Embracing My Health

After declaring to yourself  and maybe others that you are setting out to accomplish a specific goal… do you find yourself swinging wildly in the exact opposite direction?

This is a pattern that I have and one that has buckled my commitments at the knees again and again. There is one key difference this time from the others though. I know it. It isn’t happening or going to happen without my being clued in. So even if that backlash happens, I’m feeling okay. BECAUSE, I now know about it and can see it for what it is… a tactic, a trick for staying in the status quo I’ve lived in up until now. And seeing it as that, its power shrinks. Even if that backlash “wins” this time and maybe another one, two or more – it’s running scared. That tactic has been spotted. Brought out into the light, it is much easier to see it for what it is… and that is something that I no longer want.

‎”‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’” -Trina Paulus

I don’t know that this particular post will resonate with anyone else. But the truth of it and it’s message are ringing clear and true for me. And I do hope it does and will for others too.

After I posted my recommitment to embracing my health – I got ready for bed. As I was brushing my teeth, I created the intention to remember my commitment. I know myself . I can be so disconnected with my own commitments that I will “forget” them by morning. More than once, at the end of a day, I make a commitment to eat healthy and do what supports my body physically and my heart spiritually. But then the next day, maybe sometime around 1 or 2pm, I’ll suddenly stop and think: “Wait! I was going to do better today!!” It’s as though I’ve thrown all my intentions and commitments right out of my mind, as if they never existed. Once I remember, I feel disappointed and want to back up the clock and start the day again. Ugh, what a cycle, right?

But today, I remembered and quickly. I made myself a yummy green smoothie (watermelon, strawberries, and spinach with all the healthy goodies). It tasted and felt great. I was feeling good.

Fast forward to dinnertime. We had cabin fever and decided to head out for dinner. We went to Taco Del Mar. Because I had been so good all day and eaten so sparingly, I thought it “wouldn’t hurt” to have a bigger dinner. So instead of a smaller portion and the healthier ingredients of say, two soft tacos or a taco salad… I had a chicken quesadilla. And not just a chicken quesadilla, but a chicken quesadilla platter! It was tasty… (but so are the tacos).

How I went from a too large and nonnutritious meal to thinking I needed something for dessert is lost in the mysterious workings of my addict-addled mind. Trust me when I say… when it comes to sugar, I’m not sane. Seriously! Ask my husband, Paul. He’ll vouch for it. In fact, he gamely and bravely tried to talk some sense into me while I stood perusing the various ice creams (looking for the brand with no HFCS – a form of insanity right there – but we can talk about that later…) in the freezer section. But I rationalize it away and carried on. I picked up two quarts of Breyer’s All Natural ice cream, one flavor for Amira… and one for me, since I wanted a flavor that had wheat in it and my daughter is allergic.

With the ice cream safely in the car on its way home with me… Paul starts to get through. He talks about how I help and consult my friends and family with their health challenges. He talks about how I spend hours researching and coming up with suggested plans and “prescriptions” for their healing. Then Paul says to me: “You need to do that for yourself.”

And I realize he’s right.

If I take even a cursory look at a file with my health concerns and issues… ice cream wouldn’t be on my recommended list. But I’d rationalize with you that I want to eat the occasional cup of ice cream. Don’t buy into my addict talk, though. The problem with that approach? Two things. One: quite honestly, my definition of “occasional” is a unfortunately loose. If there is a carton of ice cream in the house, you can be pretty certain I’m having more than a cup of ice cream more than maybe once or twice a week. And two: Healthy people CAN eat an occasional bowl of ice cream without harm or detriment to themselves. But me? I’m not healthy. I’m not healthy physically or spiritually. The dinner and then the ice cream right on its heels – it was a physical filler and numbing agent – in hopes that it would carry over and fill and numb my spirit too.

There you have it – not even 24 hours out from my declaration and I hit my own resistance to what I said I wanted! When I’m disconnected with myself, a rote and habitual form of resistance runs me.

I realize now, as I’m thinking it over and sharing it with you – what I have ahead of me is the work of being connected with the healthy life I want. Embracing my health is more than eating the right foods and exercising. It’s not really about that. It’s being awake. When I slow down, meditate and am listening and present to my life and my spirit – the work I want to do is no longer work or agonizing resistance. Instead, it is pure joy and passion again.

