I am sooooo not a morning person – or so I thought!!!

Isn’t it amazing what we tell ourselves?  The  thing is if we tell ourselves something for long enough then we not only start to believe it but we also act as if it is the absolute truth and that is exactly how it was for me and mornings!

For years, I told myself that I wasn’t a morning person and for years I behaved exactly like that – always working late,  last one to leave a party, no meetings before at least 10am, - I figured that if I had to be up, out and functioning at that time then the least I deserved was a good shot of caffeine in as relaxed an environment as possible beforehand.  I lived like this for years – ok, the parties became less frequent and were replaced by night feeds but the sentiment remained the same in that no matter what time the alarm went off in the morning, it was always still too early!

So what happened to not only get me up at the crack of dawn but also to have me bouncing around with a spring in my step??  I discovered morning exercise!!!   I can hardly believe it myself !!!     It  all started a few months ago when I really wanted to challenge myself to do something different.  I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “if you do the same thing you’re always gonna get the same results“, I wanted different results in my life so figured that a big change would be to get up earlier.  You know what it’s like, you make a decision to do something and then, God (in my case) starts to conspire to make it all happen.  The next thing I know, I’m getting up at 5.15AM at least twice a week – sometimes 3 times – and going off to a local fitness studio to do circuit training until 6.45AM! It’s now been nearly 3 months and counting

And what has been the side effect of all of this – aside from a few lost inches?

• I get more done in my day, in a more productive way
• My beliefs about who I am and what I can do have changed and continue to change
• Opportunities have opened up for me in areas that I hadn’t even thought about before
• I love mornings!!!!

So this is only a snippet of the benefits I feel as a result of changing things up a bit and doing things differently.  I wonder what your benefits would be if you challenged yourself.  In fact, what do you currently believe about yourself which may not actually be true????

Juicing…

Am really getting into this.  A friend of mine recommended a book to me called “7lbs in 7 days” and I was about to dismiss it as yet another diet book and definitely not one that I would be interested in.  However, it is actually about juicing rather than weight loss and was written by Jason “The Juicemaster” Vale - brilliant! 

To be honest, I wasn’t very good at eating lots of vegetables however, over the past few days I’ve been juicing carrots, apples, pineapples, beetroots, courgettes even spinach, kale and parsley. …and OMG…I love wheatgrass and spirulina!!!   All the juices in Jason’s book have tasted divine – bar one, which I will leave for you to discover yourself just like I did! – and the difference in my energy levels both mentally and physically in such a short space of time is remarkable.   I love it and will certainly continue juicing for the foreseeable future.   Let me know if you have any good juice or smoothie recipes.

Reggae Reggae Sauce

Have you tried this yet? 

The avid Dragon’s Den fans amongst you may remember Levi – he was the guy who set his pitch to a nice, easy listening reggae tune.  Anyway, his Reggae Reggae jerk/marinade/BBQ sauce is now in Sainsbury’s so, of course, I had to buy it!  Fantastic – if you haven’t tried it yet then give it a go.  And for those of you watching the pounds (weight ones not sterling!) – it is also low fat, so even better!!

I love the blurb on the bottle “Tune into the flavours and put some music into your food”