Being Real

As I look back over the last week (and last month), I feel the need to sit myself down and have a heart-to-heart. What exactly is going one with this maybe-I'm-back and maybe-I'm-not action going on here?

My brain would tell you a lot of stories and a lot of reasons for my half-hearted attempts. But that sentence contains the whole truth. It's not inside the stories, its the fact that I'm only half-heartedly into this.

So what's up with that?

I realized a few months back that I was actually scared to start back to my exercise regimine, which is JUST WALKING, because the last time I resumed walking, I developed serious complications from my previous surgery. Even though I know that won't happen again, I realized that I had this fear lurking back there.

OK, it's been revealed for being irrational, and now it's not lurking. I choose to walk into that fear. What else?

There is a part of me that wants to avoid being completely responsible for myself. I want to be, oh, 90% responsible, but I think I'm really waiting for someone to come along and fix me and my life. Let someone else do the hard work in these areas where I'm slipping. I'm doing the hard work in most areas anyway. Isn't that enough?

Sure, if I want to only reach 90% of my goals, and only be 90% happy at max. I can never reach MY goals through someone else's effort, and I can never be happy based on someone else's effort.

I've got a little bit of resistance going on. But it's not just in this area. I do the same thing with my laundry, my closets, and my housecleaning. I try to cut corners. I'm not willing to empty out the file drawers, sort through the files, and return only what I need in good order. Instead, I open the drawer, pull out things that are obviously misfiled or outdated, and close the drawer. I don't want to look that closesly. It's too overwhelming.

I know that I can't accomplish a major clean sweep through all of my life in a short period of time, but the truth is, I want to be a person who does sweep clean.

The last two days, I've taken almost everything out of my office, moving it to the living room. I've sorted things, and taken most of it back in. But some is still sitting around in the living room, and some of it has found its way to the trash. Because of the amount of stuff I have in my house and heart and mind, I might not be able to clean sweep everything on this pass, but I can attach most of it, and leave the remaining bits for a later sort and toss session. I'm only putting back what I know is valuable and useful. I'm open to tossing the rest, trusting that I truly won't miss it, and I will gain extra physical space, mental space, and even emotional space, for my life.

The same with my healthy lifestyle. I don't have to start out walking 2+ miles each day. It's enough to start out walking a single mile, and adding to that as I build up and gain the desire for more. Some of these folders from my file drawers that are in the living room contain valuable things, I'm sure. But I can put them in a box of things to sort, and one day a week, I can attack that box. I can sweep clean.

I'm glad I've gotten to the heart of this.

I've Started, Sort Of

My life has been so crazy lately that I've not exactly followed through on my restart. I still haven't weighed in, but I've been eating right! I keep thinking I should just weigh in any day to have a starting number. The perfectionist in me (yes, she's still there) says to wait until next Monday. When I forget, it's the next Monday, and the next.

If I don't weigh in next Monday morning, I promise myself that I'll weigh in as soon as I realize that I forgot. It's a new habit to start. And you can keep me accountable.

I'm slowing updating the website. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the tabs across the top working yet. I've resigned up at Topica for a newsletter service. I expect the first issue will come out in March. I'm trying to get my Blogrolling setup, but I can't remember my login or password (even though I've got them set up on another blog!) So bear with me. I'm doing good just to have things running off of the next computer. The old computer is still sitting right next to it, two monitors side-by-side, while I find things on the old that belong on the new. Which happens a couple of times each day.

Otherwise, I'm doing really well with my lifestyle changes this week. After working too much last week, I'm really taking good care of myself this week. I'm going to be bed early so I can sleep long and still get up close to my normal time. I went to the grocery and stocked up on healthy foods, so I have lots of options when I do get hungry. I'm yawning now, so I'm about to head off the computer for the day. I'll spend the evening catching up on laundry, cleaning... you know the rest.

Did anyone else have the same week I had last week? Everything turned out A-ok in the end, but the journey was like a Fear Factor obstacle course. No bruises, no scrapes, nothing as serious as a broken bone, but BOY-o-BOY it was a tough time.

Every day had its surprises for me. They were mostly the routine type of things that can go wrong, the kind of things that might happen once every five years or longer, and yet they all managed to happen at approximately the same time. They showed up, one right after the other. At one point, I thought I should be taking notes because it was an incredible story, something that was such a comedy of errors that it would be hilarious in hindsight. But while I was living it, I was a struggle to let go of the irksome points and really focus on the positives. And there were positives. Throughout the week, people everywhere helped me out, whether they realized they were helping, or whether I asked for help (which I did frequently). People last week were fabulous in my life. Inanimate objects, on the other hand, were not so friendly.

