Are you ready for the biggest sob story ever?

I have been MIA for a while. Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me the last two months. If you’ve read my last couple posts you know that back in February my Grandpa passed away. After that, I kinda went down hill for a while. I flew to Idaho for my Grandpa’s memorial one weekend and then drove there again a few days later with my hubby. I’m not sure if it was a combination of being down and too much traveling, but I got really sick a few days after I got home. Sicker than I have been in several years now. I felt miserable for over a week.

On the first day that I was starting to feel like myself again, I knew that I needed to get outside. You see, Colorado has been having the weirdest spring this year. It’s like a normal spring! So I was itching to get out in the sun! I was out doing a little work in my garden and tried to move a flower pot that was way too heavy for me. Bad idea. I had immediate back pain and could hardly move. Why didn’t I just ask my hubby to help me? Because I’m stubborn. 

I spent the next week in a boat load of pain and making several trips to the chiropractor. On top of all this, I had a lingering cough from being sick. It was that obnoxious tickle in the back of my throat that wouldn’t go away. Let me tell you, back pain + coughing constantly = misery. Just wait, this gets even better…

After about a solid week of dealing with this new awesome combination, I started to have this really bad pain in my ribs. Every time I would cough, sneeze, or move it would send a shooting pain into my breast. Yikes. I had my chiropractor x-ray me and found that I had coughed a vertebrae and some ribs out of place. 

Seriously, can a girl catch a break?!

Needless to say I’ve been spending my life between the chiropractor and laying on the couch with ice packs everywhere it hurts. Altogether I had about five weeks of total pain and misery. I don’t like feeling useless and not being able to do the normal things that I need to do in a day. That didn’t help my case at all.

Before all this chaos started, I was doing really good about exercising 4-5 times per week. My hubby and I had bought a treadmill late last year and I was getting into a good habit of using it. Well of course this totally fell apart when this all started. After five weeks of laying on the couch with no exercise I had put on a few pounds that I was finally starting to shed and then some. 

Enter the wonderful ladies at Tone It Up. Have you heard of them? I have been following Karena & Katrina for a few years now. They are fun and super inspiring. I first found them on YouTube looking for some workouts to do. They have amazing workouts that I’ve always felt like I can modify for what I need. They also have a nutrition plan membership that you can join. 

I thought about joining their nutrition plan for years. But I just stuck with doing the free workouts and following their journey. A few weeks ago I saw that they were getting ready to start what they call a Bikini Series (8 week program) to get in shape. Because I was FINALLY starting to feel like myself again, I thought that this would be so awesome to do to get myself back on track. 

I wasn’t sure if I was ready to spend the money but I was blessed by an unexpected check in the mail. As soon as I saw that the amount was the cost of the Nutrition Plan, I knew that this is what I should use it for.  

For those of you who don’t know me personally, you don’t know about my business that I do. For about 3 1/2 years I’ve been an ambassador for Plexus Worldwide. It’s the Health & Happiness company with amazing natural products. Because of what the Plexus products have already done for me, I knew it would be a lot easier for me to start a nutrition plan. 

I have been on the plan for over two weeks now. It has really helped me a lot to be more disciplined. I feel really good! I’ve already lost 6 lbs and 2 inches off my waist. I’ll probably share more of my TIU journey on here, and more healthy recipes that are inspired by my nutrition plan!

Here are just some of my yummy meals I’ve eaten so far! Plus a few photos of my journey.