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Vacation, Take two of these and Call me in the morning.

photo credit: Emilio Santacoloma via photopin cc

It’s Therapeutic Thursday here on My Pocketful of Thoughts today!  Therapeutic Thursdays are reserved for all things that give you a sense of well being potential Holiday gift ideas.  Today I’m sharing with you what my boyfriend, Daniel, and I are doing for this holiday season.  Perhaps it will inspire you to think of a potential Holiday Gift for someone on YOUR list.

Throughout the year we can get extremely busy.  It’s like the saying, “If it’s not one thing it is another.”  It is great to be super busy, whether its work, pursing dreams, playing bowling, and volunteering at our church.  Sometimes I think having all these spinning plates though can be hazardous to our health.  It is important to know your body’s limit.  Daniel and myself are still learning and pushing the body’s limits to just help one more person.  It’s our gift and our curse. 

The time we do spend together is precious.  Which is why this holiday season we are giving the gift of doing absolutely nothing in a beautiful destinationIf I were a doctor I would prescribe to most of my patients a VACATION;  Take two of these and call me in the morning.  While we do need to keep moving to STAY active, we also need to drop everything regularly to make sure that the body can heal itself properly and rest.  If our cell phone is about to die, we do not try to make just one more call, right?  Ok…maybe I do but only because it guarantees a short phone call. 🙂   Our mind automatically starts looking for the charger as soon as the light starts flashing red.  So why not treat our bodies like we do our cell phones.  We can get a replacement if the cell stops working but we can’t trade-in for a new body if our batteries die.

What better gift is there to get, than spending quality time with our loved ones, right?  Cue in the music … why spend the money on gifts when you could spend the money on a trip that will build memories to last a lifetime. You can avoid the rush at the mall and save time from having to track down the item that seems to be on everyone’s list?  In the past, that has been my favorite gift, the gift of an activity.  We have built some great memories over the past years with those kind of gifts.  I always look back on them with love in my heart. 

One year Daniel surprised me with Broadway tickets to In the Heights during our stay in NYC.  The play was amazing, a definitely must see.  This January we used one of his Christmas gifts from me, a photography shoot class in Grand Central Station with Sundays in NY, read all about it when you’re finished here.  This year we both know what we’re getting, as we planned it early on, a vacation to Puerto Rico.  We will be doing a combination of absolutely nothing, eating, lying on the beach, sipping yummy drinks, sightseeing, and eating some more.  We owe it to our bodies to just have a time out, heal and rest.  Time outs are not just for kids you know!  If this sounds great for one of the people on your list check out the Travel Discount Page in the menu above, its full of my favorite sites on where to get deals from activities to traveling.
If you’ve done something similar in the past, drop a line in the comments section, I’m always looking for inspiration on my next gift.

Until then,
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#NoUnnecessarySpendingFebruary 208 being healthy Getting To Healthy Health Money New Years Resolutions Spending Wake Up Wednesdays weight loss Weight Watchers

Have you been sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions?

Its already the third month of the year!  How time flies, right?  On Midnight of 12-31-11, there was a list of things that I wanted to tackle this year.  But it never fails, only two things on the list stand out.  Money and Health.  Last month I made it No Unnecessary Spending February; I could only spend money on food.   If you follow me on twitter, @djrelat7; you saw all the  #NoUnnecessarySpendingFebruary tweets.  I resisted temptation when all the end of season sales were going on and I made it through the month.   Honestly, (puts head down) I broke down one day.  It was the first week, the new Jason Wu line was hitting Target stores and Breaking Dawn Part 1 was available for Pre-Sale.  I shopped that day on target.com, adding stuff to my cart.  I even went as far as checking out.  It hit me a few seconds after that this was part of my problem.  I’ve become so accustomed to buying whatever I want whenever I want it that its not helping me pay off my debt.  Fortunate for me and my wallet, I canceled the order a few minutes later.  After returning a pair of boots that I found out were defective, my total for last month’s spending on wants was a whopping -$59.63.  Now if only I could figure out how to return all this unwanted weight.  Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!

