Welcome back Energy-glad to have you!

Morning blood sugar: 5.0 (capital P-Perfect)
Episodes of low blood sugar today: a big fat 0
'C's Mood today: a little sassy, but we made it through morning errands, just he and I without too many scratches. The toddler we have previously nicknamed 'the politician' for his overtures to strangers in the grocery store actually had a moment of quiet and shyness today when we went to visit a great friend, her two year old daughter and her newborn son (the newborn was super cuddly-if only he didn't need to eat constantly I would have snuggled him longer!). It's funny how toddlers already know how to "put on a show" in a different environment-C was shy one minute and all "no listening" the next, I guess because they must know they can get away with a little bit more in front of non-family members. How do they know this already??
Donations this week: none so far. Have to admit I have taken a break from the fundraising since I hit my target. I would love to raise more as it is a fantastic cause but I also feel the need for a mental break from it all. I love to share my story, but after 6 months of "laying it all out there" I feel the need right now to take a step back. I have great friends and colleagues that are still encouraging me to keep things up but for now a little breather is needed.
Clean eating today: Isalean Shake for breakfast with a piece of toast (oh, how I love toast) and a black coffee.
Workout today: A rest day from running. Jeff and I went to my running clinic last night together which was lots of fun-even though he had to hold back so that I could keep up with him (love that fit and fab man but he is a fast bastard!). We did 8km of Fartlek training-this does not involve passing gas as the name suggests but altering your pace throughout the workout. We did a 2 km warm up and 2km cool down with 30 seconds of easy pace mixed with 30 seconds of 80% capacity pace for 4 km. Make sense? I know kind of a confusing description. :) I think I might do some yoga this afternoon to stretch out my tight legs-I have trouble 'resting' somedays, if you can believe it. ;)

Yesterday was day 30 of Jeff and I's 30-day system with Isagenix www.isagenix.com It is a company that has a lot of different products and as with any system that offers things like "weight loss, improved energy, and healthy aging"I'm sure there are people out there that have found success with their products and those that have not. I am not writing today to sell or promote things, I just wanted to share how I feel having used the products now for 30 days.

I didn't start using Isagneix for weight loss, it was the "improved sleep and energy" that really interested me. Anyone with little kids will tell you they are tired. The kind of tired you have never experienced as a non-parent, nor will you ever experience as a non-parent. The kind of fatigue you experience when you are a parent is pretty indescribable-so I am not going to try and describe it here. My experience is also muddled by the fact that I am Diabetic-this disease also comes with it's share of fatigue.

Before I was diagnosed I wondered often to myself how people worked full time and made it through the day without a nap-those few months before my diagnosis there were days when I was counting the minutes to my son's naptime because I was in desperate need of lying prostrate in a room for a few hours myself! Not only would I have a nap during the afternoon, I would be ready for bed by 9 and sleep all night sometimes up to another 9 hours-and still feel tired.

In the last few months things have finally turned around. I think the use of my pump is really helping me as well. Thank you Omnipod! www.myomnipod.ca I was checking my stats today-this cool little device keeps track of things like average blood sugar, my highest and lowest readings in the last 30-90 days, etc,etc. In other words, a plethora of info. In the last 60 days my average blood sugar was 6.4-my highest reading was a 12.2 my lowest was a 2.9. In my last 30 days my average blood sugar was 6.1 my lowest reading 3.3 and my highest was 10.2. Pretty damn good for someone without a functional pancreas.

As you can see-it appears that Isagenix has helped me tighten up my control a little bit more (the Type A in me loves this), it has helped my energy levels extremely, and it has connected me with a whole other world of motivated, healthy people just like me that want the most out of life. Not a bad place to be.

Jeff and I did the system more designed for Athletes-a system designed to have you eating 6 times a day, clean food, and two of those meals are yummy protein shakes. We also did something that in truth I have never done before and that is cleansing 1x/week. I am still not a huge fan of cleansing and am not sure I believe it is truly necessary but I tried it none the less-I stepped out of my comfort zone. The people at Isagenix feel that cleansing helps the body to "burn more fat"- I am still of the mindset that if you are eating a healthy, balanced diet I have a hard time believing you need to have a liquid diet only a few days a month to "boost metabolism" and "give your digestive system a break". But I tried it, and I would still like to complete more research on cleansing because this concept seems to be popping up more and more often these days.

For now I will let the results show themselves. As I said I didn't do this for weight loss-when I started I was 122.9 lbs-when I finished I was/am 122.8 lbs. But I have lost a total of 9 inches from my abdomen, buttocks, thighs and arms. Where did it go? I have no idea. :) And I didn't need a nap today. :) :)

Before May 29/13

After June27/13-I look like I have more energy! Haha.

