I’m Not The Only One Who Loves Mangoes

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Place

Bejuco Beach.

It’s a five minute walk down a dirt road from our house.

It’s unspoiled, (clean and has few people on it), expansive, and perfect for surfing, splashing in the waves, and yes, <said in deep soothing voice> long walks on the beach (which Sasha and Lita love almost as much as me).

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.

Friends Indeed!

There vultures here in Costa Rica unfortunately don’t sport mod 60’s haircuts or English accents.

But I dream they’d break out into the acapella “That’s what friends are for” from The Jungle Book.

To all my friends out there who pluck me up when I am down! Love you!

Flood

It rained about 8 hours straight yesterday. There was much thunder and lightening too. At the beginning of the storm, it wasn’t raining too much. I was at our kitchen sink washing some dishes when I saw lightening strike in our neighbor’s yard. The volume was greater and the sound more disturbing than anything I’ve ever heard. Poor Sasha was outside and it took Jim going out to find her to get her to move inside.

The rain became more powerful and the thunder continued as well. The power flickered many times but never went out. I quickly finished up some cooking I was doing and joined Jim on the couch to read. Lita was in her typical sprawled out position on the floor but Sasha was leaning into me, panting, her heart racing.

I was reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and stopped to talk to Jim about the topic of letting go of attachments. As a practicing Buddhist, it’s part of my path to notice and let go of my attachments without gaining the new attachment of being someone without attachments. The ego is powerful! I can grasp the idea of letting go of my belongings, but the ideas I hold about myself as well my attachment to Jim are more difficult for me to even have the willingness to let go of. Concerning attachments Tolle writes, “Do you realize that you will have to let go of ____ at some point, perhaps quite soon? How much more time do you need before you will be ready to let go of it? Will you become less when you let go of it? Has who you are become diminished by the loss?” I find these questions intriguing.

Anyway, while talking the storm got worse. The rain poured. The sound was tremendous. It was still light out and we looked outside. The road of our community had become a fast flowing river! The builder, an American guy who lives here, was wading upstream with an umbrella. Jim got the camera and the tripod and attempted to take a few pictures. I joined him outside briefly to take a photo of him in the road, water up to his knees. We decided to go check on the creek behind our house and it was at full as it could be without overflowing.

The sky continued to dump water. We quickly picked things up outside. Jim tied our trash bin that was starting to flow away to the carport. As soon as we got inside the water moved up our driveway and then covered both our front and back patios. I quickly sent a Skype message over to our landlord letting her know we’d do everything we can but we weren’t not sure what would happen. She assured me that we wouldn’t be held responsible for any damage. Jim and I then quickly picked up everything we could off the ground, wedged some towels between our front door gate and wooden door, unplugged our electronics, and tried not to panic.

The water came up to both our front and back doors. Any further and it would have come in. This lasted for hours. We kept checking the front and back of the house by turning on our porch lights which thankfully are on the inside of the house. At one point we did get a little stream of water from the front door but Jim was able to stop it. We had some dinner that thankfully only required cooking up some rice and chopping up some veggies, as the beans had been marinating for most of the day. We also fed the girls, but we couldn’t let them out to go potty afterward. Ultimately the rain covered the whole bottom part of our truck’s tires so that you couldn’t see any black.

At some point, after much praying (mostly to calm myself down), the rain started to recede. It took a long while, but the water moved off the patios and off the driveway. The girls were thankful to go out, but weren’t interested in being out for long as it was a bit eerie. The nice thing about the rain here is that it cools everything off. I baked some chocolate pumpkin muffins and we watched 30 minutes of a movie before heading to bed with our books.

We were woken in the morning by neighbors talking outside. The water was off. Thankfully we also use the 5 gallon purified water too. We made breakfast and got ready to head into Jaco. One neighbor stopped by to see how we managed. He lives just next door and had water come though the front door and settle to one side of his house. Most of the homes had it much worse. All the first levels of the townhomes got a couple inches of water and many other houses got a lot of water. One down the road a few houses got over a foot in the house and the stainless steel fridge was carried by the water and toppled over. All the furniture ruined and the flood had completely covered their pool, leaving it a muddy brown. Most of these owners (90%) don’t live here.

When we went into town, no one outside of Bejuco had experienced the kind of flooding we had seen. My new friend Claire bathed in her pool, since she didn’t have water in the morning either. It hadn’t rained in San Jose at all. We saw some trees were knocked over and there was mud on the road in spots on the way to Jaco, but it is miraculous how the earth here soaks up the rain or flushes it our into the ocean. When we went to pay our landlord rent she said she had received an email from Arlene, the HOA lady, and heard about the damage. She was very relieved that her place was alright.

When we returned to Bejuco I talked to Arlene’s husband Greg and asked him how they did last night. They like us were very lucky. He said in the 7 years they’ve lived here they’ve never seen anything like it. The had insurance people come check out the homes that had insurance and have notified all the home owners. He said that the water has come up to your ankles in the road before and that the water in the creek has even come up as high as the bridge before, but the source of the flooding seemed to come from a dip in the creek barrier just east of us where they are building. The builders had taken a chunk out of the barrier month ago to possibly put in a bridge, but hadn’t done so nor covered it back up. The same builders had put in a road that channeled some water from the river at that dip to directly east of our community directing it toward us and toward the ocean. One of the father’s of a family here had managed to rig two of his surfboards in the shape of a “V” to divert the water away from their office which was their major flood spot.

Greg pointed out that the father and son who are the gardeners are cleaning the damaged homes as best they can (without water) to make a little extra money, but that most of the homes’ furniture is damaged. He said that he had contacted the Municipality and hoped that they’d come out and look at the poor work the construction people did in the land to the east of us. He also said he was hoping to get some sacks that he could fill with sand and put in the place of the hole until someone fixes it. I told him that if there was anything we could do to help to please let us know. I then got Jim to help me gather water from the clean community pool in buckets for flushing the toilets. The water could be off for who knows how long.

All that talk about attachments and then they were threatened. What a trip. There were moments where I didn’t know where or how we’d sleep if the water came into our home. What would we do with the dogs? We couldn’t leave if we wanted to. How were all the Tico families coping in their corrugated tin shacks? All I could focus on was staying present. Stay with the breath and the reality of situation NOW. There wasn’t water in the house. All four of us were safe and I prayed that everyone else was alright. That’s all I could do. Why worry when that won’t help?

Thank goodness for being slightly elevated. (Mental Note: If I ever build a house in Costa Rica, put it on a hill or stilts.) Thank goodness for a solid and sturdy cement house. Thank goodness for prayers being answered. Thank goodness for being safe, with those I love, and calm.

The rainy season has finally arrived! What an adventure!

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