Goal Review | March Review, April Setting

March Review

1.       Exercise at least 3 times a week – For half of the weeks I exercised more than 3 times, but failed this goal on 2 weeks, when I just did 2 session for the week, overall, I feel the progress is great!

2.       Drink 1 litre of water a day – This has always been a challenge for me, I definitely did much better. During the week I do well, but over the weekends it’s another story

3.       Cut down on sweet stuff to only 3 treats a week – I didn’t keep score on this goal, but let me not kid myself, I failed miserably.

4.       M&S regularly – passed.

April Setting

1.       Continue not using heat (on a 6 month challenge 3 months down)

2.       Weekly protective styling

3.       Use coconut oil every wash day

How were your goals for March?

Happy Hair Journey’s Ladies! :o)

‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too, can become great.’ – Mark Twain

Fitness Friday| Strength Exercises

Over the weekend, as I sat around bingeing on sweets and donuts (why do I do this!) I really did notice how my belly is not toning up as quick/well as the rest of my body. My belly has always been my problem area.

As I was running on Monday morning, I started thinking about incorporating strength exercise into my exercise routine to help me with toning up. I currently jog 3 times a week and do Yoga twice a week. When I started researching some strength exercise that I can do that will not involve me going to the gym, I found out that Yoga is a strengthening exercise, which is great, but the overall visible benefits from doing Yoga as a strength exercise alone is much slower. Yoga helps with toning as it involves you carrying your body weight, thought if you want to bulk up more you would need to add more weights as Yoga weight is limited to your body weight.

So I really need to incorporate faster pace strength building exercise routine.

Insanity popped into mind. Insanity is a great exercise routine, but lawd, it can be very demotivating, I really don’t need that right about now.

When I did some more browsing, I got great ideas of strength exercises I could do at home, they sure did look and sound a lot like the insanity drilled but maybe not as fast pace. Then I thought to myself, yes it is demotivating at times and makes my body ache oh so much…but if Yoga is a strengthening exercise and I am in this exercise routine for the long haul, not for the next month or 2 but as part of my everyday life. So with that I put my fears of fast paced Insanity behind and have embraced my current routine with the possibility of increasing another Yoga day.

However, I have not completely ruled out insanity in my routine. Maybe just do as much as I can and when I can’t push anymore…stop

So the plan this week was

3 x Running

2 x Yoga

Everyone needs some strengthening exercise in their routine to help with toning up the body.

Happy Fitness Friday Ladies! :o)

‘My life is my message’ – Mahatma Gandhi

Wash Day| Protein Treatment - #11weeks

This week’s highlight was strength = protein.

[1] Sectioned hair in 4 and prepooed with coconut oil, each section was then braided.

[2] Put hair in heat cap for 30 minutes

[3] Diluted Herbal Essence Hello Hydration Shampoo with walnut oil and water. Shampooed my hair once

[4] T-shirt dried hair for 15 mins and applied ORS Replenishing Conditioner per section and detangled each section

[5] Put on a heat cap and left it overnight

[6] Rinsed out conditioner and t-shirt dried hair for 45 mins.

[7] Sprayed Aussie Hair Miracle Insurance Leave in and coconut oil to each section and left it to air dry for a full day

[8] Next day hair was still damp (in braids) detangled, used the tension method to dry hair, and M&S with ORS Carrot Oil and a serum.

[9] PS for this week is a bun using kanekalon braiding hair.

My hair is shedding like crazy! Detangling was a breeze, at 11 weeks post this is amazing. Next week Saturday is my planned relax day, however, I don’t think time will permit, as my hair is still manageable, I will hold it off for another week or 2 until I have enough time to tackle a monster relaxer day.

Next week’s wash day focus will be black tea rinse to combat the shedding.

How was your wash day?

Happy Hair Journey’s Ladies! :o)

‘Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ – John Watson

Fitness Friday| Meditation & Yoga

Happy Friday everyone!

This was the first week I tried meditating! I was really sceptical of it all but I really needed to take control of any stress and anxiety in my life and I was promised that meditation would really be good for me.

Meditation

I have done it 3 times this week, to avoid me making any exercises about time I decided to do it on my way to work as I sit on the train, then thought, let me do this right, so tried it after work at home.

 I downloaded 2 meditation apps on my phone

1.       Beginners Mediation

2.       Take a break

Day 1: I got comfortable on my exercise mat laying flat on my back. I put my headphones on and listened to the instructors. As I have never meditated before, I was a bit scared of completely clearing my mind, so I kept on opening my eyes. Not quite sure what I was even scared about!

Day 2 -3: After overcoming my fears, I let go and really meditated. Amazing! I loved the relaxed feeling I got after my sessions. I do not know why it have taken me so long to try it, I highly recommend it! Afterwards, or at least during the session, I feel free from any worries, or anything that I need to do, it is really a state of complete relaxation.

Yoga

Yoga and meditation go hand in hand, but am busy trying to stretch myself to meditate as I do my yoga. I have joined the 30 day Yoga challenge at DOYOUYOGA.com , when you sign up they send you daily 20 mins Yoga exercises to your inbox for 30 days. I have not been spammed by them at all!

As I run 3 times a week, I have been doing the Yoga on my rest days Tuesday and Thursday (will skip weekends). Honestly I love the exercise, the instructor is really flexible, so my version is never quite like hers but I will get there! I highly recommend this challenge, exercising has never been so simple and convenient!

Has anyone tried meditation or Yoga? How did you find it and any tips?

 ‘Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up’ Thomas Edison

Mid-Week Hair Update

Pending relaxer

There hasn’t been anything too eventful with my hair of late. I am just weekly protective styling it and prepping it up for my relaxer day. Though I am not too convinced I have enough growth to touch up yet. I am a self-relaxer, so I really need a good amount of new growth to really avoid any issues with overlapping.

So, I will protein treat my hair this coming week, at 11 weeks post, I will be moving on a weekly basis until I feel my hair has enough growth for a touch up. At the moment I will not be touching up my hair at 12 weeks post, I will review it at 13/14 weeks post.

Changing it up

I have been reviewing my hair regimen and at the moment I do not really use enough coconut oil in my regimen (like once in 4 weeks at bestK), so I will be incorporating more coconut oil into my regimen.

1.       After wash day when my hair is air drying I will apply coconut oil to my hair after I apply the leave in conditioner

2.       Every other day I will be moisturising my hair with coconut oil and sealing it.

Oil + Shampoo

If you have read my wash day posts of late, you will notice that I DC on dry hair and skip off the prepooing stage (oil only prepoo). The main reason for this is to avoid jumping in and out of the shower during my wash day.

Now I know quite a few ladies do not like using a shampoo after a DC as they feel it washes off all the DC goodness. I am fine with washing my hair after DC; I have not seen any difference in my results, so it works for me. The one thing I have switched up is my shampooing sessions. This is what I do with my shampoo to pretend my hair.

1.       I dilute my shampoo

2.       I add an oil in my diluted shampoo mixture

3.       I only shampoo my hair once.

Another reason I am comfortable DC on dry hair is I co-wash my hair, most of the time.

How has your week been?

‘Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.’ – Mark Twain