" If you want to get what you never had, you should do what you have never done!"
I have been having one of the hardest times ever... After the injury put the end of my basketball career I slowly found the way back and was on the top for a while... I was feeling pretty happy... but lately I am struggling a lot and I think I am digging deeper... That sickness won't go away... actually it is getting worse... I am still practicing twice a day and that does not seem to help much...yesterday I reached my limit again... I was about to break down and give up on everything....
This weekend is the competition...but I am not swimming...We had a talk with the coach and we decided that it is better to take some rest and get healthy instead of making it worse by taking part in this competition...
That really put me down, cause I feel like I have quit on everything I believe in....feels like I gave up... that is making me sad... So yesterday I was feeling totally exhausted...I do not have any physical strength right now and it feels like my mental strength is fading away...
So I was supposed to swim by myself while others have competition...but I am feeling terrible and I talked to my coach and she said I better rest a couple days and see if it gets better...
It is so hard for me to rest... I always do something, I am used to being busy with my schedule all day long... and now when I am supposed to rest it feels like I am wasting my life...and that feeling is killing me... But oh well... I say I am a pretty strong will person...so I must put my will in action and make myself rest...because this time it seems that is the only option rest! So sometimes you got to do what you have never done in order to get to where you want...in this case-REST in order to achieve....
As one person once told me...very often the unplanned rest turns out to forced rest...
So it turned out that I have iron deficiency anemia. It is a common type of anemia.Iron deficiency anemia occurs when the dietary intake or absorption of iron is insufficient, and hemoglobin, which contains iron, cannot be formed.Iron deficiency ranges from iron depletion, which yields little physiological damage, to iron deficiency anemia, which can affect the function of numerous organ systems. Iron depletion causes the amount of stored iron to be reduced, but has no effect on the functional iron. However, a person with no stored iron has no reserves to use if the body requires more iron. In essence, the amount of iron absorbed and stored by the body is not adequate for growth and development or to replace the amount lost.
The iron deficiency anemia tends to develop slowly, adaptation occurs and the disease often goes unrecognized for some time. That was exactly my case. I was doing way too many things and I thought that was the reason I am so tired...but as the things got worse and I had some medical exams it turned out that there is a reason for my fatigue...
Everybody is amazed how this could happen because I am eating pretty healthy and there isn't a reason for all this to happen...but is it really that way? Actually,NOT! One of the reasons for iron deficiency anemia is way too much physical activity...and guess what? That is exactly what happened with me...so, as people say...nobody can harm you as much as you can harm yourself...
So now I am taking some pills and I am waiting to get better. But at the end of the week I have competition. I practiced so hard all year long and now everything went to waste... I was wondering if there is a point to swim at the competition...but yesterday my coach called me and asked me if I will be able to swim... I thought for a second and told her I am not right sure I will endure it but my final decision is that I AM SWIMMING! :) And she said..."Of course, you will swim, we worked so hard for this..."
So now I am trying to prepare myself mentally that as I jump off that block I have to swim with my whole heart and give everything I've got and the most important thing is to NOT GIVE UP no matter how hard it is! I have been through so much and I am still here, stronger than ever...that is why I should find the strength again!
I know that I won't swim as good as I wanted to or as fast as I worked for, I may finish last... I may not...nobody knows what is going to happen but the most important thing for me now is to fight till the end...Everyone has their long and winding road to travel, will it be easy?...NO WAY! But what makes the difference on whether or not we finish our race is if we can keep the picture of the finish line in our hearts....a fighter that fights with heart doesn't know how to lose but then again he doesn't know how to win either......he... just knows how to fight for what he wants with no regrets!
Yesterday started as an ordinary day! I went to practice in the morning then got back home did some stuff and later on I headed for the second practice. First I had some weightlifting... I did not feel very good but I pushed it through and it was time for the swimming... I got into the pool but I felt terrible, I felt so weak. All my strength has left me, but I kept repeating myself that I will make it through this practice, so I kept pushing but as I was swimming it became more and more unbearable. My lungs were hurting really bad as I was breathing and I did not have strength at all. My eyes were full of tears but I kept swimming and finally I reached my physical limit and mi mind's limit too... I could not practice anymore, so I stopped at the end of the pool and my coach asked "How are you feeling?". As I looked up to her she jumped out of her chair and said" Oh my... you are about to cry" ...and I do never cry in front of people but I just couldn't help it this times and my tears started falling and I told her I could not finish the practice... She said "Get out it is ok" She told me to go home and get some rest and not worry about it...
