Day 1 New Start for 2013 *Updated*

So, it is a Monday, the first full week of our "regular" routine after the holiday craziness and the New Year, so it looked like a good time to start again, refocus, recommit, and move forward in a more planned way toward the life I am creating for myself.

So, back to focusing on attaining a healthy weight, increasing my overall fitness, and reducing the physical issues that limit me in doing that which I want to do.

So for January,my goals are:
1) to lose 10% of my body weight by Jan 31st
2) exercise regularly for 45-90 minutes each day
3) reduce intake of processed food and refined sugars more
4) Eat 7-9 servings of fruits and veggies a day
5) Drink 8-10 8oz cups of water daily
6) Write 30-40 pages in my book
7) research social activities and begin making child care plans so I can attend some
8) Create a reasonable budget based on needs and average expenditures, and evaluate my relationship with money and debt to see what attitudes need to shift
9) Seek out more consistent income generating activities
10) Spend 20-45 minutes a day in Seeking God through prayer and Meditation
11) Play a game (board, card or other non-video) with my kids 4-5 days a week
12) Organize SOME Area of the house each day even if it is only a 2ft x 2ft square (once I have a place for everything established it will be easier to keep things in their place--thus reducing the chaos of clutter at home)

I am also going to start keeping a food journal again, and will probably use SparkPeople (username: truthfrees) again for the mathematics of the food, but I will post a list here as well.

So for today thus far (11:15 am) I have had 2 apples, 1/2 a cup of pistachios, 1 cup of coffee with 1 TBS half & half, and an now working on one 16 oz 1/2 cocoa 1/2 coffee with 1 TBS light cream (I know, too indulgent). I also have had 3 cups of water.

I did go grocery shopping for about an hour, though that barely counts as exercise.  Tomorrow I plan to go to the YMCA, I was granted a partial scholarship to reduce the membership cost, so I think I am going to take advantage of that, as this time of year, it is easier to exercise indoors.

Today is a crazy busy day--between doing paperwork with A this morning, hitting the grocery store, being here at the library, next heading to a "keep my head on straight" appointment, then picking up the kids from school, dropping off the paperwork I did this morning, checking my mail and hopefully going to the bank with a check, then over to dad's to drop off some groceries for him, and hopefully getting some cleaning and reorganizing done at home in the evening.  Have a great day all!

*Update*  The remainder of the food journal --2 small cucumbers, 16 coffee with cream, 3/4 cup cottage cheese, 1&1/4 cup shrimp, green bean, macaroni & cheese casserole,  3 TBS Hummus with 5 saltine crackers, 8 cups water, 1/4 cup pistachios, and then 2 bowls of Captian crunch berry cereal with milk (moment of weakness in late night snacking)

2012 to 2013 shift

I have written a blog post/reflection about the 2012 to 2013 change over due to the New Years Holiday.  You can access it here:
http://powerfulconsciousness.weebly.com/reflections-and-news.html

2013 Happy New Year

I saw a MOOSE!!  This morning on the drive to school.  I have always wanted to see a moose, even living in the mountains for the first 17 1/2 years of my life, and for the past 3 1/2 years have been back here, and had never seen a real, live moose in that whole time.  So I am very excited that I have seen a moose this morning.  I think it is a sign that bodes well for this new year.  Now, on to the actual post...

Well, the holiday bustle (insane craziness?!?) is over, the multiple celebrations of Christmas were wonderful and amazing.

The first celebration was with A's family the weekend of the 15th, which i mentioned previously. Then was Christmas day itself with myself, A and A's friend L, and the boys for the morning.  My Mom and step-dad came over for breakfast and present opening.  Which we did in that order, the opposite of what we normally do. As usual we all opened stockings when we first got up.  L was surprised by a stocking for her as she was just a visitor, but I told her that Santa knows where everyone is, and no one in my house goes without a stocking on Christmas morning.  After that we hung out and ate candy and waited for Grandma and Grampa Jim to arrive.  Josiah was getting antsy and really wanted to open presents.  While I was making coffee I heard a ripping sound followed by "wow, cool" as Josiah went under the tree, found a present with his name on it and opened it.  Luckily he was calm about waiting until it was time after that.

