Perfect Day For a Banana Tree

I’m still using up the large bag of Pamela’s Baking and Pancake Mix. I was sad to find out that it has cultured buttermilk in it as I’m trying not to eat dairy. It makes the best tasting pancakes I’ve ever had though. SIGH. I replaced the eggs with “flax eggs”, making this a gluten free, refined sugar free, and ALMOST vegan breakfast. So good!

Can you see what I’m pointing to? Bananas! In my own backyard! One of my dreams has come true (without any effort on my part)! Oh nature, you are awesome!

Jim was the one who spotted the bananas. See how cute he is?! He’s getting so buff from all the surfing he’s been doing. 10 minutes after this photo was taken, he was reading in our hammock. Nice life, huh?!

The Bananas! I had always wondered if the banana trees I see when I sit up in bed and stretch would ever produce bananas. Both trees have fruit too! I just hope we can find a way to get one when they’re ripe enough.

Ok, so I found these glasses while we were standing in line at Mas x Menos the other day. Orange is my least favorite color (except when found in nature), but these are just so rad I had to get them. Who cares if they make my hair look orange, I got them for $5 and I look like a bad ass.

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Resolution You Wish You’d Stuck With

Ever since I started making new year’s resolutions I’ve set to lose weight/get buff and every one of those years I did not and often put on weight instead.

My resolution for 2009 was not to get fit, but instead to write more letters and send them via snail mail to all my friends and family around the world. I don’t think I wrote/sent any more than any other year. I did however lose 25 pounds. (The whole diet and exercise thing works. I know right?!)

So it seems safe to say that whatever I want for the new year I should just not make it my resolution or better yet make a resolution for something I don’t want to happen. That makes sense right?

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best New Food

Lychees are a very odd looking yet very sweet fruit! They sell them on the side of the road here in Costa Rica. Jim and I weren’t so sure about them until our friend Pax showed us how to eat one. We bought a sack full at the Farmer’s Market and keep them in the fridge, as they’re even more refreshing when cold.

To eat one all you have to do is hold it between your fingers with the nub (that attached it to the plant) away from you, bite the outer shell off (I know you have to put that funny looking thing in your mouth, but it’s not bad), spit it out, suck out the round white fruit, while squeezing the outer part to pop it out, and enjoy (not eating the almond shaped pit), disposing of the other prickly half and pit when finished.

They are so yummy and have been an excellent after meal treat for us!

(This post entitled “Lychees” was originally published on October 5, 2009.)

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Word or Phrase

When I asked Jim what his word of phrase of the year was he responded, “I had a year? I had this year?! No, I think I shared it.” I tried to bypass his silliness by trying to further prompt him, “Your 2009 was so ____?” After a moment and with a face of serious thought he replied, “Bananas.” “Bananas?! You’ve got to be kidding me!” (I had an image of my youngest sister channeling Gwen Stefani singing, “This sh*t is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!” and then my Dad using the term “bananas”, like the hip 52 year old that he thinks he is.) In all earnestness Jim made his case by saying,”In all honesty, I bet I ate well over 200 bananas this year. I mean I have one as a part of my breakfast just about every day and I also eat them as a snack.” I cackled helplessly.

Speaking of bananas, I slipped on one on Halloween. Seriously. Jim, his mom and I were in a tienda/mini super in Santa Elena, the small town by the Monteverde Cloud Forest, picking up breakfast items for the next morning. It was a small shop and after grabbing some cereal and bananas I spun around to ask Jim if he wanted any juice. In doing so I slipped, thankfully catching my fall. I looked down and there were a few bananas on the floor, one of them squashed. Only then did I notice that the produce area I was standing in was crowded with crates of new fruit and others with older fruit. Someone was clearly in the middle of rotating out older produce for new and the banana I had stepped on was meant to be tossed. I looked up at Jim shocked. “I just slipped on a banana.” He responded, “I didn’t know that actually happens.”

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Moments in Health

This time last year I had returned from Thanksgiving with Jim’s family (minus his little sister Katie who was in Austria, where she lives) in Connecticut. Jim and I went to the gym. It had been a while since I had gone. I weighed myself and I was shocked to see that the scale read over 160 pounds. “No way,” I thought. I weighed myself a few more times and it was the same. I asked Jim if he thought the weight the scale gave him was accurate. After he responded, “Yes.” I was crushed. This was the heaviest I had ever been. How did I let this happen to me?

I took stock and realized that yeah, my metabolism had slowed down. I love to eat and didn’t want to change that. I’m not interested in diet fads, pills, or eating disorders. I had enough experience with those in high school. I realized that not was indeed uncomfortable in my skin. I didn’t have physical confidence. (Though maybe I never had that.) I also realized that being 25 years old and wanting to start a family by the age of 30, I wanted to be in good shape for that. Not only wanted, but I need to be in good shape for being pregnant as my scoliosis is going to be even more painful when I’m pregnant than it is now. The stronger I am then, the better. Also, it’s my damn responsibility to take care of my body and my health. I wasn’t going to stop eating food I loved, so I had to exercise.

I used the eliptical, the bike, and walked (my scoliosis doesn’t allow me to run without a lot of pain) at an incline on the treadmill or on the indoor track at the Lafayette Rec Center. I would also rotate strength training different muscle groups. This was going alright for a little bit and I even lost 5 pounds, but then Jim and I went to Saudi for the holidays, eating a lot and not exercising much outside of walking. (This was a shame as I LOVE the weight rooms and swimming pools there.) When we got back to Colorado I tried to get back into my exercise routine, but I slowly stopped going and didn’t leave my computer much unless to cook or occasionally walk the dogs. I went from trying to become an uber successful Real Estate investor overnight to a leading coach in an online fitness business I had joined. I was a complete wreck, forgetting to eat then pigging out, putting off sleep, and not even hearing Jim when he spoke to me.

