Thirsty Tuesday

My 500ml bottle,
that doesn't leave my side

So I’m slowly managing to make 6am alarms and 6:30am workouts a regular thing; you do something for two weeks and it slowly starts getting built into your routine. So the next thing on my agenda to build into my routine is drinking lots of water – around 3 liters a day, I'll be doing this by drinking six x 500ml bottles a day of water - one in the morning before work, two at work before lunch, two at work after lunch and one in the evening.

Why so much water I hear you ask? Aren't you going to spend all day on the toilet - well yes but the benefits outweigh my multiple toilet trips.

Water increases energy and relieves fatigue – since your brain is mostly water, drinking it helps you think, focus and concentrate batter and be more alert. Your brain needs a lot of oxygen in order to function at optimum levels. Drinking plenty of water ensures that your brain gets all the oxygen it needs. Drinking eight to ten cups of water per day can improve your levels of cognitive performance by as much as 30%! Drinking plenty of water also supports nerve function. It ensures that your body's electrolyte levels remain high enough to allow your nerves to relay messages to and from the brain in the way they were meant to.

Promotes Weight Loss – by removing the by-products of fat, reduces eating intake (by filling up your tummy if drank prior to meals), reduces hunger (yay, natural appetite suppressant J), raises metabolism and has zero calories.

Flushes out Toxins – Gets rid of waste though sweat and urination which reduces the risk of kidney stones and UTI’s.

Improve Skin Complexion – Moisturizes your skin, keeps it fresh, soft, glowing and smooth (basically a natural foundation) – helps get rid of wrinkles too, BONUS!

Maintain Regularity – helps with digestion as water is essential to digest your food and prevents constipation.

Boosts Immune System – your less likely to get sick, as drinking lots of water helps the fight against flu, cancer and other aliments.

Natural Headache Remedy – The most common cause of headaches are dehydration, so staying hydrated helps relieve and prevent headaches (migraines and back pains too).

Prevents Cramps and Sprains – Proper Hydration helps keep joints lubricated and muscles more elastic so joint pain is less likely.

Puts you in a Good Mood – when your body is functioning at its best, you feel great and happy.

I'm off to go re-fill my bottle up - Happy Drinking :) X

Monday Marathon Musings

                     

The title of this post might be a little deceiving, I did not run a marathon (far from it) – however I did go and watch my cousin Jude, my friend Mikey and the 35,898 others run the London marathon.

Both Jude and Mikey ran the marathon in roughly 4 hours – which is a very respectable time, so well done boys. Everyone running did such an amazing job, the dedication for months and months of preparation must have all been worth it for the feeling of accomplishment.

Jude and Mikey managed to inspire me to go from thinking to run the Blenheim half marathon, to signing up for it. which means I have 6 months to get 13 miles ready.  So in a weird twist of events, I'm slowly turning into a runner – who would have thought?

So the next month is going to be focusing on stamina and time; building up running for 30mins to 1 hour, to 1 hour and a half – then in 4 weeks I’ll start to look at distance. I’ll also be blogging about others things going on in my life, the love, the laughs, the travel.

I’ll be back for some Tuesday Thoughts…but first I must go for a run.

Happy Happiness Day

I’m rubbish at blogging, partly because life gets in the way and I don’t find time for it – which is a rubbish excuse, but lately I’ve been struggling to fit everything into my day, time is becoming quiet precious and I need to learn to priorities things in life – otherwise I’m constantly running around like a head-less chicken.

I’ve side-tracked…so Happiness Day; thanks to the UN March 20^th is International Happiness Day, falls in the same month as International Womens Day, which is a lovely coincidence as without women this world would not be a very happy place - in fact we wouldn’t be able to re-populate the world and there would have been no Eve, so Adam would have probably had sex with a monkey and got aids and died. Anyway in a way to create more posts about life in general and what’s going on in the world I thought I’d write reasons why I’m happy today.

It’s the first day of Spring, and it seems like the south of the UK is well and truly basking in its glory. Sunshine makes me happy. Sunshine when it’s not too hot makes me even happier. Spring is definitely my favorite season, and when it’s an unusually dry one, it makes me even happier. So happy happiness-1^st day of Spring- Day.

Thanks to a family friend visit from Sri Lanka I managed to get my hands on 100 bags of Akbar Brothers Premium Gold Blend tea. This tea is AMAZING, literally the smoothest, tastiest, loveliest cup of tea I have had in a long time – I brought in the box to share with the office; who are all enjoying it too (I’m slightly regretting this as I’m sure it won’t be around for long now). This LOVELY cup of tea has made me extremely happy, and a little pang of joy  fills inside me every time I have a cup. So happy happy tea-fueled-filled Mandy.

Running, yes that’s right I mentioned exercise and how its making me happy (shock, bloody horror). I’ve taking up running regularly again, the spring weather has sparked this decision + it’s a cheap way to burn calories, get some fresh air, lose weight, build muscle and just generally feel a lot better about myself.  The first run was tough, it feels like it’s been such a long time since it happened, however the second run was a lot easier. The endorphins are making me crazy though, as I’m thinking about signing up for the Blenheim Half Marathon in October – which is a crazy long distance, but I do have enough time to train for it….so watch this space.

BBC Get up and Go! Sport Relief Playlist – I needed a new running soundtrack and this is amazing – it’s 51 songs long; which is about 41 song longer than I need, but it provides get motivational songs from throughout the decades – everything from Little Mix to the The Pointer Sisters to Wu Tang. It can be a little cheesy at times, but when you are pushing yourself that little bit more the cheesiness helps you forget about it as you sing-a-long in your head to the lyrics.  It's also just a great motivational, inspirations, playlist - that can turn moods around, so I'm pretty much listening to it all the time now. Listen to it - everyone needs a good injection of (mostly) good  pop songs in their life.

You can find it here - https://play.spotify.com/user/bbc_playlister/playlist/3pw1B6Em80hMvZdgiSpspd

So why are you happy today?

PS – Here’s a photo of me and my Mum, who is the one lady in the world that can turn my mood around from sad to happy in a sentence. She doesn’t look very happy in it, but she is, we both are (she's just not a very good smiler in photos).

PPS - If your reading previous posts, Juicing went well - I just had no energy to do anything, let alone blog.