TO BEACHBODY OR NOT TO BEACHBODY? That is the question.

There is something you need to know about me. I am very tall. I am 5’11 inches tall. I have been this tall for as long as I can remember. I think I was this tall in middle school. My height, along with my huge, frizzy, curly hair, and my buck teeth complete with silver metal braces made me feel...bad. The opposite of confident. People ALWAYS made comments about my height when all I wanted was to be the same as everyone else. Any tall girls out there know what I’m talking about? Virtual fist bump to you that we made it through.

When you are a tall, skinny, girl in middle school, unless you are extremely naturally talented at a sport, everyone makes you feel as though you should play basketball. EVERYONE always told me that I should play basketball. This included family members, friends, non-friends, friends’ mothers, friends’ fathers, neighbors, random check out people at stores, my doctor...should I go on? But GUESS WHAT? I was not talented at basketball! My body was growing ahead of my coordination and I couldn’t dribble a ball, let alone shoot it into a hoop. Every physical activity was embarrassing to me. I felt like an idiot during every gym class. Big shout out to my seventh grade gym teacher for shouting in front of every cute boy: “Speed it up, swan legs!” Did I mention that when you are tall you are also supposed to be fast?

I’m going to stop talking about because it is upsetting me, nearly thirty years later. The point is this: I attribute feeling like I had no control over my body plus feeling like everyone had an opinion about my body to the fact that I never got into sports. I was a reader and sports weren’t really my jam anyway. But because of this I never exercised when I was a kid. I was also extremely skinny so weight was never an issue.

Until later.

Eventually, later in my twenties my bad habits and my metabolism finally caught up with me and I gained about forty pounds. I still had that forty pounds on me when I became pregnant with my first son. With that pregnancy, I gained another forty pounds. Six months after he was born I began to diet for the first time ever. I did Weight Watchers, which worked! It got rid of the baby weight, plus a little bit more. But, I could never tone up because I hated exercise. I hated the gym, I hated running. I wanted to like the gym. I wanted to like running. But I didn’t.

Then, one year after my first son was born, I found out I was pregnant with my second son. Hello, another fifty pounds! Again, I dieted after he was born and lost the weight.

Fast forward a few years to last summer. My husband’s best friend, his wife who I love, and their two super cutie kids came over one afternoon for a visit and to swim. His wife had just begun to talk about a new role for her as a coach for a company called Beachbody. I didn’t know what that was, but I knew that her arms were out of this world. I was in awe of her beautiful, toned arms. I couldn’t stop talking about them. Thinking back, it probably got a little weird.

So, I asked her about it and told her I would like to give it a shot. Remember, I am a teacher, so I am home in the summer. I figured I had plenty of time to give it a try, whatever it was. So, she told me what to do to get started and I did it. “It” was this:

I ordered Shakeology, a healthy, powder full of protein and vitamins and nutrients. You make a shake once a day.  It tastes sinful, it is so good.

I ordered the 21 Day Fix workout. This is a workout that you do for 21 straight days, a different thirty minute video every day of the week. Within Beachbody there are tons of exercise programs to choose from: P90X is one you have probably heard of.

And I just did it. I gave it a shot. And at the end of those twenty one days I had lost two pounds and six inches on my body. But I had gained exercise confidence. I could do this! And what’s more, I loved it! And I felt great! And I no longer felt tired. I had felt tired every day for almost a decade. That was gone. That was amazing.

So, eight months later, I am still doing it. I am currently doing the 21 Day Fix Extreme, but for months I did only yoga. I have lost a total of six pounds and EIGHTEEN inches off my body. I am down two sizes and have muscle places where I definitely did not before.

I feel GOOD. I feel happy and awake and alive. So, my answer is: YES! Beachbody! Do it! TRY IT! It is not a scam, it is the real deal, and the only thing that has ever worked for me in my life! 

