Everything looks harder than it is....

Here is my latest update from my #InfiniteCoaching and #LeanforLife program with Jessica at Infinite Fitness.

 I can just imagine the ad team for Nike.

All sitting around a conference room table one day, brainstorming about slogans for their biggest client. They are all talking about fitness and exercise and running and someone makes an off-hand remark… “Why doesn’t everyone just do it?”

And there you have it. Three words that have revolutionized a brand and made Nike a recognized and household name worldwide.

BUT…

Even with the biggest brand in the world telling us to “Just do it”, so many of us just DON’T.

The problem in our fast-paced, busy, busy world is hidden in that original question…

Why don’t we eat better? Work out more? Go for a walk or a bike ride? Plan out our meals better? Clean out the storage room? Or our inboxes? Or our pantries?

Head on over HERE to continue reading...

Everyone needs a good coach in their life...

I have Jessica Zapata of Infinite Fitness. And she is going to help me to LOSE....

A LOT!

Food.

Jessica has told me for years now that in order to lose weight, it doesn’t really matter how much I work out, if I don’t change my eating habits, it will be all for naught.

And so here is where I get to tell you that I have some pretty bad eating habits.

Not so bad that I am putting junk food in my mouth every chance I get and hitting the McD’s drive-thru every other day, but bad enough that I don’t even think I realize how detrimental all the “little” things that I do are to my body and my health and fitness goals.

What are all these little things you ask?

Well, first of all, I eat fast. I have two kids who are in two different schools and also in various activities across the city and in order to get to where we need to be at whatever time we need to be there, MY meals tend to be rushed and not really MEALS at all. A banana here, a handful of carrots there, whatever the kids don’t eat off of their plates or whatever I can grab to eat in the car. Trust me folks, a grande skinny vanilla latte and honey-glazed almonds do not a good breakfast make.

Click here to continue reading.....

one year later. After the Mirena break up.

I feel like it is time for a follow up post about my Mirena experience. My original post receives between 700-1100+ visits daily and has generated over 200 comments from women from all over the world who have shared their own, sometimes very personal, struggles and experiences with this supposed innocuous form of birth control. I appreciate each and every one of these women for sharing their stories, for listening to their gut and for persevering for answers when they were not getting any from their health care professionals. It is proving difficult to answer every single comment, but there are some common questions within a good majority of them that I feel like I can answer, at least from my perspective and from my experiences at this point, one year post-Mirena. The dreaded "Mirena Crash".

Before I had my IUD removed, I too did a lot of research and reading on the Internet and the number one thing you hear about is the Mirena crash. This plummet in hormones can cause all kinds if symptoms ranging from general malaise and feeling unwell to outright rage, depression and severe mood swings. It seems to last for about a week in its most severe form and then tapers off. Thankfully, I do not believe that I suffered through any major crash after my removal and I honestly started feeling better within days of having it out.

Bleeding.

I did have some removal bleeding initially the first night and into the next day. It was very bright red, and I admit that after 3 years of not seeing that kind of blood with my 'sort of" periods, I was a bit concerned. Turns out that it really was nothing that a couple of sturdy panty liners couldn't handle and it stopped after that second day.

A return to normal menstrual cycles.

Since that initial visit from Aunt Flo 5 weeks after I had the Mirena removed, my periods have been like clockwork. I have a pretty nice 28 day cycle and a 3.5 day period. And all I use during that time is my Diva cup. THAT IS IT! I can't complain about anything on this front. I feel like a normal woman and aside from the fact that I think I may be a bit peri-menopausal now and experiencing an increase in emotional PMS symptoms, I feel good about all of it.

Hair loss.

The hair loss that I was experiencing while I had the Mirena was REE - diculous!! I would run my fingers through my hair in the shower every morning and they would come out completely COVERED in strands of my hair. Normal daily hair loss for women is between 50-100 strands a day, with new ones growing almost immediately to replace the ones lost. I estimate (based on what I removed in the shower and what I swept up off the bathroom floor every other day) that I was losing about triple this amount EVERY DAY. Luckily I have a lot of hair to begin with and wasn't noticing any balding patches, but I do know that some women are not that lucky. In my opinion, I believe I am back down to a normal hair loss pattern and did notice this difference within about 4 months post-removal.

Weight loss.

