dream job

"The motivating thought or emotion can be understood to act as a signal, helping the individual focus on and select objects and experiences from countless possibilities."
~ Wendy di Rodio in
An Exploration of the Concept ‘Motivation’
as a Tool for Psychotherapeutic Assessment

I've been discussing existentialism with my students. Starting with the premise that life itself is empty and meaningless, we can make the choice to be resolute meaning makers, firmly declaring our choices among the infinite possibilities that present themselves to us continuously.

Freedom can be a terrible burden, I tell them.
Too many choices.
Too much risk.

The great existential thinkers have accused people of being intellectually lazy and of using religion (religious authority) to make decisions for them so they don't have to.

Resolve takes will.
Choice in the face of limitless possibility takes great courage.
Life lived authentically is a life lived at great risk.
We risk rejection, disappointment, criticism, loneliness, failure.
Not everyone is a cheerleader for our choices no matter how authentic we are.
Sometimes authenticity has to be its own reward.

I know I listen for the applause from the sidelines and sometimes I hear 'booing'.
That's the risk we all have to take when making the tough decisions in life.

Being responsible, taking responsibility for ourselves means giving up the victim mentality that tells us that life happens to us rather than us happening to life.

Making the change from couch-sitter to 7 day a week exerciser took some time. Giving up my 6 day a week gym routine and trading UP to a 7 day a week movement commitment required me to have a running start.

I had to build self trust first.
I had to build a workable fitness level first...and I did.

It took about a year, but I'm finally living in a more responsible, resolute way.
Moving is something I do.
It's who I am.
I trust myself to do the right thing.
There's no panic or pressure to exercise. It comes naturally and I do it easily.

I feel pretty sturdy in this commitment.
I feel better physically, less hungry, less tired, more energized, more hopeful and definitely more productive.

Time for some serious self-care.

Today I'm going to work on my resume and a cover letter so I can apply for, what appears to be, my dream job. I don't want to talk too much about it cuz I don't want to jinx it.

Let's just say it's FULL time, it PAYS well, it's at a place I call "home" and if they hire me I'll be starting in early December.

For the past 24 hours I've been working my way up to choosing this job with resolve, focusing my will, wondering if it's something I truly want.

So far, yes.
I truly want it.

The job would provide me with resources, connections, momentum and financial energy to realize my goals in life.
Rather than take energy away from my goals, as I feared a full time job might do, I believe it will move me closer to my goals.

Momentum creates forward movement.
This job will move me forward toward reconstructive surgery, a book deal, paid speaking engagements, and an energized, healthy life.

BUT if it doesn't work out, I'll still have an updated resume to work with.

Here I go taking a risk...again.

*Movement for Motivation*
Chair yoga rocks.
This young lady is AWESOME!!
And I LOVE the song she picked (Frou Frou's "Let Go")
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Yesterday's Activity: Morning stretches; one hour 'Butts and Guts' aerobic and strength training class (yes, an actual class with push ups, sit ups, running laps and everything!)

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Balancing

Paris Hilton (aka Geralyn Reno) with Jack the Psychic at Giorgio's Halloween party.

"It is estimated that up to 20% of patients who have Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass (RYGB) surgery will not meet their weight loss goal, or may even regain some of the weight they initially lost. One possible explanation is that the opening between the stomach pouch and the intestine becomes stretched... (and) food may be able to pass from the stomach to the intestine too quickly - causing patients to feel less full after eating."
~ Clinical Trials.gov

"As I wrote in my book, The Patient’s Guide to Weight Loss Surgery , after a few years, your body adjusts to what you are eating and weight loss stops."
~ April Hochstrasser, PhD

"The health benefits of organic brown rice are many, which include: weight loss, cancer prevention, increased energy, and healthier blood pressure."
~ from yoga40961 Blog

I'm feeling more centered, calm and clear headed since my new 7 day movement commitment and subsequent ease-up on the gym but also a bit guilty and anxious.

I wonder if the psychic was right?

At the Halloween party on Friday, I had my cards read by Jack the Psychic. The "health" card came up. I was surprised.

Why would the health card figure so prominently?
Wasn't I doing everything I was supposed to be doing to get my health in order??
I was kicking my own ass at the gym 6 days a week.
How much "healthier" am I supposed to be???

He said I was going to be taking on a new nutritional program and that I needed to follow it to a T. He said I didn't need to concentrate as much on exercise as I needed to concentrate on nutrition.

Mind you, this guy knew nothing about me. I met him for the first time on Friday. He knew nothing of my gym commitment, nothing of my gastric bypass, nothing of what I did for a living, not a thing except that I was Geri's friend.

He told me that according to the cards I spend alot of energy "worrying" about my health. He said all that worrying wasn't helping.

"Nutrition" he kept saying, "not so much exercise."

(He said other stuff about career, finance, love life, etc. that I won't go into right now.)

I thought he was reading the cards wrong.
How could there be anything wrong with my 6 day a week workouts?
I thought I was doing so well!!

I thought that as long as I worked out HARD 6 times a week I was on track, doing the right thing, and didn't need to do much else.
That's probably where I went wrong.
The not-doing-much-else was burying me.
The self-punishing mindset of my workouts was not serving me.
I was caught in an I'm-fat-therefore-I-deserve-to-suffer mindset.

The workouts weren't ALL about punishment.
Working out 6 days a week at the gym made me feel disciplined, trustworthy and strong.
BUT
I didn't feel taken-care-of.

From my own experience, I think eating disorders (as well as compulsive exercise disorders) manifest due feelings of neglect, anxiety and a deep need to feel taken-care-of.

"We see you as someone fighting back against restrictions that exacerbate rather than help your compulsive eating problem....We believe that each time compulsive eaters reach for food they are ...attempting to help themselves."
~ Hirschmann and Munter in Overcoming Overeating

Looks like respected experts in the eating disorder recovery field agree with me ;-)

With the 6 day a week workouts I was punishing myself for being fat. I traded one compulsion for another. Instead of eating to exhaust myself and go numb, I was exercising to exhaust myself and go numb.

Not that I regret my 6 day a week gym-ing.
It worked for almost a year.
I DID build a beautiful foundation of fitness upon which to move forward in my journey of wellness.
I DID lose 125+ pounds.
I DID build incredible self-esteem and self-trust by keeping my word to myself.

It's time for a new phase in my healing.
Time to awaken the neglected parts of my body that are crying out to be cared for.

Looking at workouts for Seniors (because there's a terrible lack of fitness routines for the super obese. Hellooo? Have I found my niche??)
has led me to some interesting discoveries.

My balance is off.
Not in a spiritual way (though it is in need of attention) but in a walk-the-balance-beam kinda way.
I tried doing one of the senior citizen balancing exercises and FAILED miserably!
All I had to do was walk with one foot directly in front of the other, putting the heel of the leading foot directly in front of the toes of the other foot as I walked.
I toppled.
I could only do it while holding onto something.

Funny, I can only use the treadmill at the gym if I'm holding onto the heart rate bar in front of me. If I try to use my arms, you know, swing my arms like I'm power walking, I can't do it (yet).

Am I still going to go to the gym??
Yes, absolutely.
I miss it.
The workouts there are valuable to me.

