HungryForLife

See it. Be it. Live it.

For most of this year I have struggled with emotional eating, over eating, and craving comfort foods. In the beginning of my weight releasing journey I was focused on getting done with burning fat but I learned that it was a process and there was no way to do it but go through. The same with all life lessons from having a baby to losing a loved one. I had to wrap my head around the idea that once I released the excess pounds that maintaining my weight might be a challenge but I didn’t imagine it would be more challenging than my original journey. Oh my—it is. And I realize I have not listened to my wise self and I have gained rather than maintained.

At 140 lbs. I heard, you’re too thin from a few people—I hadn’t heard those words since I was nine years old! In 2009 when my mom and her love of sweets moved in with us I gained five pounds and I was okay with that because others thought I was too thin. I liked how I felt at 140 but I could live with the gain. When mom was sick last Christmas and died in January—I gained five pounds in a few weeks. They stuck. Every trip I’ve taken this year I’ve gained 3-4 pounds and then struggled for what felt like forever to let them go. It's not about the number but how I feel—heavier and less energized.

Since starting CrossFit I have definitely seen and felt a difference in my body (yes, besides sore muscles!) but I haven't lost weight. Yes, I built muscle. Yes, I’m stronger and have more stamina. I still have a ways to go to be toned but I’ll get there one workout at a time. But I see that I slowly gave up on all my other exercise; walking, biking, dancing, and I felt sorry for my poor sore body and didn’t I deserve a reward for all my effort? I reverted to thinking of foods as good, bad, and evil. Guess where all my comfort foods lie out of those three categories?

It has taken me all year to realize I’ve been stuck in diet mentality. My Weight Watchers leader Stacey mentioned this in a meeting last week and I had an Aha! moment. I wasn’t consciously depriving myself but now I see that’s why when I broke down and binged I could disappear a half a pan of brownies. Poof! The thinking is: scarf as much as possible because it may be months before I get this again. Then came the cycle of guilt, admonishment, feeling bad about myself, which triggers a whole ‘nother emotional food-fest, followed by the question why bother exercising after eating all that!?

I was discouraged. I was tired of the struggle. I’d lost my way. I'd forgotten that this journey is a process—not about getting to done. There is no done for this over eater/emotional eater. For me the first step to getting back on track is to pick myself up. I wanted something to lift my spirits and energy. I needed a vision. Once I became aware of my thinking I was on board immediately with letting go of diet brain—I know diets don’t work yet I had reverted to my comfort zone. I needed to stretch myself out of that supposed comfortable place of excess and ease and get back up. I needed to see it. Be it. Live it. Not a DIEt but a LIVEit. Isn’t it interesting that evil in reverse is LIVE? Hmmmm.

My vision manifested itself as a vision board with a twist. I cut out magazine pictures and words that gave life and color to my intentions of building a strong and healthy body. I added my weigh in date for each week in December and my intended weight. First I SEE it on the board. Then I BEcome it, manifest it. That’s how I LIVEit. Creating the board itself was a messy creative trial and error endeavor and reaffirmed for me how important going through the process is—not the end result.

The first time I attempted to make it I was in a hurry and resistant to the process. I ended up tearing it up and starting again the next day. I set the mood and took a pile of O Magazines and all the tools I’d need to snip and glue and sat in the middle of my bed. Once I relaxed into the rhythm of opening and receiving, the perfect photos and words popped up everywhere. I had set my timer for ninety minutes and I stopped and walked away when it beeped. I left the bed just the way it was. Oh my inner control freak wanted to clean up right now! I gently cajoled her with, No dear, we’re not finished, it’s not your turn yet, we’ll come back later and you can whip it into shape.

I went back before dinner for an hour to trim and choose my final pieces and lay them out. Oh, it was delightful! A childlike process akin to paper dolls. Once again, I walked away when the dinner bell rang. Later that night as we settled in to watch a show I sat in front of the TV wielding my glue stick like a magic wand and whisking all the pieces into their ideal places. It took all day to complete this concoction because I let it simmer and burble like a good potion maker does.

I learned to be in the moment; to connect to my creative genius; to trust my gut; to see what I want to be; to be patient and loving with myself; that mis-takes are merely do-overs to celebrate. I learned that I can enjoy the end results but not let them be the keeper of joy— happiness lies in the journey not the destination. I learned that all the lessons of creating my LIVEit poster apply to living my LIVEit life!

