Green smoothie #4

Satiety is the satisfied feeling of being full after eating.  It's been a long time since I experienced this.  Before I scrubbed out a ton of added sugar from my diet and replaced it with green smoothies, real foods (foods that resemble thier original state) and very little to no fast food for the past 7 weeks I'd feel snacky less than 30 minutes after eating. It would be sooooo frustrating and I couldn't really understand why?

What I've come to realize (I'm not a doctor) that I was probably Leptin resitant.  I'm going for blood work soon to test for my leptin and fasting insulin levels so I'll know for sure.  What I've read is that Leptin is the hormone that tells my brain that I'm full so stop eating.  When I'm leptin resitant, that single to my brain is very weak and that hungry feeling is almost omnipresent.  

I no longer eat after 8 pm, don't eat breakfast (one double black espresso) and my first meal is lunch around 11:30 ish.  I'm not actually hungry between these hours.  I've also noticed that the portion size of my meals has significantly decreased. When I have one of our green smoothies for lunch it helps that felling of satiety.  The green smoothies that we've been having has had such a massive impact on our physical health.  

This is the smoothie I made today.  

2 cup's of water

1/2 a fresh zucchini

1/3 of large English cucumber

1 cup iceberg lettuce that was starting to turn.

2 cup's fresh kale

2 peeled fresh oranges

1/4 cup frozen apple, kiwi, pineapple.

Blend until smooth and enjoy.

Four consecutive classes.

Yesterday was my fourth straight class.  To most people this isn't a big deal and some may even be thinking "what's the big deal?".  It's a big deal for me as it's been a tough couple of years.  I travel a ton with my job which makes it really difficult to be in person for class.  The live streaming option has been a big help but I didn't utilize this enough in the past.  

All sorts of excuses come to mind but none of them are valid, they're just excuses.  Last evening some negative thoughts entered my mind and I was actually battling myself mentaly on attending class.  It shouldn't be like this but for me it's been this battle for far too long.  What changed for me and helped me move forward was my teammates good natured "trash talking".  Sihing Csillag was in my head with her comments from last week.  I'm not going to disappear, I'm going to be engaged and I'm going to keep progressing. I also loved how Sihings Csillag and Lindstrom poked and jabbed me after class.  I loved this, I need this.

Cautiously and neavously things feel different for me.  I'm putting repition and accountability into my life.  The more consistently that I take action the easier it is to battle the dark side that's inside me.  I feel I'm more equipped mentally to win this year.  I'm going to keep my head down, keep taking action daily, record everything in my excel file but I'm taking the time to smile and be happy.  

Mr. Repay

Sustainability

I've been writing a lot about my diet.  It's been the biggest change I've made in the past decade.  It's also had the most tangible and posative impact on anything that I've done for my physical health in that same 10+ years.  

I feel extremely motivated but I'm also concerned about sustainability.  I feel that I've been on this path before only to fall off it.  I'm concerned that I'm experiencing one of my past "highs" and that soon it will be another epic "low".  My wife and I've discussed this at length this past Saturday at breakfast.  Looking back, these past journeys we're mostly lonely ones.  I didn't share openly, and when I struggled I pulled back and withdrew.

What I've done more of this year is communicate openly and often with my wife.  What are the things that going well and what are things that are contributing to our current sustainability?  We share the things with each other that are having the most posative impact and potential negative.  Things like the huge reduction in inflammation, less joint pain, less bloating, mentally clearer and my favorite, no longer hungry all the time.  We're talking about how these changes are making us feel both good and bad.  

We're also becoming accountable with each other.  I share my blogs with her and she shares back the smoothie recipe she's just made.  We check in with each other, how's our energy levels, mental clarity etc etc.  This "pulse check" helps me ensure that we're both still engaged/motivated.  

Writing about this journey has been extremely important.  It's helping me capture where I am and how I'm feeling.  It's a snapshot in time,  something to look back on to see the progress I've made.  To see some of the mile marker's of the journey so far.  

