The Final Month

This coming Monday will be the beginning of my final month of blog writing.  My goal was to write for a year and to get healthy doing so.  It has been a rewarding year for me, and I feel blessed to have so many friends supporting me.

Last year when I began this journey I was pumped.  I have wanted to write my whole life.  It might be my longest dream in life.  I remember telling my elementary school teacher my goal to become a writer.  She responded by telling me that she fully expected to someday see a book in her classroom with my name on it as author.  The dream has been there for a long time indeed—but producing the dream is always another matter altogether.

The other dream I have had for almost as long is the dream of being healthy.  As a child I probably called it something like “being thin” or “skinny,” but in essence I wanted to feel good and look good.  Working on these two life-long dreams this past year has been exciting, difficult, and rewarding. 

A little more than a week after I proclaimed to the world that I planned on blogging for a year, I became seriously overwhelmed.  I regretted ever promising myself that I would stick to such a goal, and even more regretted announcing it to everyone I knew!  I had only written for ten days and I was already running out of ideas.  I really thought I had bitten off more than I could chew.

I hit some bumps in getting healthy too.  But when I look at the year as a whole, I see more successes than failures, and I am rewarded with the progress I’ve made.  Seeing a picture of myself at the beginning is one way to measure how far I’ve come.  (I’m glad I didn’t delete all those unflattering photos!) 

So as I go into this last month, I have just two final goals.  First, I hope to finish in top gear and ideal eating.  And second, I hope I don’t start repeating myself or my stories. 

Not Too Serious

Part of being healthy is being emotionally healthy.  When I am busy, life can seem all-serious.  There is a constant list of tasks to do, and I have a hard time getting everything done if I am too casual.  So I focus, block out distractions, toughen up, and get it all done.  I might be so successful at doing this that I forget to relax and enjoy things. 

In the busy go-go-go stages, time slips by at an alarming rate, and we wake up to find that we have no positive memories of it.  Life was like that for me when I was in college.  I was very busy and stressed, and I have few memories of those hectic days.  Most memories I do have, unfortunately, are negative ones due to mistakes I made in my overly task-oriented state.  But there is one memory that stands out that is beautiful.

I was in a small choir of only 24 singers, and we spent our rehearsals in serious concentration.  The music we sang was not easy, and our director expected a lot out of us.  I liked the choir, but it was a task on the long list I had.  I really didn’t have the energy to pause and enjoy it. 

One day something different happened, though.  We were singing a song that was slightly less demanding musically, and suddenly someone started to sway to the music.  It spread throughout our entire group until we were all swaying to the beat, almost dancing to the music.  At that moment, I realized how much I really enjoyed singing.  It was more than a task.  It was more than something to check off my list.  It wasn’t something I had to take super-serious every minute.  It was fun!  That moment became one of my lasting and best memories of that time in my life.

 It is very easy to take life too seriously, to demand perfection from ourselves and from others, and to stress when things don’t go the way we think they should.  Sometimes we think we need to get away in order to stop stressing.  But we don’t need a vacation to relax or to create lasting memories.  Opportunities to dance to the music are available every day.

Being Cold

It rained last weekend here in Sacramento.  It was rather a pleasant change to wake up to dark clouds and rain beating against the windows.  We turned on the heater for the first time in over half a year, and it smelled like Christmas. 

If I talk about the weather a lot, it’s because weather effects my health in many ways, from mood to energy to exercise to appetite.  Dark clouds make me want to curl up with a book and light candles.  Rain makes me avoid leaving the house.  Sun makes me want to work in the garden. 

When I lived in a colder climate, I felt cold almost all the time.  October always seemed the worst because my body was adjusting to the cooler weather.  Those days were always damp and chilly.  No matter how I bundled up with thick socks and boots, my feet were always cold.  I just could not get warm.  Wait—there was a way.  Exercise.  Whenever I exercised, I burst through that constant chill and I was warm!  It was enough to provoke me to work out rather often.

Contradicting this notion, whenever I felt cold, I also didn’t feel like working out.  I wanted to bundle up with a blanket.  I remember turning my electric blanket to high, and waiting in agony as I slowly warmed up.  Even then, my feet stayed cold.  Miserable!

It’s definitely a good thing that yours truly is now living in a warmer climate.  Still, we have winters.  We are ranging from 50s to 60s this week, a bit cool for me.  While being cold doesn’t make me want to exercise, it still provides an incentive: getting warm.

Honeymoon Girl

Recently I made a photo book of my honeymoon.  It’s been four and a half years, and it’s amazing how much I’ve forgotten in that short time.  I have a series of highlights that I think about, but studying the pictures brought back many small details.

From a purely unsentimental standpoint, our honeymoon wasn’t perfect.  Merely hours after I promised to love, honor, and cherish my new husband in sickness and in health, he put my vows to the test by getting sick.  Very sick.  The stay-in-bed-except-when-needing-to-run-to-the-bathroom kind of sick.  We had to postpone our flight to Hawaii, and it cost us over $1000 to do so. 

After an afternoon in the emergency room, we managed to fly out for our tropical paradise.  When we arrived it was raining harder than rice at a wedding.  The rain persisted for four days. 

