And I dub thee... VINYASA!

Yes!  You got it.  Vinyasa!  Oh wait... isn't that a yoga move?  Um.... yeah... it is.  BUT... the other day, when my gal Elizabeth and I were doing some P90X yoga (Remember the Crane in the last blog article?  Yeah... that's when I'm talkin' about...), we were doing what seemed like a million vinyasas when I looked at Elizabeth and said... "You know what?  The word vinyasa sounds a lot like a fancy drink!"  "Hello bartender... may I have a Vinyasa?"  "Excuse me ma'am... I'd like to order a Vinyasa, please."

Is one out there already?  I don't know, and I refuse to look, because I like to think this is our idea completely!

So, as we were doing our vinyasas and struggling to hold our balancing poses, we started coming up with ingredients to what we thought seemed to fit the name.

Lime... clean and light... mint... extremely refreshing... agave... yummy and fairly low cal... and you know what?  We did it!  Our new drink, the Vinyasa is now one of my favorite drinks!  I have a vinyasa at least once a day, it seems.

Alright... so how do you make a Vinyasa?  Here is the recipe for this amazingly refreshing summer drink.  Depending on how you make it, it can have more or less calories (and I'm putting those renditions toward the end of this article).

Vinyasa Summer Drink Recipe (120 calories)

Ingredients:
1 fresh lime
1 can (or 12 oz) seltzer water
2 T Organic Agave Nectar
Fresh mint leaves

Cut and squeeze the lime into your glass.  Add the Agave nectar and stir.  Tear up the fresh mint leaves and put them into the glass (tearing releases the mint flavor).  Add the can of seltzer water, and stir.  Finally, find a relaxing place to rest and enjoy your Vinyasa!

Variations:  Now, all of the calories in this drink come from the Agave Nectar, so you can remove the calories by using Stevia, or you can cut them in half by using only one tablespoon of the Agave Nectar.  (If you do this, you may want to try just 8oz of the seltzer water then.)

The Vinyasa can be enjoyed clean or dirty.  The recipe above is for a clean Vinyasa.  If you want to dirty it up,  just add a shot of vodka to it :) (Beware... this adds another approximate 62 calories to the drink.)

Know when to ask for help.

A real friend does the crane with ya ;)

Running these Beachbody challenges can be fun, and are usually quite motivating. But... when you fall off the wagon (in an extreme manner), and you're supposed to be the 'example,' it's pretty hard to publicly admit that you really failed.  In all honesty... it's humiliating... and for someone who hates to accept failure, it downright stinks!

BUT... I'll tell you what. When I admitted to my challengers that I was really struggling, and making a downward spiral, they stepped up to the plate and encouraged and messaged and texted me to help make sure I got right back on the wagon. And you know what? I did! I got my workouts in and started eating right again. And as a result, I feel soooooo much better!

A lifestyle change doesn't mean that you'll never fall.  It just means that when you do, you get right back up and go at it again. You don't lose that resolve.

Knowing that my sweet challengers (and I dare say that I can call them my friends) had my back...  knowing that I was accountable to them... THIS is what made the difference. THIS is why I was able to put on my big girl pants and get right back at it.

It is so important to surround yourself with people who have your back. With people who understand that even though you really want that second piece of cake, it's NOT going to make you happy for more than five minutes...  And they'll reach out through your phone via text message and literally grab it out of your hands!!!

If you have a goal that you really want to reach, find someone that has a similar goal, and cheer each other on. You'll be surprised how much easier it is to keep on the right track.

Know when you're starting to wander down the wrong path, and then know when to ask for help. Having that support line? It makes all the difference in the world.   Just ask the girl with the curl... she knows ;)

Back in the saddle again. Or should I say... Easter confessions?

You know... I'm a country girl, and actually love that old song... "I'm back in the saddle again.  Out where a friend is a friend..."  And although I grew up in the country, and used to ride our horse wildly across the plains of Texas (pretending Billy the Kid was after me...), today I'm not talking about horses.  Nope.  Today, I'm talking about getting bucked off that healthy-eating and exercise horse so hard that I nearly landed in the next county!

You'd think that having been sick for my last... um... many years of Easter Sunday's (because of eating too much candy... of course...), that I would have learned some sort of adult mature lesson and not try to inhale all the candy at once.  Right?  But, no... not me... ugh.  Me?  On Easter, I always give my kiddos a run for their money!

We walked in from Easter midnight mass, and the first thing I did (after getting rid of all witnesses, by shooing all five of my children off to bed...) was to open a bag of Reece's and Kit Kats and have at it.  In minutes, there was a messy little pile of empty orange wrappers, and I was moving on to the jelly beans and then the robin's eggs.  Before the clock struck midnight (only about 45 minutes later), I was beginning to have some serious symptoms of sugar overdose.

A major sugar crash (or should I say... sugar coma?) knocked me out until about 7am when the kids started jumping on our bed, announcing that the Easter bunny had come.  Everyone rushed down to the living room, found their baskets and started collecting eggs.  Me?  I just sat there, basket in hand, fairly catatonic (still from the previous night's sugar coma), working my way through the variety of treats that the Easter bunny had left in my basket.

If memory serves me correctly, I think I spent the majority of Easter Sunday on a constant sugar rush.  Follow that with Monday evening, which was my daughter's birthday... where I probably ate about half of the icing that went on the cake.  At that point, I wouldn't be surprised if my blood was starting to taste like sugar!

Yes, I'm rather embarrassed about the amount of candy and sugar that entered my body this past weekend, but, I must say... the good thing about it all is that I'm so over it!  This morning, I got up and did my P90X workout and haven't touched a bad thing all day.

In all honesty, I do believe that it's important to try to be perfect.  And I am a perfectionist of sorts.  But, in reality, it simply doesn't work that way.  For now, I'll just have to settle for getting up off the ground, wiping the dirt off my jeans and hopping back into the saddle every time I get kicked off.

As for next year.  Since I can't seem to stop myself... I think my new goal will be to borrow my friend's horse, chase that Easter Bunny down, lasso him, and keep him from coming over.  Ya think that will work???  ;)