I went in the locker room and I sat on the bench crying. It was just I and one 7year old girl. She came to me and said "Why are you crying?" I smiled at her and told her I wasn't...but she kept standing there and said " But if something is wrong please tell me!And do not cry!". I smiled again and thanked her for asking me how I was...and then I went under the shower... In a couple minutes that same girl came to me with martenica( it is something like a traditional white and red bracelet that all bulgarians put on their hands in March) and it had a heart on it and she put it on my hand and smiled. That was one of the kindest things somebody ever did for me(especially somebody that is only 7 years old!) .
So I rushed and put my clothes on and went to the caffee and took her chocolate and I went to her and handed her the chocolate. She was staying there crossing fingers, looking down, smiling...I asked her to take it like 6 or 7 times and when she finally took it she had the biggest smile in world...she ran out, turned back a couple times smiling at me...
Then I left the pool and I walked through the park like an hour and a half, just slowly walking and thinking... that girl really made one of the worst days in my life really special and happy! So it is in toughest moments when we meet the greatest people...
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
Lately life has been throwing me some obstacles on the road to my goals. I have been giving everything I have to go through them but it hasn’t worked out so far. I keep climbing and when I am just about to see the top I fall back to where I was. Some days the falling is hurting pretty bad, I am feeling like it is all pointless and like there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
But is it really that way? I truly, deeply in my heart have faith that everything happens for a reason and even though it is so hard for me now, if I keep pushing harder and not give in I will finally reach that top and stay there at least for a while. You know how people say that it took a stone cutter a hundred and one hits to break a stone but it wasn’t the last hit that did it, it was all the hits that slowly but surely destroyed the stone…
Most people tell me I am doing way too many things and I should give up on some of them because I am wearing out my body and I won’t keep up with it for too long but… you know that when you come to the end of your rope, you should tie a knot and hang on. That is pretty much what I am trying to do… I feel like my strength is gone but I always find a little more to keep pushing…
I have a competition in less than two weeks, and I feel extremely exhausted. My practices are pretty easy before the competition but I still have problem with them… they seem so hard to my body that is struggling with them. After every practice I feel warn out. During the day I feel so dizzy and I can hardly keep up with my schedule… I can’t wait to go to bed and sleep… I started sleeping like 8 or 9 hours a day and I still feel like I am not getting enough sleep… I do not know what is wrong with me… I had some medical exams and doctors said they haven’t seen such good results in a long time… They say that maybe I reached the limit of exhaustion and it will take a while till I start feeling good again…
And that are not good news for me… as I said the competition is coming… I practiced so hard and gave everything I’ve got and now I do not have an idea how I am going to swim… I can hardly endure to swim 25metres fast and at the competition I have 50,100 and 200metres breaststroke… I am a pretty optimistic person but I do not see it happening…
When I am in the pool I feel like I do not have enough air and like there is not much oxygen getting to my muscles… so my muscles feel so stiff most of the time…it is a real torture… I am thinking that if it does not get better to end of the week I will have to talk to my coach and tell her to let somebody else swim instead of me at the competition because otherwise it is gonna be really ugly at the competition… And that is tearing my heart apart…
I can’t believe that I am intending to do this… I do NEVER give up… and this time? But I am really exhausted it feels like even my strong will is leaving me… Hope I find the strength to overcome this , because nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. And if I pass all the pebbles in my path it will turn out that I have passed the mountain…
Two years ago on this day-March,3 I started practicing swimming. I consider this to be one of the best decisions in my life! I totally love it, adore it and whatever else comes up to your mind! Thanks to swimming and the people I met while practicing I found the true meaning of life! I understood what is to be truly happy and I understood what is the meaning of the saying "Every ending is a new begining". I can't find the words to express how happy that sport and the people connected with it make me feel. I thank to all of them... they really can not realize how much they gave me and how much it means to me. You made my life great and keep making it better!
In 1868, Vassil Levski called upon among his countrymen to take up armed struggle for independence from Ottoman rule. He was arrested in 1872, sentenced and executed in 1873. In 1871 the CENTRAL BULGARIAN REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE with its seat in Bucharest, Romania was founded.
A rebellion in 1876, lead by Georgi Benkovski, was brutally supprressed by Ottoman forces, c. 30,000 persons fell victim to the atrocities committed by Ottoman forces.
A diplomatic conference aiming at reducing the tension did not bring any results; in 1877 Russian Czar Alexander II., regarding himself the protector of the Orthodox christians living within the Ottoman Empire, declared war on the latter. Russian forces, which were joined by a Bulgarian corps of 7,000 volunteers, defeated the Ottoman forces, among others in a battle at Shipka Pass. In 1878 the Ottoman Empire, in the TREATY OF SAN STEFANO had to concede the creation of a large Bulgarian state which would include Macedonia and Rumelia. The war had cost c. 200,000 lives on the Russian side. Bulgarians refer to Russian Czar Alexander II. as Czar Osvoboditel, Czar Liberator.
