After last night’s blasting entrance into the world of Cirque Fit complete with super-cardio workout, I was a little nervous for tonight…but I was going to do whatever I needed to, come hell or high water.   I must say that the twins (Epsom and Salt) did a good job on my back last night because it really wasn’t too bad today.  A little stiff and a few twinges, but overall, not too shabby.  Where I DID feel soreness was in the muscles between the shoulder blades… not an “Oh, my God, what did I do?” soreness… just a reminder that I actually did something physical last night, and that was a good pain to have.  I’ve been told that tomorrow will be the telling day, so when I got home after meeting today, I the twins took care of me (and I remembered to get the spa kit out of its box!).

Tonight we had our introductory group meeting for the Challengers, met our Nutritionist, Patti Hedrick from Love Nourish Live, and our head trainer, William Dovidio, showed us how to stretch properly.  We were given a binder that holds our meal plans for the first two weeks (the Real Change Challenge), as well as a lovely journal to keep track of thoughts, aha moments, and notes from our sessions.  Mine is a lovely dusty rose color with an amethyst tea rose on the cover.   Ah, synchronicity!   Amethyst tea roses are my favorite flower in the whole world!  Not only that, my birth stone is the amethyst and my middle name is Rose (hence the name of this blog site!).  Yup, the Universe is telling me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.

I have yet to sit and read through the meal plans because, excited little bee that I am, I wanted to hit the blog right after the hot soak I took as soon as I got home.  I’ll expand more on that in a later post, ok?  However, there is one nutrition related thing that I want to share.

Last week I saw a FaceBook post about cinnamon and honey being a killer cough remedy.  Well, I was pretty sick with the flu and I could tell it was one of those things that was probably going to travel into my chest, so I thought I’d give it a try to see if I could avoid the groggy effects of OTC medicines.   I added a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and about a tablespoon of honey to my tea… and within a half hour, I was actually not coughing.  And it cleared my sinuses to boot!  I was so surprised that I went online to learn more about the combo, and I found that the mixture has been reputed to cure a whole host of illness as well as aid in weight loss.

This info can be found courtesy of Sue Baily at her Hub Page-  http://suebailey.hubpages.com/hub/CINNAMON–HONEY-THE-MAGIC-MIXTURE.

Ok!  So I decided that if I was going to add this to my routine and my challenge, I was going to make sure that I used the purest ingredients.  I got myself a jar of organic cinnamon and one of raw honey, and I am going to drink this twice a day throughout the whole twelve week challenge to see what happens.  It’s supposed to help with arthritis, lower cholesterol, improve blood vessels, and fight fatigue…all of which I need help with.  I will keep you posted on how all that works out as well, and I happen to be enjoying a mug of it right now!

Oh…one thing I did figure out about how to make this.  The first time I did it, I poured the boiling water into a cup that had a teaspoon of cinnamon powder in it and I added honey afterwards.   It made a mess because the powder caked up around the cup and was nearly impossible to dissolve.  The second time, I poured the honey over the cinnamon before adding the water, and the mixing results were not much better.  After that, I decided to make a paste out of the two before the water, and that made a tremendous difference!  So if anyone is going to try this, that’s the way to go!

Another thing, though.  If you are going to use raw honey, hot water kills all the beneficial enzymes. ..but cinnamon doesn’t dissolve well in lukewarm or cold water.   I pondered how to work this concoction so that I could get the most of the benefits with the least amount of mess; this is what I came up with.  I made a paste of the cinnamon using one teaspoon of pasteurized honey and dissolved that in the boiling water.  I let it sit with the tea bag until it became lukewarm, and THEN I added the raw honey.  It may not be a steaming hot drink, but it’s still delicious (and it still works to calm the cough).

My Suzie Homemaker tip of the day!

Ok… so that’s what’s going on with the nutrition end of the deal so far.

As for the fitness end, William gave us great ideas about how to stretch and went around to check out to make sure that we were each doing them correctly.  He also gave us our homework assignments for morning and night, as well as for those days we don’t have a training session.  By the time this is all over, I really, really want to make sure that I can do the following:

– a decent freaking push-up without a face plant in the carpet

– at least get both legs off the floor at the same time in a V-sit position (they are presently both dead weight as I tried to will the heels to leave the ground without success)

– my first-time-ever-in-my-nearly-51-years-of-existence pull up!

Anything else that I learn is welcomed and will be a complete surprise to this body!

As soon as I get my pic-collage back from William, I will share my “Before” pics.   Yup, I am hesitant to post them publicly… not proud of what they probably look like… BUT I do look forward to seeing what happens by the time we get to the “After” pictures!