I LIKE to perspire.
I LIKE the feeling of accomplishment when I do a full 45 minutes of cardio.
I LIKE working out with weights!
I especially like watching TV and movies while I'm doing it.

What I WON'T do is weigh myself.
I must resist the scale.
I must resist the need to see myself getting smaller via the numbers.
Shrinking is not the goal.
Fitness is the goal.

Fit bodies are naturally lean.
I will trust my body.

Hear that body?
I will trust you.

God, please help me to be more trusting.

*Movement for Motivation*
Ok, this guy, Paul Eugene, moves FAST!!
You think because he's sitting you won't work up a sweat??
Think again!


Yestersay's activity: LOTS of walking on campus, at least a mile.
30 minutes of the "Please Be Seated" workout with Tony Lorrich.
(Can I tell ya? I felt the BURN! Using muscles for resistance training and range of motion is hard when you haven't done it....ever. Passing a ball in and out of my legs was difficult, but satisfying. God bless Tony Lorrich!)

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Clean up

"Ask anyone who has been eating healthfully for an extended period of time. Whole, healthy GOOD foods seem to take on an all new vibrancy... I am constantly amazed at how good I feel and the pleasure that comes from eating well."
~ Christin, blogger and former Kimkins victim

I had a productive day.
Started the day with movement.
Took a walk later in the day.
Cleaned!

I finally got the broken glass out of the corner.
A glass display case that held a few of my smaller collectibles (miniature frog from my Grandma Wittig, Mrs. Potts and Chip, a tiny Death Star) had fallen off a high shelf and shattered on my bedroom floor I dunno how many months ago. When it first happened I picked up the larger shards of glass and left the broken case in the corner where beloved miniatures waited to be rescued from a dangerous maze of jagged glass.

I procrastinated every time I looked in the corner where it sat menacingly.
I told myself:
I'll do it when I have the energy.
It's not a priority, other stuff needs to be done.
I'll get to it when I have time.
It's safely contained in the corner so I can put off cleaning indefinitely.
One of these days I'll get to it.

Yesterday was that day.
I had the energy.
As a matter of fact, yesterday was the day I put away a few different stuffed-into-the-corner things that had been low priorities for months, like the Montclair State Glasses and paper weight I received as a graduation present last June. I spent 4 months pretending the gift bag wasn't there every time I passed it. I convinced myself it didn't matter that it was taking up space in the corner. Geez, so much denial. What kind of energy does THAT take?

I knew where I was going to put the Montclair State glasses: the top cabinet above my sink. So, it's not like I didn't have a plan for that bag of stuff. I DID have a plan, but I dreaded going through with it.

Reaching the top cabinet would require standing on something. I wasn't in a hurry to do that. Effort, pain and exertion surely awaited me. There was no other way to reach that top cabinet. I had to climb.

I had a choice. I could either stand on a kinda high stool that I sometimes sit on (near the stove and sink or when feeding the cats) or I could lug the step ladder from behind my closet door in my bedroom. The step ladder would inevitably be draped with giant tumbleweeds of dust that had to be removed before I could even attempt to bring it into the kitchen.
Which would it be, a kinda high stool or a dusty step ladder?

I chose the stool
(though I DID get the tumbleweeds off the ladder when I cleaned up the glass shard explosion in the bedroom).
Using the stool turned out to be a magnificent triumph. I did the one-leg-step-up while holding onto the sink ledge for support.
Wow. It was amazing.
I felt so nimble!

There are more payoffs from working out than just the numbers on a scale.
I stood on a stool.
That's a huge payoff.

My neater apartment is a huge payoff too. All clothes have been sorted, folded and put away. I even got rid of a handful of mismatched socks and a few things that no longer fit (hallelujiah).

Little things that seem so mundane make a HUGE difference. Having suffered from depression most of my life I can tell you how hard it is to care for myself. Taking care of paperwork, paying bills, keeping a clean house, feeding myself well, keeping up with daily disciplines are not as easy for a clinical depressive as they are for non-depressed folks.

Depression is more than just a "bad mood." It's a persistent state of hopelessness caused by a chemical imbalance. I'm not taking that from any website definition though you can find plenty of helpful stuff online that describes clinical depression and its symptoms. I understand and can name this state of hopelessness, apathy and meaninglessness because I live(d) it.

Maybe you won't see me sitting in a church basement sipping mediocre coffee calling myself a recovering-addict
BUT
I will cop to being a major depressive in recovery.

Do I believe depression can be cured??
Sure!
Body chemistry can change.
The subconscious can be cleaned out.
Minds, bodies and souls can heal no matter how broken.

I'm not healed yet and when it comes to treating my depression I don't f**k around.

There was that summer in the late 90s when I was on a natural healing bender and thought that St. John's Wort would do the same thing for me as my antidepressants. I went off my meds and regretted it. I suffered horrible mood swings, crying jags, social misconduct, episodes of explosive rage, inability to function in the most menial tasks, deep despair and meaninglessness and the occasional suicidal thought which made me realize that I was not ready to go off my meds. I tried going back on the same meds and they didn't work. It took me months to get the anti-depressant cocktail right and get myself back on track. I had a new respect for my meds after that.

I'm also careful not to overmedicate. Recently, like a month ago, I dropped ONE of my anti-depressants (Effexor 75mg). No adverse side effects as yet and I don't expect any. I've lost a whole person (126 lbs.) and I think it's reasonable that I would need less medication for my smaller body. The Effexor was a late add on anyway (within the last 3 years). I suspected that my psychopharmacologist prescribed it for its appetite suppressant qualities anyway. When she first prescribed it I had no complaints of depressive symptoms but I WAS binge eating.

A n y w a y....

Self-care.
Yeah. That's a big issue with me.
Yesterday was a major care-for-Lisa day.
Walking around my freshly vacuumed apartment without tripping over piles of dirty clothes and other unsorted crap is a testament to my ability to care for myself. It makes me feel like I'm worth the effort. I've added a brick to a foundation of self-trust. I feel lighter and more optimistic. More able.

The living-space-upkeep goes hand in hand with eating better, exercising more efficiently, daily disciplines and overall moves toward wellness.

Healing from a behavioral disorder (in my case a binge eating disorder) requires an integrative approach. Just the surgery wouldn't have done it. Just the exercise wasn't going to do it. Just eating less wasn't what I needed. All these aspects have to work together in order for a person to be well.

*Movement for Motivation*
I just followed this one minute video and I feel more energized. Do it!



Yesterday's activity: 20 minute morning stretches; house cleaning; 20 minute evening walk.

6 Days a week to Everyday

I was featured in Meet Your Neighbors in the Herald News on Friday October 26th.
Click to enlarge.

It's time for a change, a big, wide, sweeping, cleaning-house kinda change.
Now that it's Fall, just about a year since I made (and kept) some strong daily commitments, it's time to make some new ones.

Yesterday, I didn't go to the gym. I took a walk instead.
I COULD HAVE gone to the gym but I fell asleep on the sofa, not in a lazy way, in an exhausted way. My body was achy from the change of weather. I felt shivery and weak. I needed the rest.
When I woke up, I put on my running shoes and went outside into the beautiful night air.