I'd love to tell you all that I had the Mirena removed and magically dropped 20 pounds. Alas, this did not happen. Unlike some of the brave women who have posted their stories and comments on the original post, I did not have a huge amount of weight gain while on Mirena. What I did have was an inability to LOSE any weight even with a pretty strict fitness routine and a healthy, balanced diet. One year after my Mirena removal and four months since I stopped nursing my daughter and finally, that extra 10-15 pounds of what I liked to call my "Milk Reserves" is slowly starting to come off.

EXTREME fatigue.

This was one of the side effects that disappeared the fastest. I went from not being able to keep my eyes open while DRIVING and absolutely NEEDING to nap every day, to sleeping better at night (no more night sweats either) and having more energy throughout the day. I am serious people, the level of fatigue I was experiencing was dangerous. I would literally fall asleep at red lights and I even think I somehow fell asleep with my eyes open a couple of times and jerked "AWAKE" just in time to avoid crashing the car with all of us in it.

Libido.

It's BAAA-aaack. And it was relatively soon after removal. The fact that I was not feeling like I could literally fall asleep at any given minute of any day had a lot do do with that. I had ENERGY again. To be with him, to care about my sensual and sexual needs again and to want to just get it ON! Now don't get me wrong, we are still a busy family with a lot going on in our lives and some nights I am thoroughly exhausted and it's a quick peck on the cheek and lights out, but now, I at least have my DESIRE back. While on the Mirena, it was as if that part of me was completely removed from my mind. And I am kind of a sexy beast, so this was very troubling for me! ;)

Abdominal Pain, Bloating, Cramping.

I am very happy to say that since my Mirena removal I have not had one bout of the severe abdominal cramping and the excruciating pain that was a monthly occurrence with it in. As it turns out, I do not have ovarian cysts, I do not have appendicitis or endometriosis and I do not have ridiculous levels of noxious gas in my bowels! Whether my doctor agrees with me or not, I truly believe that I had a device in my body that was poisoning me.

...................

The one thing that has bothered me the most about all of the comments and stories that have been shared with this post, is the fact that so many women (including myself) have had to FIGHT with their healthcare providers to be heard, to be believed and to have this device removed from their own bodies . This speaks volumes to me about the state of our society, where a woman's voice and decisions about her body own are constantly questioned, where the simplest answer is not even considered and where women are being bombarded with more and more medications to treat what may actually be the side effects of what is considered a fairly benign medication.

So benign in fact that last September, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology made this statement in their Committee Opinion on Adolescent Health Care:

"Increasing adolescent access to long-acting reversible contraceptives is a clinical and public health opportunity for obstetrician-gynecologists. With top-tier effectiveness, high rates of satisfaction, and no need for daily adherence, long-acting reversible contraceptive methods should be first-line recommendations for all women and adolescents."

And while I understand that the issue that the College was addressing was the increasing rate of unwanted teen pregnancies, I wonder at the long-term effects of this kind of contraception (hormonal IUDs) on these teenage girls still developing bodies and hormonal systems. Will these long-acting contraceptive methods affect their future ability to conceive? We don't know the answers to these questions and I for one don't think it is a risk that I would want to take with my teenage daughter.

Of the 218 comments that have been shared on the original post, there are maybe 5 that reflect a positive Mirena experience. Granted, most women who find my post are doing so by using search terms like "Mirena IUD" and "Mirena side effects" (my post is second only to the official Mirena website on a Google search), the statistics of this small sample population make me feel very good about my decision to remove my IUD and return to a normal menstrual cycle. I am glad that my post has been helpful for so many women and I am grateful for all the shared stories. I feel for each and every one of you who have suffered so much because of this teeny tiny not-so-innocent device.

I can not tell anyone what to do in any given situation, even though a lot of you have asked. I can only tell you to trust your gut, trust your body, and TRUST yourself. If this form of birth control is causing you more problems than it is worth, than try to find an alternative. (For anyone wondering, my husband and I are condom users and NO, he still has not booked his vasectomy!) And if your health care provider is not listening to you, find one who will.

I have one last thing to say to those of you who have decided to have your IUD removed. Please don't let your family doctor or OB/GYN tell you that you shouldn't have it removed or make a big deal about the removal or tell you to go to the doctor who inserted it. If the strings are visible and reachable with a simple pelvic exam, then removal is a 10 second procedure that requires nothing more than a speculum and some medical tweezers. It pinches a bit, but if you have had babies already, well,... enough said.

I hope this follow-up post about my experience with Mirena proves as helpful as the first one has been. I am very happy that one year later, I can say without a doubt, that life has been a lot better since I broke up with my Mirena IUD.

selfie

Take care of yourselves ladies,

Natasha~

430,000.00 Silver Linings

I am exhausted. A really good exhausted.

