And Now, My Sister Sally Shares...

Hello, I'm Sally White, Connie's sister. I'm not a blogger so I'm just going to jump right in. Like I said Connie is my sister, a two time Cancer survivor, a Cathlete and my best friend.

 Connie has inspired me to eat healthy and exercise, if she can do it so can I.

I am a mother of three wonderful children and I have a great husband. I am blessed to be able to stay at home to raise our kids which doesn't leave me a lot of free time to exercise. I have recently found my balance, I workout at night after the kids are all asleep and everything is picked up. 

I enjoy cooking healthy meals for my family. We have gotten the kids addicted to fruit and veggies. These rare children would rather eat apples than pizza!!

I tried to workout when our oldest was a baby, but I couldn't wrap me head around it with going to college, being a new mom and everything that went with it. Although I did enjoy exercising with my sister and sometimes our mom. 

It didn't help that I was very unhappy with the way I looked. I was a size 6 before I had Zoey, and I gained over 80lbs while I was pregnant, which was awful. I just wanted my body to snap back to normal, but of course that didn't happen. The more I did try the more I got mad at myself, I told myself that it wasn't working nor was it worth it... I was stuck in this body and nothing I did would change it.  I just gave up. I regret that now, but I can't go back. All I can do is focus on now.

So here I am 5 years later and I'm giving it my best shot. Connie got me into Cathe Friedrich and I love her! She makes me work, sweat, "feel the burn" and it hurts so good!!! I am still very new to working out and its HARD, but so worth it. I can now do Cathe's Travel Fit DVD, which I never thought I would do. I rotate Travel Fit and Low impact- Total Body Sculpting, and I also run after the kids (it's exercise, I swear ).

I don't want these exercises to become "easy" after a few more weeks I would like to move up to something harder and eventually do STS.

For now, I am happy that I can do any of it!

Guest Post- Holistic What?

My friend Tricia wrote a special Guest Post for me. Tricia is a fellow Cathlete, fellow Reiki practitioner, fellow blogger (http://mercade.wordpress.com/), Southerner at heart, my Beachbody Coach and is an encouraging and all-round wonderful person. Love and Light shine brightly through her. Read her post, you'll see. 

Tricia, you have my deepest gratitude and respect!

          I became a Reiki practitioner back in 2004 or 2005. I can’t believe it’s been that long!  I hadn’t really heard about holistic healing at the time.  A friend brought it up at work one day, just because she had seen a listing for a class through a community school.  She did some research on it and wanted to take the class.  She had a background in crystals already, so had some insight into the field of holistic energy. I’d never heard of the practice, nor was I versed at all in holistic medicine. I wasn’t really all that excited about it, but it sounded intriguing. I told her I’d take the class with her. 

            After 2 weekends of classes and my first attunement, I became a Level 1 Reiki Practitioner, able to give self-treatments and work on family and friends.  I liked how the treatments made me feel. It wasn’t an immediate feeling.  It took time.  Reiki is a slow healing process, not a quick fix.  I enjoyed getting together with a small group of people and giving and receiving treatments once a month.  Who knew this would only be the beginning of a journey into holistic wellness.

            About a year later, I received my attunement for Level 2 and a year after that, Master Level.  I can now give attunements to anyone who wishes to become a Reiki practitioner.  The title is something of a misnomer as no one every really becomes a master at it! There is always something to learn from and share with others.

            After a time, I attended another workshop, just a demonstration really, on reflexology.  I fell in love with it!  I began looking into the different modalities, for there are many different schools of practice in reflexology.  I found one that I liked and met the instructor.  I felt connected to her, so registered for her course. 

            You might think that I’m a full time holistic practitioner now, but that is not the case.  I still only self-treat with Reiki and give reflexology treatments to my husband who loves them! The treatment with reflexology is done on the feet and he just loves that!

            After that first introduction to Reiki, I became a firm believer in holistic medicine.  I started taking workshops and classes on everything I could. There’s a lot I still want to learn and do, but time and money, especially money, have become an issue over the last couple of years.  So, I wait, as patiently as I possibly can until I can start back up again!

            If anyone asked for a treatment, I wouldn’t hesitate to give him or her one! It’s something that must be experienced and can’t really be explained.  The practice can be described, but the experience of a treatment cannot.  It’s different for everyone.  Someone very sensitive and in tune with themselves may notice a difference during their first treatment, but others may not. I would recommend everyone try a treatment at least once for the experience. Doctors and hospitals are bringing these practices into their offices and patient rooms.  There is a basis for the power of holistic treatments. It is not mumbo jumbo, but a respected and widely used practice to assist in the healing of people with and without ailments.  Everyone can use some healing, whether to relieve stress, increase relaxation, improve sleep and much more!

Cleaning Up

I've been a bad blogger lately. I've had plenty to say (when do I not? ha!), but just haven't had time to write. So, I've asked a couple very special people to help me keep this blog alive and hopping by writing Guest Posts while I'm away on business. Be on the lookout tomorrow morning for the first one!


I realized, yes again, that there just isn't going to be a 'normal' in my life. I'm okay with it, I just need to learn to adapt my clean eating to it on a much better level. 


No, wait a minute. Actually, I kind of LOVE that my life isn't 'normal'. I just want to learn to eat cleanly in every un-normal scenario. The key is planning and having quick clean eats to grab no matter what. I'm going to be practicing over the weekend while on a business trip. I have a few clean-ish protein bars, Clean Eating's Cajun red beans and rice with turkey sausage packed up and ready for the cooler, clean drinks for the ride and the hotel (to save money, too!), snack size baggies of nuts, a bag of organic popcorn for noshing, and my head screwed on clean and straight. 


The past few days have been transitional-clean (yes, I made up that term) after nearly 2 solid weeks of unwise choices while my sisters and their kids were visiting and playing. It's wasn't 100% awful, there were some clean eats squeezed in here and there but nothing consistent. Not surprisingly I felt pretty bad most days. 


I think, for me, part of going berserk is rebelling against this 'new' way of eating that cancer forced upon me. I'm in the midst of my next round of post treatment check ups. (My last set of tests is this coming Thursday, and I should get all the results at the end of the day.) These days have an anxious undertone to them which makes me want to find comfort in food. I know better, yes. And yes I've chosen to embrace clean eating as a long term way to fight against another cancer recurrence among other health reasons. No one has forced it on me, besides me and the research I've done and can't ignore. Still, I forget about all that sometimes. (Damn you chemo brain!!)  I'm remembering again and feel oh soooo much better already! 


I had a fabulous 75 minute reflexology treatment from my dear friend at Foot Steps In Eden on Monday, been doing self-Reiki treatments every day, just finished Cathe's STS Meso 2 today and eats are getting cleaner and cleaner. Ahhhhh. And Ommmmm.


Curious about Reiki and Reflexology? Look for my friend Tricia's guest post here tomorrow. It's a goodie. Many thanks, Tricia!!