As I walked under the fat harvest moon with the last of the summer crickets chipping their way through the October night, I noticed my body.
I had shin splints somethin' fierce.
My left ankle burned.
My back was killing me.
I didn't feel well overall, kinda foggy, weak and clogged up.
The pains I felt reminded me (too much) of how I felt before I lost 125 pounds.
It was difficult to enjoy my sacred walk (and walking on a late October night in the crispy autumn air is a sacred activity).

As I remembered to breathe deeply
Shiva Rea (bombshell yoga instructor goddess diva) came dancing through my mind. I heard her voice saying, "If you have sacroiliac knees or ankle joint issues I'd like for you to keep your feet low to the ground or move lightly like a cat."
Her words poured over me like steaming hot water relieving my aching body.
Her voice heated me up with
Forgiveness.

My path became as clear as the air I was breathing...
Something has to change.

No more punishing your body.
No more unholy movement.
Honor your body.
Move with love, Lisa.

I thought about my 6 day a week gym commitment.
6 days a week is hardcore and empowering.
BUT...
Why did I have to take a day off?
There was something wrong-headed about needing to take a day off.

Susan Powter does Yoga every day.
Shiva Rea does Yoga every day.
I can MOVE every day.
The exercise shouldn't be so harsh that I need a day off to recover.
Movement should be nourishing.
Moving should FEEL like a blessing, not a punishment.
I've suffered enough.

I've proven to myself that I have discipline.
I've proven that I can keep-up-with-the-boys and work out 6 days a week doing cardio AND weights.
I've proven to myself that I can overcome laziness, defy my bad moods and maneuver around any circumstances in order to keep my word.

Time for the next step.
Time to take my wellness to the next level.
Time to move the neglected parts of my body.

My workouts have been limited. Doing the bikes, the elliptical, the treadmill and the weight machines is kinda straightforward. There's nothing fluid about that kind of exercise. I'm only working a certain set of muscles.

As I watch Shiva's trance dancing (I took a few minutes off from my moratorium on spending to purchase her DVD, I had to!) I'm becoming more aware of different kinds of movement. Movement that my body craves. Something new. Movement to wake the soul. Feminine, honorable, nourishing movement for my worthy body.

This morning I woke up and decided I would do a living room workout to mix things up. I went to LifeSkool Free on demand and looked for the health and fitness programs. I selected Beginner's Yoga.
I couldn't keep up.

I selected Yoga for Kids.
Not enough moving, too much breath work (not that there's anything wrong with breath work, it's just that I was looking for movement).

I selected Beginner's cardio.
It was full of lunges and squats. With my torn up knees, it was pointless.
I couldn't keep up.

I selected Beginner's weight training.
More lunges and squats.
I couldn't keep up.

I selected Ab Stretching.
More kneeling, knee work and floor work that I couldn't do.

NOW WHAT??

I remembered a DVD I bought months ago when I was coming up with "Movement for the UnMotivated" (my program has been adopted by Montclair State University's Department of Health Promotion at The Drop-In Center. "Movement for the UnMotivated" classes are held every Monday at 11:30am during the Fall Semester!)

The DVD I had bought was still in it's shrink wrap.
It's called "Please...Be Seated with Tony Lorrich: a Chair Fitness Workout Program designed for people with Limited Mobility".

I tore off the shrink wrap and gave it to Bosie to play with.

I popped in the DVD.
DAMN!
The Seniors were doing better than I was!

It was great.
I became acquainted with muscle groups I had been neglecting for most of my life.
We stretched.
We dipped.
We bent.
It burned IN A GOOD WAY.
I felt energized, the way one should feel after a workout.
Blood was flowing.
Chi was flowing.
I felt like moving some more!

Having clicked through several workouts on TV and found NOTHING that I could do, I was reminded of the need for do-able fitness routines for folks like me.
Thank You, Tony Lorrich!

BUT...and here comes a ba donk a donk...
I don't like the title "Movement for the UnMotivated" for the movement section of my Blog.
Don't call yourself "UnMotivated".
It's a lie.
You are HIGHLY motivated.
You must be.
You're reading this, aren't you??

"Motivation can be conceptualized as a part of a process,
a series of (internal and external) movements that directs and structures life itself."
~ Wendy di Rodio in
An Exploration of the Concept ‘Motivation’
as a Tool for Psychotherapeutic Assessment

Ok, that's settled.
I am motivated.
You are motivated.
I want to feel GOOD while moving and while at rest.
So do you.

What else needs cleaning up in my life?
I want to get stuff done.
My house isn't as clean as I'd like it to be.
My finances are wheezing and sickly and need to be revived.
I want to take better care of myself.
I deserve better care.

So, now what?
Time for the new commitments.

a.) Working out every day - 20 minutes or more of movement, walking, stretching, yoga, aerobics and/or going to the gym. How many days a week will I hit the gym? I'm a stickler for keeping my word so until I've figured out this new phase of movement in my life, I'm not making a gym commitment. Instead, I 'm making an every day working out commitment. I'll update my gym commitment when I 'm good and ready.

b.) "Movement for the UnMotivated" will now be called "Movement for Motivation" based on what we know about neuro-linguistic programming and the power of words, we declare ourselves motivated! I also understand the need for do-able, modify-able movements for folks like me, folks with limited mobility, etc. Let my blog be a source for viewing and doing these types of workouts.

c.) I will no longer be posting my weight every day. For the record, I've lost 125 pounds. Now it's time to nourish myself in a different way. My weight will adjust itself. I'm all about the fitness rather than the shrinkage. I wouldn't advise someone else to weigh themselves every day. Why would I continue to do it myself? A watched pot never boils and I'm tired of watching the pot. Better to focus on more productive, empowering things.

I want to be duplicatable.
I want folks to be able to do what I do.
That's the point of doing all this publicly.
Would I recommend a beat-yourself-up workout 6 days a week to a client?
No way.

I believe in WALKING THE WALK.
I'm not going to say one thing and do anther
NOR
am I going to do one thing and advise others to do something else.
That's wrong headed.

It's important to be authentic in life, in business, in everything.
I value authenticity above most other character traits.
Time for me to woman-up and be more authentic.

*Movement for Motivation"
Click here or click below to enjoy a few minutes with Tony Lorrich...


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Off the Cuff

Geri as "Paris Hilton" with Melissa about to arrest her!

Paris without her sunglasses. "That's Hot!"

My fabulous witch hat bought for $2 at a garage sale.

I went to a costume party last night.
Had a nice time.
See above.

How'd I do at my talk yesterday??
Well, yesterday morning I sat here at the computer and typed out notes.
Yes, notes.
I actually exercised some discipline by organizing my thoughts and creating a coherent talk.
The notes were systematic, bullet pointed, themed.
Creative and logical.

I was confident.
The railroad tracks stretched out assuredly in front of me.
I knew exactly where my train was going.

I arrived at the conference early.
Got a feel for the room, arranged chairs, played with technology, neatly piled the handouts and propped open the doors to air the place out.

My audience arrived.
Everything was in order.
Everything as it should be...
Except no notes.
Where were my notes?

I swirled my hand around inside my bag in disbelief.
I turned over clipboards, dug around in the pile of handouts, looked inside my purse.
No notes.
I had left them sitting here at home in the printer.