Today I spent the whole day moving my butt, shaking my groove thang and busting some moves with over 400 other people at the 2nd annual Bust a Move for Breast Health.

I was part of the BamBassadors Social Media team with the lovely @JenBanksYeg, the superb @realturkeylady, our at-home-with-a-concussion tweeter, @AprilWiens and the ever a good sport, wearing his pink tutu with pride, @ChrisTse_ . We are Team Hello Titties and we all had a blast today tweeting, Vine-ing, Instagram-ing, and Facebook-ing all about this amazing event (and we managed to get the #bamyeg hashtag into the top trending topics for Edmonton too)!

Bust a Move for Breast Health is a six hour fitness extravaganza that will have you move more than your feet to raise valuable funds for the Cross Cancer Institute. One small step for events, on large step for all breastkind!

And raise funds everyone sure did this year!  Over $430,000.00 to be exact! THAT IS A LOT OF RESEARCH DOLLARS FOLKS! It really hit me today during the yoga session, just what we were all doing there. We unwrapped our yoga mats and while most of us had purple ones, the pink ones stood out. These were the cancer survivors, the ones who beat the odds. What really made me pause and appreciate all that was going on around me was the fact that every survivor that I could see around me was younger than me. Breast cancer does not discriminate based on age, race, religion or otherwise. It affects us all, either directly or indirectly and we can and need to make a difference and do what we can for all the pink mats out there.

I am grateful to have been a participant and volunteer at the event today and I can't wait for next years BAMtastic day of fun and fitness! And you know what, YOU too can join our team! We are going to be bigger, better and have even more fun (if that is at all possible, because my abs hurt just as much from the Bootcamp session as they do from laughing today)! Or make your own team! Do it for all the women battling breast cancer, do it for someone close to you, do it FOR YOURSELF!

Most of all do it because, I may be exhausted and sore and in need of a good gluteal massage, but I'll take this kind of pain ANY DAY over the pain and suffering that breast cancer causes to 1 in 9 women's bodies. And I will do whatever I can to help lower that number until it is ZERO!

Oh yeah, and we met Richard Simmons too! He REALLY liked Chris! A LOT!

This was one day so full of silver linings, that I lost count! Let's call this one #30.

I am so tired....

natasha~

Daylight.

Oy! I am one tired human tonight.

It was a good day. Bikram yoga, skating with the kids, some shopping with the SILs and then dinner at the inlaws.

I have a post that I have been working on that I wanted to finish tonight, but I just can't. I can barely keep my eyes open.

So instead, I am going to finally finish folding Mount Laundry and then take my tired bones to bed... EARLY!

And that ladies and gents, is my Silver Lining for today.

#9. An early bedtime.

Oh yeah, AND...

I can't stop singing this song. {Badly, just ask my kids!}

[youtube]http://youtu.be/AqR-ElB5kXY[/youtube]

It's not you, it's me

Today had the potential to be such a good day. And I needed a good day.

REALLY BADLY.

And then...

Well.

It was not.

.

.

.

.

.

Let me back up a few days.

On Saturday, January 12, 2013, with myself, my sister, my brother and his wife surrounding him with as much love as we could, my father passed away from complications of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).

I have written about our reconnection and how bittersweet this whole process has been for both of us. Time, the one thing we needed, was the one thing we really did not have.

He was suffering and now I know he is not. We had a brief moment on Friday to talk and forgive each other before his level of consciousness prevented him from having further conversations. Given the situation, I am at peace with that and I can only hope that he was too.

So, I am grieving.

And on two fronts. I am grieving for the loss of the man that he was and I am also grieving (again?) for the loss of the father that I could have had. Details are not important anymore and life takes us in all kinds of different directions that are not in our control, but this is hard. Hard to try to understand the circumstances of the past and the motives of the people (including ourselves) that kept us so far apart, and hard to reconcile the fact that answers will never come.

Add to all of that the fact that I am also prepping this little family of mine for a whirlwind vacation half way around the world that starts VERY soon, and well... let's just say it is a busy week up in my head.

I don't have time to grieve. I have to pack, and I have to get kids to school and back, and I have to make meals and actually feed these people who depend on me and also find time for regular things, like showering and shaving my legs and such. There is playing and reading and laundry and dentist appointments and walking the dog and getting in a workout and doing my volunteer commitments and keeping up with the everyone on Facebook and well....

Something has to give.

Remember the good old days?

