Last week was insane. I started the week sending my kids off to their daddy's house for the summer. My heart and mind heavy with how our world is reeling with social injustice that is being addressed in a way I never expected. I planned for this to be the beginning of many things. Without the distraction on my 2 babies, I believed I would be able to finally take the time to focus on my health, participate in the worldwide protests, focus on my education, declutter, and develop a fool proof strategy to stay on task my many 40 b4 40 challenges. However, in the wise worlds on Heraclitus, "The only thing that is constant is change." I think the ONLY thing I did consistently, every day this week, was drink water and stick to my intermittent fasting and keto diet. Everything else was a rollercoaster of change -- big changes. 

My 1st big change, which I am very proud of, was the fact that I lost 7 lbs in just 7 days. I did this with an unexpected long distance drive to North Carolina and back and a horrible whiskey induced hangover. 
My 2nd big change, my man of over a year has moved in unexpectedly. On Monday I was settling into what it will be like without kids - and on Wednesday I got the call that he's ready to make the big move and I needed to go to North Carolina and help move his stuff down -- NOW. Although I was ecstatic that this was happening, I was also in shock. I drove 6 hours on Thursday and we drove back 6 hours on Friday. That's two days of having every opportunity to cheat on my diet - but I didn't!!!!! Woo hoo!
My 3rd big change came in the form of putting my foot down for my brother whom is struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues. On Saturday night, my brother, whom I suspect is homeless and has been sleeping on our couch due to my mother's inability to say no, decided to slash my tire and taze my man. I was forced to call the police, which I did not want to do as my brother is a black man in America, and mirroring the world, I do not trust that this is the solution to helping make situations better. However, my family has been tormented by my brother for too long, and it is time for me to sever the chord indefinitely to protect myself and my family. Fortunately my man was not hurt by the taser and we were able to replace the tire without too much of an issue. But this change is huge for me, because this is the first time I issued a police report and a restraining order for him to never come back. 
My 4th big change is that my Fitbit broke again. I rely on it so much for so many things that it is kind of infuriating. Truthfully, I don't think it's the best investment, because I've had 6 Fitbits in 4 years. However, I need it for it's work outs, challenges, and love that it checks my heart rate. RIP Versa - guess it's time for a Versa 2. 
My 5th big change is that my father, whom is a big help with assisting my brother, now has gout in his hand. This means that there is a lot of extra care-taking going on right now. Le sigh - but grateful I can help.  

Now I'm going into week 2 with everything different. My goal is to just roll with the changes as they come. Daily meditation helps me deal with things better then I ever have, but I cannot say that it isn't challenging. And although this has been a successful week with keto. I'm switching it up with a huge 7 day juice cleanse diet. Why not? After all, "The only thing that is constant is change." - Heraclitus. 

I've started a 7 Day Juice Cleanse that is pretty intense. I've done it several years ago and had amazing results.

I've retrieved the plan from www.juicerecipes.com.   I love this site. Not only do they give you the full shopping list at once, they even e-mail the days' recipe. Although I can only drink juice and water for a full week. I know that this is probably the best way for me to get all my servings of veggies each day. And although it cost about $75 for all organic produce to fulfill this diet, that is a very decent amount for a full week of food.

Yeah - I did it. I almost hit 200lbs on the scale and I'm only 5'3". I have no clue how I got here. But I know how I will get away from here!  I can blame it on the stress of being a single mom juggling several jobs with minimal income, but I won't. My mom is a nutritionist for God's sake. I was raised eating the right food, exercising, and focusing on my mental health with meditation. I KNOW better. Somewhere down the line, I've ignored all the tools I've been taught and just tried to survive. But no excuses. No sob story. Just change. I don't want the last half of my life struggling with health issues instead of enjoying this wonderful life. I don't want to continue ignoring my reflection in the mirror and spending no time on make-up and hair cause I don't like what I see. It's time to relearn what I know and apply it to myself in every way. And although I'm focusing on health for this first post, I'm focusing on many, big and small, to accomplish before I turn 40 on February 1st, 2021. 