I’ll close with a version of the “tagline” I created for this when I first started out…

This is me, signing off and Embracing Love and Life! Embracing My Health!

PS – It wasn’t the most economical thing to do – but after having a cup of ice cream, I threw out the rest of my carton of ice cream.

I’ve been mentally composing this post for a good couple of weeks. I’m so glad to be sitting down to do it now.

The work I’m starting, as I type these words, is a renewal of commitment to embracing my health (personally) and Embracing My Health (the website). Since I started the Embracing My Health website, I have lost 40 lbs and am eating healthier than I ever have. Yay me! It’s a start and a good one. I want to acknowledge that. It was a start and not continuing journey through to the finish though. That’s why this is the time to reconnect to the journey of my love and desire for personal health.

Those of you who know me, you know I’m a health and fitness research junkie. I love to read articles, research journals, magazines, and books. I watch documentaries and religiously follow blogs of experts in the field. I love to do research and help my friends and family as they seek their own optimal personal health and well-being. This is all awesome stuff. I love it.

In fact, just last night, I watched Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days. What an inspiring, honest and human, documentary. I cried when the subjects went off insulin and achieved healthy, undreamed of milestones in improving their health. I was struck by how tightly their health was tied to their sense of self, their spirituality, their dreams and hopes for their tomorrows.

Getting to watch these people transform not just their physical health but to also launch a new path of spiritual vitality was beautiful and moving. Getting glimpses into what they were going to create moving forward was exciting and inspiring. Seeing it – being around it – it lights me up! I started getting geeked out thinking about the people in my life being healthy, vibrant, and engaging their world from a platform of energy, fitness, and optimal health. My brain began to spin. How can I help people do this? How can I help them into and through their next steps? What can I do to help my friends and family understand the importance of personal fitness, the necessity of eating the yummiest and healthiest foods, and experience the joy and satisfaction these things bring to our spirit. I went to bed with these things spiraling through my mind, my thoughts and dreams reaching out and asking for an answer. As I was about to fall asleep, I thought, maybe I don’t need a perfect, magic-bullet answer. What I need is a path. My prayer, as I drifted, was for a path to put my feet onto.

Ask and you shall receive! It’s no accident that this morning, one of the first things I read was this quote by Ramana Maharshi:

Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

Um.. yeah. Yeah. YEAH! That’d be that path I asked for! Thank you!!

As I read and reread those words, I realized something. See, I turned 40 this past March and while milestone birthdays like this one are prime and often good reasons to recommit to what I believe in – they’ve never held adequate motivation for me. As I read those words, I realized what does hold motivation for me. It’s my family and friends. It’s my community. It’s you!

With the answer I was given today, and with this post – my Embracing My Health journey begins again – or continues (depending on how you look at it).

Transforming my health and my life for myself – it seems like it should be more than enough for me to follow through on the desire I have to embrace my health. It’s not. What IS motivation to me is this; that through my journey, my struggles and achieved milestones and my stories – that these beautiful, amazing people who are in my life – that they see paths to health, fitness and spiritual growth. And if they want it, it is possible for them because it was and is for me.

Each week, I help my friend Dana Roc, put together her ezine for Monday morning distribution.  Dana is one of my dearest friends and I am inspired by her.  Her  weekly insight this week really gave me a great reminder that to be one of those individuals who “makes it” – whether it be in my health goals, or my personal and professional life — there’s a price.   Dana’s words echo my Dad who told me for years “Nothing worthwhile comes easy…”

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I am not the first to acknowledge the fact that there are no shortcuts to greatness and I will not be the last. Many before me have discovered for themselves that there is, after all, no easy road to extraordinary accomplishment and no unobstructed path to achieving that desired sense of profound self satisfaction and reward. Many more will inevitably conclude the same, and discover for themselves that -

True greatness will demand much more of you than you might be willing to give.

