Anniversaries, Birthdays & Other Musings of A Convalescent

An anniversary is a time to celebrate the joys of today, the memories of yesterday, and the hopes of tomorrow.

~Author Unknown

I’ve recently been thinking about birthdays, anniversaries and other events that commemorate the existence or longevity of relationships, lives, and important activities. This year, as with every year, is filled with several such markers which will recognize the presence of something or someone my life. I will celebrate the birthdays of my children; once again taking time to reflect on how quickly the time has passed since they each decided to depart my womb and enter the world as individuals in their own right. I will celebrate the birthdays of other loved ones as I give thanks for their existence.

In some cases, these anniversaries recognize the time since something ended instead of marking a beginning. This year marks the eleventh year since my first marriage ended and the fifth year since the end of my second one. It will be two years since I gave up dating. I’ll also celebrate one year in my new home, which is also one year since I decided to give up the battle I was fighting trying to keep up an old ranch-style home that I could not maintain nor adequately afford.

Elephantine Women – Not Exactly Politically Correct

In my earlier post titled, Looking Good Naked, Custis wrote a rather lengthy comment because the topic clearly resonated with him.  While his comments might not be considered by many as politically correct and might even be incredibly offensive to others, he makes some reasonable points.  If you haven’t done so, go read my original post, read the comments, most notably his, and those that follow (at the time of this writing there are none) and then return here to read what I thought of his comments.  I’ve written it as though I was responding in the post comments to him.

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LOL!  Custis, that wasn’t exactly PC, but it’s your opinion and you are definitely entitled to it.  :)  Thanks for commenting.  I do, as you might expect, have a few questions for you based on your own logic but before I go there I want to clarify some things, just in case, about what all this is really about for me:

1.  This is not about me just trying to obtain some cultural standard of airbrushed skinniness and beauty. 

2.  This is not about me just feeling fat and ugly due to the preponderance of cultural expectations for beauty which I am surrounded by and which I fear I do not measure up to.  (I am surrounded by it, I don’t measure up to it by virtue of the fact that I am no longer in my 30’s, so what’s the point with that, and I really don’t care, okay, well sometimes I care, but not usually.)

3.  I am the person I am trying to impress right now and no one else.  I am not trying to look good naked to meet anyone else’s approval but my own.  That demands a firm fit body that works and feels good (has energy and is more positive in my outlook, etc.) not simply a smaller body.  If, by chance, I do end up impressing anyone else with the progress I make, that is merely gravy.  It is not my goal.  I’m the one I have to wake up with each morning and it is about time I decided that that is the person I’d best be getting to know and working on feeling comfortable with. So far, I’m not quite there yet, but I’d like to be.

Just sayin’ because anytime we start talking about “Looking Good Naked” or getting in shape or losing weight there’s lots of room to misunderstand motivations.  Mine is, simply, I don’t feel good.  I don’t like it.  I know what to do.  I need to simply stop making excuses and take the Nike approach and just.do.it.

Now about your comment…and back to my questions:

1.  You said that I should stop eating everything that tastes good?  Okay, so does this mean I must toss the asparagus and the Brussels sprouts and the avocado that I find to be incredibly yummy?  I suffer from borderline anemia and need my deep greens, how’s that going to work?  You said stop eating everything that tastes good?

 
2. If I only eat from the produce section how am I going to get my protein in order to sufficiently rebuild those muscles I’m using and working when I weight train (you know that piece of the plan you seem to have left out where I stack weights on a bar and try to then lift it, press it, squat it or curl it?)  Yeah, definitely I need the protein.  I also like my meat.  Hee! Hee! 

3.  Is self-discipline in dieting all that is required?   I hate to tell you and I’m not a fitness researcher or expert or anything and, while I get where you are coming from, when you "diet" your body begins hoarding stuff and stockpiling fat and then when you eat again, more of the stuff is stocked up by the body, so to speak and less of it is used. Yes, over time, doing this you will lose weight, but you also destroy your body’s muscle tissue.  This results in what I like to refer to as someone who is skinny but still fat and very likely unfit.  It is not healthy.  That is not where I’m going.

