Yoga in Bed!

I bought this DVD awhile ago, but I haven't been doing it for a few weeks now. So today, I made sure I got up early enough to do the little workout. Wow, I forgot how much fun it is! I like doing the morning routine because it makes you feel a bit more energized for the day afterwards.

I've only attempted the evening routine once - it got to this one point that during the yoga class my mom and I took in the fall, my mom was making fun of me because my hands can't do it properly! So I decided not to continue with it.

The Value of Sleep

And so, I was thinking that today I would get up a bit earlier, work out for a bit, then head to school afterwards. In actual fact, I ended up shutting off my alarm, and before I could get out of bed, I fell back asleep! Luckily I managed to wake up with just enough time to eat something and run to class (I was still late though). Then later, I was planning on workoing out for a half hour on my bike....I made it for about 15 minutes before I had to call it quits for a nap!

It looks like Study Week has finally caught up to me (or else I'm coming down with something). I've been tired all day, even though I managed to get a descent amount of sleep! To make matters worse, I have some school work I want to get done before I can go back to sleep tonight! Luckily I get to sleep in tomorrow....and hopefully I'll be more awake!

Study Week, part 3

And so this year's study week draws to a close. My brother went back to Toronto today, where he'll be for a few more months until this school year is over. This past week, I had a lot of fun, was tired out, and didn't really work out much. But I was please to discover that other than the last few days, I really didn't do too badly with my eating. So starting tomorrow, I'll get back to my workouts, and stop eating out for a little while to get back on track....also, back to the pea pods!

Study Week, part 2

Study week is basically over for all intents and purposes; there's just the weekend left. The whole week has pretty much followed the theme set by the beginning of it: fun, tiring and not so great for the workout. I also haven't been eating too healthily the last few days, with pizza for supper a few times, plus chips one night (today was a lot better than yesterday was though). For workouts, I've basically just tried to walk as much as possible (managed to fit a walk in to go get the chips). I'm thinking I'll be trying to get back to eating healthily this weekend, and back to the daily workouts by Monday. Hopefully the sleep issue will solve itself this week, too.

Study Week

Well, this study week is turning out to be fun, but rather tiring and not so great for the workout. It all started with a fun night of drinking this past Saturday....I crashed at a friend's house and got a whopping 3 hours sleep. Sunday night wasn't too bad....although I did end up staying up later than planned. I still managed to get around 8 1/2 hours sleep. Then last night, I ended up staying out waaaaay later than planned, then I had an insulin reaction which led to 4 hours of sleep. So I haven't been sleeping, I've gone out for food a few times, and haven't really worked out. All in all, awesome.

Happy Valentine's!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Well....so much for the first day of my goal! After I got home (I had an exam right during supper time, then a class) I ate a special Valentine's supper. The chicken was awesome (and not very fatty - it was stuffed with spinach and ricotta), and so were the potatoes (party potatoes!!!! I don't think they're terribly good for you!) Also: cheesecake. All in all an awesome supper.

So here's to tomorrow: getting back on track with my goal that I set yesterday!!

The Exercise Goal

Alright, while I was studying, I was looking through the Sears catalogue at the bathing suits (that's where the bikini I wanted was). After thinking about it quite a bit (and not really sure if I liked the bikini as much any more - what do you expect, I'm a gemini?) I decided that I don't want to get it (this is the bikini, left - it's the Gottex 2 piece bikini from Sears Canada: http://www.sears.ca/gp/product/B000MWBCFI/sr=1-0/qid=1171423621/ref=sr_1_0/002-7012321-8050446?ie=UTF8&searsBrand=core&mqnodeid=16329121 .)

The reason I don't want this suit in particular is the sequins on the top - I'm thinking I don't really like them (you can't really see it in this picture, but in a close-up they're really noticable). But the other reason is due to my insulin pump. If I wear a bikini, you'd be able to see the infusion set (where the pump attaches to my body) and I'm not sure if I'd be comfort

able with that. Plus, you'd see all the old marks from old infusion sets (I'm sure no one would realize it, but I'd know) and the sticky residue stuff that's sometimes left when I take them off.

So instead of the bikini, I found this awesome tankini that I'd prefer instead:

(Be Creative Ming Dynasty halter top and bottoms, also from Sears: http://www.sears.ca/gp/product/B000LS73KQ/ref=pd_huc_gp_2/002-7012321-8050446?ie=UTF8&searsBrand=core)

I noticed this suit right off the bat, and I think it's georgous!

So this is the goal I'm now working towards: looking absolutely georgous in this suit.

At my last weight in, I weight about 185 lbs. So now my goal is to get down to 160 by June 1st, and to get into shape so I'll look awesome in it!

First time biking!

Well, I almost wasn't able to fit it in, due to studying and waiting for a FedEx guy to come pick up a package. But today I tried out my exercise bike!!!

I only biked for 15 minutes, but it was awesome! I lugged the bike upstairs and biked while playing a few rounds of Star Wars Battlefront 2 on my X-box! I knew this bike would be awesome to have!