If the desire of your heart has been to leave behind undeniable evidence that you came and that you played, altering forever what once was, you have no doubt figured out by now that you have to pay the price, crystal clear that if you aspire to get beyond what has become excruciatingly mundane, you will have to wage war against your undercover commitment to keep having more of the same, while you struggle to resist the urge to settle for whatever it is you don’t have to pursue.

It was as clear to me as the nose on my face – I was meant to be an actor. And, as I mapped out exactly how my life would logically unfold from the safety and comfort of my own imagination, I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would, one day -

“arrive”.

What I would eventually discover is that merely wanting is not nearly enough. I would learn through one agonizing experience after another that ambition hurts sometimes, that rejection can be cruel and that patience rarely, if ever, occurs like a reward.

I wanted to be an actor. I studied it. I lived it. I loved it – until – it demanded of me real sacrifice. At the point where the rubber should have met the road, I rationalized myself right out of the chance to finally play.

Imagine.

I really, really wanted to become an actor but what I had yet to reconcile for myself was the fact that really, really wanting to become is very distinct from being willing to work and reach and grapple and believe when there is absolutely no reason to. Wanting and willing are two entirely different conversations. Wanting talks a good game while willing walks the walk. I could talk the talk with the best of them. But, when it came down to walking the walk, I chose to turn and walk away.

And you?

Are you a talker or a walker? A dreamer or a doer? Have you found deep within yourself the courage to go after what you say you really want – no matter what — for the opportunity to achieve that sense of profound self satisfaction and reward?

Most people will not accept the invitation to go through the fire for what waits on the other side and not everybody will resolve within themselves to do whatever it takes. Many will indeed begin and some will even try hard, but few of us however, will actually achieve greatness because -

True greatness will demand much more than most are willing to give.

Because ambition hurts, because rejection can be cruel, because patience will not provide you comfort, because you have give it everything you’ve got -

the odds are, like me, you’ll choose to walk away.

Once upon a time I did give up and I used to wonder what might have been had I demanded of myself to work and to reach and to grapple and to believe when there was every good reason not to. Now, equipped with what only experience can inflict, I look forward instead to what might one day be, with the full expectation that who I think I am will battle relentlessly each and every day with who I imagine I can still become.

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To learn more about Dana, visit her website, DanaRoc.com and sign up for her weekly ezine.  You’ll be glad you did!

Thanks for the encouragement and support in response to my last post.  Seeing the progress really is a motivator! 

I’ve got a week and a half of holidays ahead and I’m thinking about them this morning.  I don’t want to back track.  I’m feeling two things.  One, I’d like to continue losing weight, or at a minimum stay at my current weight.  And two, I want to feel great.  I don’t want to feel that physical malaise, icks, blahs or that “ooph, I shouldn’t have eaten that” feeling.  

I’m going to have to be flexible since I will be staying with family.  But here’s my first thought.  I think I will buy enough produce when I get into town to make a massive salad to go along with each meal.  That way, I can pile on the raw foods and minimize the amount of cooked and less healthy food choices I’m eating.  Paul & I decided we are going to pack our juicer and blender too — if you can believe that.    We both love our green lemonade juices first thing in the morning.  And I definitely want to keep my green smoothies going as well.  It’s a little unorthodox to travel with a juicer and blender, sure…  But keeping the high quality nutrition coming our way feels more than worth it.

My question for you today:  Do you have any strategies you are going to be following through Christmas and New Years?  If so, share with us! 

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!

This month has sped by.   We’ve had snow, ice, and sunshine.  It’s been a lovely Christmas season – and sharing it with my 4 year old daughter, has been such a gift.

I haven’t been rigid with my eating and my progress, while good, isn’t as far along as it could be.  I had goaled to be at 230.  That was a good goal, provided I had created an effective structure for achieving it.  I didn’t though – and without that, I continued progressing but not as quickly.  That said, I found these two pictures that really help me see how far I have come.

The more I think about it, the more I’m certain that having a structure will bring me the biggest results.  That will be my focus in the coming year… automating everything so that it becomes like breathing to the food that I want to, exercising, and living a fully embraced life. 