4. Further, there is some good research and information out there on this.  You can Google it. I know you like to do that kind of thing so have at it.  I bet you find out what I found out.  Getting fit is not simply about the foods we eat or don’t eat, it is more than that.  This is why most credible sports/fitness people will tell you that it is much healthier to eat five small meals a day rather than three larger ones and yes, you need to have some healthy fats in there too, but, true, not a plateful.  There’s more to it than I’ve described, and that is an oversimplification of things to be sure, but don’t throw such a theory out just because you don’t understand it.

Now, as for your “elephantine” friends, might I suggest that it is very possible that they are eating correctly all through the day and not losing the weight for other reasons than you suppose?  I’m not saying that you are necessarily incorrect, I don’t know for sure, but my experience and my own study leads me to conclude that it takes more than just changing one’s eating habits in order to really lose serious weight in a healthy way and I might even go so far as to conclude that in order to really be effective a regimen of weight training is a must in addition to good diet and regular aerobic exercise.

Personally, I’ve done this fitness thing a lot in the last 20 years since I quit swimming a couple of miles a day and cycling 25+ miles too.  (Yeah, I would run at least 5 miles on the alternating days when I wasn’t cycling, but then, marriage, kids, a real job came along and kinda pre-empted all that).  I tend to be one of those who gained an excessive amount with each pregnancy and have topped over 213 before in my life, on not just one but several occasions (all of them pregnancy related).  While I’m not there now, the same principles will apply as I seek to get my body back in shape, because, you see that is really what it is about for me. 

Here’s why:

1.  I personally enjoy food and I am not going to hurt my body or ruin my life because I’m anorexicly watching every calorie.  Oh, yes, I will change what I eat and how much, but I’m not going to be sick about it if I fail occasionally.  I’ve been there done that too, got down to 119  pounds doing that one summer and, yes, the world wondered if I was sick.  I wasn’t bulimic (I can’t stand throwing up) and I wasn’t anorexic, but I was headed there.  I was obsessive and eating about every diet pill ever invented.  I went from about 140 pounds (which is a good weight for me to be) especially if it is the right amount of muscle down to 119 in a VERY short period of time.  I’m told the stress that creates on the body is the equivalent of shaving off about ten years of my life.  Yeah….not doing that again either.

2.  I personally am not about losing weight.  I really don’t care what the scale says.  Nope.  I don’t.  I care what my jean size is. I care what the tape measure says, and whether or not the flabby skin under my arms is cut and toned (which means it is going to be really helpful when it comes to digging up yard this summer).  I care how my legs look in a short skirt and heels (which right now I wouldn’t even attempt) and I care that I can do what I need to do without getting winded which is what those sexy supple legs in the short skirt and stilettos will be very capable of doing. I really care that I get those swimmer flat abs that I always had (until that 4th child came along) back. Because a strong back and abs, along with the strong legs, arms, chest and shoulders, means I’ll be able to split my own firewood (something I can’t do now) and look damn sexy doing it.  I care that I feel strong and able to handle whatever might come.  This isn’t ever going to happen by just eating the right stuff and less of it. Your approach will make me suffer headaches, and make me cranky, and that will negatively impact all my relationships and the next minute I walk into the school cafeteria I’ll be ordering up all that junk and inhaling faster than a brand new Kirby vacuum on a dirty floor.  I’m not doing that either.

Bottom line:  I have to stack on the weights.  And, yes, I do mean stack them on, though not right away and not all at once. And, hate to tell all the folks out there who believe that women should only do lots of reps with lower amounts of weights because they will just bulk out and become manlike.  Wrong.  Myth.  So not going to happen.  Watch and see. Or…Google and find out for yourself. 

3.  Further, if I’m going to be healthy, which is really my ultimate goal here, I have to involve myself in regular aerobic activity (and this doesn’t include chasing my kids around all day).

Do you see a pattern here?  In my three-pronged approach to my “physical” fitness (and this whole thing is about so much more than that for me) there is diet (meaning eating the right stuff in the right amounts, not starving), weight or strength training, and cardio exercise or aerobic exercise.  Two of the three have to do with physical exertion and calorie burn only one has to do with food.  Understand where my focus is going to be?  It will be on all three and I won’t starve to do it either.  Watch  me.

