Difficult Choices

Just about 30 hours into the event, we reported him missing and sought the assistance of facebook. Much to my amazement, we received an outpouring of support, shares, and sightings. In addition to our contacts, my son received a healthy dose of concern from friends. By the grace of God, we were calmly reunited and we returned home with him early Sunday morning. In 36 hours, the worst and best moments of my life may have occurred. It is my hope that we will all learn a few lessons from this, lessons to better prepare us for the future. 

This week was the first week since I made my journey to lose 100 pounds public. The support conjured up was both heart warming and helpful. You provided me with fantastic tips and tricks. You made me feel like I was not alone. It is amazing how many of us struggle with issues under cover. I am happy to have brought (one of ) my issues out in the open! But... how did I do?

Unfortunately, I am usually the one to jump in both feet first, from 100 feet above water, and by the time I hit the surface again- I am struggling to tread water. I vowed to not do that this week. I started out by just simply pledging to make better choices. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Drink 2-3 liters of water a day. Pack a few meals for work. My own awareness of what I was putting in my mouth became heightened by my effort to exercise each day.

The first few days I did really well and I had amazing results! By Thursday morning, I was down 6 pounds! It's kinda crazy, but it is fantastic what a few good intentions can do to a bad situation. I was not perfect, but I was certainly planned. Planning really seems to be the key to my success. If I pack good for me snacks, I am prepared when hunger strikes. If I have my bottle of water, I don't have the desire(as quickly) for a Diet Pepsi or latte. The more water I drink, the better I feel. As the positive circle was forming, chaos struck me into a spiral.

Friday, my personal life took a tornado twisting spiral. I am usually not in to putting the personal life on blast... but we used social media to our advantage so, the story is out. My teenage son and I had an argument and he ran off, determined he was not coming back. I am an emotional eater. My constant comfort companions are Ben & Jerry. I ate, but I still tried to eat better. I did not gorge on ice cream, I ate an entire bowl of broccoli. I did not grab chips, I ate apples. You know how they say, "You can't have just one"? Have you ever tried to eat a bag of apples???

As I woke up and got on the scale for the first time since Thursday, I learned a bit as well. My weight is down 4 pounds. That means I put on 2 pounds with my stress, but I am still in the positive with a considerable loss. The amazing gourmet cupcake, the lack of water intake, the adult beverages, they all balanced out with the great choices I made earlier in the week. My gain is balance, my loss is work.

I am pleased with my week. I worked hard. I stressed hard. I balanced well. I struggled. I lost.
How did you do?

Until next time...remember, it's not about what gets handed to you or what you go through in life, it's how you react to it that matters.

Mindful Eating Miniseries: Part 4 An Attitude of Gratiude

Remember from our Mindful Eating Mini Series, mindfulness involves bringing one’s full and deliberate attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it. Mindfulness embraces a moment by moment awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of ourselves and others.  We have learned to create mindfulness while eating that favors us to stop, taste, savor, and enjoy the experience of eating.

Despite the awareness of the experience, do you feel like you are still in a rut? Do you fight to make good food choices and feel deprived in the process? Just as the powerful intentions we have learned with mindfulness, what if we took the time to shift our focus? What if we shifted our focus from frustration and deprivation to thoughts of appreciation and gratitude? Gratitude includes being thankful for small things- that may simply be, having food in the first place.

Reflect on your Attitude of Gratitude. Fill in the blanks to the questions below:

I’m glad for____________________.

I’m grateful for____________________.

I am fortunate because____________________.

I do not have to worry about____________________.

Someone in my life I am very thankful for is ______________________because____________________.

Something I do not recognize that is good in my life as often as I should is________________.

I am lucky because____________________.

I am blessed to be able to____________________.

I am happy that I can____________________.

Before you sit down to a meal this week, take a brief moment to appreciate all the different aspects of the food in front of you; the aroma, the colors, the path, the preparer. Having an attitude of gratitude brings mindfulness to your eating and meaning to your mealtime.

Mindful Eating Miniseries Part 3: Savor Each Bite- Practicing Mindful Eating

Remember from our Mindful Eating Mini Series Introduction, mindfulness involves bringing one’s full and deliberate attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it. Mindfulness embraces a moment by moment awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of ourselves and others.  Mindfulness includes acceptance, an awareness of our thoughts and feelings without judging them.