During our last weekend, the sun broke out and shined her brilliance.  My now-well husband and I grabbed the opportunity to pack in as much adventure as we could.  We went hiking to an isolated waterfall that only helicopters and hikers like us can find.  Of course the people in the choppers who passed by couldn’t actually get the close-up view we had.  It was beautiful and romantic.  Everything a honeymoon is supposed to be.

Seeing the pictures brought back feelings I had as a newly married woman.  Worry for my sick husband, determined cheerfulness at the rain, and happiness that I had such a wonderful man to spend my life with.  Another feeling I experienced while sorting the pictures—shallow as this sounds—was jealousness at the fit girl I was.  Could it be only 4 ½ years?  I suppose two pregnancies will take their toll, and the reward is worth the sacrifice.  Still, the girl in the pictures was thin and energetic.  I can’t wait until I’m there again.

Special Treats

Naptime.  It is one of my favorite times of the day.  The kids are sleeping, I am able to focus on my list of to-dos, and everything is peaceful.  The first few minutes of naptime, I feel a sense of relief that I made it through another busy morning and afternoon.  I feel like I deserve something.  A treat.  Something special to reward myself and celebrate the quite peace of sleeping kids.

Just what should I have for a special treat?  What will give me that satisfying feeling of a small indulgence?

From the time I was a small child I learned that special moments must have special treats.  My family made Friday nights our “treat night,” which usually meant ice cream.  Now that I’m older, treats are still important.  More recently I’ve discovered ways to have a treat without having the calories.  Flowers, for instance, instead of chocolate.  Or a shopping reward instead of an eating reward.

Here is one important concept that I have realized about edible treats: the specialness of a particular treat depends on what I eat the rest of the time.  Here’s what I mean.  My goal right now and for the next few weeks is to eat no more than 1500 calories a day.  When naptime comes I sometimes treat myself to a cup of iced tea and a white cheddar rice cake.  It tastes wonderful.  I feel like I’ve really had a treat. 

Switch gears to a day when I’m overeating, setting no limits for myself, and indulging in any food I feel like having.  My kids go down for a nap, and the tea and rice cake don’t appeal to me one bit.  I want candy corn or something that’s really a treat!  But candy doesn’t satisfy.  Usually even chocolate doesn’t satisfy on those days.  Special things in life are only special if I don’t spoil myself.

Working Up a Do-Nothing Appetite

There is a particular activity out there, something that grabs ahold of you, sucks the energy out of you, and keeps you sitting on the couch for hours. It keeps you from doing the cleaning, it takes away the desire to exercise. It even puts a stop to your social life.

Sickness might do all that, but I’m not talking about a virus. I’m talking about a good book. Do you ever get trapped by a good book? For me, reading has much more of a pull than TV or even the internet. It’s addicting. It’s gripping. It’s the ultimate time-killer.

Before I had small children, I sometimes would use a Saturday to do nothing but read. Pleasant as those days were, I always felt a bit rotten and sluggish at the end of them. I wished that I had done something other than sit all day.

Now that I have small kids I don’t exactly have the option of designating an entire day to reading. Occasionally my husband will take the kids and allow me a few uninterrupted hours to read. Those days are blissful, but I still can feel somewhat drained after a long period of time doing nothing. It’s kind of like the feeling after a long road trip. Chances are eating wasn’t hindered, which means you have a bunch of calories just sitting in your gut waiting to be used.

My idea for these fabulous reading days is this: If I am so blessed to have several hours to sit and read, my body will appreciate it if I get some movement and fresh air before crashing for a few hours. It’s like working up an appetite for a big feast, only it’s working up a sit-and-relax appetite. It’s enjoyable to sprawl out with a book when your limbs are tired and your lungs are exhausted. Next time I sit with a book, I plan on pumping out a workout first. I won’t feel so lazy either.

Do Healthy Eaters Have to Eat Salads?

I hate folding socks. Everyone probably has a chore that they hate more than any other. For me it’s matching socks. Sometimes I might even leave a stack on the bed for somebody else to deal with, especially since my husband wears socks way more than I do.

Another chore I dislike is making a salad. What a bunch of work! It’s so much easier to pour peas into a bowl and throw it in the microwave or even to stir-fry up some bell peppers (pre-cut of course). Making a salad requires me to wash the lettuce, dry the lettuce, cut the lettuce, and clean up the scraps and water mess made from the lettuce. And this is all before I have even started adding the more tedious elements to the salad, like chopped onion, tomatoes, and cucumber.

It’s fun to complain, especially if you think people can relate. Can you? Lately I have made a decision about this second dislike of mine. My decision is that I need to make salads more often. Perhaps, after all, inclination to avoid them is just laziness. Salads provide a great source of raw nutrients, the best kind. And when I eat one, I feel like I’ve really munched on something substantial.

I was complaining to my husband the other day that I have been feeling sluggish, especially in the mid-afternoons. (I really am not a complainer in anything but socks, salads, and the occasional ailment, I promise.) He suggested that I eat more salads. So I am putting lazy-complaining aside and doing it. To my great surprise, I’m enjoying it.