 

Now that you’ve quite patiently endured my little rant (thank you so much for throwing that door wide open),  I do agree with the main thesis of your comment which was it simply takes self-discipline.  It does, though it isn’t always so simple as I know you are well aware.  It means saying no to some things and saying yes to some other things and when it all gets difficult or inconvenient it means doing it anyway. It means picking yourself up when you fail and pressing on instead of caving to misery and giving up.  That’s the internal component I’ve referred to so much before now.  The Bible in Proverbs 23:7 states, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”.  What we think determines so much of our success and failure in life.  This journey is not an easy one.  I know that.  It takes not only self-discipline, determination, and a whole host of other character traits I will need to draw from in order to be successful.  Stephen Covey, in his book, Habits of Highly Effective people lists as Habit #2, “Begin with the end in mind”. In a sense, that is exactly what I’ve done here as I seek to envision not only me in a more fit body but me with a healthier lifestyle going on.

And, now that you’ve distracted me enough with this little topic, I must refocus my efforts and get going on that workout program.  My day is getting away from me and I have a date with the produce section at my local grocery store after I get done working out. 

Cheers and thanks for commenting,

The Wild Mind

Looking Good Naked

At this time of  year, fitness centers typically experience an increase in membership.  If you belong to a club or gym you might find that for the next eight weeks it will be tough to find an open treadmill or elliptical trainer. It seems looking good naked is on everyone’s mind after the holidays.

There is another excellent post over at Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy about physical appearance vs. feeling good. She brings up a number of great talking points on the topic of body image issues, being a slave to the scale and our self-esteem and how it connects to our physical appearance.  We often say that our self concept shouldn’t be based on how we look but, for so many of us, it is.  I maintain that for many of us, how we look matters a great deal because how we care for our bodies is often indicative of deeper feelings we have toward ourselves and our value as individuals.  If we want that to change then how we go about changing our physical appearance is the first step in beginning to care about and for ourselves.

Lose the Scale

Being an ex-competitive swimmer, swim coach and cyclist, and also and ex-aerobics and fitness trainer, I know how ineffective the scale is and how it can really work against one’s efforts at getting healthy. One’s weight can fluctuate a pound or two every day and even more for some women, depending on the time of the month.  In addition, if you are enslaved to the number on the scale, but you are truly about percent body fat rather than weight you might get to a place in your fitness regimen where you actually begin to gain weight while continuing to lose inches.  Those who absolutely use the scale as the sole measuring device in their quest to look good naked run the risk of ignoring some better health indicators. They can become easily discouraged and frustrated.  This is counterproductive to the person who really has the goal in mind of becoming a healthier, more physically fit individual.

Percent of Body Fat is A Better Indicator of Fitness

I prefer to consider percent body fat or Body Mass Index  and inches lost when I work on improving my fitness level (because muscle weighs more than fat and building muscle eats fat).  One can be a size 3 and still be very fat.  I don’t want that for me.  I want the toned look and you can’t get that by merely losing weight on a scale you must transfer fat to muscle somehow.  If you are seriously overweight or out of shape or have never really done any serious training, please do two things:

First, get a physical and a physician’s okay before you begin any exercise program.  Even if you are relatively good health, this is always a smart move. 

Second, seriously consider investing in a personal trainer who will meet with you for an hour once ever two weeks for, at least, the first eight weeks of your program.  Even two sessions with a personal trainer can be incredibly valuable in helping you jumpstart your motivation and your journey back to fitness.

Toward A Healthier Lifestyle…A Personal Journey

While I know a great deal about the right things to do and the right ways to think about my body, its appearance and its health, I like many, many others have become negligent over the last decade. Sure there have been periods of good fitness, but I haven’t really stuck with them.  Of course, I have to cut myself some slack.  I’ve endured a pretty volatile decade personally, have been homeless and battled an emotionally abusive ex.  When survival is priority one, looking good naked gets much lower priority.  Even so, I’ve let go of some really great eating habits, stopped the consistent exercise and weight training program I had going and simply shifted my fitness priorities to the bottom of the list.  I don’t look horrible, but I really don’t look my best.  More importantly and more significantly I don’t feel my best. I find that it is when I don’t feel my best that I am most prone to worrying about my appearance, suffering a loss of confidence and self-esteem and I’m especially prone to really stupid questions like “How hot am I, really?”  I hate being in that place mentally and physically. 