Drinking a 'cleanse for life' concoction-Day 21

Back to the future moment

Morning blood sugar: 6.0 (woke up starving, was sure I was low, but thankfully not)
Episodes of low blood sugar today: a big fat zero :) thank you insulin pump-you are my new best friend.
C's mood today: Good. Woke up singing a wordless version of "The ABC's" song complete with 'Yay' and self-clapping following his rendition. This toddler kills me...what a ham.
Workout today: Rest day from running. 18 holes of golf with my hubby, with a cart (does this count as a workout?)
Clean eating today: Well?!....it was a great day full of healthy snacks (almonds, apple, homemade protein bar) but we celebrated Father's day a weekend late out for breakfast, and topped off the evening with a Finlay tradition (my maiden name) with Friday night Pizza. So in other words a cheat day was had in my house...but hey I tried to eat well 80% of the day and had some treats 20% of the day-it's called balance people. That is important.
Donations: another anonymous donation came in this week. Fabulous! But why are they anonymously donating? Half the fun of this is so that I can write the donator a fabulous 'thank you' email' after the fact. This anonymity thing kind of throws me off! So thank you, whoever you are!!! :)

Jeff and I got out today for a wonderful round of golf. 18 holes in fact; this is typically something I have to be convinced to do. 18 holes of golf takes up a heck of a lot of time especially when you are a mom,  a wife, a half marathoner, and a part time physiotherapist. But I somehow found the time today, and it was fabulous. Amma and Daideo babysat for us, both C and dog, which was greatly appreciated (Amma is Icelandic for grandmother and Daideo is Celtic for grandfather-yes, we are new age here people. But you know what? It works for us. We have another set of grandparents that go by Gramma and Grandpa so these 'foreign' words actually create less confusion for C which is great :)
I had a "Back to the Future" moment today when we were introduced to our golfing partners. Anyone that golfs knows that in an ideal world when you make plans to golf with your partner you get to golf only with them; this rarely happens as courses are busy, so you are often 'foursomed' up with another couple whom you have never laid eyes on in your entire life. Somehow in the game of golf this works-but it goes without saying that playing a sport with people whom you have never met always makes for some interesting moments.
Let's just say that "Robert" and "Marie" (I'm using their real names here as I am pretty sure they won't mind, nor will they ever get their hands on this piece of writing) were basically Jeff and I 40 years in the future. Overall they were a pleasant couple- friendly and presented with the niceties you would hope for in a social situation; as the game got underway, their true selves started to shine through. They were intense, competitive, and a wee bit crotchety. At first I thought, "jeez, they need to lighten up" and later I thought "crap, that is totally us-but 40 years from now". So when it was all said and done, we enjoyed a great day of food, golf, and fun. And I think some higher power (or Micheal J. Fox perhaps) was telling me to lighten up and not always take life so seriously sometimes! So what? You're in the bunker? You are on beautiful Vancouver Island, golfing with your fit and fab husband, while your cute kid is being looked after by wonderful grandparents! Smile, laugh, and enjoy your life. It is far too short to be mad about your stupid golf score. :) Lighten up and have a great weekend. (that goes for all of you too!)

Golf anyone?

Hello beautiful!

Morning blood sugar: 6.5 -a little high-I have been wearing my pod in a different place lately (the upper buttocks if you must know!) and am wondering if the catheter is getting kinked a bit-this is likely TMI but when you wear the pod in a place with more fat it obviously jiggles and moves a bit more than say on your arm or leg-hence more of a chance of a kink. I have had some higher number in the last few days. A kink can stop the insulin from flowing properly and hence give me some weird readings. The readings have not been high enough to concern me but high none the less-we'll see if this butt placement is a no go or what. :)
Episodes of low blood sugar today: none-as a result of the suspected kink obviously running a bit high. Bonus here-no need to run for the skittles. Or is this a bonus? Jury's out.
C's mood today: Good! What a character-he insisted on wearing his 'shark hat' out for errands. A small victory was had when he wore shoes (not boots!) to go out. Took him to the doctor for a quick check, then to Target and very little attitude overall. Good day so far. He has been napping now for almost 2 hours. Good day indeed. :)
Donations this week: No longer need to worry about this. Target acquired. Woot woot!
Workout today: 6km Tempo run-2km warm up, 3 km at 80% effort and 1km cool down. This was followed by some much needed stretching.
Clean eating today: Isagenix protein shake for breakfast www.isagenix.com Jeff and I are on day 21 of a 30 day program with Isagenix. I won't dive too far in to the topic as I could likely write a novel here but I will say that we were introduced to the products a month ago by my great friend and former colleague Angelina-she is a consultant with the company and offered to get us set up with a trial run. She loves the products as she has had amazing results losing weight (particularly belly fat), improving her sleep, and her energy levels. I started the program primarily not to lose weight but for more energy and improved sleep-so far I have had some great results. I will most certainly share more in the weeks to come on this topic.

