So I heard great things about the Fiber One PB and Oats bars. I was at Target today and saw both the Fiber One bars and the Target version and compared the facts. Targets version had .5 less grams of fat and 10 less calories. I went for the Target brand.

After looking at my post pregnancy tummy every hour of every day and seeing how very skinny I am but with NO muscle tone now that they are all stretched I figured I should take another step into getting fit. I am now drinking a protein shake a day! It is actually really good without that weird protein/medicinal taste, and it’s Meijer brand! Chocolate flavor and mixed with skim milk I feel like I am drinking a frothy glass of chocolate milk. It is super yummy. You’re supposed to drink it either before or after a workout… for the most part I have been doing that but sometimes I drink the shake and do the workout hours later, or not at all. Haha. I am still doing On Demand Ab Workouts and some of them actually kick my ass. The only thing is I still love my junk food. I am able to eat super healthy all day long such as oatmeal for breakfast and tuna on whole grain bread with spinach for lunch. But if I don’t cook a homemade healthy meal, then dinner is just down the tubes. Don’t even get my started on dessert. Ever since I had my daughter I have had a huge sweet tooth which I never had before. I am Italian… I would have taken pasta over a pastry any day. Now immediately after dinner, I MUST have something sweet. I guess it’s not a bad thing because I never really go over board… and it keeps me so I am not depriving myself of foods I really love yet I am still eating healthy all the other times. Last night (my dinner downfall) I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with my family. Needless to say, my dinner was very unhealthy and then I decided to order their amazing chocolate cake that I was basically addicted to two Summers ago. (Before I was ever pregnant so it didn’t really matter). That cake was DELICIOUS and I am so glad I got it. I can’t wait to see the results of the protein shakes on my abs… gonna be interesting and a long road.

Lately I have been thinking about toning up my body. It seems like after I gave birth to my daughter I can only think about getting into shape. I have always been thin but never muscular. Now that my abs have been stretched to all hell and are sitting quite lower than before, I realized that I should just totally reinvent my body. I don’t think that without reconditioning my abs to actually look muscular I can never have a flat stomach again. Perhaps in time it would tighten up to the way it was on it’s own but I am not willing to wait that long. Soooo… I have decided to work out enough to have “abs.” I want my tight belly button back, I want the “pouch” gone. It’s funny because when I contract my muscles up it all comes back but once I let it go, there it is, that deflated belly button! I am hoping that with toning up and getting strong it will pull my belly button up the way it used to be.

Another area of concern I have is my arms. They are so stickly and shapeless!!! I want sexy arms. Arms with some definition are much more attractive than just long stickly limbs. I just started yesterday with some weights but I think they are too light. I will just do more reps until I get out to buy some heavier ones.

Abs and arms… the start to my new body!

Anyone who has ever suffered from migraines knows exactly how painful they really are. I am 26 years old and have been getting them since I was 12. Never has my doctor recommened a CT Scan or MRI. They say migraines are so very common and I fall into that exact diagnosis. Recently, I gave birth to my first daughter just a few short weeks after the sudden passing of my Mother. Needless to say that two of the most life changing events happened within weeks of each other. This was not good for my migraines. Between the stress of losing my Mom and the lack of sleep and irregular sleep patterns that come with having a newborn took a toll on my health. I was getting migraines every few days for weeks at a time then it tapered off to about once a week. This was still much too often for me. When I get a migraine I am basically incapacitated for the entire day. Finally, I went back to my family doctor to see what she suggested. She recommended I see a Neurologist at this point because one migraine per week was too many to have. The Neurologist told me that at this point she does not need a CT Scan or MRI for my condidition because I was still falling into that ever-so-common migraine sufferer category. I explained to her that sometimes I would feel numb in my face, hands, neck, mouth, head, etc., without even having a headache. She reassured me that all these symptoms were also part of the “aura” and was common to get them without the migriane headache itself. I was under the impression that the “aura” was just the funny colors I saw in my eye about 20 minutes before the pain began. In actuality it is all the symptoms that come with the migraine headache.  I describe those colors as what it would look like if you put water on your TV or computer screen. The doctor told me that those symptoms I was getting was most likely from a migraine that never fully went away. She said that mini migraines can spawn off of the main one if not taken care of properly and in my case that is lots of sleep. She prescribed an amazing medicine called Norgenic. It is part muscle relaxer and when I took ,it just knocked the migraine right out of me. I was able to rest and get rid of the annoying symptoms such as blurry vision and numbness. It has been 3 weeks since I have had a migraine or symptoms. First she suggested a medicine which had caffeine in it but I informed her that Exedrin Migraine makes me shake because of the caffeine so that is why she prescribed the other. If you are a migraine sufferer do not panic if you have some of those crazy symptoms, they are totally normal. Also, ask your doc about the muscle relaxer, it relaxes the blood vessels in the brain that are said to cause the pain. It worked great for me so hopefully it can do the same for you!