Big Little Wolf’s post, my own personal journey to date, and experiences like these are crystallizing for me a sense of direction as I consider my own health and levels of fitness.  Note that I did not say weight loss program.  Because for me, though weight loss will inevitably be an outcome I hope to accomplish,, I am not venturing down this road with that goal in mind. In my post, two days ago, I spoke of moving toward a healthier lifestyle.  It’s true, I want to look good naked because that mirror in my bathroom is not exactly gentle in revealing the truth about my physical appearance, but I most certainly and more importantly want to feel good all of the time, not just naked.  I don’t just want to get smaller, I want to get better.  And better, might not necessarily weigh that much less, but it will look better naked.  It will walk further and faster.  It will not get winded. And, since I am the one looking at myself in the mirror, groaning daily with disappointment in myself about the extra pounds I’ve packed on and the muscle tone I’ve lost, and feeling disappointed with what I see (because the disappointment represents not beauty or lack thereof, but a deeper sense of loss) then looking good naked becomes important to no one…else…but me.  I’m the only one that matters.  It is indeed a deeply personal journey, but one with very visible results.

Getting Comfortable

But there is something even more significant at play here for me.  It is that idea of feeling comfortable in my own skin.  It is that idea that it is what it is and it is the best I can do so who cares what anyone else thinks.  Now, realistically I know, I should feel this way no matter what I weigh or what my muscle tone is, but the reality is, this is not the case for me.  Because the big reality is this, how we feel inside our own skin is largely determined by our fitness levels.  Our fitness levels often determine whether or not we look and perform at optimum levels.  All of those things conspire to impact our self image and our confidence in our abilities in other areas. True, self acceptance no matter what, is important.  I’m not suggesting we all have to be stellar examples of fitness and brawn, but when our ability to function at our best each day is implicated, then I suggest that’s the time to really rethink our health and our habits.  Feeling comfortable in our own skin is more about doing the best we can with what we’ve got under the circumstances and I, for one, am not doing the best I can right now.  Not even close.  This bothers me.  It bothers me enough to make a change.  For me, it’s what 2010 is going to be about.

Starting Measurements…The First Steps

So, yes, yesterday, I pulled out the tape measure, hopped on the scale and took the front-back-side before pictures in my bikini.  Not because I intend to obsess over every little thing I eat or don’t eat.  Not because I intend to go on a crash starvation diet or crazy workout plan to burn that fat fast.  I’m smarter than that.  And, though I know my body will quickly respond to increased exercise and improved diet due to its past fitness, the reason I am doing it is not to get skinny…it is to change my lifestyle. It is to change my thinking.  It is to become comfortable in my own skin. Taking the measurements now, before I’ve really begun will help me gauge my progress and will motivate me to keep going.  It gives me a starting point.

Fitness is About Character Development and Personal Growth

While this is about looking good naked on one level, it is also about so much more than looking good naked because whenever one begins a journey of this nature there are mental challenges that must be faced and obstacles that must be overcome.  I’d like to suggest that the journey toward improved health for me will be less a journey of fitness than a supreme course in character development.  I will need to test my commitment.  I will be forced to persevere.  I will need to focus and stay focused and that, because I am so easily distracted, will be challenge enough. I will need to flex and adapt to a schedule that changes dramatically twice a year while still keeping up my regimen of good eating and daily activity.  I will need to make some hard choices that won’t be pleasant or instantaneously gratifying (like that second glass of wine or that extra helping of pasta or saying no when I’m just not hungry) if I am to move myself into a place that bodes well for the health and longevity of this physical thing I call my body, not to mention the mind and spirit that it contains.  It won’t “feel” good sometimes at first, at others it will feel better than anything.  It will require me to flex my discipline muscles, tone my determination, and exercise my mental fortitude and push my commitment to my own improvement to the limits.

But that’s the cost for every one who would accomplish anything of value. 

The Wild Mind

“Success is often not a matter of talent, but a matter of tenacity.”  ~Nathaniel Bronner Jr.

