually prefer it.  At home, I can control the quality of the food, and it is always so vibrant and delicious, with such raw energy and high vibration.   Even though most of my time at work is spent preparing food and smoothies, still when I got home yesterday, all I wanted to do was make some delicious food.  It is relaxing and zen-like to me.  Plus I was starving, so I whipped up some Spicy Lime Cilantro Soup from Alissa Cohen and gobbled half of it immediately.  Then I made some of Rawvolution’s Onion Bread and put into the dehydrator, including shaping some of it in to quiche crusts, so we had Living Quiche this morning filled with fresh vegetables and ‘cheeze’.  That was a sweet encore to a lovely Valentine’s Day.  That bread is absolutely delicious, and so healthy.  I made it even healthier by sprouting some barley and blending it into the mixture.  Sprouted barley is truly a superfood.   And it makes the house smell so incredibly good while it is dehydrating–heavenly!

Today Michael and I made the trek to Greenville, SC to go to the Whole Foods up there.   I have never been to a Whole Foods before, because there haven’t been any within a reasonable distance to Columbia, but it takes me almost an hour to get to the health food store on the other side of downtown Columbia, so I figured Greenville isn’t much farther.  It was really a nice place.  Lots of produce and a much better fruit selection than I have seen lately.  But overall, most of the stuff in there doesn’t do me a bit of good.  It has a lot of meats, pizzas, processed foods, etc, that are really not health-promoting at all.  I was really disappointed to see that, as I had pictured this health oasis.  And there wasn’t much for the raw foodist to choose from, either.  They didn’t even have truly raw almonds.  (To be truly raw, almonds have to be imported, because all American almonds are irradiated by law)

The verdict:   Glad I went and tried it out.  I did score a big aloe vera leaf which I will be adding to my smoothies for the next few days.  But I will stick with my lovely sweet local store, 14 Carrot, which has everything I need, plus a raw guru on staff who really understands what and how to buy raw foods.  And the prices were actually very comparable, so I was pleasantly surprised about that.

And now, I think I will make a green smoothie with aloe, strawberries, banana, and dandelion greens, and get ready for an early bedtime, for once in my life.  If I can cut up this viciously-barbed aloe vera leaf without involving the emergency room.

Be a rebel–be healthy!

Christy

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I hope you have a wonderful day, and really let the meaning of the day shine through the commercialism and candy.  Celebrate love.  Simply.  All the hype, roses, and cheap waxy chocolate candy don’t mean anything.  Love shines from the soul.   Let your eyes be the windows to the love that you feel, let the love shine through, and open your heart to receive the shining light of love from the souls you are connected with. 

I used to hate Valentine’s Day.  It was too close to my birthday and I always had to choose between the two.  Kind of like having a Christmas birthday!  I always felt it was cheap and commercial, and forced people to show ‘love’ through gifts through peer pressure and advertising.  Faced with the choice, I wanted my birthday recognized, since it was unique to me and not an over-hyped holiday.   So I learned to hate it, so I wouldn’t feel disappointment at not receiving Valentines.  ……And then Michael came along. 

I told him early on in no uncertain terms that I wanted my birthday to be recognized, and that Valentine’s Day was not important to me.  and he thought for a minute, and then asked “Why can’t you have both?”  I was amazed.  The thought had never occurred to me, and no man had ever given me love on both days!  This is just one of the many reasons I love Michael with all my heart.

It turned out he is a big Valentine’s sap!  He loves it and really gets into it.  I held a very negative energy toward it.  He changed that when he proposed to me on—–of course—–Valentine’s Day 2002!  So now it is my engagement anniversary, and even though I still despise the commercialism and forced sentiment through peer pressure, I now love Valentine’s Day, because of the love I finally allowed into my heart.

And if you are not yet in a place where Valentine’s is a happy day for you, know that you are loved.  You are loved by God, the Universe, and all of time and space.   When you begin to find love in people and places you never found it before, then it’s because you have grown.  Expand your definition of love, and open yourself to receive it from every direction. 

I loved this TUT note I received the other day:

“Did you know, that whenever you feel love, you literally begin to glow?   You probably did.

But did you know that the glowing is actually made up of zillions of minute sparkles?  And that these sparkles receive as much energy as they create?  And that because of this energy exchange you completely stop aging and look younger?  Abundance is immediately drawn to you? Healing powers fill you?  Muscles are strengthened, pounds are shed, and your vision improves?  Lingering questions are answered?  New friends are summoned?  Old friends are poked?  Problems are solved?  And maple syrup tastes more maple-y?

All when you feel love.

It’s true -
The Universe”
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What a cool concept!  Sparkle with the light and glow of love, and begin by loving yourself.  You sparkler, you.

And no matter what, you will receive love from at least one source, because I love you!

Hugs, kisses, silly candy hearts, and all my love to you!  Happy Valentine’s Day!

Christy

(But still Be Defiant!)