(I wrote this draft on Monday and weighed in on Tuesday: at a half a pound below my goal for week one! Woot, woot!)

 

 

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

Joe’s journey to health and vitality is inspiring, engaging, and filled with laughter. His Aussie accent is easy on the ears, too. Here’s a five minute clip to entice you to watch the whole movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and get inspired to reboot your life!  (Available as DVD rental and on Netflix via streaming video)



In the movie you’ll meet Phil — he is my hero! The courage that it took to call Joe and ask for help was heartrending. His commitment and perseverance to his life, his son, and his health were phenomenal. Worth the watch just to see Phil’s transformation.

DH and I are looking into Breville juicers and plotting our ten day reboot. Life is juicy!

...lost and found...

When I first created this blog in 2009 my intention was to chronicle my weight loss journey. I wanted to keep myself accountable and to inspire others to go for the dreams they thought were out of their reach. While I was mom’s caretaker for the past year I had more issues with food and exercise than I believed possible! Wasn’t I past emotional eating? Didn’t I kick that habit when I lost fifty pounds? Then why was a cramming potato chips into my mouth while watching a late night movie? Why was I eating the high fat foods that I prepared for her because she enjoyed them so much? And why was I blaming her for my eating choices!? These were questions I demanded answers to halfway through the year as the stress of my new lifestyle took its toll.

Yesterday I used my tracking journal to pull out my monthly weight since Nov 2009 when I weighed in at my lowest 140.5 I’d been hovering at 143 even though my Weight Watcher’s goal was 150 (for my height 5’10” the high end is 174). Mom moved in with us Thanksgiving 2009—barely three months later I weighed 145 and stayed within two pounds either side for the year. By January 2011 I was 150 and I weighed in today at 152. Now don’t think I’m obsessed with the scale it’s a tool not a God. But I had avoided the scale because I didn’t want to know—I didn’t want to feel as though I’d failed. I do know. My clothes are tight, and I feel sluggish and less energetic and those ten to twelve pounds are heavy and bogging me down—physically and emotionally. I felt way better at 145 but I felt awesome at 140 and will shoot for releasing the first five and then set another goal for releasing the next five. My coach reminded me to use intentional language like releasing because when I say I’ve lost a certain number of pounds I may find them again!

I’ve been choosing comfort foods which mean carbs and sugar. (sigh) When we’ve eaten out I’ve ordered fried foods (gasp!) and slathered real mayonnaise on my sandwich and then asked for dessert. When I’m active and exercising regularly at a calorie burning level I wouldn’t think twice about splurging on a couple of meals each month to treat myself. But when it becomes weekly and then daily it slid into a habit or a crutch. I was using those late night cookies to numb myself or console myself, or even punish myself but yanno it doesn’t really help, or at least not for long. Grief is a process. It takes as long as it takes. I won’t find ‘I feel good about me’ at the bottom of a bag or box of anything!

I’ve decided I can grieve and walk; grieve and laugh; grieve and eat healthy; grieve and love; grieve and release fat; grieve and live…until I’m done. For me grieving is about letting go—not simply the past or what could have been but my regrets, guilt, sadness, loss, and I’m ready. I’m ready to choose love and happiness. I’m ready to let go of all the things that are weighing me down and float into my future self as gently as a wind blown kiss.

The Stress Slide

I started gung ho with Health Coach Team this month: my goal to loose these final five pounds, increase my strength and muscle tone. First week I gained. Second week I lost what I gained. Third week I lost a half-pound. When I strained my hip I really felt down and I had to take a few days off from exercise to rest it. So there was no surprise in my fourth week I found what I’d lost! There is a powerful difference between these two mindsets of finding and losing instead of releasing—I’m ready to let it go forever!

Here’s what happened: stress. During my weight loss journey my life was fairly smooth sailing even last year when Jeff was laid off I didn’t panic, I knew we’d be okay and saw it as an opportunity. When we moved mom into our home in November I had no idea what it was like to be a full time caregiver. OMG! I stress over everything, and when I’m not stressing I feel guilty—there are so many emotions at play in caring for an ailing parent. When I added the limitations and worry about my hip I hit overwhelm.

Once the stress took over I slid out of my healthy habits and right back into eating emotionally and starting the vicious cycle of feeling overwhelmed, sad, tired, depressed and eating to feel better. But I didn’t feel better I felt worse….so I’d eat some more and feel lower than low. And then I stopped all my exercise routines because what’s the point I’m pitiful. You get the picture! 

