Repeat after me!

Another morning when my weight has not gone down and another day of trying to figure it all out, how to get through eating right and less and taking time to exercise (Ugh, that dreaded word again). 

One more time, and for sure not the last, THE ESSENTIALS:

A good night's sleep refreshes and fortifies you for the day.

So, get it!

Exercise energizes and strengthens you, burns calories and fights off fatigue and disease.
So, do it!

Good food in reasonable quantities nourishes and supports you.
So, eat it!

The benefits, feeling well, being healthy, moving easily, are so obvious and so worth it.

So, get to it!

What's holding you back?

Think about it and then do what you know will make you happiest with yourself in the long run.

Salud!

You, the Visionary

What is your vision for today, for next month, next spring, for your life?  What do you have in mind for yourself in terms of your health, your activities, your relationships, and, again, for your life?  Are you realizing any of your fantasies and dreams?

Yes, you do have dreams.  No matter how unambitious or unfocused you feel you may be, you do have fantasies about how your life should be.  Think back.  When you look at a piece of clothing you would like to wear, when you are outdoors and want to be a part of the day in a more active way, when you look longingly at people interacting in ways that are missing from your life, you are creating dreams.  These dreams are the beginnings of working out goals for yourself to change your life into one which is energizing and satisfying.  

Today, now, is the time.

Recognize your dreams.

Write them down.

Give them life and strength.

You will become powerful in their fulfillment.

Salud!

Watcha waitin' for?

As each day goes by and no changes are made, you have to ask yourself, "WHAT are you waiting for?"  No fairy godmother is going to fly down to wave a magic wand to turn you into the person you want to be.  There is no instant lottery of weight loss which you're going to hit to get you past the daily work that needs to be done.

You find yourself waking up morning after morning, having made no or possibly minimal progress.  What gets you motivated?  Is it a special occasion, a special person, a special season?  These momentary motivators work temporarily for some.  They do not move me at all.  Ideally, we  should be making changes for our ongoing comfort and health, so that we can meet the demands of daily life with ease and have physical and inner reserves for the difficult times.  In the end, we are the ones that have to live with our physical selves.  Do you want it to get in your way or, like a child, move with no barriers?  It seems to be an easy choice.

Today, be aware of how you feel as you tackle what needs to be done.  If you're not happy, take a deep breath and . . .

BE THANKFUL FOR THE NEW DAY YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN.

TAKE COMFORT IN YOUR OWN STRENGTH.

It's there, waiting for you to recognize it.

FIND YOUR POWER FROM KNOWING

THAT YOU ARE BLESSED BECAUSE

YOU HAVE A CHOICE.

It's a new day.  Go to it!  Salud!

It's the goods.

No food is worth feeling stuffed, sluggy, and sick.

It's time to get healthy with......

good sleep

good food

good movement

good spirit

Love yourself!

You deserve the best care and the best life you can imagine. 

Salud!

The long and the short of it

Ideally, I want to go to bed every night, knowing that I did right by my body for the day, and wake up every morning, experiencing the results of my efforts.

In reality, so far, I kind of manage to get through the day, constantly battling the temptations of the food I love, trying to ensure that I do not eat too late into the night, and hoping that I did actually cut back on the amount I've eaten.

In the morning, I try to gauge if I can get out of bed any more easily than I did yesterday morning and hope, hope, that the number on the scale has gone down.  There is, clearly, an element of desperation in living this way that is very wearing.

That is the paradox of time.  As fast as we all find that life is going by, for me, the day is too long to keep that focus going on watching what I eat from the beginning to the very end, sometimes at 2:00 in the morning.  The things that need to be done during the day surround and overwhelm me and, in my mindless exhaustion, the breaks that I take for relief mostly involve food.

Seeing my efforts through the day, staying aware of what I am trying to accomplish, and dealing with my unrelenting urge to eat are my daily struggles.   

   

Writing is my salvation.  Putting encouraging thoughts and insights to paper, literally, helps keep me aware.  My home is plastered with scotch-taped signs, written in bold marker colors on colorful paper, shouting today's rallying cry and observations.  You can't be shy about this kind of campaign.  The notes are very revealing and make for interesting reading for your guests who drop in without advance warning.  

So, today, awareness is the key.

Be kind to yourself.

Stop!

Take a moment to remember

what you are doing

for the good

of your body and your spirit.

It is so worth the effort.  Salud!

 

Take a break!

OMG!  There's so much to do in every moment of every day!  It seems endless.  Rightly so because it is endless.  We have so many chores and choices.  There seems to be no time to take a break.

It's true.  If we take care of every task we supposedly need to handle, follow every thought, every whim, there is no time.  But, a break is crucial to our mental and physical health.  It is up to us to create that moment for ourselves.  For me, the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night are the easiest. 

In the morning, before I launch myself towards my laptop, I am now stopping to say, "Good morning" to myself and "thank you" for the new day, take one long head-to-toe stretch, and think about the overall direction I'm taking for the day.  It takes all of 73 seconds.  Why it feels like such a chunk of time to take out I don't know, but it blesses and brings sense to a day-long run of all that has to be squeezed into the hours between waking and sleeping. 

In the evening, instead of just collapsing into bed, I find that taking a few seconds to give thanks for the day helps me settle down more easily.  Congratulating myself for all that I tackled during the day counteracts any dissatisfaction I'm feeling with what's left to be done.  (Realistically, is everything ever all done?)  Also, making a list of whatever pops into my head for the next day helps quiet my mind.  

Taking time like this needs conscious effort at first.  But, I know, although I haven't experienced it yet, that eventually these will become habits that fit seamlessly into the day.

Today,

TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF!

Try it.  You'll like it.

Salud!