The assignment this week was to invite yourself to a celebratory dinner experience.

1. How did you treat yourself as your own dinner guest? What did you do?
2. How did this compare to how you typically eat?
3. Did the food taste any different in this special environment?
4. Did you feel more in tune with your feelings of hunger and satiety?
5. What was your overall reaction to this exercise?
6. Would you do this on a regular basis?

Celebrating the meal allows us to be in the moment and enjoy the experience. It deters the usual multitasking in thought and action and supports you to be in the moment. You become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. This week we will expand up the experience of eating.

Do you ever find that before you finish chewing the food that is in your mouth, you begin thinking about the next bite? Do you generally pick up the next morsel or forkful before you finish the first? The following activity will ask you to pay full and deliberate attention to your current bite, to savor the moment, to savor the food.

Prepare two slices of fruit. This could be two types of apples, granny smith and gala, or two different fruits entirely, pineapples and strawberries. Place them on a pretty plate. Prepare to complete each step below, pausing in between to ponder the bullet points below.

1. Close your eyes. Take a moment to think about where this fruit came from. Imagine where the fruit grew. Envision how it travelled from the farm to our town to sitting in front of you.
2. Open your eyes. Look at the fruit’s color and shape. Try your best to concentrate on only the fruit. Take a moment to think about the details you see.
3. Pick up one piece of fruit. Notice the scent of the fruit. Imagine how this piece of fruit is going to taste.
4. Now, take a small bite of the fruit. Chew slowly. Try to place your entire focus on this piece of fruit. What is the texture? How does it taste? Is it sweet?
5. Notice the burst of flavor. Take time to chew slowly. Take small bites, chew slowly, until the first piece is gone.
6. Next, pick up your second piece of fruit. Look at the details. Smell it. Imagine the taste. Bite the fruit. Feel the texture and compare the taste. Chew slowly. Take small bites, chew slowly.

Consider this experience. Have you ever eaten like this before? We generally do not take the time to savor each bite. Did the fruit taste any different to you than it has in the past? Was it satisfying? What do you think would happen if you ate like this on a regular basis? Even though it might seem silly, try this for one meal or snack this week.  You may be surprised at how much more satisfying food can be when you stop, taste, savor, and enjoy the experience. 

Mindful Eating Miniseries: Part 2 Be Your Own Guest at Dinner- Creating a Meaningful Mealtime Environment

Remember from our Mindful Eating Mini Series Introduction, mindfulness involves bringing one’s full and deliberate attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it. Mindful, or mindfull, eating is a powerful strategy that can impact not only your calorie consumption but many other aspects of your life. Mindfulness embraces a moment by moment awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of ourselves and others.  Mindfulness includes acceptance, an awareness of our thoughts and feelings without judging them.

Think of a celebrity whom you would love to meet. Imagine you were going to meet this celebrity. Imagine this celebrity was coming to your home for dinner! Imagine… What would you do? What food would you serve? What kind of environment would you create? How might you set the table?

Now, think about how you typically eat dinner…

Do you usually eat seated, standing, or perhaps in front of the television? Do you light candles? Set a nice place for yourself? Are you lucky if the food makes it out of the containers onto the plate?? The reality is that most of us would respond with little or no preparation or effort. Why? Ask yourself, why do I not make a big fuss over my own meal? You do not even know the celebrity yet we “roll out the red carpet” for them… but not our own self. It is important that you recognize and celebrate your own value. This, however, is easier said than done. The assignment this week is to invite yourself to dinner.

How do you invite yourself to dinner? Simply, treat yourself as you would a special dinner guest: turn the television off, light a candle, set a place at the table. Savor each bite. The food can be as simple as a frozen entrée, but take it out of the box and place it on a dinner plate.  The idea is to create an experience for you… so you not only enjoy the meal, but celebrate yourself. Try this for at least one meal this week.  We’ll discuss our experiences at our next meeting.

Ask yourself the following questions after putting this into practice:

1. How did you treat yourself as your own dinner guest? What did you do?
2. How did this compare to how you typically eat?
3. Did the food taste any different in this special environment?
4. Did you feel more in tune with your feelings of hunger and satiety?
5. What was your overall reaction to this exercise?
6. Would you do this on a regular basis?