F**k me.

There was no time to panic.
It was time to start the talk.

What did I do?

I told stories.
I threw in a few of the bullet points that I was able to remember.
Told more stories.
Gave a bit of advice.
Told more stories.

When I say "stories" I don't mean OTHER people's stories, or speaker stuff, I mean stories of my actual experiences. The talk was on Interfaith Dialog. I've been facilitating interfaith dialogs for years! I had plenty of real, personal, edifying stories to tell.

It worked.
My audience was smiling.
They filled out the evaluation forms and gave me outstanding reviews.

Lesson learned?

I dunno. I'm still feeling like it would have been a better talk if I had my notes.
I'm still convinced I could have done much, MUCH better.

At least my audience was happy.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Dance on the head of ignorance.
If you can't do it standing up, do it in your chair.
Pound out your anger with your feet.
Get it OUT of you!
Let the ground absorb it.
Click here or click below.

Yesterday's Weight: 252

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Laying Tracks

"Be good.
Keep looking."
~ Matt Graziano, MSU Philosophy Major,
on the meaning of life.

Today I'm giving a talk at the Careers in Student Affairs Conference at Montclair State University.
The title of the talk is "Interfaith Dialog: Can we really keep it friendly?"

I haven't written it yet.
It's 8:30am and the talk is scheduled for 1:45pm

Think I'll make it??

It's a good bet that I will.
I've been writing the talk in my head for the past few days.
There are plenty of real-life stories to tell from actual interfaith dialogs that I've facilitated.
A VCR will be waiting for me so I can use clips to highlight my points.

It will be fine.

I'm telling you this for a reason.
I could have let my perfectionistic standards stop me from doing it.
Perfectionistic expectations keep us from doing GOOD and GREAT things.

When I volunteered to do this talk the negging voice chimed in immediately telling me (or rather TRYING to tell me) that I was taking on too much. That I didn't have enough experience or material to pull it off. That I had no time to put together something good. That no one will show up and mine will be the only break-out session with no one there.

You can't.
You shouldn't.
You'll be terrible at it.
the voice snipped and sniped at me.

A different voice argued back (hey, I'm not the only one with voices in my head, am I?)
You can.
You should.
You'll be great at it and even if you're not great, so what?

It's true.
Even if I was terrible at it, so what?
I've sat through some TERRIBLE seminars and workshops (and classes) in my day.
Those presenters are still gettin' paid and giving talks.
What's stopping me??

I woke up this morning and sat at the edge of my bed thinking of Shiva Rea and her open, palms-up yoga posture. I welcomed the day, welcomed its energy and pictured the talk going well. I pictured the folks in my audience getting something of substance. I imagined gaining confidence and experience. Fun will be had by all.

I don't have to be perfect.
My talk doesn't have to be Pulitzer Prize-winning perfect.
As long as I'm authentic and as ego-less as possible, it will go well.

When this opportunity was presented to me I thought of a train. If I were a train conductor I wouldn't want to get my 44 ton locomotive in motion to travel on unfinished railroad tracks. I'd want to know that my journey was laid out ahead of me, that there would be tracks upon which to roll my wheels.

BUT...and everyone loves a big BUTT...
life ain't like that.
Tracks are never finished.
My tracks stretch out to the horizon, but what lies beyond that horizon?
The tracks probably end.
What if they did?
Then what??

Better lay more tracks.

There were no tracks ahead of me past the give-a-talk-on-interfaith-dialog horizon when I agreed to give this talk.
The tracks weren't laid yet.

Still, I made the commitment.
I gave my word.

Savor that one for a moment...

I

GAVE

MY

WORD.

I have integrity.
No, I AM integrity.

The talk would definitely happen.
I made a contract with folks whom I respect.
I made a verbal contract with myself.
I gave my word and the universe heard me.

My giving my word LAID THE TRACKS.

My commitment actually laid down railroad tracks for the locomotive of my life.

When we make commitments, especially the really tough, born-again-hard, DAILY commitments, we need to keep those commitments for no other reason except that WE GAVE OUR WORD.

Never mind the big WHY.
Having the big WHY inspires us to make the commitment in the first place.
The big WHY is the goal that drives us to give our word.
BUT and here's another big BUTT for ya...
The WHY is not what should drive you to it.
Your WORD should drive you to it.

You see, your WHY can change.
Your desire for the WHY is bound to change.

I know folks who begin diet and exercise routines and vow to get in better shape. Then something comes to trip them up, not something bad, something GOOD!
They get a boyfriend/girlfriend.
That cute someone takes notice of them and makes them feel good about themselves.
They get a great new job.
Some new something or other excites them more and distracts them.
They get acknowledged for their talents, their self-esteem heals and they no longer feel that it's necessary to pay attention to their body shape.

I've seen more workout/diet commitments get derailed by GOOD stuff happening than by the laziness devil.

The WHY shrinks.
The new fascination, new person, new project, new whatever makes the WHY seem not-worth-it.
The daily commitment no longer seems worth the rigor.

That's why OUR WORD has to be the rock bottom, hardcore reason we keep our commitments.
It's way too easy to talk ourselves out of keeping our word by deflating our big WHY.
Expect the WHY to change.

Susan Powter initially lost her excess weight because she wanted to look good to spite her ex-husband who had taken up with a new, younger, slimmer, girlfriend.

Is that what keeps her going now??
NO!!
Of course not.
She's been remarried, divorced and has soooooo moved on.

Last year I blogged that I wanted to be a "trophy wife".
I read that now and gag!
YUK!!
I don't want to be someone else's trophy!
I'm my own trophy.
The last thing I want to be someone else's arm candy.
I'll walk the red carpet on my own thank you very much.

Good thing I had this bug up my butt about making a commitment and keeping my word for no other reason than I KEEP MY WORD!

Don't let your WHY run you.
Let it motivate you.
Let it inspire you.
Let it help you formulate your goals.

But the reason you _______ every day
whether it's
write,
blog,
exercise,
read,
meditate,
eat right,
etc.
is because you GAVE YOUR WORD.

That's who you are.
Be your word.

Click here to leave me a comment!!

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
It's an "ad" for her DVD but it gave me chills.
Look at those fabulous poses!
Emulate.
Imitate.
Move.

Grooves

"We think you'll be surprised to find, however,
that your desire for vegetables is hiding just beneath the milk shakes."
~ Hirschmann and Munter in Overcoming Overeating

I don't crave milkshakes.
I DO crave good food.
and...
Sometimes I still eat past full.
There's still that needy place inside me that longs to be full.
Not that I'm special.
We all need to be filled.

It's taken me a while to get the hang of it but I'm getting better at filling myself with satisfying feelings and experiences that are NOT centered around food.

Why does it take a while to get the hang of it??

Habits.

Habits that are worn like grooves into our lives actually draw us into them depending on how deep the groove is. Look at water running downhill. Watch where it's going. Notice any type of groove or hole or depression and you'll see it filling with water as it trickles down. Water seeks the lowest point. That's a fact of physics.

Our activities are similar.
What we do from day to day is just like the water. Our actions look for grooves to fall into. They naturally want to fill the furrows, gullies and well worn grooves.

