Health (Photo credit: Tax Credits)

It has been one week since I embarked on the Healthier Me Challenge and so far I’m doing well, although I realise it is still early days yet.

I am eating way better than I used to and have cut out nearly all the Coke I was drinking, except for a couple of glasses on Friday night and a 500mL bottle on the Saturday.  Compared to the almost 1L I used to drink per day, this is a significant reduction.

I have kept up my promise to go for a 30 minute walk every day, in fact I’m walking 35 minutes every day (I do a set route of 3.8km) and since I started the Healthier Me challenge my Runtastic app is telling me I have walked 41.52km and apparently burnt 2,010 calories. This hefty number includes not only my 35 minute daily walks but also my walks to the gym (a round trip of roughly 5km) and a 10km walk on Saturday.

Speaking of the gym, I managed to get there twice this week. I was shooting for three times, but only managed twice. Since two times a week is what I promised myself I would do, I’m happy with that.

Doing all this good stuff has resulted in a weight loss of 1.2kg.  I’m happy with that number as it seems to be what most recommend as a healthy weekly weight loss, plus I’m trying to create a diet that I can stick for the rest of my life rather than drop weight fast (and then put it all back on when I start eating ‘normally’).

The more telling snapshot is going to be in a month’s time when I’ve had time to settle into this new way of living.  It’s also going to get shaken up by me going to a conference in Budapest this long weekend and the week after that spent travelling for work when access to healthy food and time to exercise is going to be compromised. How I’m tracking come mid-June is going to be interesting.

Jess McAvoy (Photo credit: the apostrophe)

If you are anything like me, you grumble about the crap music that gets made on multi-million dollar record labels. Music that has been auto-tuned so much that very little original sound remains and with lyrics that sound like someone just picked random words out of the dictionary and thought that will do. There is a reason why I don’t listen to the radio much these days.  I want music to move me, to speak to me and to (at times) tear me up inside.  Most music on the radio simply does not do that.

Therefore, I look elsewhere for my music.  I was fortunate to live in Sydney back when we had a kick-ass live music scene.  A music scene that is now the former ghost of itself thanks to pubs that hosted live music acts being forced to shut down because they made too much noise (WTF!).  I was also fortunate to have friends who were able to hunt down great music acts and then invite me along to go see them.  That’s how I discovered Jess McAvoy.  Ok, that is slightly a lie, I discovered Jess McAvoy because she was touring with Ani DiFranco, but the Sydney music scene meant that Jess had somewhere to play when she ventured up from Melbourne.  The Sydney music scene meant that I got to witness this amazing singer-songwriter many times over the years before both of us left Australia.

Jess is now living in Canada and is wowing audiences there and in New York, but because her music isn’t the bland, kinda sounds all the same music you hear on the radio, she doesn’t have a multi-million dollar record label footing the bill for her new album.  Like many independent artists, Jess is trying to get her next album made through direct funding.  She has set up an Indiegogo campaign and is trying to raise $30,000.

Before I ask you to chip in a few dollars to help some amazing music get made, I want to show you what Jess is capable of.

Donations start at just $5, which is about the price of a Starbuck’s coffee.  $15 will get you the digital download of the new album and the perks go up from there.

If you have any loose change spare, please consider donating it to Jess to help get some great music made.  The world needs more music like this.

(Grilled calamari stuffed with feta cheese & roasted peppers, for those of you who are curious), I lost almost 2kg.  Why?  Because the majority of my meals were healthy and unprocessed, I walked every day and I cut down on the amount of Coke I was drinking and increased the amount of water.

Therefore, I decided to keep doing this at home – eat as healthy as possible and try to reduce or cut out all the processed crap, walk at least 30 minutes every day, go to the gym at least 2 times a week and cut down on the Coke & increase the water intake.

Also, right before I left for Greece I found out that my cholesterol level is high. The doctor thought this might be an anomaly, so is going to re-test me in August, but I know it isn’t.  Therefore, I’m trying to reduce my cholesterol through diet and exercise rather than having to go on life-long medication. The diet I’m using as a template is the Portfolio Diet as various studies have shown it effective at reducing cholesterol.