Honestly, I'm terrified to show how bad it's gotten. As the daughter of a nutritionist and someone who was in entertainment, health and image played such a big role my life. However, I am past all the pretenses and posing and pretending. This is the body I'm in right now, and I want to love it. Do I? Well, I appreciate it. I am grateful that it works and I'm able to give cozy hugs to my children, laugh out loud, cook loving food, and dance when my jam comes on. I want to learn to LOVE it. And to me that means being healthy. What I see when I look at my body is neglect. And it goes beyond my weight, it's my teeth, my hair, my skin, my finances, my wardrobe, my clutter, my disorganization, and the constant feeling that I'm running in place. Honestly, I'm in a great place emotionally and mentally. I now need to get a handle of things physically! Through covid-19 anxiety and protests, I've managed a happy and healthy home full of love. Though heartbroken, we are focused and resilient. Though financially strained, I've managed to pay all of my bills and make adjustments.  So I hope you enjoy my goofy self-deprecating photos. They show that I may not love my body yet, but I'm having fun on my journey. I can't lie -- I can't wait for the before and after shots. For now..this is before. YIKES! Wish me luck! (I feel so brave). 
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l will upload 5 challenges a week for 8 weeks that I must complete before February 1st, 2021. I will compile a master list on the 40b440 tab.

NUTRITION: Intermittent Fasting 16:8
This form of fasting means that I will only eat during an 8 hour window. For me that is between 12-8. 
                     Ketogenic Diet
The Keto Diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet. It lowers blood sugar and insulin levels, and shifts the body's metabolism away form carbs and towards fat and ketones.  
EXERCISE: Daily Cardio (mix it up)
                    Weight Training
                    Run Training
                    Yoga 
I've been exercising religiously since Co-Vid started (mid-March), but I haven't been losing weight. I have lost a few inches, but my weight has remained close to 200lbs. I love cardio - but need to truly implement weight training and push myself much harder with cardio. I also need yoga as my body is stiff...would love to increase flexibility.  

When its no longer fun. Just stop. Its that simple. How often do we stay in situations and make every excuse in the book as to why we should stay there? We treat ourselves like prisoner's of war in life. We act like relationships, parents, children, jobs, religion, our weight, and many other things are holding guns to our heads threatening to shoot us dead if we don't continue to move according to their constraints. 

As I continue on this journey of making myself over, I release all of those binds that prevent me to live my happiest life. Mom, I don't care if you want me somewhere. It doesn't make me happy to be there, so I will not go. Baby Daddy, I don't like how you disrespect me on Instagram and pretend like you're there for your children, it upsets me, so I will no longer look. I don't like not spending time with my kids, so I will stop working 9-5s that prevent me from growing with my children. 

We can't control everything in life, but we can make choices that increase our happiness. One of the best ways to figure that out is what feels fun to you. 

I recently was seeing someone that was so much fun. Somehow, we got into a situation that left us both feeling depleted and awful. It opened a world full out doubt and confusion. For me it was easily solvable by communicating and agreeing to disagree. For him it is best to not communicate and believe what he wants to believe with out affording me the opportunity to tell him my thoughts. I'm proud because in the past, I would have been trying to force my truth on him and become hostage to my feelings of "love". But the truth is, if you are unwilling to listen to me and come up with your own wrong conclusions, then you are no longer a safe and fun place for me. So DEUCES. This situation no longer works for me. I'm too old to sweep things under a rug and allow them to fester until they morph into resentment. 

As you know, I have a little brother that experienced a terrible and unexplained brain bleed which has left him with limited movement in his body and blindness. We've been on the path to recovery since it happened in December of 2011, but this past month was especially hard because his high school senior class graduated and he is left behind. As we celebrated this new and exciting time for his friends, we spent a lot of time crying at the fact that Jason is not part of this transition.

But guess what? Typically I have to help him stand up to transfer him, but yesterday he stood up by himself. Although he had to hold me to do it, he didn't need me to hold him! He then held himself up for several seconds as well. WOO HOO! I don't know. I FEEL the positive change. 

I found this amazing site - www.travelnoire.com. For the first time ever, I'm reading stories of people of color who like to travel, just like I do. It's funny, because we all feel like we're the only ones with these uniques experiences, but there are actually a ton of us out there. How refreshing! I've been exploring all different types of destinations and felt so in tune because they are all written by women of color. I don't know why, but it's so weird. At the same time, it's liberating. It reminded me of who I am and validated my need to explore. So much so, that not only do I want to be a curator for the site, but I'm on a complete new mission to take as many adventures as I can with my children, just like my parents did with me. Travel Noire explores people, culture, destinations, food, hair, and style. Doesn't it just reek travelling black girl?

My parents used to take us everywhere with them. While most parents I knew would go on vacation by themselves, my parents would take us EVERYWHERE with them. We've travelled to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Spain, England, Qatar, Lebanon, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and more. 