Other European powers, most of all England and Austria-Hungary, regarded this Bulgarian state a Russian satellite and were unwilling to accept the situation; a repetition of the Crimean War threatened. Then Bismarck called the representatives of the European states to meet at the BERLIN CONGRESS (1878). Here the Treaty of San Stefano was annulled. Macedonia and Thrace remained Ottoman provinces; a smaller (northern) Bulgaria was granted political autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, while the southern region of Rumelia would keep closer links to the Empire.
From July 10th 1877 to July 8th 1879, Bulgaria was placed under a provisional Russian administration.
The liberation of Bulgaria came as a result of the victory of Russia in the Russo-Turkish war declared on 12 April 1877. During the war, 12 battalions of more than 12,000 Bulgarians joined with the Russian army to fight against the forces of Ottoman Empire. On March 3, 1878, the Peace Treaty of San Stefano (a tiny town near Istanbul) between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was signed which brought Bulgaria back to the political map. The Peace Treaty of San Stefano marks the revival of the Bulgarian State, submerged under Ottoman rule since the end of 14th century. However, the actual life of independent Bulgaria started after the Berlin Congress, which took place a couple of months later in 1878. It is this day that is remembered as Bulgaria's Independence, as throughout its cities, towns and villages the people of Bulgaria pause for a tribute. Bulgarians are proud to point out that none of Bulgaria's losses have ever been in battle.
The first time of marking March 3 occurred in 1880, in honor of Enthronement of Russian Emperor Alexander the Second. Since 1888 March 3 has become Bulgaria's Day of Liberation and it was not pronounced a National Holiday until 1978.
Since 1990 the date March 3 is included in the list of Bulgaria's official holidays, according to a parliamentary decree.
Appropriately, Bulgaria honors Russian Czar Alexander II as a primary figure among its "founding fathers" with statues of him in many cities, including one in the heart of its capital, Sofia.
Although decidedly a man of peace, Alexander II became the reluctant champion of the oppressed Slav peoples and in 1877 finally declared war on Turkey. Following initial setbacks, Russian arms eventually triumphed, and, early in 1878, the vanguard of the Russian armies stood encamped on the shores of the Sea of Marmara. The prime reward of Russian victory -- seriously reduced by the European powers at the Congress of Berlin -- was the independence of Bulgaria from Turkey.
The struggle of the Balkan peoples for freedom from centuries of Ottoman domination was reflected in the Ottoman Empire's strained international relations: the Serbo-Turkish conflict of 1876; and the Russo-Turkish wars of 1877 through 1878. The latter conflict was resolved, for the time being, by the signing of the San Stefano Peace Treaty on March 3, 1878. With Turkey defeated and weakened by internal strife, the Russian Czar was able to dictate the terms of the treaty. In an attempt to secure enduring access to the Aegean Sea, he created the new Bulgarian state on the Balkans. However, when the Western powers convened for the Congress of Berlin in July, 1878, the Russian hopes for creating a Greater Bulgaria on the Balkans were stymied.
I just watched the movie "Food matters". I recommend everybody watches that movie! There is so much truth in it. It makes you think over so many things that are so obvious but most of us are so stuck with the stereotypes that we do not pay attention to them. Particularly the movie is a propaganda about healthy eating and how with the right food you could provide yourself an excellent health- almost all diseases are due to wrong eating habits. Another point in the movie is about medicine and the pills, and how all that is pretty much commercialism. All those pills are just poisoning your body and they actually do not cure the reason of the illness but just its symptoms- and when you are trying to heal yourself you should heal your whole body not just parts of it.
Human's body is a pretty complicated structure and there are a lot of chemical processes going on in it, and they are particularly all connected. When one of them goes wrong all of them do!
Besides most of the food we consume nowadays is not healthy due to the pollution. Today the artificial fertilizers consist out of three minerals and soil needs 52of them...so you see that soil nowadays is not rich of minerals which leads to a lot of problems when growing crops. And when you add pollution it becomes even worse. So the food we eat does not contain essential nutrition thus it does not provide our body the elements needed to function the right way.
When food like that goes in our body it recognizes it as a threat and that makes the white blood cells to activate and treat the food as poison. That makes our immune system weaker and when there is an actual threat about the body it is not as strong as supposed to fight it. So we think we provide our body the fuel it needs to function normally but particularly we are poisoning it. That is why most of us feel tired and not productive most of the time. Remember that you are what you eat! When you eat poison you are going to feel like you are poisoned.