How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?  ~Anthony Robbins

Toward A New Year of Healthy Living

New Year’s Day, 2010

Yesterday’s post spoke about thinking more thematically about New Year’s Resolutions.  To follow up on that, I feel I must give some more concrete examples of really what I mean. To that end, I have only one New Year’s Resolution. More aptly put, I believe this is a New Year’s theme that I hope characterize my year and the years to come. That theme is Healthy Living or Health. 

You see, I could do what I did last year and talk about all the things I want to do, as though life were some sort of checklist to be completed before the end of it. As a product of the American baby boomer culture, I’ve seen life this way more often than not.  I’d make my list, work frantically to accomplish it, come very close (or maybe not at all) and feel miserably unsuccessful or ineffective if I didn’t complete the list. I was what I could accomplish. 

List Fail

The problem with this thinking, at least for me, is that the list can never be completed because something is always being added to it.  You check off one item only to put another objective in its place.  What’s the sense of accomplishment in that?  How does this manner of operating lead to peace and contentment?  Even if you do accomplish something, the effect or result is only temporary, unless the item stays on the list and then, if you think according to the list, even if you’ve made progress, the danger of perceiving that you haven’t completed anything or not as much as you would have hoped exists. Lists are about completion not progress.  I want to focus on progress, process and becoming.

Really, what I am talking about here with this whole New Year’s Theme thing is not giving myself more stuff to do (and more reasons to be disappointed if I fail) but instead I’m dealing with effecting lasting change in my life.  There are areas I am not content with and I need to change.

Time for Change

Perhaps an example from my own life might serve to provide greater understanding of what I’m really driving at here.  Several years ago, nearly a year, maybe almost two before my divorce even started beginning, things (as things in a failing marriage will tend to be) became very chaotic and conflicted.  I was unhappy, he was unhappy, the kids were caught in the middle of that and dealing with the magnitude of kids that we had (11 in our blended situation), tensions were running at an all time high.  We’d been separated and back together more times than I care to consider, and I was at the point where I knew that something had to change.  I was afraid of what that might mean, but I knew I could not continue in the present situation any longer.  My health was failing rapidly and it was only a matter of time before  I experienced a serious and major collapse.

I really had to take some time and think about what it was I wanted.  Now, I didn’t take the attitude of it’s all about me.  I took the perspective that I needed to take care of me so that I could take care of those who depend and rely on me.  In that case, my children, my support network, my community in a larger context, but admittedly I wasn’t thinking on that grand a scale back then.  I was simply in survival mode thinking about what was going to be best for my children and I in the short run, but also in the long run.  If you’ve ever been in this place you know what a difficult task that can be.  How do you think about making monumental decisions that will be right for the immediate future and still be the right ones, down the road a piece?  There are ways of doing this, I’ve since learned, but at that time I was floundering around in a state of hopelessness, fear and anxiety. 

Respect and Survival

As I sat there in a school presentation where the speaker was talking about dealing with children respectfully and building a climate of respect in schools and in homes, everything crystallized for me. It all came together for me, not as a list of things I needed to do in a sequential order, but rather as a frame of mind I needed to adopt; as a way of being I needed to pursue.  It became clear to me, in seconds, that what was lacking on so many levels and in so many areas in my life was, quit simply, respect.  I wasn’t being treated respectfully, nor was I extending it to others in most areas of my life. Not only that, material possession, symbolic of someone’s effort, time, life and money were being treated disrespectfully, the world around us was not being treated with any measure of respect either by any of us. This is not how I wanted to live, nor was it the environment I wanted my children to grow up in learning that this manner of living was an accepted option. 

With the theme being respect, I was then able to clearly see that in the current situation I was going to be crippled if not completely detained in my pursuit of a respectful home atmosphere and lifestyle.  I was then able to make the hard and frightening decisions with confidence and assurance that I needed to make at that time to ensure for me and my children a life that involved treating each other with greater respect and infusing our home with respect.  Three years after that day, I can look back and say it was the right way to look at things and, though we haven’t perfectly arrived, because we continue to learn more each day about areas where we can demonstrate greater respect to each other and because, quite frankly old ways of being die hard sometimes, we are in a much better place than we’ve ever been. We would not be here now if I hadn’t taken the necessary steps to start the process.  I couldn’t have taken the necessary steps if I had focused on what I should or shouldn’t do.  Focusing on what I wanted my children and I to be and experience made it possible for me to figure out the rest.

