Wednesday, June 21, 2006

A fine morning

The sunrise this morning from my office window.

It's just after five a.m. and I've been up for hours. One of those nights when thoughts fight for attention in your head, so, forget sleep.

A couple of things have me excited.

After reassessing my life, I hired a personal trainer. I start today. She has a variety of programs including an outdoor 'bootcamp' which should offer me enough variety to keep me interested. I get plenty of aerobic exercise walking my dog twice a day and hiking, but I need to work on some resistance training. I've heard over and over again (even from my GP) that this will help me lose weight, get into shape, and increase my energy. Let me at it.

Today is also the first day of a 10-day cleanse my DH and I doing. It's called the Master Cleanse and consists of drinking a tonic of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. On top of that, you drink an herbal laxative tea every evening and a morning expunger of sea-salt water. I know a few people who have done it and they say it really increases your energy but is hard to keep up for the full 10 days. We'll see how it goes.

Finally, I have been playing with my new software all morning (night?). It's called Liquid Story Binder and, oh, what fun. Organizational trees, outlining windows, timelines, and chapter building. You can include sound and graphic files associated with your text. I've been working hard on the structure and GMC of my WIP, so I've input a lot of my data to the program. 30-day free trial. Okay, I admit I have an addiction to new software. Hey, gotta have some fun right?

Two questions: What do you think of the Master Cleanse? And, do you use any software for your writing?

12 comments:

Melissa Amateis said...

I don't do any master cleansing things, but just try to eat healthy - which means no fried foods, no highly processed foods, no white sugars, no white flour.

I'm glad you're taking charge of your health! I know you'll do great!

Dana Pollard said...

I recently got Writeway, and I'm amazed!

Anonymous said...

Scanner: I will keep that in mind! Thx.
Melissa: That is my final goal, to eat that way. This is kinda my jump start.
Redchurch: I wholeheartedly believe in good bacteria, but I also believe we take in stuff that creates toxic reactions in our bodies. Forex, processed foods, barbecued meats, all meat for that matter, trans fats, soft drinks, sweetner. As for the energy being psychosomatic, I'll take it whatever way I can get it! Thanks for your comments!
Dana: What made you buy Writeway and are you satisfied with it?

Rene said...

I simply don't think about Master Cleanse. I'd rather shove long, steel needles in my eyeballs while listening nails on a chalkboard, over and over and over.

I'm a boring MS Word gal for software. I tried WriteWay Pro and I liked it but knew I wouldn't use it like it should be.

Shesawriter said...

I never heard of the Master Cleanse. Sounds interesting, but I don't think I'll try it. Cayenne pepper? Uh... nope. LOL! As for software, I use MS and Word Perfect.

Dana Pollard said...

WriteWay was designed by an author's husband with her help. I'm a pantzer, and hopefully this will allow me to fill in all the blanks. And believe me, it's verra detailed.

Oh, and I don't master cleanse... I just try to eat healthy.

Jean said...

I've considered trying a cleansing routine before. I'm not sure what to make of Master Cleanse. I find it laughable that anyone would need to reduce the maple syrup -- the whole thing at most amounts to less than 1000 calories per day. Not enough for anyone to worry about gaining weight on. The ten days amounts to a fad diet. You're getting Vitamin C, carbohydrates, and water. This gives your body something to chew on.

If you want to use it to jump start eating right, it may be worth a try. Ten days is supposed to be the amount of time it takes to break a habit, so this will help you break habits and cravings for things that aren't very good for you that you've become addicted to (if I can avoid chocolate for ten days, I don't miss it much. I haven't missed meat since January -- except hamburgers -- thank goodness for Boca burgers).

Congrats for taking charge of your health and best of luck to you and DH. Let me know how the cleanse goes -- I have another friend who enthusiastically recommends them periodically. I just haven't made a commitment to one yet.

As for Liquid Story Binder, that looks interesting. I downloaded it and may take a look at it, but, as several others have noted, I'm also a bland Word user.

Kelly Boyce said...

Hmm...a laxative and an expunger. There's some bathroom humor in there but I'll leave it alone. I've done a 1 or 2 day cleanse before but not quite like the one you're doing. Mine basically consisted of eating nothing but grapes just to 'purify' my system and get the junk out. It was pretty hard because I have a pretty big appetite, so I was hungry the whole time but I made it through. I found it a pretty good way to get me off of junk food if I felt I was starting to eat too much of it.

Anonymous said...

Redchurch: No, not a quick fix; rather a jump start to healthier eating. I don't really eat all that poorly, but I think it's a good idea to clean out the pipes once in a while. I used to be vegetarian (and even vegan for a couple of years) and I agree that at that time I certainly did not need to cleanse. Now, I do.

Anonymous said...

Redchurch: I was veggie for 15 years, vegan for 2. My husband is a good cook, and where meat used to smell off to me, his famous flank steak started to smell better every time he made it. Then I started sneaking a taste but spitting it out, you can guess the rest. Now I like my bacon raw and my meat rare. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

I should add, that I started craving meat. I think that was a sign, my body telling me I wasn't getting enough protein. (don't forget I want to write a book of excuses one day... I'm just practicing)

Tess said...

New software to try. Yay!!! Thanks for the link :-)