Sustainability feels a lit bit easier when I'm sharing this journey with someone else.  Be it with my wife and my I Ho Chuan teammates, a shared journey is a sustainable one.

Mr. Repay

Green Smoothie #3 - Equipment

We started on this journey with a regular Kitchen Aid blender and were able to get our smoothies to blend ok.  However it took a long time and we ate our fair share of wooden spoon 😳.  Because our old blender didn't have that much power and it didn't come with a tamper to push the ingredients into the blade, we used the end of a wooden spoon.  

Overall it was getting the job done, just not that well.  I also stripped out the gears in the bottom of the blender base and I'm pretty sure based on the acrid electrical smell it was getting close to melting the motor.  

My wife and I've made smoothies an absolute necessity in our daily diet so it makes sense to look at a Vitamix. Now let me be clear, you don't need a Vitamix to get into and enjoy green smoothies.  It's an expensive blender that for some people may be cost prohibitive. 

The power that a Vitamix has is like trying to win the Indy 500 in a Toyota Prius instead of in a purpose built Indy race car.  The Vitamix is that powerful!  

Smoothie recipe that we made this morning. 

3 cups fresh water

2 cup fresh kale

2 cup fresh spinach 

1 cup mixed salad greens

1 cup fresh grated carrots

1/4 cup each frozen pineapple, mango, kiwi, apple

1/4 frozen avacado

Blend until smooth and enjoy.

Mr. Repay

My journey is not the same as yours.

My journey is my journey, it's not yours and yours isn't mine.  I've been reflecting on this lately. I've come to realize that the journey I'm on isn't about anyone else than me.  Like this quote says if we're on the same path let us encourage each other.  

Being that I'm a competitive person I've lived most of my life feeling the need to compete with others.  To be the best at everything and at a high cost that I had to pay at times.  I've struggled with this competitiveness but the difference now is I don't let it be the only thing that drives me. It's a motivator for sure, but it's not the sole thing that drives me daily.  I still want to win but I want to win the right way.  The right way to me is to win as a team and to win fairly.  

I've also come to realize that I have to be on this journey for me.  I'm not on this journey to impress anyone (ok maybe my wife ❤️).  I write to tell the story of who I am, who I was and who I want to continue to evolve to be.  I'm not writing to impress my teachers, my friends, my teammates and I believe this realization has unshakled me.  It's allowed me to write about and be accountable to who I am not who I want people to see me as.  Writing this way can be scary if I only cared about what most people thought instead of being who I am and need to be.  

I've taken a lot of years to become comfortable in my own skin.  To be able to write freely about who I am and this journey.  Writing has become freedom and freedom has developed into gratitude and into happiness.

Mr. Repay

Need more edge.

I'm a very competitive person in a lot of regards. I do my very best when I'm challenged and in some way "smack talked".  I'll go back deep into the time tunnel when we used to have the San Shou classes on Tuesday nights. One of the requirements was that we had to post some good natured "smack talk" prior to class.  I must also say that Sifu Lindstrom was the best at it!  The Sifu running the class was tasked with judging the best smack talk and awarding points.  We had a running points total that culminated with a San Shou winner at the end of the year and it was an awarded at the banquet.  

What I'm getting at here is that I personally liked the competitiveness of the class.  It was motivating to me and we kept score.  I believe that in life there's a lot of "score keeping" that happens and for sure life in general is competitive.  

Last night was the first time in a very long time that I felt that "edginess". At first is sort of pissed me off, then it brought clarity and finally it brought motivation.  I can only speak for myself here but I miss that in our school.  I miss the good natured "smack talk" the competitiveness that drives me to do a little extra.  I can't thank Sifu Sharida Csillag enough for bringing that back and directing it toward me😃.  

Mr. Repay

Motivation

It can manifest itself in so many ways.  Last night's meeting was one of those instances. Learning a little bit more about each of our team mates, laughing, good natured fun and a little smack talk from my teammate sitting next to me.  

It was some of that good natured smack talk that got me little extra motivated last night. Thank you Sihing Csillag, you've given me a little extra motivation this year 😊.

Mr. Ian Repay