If someone had a baby, or if someone had a birthday or yes, if someone died. Remember what we would do, or what our parents and our parents friends would do? They would come over with a meal. Or call. Or send an actual card or note or flowers. They would come over and give you a big heartfelt hug. Not a ((hug)).

Now we take to the internets to express EVERYTHING. Our congratulations, our condolences, our breakfast, lunch and dinner and every waking moment in between. We are all more connected than we have ever been before and yet, I can't help but feel so disconnected right now.

This has been bothering me long before this past weekend and I was afraid to do anything about it, but now...

Now, I am done.

I am done with Facebook.

I am done with feeling like I am a good "friend" because I didn't forget to write "Happy Birthday" on whomever's timeline is listed on the top right hand corner of my page. I am done reading about peoples passive aggressive feelings through silly meme images. I am done with feeling the "Oh, that would be a good sound bite on FB" thought about something that happens in my day-to-day life, instead of actually BEING IN THAT MOMENT in my life.

My friend Tom wrote this very poignant post last week and in it he says,

"...you get only ONE chance at being a dad or a mom to your child. You won’t be allowed to try it again. You’ll be left with a void, a gap where you could have done something for or with your little one. And sadly, those are gaps in life we will never be able to go back and fill."

This week that message hit home for me more so than ever before.

Because I am that little one. I am that kid that lost out on having a father because of reasons that I will never understand. And yes, I know for a fact that there was a big void in my fathers life as well. And while we did get a chance to reconnect in the end. The sad reality is that it really was the end. We had less than 2 months to fit in 30 years of life.

It was not enough.

This week has been rough on all of us here at the SAHF household and I am trying to figure out what we all need around here.

The best solution and answer I can find is that we need MORE of each other. Or more specifically, my kids and my husband need more of me. And I need more of me.

We need more playing together. We need more reading books. We need more cuddles and silliness. We need more kitchen dance parties. We need mommy to NOT get on the computer the minute we walk in the door . We need to actually go visit with friends and family and spend time with them. Time that does not include any kind of mobile device bleeping every 10 seconds. We need to take pictures for us alone, not to be shared on Instagram or Facebook immediately. We need to get our validation from the joy of living, not from the amount of "likes" we get on a status update.

So like any addict who has to hit rock bottom before they see the light, here I am.

Today was my bottom.

My name is Natasha and I am addicted to social media. I check my phone and my computer all the time out of fear that I am going to "miss" something. And I do mean ALL. THE. TIME.. I panic if I can't find my phone. It is the first thing I check in the morning and the last thing I check at night. And sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll check it then too.

What hit me today, is that I AM missing something. I am missing my life. I am missing my children's lives. All the things that I keep saying that we will do later, just one more minute, one more message, one more video to watch....well, one day it will be too late. And I won't be able to go back. There is no 'delete' or 'undo' or 'refresh' button in life.

There is just DO and DO it as well as you can.

So...

As of tonight at midnight, I am deactivating my Facebook account.

I will still manage the community Pages that I am responsible for, but even that will be at a limited capacity.

If anyone wants to get ahold of me, call me, come and see me, meet me for coffee. Let's really CONNECT.

And hug.

Really everyone, it's not you, it's me.

I just need some space.

For a REAL life lived in the moment.

Lots of love,

Natasha~

P.S. {For my online friends who are far away, you can still find me on Twitter or via email or here too. Baby steps folks! :)}

not too late

Last month, I took a writing course with Alice Bradley, aka @finslippy and this was one of our assignments. To write about family.  A lot of the 'class' (we were all online) said that the hardest thing or the most taboo thing to write about was family. This was my homework and is part of what I am dealing with and processing at the moment.

Family.

I don’t have a lot of childhood memories. I dont’ have the 'big family Christmas dinner' memories, the 'super-fun camping in the mountains' vacation memories, or the 'mom and dad taking me to this or that sport or activity and cheering me on' memories.

I have 'packing up a house full of four kids and leaving while daddy is at work' memories. I have 'watching my daddy crying in the doorway of our new house because he doesn't understand why' memories. I have 'getting mad at daddy for reasons to this day I can’t even remember and promising never to talk to him again' memories.

I know there must have been good times in my life before {and after} these memories. I have seen the pictures. I know that my father was not a bad man. I know he was not a terrible daddy. I think he was a young one and that he was working hard to try to support his young and ever growing family and may have bitten off more than he could chew.

