Hi my dear Hive friends :) First of all, I want to wish everyone of you here a very Happy, Healthy, and Free New Year. I think we can all do with either of those...
For me, and my family, the new year has started off really well. But how could it be any different if you're living in the Paradise called Mexico?

Our New Year's eve party

I had two choices in this. Yup. You've read that right: TWO.
One choice was to spend the evening into the next year at the beach, together with a few other families, have some snacks and a few drinks. It absolutely sounded really appealing. However, the thought of whatever bitey things could also frequent that particular beach spot, wasn't as attractive as the second option.

This option was a dinner party with a chosen few, around 40 to 50 people I'm guessing.
Most knew each other. aside from my friend Nika, her partner, and another Dutch guy that I'd met only a few days previously, I didn't know anyone, but that changed throughout the evening. The venue was an amazing little boutique hotel called: Green Village Hotel. Almost everything in there was repurposed or taken straight from nature. If I had to describe it, I'd say it was truly a little Green Village. Photos of this beautiful place will follow because I will have to go back to take some. I just have this one:

The little indoor garden at the entrance of the hotel

Oh, and I have this! I took a photo of a door I thought was beautiful, not knowing it belongs to this place! Look at it, isn't it pretty?

And the food wasn't bad either! It was prepared right in front of us.
It was supposed to be vegan, with two meat options for those who eat meat.
However, it was more vegetarian, since they used quite a bit of cheese in many things. But that's OK. There was enough vegan options. Especially the stuffed wine leaves were amazing!

All photos are my own

The people were lovely. In the beginning of the night, my friend Nika introduced the kids to her friend's son. After some awkward hellos, and even more awkward silence, towards the end of the dinner, not long before the clock rang in the New Year, they somehow found a ball... And that was that. Why didn't I think of that? Throwing a ball around still seems to top being on the phone. It was great!

So now they have a friend, and we'll meet again with his family.
All in all, it was an amazing night, with amazing food, and amazing people.
It was great to see the staff dancing in the street during the fireworks.
No fear, just joy. Like it's supposed to be...

My non resolutions

I've never made any New Years' resolutions. I don't want to disappoint myself or others if I can't keep them. I believe that resolutions should come year around, not just this one day.
So I don't promise anything I am not planning to keep.

My personal transformation

I guess you could call it a resolution of sorts...

In May last year (weird to say that), I quit drinking coffee...
I had one of those Nespresso coffee makers, but after using it (and loving it) for a while, I decided that the coffee thingies for it were WAY too expensive. So I stopped buying them. When they were finished, I quit altogether.
Now, we're not talking about a few cups a day. No, I was a full blown coffee junkie. 5 to 10 cups a day, with up to 4 spoons of sugar, and an equal amount of powdered coffee creamer. That's a LOT of junk!
The funny thing is, I started getting very thirsty from quitting coffee. Which I found odd, because coffee dehydrates, and I didn't really drink much else. Maybe 1 to 3 glasses of water a day. But when I quit, I was so thirsty all the time, that I started drinking 3 liters of water a day without any issues...
I learned a thing or two about how the body works in that time.
In August, I had some bloods done, and what came out of it? Yeah, very high blood sugar. Not diabetic, but very high nevertheless.
However, I knew instinctively that it had nothing to do with having too much sugar, and logically so, because with me quitting coffee, not only did the coffee cravings disappear, but also my sugar cravings! I didn't use sugar!
So where did the high blood sugar come from?
My explanation is that my body was removing all the sugar from my body now, with the help of that water. Something it hadn't been able to do for a long time.
So between May and us getting here in November, I had lost 15 kg...
That's 15 bags of sugar...
And I hadn't changed anything else about my diet, didn't move more...nothing.
Now, my blood sugar levels are back to normal.
How amazing is that? I'm down 2 dress sizes!

My daily routine

When we got here, I started swimming laps every day. It's only a small swimming pool, so one lap is about 15 meters.
Nevertheless, the first few times, I'd be without breath by the third lap.
Now I do two sets of 40. My plan was to try and swim 1 km. I adjusted that plan to 1.2 km.
If you have a swimming pool in front of the door, use it!

And aside from that, we walk at least 10k steps every day. Sometimes twice as much.
It's so easy here. Just walking to the bus stop (the one further away, instead of in front of the door) is about 2 km. Then walking around town ads another 2 or 3.
In Ireland I couldn't walk 2 km without grunting that I had enough. I guess the place you're in has a much bigger influence than I initially thought.

Before all this, I thought I'd never get back to the weight that I was before I had my kiddos (and I don't even blame them, it was all me). Now, I'm not so sure anymore. I've lost half that weight almost. With ease. I don't see why I couldn't lose the rest as well.

So there, my NON New Years resolutions, because I'm doing it without real effort.
And loving it. I did take before photos...Well, mostly before now. I never took photos when I was my old weight because I was too ashamed of myself and how I had gotten myself in that mess.

One day I will post those pictures. But first the rest will need to go.