So we had a great Christmas morning, had fun opening presents, had a wonderful Christmas breakfast, and my Mom cooked which was an unexpected surprise.  Then we just hung out and played at home for the afternoon.  I got a turkey in the oven and got the house set up for  having everyone come for Christmas dinner. So in the evening My mom and step-dad, my dad, my brother, our family friend JoAnn, My sister S and her husband and 4 kids, and my sister A with her 2 kids, boyfriend and boyfriends mother all joined me, A, L and the boys.  We had a great time with lots of food, laughter, a nerf dart crazy playing time, and just an all around good time.  It was the best Christmas that I have had in years.

Then Friday my sister C and her husband and 2 kids came up from South Carolina, and we had a great day.  We went sledding at my father's house (who has a huge hill in front of his house that is GREAT for sledding on), and had hot chocolate (and coffee) , cookies and popcorn. Then we went to my Mom's house for a great ham and chicken dinner, and a lot of gift opening as that is when we do out big family gift giving time.  Aside from one little conversation that dug at me a bit, the overall day. family visit and celebration time was amazing.

My best friend who was supposed to come out for a few days between Christmas and New Years was unable to come due to car trouble.  So I got a few days of just the kids and myself at home, relaxing, doing laundry, playing with our new toys and such.  New Year's eve was quiet and peaceful. New Year's Day was spend getting ready for the start of school, and then a quiet dinner with my mother as my step-dad had to go out of town for work.  So a great soup and roll-up dinner, good conversation, and then home to put the kids to bed.

Then the longest night of insomnia, not the "oh I am so overtired but I can not sleep" kind of insomnia, no, the "I am so awake and alert and have all sorts of ideas that I can't get myself to sleep" kind.  So I am fairly tired today, as I barely even napped on and off last night. So today the kids are back at school, I am back to my running around, and I have many new ideas for how to keep the transformations of my life going in the direction I want them to.   I will share those in another post...

Holidays are supposed to be enjoyed....

...not create a mountain of stress and crazy running around.  Well, I suppose it is the embodiment of both this time of year.  I have been running around like a crazy person (getting NOTHING done on my book, which I had hoped to have at least the rough draft done by the end of the year...), and I am still not done with my shopping.  I still have my parents gifts to buy and a gift for A (my ex), and A's friend L who will be joining us for Christmas, as she would be alone on Christmas otherwise...and no one should be alone on big holidays like Christmas.  I am hoping my check comes tomorrow so I can get it in the bank tomorrow and have my money by Thursday as I want to finish my shopping (and food shopping for Christmas dinner too) by Thursday so that I can enjoy the last few days before Christmas -baking cookies, enjoying time with my kids & family, and all that jazz--I have had too many years where I am still trying to get the last few things the day before Christmas--not fun.  A gave me my gift early, a haircut from a great hair stylist, which I got this morning.  Mainly I got it early because last Friday I was going to go get my haircut and A stopped me, as it had already been arranged, and I said that I really needed it before Christmas because I was starting to look like a brown, stringy mop had affixed itself to my head.  Honestly, this is one of the best hair cuts I have ever had, so I am very grateful for A's gift, as the local discount cuts place could never give me a haircut this good!!  I have perfectly straight, very fine hair that does not hold a style at all (so a short bob style is usually the way I go--since I was like 4 years old), and this hair cut IS a style, and not a bob!!  I am beginning to think you get what you pay for, even when it comes to hair cuts with impossible hair.