Little by little

There are those mornings that you get on the scale and the number has not budged.  You know you did everything right yesterday.  So, what could it be?  Too many carbs, not enough veggies, not enough sleep, not enough exercise?  Maybe it was none of those.  Why always scold and blame yourself?  Maybe your body has paused to reflect on the changes you've made and is not ready to react with a change in the numbers on the scale.

First, I know there are different thoughts about how often to weigh yourself, every day, once a week, once a month.  I am of the every day crowd.  If that makes you crazy, pick your own schedule.  Since my insides give me no clue about when and how much I last ate, I need an external indicator of what my weight is doing.  However, I try not get hung up on the daily number if I know I'm on track with how I am eating and moving.  My body will eventually do the right thing to reflect the changes I've made and my weight will move down.

I have a lot of faith in the healing power of our bodies.  If I am doing right by it, it will do right by me.  However slowly, it will get to where it needs to be to feel and look my best.

Today,

I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE WISDOM OF MY BODY.

I LISTEN TO THE MESSAGES IT GIVES ME.

I AM PATIENT IN MY JOURNEY TO WELL-BEING.

We are blessed with the opportunity and the means to make positive changes.  Salute yourself for the efforts that you are making are your own behalf.  Salud!

You want me to move?!?

No, no one is asking me to vacate my home.  You know what I am talking about.  It's that dreaded word, "exercise."  It's there, waiting for us to make a move, a commitment and time in every day.  I am so resistant to the word that I keep trying to find substitutes that will encourage me rather than paralyze me:  movement, in motion, anything but that word which suggests a tedious routine and a schedule.  

Each day brings the same thought:  TODAY, I will start ________  (fill in your own form of exercise.  Mine is Qi Kung.)  It a resolution that, sadly, is almost never realized.  There are well-meaning DVDs in a box and equipment stored behind my couch, professional hula hoops, a rebounder, which have never been touched.  The recumbent bike I purchased is now on loan at a neighbor's.  I did manage one time last year to follow a Qi Kung dvd for a total of 9 out of 13 days.  I was so proud for a moment, but it didn't stick.  I would put it off until later and later into the day until I was following it half asleep at 1:30 in the morning.

The reality is that we all need to extend our muscles beyond their everyday activities.  It recently became frighteningly clear when my parents both landed in the hospital and were totally debilitated in a matter of three days.  When I questioned how this could be possible so quickly, my brother forcefully pointed out that, because of lack of regular exercise, they had no muscular reserves and nowhere to go but down and fast.  I heard that!

So, today:

ESCAPE FROM THE PRISON OF YOUR INERTIA!

MAKE A BREAK FOR IT AND GET MOVING!

Your muscles will love you for it and you will find yourself breathing, moving and smiling with renewed energy and ease.  Salud!

Keeping promises

What do you mean?  I keep my promises.  To others, yes.  What about to yourself?

Every morning, faced with the consequences of what I did or did not do yesterday, I go over what needs to be arranged for the coming day which will get my weight and my body to its best shape.  These are promises that you and I, who are trying to change the way we eat, make to ourselves each day.  Why, then, are we still carrying around extra pounds?  Because daily, time after time, we've broken the promises we've made to ourselves.  

This betrayal of ourselves erodes our spirit.  As faithful as I am to my word to others, I opt out time after time after time to myself.  It is a burden that I carry physically and spiritually.  It is a darkness and a dissatisfaction with myself that spills over into the rest of my life:  into relationships I hope will develop, into adventures in which I could participate, in so many small ways every day that narrow and limit my experiences.  What is left is sitting in front of the tv, eating, and struggling to find the energy and the strength to get the minimum done each day.  Is this a rich fulfilling life?  NO!

Enough!

Today's rallying cry is:

SEIZE TODAY'S OPPORTUNITY!

KEEP TODAY'S PROMISE!

Don't let the day or the promise go by one more time.

Those broken promises build up little by little into thick layers that hold us down.

Begin building the layers that will take you to the best places you can imagine.

Yeah! for the best we can be for ourselves.  Salud!

Sunday morning, DST, a new beginning again

This blog has been a long time coming.

Every morning, I start journaling for the day, hoping that my own thoughts on paper will get me started and keep me focused.  Oh, sure!  What do you think happens?  You're right.  It works for a while and then not.  This has been going on for decades.  My last "clean sweep" turned up years of notes to myself, reflecting the same issues which I am still tackling  to this very day.  Sound familiar?

Anyway, here goes.  

Eating too much and losing weight have been the main topics of my life back to my earliest memory.  Picture my mother yelling at my grandmother that she was feeding me too much.  All that fatty Hungarian food!  Yum.  Early on, I was sneaking food from the fridge and out of my g-ma's locked closet where she kept the candy her piano students regularly gave her as holiday presents.  After moving in with my mom and her new husband, it escalated to sneaking behind my grandfather's back on his blind side so that I could get into the fridge which was padlocked.

My weight was fairly reasonable at 161 when I left home at 18.  On my own, I managed to balloon up to about 308 in a few short years.  I remember looking at soup, an appetizer and a huge plate of lo mein at a Chinese restaurant and thinking, "this is not enough food."  Scary!  Finally, on Atkins, I lost 80 pounds, but gained a lot back when I went back to eating "normally."  Thanks to an unhappy gallbladder, my weight finally stabilized for about 10 years between 225 and 245.  Until recently.  I now weigh 283 pounds.  The struggle continues.

Does all this back and forth reflect your story over the years?  Maybe, making this public and sharing will help me and you.

Enough history! 


Today's rallying cry:

I HAVE THE POWER

TODAY,

IN THIS MOMENT,

TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN

HOW I FEEL,

MOVE, ESPECIALLY MOVE,

AND LOOK

TOMORROW MORNING!

Here's to all of us!  Salud!