Healthy Living

  It seems I’ve come to another place where a theme is stepping up to the forefront and demanding attention.  In the last three years, several themes have developed. First, was the theme of Respect.  The next theme that characterized the first year after the divorce till now was Survival.  The next theme which I believe to be developing in my life is that of Healthy Living or maybe just Health.  It is a theme that encompasses not just the idea of physical fitness and healthy eating, but also the areas of spiritual health, intellectual health (sustenance and growth) and relational health.

These “themes” I am talking of, if that is even an appropriate terminology, are not something I adopt, carry around with me for a while and then discard because they no longer suit the situation.  If you could think of building an onion from the inside out a layer at a time, you might come closer to how this all works for me.  As each theme develops in my life, it becomes part of me with following themes overlaying themselves on pre-existing themes.

So, since the title of this post is about a healthy new year and since I did mention it earlier on in this now rather lengthy post, I suppose I should discuss it just a bit.  Healthier Living, as a theme in my life, for this year, or for whatever amount of time it decides to be the forerunning focus, will help me make decisions daily regarding my time, my activities, my decisions, my focus.  Instead of creating a list that I may or may not accomplish, depending upon my motivation level or my feelings, I will instead operate from the place of asking myself, “Is this the healthiest thing for me right now?”  Or I might consider, “Is this particular choice going to move me closer to the healthy, whole life I see for my children and myself?”  The particular questions help me sort the myriad choices I face each day in order to more closely align my life with the healthful vision I see of myself and for myself and my family (because I don’t just simply think of myself, ever, in isolation; what I choose impacts and affects many others whether I recognize it or not).  So, in brief then, the theme works to direct my efforts, focus my energy and determine my choices.  I am no longer burdened by a list that can never be accomplished. I am simply, moment by moment becoming healthier and these moments will, undoubtedly stack up and create a year that is much healthier than years previous.

Enthusiasm, Hope, Confidence, Optimism

Approaching life this way has, over the last three years, been very effective for me in implementing significant and incredibly positive change in my life over a relatively short period of time.  This approach might not work for everyone, but I’ve found it to be incredibly effective for me in determining where to focus my energy, how to prioritize all the conflicting demands that bombard me daily as a single mom, and in helping me keep at it even when things become discouraging and disappointing as they likely will. It is an approach which instead of frustrating and defeating me, fills me with optimism, confidence, enthusiasm and hope. Since I’ve heard those are some of the key ingredients for someone in good mental health, I guess that’s not a bad place to start.

Making It Through In Spite of the Flu

Just a short note tonight.  I’m tired.  It’s been a long day.  I have another fairly long day tomorrow and I was sick this weekend.  Flat out, on my back, slept for nearly 24 hours straight except to get up and get drinks of water and go to the bathroom.  Yeah, that kind of sick.  The kind of sick that you hope will pass quickly because to have so many things you need to be doing.  The kind of sick that you worry might never pass because, really?, the common cold does not feel this bad.  Or does it?

After Booty Texter dismissed me in his frustration at my being unwilling to lower my standards and subject myself to his selfish motivations, I went to bed (Friday night) .  For all intents and purposes, I did not awaken and like it, until sometime Sunday morning in the wee hours of the morning.  Oh, I awoke, but only to go to the bathroom and get a drink.  Over 24 hours sick.  Yeah.

I’m grateful that I was well enough to work a 13 hour day today and not keel over. 

I’m grateful that I’m now home and people decades younger than me who didn’t spend the whole weekend flat on their back sick as a dog, and who have fewer children to go home and deal with than I are just as tired as I am if not more so.  This means nothing other than I’m feeling better, my health is certainly not horrible and I am so very glad for that.  One’s health is so important.  In fact, in my list of things I’m grateful for my health tops the list. 

How would you finish this statement?

“If it weren’t for my health I’d _____________________________________________.”

or how about this statement…

“Because of my health I _____________________________________________”.

As for me, it is great to be making it through.  The knowledge that people many years younger than I are experiencing the same, if not more, fatigue is encouraging to me.  Not that I wish them ill, I don’t.  It just means this contraption I call a body isn’t doing so badly after all, and, to me, that is enough to be grateful for.