So, click more to see the numbers…

(more…)

Weight: 246
Height: 5′8″
BMI: 37.4

Measurements

Neck: 14.25
Bicep: 14.5  (-.5″)
Forearm: 11 (-.5″)
Chest: 46 (-1″)
Waist: 44
Hips: 48
Thigh: 26
Calf: 18

No weight loss this week, but I’m not surprised.  I am happy to see some body “restructuring” though — with some inches lost around my upper body.  It’s interesting that my size has shrunk in regions.  My waist and hips have lost weight first, and now my upper body is seeing some results.  My neck and limbs have seen the least reduction… I’m guessing that will start to appear as I continue on.  Any loss is exciting though.

Oh, and I have to tell you.  I reconnected with a friend yesterday who I haven’t talked with for 4-5 years.  I found her blog and was so inspired by her.  She has a son, who is only a couple of weeks younger than Amira, who inspired her to transform her life to be the healthiest she can be.  Last I saw her, she was beautiful but carrying some extra pounds.  The new pictures I saw of her – she’s fit, trim and.. a TRIATHELE!  And not just a triathlete – one who wins first prize in her category!  Absolutely inspiring!  She’s definitely inspired me to get my fitness routine into gear!  More on that to come!

My question for you: What motivates and inspires you to be your healthiest?

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!

Weight: 246
Height: 5′8″
BMI: 37.4

Measurements

Neck: 14.25
Bicep: 15 (-.25″)
Forearm: 11.5
Chest: 47
Waist: 44 (-1″)
Hips: 48
Thigh: 26
Calf: 18

The progress was slower this week.  I found encouragement though in looking back at some old numbers.  For example, since my highest point after Amira’s birth…

• I’ve lost 39 lbs.
• I’ve lost nearly 10 inches around my waist
• I’ve lost 6 inches around my hips and chest
• My BMI has dropped from 43.3 to 37.4

I need to get some new photos up of my progress.  I’ll try to do that today.

I’m finding that adding green juices and smoothies and eating more raw meals is making this journey to optimal health much easier.  It isn’t as difficult, physically or psychologically.  That alone is making me a fan of raw eating.

My two week challenge with Paul went really well and helped me push through 5 lbs of loss.  I’m strategizing another challenge for myself.  I’m going to do a short challenge followed by a longer one.  My first will be between now and Thanksgiving.  9 days including today.  My goal: lose 3 lbs.  My second will be from November 29th until Christmas, nearly 30 days.  Goal: lose 12 lbs.  Accomplishing both of these goals would have me at 231 lbs on Christmas morning.  That would be a Merry Christmas to me, indeed! 

Breakfast this morning was juice:

• 1/2 head romaine lettuce
• 1 large leaf of purple kale
• 1/2 a cucumber
• 1 pear
• 1 apple
• 1/2 lemon

As always, I do love my green juices.  Well, in the case of today, purple juice. 

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!

Weight: 247
Height: 5′8″
BMI: 37.6

Measurements

Neck: 14..25 (-.25″)
Bicep: 15.25 (-.25″)
Forearm: 11.5
Chest: 47 (-1″)
Waist: 45 (-1.5″)
Hips: 48 (-1″)
Thigh: 26 (-2″)
Calf: 18 (-.5″)

I am making progress – the most I’ve made in over 4 years.  I’m excited — and yet still sober because of the 100 lb journey I still have ahead of me.  But for today, I’m celebrating!

I have to thank Paul (so THANKS PAUL! ♥)  for helping me with this latest round of weight loss and movement towards optimal health.  He took on a 2 week challenge with me.  Having him on the challenge with me was such a great support.  It is truly easier to take on difficult things in partnership with others.

Weight: 248
Height: 5′8″
BMI: 39

Measurements

Neck: 14.5
Bicep: 15.5
Forearm: 11.5
Chest: 48
Waist: 46.5 (-1/2″)
Hips: 49 (-1″)
Thigh: 28
Calf: 18.5

My camera battery is dead because a particular 3 year old played with my camera yesterday and left it on all night.    I’ll get a new photo up with the next check in.

I haven’t lost any additional weight yet – but there was some more inches lost around my midsection.

A little fun happening:  Dancing with Amira this morning, my pants shimmied their way down and literally off my hips.   Whee!

Goal for next check in – to have lost some weight in addition to inches!