Another image focus stacked consisting of 11 photos (and cleaned up in GIMP). Yesterday I forgot to put some technical data for the image, so let’s do that today… Taken with my 180mm f/3.5L Macro lens and my Canon Rebel T2i, f/4.0 1/30s 100iso.

Embarking on a Journey

A few things started to happen at the same time in my life and I decided to embrace it.  I think it started when one day I decided to watch a Documentary on sugar that my hairstylist suggested.  I wasn’t able to find that particular documentary, but I did find a few others that I found very informative, some I already knew the info – but didn’t mind the refresher, and one I didn’t even finish.  But the one that seemed to make the biggest impact on me, the one that made me think long after the film was over (for days) was a documentary called Hungry for Change (it’s free streaming to Amazon Prime members, fyi).

What I took away from this film was that I wanted to drink more water, in fact it was suggested in one of the documentaries that I should drink water first thing in the morning.  So I that’s what I did.

Next I started to add more greens to my diet, a handful of salad greens started to show up in everything, including a quesadilla! It was delicious by the way, and I had that for lunch nearly every day for a week.

I also decided to change my sugar to a lower glycemic index [ie. from turbinado (cane sugar) to coconut nectar sugar and maple sugar (depending upon how delicate the flavors were in the item I was sweetening)].  With the increase of water consumption, I was drinking less tea, and therefore I was consuming less sugar.  Win win.

Speaking of less sugar, I also started to have oatmeal for breakfast (a variation on this one).  Made with chia seeds and a cut up apple (or nectarine, or banana), topped with dried blueberries and walnuts.  I didn’t need to add sugar and margarine, like I usually did – the addition of soy milk to the water for the oats made it creamy, and the fruit made it sweet. 😀

Sometime last month I injured my knee walking my dog, it must have gotten twisted or possibly sprained.  But it was painful to bend it.  With the help of the improved diet and the addition of morning yoga, I can now bend it in some ways but not quite all the way in others (ie. I can do child pose, but sitting cross-legged it is still tender, but my range of motion is soooo much better).

Something else mentioned in the film was meditation.  I started to meditate and I could feel a change in my mind.  I stirred up some old feelings that I had to deal with, sure, but I also gained confidence in myself — positive self-talk is really powerful.  So much so that I finally made that dentist appointment I’ve been dreading for years.  And you know what?  Not only did I not have the usual anxiety at the dentist’s office, I’m looking forward to the changes that are coming up in future dental appointments.  Now I’m no masochist, I’m not looking forward to the Novocaine and the drilling — I’m looking forward to my new smile.  I really like these Guided Meditations from The Honest Guys at youtube, and a few of these Tapping Meditations from Jessica Ortner on youtube were helpful too.

But that’s not all that changed my perspective… I was also reading a book called Singletasking.  Which is one of the reasons why I took a break from the blog.  I had so many balls in the air I was overwhelmed.  I had to cut back on a few things so that I could focus and get more accomplished.

After finishing Singletasking, I looked over the suggested reading.  One book leaped off the page at me… it was called the Tao of Pooh — yes, that Pooh, the one from Winnie the Pooh.  I found it perfectly aligned with all the changes I was making… eating healthy, yoga, meditating, singletasking… I am in a much better place now than I was three weeks ago.

I feel more like myself, I guess.  I was going through some stuff and I was leaning *heavily* on cookies, seclusion, and spending a ton of time on the computer.  It’s a process and I have some more work to do, but it feels good to feel better in my skin and about myself.

tldr;

1. changed a few things in my diet… drink more water, eat more greens, have oatmeal and chia seeds for breakfast, choosing sugar with lower glycemic indexes
2. morning yoga
3. meditation
4. Singletasking
5. Tao of Pooh
6. feel so much better now

Until next time…
~nic