I also received a beautiful pair of LL Bean winter boots in the mail from my best friend, and the timing could not have been more perfect as it has been a snowy, slushy weather mess the past two days, and my old sneakers would not have been able to handle it, so I would have been walking around with wet and cold feet otherwise.  Can I just say I have the most amazing best friend in the whole world?  She and I have known each other for 20 years (we were freshmen in college together).  We had a our first apartment together, we were the maids of honor at each others weddings,  she stood by me through the adoption process that created my family, and I stood by her through the fertility attempts which sadly have still left her childless, and we helped each other through our divorces together (mine after 7 years, hers after 15 years).  Though we have lived over 200 miles apart for over 13 years now, we still talk at least once a week, usually more like 4-5 time a week.  We still understand each other, and have been able to support and nurture our friendship even as we each have gone through multiple perspective, religious, and values shifting throughout the last 20 years (and have not always  or even often, been on the same page with a lot of things).  So, during this holiday season, I am reminded again how grateful I am for a having such an amazing, loyal and devoted friend in my life, who truly is a part of my day to day life despite the distance and the time between actually seeing each other.  I am excited to have her come visit for a few days between Christmas and new years.

Tonight I will be picking out a tree (I know I am WAY late this year in getting the tree, I usually put it up between the 10th and 15th, but last week was crazy busy and then we were away this weekended visiting A's family for Christmas (can I just say, building a good platonic friendship with my ex has been a great thing, as the kids do not be pulled around or miss out on celebrating with both sides of their family, and I also love my in-laws, and it is good to still have them in our lives).  I hope to get he tree up and decorated by tomorrow evening.  I will keep it up all 12 days of Christmas (which start Christmas day and end on the Feast of the Epiphany (Jan 6)), so it is not like it will be gone after next week.  I had started to put lights up on the house a couple of weeks ago, but had trouble with getting the lights to light, and I have not gotten back to it.  So I am looking forward to having fun the next couple of nights with preparing the house for Christmas with the kids.

Well, I have much to do today...so, in case I do not get a chance to blog again before Christmas, I wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  May this advent season and the coming days of Christmas fill you with joy, love, cheer, and a spirit of giving, and may you ring in the New Year in safety, love, and an abundance of positive energy.  Oh, and if something more dramatic than an overall energetic shift occurs on this years Winter Solstice, the day that the Mayan calendar ends and the sun and earth line up with the dark center of the Milky Way, may you find yourself in the right place at the right time to move forward in peace, justice, and a sense of connection to your fellow human beings and spirit beings.

Old Habits die hard...

Well, at least old-habits-that-you-had-tried-to-walk-away-from,-thought-you-were-done-with-and-then-fell-back-into die hard...

So, as my last post indicated, I had slipped back-wards again into some poor eating choices and less than stellar exercise choices.  That post was like 12 days ago with a major Feasting holiday in there, and though some of my motivation and power of choice has returned, I am still eating weird and not exercising enough.  Thanksgiving--like Christmas and my birthday--are what I call "free days."

Free days are days when you celebrate and enjoy the feasting, forget about external restrictions, and savor & enjoy the food that you choose to put into your body (instead of just wolfing down as much as possible--so conscious feasting).  This is different from "throwing your health to the wind" or "cheating on your diet" or "unconsciously overeating and seeing how much you can cram in before you are in too much pain to actually breathe".  It does mean that you embrace the reasons for the celebration and feasting, that you do not deny yourself of time honored food or foods lovingly prepared by those who care about you, but that you take smaller portions of everything (still filling the plate) and you savor the goodness, the love, the tastiness, and you celebrate it all.  And yes, you may end up full to bursting if you are not careful to take small enough portions, but it is a rare day, a day set aside for something other than watching your waistline...it is a day to embrace family and friends, and feast in all Thankfulness (I did finally do a Thanksgiving Gratitude list, which can be found ...by clicking this link).  So that day I do not count...