Habits form grooves.
Starting a new habit takes groundbreaking strength.
That's why habits are only difficult to form in the beginning.

Next time you make a commitment to do something, make a positive change, form a new habit, notice the level of difficulty you're experiencing.
Force yourself, by acts of sheer will, to keep the habit going till it gets easier.
Once the groove is worn your actions just naturally go toward it.

And it also works in reverse.
Self-destructive, unhealthy habits wear deep grooves the same way positive, healthy habits do.

I'm still in the process of undoing a lifetime of unhealthy habits in my acting AND my thinking.
Lifelong habits = deep grooves.

Sometimes I don't want to be bothered breaking ground, defying the natural inclinations of my water/actions.
New habits, new positive feelings take a bit more effort to break in.

Usually, I'm most discouraged when I've been doing well, you know, succeeding.
Sounds wacky doesn't it?

Yesterday I gave a talk to an undergrad class in Nutrition. I had no notes with me. My talk had no pre-set structure to it. I told my story. I allowed myself a brief feeling of pride at being able to speak spontaneously, to tell my story very naturally.
Which aspects of the story did I tell?
- the killer staff infection with boils and carbuncles
- the pneumonia and sleep apnea diagnosis that saved my life
- the gastric bypass itself
- my inadvertent discovery of the digestibility of raw and natural foods
- Sean of the gym
- from daily overeating to daily blogging and working out

Doesn't seem like it would take an hour and 15 minutes to tell that story but it did. And I left plenty of stuff out!

The students seemed emotionally involved with my unfolding story. A few of the students approached me afterward with tear-filled eyes. They were a wonderful audience. It was a privilege to speak to such attentive listeners. I felt a bit high afterward. I had a noticeable spring in my step.

That night, I ate past full. The magic of feeling successful was unfamiliar and scary. The old habit of stuffing in my feelings with food attracted my actions like water running into a well-worn groove. No damage done, though. I ate a bit too much brown rice with tofu and a few too many handfuls of Smart Start cereal. Barely a set back nutritionally.

Still, acknowledging my behavior makes me aware of the grooves in my life. I have some deep ones. Some negative self-beliefs have worn some dangerously deep grooves. I know I have to make exert the ground-breaking strength to make new ones.

Another concern is my discomfort with appreciation and success. I sure do bitch about not getting appreciation and acknowledgement. I sure do know when I'm not getting what I think I deserve in that respect. But then I GET IT and I want to destroy my feelings almost immediately.
Weigh myself down.
Overeat.
Make the "good" feelings go away.

My friend Dr. Esmilda Abreu asked me a brilliant question yesterday. She asked, "If you were discovered tomorrow, would you be ready?"

Good question.

If the answer is "no" then what steps do I need to take to become ready?
If the answer is "yes" then what actions do I need to take to get myself out there?

"Ready" doesn't necessarily mean getting all my ducks in a row. My ducks tend to wander around excitedly, quacking and pooping all over the place instead of waddling single file.
Do they really need to waddle in a row?

I don't want an unrealistic perfectionistic view of "ready" to keep me from getting out there in the world.
All the traffic lights don't have to be green all at once before I put my key in the ignition.

But it would be nice to have a full tank of gas.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Ok, how awesome is Shiva Rea??
(How awesome is the name 'Shiva Rea???)
Look at that beautiful stance as she greets the morning.
Sit at the edge of the bed and imagine that gorgeous sunrise.
Move your arms the same way, open, palms up, embracing the energy of the day.
You are beautiful and graceful and grace filled!
Namaste.

Yesterday's Weight: 252

Click here to leave a comment!

Mystery Stink

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
~ Erma Bombeck

I did almost everything I said I would do yesterday.
The bag of clothes is still stuffed underneath my chaise in the living room waiting to be listed, BUT... the two oil paintings are up for auction on Ebay FINALLY!!

I DID get to the laundromat to fight the mysterious stink problem.
Oh, I didn't mention the mystery stink??
The foam pillows in my bed STUNK but I didn't know it.

I couldn't pinpoint the source of the stink at first.
There was an overcast of smell in my bedroom that I tried to mask with fragrance.
I thought the bad smell was the dirty laundry, but after I did the laundry, the stink remained.
I thought it was the poor air circulation in my apartment that drives all smells, smoke, cat poop, cooking, incense (a good smell), etc. directly into my bedroom where they squat till I fumigate them out with sage spray and air conditioning.

The mystery stink might have been coming from the bed wedge, a thick foam cushion that keeps my legs elevated while I sleep. And it did stink. Even having washed it and tumble dried it with half a box of dryer sheets didn't cure the bed wedge stink. The fabric softener had masked it for a while. But I put my nose to the bed wedge and I detected an understink. I figured I'd wash it again.

Ok, so I removed the stinky bed wedge from my bedroom but the stink remained.
Sniffing around like a bloodhound led me to a horrifying conclusion. It wasn't just the bed wedge alone. It was all my foam pillows.
As I picked up each one of them individually to give them a sniff, my nose was assaulted with a putrid, swamp gassy, rotten smell that had been infecting my bed for God knows how long. Had I not smelled them because I sleep with a CPap?

The voice in my head started griping and negging (Negging = negative nagging)
at me to spritz some fragrance around the room and just ignore it. Washing and drying every pillow would be too much work. Why not just throw them all away and go running to Mommy to buy you new pillows? Neg, neg neg.

No. That's not how I choose to handle this.
I defied the negging in my head.

One by one I undressed the pillows, cleared all the bedding off my bed, stuffed everything in giant garbage bags and shoved everything into my car.

Why am I telling you my tale of horrifying stink?

Because there was a time in my life when I WOULD HAVE just spritzed fragrance around the room and procrastinated. The physical demands of undressing my bed, loading everything into the car, washing and drying every piece then REMAKING MY BED to sleep in at night would have taken a day's worth of energy. It would have knocked me out. I would have procrastinated and suffered in a stinky bed because a) I didn't consider myself worth the effort and b) I had no energy to make the effort anyway.

Mind you, after my long day on campus yesterday in meetings, facilitating my discussion group, walking from one end of campus to the other, I was tired. There was still the stink pile in my car to deal with, the gym, and my high follutin' idea that I'd get stuff listed on Ebay before the day was over. Not to mention the emotional and financial work of having to feed myself every few hours (you know, the way a human being is supposed to eat).

After a nice cool bottle of water, brown rice in hot and sour soup eaten while sitting in my car in front of the laundromat, I started my chores.
Laundry got done.
The bed wedge still stunk but the smaller pillows seem to have recovered.
Ok, one big time consuming chore out of the way.

Still, my workout was waiting for me.
No biggie.

The Daily Show and Colbert were on as I was riding the stationary bikes at the gym.
Laughing made the rides seem easier.
For my strength training I used my new approach to using weights that actually made me use MORE weight machines and do MORE reps than usual.

A nice guy approached me while I was about to use the leg lift machine (what, am I suddenly approachable??).
He told me to reposition my seat in a certain way so I'd put less stress on my knees.
Wow. More kindness from strangers! Look at that!

Ate an apple on the way home.
Cooked up some tamari almonds when I got home.
Ate too many too fast and felt nauseated.
Laid down on the sofa.

