A bit of food for thought, courtesy of Pinterest (Why did I resist you for so long?!).

Do all the things that make you happy, laugh and smile, cherish those moments.

Just friggen do it! Do what other’s won’t. Do it for YOU!

Don’t be lazy, greatness creates greatness.

Enjoy the moment, life is a journey…

Remember this post about my mystery fatigue…?

Turn’s out I am not Iron deficient, nor am I B12 deficient, my bleeding time is perfectly normal as is my thyroid function. In fact all the tests that were taken with my bloods came back perfectly normal.

Which is a little frustrating when you spent a weekend couped up in bed with no energy yet otherwise feeling perfectly fine (AKA it was not a cold or flu!).

After discussion with the Doctor about the things going on in my life and reassuring her I was not depressed along with review of the side affects of the Jadelle Implant (oh yeah, got that around the same time I started getting more bruising and exercising more) it appears that fatigue is a common side effect.

It looks as though it was a huge coincidence that I crashed not too long after stopping taking the Iron tablets. It appears as though it was too much exercise combined with a spike in hormones from the Implant and what was probably around about the time I would usually get my period (haven’t had that since the end of December – another common side effect of the implant – although this is a welcome one )

The implant is a slow release hormone which doesn’t necessarily release the same amount of hormone each day, one day I could have a lot more hormones rushing around my body than the day (or days) before. This combined with my bodies own natural hormones seem to have caused my body to shut down and just want to sleep.

The doctors advice was to decide if I wanted it removed or not as it is very very likely the cause of the fatigue. As this was the first time since November (when I got the implant) that I’ve had any major issues I have decided to keep the implant in for now. However if I start having that kind of fatigue more frequently I will be getting it taken out ASAP.

By the time I had gotten back to the doctors for the results of my tests I was feeling back to normal again and aside from a few tired days resulting from lack of sleep (perhaps a whole new blog post there!) I have been feeling back to normal since.

Whilst it was annoying having to pay for two doctors visits and get a blood test to find out that there really wasn’t anything wrong with me it is nice to have some answers and know I need to be careful if I start feeling fatigued and give myself some rest.

One of the biggest things I have discovered on this healthy living journey is that a little bit of support goes a long way.

It’s one thing to believe in yourself and another to have someone there who you know actually supports you and will challenge you if needed.

That’s not to say I wasn’t supported in the past, just that the actions didn’t match what was being said. This often lead to taking the easy option and eating takeaways and other crap far too often, That ultimately was my decision so I don’t blame anyone else for that, however proper support would’ve gone a long way towards not caving (or not caring enough to look after myself).

Another thing I’ve noticed with a couple of other people who are on a similar journey is that they see people questioning what they are eating / the exercise they are doing as a criticism and resist it.

Sometimes you need to listen to what people are telling you, let it sink in and if what they are saying rings true don’t be so stubborn as to do the opposite. Of course sometimes people are full of noise and not worth listening too, I guess distinguishing between the two is rather important.

End Ranty, Nonsensical healthy living post…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I LOVE my heart rate monitor! Best exercise tool ever! I love knowing exactly what I’m burning and also love the weekly summaries tool on it.

Below are the past four weeks worth of exercise, showing the total time, number of sessions and calories burnt (with the exception of the Fast 5 Netball Tournament from last week as I didn’t wear the HRM).

This week is the final Indoor Netball for the season, which I am glad about to be honest. We seemed to often get stuck with the 7.30 games meaning I didn’t get home till after 8.30 and it felt like all I had time for was to exercise and work.

Saturday netball starts with an opening day in two weeks time and next weekend we have a Tournament in Levin. We have also started practicing on Wednesday nights.

Between the late night games, fatigue and generally trying to look after myself better I have decided I MUST implement a rest day, and it has to be a proper rest day at least once per week.

I did it this week and it felt so much better going in to the gym after two days off (1 rest day and 1 was a walk up and down the stairs).