Today is officially Day One, although I have been trying to eat better since arriving home from Greece. I’m using My Fitness Pal to track my food intake. Even though I hate counting calories, I know this is the best way for me to learn what to eat, what not to eat and in what amounts. I’m also using Runtastic to track my daily walks as it plugs into My Fitness Pal so saves me from having to try to calculate and add my daily walks into it.

So far I’m loving the new diet – porridge made with light soy milk for breakfast and this amazing home-made seafood salad for lunch (just 150 calories!)

I’m planning on having some herb encrusted salmon with vegetables for dinner using a fish herb mix I brought back from Greece. If nothing else, I’m hoping to get back my love for experimenting in the kitchen from this new way of eating.

I will try not to become annoying about this new way of living, but I will be blogging perhaps once a week about it, as accountability is important when trying to change habits and so I’m holding myself accountable to the whole internet.

If you have thought, now that spring is here (in the northern hemisphere) and is practically shouting ‘come outside & enjoy the sunshine’, that you want to also start a healthier me challenge involving whatever it takes to make a healthier you, let me know.  I’m an awesome cheerleader.

I have no idea what I’m allergic to here.  Obviously, it is something that we don’t have or have much of in Australia.  The pharmacist I begged for something to stop the mucus, theorised that I might be allergic to birch. He might be right as I don’t think we have the abundance of birch trees in Sydney as we do in Hamburg.

I’m hoping that the tablets the pharmacist gave me works as my nose is getting rubbed red raw from me blowing it all the time. I’m so over this hay fever thing. If anyone has any suggestions to combat hay fever, I would love to hear them. Otherwise spring is going to become a very miserable time for me, which is a pity as I love watching the scenery change daily as all the trees regain their leaves and the neighbours plant their new flowers.

Speaking of springtime in Germany, this clip from the Producers came to mind as I was writing this post.  It’s so wrong, but so funny.

I am hoping that Vodafone did not lie to me and I will be able to use my phone whilst there.  If they are telling the truth, then I will be active on Instagram and Twitter, so you can follow along with all my adventures there. If Vodafone are complete liars, then I may go slightly insane as I will be with my parents, since the whole reason for this holiday is to meet up with my parents who didn’t want to come to Germany. However it ends up, I will be seeing lots of these for the next 10 days and I can’t wait!!

So, here’s what has been happening in my world over the past week or so as captured by Instagram.

I dyed my hair a dark red-brown. And yes, this is a very rare photo of myself I feel comfortable sharing. Also note my gorgeous brown bathroom tiles.

The mall below my office building appears to have been invaded by France. I’m really not sure what inspired the sudden outburst of French flags.

I made pumpkin pie spice mix which tastes amazing with mashed sweet potato.

We have been getting some gorgeous sunsets.

My one true love. A massive 600g of it.

It’s my favourite time of year. Tulip season.

If you are also a fan of Instagram, please feel free to follow me at riaynmac.

Credit: Wikipedia

When I first arrived in Germany I looked for a doctor who spoke English since my German was non existent at the time.  I found one about a 20 min walk away from my work, but I wasn’t overly impressed with them.  During my first appointment when I told them I had a chronic pain disorder, they advised me that I needed psychiatric help despite the fact it had been proven it was a neurological problem.  They also didn’t want to give me the drugs that my specialist in Australia had prescribed but grudgingly relented.  However, since I only really used them for refills of my drugs, this didn’t really bother me.  Then my IBS started becoming extremely bad, so I went to them for help.  They gave me an electrolyte solution, which is great for diarrhoea caused by viruses or infection, but useless for IBS which is a digestive disorder, and I got the distinct impression they didn’t want to deal with me and wanted me out of their clinic asap.

Therefore, I started a search for a new doctor.  I picked one about a 5 minute walk from my work and then noticed on their site that they specialised in treating HIV patients.  My amazing GP back in Australia also specialised in treating HIV patients and she knew her shit.  I was hoping that this new doctor would be the same.