So it's no wonder I've drifted so far away from myself. It all started with my first boyfriend out of high school. I moved to New York City at 17 and got into a relationship that I ended up being in for 10 years. I started feeling insecure with him because he hated going any where. He never wanted to go to all the awesome places that New York had to offer. He used to call everything stupid. That was the beginning of me not putting value into travelling or exploring my cities. I probably would have been spending money on travelling instead of whatever else I was spending it on. I guess the next couple of guys were the same. Realizing how much I miss it has made me excited for life again. It's been so mundane. So stagnant, and I didn't even know it. I've just been running in place. 

Now that I've left my dude, it's all so clear. Looking into my kid's eyes has make it even clearer. I want them to experience the world and see things as I did as a child. I want them confident and humble and excited about adventure. They're excited just going to the park, so imagine how they would feel riding an elephant in Thailand. It's got to happen. 

I knew this all along somehow. When you see my logo, it makes it super evident. I KNOW who I am. Now it's time for me to act like it and feed my soul, not my fleeting emotions or actions that don't serve a purpose. Looking back, I have not been living. All the radio shows, stage shows, parties, and television programs I was chasing couldn't fulfill me like travelling.  

Wish me luck! First vacay coming in August. Please read the column to the right. That is my audition piece to become a curator for www.travelnoire.com. Crossing my fingers. 

Born to a Congolese princess and a Californian hippie in Paris, France, I was blessed with the gift of travel. Thankfully, I was able to experience new worlds with both the particular tastes of my mother and the not so particular tastes of my father. Not to mention, I was forced to look at things from completely different points of view. This was my normal.  Before I was five, I’d already learned the basics of several languages which have remained with me into adulthood. I was raised near the cradle of civilization, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which allowed us to have access to the beauties of the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe quite easily. Growing up was a constant adventure that allowed me to see myself through the eyes of many cultures. I realized early that I fit in everywhere I went. The way I wore my hair was often the only thing that would differentiate me from others.

When I moved to America, everything changed. Not only was I unable to take advantage of the travel perks my father had from working for an airline, but I became part of a world that I didn’t belong to. For the first time, people were putting me in boxes and deciding what and how I should be. I had to fight to meet people from different cultures and was sucked into what I like to call a “black hole”. The African American culture was the only culture that seemed to embrace me, and even that was subject to opinion. For the first time people would ask me questions like, “What are you mixed with” and I would be referred to as a white, red, or yellow girl. When finding jobs as a host and DJ, I was forced to play certain crowds and unable to play what I truly liked.  As a struggling artist, I fell into an economic bracket that forced me to live in particular neighborhoods. Suddenly, constant colleagues were dying violently, I’m in “the system” due to traffic violation, and my life was completely opposite to what it was. I couldn’t recognize myself.

After several life altering experiences, I abandoned my social butterfly nature and became a recluse. I attached myself to relationships that mirrored my feelings of being an outcast. Needless to say, I fell into a ten year depression that I didn’t even realize I was in. It took the wonder in my toddlers’ eyes to remind me of how vast and amazing this world is. After all, I am my parents’ daughter. I am a born adventurer and had no business sitting in one place for so long. Although it has taken a divorce to have the courage to live my life, I’m excited to bring it back full circle. This single mama is jet setting with her babies, just like her people before her did. The world is my family, and I’m ready to go home. 

It's occurred to me that I've always wanted to be liked. As a matter of fact, the need to be liked by people has made it pretty hard for me to know how I really feel about situations. I settled for what I could get, and would make excuses for what I wasn't getting and trying to fill those voids myself. It made me look like I was a good guy, and dare I say - self-righteous. No matter how shitty things were, I could fall back on this notion of being a kind, supportive, generous, and selfless person.  I was feeding my ego by making sacrifices and feeling holier than though. That's why I'm so ANGRY right now. I feel like "how could you after all I've done for you?" But in truth, was I really doing it for him, or was I doing it for myself? I was feeding my ego instead of my soul. If I was feeding my soul, I would have demanded better behavior and would've expected to be treated better. And if I did those things, I would have noticed much sooner, before I had children with this guy, that we were not right for each other. Then, I wouldn't have regretted all my selfless acts. But because these acts were bred from lack of self love, they were tainted with something else. 

It's a hard pill to swallow. Although I'm still incredibly sour and angry for his part to play, I wonder if I'm not more to blame? Seriously. I may not have cheated, taken him for granted, been disrespectful to his family, or done the countless awful things that he did; but I was doing these "selfless acts" so I could be considered a good guy. Although he may have benefitted much more then me due to the nature of my dysfunction, is it not a different side to the same coin? He was feeding his ego due to his selfishness, and I was feeding my ego due to a lack of self love. Does it matter where the ego was born, or is it ego nonetheless? 