 C and I had a bit of a rough night-he was up twice for some reason. Jeff and I were both up with him at 11pm; not sure why he was up. Molars maybe? Nightmare? If anyone knows please fill me in, I would love to know- we were quite a sight sitting watching Disney channel for 20 minutes to get C settled back down. Got him back down only to have him wake again at 12:45am. Arrgh! I was NOT happy. Anyways, long story short is we slept until 7:30am-yes, for those non parents out there that is a 'sleep in' (take a minute to absorb that)....by the time I got up Jeff had gone out for a run (seriously, that man is a machine when it comes to getting up before 7) so I did my workout on the treadmill. That was ok, my feet are still hurting a bit so I thought it would be good to give them a break from pavement. I started at 8, and even though it wasn't that hot in the basement I was a sweaty mess by the time I was finished. I guess it was a bit muggy in the house!

Hello you beautiful, sweaty mess-post workout. Hope Wonder Woman doesn't mind.

 

 

The infamous shark hat and toddler who likes to watch late night TV

Where did May go?

Morning blood sugar today: 3.3-ouch! not a good way to start the day-apparently should have set a temporary reduced rate overnight on my pump. Thankfully because my husband went grocery shopping Thursday we had a fresh box of OJ in the fridge-this came in handy.
Episodes of low blood sugar today: 2-including the above. Went out with C to do some shopping later in the morning and tested a 3.9 before driving home. What the heck? I have had so many less incidences of LBS since starting the pump 2 months ago that days like this are extremely rare.
C's mood today: he has not been sleeping well lately, I have no idea why. He is napping currently and just surpassed the 3 hour mark! I know, that is a crazy long nap, but he needs it. All things considered he was quite a fantastic shopping partner this morning-quiet and sat in the stroller for the whole excursion. Amazing! Things started to go south at lunch where he proceeded to throw his cucumber sticks at me-this resulted in a 'time out' in his room in which he laid quietly in his crib for 5 minutes while I finished my lunch. I know! Seriously-2 year olds are crazy unpredictable. They are wonderful one moment and emotionally draining the next.
Donations: last Friday night I received a $250.00 anonymous donation which helped me to surpass the $6,100.00 mark-this is a huge benchmark as it has qualified me to run in Iceland. Amazing! I still can't believe it. So thank you whoever you are! I wish I could thank you personally and not on some blog entry!
Workout today: Crosstraining day-"The Saturday 1000"-10 different exercises repeated in succession with a break of 1 minute, repeated 10 times. In truth, my feet have been sore lately so I did the Saturday 700 instead...and stretched the be-jesus out of my legs and feet to finish up. Gotta take care of these feet!
Clean eating today: 12 days ago Jeff and I started a new nutrition program thanks to our friend A-I will write further on this in the days to come as we are still in the early stages but so far I am sleeping better, have far less indigestion, and more energy! A passed on a recipe to me which is my new favorite snack-No bake, banana coconut homemade protein bars. Can you say yum? Yummmmm. :)

Oh man, life has been busy lately. The weeks are flying and I really don't know where they are going. I have been working, parenting, fundraising, trying to be a present wife and daughter, and this all adds up to no blogging for weeks. Of course my Type A self thinks "you need to make time to write!" Well these days extra rest and relaxation takes priority over everything else.

Having reached a huge fundraising goal it certainly feels as though a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I have managed to climb one huge mountain-I have to say a huge thank you to my mom who was an integral part of me reaching my goal. Her and I certainly have gone far outside our comfort zones in the past 6 months.

Anyone who knows my mom knows that she is a quiet and introverted woman; those that know her really well know that when she became a mother almost 34 years ago she became a "Mama Bear'' in every sense of the word. No one, I mean no one, was going to stand in her daughter's way to success. For Carol, this meant phoning and writing to relatives she hadn't communicated with in years. She did it though! And she did it for me! So thank you Mom. You are seriously wonderful! :)

Recently I read a quote that really captured what I have been through in the last 10 months. I have listed it below:

"Life has its ups and downs. It can be both brutal and beautiful. You can hole yourself away to avoid life's pain, but then the beauty seldom finds it's way in. It's only when you attempt to go where you cannot go, or do what you cannot do, that you can achieve what you are truly capable of doing. Sure, you might tumble, you might fall. So what? Take a chance. Go way out on the limb. Dare to try - even if it's just a shot in the dark.


Is it hilarious or irony that this came from a wine label? I say as a wine lover it was fitting. :)

The delicious wine that the above quote came from