My exercise plan from now until when I get up to Auckland is now;

4 * gym sessions per week including 20-30 minutes cardio.
1 * Netball Practice (generally not that strenuous – If I’m feeling enthusiastic and it’s not raining I may implement a short 4.7km run before practice each Wednesday it isn’t raining)
1 * Netball Game (generally 3/4 of the game)
1 * Complete Rest day

I also have an unwritten goal to burn a minimum of 2000 calories per week, which incidentally with the amount of sessions I’ve been doing it hasn’t been an issue.

I also had a very average reassessment at the gym which has got me thinking about food and trying to fine tune that as well, thank you my fitness pal

Eeep, so I bit the bullet and ended up buying a mountain bike, and a brand new one at that!

I still can’t believe how much those things cost, after a bit of research it looks like I got a good deal (with 50% off the RRP) and now have a bike that should do everything I need it too.

I get to test this puppy out (and more importantly, see the b/f!!) sometime between Thursday – Saturday as I’m heading up to Auckland after work on Wednesday and staying up there until Saturday.

She is living in Auckland until I get up there as realistically I won’t really get to use it while I’m down here anyway.

The Tuesday following Easter I did something I haven’t done in a long time…. pulled out my scrap booking supplies!

I had the day off as an ‘accountants holiday’ which funnily enough I am one of the few accountants I know that actually get this day off, weird but no complaints here.

I have an (unwritten) goal of completing a scrapbook for my trip this year and perhaps even one for 2013 in general, yet the lack of space I have to make such mess is a bit of a hindrance.

I have managed to pull out a few pages with some very random colour combinations over the past week, I will attempt to do a couple more this afternoon and then give the parentals back their dining room table

I kind of see this blog as a bit of an online scrapbook so you will see some events I have written about on the blog showing up in the scrap booking pages as well.

Unfortunately the photo’s were taken from my cell phone so are quiet small, hopefully you get the gist of it.

Me and Biking have never gotten along that well, I used to bike to and from High School and that was about it. I was always a bit cautious around bikes and hated anyone biking close to me as I was sure I was going to fall off.

When the b/f purchased a mountain bike I got this feeling I was going to be back on a bike within no time. It’s true you never forget how to ride a bike, even if you are still just as cautious as you were 10 years ago (WTH, how did it become 10 years since I’ve regularly ridden a bike?!).

We went out to Woodhill forest in Auckland where I hired a bike and we hit the trails. It was different to anything I’d ever done before and I wasn’t very good in the loose sand but managed to completed about 10km of trails without injuring myself or anyone else for that matter… bonus!

To be honest it would have been easier for me to go for a 10km run but I did really enjoy the ride and can see quiet a few more rides in my future (if he has the patience to wait for me that is ). According to my heart rate monitor the ride took 1hour 23minutes and burned 449 calories, the majority of which were fat burning. Not too bad!

The sore bum later that evening and the following day were certainly not the highlight but unfortunately there is not a lot you can do about that other than keep getting on the bike!

So turns out I am now on the look out for a mountain bike…..

A while ago I wrote about my random bruising and how I was starting to take Iron tablets to see if this sorted it out.

Self diagnosis is a wonderful thing; I began taking the Iron tablets and low and behold the bruising disappeared. I stopped taking the tablets whilst overseas and came out in the hugest bruises ever, and all over my arms and legs!

I kept taking the tablets once I got back from overseas and would you know it, the bruising disappeared yet again.

Enter the curse of not being able to swallow tablets (yes I am aware how retarded that sounds and I have tried so many different methods, none have worked). I came home from work one day to mum and dad asking why I had black teeth…. WTF, my teeth are black? And why didn’t anyone tell me sooner? Turns out Iron tablets when chewed give your teeth a nice black tinge, good times.

I then found out there is such thing as liquid Iron (naive right?) and went to the supermarket to buy some and almost choked at the price! Like $30 a bottle compared to $13 for the tablets, hmmm that’s not sustainable for me. Turns out you can get liquid Iron on prescriptions however, which brings me to the state I am in at the moment.

I have stopped taking the Iron tablets since the Thursday just before Easter, i.e about 1.5 weeks ago and was fine for the first few days then was gradually getting tireder and tireder very very quickly. I ended up going home from work a few hours early on Friday as I could barely keep my eye’s open after getting 8 hours sleep the night before as well.