I'm on a journey now. To fill my soul full. To discover the things about me that I never let emerge due to my jaded sense of self worth. Instead of worrying about someone else loving me more, I'm going to do the things that make me love me more. Sounds like fun. I get to travel, educate my kids more, practice spirituality unhindered, live a healthy lifestyle, nurture relationships with friends and family, and figure out what makes me excited to jump out of bed in the morning. I hate that it's happened so late in life, but as the old saying goes - better late then never. 

Although it's too soon for this revelation to make me feel relieved, I can't help but feel empowered and grateful to God. Instead of being a slave to how someone else may treat me or recieve me, I now know that my cryptonite was always my conception of self-worth. I'm so grateful to learn this while my children are young. Not only does it allow for me to have a healthier relationship with them, but to instill jewels for them to discover their own powers sooner then I did. There is a world full of noise that will try and force you into thinking about yourself in a particular light, but if you practice true self love and feed your soul, nothing can talk louder then the light that shines within you. 

I recently lost my grandmother on my mother's side, and my grandfather on my father's side. I knew them both deeply as a child and have always felt a connection with them although we lived far away. My grandfather was living with dementia when he passed and my grandmother was battling the after effects of a stroke. They both died peacefully and have left great legacies behind. My grandfather died at 95 years old, and my grandmother at 79. Although she was quite young to go, she waited 20 years after my father died and left behind 12 children (uncle Jerry died 2 years ago), and a gang of grandchildren and great grandchildren. I haven't been blogging about it because I've had to deal with the pain of their departure alone. I had to be strong for my parents and did most of my mourning hiding so no one could see. It made me really look hard at my relationship and wonder why I was going through such difficult situations alone. How did I find myself without a soul to talk to? Not one. Naturally I've leaned on God extra hard, but I still longed for companionship to support me during these times. When I confronted my significant other about his lack of presence during this time, he was pretty angry with me and said I was selfish because he had gotten a letter a couple days before my Grandmother died that said he had to pay some money for child support of his eldest, or he'd be locked up. Although I can relate to his fear and worry, I just don't think it's an excuse. Our arguments escalated and I felt weak that I wanted to rely on him so much, although he was obviously preoccupied with his issues. He said he had to focus on getting his money and I was a distraction. A distraction? During this time, he found a way to let me know that he had also cheated on me after the birth of my son. Something that I had suspected, but he denied vehemently. He forgot that he had lied about that, and now I just can't shake everything loose. 

How does one act when they love someone? I think that is a simple question with simple answers. What do you do when your loved ones lose someone? Do those actions determine what kind of person they are to you? At first I was confused because I didn't want the person that I have loved for 5 years, birthed two babies with, and experienced a lot of life altering situations with, to be someone I ultimately don't relate to. When I dug even deeper, I discovered that this has been going on for quite some time in many different ways. It took the pain of losing my grandparents to make it apparent that he doesn't love me the way I want to be loved. And that is key. 

Do I think he loves me? Yes. Do I think he cares about me? Yes. But I think he has other priorities in his life too and his values do not align with mine. It has been two weeks and I still haven't had the opportunity to properly mourn as we've been arguing. This is my first true attempt at working out my emotions, and I honestly believe that it's outside of my skill set and I must seek professional help. I am also leaving him. If I'm alone, I'm alone. There is no need to share the "perks" or "pains" that come with being in a relationship. I'm terrified. My children are 1 and 3 and I'm just not stable the way I need to be, but this is not the love story I envisioned. Single mom's club, here I come.

I look at my grandparents and on both sides they left wonderful legacies of love. At the end of the day, I have to make the decisions that make me the best mom ever for my children, and the best version of myself for the world. I truly feel for him and honestly still love him, but as Tina Turner says, "What's Love Got To Do With It? What's Love but a Second Hand Emotion?" I must be strong and do what's necessary to enjoy my life properly. I also believe that he does not want to be here and didn't know how to express it. He felt bad and didn't want to come off like a bad guy although he was not happy. I know that all he wants is a family and someone to love him and someone to love. He just doesn't have the tools to do it. I notice his parents don't have his back.  When we argue, they always take my side and leave him in the dust. Naturally, he's had a relationship with them for 37 years and I don't know the dynamics, but he just doesn't have certain etiquette for showing love.

I believe he is a good man. I wish him the best. He is just not a good man for me. I am ashamed of how angry I got though. I beat him and screamed and yelled and cried. I told him I hated him. And at that moment I really truly did. But I don't hate him. I love him so much it hurts. But I've just learned how to love myself more. I need to be the best version of myself for my children. Period.  

I WILL have my grandparents' love story and continue their legacy of LOVE.