So at the beginning of March I ended up with this horrific injury to my chest called costochondritis. I’ve written about this in the past. It was bad. I thought I was dying, they didn’t catch it right away, they didn’t give me very good direction on how to recover from it quickly, and I was in physical and mental agony for months leaving me incapable of doing most physical activity. There is so much to be said about that experience, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll move on.

I started seeing a physical therapist who rocked. She asked me what kind of physical activity I was doing before the injury. I was embarrassed to share that I hadn’t really been physical in years, but that what I enjoyed most was swimming and yoga (these two are also awesome for my back). She suggested that I ease myself into doing those activities again. I slowly worked my way up to swimming a mile. (I used Dara Torres as my inspiration.) Any thing other than breast stroke seemed too strenuous, so I sticked to that, throwing in a couple laps of slow freestyle here and there. When the outdoor pool was open for the summer I moved my swimming there, which made me much more cheerful as I grew up swimming on the swim team in outdoor pools. I loved being able to swim a mile (or more) and then take a little time to do nothing while I dried off in the sun. This is heaven to me. I did hit a road bump when in late May my anxiety went through the roof and I had to get out of the pool as I was afraid of drowning. Thankfully I sought help for that and slowly got back in the pool.

I was afraid of going back to yoga. I didn’t want to have to face the fact that I wasn’t as flexible as I used to me (I studied/practiced yoga in college, gaining a minor in it for Christ’s sake) and I was fearful of weight bearing poses that my upper body wouldn’t be able to handle. But, I finally got my butt into class and I started to go three times a week. Nothing got in the way of going. I’d show up to parties late, or even drag my sister Marissa and even Jim to class. It took a long time for me to even attempt some of the poses, but slowly I got there and even though it wasn’t pleasant, I worked through it and they got easier.

Both the swimming and yoga became meditation in action for me. Not only was I working on healing my body and getting back in shape, but I had also found a way to help ease my stress/anxiety and mind. The last month before we moved to Costa Rica, I wasn’t as diligent about making my classes or swimming as I was busy selling out house, moving temporarily, packing, seeing friends, and wrapping up last minute things. There were a few times earlier in the summer when I hovered around 150 pounds, even dropping below it a couple times. That last month was full of eating at all our favorite restaurants one last time, so I probably left Colorado weighing about 155 again.

Moving to Costa Rica has worked wonders on my health. Neither of us is working so we don’t have tons of money to spend. This has lead us not to eat out very much, unless we are spoiled by guests. This means we cook a lot more at home, which I LOVE. We have a wonderful (read plentiful and inexpensive) farmer’s market in Jaco on Fridays so we go there weekly stocking up, understanding that everything is so fresh and ripe that most things won’t last the entire week (thank goodness I like to have frozen fruit for smoothies). I also decided shortly before we left Colorado that I am no longer going to eat 4 legged animals as they don’t make my tummy happy. (I know that sounds weird, but I don’t know how to categorize those meats without listing them out). I have actually been eating very little chicken, but do eat fish at least once a week as I still enjoy it and it is so fresh here. Most of what I cook is vegan or vegetarian. I’ve also started an exploration into vegan, gluten free, and refined sugar free baking, which is really fun and MUCH healthier. Diet wise though, I’m eating much more produce and whole foods than I had been before.

As for exercise, I live a five minute walk from a beautiful beach that I can walk on for hours. I walk a couple miles (at least) most days. The added trips up to the Monteverde Cloud Forrest of Manuel Antonio National Park have provided some great hikes as well. Walking on the beach, either with Jim and the girls or even just the girls is so fulfilling. I love the sound of the wind in my ears. I get to reflect for a bit and then enjoy my mind being quiet. It’s rejuvenating and empowering.

When we first moved down I made a yoga sequence with well rounded poses. I’ve done it a couple times in full, but otherwise I usually stretch each day. I did attend an excellent yoga class while in Nicaragua this last week, which made me realize that I really need to get my butt in gear and either find a yoga class that I like in the area (I have a friend that wants to this too) or just get back to doing it on my own.

Also, I must admit is that I have a friend that has an Olympic sized pool that she has told me I can swim in anytime. I have yet to go in the 3 months we’ve lived here. I hope to go there once a week from now on.

Another thing I’ve decided to do is walk (more like paddle) through my fear of the ocean taking me (I almost drowned last year in Dominical, Costa Rica) and my fear of re-injuring my chest by taking a surf lesson. I hope to take more, but as of now I’m committing to one.

Lastly, I hope to join my friend to a couple of classes with her personal trainer. I’ve never done that before and I’m interested having someone confirm, “yeah, if you want your butt and thighs to shrink and get stronger you’re going to have to do squats.”

Who would have thought that diet and exercise would work?! Hahaha As you can see from second picture above (taken last month), I’ve lost some weight. I now fluctuate between 136 and 141 pounds. That means that since this time last year, I’ve lost 20 pounds, most of it since I’ve been here. I’m smaller and healthier now than I was when I got married over 2 years ago. Better now/late than never! I hope to lose some more weight as well as tone up. (Because there’s really nothing very sexy about a weak skinny person is there?) I’m excited about what I’m doing and the new goals I’ve set for myself. It’s nice to be working toward something.

I am responsible for my health. Diet and Exercise really do work and are fun. I can’t believe I didn’t make better use of the natural surroundings in Colorado. If we move back there, that will change. Today, I’m fueling my body with excellent food and I’m off for a walk!

What do you do to keep your body and mind healthy? I’m so inspired by people’s empowering stories as well as new things to apply to my own life.

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