I went for my first appointment this morning and managed to do my whole appointment in German, except where I had to explain the neurological basis of my pain disorder because I didn’t have the vocab to describe how my brain set up a false pain loop in German. This was also the point where I found out that my doctor actually spoke English. Obviously my German wasn’t bad enough that he felt we better switch to English (Yay!). After hearing I have a pain disorder and IBS, my doctor took a moment to think and then said, ‘I think you might have a problem with your nervous system’ and I thought, ‘Oh my god, that makes so much sense, why hasn’t anyone else made this connection?’. Within 10 minutes he made arrangements for me to have a blood test and also do a stool collection (yuck!) and talked about doing some basic investigations before referring me to a specialist.  I was over the moon.  Finally a doctor in Germany who is taking me seriously and not treating me like I’m some hypochondriac. I love this guy! Also, he is thinking out of the box and looking at my two medical conditions together instead of as two separate things.  I was beyond impressed.

I might have lucked out here, but I’m thinking that doctors that specialise in HIV really know their shit when it comes to treating conditions that are not simple or seen regularly. I’m going to make a wild recommendation and that is, if you have a non-common or hard to treat medical condition, find a doctor who treats HIV patients.

A Christmas Red Rose (Photo credit: ** Lucky Cavey **)

When I started this blog I made a promise to myself to always be truthful.  You fine folks who read this blog of mine deserve at least that much.  This expat life of mine is a true bed of roses, complete with thorns and sometimes the thorns can be the most important part.

So, onto a thorny subject – self-disappointment. When I moved to Germany back in 2010 I was in the best shape of my life.  I was fit and my body was strong and I liked what my body was able to accomplish, which included beating people up in exchange for shiny trophies and medals.  Marital arts had turned me, the life-long non-athlete, into a competitive sportswoman.  But more than that, it was fun.  I actually for the first time in my life enjoyed doing a sport.  After the move to Germany, I stopped doing martial arts. I couldn’t find a club I liked and the language barrier at that time was too great.  With the stopping of exercise, came the gradual but ever increasing weight gain.  I am shamefully now 15kg heavier than what I should be and my body is weak.  I promised myself I would always stay a healthy weight and currently I am not. I have disappointed myself.

But I’m putting myself back on the wagon. I’m returning back to the gym, which doesn’t excite and stimulate me like martial arts did, but I can fit it around my German classes and other obligations.  I’m also going to start eating properly.  My diet isn’t too bad, but some less than desirable elements like too much Coke and chocolate have crept in and my control of portion sizes leaves much to be desired.

Along with dropping the ball on staying healthy, I have also more recently dropped the ball on my language learning.  I simply burnt out and the reason why I did was because I was doing too much.  Who in their right mind thinks an hour of vocab training every single day is sustainable? I need to re-evaluate my language learning plan and how best to study.  If anyone has any ideas, I’m open to them.

This winter has been hard.  Long, dark cold days along with losing all my work colleagues have taken their toll.  I have learnt I really don’t do well working alone every single day with just me and my thoughts, but that is something I’m going to have to learn to deal with as things are not going to change in the short-term.  However, I hope that by getting out each day into the long awaited sunshine and getting some exercise will help with that. I’m hoping with a healthier body will come a healthier mind.  I am hoping that soon I will no longer be disappointed in myself.

Hidden in Hamburg Suburbia.

Written for the Scintilla Project based on the prompt

Fears come in different sized packages. Tell the story of a time you had a face a fear, big or small.

When I told my firm that I wanted to be considered for an overseas posting, I fully expected them to send me to the US.  That is where I thought our company needed staff.  I expected to be told that I was going to be sent to Atlanta or New York.  I was prepared for that.  What I wasn’t prepared for was for them to come back the next day and say ‘How do you feel about moving to Germany?’.  I remember that moment like it occurred just hours ago. I was sitting on this horribly uncomfortable see-through plastic chair that screamed ‘look at me I’m trying to be hip and cool’.  I remember the paralysing fear that swept over me.  Germany?  I wasn’t prepared for Germany.  I almost immediately said no. My manager no doubt noticed the fear in my face and how close I was to turning it down.  He started talking up the offer, the amazing opportunities I was to have there and how much they really needed someone with my skills there. I started tossing it around in my mind.  Germany.  On second thought it didn’t sound too bad.  Hey, I could learn German, that would be cool.  I remember the one question I asked – ‘Does it snow there?’  My manager didn’t know.  In hindsight I can say to myself, ‘Yes, sweetie it snows there.  It will be cool until it is still snowing in March and then you will hate the sight of it’. I told my manager I would think about it.

