Maiti Nepal at the Swedish Church

This past weekend our first fund raising event for Maiti Nepal took place. We were invited to join the Swedish Church in both Fuengirola and Marbella for their Sunday service. It was such a beautiful day filled with many fantastic and genuine people.

We started at 11 am in Fuengirola, the main home for the Swedish church on the Costa del Sol. Even though this Sunday was the important skiing race, Vasaloppet on TV, live from Mora in Sweden, the church was almost full. The service went on for about one hour in which we gave an introduction of what Maiti Nepal stands for and how they help in the fight against human trafficking.  We also enjoyed beautiful live music and the priest gave a nice ceremony. We had a fantastic response after the service with questions and interest. It felt very rewarding and the collection from the day was more than double of that on a normal Sunday. Thank you all so much for the support!

From there we raced down to Restaurante El Gamonal in La Quinta for the Marbella service, together with priest Michael and his wife Lena who plays the piano and has an amazing voice. In Marbella there will be a church ceremony held every 14 days. The number of visitors were higher than expected so we had to get extra chairs brought out for everyone to have a seat. Again a great service with lovely response and we had the pleasure of listening to my friend Peet Rothwell ( www.peetasbuble.com ) singing two songs from Michael Bublé. Especially the song “I wanna go home” gave a beautiful message to the audience. The wish of all the young women and children that are held as sex slaves somewhere out there, is to be able to go home. Together we can help make that dream come true for some of them .

Donations can be made on: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/marianne-steneholm

 

Don´t stay in your comfort zone

Last weekend I went to the UK for some me time. Of course there was no way I could stay away from the gym 😉 Luckily my friend over there is a big gym fan too. He pushed me so hard:-) It was great!! I was completely wrecked haha. Not only did I learn some new things but most of all I realized that this last year I have been training within my personal comfort zone. I have honestly thought that I am training like a beast and can´t do more when in reality I CAN DO SO MUCH MORE. It´s funny how we can block ourselves mentally thinking we can´t do something. This weekend I was pushed out of that comfort zone and gained new confidence and motivation. I have now been back home for 3 days and every morning this week, I have upped the weights on every single exercise! How about that??!!

So my tip for this week is to get someone to push you out of your normal routine and try some new exercises and give you the balls to put more weights on. It´s not only good for the muscles but more than anything for our head!! Feels awesome 🙂

Below is my Sunday back routine that I can still feel today! And another video showing a different way training those important hamstrings!

 

 

 

 

Marbella beach power walks

Apart from eating loads of Christmas food, we have had time for some beautiful morning power walks along the promenade between Puerto Banus and Marbella and also to San Pedro. It is the best way to start the morning. It is so peaceful and the sunrise over the Mediterranean is mesmerizing. We get time for some girls talk while burning off the Christmas food and there are so many fitness exercises that can be done along the way. The best cardio for fat burning is to power walk. It is much better than running! Once warmed up by with the power walk and fresh mind, I continue to Panatta Gym for my daily gym routine. It has been a lovely 2 weeks of holiday with family and sporting activities to enjoy! Today I am back at work again, hungry to sell some properties:-) but I will keep my beach walks to my weekend activities 🙂

 

Positivity check

Happy Saturday 😉 Maybe an odd subject but who cares right? Fact is,  I often get asked how I can be so happy all the time. So without being over enthusiastic I am going tell you a few of my tricks! Most importantly, good sleep! If you are tired, everything is shit. Then I have realized that if you go to bed with a good thought, you usually wake up happy and vice versa. The power of your own thoughts are so strong. I bet that all of you can get really sad in just an instance if you focus on something sad. So train yourself to focus on happy things. So how do you do that?  I play, like, a little game with myself: the “to-see-the-best -in-each-situation” game.  My “game” can be to try to pick out as many positive things in a situation as I can think of. It is just like a private little mind game with myself lol. In the beginning it was quite difficult and I had to remind myself, but as you get used to it, all of a sudden it just becomes a natural reaction. Give it a try and enjoy the best of each day 🙂

(*This post  is obviously not meant when it comes to illness or death to someone we love. That is a different ball game.)