At this point I wanted to just go to bed.
Feeling queasy, I still had to MAKE THE BED that had been stripped and airing out all day.
The negging temptation to procrastinate started rumbling around in my head. I wanted to pass out on the couch right then and there.

"You can do this" said a different voice in my head.

This new voice was loud and clear.
The negging voice didn't stand a chance against it. The negging voice was tired too.
The low grumble of the "you've done enough, just sleep now"
hardly factored into my decision.

"You'll feel so much better if you keep pressing on. You can do it. You have a shred of energy left. Use it!"

The positive voice was undeniable.
So, I didn't deny it.
I pressed on.

Still queasy from the nuts, I got up on my feet, grabbed my digital camera and took photos of the oil paintings.
That wasn't so hard.
I sat my ass at the computer, did some research on the artists, listed the pictures on Ebay, and felt WONDERFULLY SATISFIED with myself.

Sitting back on my sofa eating sugar free ice pops I knew I had one task left.
The bed.
Again, no biggie.
It wasn't the grueling effort the negging voice made it out to be.
Sleeping in a clean, fragrant bed is a wonderful way to end the day.

This morning I woke up to discover the little white lights in my ficus tree were half burned out.
The negging started. (Will it ever shut up??)
Muscle memory reminded me of the pain and difficulty breathing I could expect from having to stand there and restring the lights on my living room tree.

"It won't be so bad. You're stronger now."
Said my new, reassuring voice.

The images of painful exertion evaporated. Yes, it would be an effort to restring the tree but it wouldn't be dreadful. It will be something to do. No big deal.

This isn't about getting fit (though it is).
This isn't about how exercise makes you strong enough to handle any task that pops up unexpectedly (though it does).

This is about change.
So many times my negging story in my head, the voice that wants to remind me of pain, suffering, lack of ability and defeat, kicks in automatically. What I've discovered is that what it reports has NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY.

It's just a story.
A negative, disempowering story.
A false story.

So many times during my day yesterday the negging story tried to dissuade me from doing what I AM TRULY CAPABLE OF DOING.

Don't let some rotten voice in your head keep you from doing what you are TRULY capable of doing.

Defy it.
Override it.
Ignore it.
Shout it down.

Soon, a new voice will emerge, one that tells you what you CAN do rather than remind you of some past episode. The past has no power over the here and now. Don't let it control you.

The past is the past so leave it there.

I'm rewriting my story.
Listening to a new voice.
So can you.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*

Yesterday's Weight: 254

Click here to leave a comment!

Ask and receive

"I haven't even begun.
I'm in the infancy of having the privilege of living this life.
I'm still in utero.
Oh God! Just wait until I'm born!"
~ Susan Powter

Another random act of kindness lit up my day...
It was late.
I didn't get to the gym till after 7pm.
Folks tell me I should work out in the morning to "get it over with" but then I couldn't look forward to going to RetroFitness, my really cool, really fun gym (TV and movies, baby!).

I rode two different stationary bikes while watching Comedy Central. You don't suffer the pains of exertion as much when Stephen Colbert is making you laugh.

During one of the commercial breaks I offered up a prayer. I asked the universe to provide me with everything I needed. I asked for guidance, strength and faith in my own ability to make my visions a reality.

I finished up the cardio portion of my workout, tacking on an extra 5 minutes in an attempt to appease the scale god.

I was tired.
I didn't really feel like doing the weight training part of my workout.
I talked myself into it by remembering my own Blog post from that morning (hoisted by my own petard!). I trudged to the locker room to splash my face and get ready for part two of my workout.
Weighed myself.
Didn't like the number.
Told myself it was late in the day so the scale would be reading my maximum weight.
A little discouraged by the lack of movement in the scale I pushed onward to the weight-training area.

Someone I knew said 'hi' to me. It was a man that I used to see all the time at my other gym in Bloomfield (we've both defected to this new gym in Belleville). He's the guy who works at Holsten's, now famous for being the setting for the final episode of the Sopranos. Holsten's Guy is always smiling, always pleasant.

He asked how I was doing.
Instead of my usual, "Fine, and you?" I indulged myself in a gripe.
I told him that I was frustrated over my weight loss plateau.
He joked that he was in the middle of a plateau that's been lasting 12 years.
Funny but frustrating. This guy is at the gym twice a day!

He begged my forgiveness for asking, acknowledged that I hadn't asked him for advice, then inquired about my exercise routine. I told him about the 6 day a week cardio (minimum of 45 minutes each day) and the weight training. He was impressed by my commitment.

Again, apologizing if it sounded like he was prying, he asked if the weights felt "heavy" during my weight training.

"Yes" I answered proudly.
After all suffering and making-it-burn are what weight training is all about, right?

Too soon, he told me.
When someone is still on the fat burning journey (again he apologized for presuming I wanted to lose more weight) it's more important to keep a full range of motion during weight training rather than push more weight. He told me about seat height on the machine I was using. Told me to decrease the poundage and increase the range of motion.

"You can sculpt your body later. Now is the time to burn fuel," he explained.

I followed his advice.
Immediately I felt my body go into fat-burning mode.
I felt stronger, lighter and more able.
The burn was there but it wasn't a desperate struggle.
I enjoyed the weight machines.
It felt great.

The universe gave me exactly what I needed.
Incredible.

Today I need to get stuff done.
Habits are easy.
I'll get to the gym, no problem.
I'm blogging right now.
The cats are fed.
The poop box is clean.
The dishes are done.
I vacuumed a bit.

Daily habits = handled.

The other stuff is a bit harder.
Listing that bag of clothes on Ebay.
Listing two more oil paintings on Ebay.
Getting my resume/cv in order and sending it out.
Preparing for a talk I'm giving tomorrow.
Getting to the laundromat.
Feeding myself.

The discipline of daily habits becomes routine.
Still difficult but not terribly difficult.
Just average difficult.
More easy than difficult.

The good news?
When forming new habits, going through the terrible-ness of difficult is temporary.
Once your habits become habits the routine gets easier.
The routine becomes part of who you are.
It gets easier and easier to do the right thing.

As for the other stuff?
I beg the universe to provide me with the willingness to handle it.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
From Strength Exercises for Seniors at About.com
Sit in a chair with your back straight. Keep feet flat on the floor even with your shoulders. Hold hand weights straight down at your sides with palms facing inward. Raise both arms to side, shoulder height. Hold the position for 1 second. Slowly lower arms to the sides. Pause. Repeat 8 to 15 times. Rest. Do another set of 8 to 15 repetitions. Note: Start without weights, and as you gain strength you can add weight in increments of 1 or 2 pounds. Cans of soup make a good substitute for weights.

Yesterday's Weight: 255
Today's Blood Sugar: 180

Daily means Daily

"You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."
~Peter Gibbons in Office Space

I've done that.
I've made a promise and broken it because I stopped caring.

We make a commitment.
We "plan" to stick with it.
Then something changes between the time we made the commitment and the time we're faced with keeping our word or not.

We start out with good intentions.
In the here-and-now we give our word.
BUT...
What happens when we meet ourselves in the future?

Something changes.
We resent the person who made that promise.
That person was crazy to say they'd work out every day!
That promise-maker isn't the same "me".