Mindful Eating Miniseries: Part 1

Imagine it is Friday night and you are at the movies. You sit down with your dearest friend beside you and as you chat you dig your hand into a jumbo bucket of buttered popcorn. The lights dim, the previews begin, and before the beginning credits roll… your hand hits the bottom of the empty bucket! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? It doesn’t only happen in the dark at the movies. Popcorn may not be your thing.  Be it the bowl of ice cream, bag of chips, or dish of candy- sometimes it just seems to disappear.

I dare sa, it has happened to all of us.

In our defense, we live in a society of multitasking. We seem to be in a constant state of juggling thoughts and actions. It is not uncommon to be juggling ten tasks at once. It is difficult to keep track of what we are doing. Many times we multitask in a mindless way; we do not even think about what we are doing. Somewhere there is a balance in opposition of multitasking and mindlessness, this balance occurs in mindfulness.

Mindfulness involves bringing one’s full and deliberate attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it. Think about that- full and deliberate attention. Do we ever put full attention to one task? When was the last time you can recall concentrating on only one thing? When have you completed just one task before you move on to thinking about the next one? Undivided attention seems to be a rarity in our days.

If we turn our thoughts about mindfulness from tasks and activities to our eating habits, I challenge you to think of the word as mind-full-ness. How do we know when we are FULL? If we are so distracted by the other tasks we are completing and still others we are contemplating, how can we possibly notice the signs that we are full?

Over the next few lessons, I will incorporate ideas from the TOPS Program, Mindful Eating Mini-Series to illustrate the importance of bringing full and deliberate attention to our eating. Mindful, or mindfull, eating is a powerful strategy that can impact not only your calorie consumption but many other aspects of your life. There are many roots and branches of mindfulness practices, all involve being in the moment. Mindfulness embraces a moment by moment awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and surroundings of ourselves and others.  Mindfulness includes acceptance, an awareness of our thoughts and feelings without judging them. Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness, even for a short period of time, can bring physical, psychological, and personal/social benefits. 

GPS: New Direction for Fitness and a Healthy Lifestyle

When you leave your house… do you usually know where you are going? I do. I know before I even get ready to leave. Depending on where I am going determines when I leave, who or what pet goes with me, what I wear, if I do my hair or put makeup on, and what I bring with me. I live in the country and am surrounded by woods and fields so, very little I do involves not getting in my car. My car has a fancy dashboard with satellite conveniences, including GPS. Programming the GPS is easy and has several benefits… I rarely leave my house without a destination in mind, so I almost always have my GPS programmed. I love the precise knowledge of expected time of arrival and the ability to be alerted of traffic updates and detours.

GPS- global positioning system. Did you know there are actually 24 global satellites and when four of them are unobstructed and line up with you, BAM! that’s how you get your GPS location (so says Google and Wikipedia). I thought of this amazement with a revelation… why can’t we have a weight loss journey or fitness GPS? How fantastic would it be to hear “700 calorie chocolate chip cookies ahead, turn away now” or after you have made a less than desirable choice you may hear, “recalculating, use the elliptical for 30 extra minutes and resume normal activity as planned.” Let’s face it, most of us know how to succeed in our journey. It is the action of succeeding that is challenging. I am fully aware of what to do, it’ the doing it that pains me.

I am challenged with a healthy lifestyle. I am challenged with a desire to lose 100 pounds. I am challenged to build a community of others like me and share our strategies, successes, and struggles to support each other through. Three years ago, I used my blog to celebrate my 40^th birthday. I created a list of 40 fantastic things and enlisted the help of friends and family to check off and add to it. Weight loss was an item on my list… it remains unchecked.

Here I am on another journey. This journey is a story of success. It is a story where I set up a series of strategies to assist in achieving a healthy lifestyle. Just like the varied unobstructed view of the satellites in space for my GPS, I know that not every strategy will be in full effect every moment. It is my hope that a few will remain lined up and just like GPS, BAM! enough line up to provide me with the path to success.

So, join me on my journey. Watch, learn, offer insight, share strategies and successes.

Here’s to a healthy lifestyle, and of course… a little less of me. 

Jen