Procrastination

Here I am, blogging instead of studying.

I've been telling myself to start studying for an upcoming exam. Yesterday I did alright, catching up on all the reading I missed. But today seems to be a washout.

What is it about procrastination? I've found that I'm always putting off studying, especially the night before an exam. It gets so bad that I'll often clean my room before I'll crack open the books. This leads to problems in and of itself; I've always considered my room a fun place to be, so I get distracted by random things I find while cleaning. Books and magazines are usually the worst for distracting me.

I've found the internet has also been one of the worst places of procrastination as well. Instead of working on an assignment, I'll find myself chatting, checking my email a million times, or playing online games. I noticed the other day, when I needed to check my email really quickly before getting back to work, that about a half hour passed in the blink of an eye!

So why do I keep procrastinating? I could say that I'm a perfectionist who is terrified of producing something less than perfect. But I know I'm not. Or maybe I'm afraid of failing, so I don't want to start anything. But I know that's not it, either. I think what it all comes down to is that whatever I have to do, I find boring.

This is really a stupid reason to procrastinate. Putting something off because it's boring doesn't make it go away. It just drags it out longer, so, in the end, you have less time to do something fun.

So maybe it's time to go and study...

Exercise bike!!!!

Yay! I finally bought an exercise bike today!

I was getting a bit worried that I'd never find one that I liked (and was cheap). But I looked in the paper, and found one listed in a moving sale. I went to check it out and bought it - for $15!!!!!

I wanted an exercise bike for three reasons:
1. I like biking, and don't like biking outside in the winter (especially with the crazy wind we've had lately)
2. I'm planning on biking to Kakabeka (a little town that's about a 20 minute drive away from Thunder Bay) on the last weekend of April.
3. Being able to exercise while reading or playing video games would be awesome!

So now I can start training for my bike! (And hopefully I'll be in shape for biking this summer!)

The day my insulin pump died or why I'm NEVER going back onto injections

I thought this would be fitting for my first post....

This all started last Sunday (the 4th) though I didn't know it yet. My pump gave me a low battery warning, which, in itself, isn't really out of the ordinary. As it's been super cold the last week, I thought that might be why I got the low battery. So I changed it, and thought nothing of it.

It was two days later that I complained a bit to my mom. I told her that my pump seemed to be going through batteries (running on AAA's, they're a bit expensive). She told me that maybe I should phone someone else who has a pump, just to see if they're also experiencing this problem. So I phoned, and they told me to phone the pump company's 24-hour help line.

The guy there asked me to go through the pump's alert history and tell him how many low battery warnings I've had. It turned out there were 3 in the last 3 days. He told me it might just be the box of batteries, but to be on the safe side, they'd send me a new pump.

I phoned my dad to bring a new box of batteries home with him. A little while later, just before my dad was due home, the pump told me to change the battery in it. So I tried the rest of the one box that I had and the pump wouldn't recognize any of them!

Luckily, my dad came home a little while later. Out of the new box of batteries, the second one worked fine. But I noticed that within the hour the battery icon was already showing some of the power was gone. I went out to a later show with a friend, and by the time I got there, just 3 hours later, I already had a low battery warning!

When I got home, I was going to play Starcraft with the same friend online. Before we started, I decided to change the battery, just so I didn't have to in the middle of a game. This is when things went really bad: I tried every one of the batteries left in the new box (14) and the pump wouldn't recognize ANY of them!

So, on to plan B. Plan B consisted of me going back onto insulin injections until the new pump came in a day or two. That first night was really brutal: I didn't have a long acting insulin like NPH to get me through the night so I had to get up every 4-5 hours to give myself a new injection. Needless to say, I only got about 5 hours of sleep altogether (which was not helped by the insulin reaction I had at 8:30 the next day due to me miscalculating the 5am insulin dose).

The next, I went and bought NPH as soon as I could. Most of my injections coincided with time off between classes, so I didn't have too much of a problem until supper time. The supper injection was due between about 6 and 7pm; I have a class from 5:30-7, and another one from 7-10. In the end, I decided to skip the 7-10 class so I could come home and eat.

But that whole day, I was afraid to exercise in case I had miscalculated another dose. Plus I kept running into another problem: when I'm on the pump, I can eat anything whenever I want. Not so with injections. I didn't want to have all kinds of different doses of insulin working, so I only ate when I took the injections every 4-5 hours. Plus I remembered having to have a bed time snack, but I had absolutely no idea how much to eat!!!

Needless to say, I was incredibly happy when I could finally get back onto a pump on the 8th. (Of course, as luck would have it, I did an injection in the morning, and the pump was delivered to my door like 2 minutes later so I had to wait until the injection wore off 4-5 hours later to go back onto the pump!) In a way, it was a good wake-up call - now I know why I'm on the pump. And I'm absolutely positive that I'm not voluntarily going back onto injections ever!!!!