But there have been 11 other days between my last post and now that I DO count as having been days where I have not been as healthy as I would like to be.  It has been up and down, many mixed days, with green smoothies giving a boost of healthful energy on that same day that I enjoy a piece of left-over cake filled with ice cream, or chowing on thanksgiving leftovers in all of their glory for lunch on the same day I make a spinach and shrimp stir-fry for dinner, or spending 6 hours super cleaning a few rooms of the house (like spring cleaning (even mopping UNDER the big braided rug and the couch!) but not able to open the windows to air things out because it is too cold outside), the vegging on the couch and watching 3 back to back Sci-fi movies until 2 am.  So an interesting mix of good, healthy choices and poor, less than Healthy choices.  So, yes, my newer, healthier habits are still hanging on and part of my life, strong even though somewhat in a fledgling stage.  but my old, less healthy habits are still hanging on, hanging around--usually rearing their heads later int eh evening.  The more my brain and body feel tires, run down, or the stresses of the day have built to a certain point--that is when the old habits, the lure of the old "familiar", the lack of self-love, kicks in...

So, it is a process.  It is getting easier, most days, to make healthy choices, to make choices that ACTUALLY make my body, mind, and spirit feel better, feel stronger and healthier.  But there is still that part of me that seeks out those things (which for me are "bad" foods, lack of activity, and shutting off my brain with mundane crap) that are "old familiars", that were companions of times when I felt self-loathing, and needed to drown it out.  I do not need those old habits, they no longer serve me, nor do they serve my goals and desires for my life.  So I continue this slow Transformation process, letting go of old habits as I can, and building new ones.  It is not an overnight journey to a new me, it is not the destination that is important, it is this amazing step, by step transformation, where I am learning who I am, and what I can contribute to life.

Mal-adaptive coping skills-OR-Eating crap makes you feel like crap

Okay,  so....

the past week or so, I have not been eating "the good stuff", and i do not feel good...
hmm... correlation?!?!

--instead of green smoothies packed with vegetable micro-nutrients and hard boiled eggs laid by happy, cage free chickens, I have been eating gas station grab and go breakfast sandwiches for breakfast.
--instead of tuna fish with mayo and pickles on Kale leaves, I have been snagging "tornados" (little tortilla roll-ups stuffed with things like "steak and cheese" or "sausage and peppers") for lunch
--instead of making a kale, red cabbage, broccoli and shrimp stir fry with brown rice for dinner, I have tossed a frozen pizza in the oven and served it with canned peaches one night; another night was frozen chicken nuggets and frozen french fries with canned spinach, instead of the a turkey and spinach pie.

So, not only do I feel extra tired this week, as I also have not done ANY walking this week, I also feel irritable, grumpy, and just plain out of sorts.

While some of those feelings have to do with some life challenges that are creating friction in my spirit and with little annoyances of ongoing themes that I just have to find a way to either change my attitude about or change the system that causes the annoyances (if you can't change it, you need to find a way to just accept it), some of those feelings are caused (or at least amplified) by the poorer health choices I have been making this week.

I had not realized how much my diet and basic lifestyle habits had been changing, or the effect it had, as things changed slowly over the past couple of months since I had started exercising regularly and eating more health consciously.  With just a few days of crap eating and lack of intentionally focused movement, I have found that my general emotional character is on the downward slope and my ability to focus on what I need to do to deal with the challenges before me is diminished.  So it becomes a cycle--some additional pressures of life added to the normal day to day stress of life prompts me to seek out "comfort" foods and reduced my motivation to get my body moving.  In turn the lack of exercise and the poor nutritional quality of the food compounded with the chemical components of processed foods leads to me feeling more tires and burdened, and thus increases the desire to just return to old methods of feeling secure--like being a couch potato and eating crappy foods (odd how those things are associated with "comfort" when they really bring anything BUT comfort in the long run).

It boils down to mal-adaptive coping skills.  Those things we learned through trial and error during the sad, scary, or traumatic times in our lives that in those specific instances alleviated some of the overwhelming anxiety and emotions of that time, which became habits for us even past those extreme experiences.  When you first stuffed your mouth with potato chips or a doughnut while being overwhelmed with fear or anger and knew that expressing it in that moment would have been detrimental to you, it was a moment of survival--you NEEDED to find a way to dissipate those feelings.  Or that terror you felt as a small child and you cried out and your parents gave you sweets to help you feel better while they were grappling with things you could not understand.