The key to stopping this cycle? Awareness. I saw what I was doing and knew what I needed to do. I simply had to decide using stress as an excuse was no longer serving me. Yes, it let me have a pity party but it didn’t solve my challenges, it only compounded them! As long as I am looking at my life from these perspectives: ‘I don’t deserve this’ ‘It’s not fair’ ‘Poor me,’ then that leads to unhealthy choices. When I shift into gratitude and how blessed my life is I am empowered to make choices that support my aliveness and give me the energy to face those challenges with possibility instead of negativity.

This   week I have shifted and I feel happy about my choices, my productivity, and the balance I’ve created between work and play. I’m content in roles I’ve chosen as wife, mom, daughter, partner, caretaker and friend. My mantra: I release all stress in my life along with any excess weight on my body.

Please share any practices you use to manage or avoid stress. I know I need all the help I can get! 

My New Health Coach

I participated in a Considerably Huge telesummit series of free coaching calls over the past three months. In April Debbie Schroeder and her partner, Lynn Smith, from Health Coach Team spoke about feeling your best to achieve your best and gave some great tips and information for weight loss, fitness, and self care. 

Under stress I’ve realized I have been taking infinitesimal steps back into my old habits of eating emotionally, sitting instead of moving, sleeping but not feeling rested, making unhealthy food choices. You get the picture?  I’ve gained three pounds so far this year and I realize that may not sound like much but that’s exactly how we gain weight; so slowly that we don’t notice until it’s ten pounds or more!

It’s a red flag that I’ve slipped in my support systems and need to put good habits back in place. Enter Debbie and Health Coach Team, we had a discovery call so we could connect and I could share my progress so far along with the challenges I’m currently facing. Debbie and I hit it off and I have signed up for three months of web-based coaching with one phone call per month. Health Coach Teams coaching agreement states: The coach’s role is to accelerate the client’s progress by providing greater focus, awareness of choice and accountability.

Here are my goals for the summer; I’m saying them in print as a demonstration of my commitment to reaching the next level of fitness for myself:

•    Lose the final ‘five’ pounds
•    Participate in a Walk/Run (crawl) challenge locally
•    Practice strength training that I will embrace/enjoy
•    Trust myself to become strong and fit

What do you do when a red flag is raised? What helps you get back on track with your fitness and health?

Me an employee?

I’ve taken a part time J-O-B.

Don’t panic it’s a positive move for me and it’s not replacing my being a business owner. I wanted to make a bigger commitment to give back and inspire others to lose weight. It’s a company I believe in. I am now a trained receptionist for Weight Watchers and if you are a member who visits the Six Gun or Heathbrook Plaza meeting locations in Ocala, FL on a Friday or Saturday morning, you may be lucky enough to have me greet you and weigh you in! ;-)

I’ve enjoyed the face-to-face interaction and laugh often with members and co-workers. I set my terms for becoming an employee and gave an availability that would work for me without overpromising myself—which is a direct result of having high standards in my practice and knowing my value. Employee is a new hat I’ve donned on my journey and my intention is to connect with and motivate women to live their best lives now! 

If you do stop by a meeting I’m working you might overhear me talking up the Weight Watchers Walk It Challenge on June 6th. Come out and walk three miles with us—or find an event near you.

Didya know Jennifer Hudson is our new spokesperson; doesn't she look FAB!?

 Just sayin’!

Journals, Chickens, and Zack

Thanks for the loving support and ideas for what to do with my journals. I saved all of my childhood books, and those written for and about my daughter. Then I started with the tough years: the ones with pain and drama that I was definitely ready to let go of. I shredded and waited. Oh there was no regret! I immediately felt released from those bonds and ties of the past. I am complete with what happened in my past, the choices I made, who I used to be. It felt good so I kept shredding! I read a few entries here and there I picked and chose a good sampling of years to keep and filled one crate. I kept many of my smaller gratitude journals as they give a good quick look at what my day/life was like at the time. Huge task complete and it only took a couple hours!

I’ve located a source for organic produce shipped in via a co-op from local farmers and have ordered a free roaming, antibiotic, and hormone-free chicken. They are slaughtered locally (in PA) not at a processing plant—may not be any more humane, what are your thoughts? I’ll let you know what it’s like to eat meat after this whole month; mostly I haven’t missed it.