I thought about it long and hard.  I goggled ‘Hamburg’.  It looked gorgeous.  I was still scared, really scared.  However, wasn’t this what I wanted when I asked for an overseas posting?  A chance of a new life.  What could be so different to my life in Australia than a life in Germany?  The next day I told them yes. I was still scared.

I was scared as I packed up all my belonging and tied up all my loose ends.  I was scared as I boarded the plane.  I was scared when I sat in my first tiny apartment in Hamburg after just arriving, not knowing a single soul.  I was so fucking scared.

Almost three years on, I’m so grateful that I didn’t give in to that wave of paralysing fear when the chance to move to Germany was offered to me.  I’m glad that didn’t let it make me turn this opportunity down.  Yes, moving to a new country is scary.  Moving to a country where you don’t speak the language is doubly so.  However I would not be person I was today if I said no.  I would still be trapped in the same mindset I had when I lived in Australia.  I would not have experienced the personal growth I have had since I moved here.  My life would be the poorer for it.

Facing the fear allows you to learn just how strong you are.  What you can (and can’t) deal with.  It allows you to find out what you are truly capable of.  However, facing the fear once doesn’t mean that you can do it the next time fear stares you in the face.  It is a challenge every single time.  Sometimes I rise to the challenge and other times I don’t.  I still have to learn to find the courage I had on that day I said yes.

photo credit: fRandi-Shooters

Written for the Scintilla Project based on the prompt

What have been the event horizons of your life – the moments from which there is no turning back?

I’m using this prompt loosely as I have no desire to rehash life’s past events today.  However this prompt sparked a thought inside me, something I have been thinking about lately, so I decided I might as well blog it out (so to speak).

The event horizon of every expat’s life is the moment they become an expat.  As much as we tell ourselves we can go home if this expat thing doesn’t work out, we never can.  That is not to say we can not return to our point of origin, we can, but instead that we can not go back in time, to the time before we became an expat.

For those determined not to enjoy the expat experience (you know who these people are), they can go back to the time before they became an expat, because in a sense, they never were one.  They lived somewhere else for a time, but in their minds, they were always home.  Their new life was one which they constantly compared to their old life and the new life was always found wanting, it never lived up to their old one.  It’s not hard to go home if you have mentally never left.

However, for those, like me, who are determined to enjoy the expat experience to the fullest, those of us who throw ourselves into our new lives wanting to soak up a new culture and a new way of living, there is no going back home.  Yes home is still there in a sense.  Our place of origin still exists.  The people we knew there are, for the most part, still there, although they have moved on with their lives.  Lives that no longer include us.  But some of these connections can be rekindled on our return.  No, the thing that has changed, so fundamentally, is us.  We can no longer go back in time to the people we were before we became expats.  We can’t slot back into our old lives complete with all our old feelings of home.  They simply don’t exist any more.

People ask me when I plan to move back to Australia.  I have no such plans.  Although my motto is never say never, at this point in my life, I can’t see myself living back in Australia.  It’s not that Australia is a bad place to live.  With all her faults, she’s still pretty damn special.  However, it is me that has changed so much in my 2.5 years here, that I can no longer picture myself being happy back in Australia. Even though I spent the first 35 year of my life in a monolingual culture, I can’t imagine going back to one.  For better or worse (and with a great deal of frustration at times), my life has adapted to living bilingually. I’m used to my life being an interesting mixture of English and German.  To lose the German half of my life would be like losing part of my identity. Although admittedly to be able to watch English language TV would be a indescribable joy. No, my time here in Germany has forever changed who I am and my life will go on being affected by that change.

Those of you who are expats, do you feel the same?  Do you feel that whilst you might return to your country of origin that you can never return to your old life?  Do you want to return to your old life or are you happy with the changes that have taken place within you during your expat experience?