We bargain.
We make excuses.
We believe we're different than the person who made the commitment however long ago.
We say "screw that" and come up with perfectly reasonable excuses NOT to keep our word.

In a few weeks I'll be celebrating the anniversary of DAILY blogging.
(Click here to read about the challenge that got me started on this crazy, daily habit.)

If you notice, in that post, I vow to Blog every day till January 1st 2007.
As you can see, I never stopped.
I've been blogging daily since December 8, 2006.

On January 2nd, I started the 6 day a week workout commitment.
I've stuck with that daily habit as well.

Was it easy?
No.

Was it worth it?
YES.

Daily.
Day after day.
Every day.

Like crazy.

It started with a 30 day challenge.
It turned into a lifestyle.

Keeping a daily commitment requires integrity.
Integrity = keeping your word.

Don't worry about motivation.
Motivation is the spice rack that flavors the main dish and makes the kitchen smell enticing.
It's nice.
It's fragrant.
I like motivation.
I like feeling motivated.
But it's not the necessary ingredient.

Integrity is all that matters.

Make a commitment.
Keep your word.

For no other reason than YOU GAVE YOUR WORD.
My "Why" doesn't matter when I'm too tired to go to the gym.
I can reason away any argument.
I can talk myself into believing that missing a day at the gym doesn't really matter in the big picture of my weight loss goal.

And I'd be right.
Working out 5 days a week is just as good.
Working out 4 days a week is just as good.
Working out 7 hours a week, spaced out at my convenience, is just as good.

But those commitments (though good!) don't require an heroic dose of integrity.

Saying, "I'll work out 7 hours a week" is not the same as saying,
"For the next 30 days I'm going to work out every day."

It was the DAILY aspect of the 30 day challenge that changed my life.
It changed my story about myself.
It changed my belief about what I am capable of.

It FORCED me to overcome
moods,
circumstances,
doubt,
and the laziness devil.

My moods are way too volatile to be trusted.
If I waited to be in-the-mood to workout, I'd probably go to the gym once a week.
If I waited for it to be convenient to go to the gym, I'd go maybe twice a week.

The life-changing aspect of the 30 day challenge is the DAILY aspect of it.

Imagine this:
You won a 180 million dollar contest.
Just picture a real Power Ball amount of loot.
In order to collect the money, you have to show up at the Prize Office (the gym)
every day for 30 days.
If you miss even ONE day, you forfeit the prize money.
Could you do it?
Could you show up someplace every day for 30 days to collect your 180 million bucks??

OF COURSE YOU COULD!
Even if you got into a fender bender, or the weather was iffy, or you were in a bad mood, or you had aches and pains, or a headache or whatever, YOU COULD GET TO THE GYM EVERY DAY to collect your money.

Ok, flash to real life.

What you're expecting me to say is that your "goal" (health, weight loss, strength, skill) is the $180 million prize, right?

Nope.
That ain't it.

We can talk ourselves out of our goals way too easily.

I can bargain and negotiate way too easily.
For instance, I can convince myself that who I am on the inside is more important than who I am on the outside (as if the two were truly separate) therefore I don't HAVE to exercise.
OR
I can convince myself that I need the rest more than I need the workout because boo hoo, poor me, I worked all day.
OR
I'LL MAKE UP FOR IT TOMORROW BY WORKING OUT TWICE AS LONG ( a famous bargaining tactic for the enemy).
OR
whatever demon excuse tries to win out over my commitment.

Let me tell you something...
Overcoming these demons on a DAILY BASIS builds something more than muscle.
It burns something more than fat.

Keeping a daily commitment builds character. It builds self-esteem.
It creates SELF-TRUST.
It burns up depression and self-defeat and turns them to ash.

Trust me on this one.
I know.

When we think we're letting ourselves off the hook by breaking our word, we're digging ourselves into a hole. We damage our self-image. We solidify beliefs about ourselves as lazy, untrustworthy liars.

If we break our word over and over, we created a self-image that's difficult to repair.

It was difficult to repair my broken self-image.
But I did it.
I'm holding together.
The super-glue of keeping my word to myself is drying nice and solidly.

Do it because YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO IT.

It helps to declare your commitment publicly.
Having others believe in you can keep you going when you're having difficulty believing in yourself.
Having others DOUBT you can help too.
It's great to prove them wrong, the naysayers, the detractors.

I could lie to you and say that my goal of being "skinny" is what keeps me going to the gym.
I won't lie to you.
The goal helps to get me to the gym, but it's not the main motivator.

You see I'm being chased by the demon of depression, self-doubt, pessimism, and defeat.
The enemy is growling and nipping at my heels.
I have to outrun the f**ker.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Wake up and do yoga even if it's for one minute sitting at the edge of your bed.
Wake up with a nice stretch.
Breathe deeply.
Listen to Susan...

Today's Blood Sugar: 196

Click here to leave me a message.

attracting blessings

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
~Albert Einstein

I've been hovering in the low 250's for months.
Months!

I should be frustrated by now, right?

Well, I am a little bit frustrated.
BUT and everybody loves a big BUT...
I'm not discouraged.

I'm making progress even if the scale isn't dipping dramatically.
The fat is burning off.
I feel it in my waist.
I feel it down my sides.

There's no denying it.
I'm shrinking.

I looked in the mirror at the gym yesterday while I was weight training.
I liked my reflection.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not SATISFIED with it, meaning I'm not done once-and-for-all with this body of mine.
But I've made progress.
I am stronger.
I see it.
I am pleased.

Just as I was radiating that feeling of pride, a young man came over to me.
He saw that I had been struggling to pop some widget into place on the pectoral fly machine.
He helped me.
It was a spontaneous act of kindness.
I was grateful.

There was another spontaneous, kind act that showed up in my life on Friday.
It was pouring rain.
My mother and I went to BestBuy to get her a new boombox (yes, my 84 year old mother needed a new boombox).
I warned her that BestBuy is HUGE and that she'd have a hard time walking through the store.

As we walked into the store, near the entrance we saw two public wheelchairs next to the shopping carts.
In the past she had never warmed up to the idea of letting me push her in a wheelchair no matter how I reassured her that it didn't make her an invalid (!).
This time, out of necessity, she relented.
Not even relented, she suggested it.

I worried that I wouldn't be strong enough to push her around the store.
Turns out, pushing her was easy.
I guess all that working-out and building my body has paid off no matter what the scale says!

We had fun.

In the middle of the store, without warning, my mother came out with,
"Dee dee dee" * (see below)
The two of us laughed so hard we were turning heads.
I was doubled over laughing.
We were downright silly.

We finished shopping.
I wheeled her through the checkout and into the vestibule.
It was pouring rain outside.
There was no way for me to hold the umbrella over the both of us and push the wheelchair at the same time.
I told her to hold the umbrella over herself.
"Don't worry, Ma," I reassured her. "If I get wet, I won't melt."

We arranged our purchase on her lap.
She held the umbrella over herself and her lap full of electronic goodies as I pushed her to the car.
I was fully exposed to the rain.

But I wasn't getting wet.
For a split second I thought I was miraculously walking between the raindrops.
I looked up.
There as an umbrella over my head.
A woman, who later revealed herself to be a Black Baptist,
was following us holding an umbrella over my head and her own as she followed close behind.