My daughter (who thinks I’m crazy by the way!) found me this excellent website to locate healthy humanely raised chickens: Just Bare Chicken. Packages of meat have a traceable code so you can track which farm your chicken came from. Unfortunately there are no local distributors for my area but I’m working on that! Their mission:

To provide natural, healthy chicken like nature intended. Unadulterated. Unadorned. Just delicious. With a straightforward, honest commitment to respecting our people, animals and planet.

Our nephew Zack is home with his family! He has a long road of recovery ahead of him and is not ready to see family and friends yet but we think of him and send Zack, his mom Sue, dad Sonny, and brothers JP and Matt all of our love and blessings. I hope you’ll send some love and healing thoughts/prayers Zack’s way. 

Fletcherism

Horace Fletcher, a "health food faddist" from the Victorian Era coined the phrase Fletcherism: The practice of eating in small amounts and only when hungry and of chewing one's food thoroughly. 

Fletcher is remembered in the history books as an odd duck, but I’ve taken his practice to heart. Only eat when I’m hungry. Got it. Chew well. Makes me eat slower and enjoy the tastes of my food. Plus I’m able to recognize when I’m no longer hungry and stop eating. This sage advice coupled with nutritious food and an exercise I will practice equals weight loss. Isn’t it interesting how we take such a simple process and make it SO complicated!?

I had to let go of my stories about being overweight, give up any drama attached to them and deal with ‘what is’—just the facts ma’am! I had been doing ABC to gain weight and when I do XYZ I will lose weight. I started to write ‘if’ I do XYZ or ‘I need to do’ XYZ—those words aren’t attached to the facts and results of actions—if and need are buried in my beliefs that it’s wrong and bad to be overweight—that I am not okay overweight. Those words and that perspective will not allow me to feel worthy or capable of manifesting my dream.

But ‘when’ gave me a choice. A choice free from any meaning or significance I’d created around being overweight. ‘When’ I stop those self sabotaging actions and inactions and make NEW choices and actions transformation will happen. Is it hard work? Yes! Does it take dedication? Yes! Determination? Yes! Will it lead to success? Yes!

Are you ready to loose weight? It’s not significant how much. When is right now! Here’s how I know you can do it—because I did it. It is possible. It is a simple formula. The foundation is absolutely, positively, no holds barred, an act of ultimate self care—loving you and taking the first steps towards transformation one well chewed bite at a time! Thanks Horace! ;)

Hungry for Change

I’d been waffling back and forth over watching the movie Food, Inc. Was I ready to watch it and take action, or skip it and keep eating unconsciously?  This was the rub—I wanted to eat responsibly and consciously but I believed it would be too difficult and take me out of my comfort zone. I rationalized that over the past two years I’d made great strides with my nutrition, healthy eating habits, and weight loss; did I really need to tackle another hurdle? My resistance told me yes, I did. My first steps in my past transformations began with awareness and so one month ago I watched the movie—I have not eaten meat since then.

 

Don’t get me wrong I love a juicy home grilled hamburger, or a rib eye steak still pink in the middle. And crisp bacon or melt in your mouth baby back ribs…Mmmm, Mmmm! I’m not giving up meat because I dislike it but because of what I’m supporting in buying it. What I saw in the film was that our humanity ceases to exist in the face of power and greed. Our inhumanity to the animals that sustain us and to the people that grow these animals, or work in the process, astounded me.

 

I get that it’s not me personally treating these animals or people inhumanely but if I buy the product then I am accountable for how that product is produced. These faceless conglomerations meet the demand that you and I create. I never before ‘got’ how empowered I am as a consumer. We, as shoppers, hold all the cards and every time we lay our money down at a fast food restaurant or grocery store for meat from these companies we support the current unhealthy system. It’s our choice. 

 

The good news is that there are healthy options and choices. Choosing organic products and buying meat from local organic farms that raise their animals in a healthy environment are a few possibilities. It will take conscious effort; it may take me out of my comfort zone but I’m committed to doing my part to transform my life and the lives of the victims of this system—both animal and human.

 

If you’ve watched the 1999 film The Matrix there’s a scene where Morpheus offers Neo a blue pill: go back to life as he knew it; or a red pill: travel further down the rabbit hole. This movie is definitely a red pill—I hope to see you in Wonderland.

Yogurt and a blog class

Today I am thankful that my lovely client and friend Honoré shared Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers class that starts today!

I'm also truly grateful for Fiber One peach yogurt! Yum-O and only 1 point! <grin>