Today it seems more like all big pharmacological companies have become big machine for money and all they care about is how to get more money. The health of humanity is left way behind... Doctors work not to make you haelthier but to earn more money... "1/3 of what you eat keeps you alive and 2/3 of what you eat keeps your doctor alive!"Most pills that are prescribed have way too many side effects that cause hundred thousand people die every year... and vitamins...there are not more than 10-20 people dying from them every year.... so you say it is better to take pills instead of take your vitamins? ... well that is way too wrong!
It is funny how our society is ready to waste so much money for doctors, pills and material stuff(cars,houses and so on), instead of giving them for good healthy food. It is so strange how today there are so many technologies and people know so much about health and diseases but we are getting sicker every day. New diseases pop out every single day and they are threatening society!
And in the past people did not get to know that much about health, and body and diseases and contemporary methods to cure them fast and "safely" but they seemed to much healthier and happier. Just think about your great grandma that is probably 95years old and is healthier than most people your age. Probably she lives in some calm and nice village, grows her own food and have some cows and goats that give her good and healthy food. ANd you probably think you are so much luckier than her to live in a society where you have all these technologies and so on... but is it really that way? Do you really care about the material things you have when you do not have the thing most needed to use all that possessions- YOUR HEALTH????
One of my mom's best friends is a doctor. She is known as one of the best in the country but tell you the truth sometimes when we chat about food and stuff I really can't imagine that this is the person that will take care of my health if I need it. Most doctors do not know anything about healthy eating and vitamins... they put these things on the backstage and do not count them as something that is essential to your health...and is that right? Well it isn't! Food is the best medicine and the best medicine is food! Your body is a really "smart" machine and it can teak ea pretty good care of itself if you just let it do it! SO next time instead of taking a handful of pills, go and give your money for some REAL food that won't poison your body and that will give you the fuel needed!
I hope more people will start caring about their health and start reading more about food and vitamins and the positive effects they have on us!
So in case you read this... go and download the movie and I assure you you won't be sorry for the time you spend watching it! Instead there will be one more person on earth that will be educated!
And as a conclusion-you do not need doctors because YOU ARE YOUR BEST DOCTOR!
Since I am really keen on healthy eating and weightlifting and sports generally, all of my friends are asking me to help them loose weight or gain muscles or whatever else you could think of that has something to do with sports and nutrition. Some of them are overweight, some are not... but they always say how they are giving everything possible to lose weight and it never comes out the right way.
Well, when I ask them how exactly they are trying to shred that weight and I hear the sentence " I do not eat after 4p.m. or after 6p.m."; "I eat fruits before my meals so they can take space and I could feel full and eat less"; " Well, I eat everything but really small portions"; "I do 2-3hours of cardio"and all that lame explanations... Sometimes I think all these people should get together and write a book what NOT to do if we want to loose weight!
The thing with "eat everything-just smaller portions" is so ridiculous. It is like saying you are reading tons of books but turns out you are reading just chapter's names... I'd say that it is better to avoid calorie dense foods(like all the junk food)- that practically are stuffed with calories but do not give you the feeling of being fool and instead eat some meat with more vegetables( that are big volume foods(take a lot of space but are low in calories)) . That way you won't feel hungry and you will stick to good, nutritionally rich, healthy eating.
Then the cardio issue.... 2-3hours of cardio? Well, I am a swimmer and swimming could be counted as cardio...and yes I spend like 4hours a day swimming but it is something like my job.... it is just my sport that is requiring it... but if I was somebody that wants to have healthy lifestyle and look good I wouldn't waste my day doing cardio. Instead I would stick to some interval training combined with weightlifting. It is much more productive and takes less time but leads to better results!
And now I am finally to the point I actually started writing this for... the "BLT Diet", or in other words — bites, licks, and tastes. Most people tend to think they are following some healthy eating plan, and they are expecting to see results... but who knows why they never last long on the diet because they get demotivated by not seeing any results and they just quit... Well, if you are one of them you better stop and think for a while...are you really following your plan? Or are you slacking on it?... maybe that bite from your boyfriend's burger; or the lick from your friends ice-cream, and all these small bites of junk food that you think won't harm you, and all the sips of the high fructose juice you have every time you open the fridge? ... Well all that broken in small bites and sips and licks may look nothing to you but when you add it up it turns out you are not following any specific HEALTHY eating plan... you are just cheating on yourself...
So it seems to me that most of the diet enthusiasts actually are following the BLT diet... and if you do not change that diet, you will surely never see the results you expect to!