The endorphin rush that came with begin so full to bursting that made the pain and anguish not feel so strongly; the serotonin rush that came after downing a cake while despairing from a great loss; the numb, protected feeling that the buzz from an alcoholic drink gave you making you feel less of an painful emotion; the way you could escape from the hard realities of your life by getting lost in a TV program or movie; the distraction from your emotional turmoil that happened when you accidentally shut your finger in a drawer making the physical pain a focus and lessening the emotional pain; the release of various brain chemicals that you got from winning $50 on a scratch off ticket when you were so extremely stressed out about how you were going to have gas to get your baby to the doctors office...all of these experiences are natural things that we have happened upon that momentarily help us feel better from the pain, stress, and fears we have experienced in our lives.

And when they happen once in a while, are not a problem.  But when we begin to use (usually in an unconscious or sub-conscious way) these as a way to cope with the trials in our lives, a way to disappear from the pain and stress that life often brings, that is when these "momentary" and often unplanned experiences went from being a way to survive a momentary physical, mental or emotional overwhelming to a mal-adaptive practice that gets in the way of solving the problems that are creating the overwhelming situations in life.  Yes, they are a type of coping with life, and may in the past have been the only one a particular person could do at a particular time to make it through a particular trauma or period of life. But when they become the default coping mechanism, they end up getting in the way.  Instead of leading to survival and thriving, they lead to self-destruction.

So, reminding myself that eating crappy food and NOT exercising, are, for me, mal-adaptive coping skills, because when the additional stress of certain things gets stronger, I find myself choosing (sub-consciously for the most part, as I had planned out my meals for the week and they did NOT include crap, but just gravitated towards the crap in a less than decisive and more "autopilot"manner) those things which I had chosen in the past that bring momentary reduction of stress.  It solves no problem, in fact, it creates problems because now the same stressors are still there and have not been dealt with, AND I am MORE tired, have less motivation, and on top of the grumpiness I was already feeling, are the feelings of "Duh!!  I know not to eat that and I know exercise makes me feel better".

So, right now, for the rest of this day and for tomorrow too, I commit to eating food that actually makes my body and mind function better, which overall will make me feel more capable and less stressed, so that I can figure out a way to strike a balance with a particular situation.  

just touching base

I realized I have not posted in over a week.  I need to get back to posting 3-5 times a week.  But for right now, I just want to touch base.  I have not been walking much over the past week, mainly due ot the weather, but in part due to a VERY low energy level.  Usually walking or moving around helps build my energy level up, but this past week, it has not helped, so instead of making it 2+ miles a day, I am lucky if I can get my energy up enough to do 1/2 a mile.  So while I have tried, and pushed, and have gone more to weather protected places (stores, malls, etc...) to walk, I find that my energy level has not been rising.  I am looking into getting a YMCA membership as with winter coming, it would be good to have an indoor place to exercise.

Part of it I think is the grieving process, and though I have not been very conscious of how my friend's passing has been impacting me, I think it is a behind the scene process that is bringing my energy levels lower, and my overall mood lower.  Grief is not a bad thing, it is a part of life, and a sign of how amazingly a person impacted your life.  So it is just a process, and it is okay.  I just forgot how heavy even sub-conscious grief can feel.

Still plugging along with my journey towards health, though I have been less than stellar about food choices lately. Halloween candy and my birthday may have something to do with that.  Today is day 1 of a new plan of eating that I am committing to.  If I stay committed to it, I will share it.  resuming my spark people food tracking...using Nov 1st as a new start date.

Transformation is an ongoing, baby step process for me...every step forward is good, and steps backwards are not a real problem as long as I do not stop striving to move forward...