But I made it through. I even managed to make a pot of my famous sloppy joe mix, which I've now been enjoying at least one meal a day for most of a week. I'm not sick of it yet, but I'm eyeing the last container in the fridge, thinking that one should go to the freezer. Perhaps I'll do that tonight before I hit the sack.

I did not managed to get weighed in last week, but am hoping to do that this week. Don't ask me what obstacle course ran past that goal, just laugh me with and know that it was a doosey.

Over the last few weeks, I've found that I'm watching myself. The closer I get to my official restart date (Monday!) the more watching I'm doing. It's hard to be objective about yourself, and its hard to see yourself the way that someone else can see you.

What I'm trying to do it see myself as clearly as possible. I'm trying to assess how I'm doing with my current lifestyle. I'm measuring how much of my lifestyle is healthy and supports the direction I want to go, and how much of it drags me in the other direction. Or, how much of it doesn't seem to contribute, because I also want to weed out the uncontributing things in my life.

The pace of my daily living is speeding up. I'm not complaining, there are some really great changes going on for me. It's a good problem to have! I'm aware that I'm having to adjust, and I'm making some changes. For example, my month-at-a-glance format daily planner format isn't giving me enough space to keep track of things anymore. For years, that has been good enough. Now, I need a week-at-a-glance. So I've just purchased my second set of daily planner inserts for 2006.

What I'm watching mostly has to do with how much time I spend taking care of myself vs. working vs. doing things that don't contribute. Am I getting some quiet space at the start of my day, or am I getting up and staggering to the keyboard? Am I taking short breaks in the day to take care of things around the house, running errands and such, or am I just working straight through? And am I spending time vegging out in front of the TV instead of spending time on my personal projects? I don't mind watching a bit of TV, but really, how many TV shows can I really watch in a week and still feel that my priorities are towards my personal projects?

All of this watching is really about observing my priorities in action. Am I living according to the priorities I say I want for this stage in my life? Or am I acting on a different set of priorities? I'm looking for the evidence that lets me know how on-target I am with my lifestyle decisions.

Last night, I suddenly got this craving for a rich milkshake. I don't keep anything remotely similar to that in the house. I was tempted to jump in the truck and grab one. That idea turned into deciding to go to the grocery where I could also pick up some sorbet which would sort of satisfy that craving. But in the end, I opted to stay in the house and go to bed early. I was exhausted and have been waking up tired. I decided that I could slip in a trip to the grocery during the day today, and decide on the sorbet/milkshake options in the daylight. I make my best decisions in the daylight, when I'm focused and rested.

Hello everyone!

It's been such a journey since my last post. I've been through some rough life changes, and I've arrived on the other side with my heart healing and growing again. I'm remembering how to dream again. Maybe sometime I'll share what's been up with me, but just know that I'm glad to be back here and ready to dig in again.

Yep, dig back into creating that healthy lifestyle that I started a few years back. Based on what I've learned and the permanent changes I've made in my life and outlook, I'm ready to dig deeper and see just how healthy and happy I can become. I suspect the sky is the limit, my ability to have a vision for this improved life and my determination to duke it out when necessary while slogging through daily living -- those are the only things that can stop me. And for today, I'm happy, I'm totally motivated, and I'm ready!

Let's get started.

Without explaining what's happened in my life, let me just say that in the process of adjusting and expanding to meet the new challenges, I let my lifestyle changes slip just a bit. I've regained some of the weight. I had to go out and buy some larger clothes for the winter. But I haven't gained it all back, and those lifestyle muscles are ready to return to work.

Isn't it amazing? I'm back here, confessing that I've regained some of the weight, and I'm resuming the journey, but I'm not the least bit discouraged?

I did the best I could, and now, I'm ready to improve more. For a while, I knew in my heart that even though the weight was slowing creeping back, I was doing the best I could in the moment. But a couple of weeks back, that feeling changed. I suddenly realized that my life situation had really gotten easier, and I was coasting a bit. I could no longer say that I was really doing my best in that moment. So I decided right then, sitting on my couch, that I was going to do what I know how to do, and was going to recommit to being the best me I can be. I had some commitments to fulfill, and now that those are behind me, I'm spending my extra energy on taking good care of myself. And that means jumping back in here.

I'm going to weigh in next Monday, and honestly, I don't know how much of the weight I've regained. But when I find out, I'll post it here.