This morning I woke up feeling a bit tired but better than I had the day before so decided to go for a walk with one of the girl’s from work with the plan to then head to the gym to do some gentle weights. Ha, I am funny, the walk completely took it out of me and I had to head home to lie in bed and nap. I managed to get up late in the arvo to go to the supermarket but have retired back to bed yet again.

It is the weirdest feeling as I feel perfectly fine other than constantly feeling tired. I am hoping that it is simply a matter of needing the Iron, fingers crossed I can get some blood tests done on Monday (the reason for stopping the tablets, to get bloods done which will hopefully show I am Iron deficient) then start taking the tablets again until mid week when I can hopefully get into the doctor to get a script for liquid Iron (assuming that is my issue!).

In random news I don’t appear to be covered in bruises again though, perhaps a week is too quick for them to come back, perhaps I have that to look forward too next week.

The Tongariro Crossing has been on my must do list for as long as I can remember! Without the excuse of studying or snow on the Mountain, Easter was the perfect opportunity to conquer this!

Unfortunately you are still unable to cross the entire crossing, having to stop at the half way point and return the way you came in. This means effectively you are walking the same distance but is still not quiet as satisfying as saying you have done the entire crossing.

Being Easter weekend I knew it was going to be busy on the track, it was even busier than I expected though! We ended up arranging transport from our hostel (YHA National Park Backpackers) which was $30 each which I thought was rather steep, but given the alternative of leaving at stupid o’clock to try to get into the (rather small) car park and then having the worry of whether or not it would be safe, it was a small price to pay.

It was a bit cold and very cloudy and we made it to the top (just before where you turn around to go back) and were greeted with an incredibly cloudy view of the Lakes, after sitting down for a while huddling to keep warm and eating what we had been calling lunch at approx 10.35 (Yes not quite lunch time!) the clouds lifted and we received an amazing view of all the Lakes without the cloud obstruction.

After a long rest at the top enjoying the relaxation, trying to keep warm and enjoying the views we decided to start heading back. Now that the cloud had lifted it was a lot easier to see where we were heading, I’m kind of glad there was cloud on the hike there as it was rather steep and looked kind of daunting to climb. The climb down was a bit slow going to begin with so we didn’t end up slipping and sliding down the mountain.

After a long 6hours 56minutes (Including a couple of hours worth of stops) and 1590 calories burnt we had conquered the crossing along with A LOT of other people! I would recommend doing the crossing on a weekend other than Easter as there were a tonne of people. I’d also be tempted to do the whole thing from start to finish once the second half of it is open, just because I’m curious about that last section.

What did you do over Easter?

Easter was quiet busy in this neck of the woods. Two items have been crossed off both the bucket list and list of thing’s I wanted to do this year.

The first adventure was the Bridge to Nowhere which is one of those things I’ve always wanted to do since it is so close, yet never managed to do.

We took the jet boat up to the Mangapurua Landing where you walk for about half an hour to the bridge, it looks just like the photo’s but is really quiet and peaceful out there. Until boat loads of tourists turn up that is. We were near the front of the pack walking out to the bridge and skipped the lookout on the way to the bridge which mean’t we were the first people at the bridge (other than the guide) which was pretty cool.

We had lunch on the bridge then heard about why the bridge was built and how life was for those families who farmed the region back in the good ole days. After a walk back to the landing we took the jet boat around halfway back to Pipiriki where we then got off the boat and boarded our Kayaks to get ourselves the 10km back to Pipiriki.

After seeing a couple of the rapids on the way up to the landing combined with my lack of kayaking skills (minimal to none) I was a little nervous about this trip back. We made it back safe and sound, some of us wetter than others (ahem, It wasn’t me that fell in :p) after burning 417calories in the 1hr 48mins we were in the water.

By the end of the trip I’d worked out how to keep the kayak relatively straight and don’t think I did too bad considering I’d been in a kayak for a few minutes only once before. I don’t think I’ll be taking up kayaking anytime soon but would definitely do another trip like this that involved a bit of kayaking as it was nice being in the middle of nowhere just paddling along.

Next up we tackled the Tongariro Crossing (Finally!)