I love it so much I have signed up to be a coach. And although I don't think I am going to quit my day job and sing Beachbody from the rafters, I am here to quietly help anyone who feels like maybe they want to take a little jump into a healthier lifestyle. I can promise you that I went into this with full skepticism, and I am in it now for real. I am in it for ME and my health and my kids and my life. Not bad for an overly tall, self conscious, swan legged girl!

It's Time to Get Real

HELLO!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, how I have missed blogging! I am so happy to be back, but this time with a new site. My last blog, A Novel Suggestion, was all about my first love: BOOKS. I am a bibliophile at heart and reading is one of my main passions. My obsession goes wide and deep, but my extra special loves are Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, and my boyfriend, Bill Shakespeare. However, What A Novel Suggestion was missing was ME. It was not sustainable for me to write about books and how I felt about them without discussing my life and why that particular novel spoke to me at that particular time in my life. I could not write freely without sharing my life and my struggles and my happiness. I was hiding behind a blog and a photo of my sweet Jane Austen. So, I have put on my big girl 2017 pants. It is time for me to take a deep breath and leap into this technological world of sharing.

So, here I am in all my glory.

Hi, my name is Liz.

I am first and foremost a mom of two boys, ages three and five. I am a mom who tries very hard to be the amazing mom that I have always been in my head, but can’t always quite seem to get it together. I am ALWAYS the last mom to send in the field trip forms. I am ALWAYS the last mom to pick up in carline, when I can actually make it to carline myself, which is a rarity. Sometimes, and I hate to admit this but I have to because it is true, I yell at my sons and I am not 100% sure they deserved it. Ugh. There it is.

I am a wife. My husband is the total best. He is funny and smart and a hard worker. He is a great dad. He snow blows the driveway and doesn’t even ask me to come out to shovel. But. sometimes I feel like we don’t have enough time together to talk about the stuff that we care about as adults. Sometimes I feel like our lives are spent pouring milk into Lego cups, figuring out the easiest way to make a dinner that all four of us will actually eat, and trying to have just one single conversation without being interrupted.

I am a homeowner. Actually, to be clear, I am home project obsessed. I LOVE A GOOD DIY PROJECT. We bought our house from my husband’s parents. And although they made lots of improvements to the house, we still had a lot to do after we moved in. But, the next month I found out I was pregnant with our first born, and so projects were put on the back burner. Hence why we are still working on it six years later. Plus, like everyone else I have an affinity for HGTV and Pinterest. Enough said about THAT. For now.

I am an English teacher. I have heard more than once that many people think this might be the worst career choice on earth, but for me - it’s perfection. I love teaching. It is an innate need I have and although not every day is Nirvana, it is pretty close. I have loved to read since I learned how, and since I don’t have as much time in my life to read for pleasure anymore, teaching literature fills that void for me. The only downside of teaching for me is that my school is twenty miles away, and recently, with both boys in school, this has become a massive obstacle for me to overcome. Especially on days like last Monday when the school nurse called me to tell that my three year old had just thrown up in his hat. Yes, you read that right. Directly into his super cute winter hat.

I am an exerciser. I can’t believe I just wrote that because this is a major milestone in my life. All my life I wanted to be someone who cared about working out, and...now I do! And it only took 37.5 years!

So, this blog, my newest adventure, is going to include all aspects of my life, hoping that I resonate with and hear from people who accept and get what I’m saying. And I PROMISE to keep talking about what I am reading. Reading is one of the pieces of my life that makes me - ME. I have to talk about books. If I don’t get it out during the day, at school, or in this blog, I will shout about it in my sleep, annoying my family who really needs a good night’s rest. This blog is about trying to fit it all in, about creating time in my life to do all the “stuff”, but still enjoying my life. My hero, Charlotte Bronte, once wrote: "I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward."

