My Roasted Maize Experience....

Roasted  Maize

I wonder how your Tuesday morning is! Especially Tuesday after a four-day holiday must be a tough one...Whatever you are feeling, at least smile. My Tuesday is great I feel energized and ready to face the day! My trick; I rested all weekend! Huh. By "resting" I mean almost in a hibernation state or what I call "nothing doing". And this was all by design. You see, I love traveling and seeing our beautiful country, so by all standards having stayed home for Easter Weekend was quite a fete. But for the first time in a long time, I really wanted to connect with my house and to at least look at it during the day. You see, most of the time, I leave before sunlight and get home after sunset...bad habit, but this time I decided to stay home and bond with my surroundings and to get to know my neighbors! However, after staying in the house for more than 48 hours, chances are that you might start to grow molds, so to avoid this fate, I went out for a drive; specifically to go say hello to a friend of mine, the Maize Vendor..... Well I guess everyone has some weaknesses, and one of my weaknesses is the roadside roasted maize. I love this "maindi mchomo" but I don't do the pili pili thing hhehehe...However there is a specific maize vendor whose skills are over the top. So for him I can take a drive. Fifteen minutes later, I get there, we exchange pleasantries and chat a bit. Of course, when he saw me, he looked for the "soft" maize, my favourite, put it on the grill and started fanning the charcoal as we chatted. A few minutes later my delicacy was ready, I reach out to my coin box and handed over a Kes. 20/- which has been the price for this yummy delicacy for a while. To my utter shock this guy tells me "ongeza tano mtu wangu, bei ya mafuta imepanda"! Jesus! Well for maize to go up by five shillings due to fuel costs, there is a serious problem. Of course I gave out the 5 bob, but that brief conversation drove the inflation point home! Yes, I feel the inflation pinch, fuel cost is too high, goods at the supermarkets are too expensive, mama mboga has doubled her prices....its just too much. And now roasted maize is 25/-???? What! I'm protesting, I actually should join the street protests, because I can only imagine what fellow Kenyans are going through. If you live in Nairobi with a family, its even worse especially if one earns less than 100,000/-! That is how thich things are. Of course my friend could see how shocked I was and he tried to explain how transport cost for the maize is high and so he has to pass on the cost to the consumer! Woi....agggrrh! Somebody somewhere needs to do something.....That little incident put behind, I enjoyed my kamaindi mchomo..

Back to my favorite topic--fitness. I was just wondering how many fitness junkies exercised over the last four days, or was the sleeping in too tempting. Well I need to be honest. I didn't exercise on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But jogged yesterday and resumed my routine today. You see most holidays come with this feeling of wanting to bring everything to a stand still. However, rest is good. It's good to just reset your settings and start afresh. But don't take too long resting before you resume exercise because it will be an uphill task. For Kilowatchers, this is week 6 day 2! We are halfway through and truly the results are evident. The team is more fit compared to week one. I pray and hope that when we get to the finish line, all of us would have acheived our individual goals. You cannot give up now.

This morning I would like to thank my readers. Thank you for the encouragement and I am glad that I can be an inspiration to you. Specifically thanks to the ones who have sent me emails asking questions and seeking advice etc. One thing for sure, I am not a professional in this field of fitness, but I am a testimony and living proof that proper eating and exercise actually works. No diets, no popping pills, no surgery, no teas and soups to burn the fat....no no no.  Good Old Exercise and Proper eating. There are some of us who believe they are predisposed to be the size they are, but my question is, are you fit? I mostly don't even care what size someone is, but how fit they are. Because, as one achieves fitness, automatically, the body just tones up to whatever size it would like to be at... Of course weight issues can be weighty, but don't focus too much on the scale and lose focus on your fitness levels. When fitness kicks in, the weight will automatically start coming off.. So if you are out there and wondering how I did it, that's just it. One can never sustain the short cuts. For how long can you drink carrot juice? Can you live on green tea for the rest of your life? Never.... Eat properly and get moving, that's the trick.

Something though that is mostly never said is that it is hard work! Very hard work which comes with pain too. You give up a lot to achieve fitness. But thank God you give up a lot of bad habits...You will get discouraged along the way. You will want to give up due to the pain, you will want to resume the cake binging days and the list is endless, but rising above your mind and remaining committed to the course is the answer to this. Get your targets right and work towards them. Give yourself small realistic milestones and work towards them and soon or later, you will be at the finish line. So be encouraged and take a step.

Enjoy the rest of the week and feel free to send me an email if you would like to "talk"! I will for sure respond.
Till another day, keep well and God bless.
Dee