Or it could have been that it really was all my grandmother’s fault. My mother’s mother was not a fan of men. It’s hard to blame her really, when every single man in her life broke her heart or her body in unfathomable ways. It was her and her daughter against the world. So when this young man came into their lives and knocked up her one and only daughter, her PERSON, I think she panicked. And then slowly, over the next six years, like someone administering small doses of arsenic, I believe she poisoned my mother into thinking that he was just not good enough for her. That he wasn't a good husband, he wasn't a good father, and he wasn't a good provider.

So my mother left my father. With four kids under the age of seven.

And over the years of listening to my grandmother’s poisonous rantings, I too came to believe that he was the dead beat he was made out to be. Why didn't he call? Why didn't he want to be with us? What did I do to make him not want me?

My child’s mind made a rash decision at the age of 12 to never speak to him again. And the sad reality is that I truly did not speak to him until 11 years later at my baby brother’s funeral. And now, another whopping 19 years later, we still have not seen each other more than 3 times since that sad day.

My daddy.

My daddy who now has ALS.

And now I don’t know what do to?

He IS my father, but who is he really? A relative stranger to me and to my own children. Yet, his time on earth is limited. He is suffering and I am wondering why we have never 'fixed' this, why he stayed away and why I never asked for more from him?

And I am kicking my 12-year-old self for being such a fucking brat! And then again my 23-year-old self for being so god-damn selfish. Yes, I lost a brother that day, but he lost a CHILD.

Maybe I see this all more clearly now that I am a parent.

I have never spoken to him about ANY of this. About what he was feeling when mom left or why we stopped talking. We barely spoke when my brother died. I did not invite him to my wedding and I haven’t ever been to see him to introduce him to his grandchildren.

And now he is dying. A slow, painful, agonizing death that is going to rob him of his body and leave him his mind. A mind that is perhaps wondering all of these things as well.

I am a 40-year old woman and all I want is for my daddy to be just that.

My Daddy.

For what little time we have left.

This past weekend I spent some time with my father and we have started the healing of our relationship together. I just hope that we get the time we need to do and say all that we need to to each other, because in case you don't know, ALS is a cruel, cruel thief, robbing him blind daily.

Natasha~

I am not weak.

I am having a quicksand week. Or perhaps month. I started noticing it more after the time change. My kids were a mess and more so than ever, I was a mess. And I still am.

I am tired. Bone weary, not sure I should be driving some days, can't keep a thought in my head tired.

And I am irritable. I blame it on the tiredness, but I know it is more than that. I know I am disconnected from my life, from the people and things that are important to me. The schedule gets followed and I keep going, but there is little joy in it these days.

This is all leaving me with the slowly sinking into quicksand feeling. I can't struggle, because it will only make it worse. I will only get more tired and more irritable and I'll yell even more and grind my teeth and lose my patience and... and so I sink. I am not writing, I don't go to yoga, I don't play with my kids, I ignore others and I lose myself and hours in the mindless online black-hole that is social media.

I am not in a good place and I know it.

So I made a call.

I have an appointment in two weeks with someone to finally talk about all of this.

I am terrified.

And hopeful.

But mostly terrified.

Today, all I could think about was finding some inspiration to just keep going. To keep on my path, even though I am not 100% sure of that path and even though at the moment it looks like one fraught with thorny vines, brambles and lots of fallen logs. And quicksand.

My first stop was my go-to lady for inspiration, Elan Morgan of Schmutzie.com. Elan gave a TEDx talk in Regina last year and I had not watched it yet. So I did. And now I am telling you (and making is super easy for you) to go and watch it yourself. I love that she managed to incorporate one of her awesome lists in her talk. One that I want to copy and paste all over my walls and my brain and everywhere else I can think of.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkaBXs9aPBU[/youtube]

Elan quoted Brene Brown in her talk, so next, I headed over to Brene's TED talks and was utterly and completely blown away. The tiredness left me for a moment. My brain perked up and paid attention and so much in my life just started to make sense to me. I am still terrified, but after watching Brene's videos, I feel like the hopefulness might have gained a bit of ground.

I can't stress how much I think EVERYONE, man and woman, NEEDS to watch all of these videos. Watch them, then get your husband to watch them and then send them to your sisters, your best friends, your mom.... EVERYONE.

Here they are.

Watch this one first.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0[/youtube]

Then this one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0[/youtube]

Brene says that "Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativily and change."

Well, it's about to get all crazy-ass vulnerable around here for me and I am so ready for things to change. I really can't sink much further into this sand on my way to a breakdown spiritual awakening.

Please stick around until I come out on the other side of this.

{trying to} dare greatly,

Natasha~