This blog has sort of gotten dusty around the edges. I've taken off the link to the newsletter, but I may return to it later. Give me a few weeks to decide. I've also got some housekeeping to do on the site, to make sure that I've got content in the other tabs. So be patient with me, but I'll get things up and running.

Thanks to everyone who stops by to read this, and cheers to everyone who is on this journey with me. I'm ready to laugh my way through this, and I hope we can inspire each other and encourage each other as we go. Life is tough enough, we need to be kind to ourselves and to each other.

Week 57

It's a MIRACLE.

You know, if you've been reading much of my blog, that my whole experience has been pretty incredible. Once I made up my mind I was going to change my lifestyle, things have flowed in a most amazing way for me. Sure, I've had plenty of challenges and some demons to wrestle. I've messed up, I've lost my direction from time to time, and I've gotten frustrated by my expectations of how my progress should be going. But overall, when I look at what has happened since January 2002, I'm amazed. And the only word that comes to mind is: miraculous.

Last week, I confessed here that I ate a whole box of licorice on a binge triggered by some emotional pain, and I gained a bunch of weight. I worked it through, and I was OK with all of it -- the binge, the weight gain, and the time I would take to get back to where I was the week before. I thought it might take me a month to do that. But here I am today, with only 1 extra pound to lose. I lost 5 pounds last week, after gaining 6 pounds the week before!

I must admit, that last week, after I realized how much I had gained, I wondered if there was a sort of mistake with the scales. I HOPED there was a mistake with the scales. So the next day, I weighed myself, also. The following day, I weighed one pound less than I reported here... so I knew that the original weight was correct, or at best, was only just a little off. My scales weren't broken, I didn't accidentally weigh myself wearing my heavy-duty hiking boots, nothing like that. I really gained that weight. So how did I lose 5 pounds last week? I can't explain it. I certainly didn't work very hard at it. I went over points two days that week. I wasn't being very strict with myself. I figured that after a binge, I needed to give myself some space to come back to regular slowly. I thought being strict might just set me up to binge again, and I certainly didn't want that.

There have been many miracles reported here. And after thinking about them all, and thinking about what I'm doing, I have this opinion about them. I believe that when I set my intention to establish my healthy lifestyle, there was something so determined, so powerful with that intention that it has carried me forward. Sure, I've made all of the small, day-to-day decisions to support that goal. I've lived the life, I've done the work. But the work really hasn't been that hard, not as hard as I would have expected. I've not struggled to stay on course. I've had rough patches, but I was determined to see them through, and determined that nothing is going to stop me from reaching my goal. And nothing has. I think my attitude is what has made the huge difference for me. In the past, the few times I tried to diet, I didn't have my mind made up like I do now. I can't tell you why that is true, but it is. In the past, I wanted to lose the weight for all kinds of reasons, but none of them were about ME like this goal is about me. I wanted other people to change how they reacted to me. I thought it would help me get a better job. I thought that if I was prettier, my life would be better. Those turned out to be very weak reasons for me. But deciding that I wanted to healthy lifestyle has turned out to be the answer to all of my prayers and dreams.

Sure, the whole process is taking longer than I imagined when I started, but I also understand that a slow weight loss is really better for me anyway. I'm loving the new foods in my life, and love that I'm still exploring and looking for new foods to try, new tastes to fall in love with. I've discovered that I really LIKE salads. I've discovered that just a bit of some yummy sauce is enough to satisfy me. I've discovered that adding seasonings to my foods makes such a huge difference in how I enjoy them. I don't feel cheated in any way. I don't feel like there is any food that is off limits. I sometimes order a dessert at a restaurant and only eat a few bites, and don't feel bad about leaving the rest or paying for the whole thing. I think I've got the skills and understanding I need to really win at the weight loss game.

And that is the best miracle of them all.

Week Unknown

Hey, I'm doing better. I'm eating good foods, and a good variety. Tonight, for example, I had a lamp chop with kiwi/mint sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh steamed asparagus spears. For a snack, I had an all juice lime bar.

I briefly considered rejoining Weight Watchers meetings, just to get me back on track for a while. I know where there are meetings in my new area, but I've decided to postpone that decision, at least for a while.

Also, today I purchased my first exercise equipment -- a Pilates machine from QVC. I know that you can do Pilates on the floor with just a mat, but with my mobility challenges, I thought this would really help me to get started. I also bought the stand to raise it up from the floor, something else that I thought would help me.

I'm determined to learn how to stand up from sitting down. I think the Pilates, along with my limited yoga and renewed walking program, will really help me.

By the way, I've unpacked my red towel! Now, as soon as I reach my 20% weight loss goal, I can take some new pics!