July 2009
Last March I committed myself to becoming healthier, it was on the list of resolutions.  I had taken a long snooze from going to the gym and I had let my eating habits go out the window.  All the progress I had made a few years earlier had gone down the tubes.  I avoided mirrors to hold onto the thinner me in my mind.  In 2010 I took very few pictures of myself.  Its all a mind set, that is what I kept telling myself.  However the only person I was kidding was myself.  In 2011, I took pictures for Valentine’s Day to have something to look back on and I saw it staring me in the face.  A friend of mine had started Weight Watchers Online and she made it very appealing.  I still hesitated though, until I weighed myself.  208.  I could not believe my eyes.  You never know how bad it is until you face it.  This changed my mind quickly.   Last March I made a choice.   How hard could it be to try it out.  What had I to lose?

February 2011
What I value most about their online system is recognizing portion control.  It took my body a bit to get used to eating the amount of food that I was supposed to eat.  It also took a while for me to mentally change my programming; Finish EVERYTHING on your plate.  I had been raised with a certain way of eating that it made me uneasy to leave anything on my plate.  When I am at home I take a smaller portion and add to it if I’m still hungry.  When I go out to eat at restaurants, I ask for a to go container the minute the food comes out, I put half of it away before I even begin to eat.  I realized that some things were not worth eating and the foods I could not image letting go of in my life, got shrunk to the right portion size.  The Points Plus program is so flexible its hard not to win!
Since I began Weight Watchers Online, I have said good bye to 19.9 pounds.  I have also said adios to 3.5 inches on my waist, 2.5 inches on my hips, 4 inches around the bust line, .5 inches on my arms, and 1.5 inches on my thighs.  I went from a size 16 plus (at size 16 I switched from jeans to leggings) to being between a 14 and 12.  I started taking more pictures of myself.  I was feeling like me again.
February 2012
I have been on and off from the gym these last four months due to sickness and an injured foot.  I’m very pleased to know that with the knowledge I’ve taken away from the program about what to eat and what to stay away from, has allowed me to keep the weight off.  Today was my first day back since my foot has been out of whack and it felt good.   Twenty minutes a day can make such a difference!  I’m no where near my weight goal but its comforting to know that I’m still on track!
Have you looked over your New Year’s Resolutions?  Are you still on track?  If not, tomorrow is a day to start anew.  How awesome is that?  Giddy Up!
Until then,
Feel free to check out the program for yourself at Weight Watchers.  The site is for both men and women YAY!
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2012 resolutions a wellness life being healthy Getting To Healthy New Years Resolutions Positive Experiences Tammy Gruber Wake Up Wednesdays working out

Shout out to a wellness life!

This morning I was thinking about my goals for this year and what I had contributed to them last year if they had been on my list as well.  Today I wanted to share a recent positive experience.  
In September, my boyfriend won in my name, a silent auction which gave me three training sessions at a wellness life .  It wasn’t until November that I was able to begin my sessions.  I found out that a wellness life is more than just a place to get fit, its a mindset, its a way of life; its about getting right inside and out.
After each training session I was happy to know that it was a good thing to not feel like you’re about to fall apart after working out.  I learned that you should push yourself, yes; but not to an extreme.  I think that everyone is accustomed to hearing ‘No Pain, No Gain’, so we push ourselves past the point of pain, and we shudder at doing it again.  
I completed my third training session with Tammy right before Thanksgiving and I must say that I didn’t expect to connect to a personal trainer the way I did with her.  Not only did she make sure my mind set was in the right place before we began but I also got a taste of reformer pilates, strength training without using the bulky machines and TRX.  I found them all to be equally challenging.  After the three sessions I felt stronger and revved up to become the healthiest me I can be, inside and out.   I HIGHLY recommend a wellness life!

Is being healthy on this year’s list of resolutions?  It’s on mine. Next week I’ll start sharing my story on my Getting to Healthy journey, so stay tuned.  I hope that your year is off to a great start and everything is starting to fall into place.

Until then,
To set up a session with Tammy, her contact info is:
a wellness life

Tammy Gruber

203-470-9909

[email protected]

 (Studio is located inside Club NewFit, 32 Commerce Road, Newtown, CT)

http://awellnesslife.com/Contact.aspx