Friday 28 November 2014

Fitness Friday: To eat or not to eat before a workout..


I normally work out in the mornings the most food I have in my stomach at the time is a glass of water sometimes juice as well. It is recommended to eat something at least 45 minutes to an hour before your work out because your body needs enough energy to get you through your workout; just like a car needs fuel to move. This doesn’t work for me unfortunately so I eat after my workouts. I have tried eating at least 2-3 hours before working out to no avail it doesn’t matter what I eat be it a sandwich, cereal, fruits, drink a smoothie or have a full meal it just doesn’t work for me. Even if I have a light lunch at 1pm and workout at 4pm still doesn’t work for me. This is what happens if I eat as recommended before my workout;

·         I am sluggish feel tired, drowsy and almost too lazy to workout properly and this is during the actual workout itself. I am more energetic on a lighter stomach.

·         The food in my stomach feels like it’s moving up and down and this is during average workouts like walk at home exercise not intense cardio. The one time I did intense cardio after eating pre workout I almost threw up and never tried it again!

·         My stomach feels bloated sometimes as if I am holding a jug of water in there that’s making waves like the ocean does no kidding!

·         I belch/burp like crazy mid workout that I have to stop and then start once the belching/burping has stopped

·         Sometimes the food feels like it’s coming back up my throat instead of going down

All this happens 2-3 hours after eating pre workout. So while a pre workout snack or meal is recommended it doesn’t work for me. The most I can do is water and maybe a glass of juice to give me sugar needed to exert energy for the workout anything else no thanks.

Do you eat pre workout? How does that work for you?
Fitness Friday

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Colour Me Red...Maybe Not?



Once upon a long overdue henna wash day I felt like adding a pop of colour to my hair….
 
100grams henna mixed with cold black tea and fresh lemon juice. I realised that my hair is getting too thick for 100grams of henna so I intend to use 150grams next time
So I added a heaped teaspoon of maroon powdered food colour to my henna mix…
 
Powdered maroon food colour even though it looks red when mixed with water
Applied the mix to my hair and let it sit for about an hour and a half expecting to have a pop of vibrant colour as a result on rinsing…
 
Henna food colour combo
Alas that was not to be….I had the reddish/brown henna tint visible under natural light but no maroon from the food colour…
 
Results or lack of???
So I asked my cousin who is a pro at henna and food colour combos what went wrong and beat myself up for not asking  for her advice beforehand. She said it was probably because I did not use heat and also because I did not let it sit long enough for the colour to take, since I was not using heat she recommended 6 hours plus without heat or overnight. So I guess it will take a few more henna food colour wash days to get some colour into my hair. The idea of sitting with henna on my head for 6 hours plus does not excite me though, maybe I will mix it with conditioner instead, use more food colour next time and use heat. Rookie mistake; I shampooed on rinsing hence washing off whatever dye that had stuck to my strands.

I was simply experimenting with alternative hair dyes; I have no desire to use commercial hair dyes at this moment so I will continue playing around by adding food colour to my henna mix or conditioner on wash days until I get it right. And that ladies was my henna food colour wash day.

The Wash Day Experience

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Black Shampoo Follow Up!


If you missed my review of Dexe Black Shampoo you can read it here. It’ been four weeks since I first washed my hair using this shampoo and it claimed that it could keep your hair black for up to four weeks. I have washed my hair four times since then once every week. This past wash day was another DIY one using blended ripe avocado, honey, one egg I then added a bit of glycerine and olive oil to the mix. Deep conditioned for just a little under an hour. Rinsed that off and shampooed twice using TRESemme naturals, I finally got myself some conditioner so I was able to detangle slightly in shower with conditioner. Rinsed that off then towel dried till damp, blow dried on cool, applied my leave in mix and then sealed with coconut oil after I had applied my castor oil mix to my scalp. It looks like the black shampoo actually lived up to its name, impressive! 

What my hair usually looks like



After washing with black shampoo;  photo taken four weeks ago

Four weeks later; photo taken yesterday



The Wash Day Experience

Friday 14 November 2014

Fitness Friday: Still Walking!


I have been a very good girl this month I kept up with my fitness routine. I am slowly getting my fitness mojo fully back on it was on and off for a couple of weeks but that seems to be in the past now. I am currently walking with Leslie I love her walk routines! No rest days this November, I figured since I am not planning on taking a break from food then I will not take a break from working out. I plan to work out everyday unless I am not well or something. It doesn’t matter how busy I am or how late I am running if it means a quick ten or fifteen minute workout so be it. I also started working out in front of the mirror and that seems to have kept me going as well strange as it sounds there is something motivating about watching yourself workout in front of a mirror.

I started drinking a glass of warm water sometimes with lemon first thing when I wake up every morning about a month ago as a detox and I can see a change especially in my digestion read more about the benefits of drinking warm/hot lemon water here. They say it also helps with weight loss eventually.

Random bits
I overhead a very “serious” conversation some 9/10 year old girls were having about how many babies they would like to have when they grow up and get married it was so funny because they kept talking about having babies as if there was a baby shop somewhere they could just go and pick their choices (boy or girl) and how many all at once and call it a day! Kids are very interesting!
Fitness Friday

Sunday 9 November 2014

Two in One



I decided to combine my last two wash days in one post since they were quick ones. Last week’s wash day was a homemade deep conditioner with avocado and honey my hair loved this mix it must have been something to do with the honey. After deep conditioning I shampooed using black silk shampoo after rinsing I t-shirt dried and then air dried moisturized, sealed and did six jumbo braids in readiness for a braid out the next day.


This weeks’ wash day was very simple and I was not in the mood to go through a detangling session because I was out of conditioner; all conditioners how crazy is that everything just decided to be an empty before I was able to go out and replace them but the hair needed to be washed. My scalp was itching so I went ahead and washed my hair in the 6 braids that I usually do for my braid outs so that it wouldn’t be a nightmare considering I was rinse out conditionerless. Since it was quite late at night when I washed I simply t-shirt dried till damp and then let it air dry still in braids before I went to bed. I didn’t do anything else to the hair that night. The next morning it was nice and dry so I went ahead to work on unraveling and detangling each of the braided sections individually applied my leave in mix, oiled my scalp and sealed with coconut oil and then rebraided since I wasn’t going anywhere for a few more hours.
The Wash Day Experience