Hence the title of this very new blog: Looking Upward

REVIEW OF THE ISLAND, BY ELIN HILDERBRAND

I am so late to two parties. The first is the Elin Hilderbrand party. The Island is the first novel of hers that I read, and I am now a fan. The second is the audiobook party. Who knew that listening to a book in my car during my commute that I am beginning to despise could be both relaxing and entertaining? Oh, you knew? Everyone knows? Did you also know that you can rent audiobooks through your public library with an app on your phone? Oh, you knew that, too? I told you I was late.

Here is a summary of the novel from Amazon:

Birdie Cousins has thrown herself into the details of her daughter Chess's lavish wedding, from the floating dance floor in her Connecticut back yard to the color of the cocktail napkins. Like any mother of a bride-to-be, she is weathering the storms of excitement and chaos, tears and joy. But Birdie, a woman who prides herself on preparing for every possibility, could never have predicted the late-night phone call from Chess, abruptly announcing that she's cancelled her engagement. 

It's only the first hint of what will be a summer of upheavals and revelations. Before the dust has even begun to settle, far worse news arrives, sending Chess into a tailspin of despair. Reluctantly taking a break from the first new romance she's embarked on since the recent end of her 30-year marriage, Birdie circles the wagons and enlists the help of her younger daughter Tate and her own sister India. Soon all four are headed for beautiful, rustic Tuckernuck Island, off the coast of Nantucket, where their family has summered for generations. No phones, no television, no grocery store - a place without distractions where they can escape their troubles.

But throw sisters, daughters, ex-lovers, and long-kept secrets onto a remote island, and what might sound like a peaceful getaway becomes much more. Before summer has ended, dramatic truths are uncovered, old loves are rekindled, and new loves make themselves known. It's a summertime story only Elin Hilderbrand can tell, filled with the heartache, laughter, and surprises that have made her page-turning, bestselling novels as much a part of summer as a long afternoon on a sunny beach.

The Island is set on an island (what?!) off of Nantucket. I live in New Hampshire and Cape Cod and the islands have always been a part of my life. So, I was already hooked. This seems like a great beach read, but I have to say this was a great New England winter read, too. I got to pretend that I was on Nantucket in July as I drove through snowstorms and frigid temperatures, while avoiding dirty snow banks.

All four women narrate and all have different issues that bring them to Tuckernuck Island that they have to resolve to be able to move on with their lives. I don’t want to give away too much, but I intently listened to the stories of each of the women and cared about what happened to them.

When I was finished with the book what struck me as odd was that I cared about the stories of all four women equally. I am used to this style of writing, each chapter having a new narrator, not necessarily in any order. I am a fan of Jodi Picoult’s novels and she uses this technique in all of her writing. But sometimes I care more about one character than others. Sometimes I think this is done purposefully by the author, sometimes not. But in The Island, I really liked all of the women, and their stories all resonated with me in some way, even though Birdie and India are old enough to be my mother.

As a woman, I love stories about strong women, women who overcome circumstance, and women who bond with other women. In my life it has been my women who have supported me through my toughest days. I grew up in a female heavy family: my mother, grandmothers, aunt, cousins; so matriarchal actually that the fact that I have two sons and no daughters is still a shock to my system years after I found out the sexes of my children.

I have never been to Tuckernuck Island, although it is a real place. The women in the story again and again talk about the simplicity of it all. This idea was comforting to me. I would love to go off the grid for a bit. I am 38 years old, so although I am plugged in at all times like the rest of the modern world, I clearly remember a time when I was not. When I would ride my bike all around my neighborhood with my friends, only going home when I was tired or hungry. My parents didn’t know where I was, but they trusted that I would make good decisions. They gave me space which in turn gave me independence. I don’t know which childhood is “better”, mine or my sons’, but I know that sometimes I crave a simpler life. I don’t know that my sons will crave that because they will never have known it.

I really enjoyed The Island. I thought about it long after it was over, and I was kind of bummed to lose these women and the island. But, the fact that they had each other made me feel comforted. In a rare occurrence, the characters and the setting of a novel were of equal importance to me.

My novel suggestion: Read it!