"Mmmm, you two ladies are sure having a good time," she remarked.

I just kept saying "Thank you" over and over again.
She stayed holding that umbrella over us while I packed the car and got my mother inside.

"God bless you," she said as she walked away.

Yes.
God had blessed us with her salvific act of compassion.

I bet the laughing had a lot to do with it.
Just like I believe my sudden burst of radiant self-confidence brought that young man over to help me at the gym, our joyful spirits attracted the kindness of that woman in the middle of the pouring rain.

There's something about energy.
Certain energy attracts certain things.

I won't put out frustrated, negative energy regarding my current weight.
I'm resisting the urge to be discouraged over this weight loss plateau.
It's not even a real plateau because I FEEL my body changing.
I'm thankful that for the first 10 months after the surgery I lost an average of 2 pounds per week.
If that has changed and now I'm averaging half a pound a week, so be it.

I'm reaping too many other rewards that "outweigh" the numbers on the scale.

My consistency is a high in itself.
6 days a week.
That's what I saw in the gym mirror.
I saw myself as a woman who works out 6 days a week.

When I'm spending time with my mother, despite my anger over incidents from my childhood, I'm able to enjoy her for who she is and we have a good time.
I won't let the bad memories prevent me from making new, happy memories.


* A staple of Carlos Mencia's material is diatribes denouncing the actions of people he considers to be stupid, often using his trademark “DEE-Dee-dee!” He has stated that the phrase does not refer to people “who were born retarded,” but rather people “who were born, and are now retarded.” As said in his "Dee-Dee-Dee" song, "Dee-Dee-Dee doesn't mean mentally retarded, it means stupid. And all of you stupid people out there are going to find this song hilarious but you don't even know, its about you."


*Movement for the UnMotivated*
I got this one from
YogaJournal.com
"Movement is one of the best things you can do for your back if you've been sitting in the same position for awhile. This particular movement helps relieve tension in the upper back and shoulders where the trapezius muscle is located.

Sitting upright, inhale as you lift your right shoulder to your ear. Exhale as you slowly roll your shoulder around and back, dropping it away from your ear. Continue these shoulder rolls three more times, alternating right and left.

Now, inhale as you lift both shoulders up to the ears. Exhale as you release them. Repeat five times and then relax your shoulders."

Click here to check out Volumetrics an eat-more weight loss approach.

Yesterday's Weight: 255

Click here to respond.

Hard to Love

"I have tried and I cannot find
either in scripture or history,
a strong-willed individual whom God used greatly
until He allowed them
to be hurt deeply."
-Charles Swindoll

The nueropathy is bad this morning.
My hands burn, then go numb, then tingle, then ache.
It doesn't happen often, maybe once a week.
When the diabetes was worse, the neuropathy kicked up a few times a day, painfully.
Since the diabetes is improving so is the neuropathy.

It feels like residual pain from my session with hypnosis.

Since the hypnotic regression episode on Wednesday night I've been more aware of how much I don't like 5 year old Lisa.
I can love her but I can't seem to like her.
She's too much like my mother.

A friend, who was at the meeting and witnessed my emotionally expulsive session, emailed me an article. He thought it might help me with the hard work of parenting Little Lisa.

It's an excerpt from Believing In Myself: Self Esteem Daily Meditations by Earnie Larsen ...

"We are all born with a hunger for love. Our spirits crave acceptance and appreciation just as our lungs crave fresh air. We don't just wish or hope for love; we need it to thrive. Denied, we start to lose our grip on life and become frantic. That's why every one of us reached out early in life for that sense of belonging.

What happened when we reached out to people who didn't feel good about themselves? Understanding that they couldn't give what they didn't have can go a long way toward understanding where our self-esteem went. This is a sad realization for many, but it's a realization with an up side.

Understanding enables us to choose. And choice can free us from endlessly repeating lose-lose patterns. If the primary caretaker in our lives lived in a veritable haunted house of ghosts and demons, we must not go on looking to that person for protection from bogeymen. If they haven't been able to chase away their own spooks, it isn't likely they can help us with ours. Perhaps we need to spend some time grieving -- for them as well as for us. But mostly we need to reach out to healthier people. Now that we're grown, we get to choose for ourselves."

Oh.
I get it.
THAT'S why I'm attracted to certain people, broken people, frightened people who can't POSSIBLY understand me or appreciate me.

Reach out to healthier people?

Healthier people.

I can't imagine a "healthy" person being interested in me.
Can't see it.
Can't believe it.
Can't make it happen.
Stuck.

I've been wasting my precious love on men who are deeply broken, haunted and screwed up. Then I sit and pine for the treatment I think I deserve from them and can't seem to get.
I know they love me.
They just can't seem to express it.

Like the love I wanted from my broken, haunted, screwed up mother.
She never understood me.
I rarely felt appreciated.
BUT I ALWAYS FELT LOVED.

Wow.
That's an incredible insight.
And all this time I thought my unable-to-get-romantically-involved problems were because of my relationship with my father.

He's another one.
He loves me.
I have no doubt about that.
He NEVER hit me.
Never.

But when he tried to stand up to my mother for being overly critical of me or just downright cruel, he gave up too easily.
And like the typical victim of abuse I would cringe and hope he wouldn't upset her too much or else she'd take it out on me the next day.

If I hid behind him or took his side (his side = him sticking up for me, questioning why she had to be so hard on me or why she had to hit me right in front of him).
I would have to pay for it the next time he left the house or when he went to work.

Little Lisa was stuck at home with the angry, abusive mother who made me think that HER moods were all my fault.
She would tell me I was ungrateful and spiteful for taking my father's side against her in a fight.
She'd say overly dramatic things like, "Things will never be the same again, not after last night. You defied your mother!!"

I had no peace.

Even going to school didn't help.
Although, I was bright.
I participated in class.
I had a quirky personality.
I stood out.

The kids picked on me.
I was taunted, made fun of and once in a while, beat up.
I dreaded stepping onto the playground every day, then I dreaded coming home.

I had no escape.
I was tormented at home, tormented at school, and made to feel guilty when anyone was kind to me or defended me.

No wonder I developed an eating disorder.

I've been using food as emotional Spackle trying desperately to fill in the cracks of my broken childhood...since childhood!

But when I imagine Little Lisa it's hard to have sympathy for her.
She's so eager to please an unpleasable mother that she's become a little version of her.
Broken, needy, socially unpredictable and hard to love.

So much work to be done.
I have to believe that I'm worth it.


*Movement for the UnMotivated*


Yesterday's Weight: 252

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Apples like candy

"If we've spent years focusing on what's wrong rather than what's right, then these negative patterns are going to keep us from enjoying our lives."
~ Joel Osteen

The universe is really persistent about throwing a certain message my way.
My karma is attracting this idea over and over again.
It's popping up everywhere:

We get what we focus on.
We get what we expect.

Habitual neural connections (our brains) are the engines that create our reality as just more of the same.

Habits can be broken.
New neural pathways can be blazed.
We can create the reality we imagine.

It seems so simple.
So what's my problem?

Problem is I focus on negative stuff.
Not ALL the time but as I mentioned the other day, I have lazy thinking.

In my mind I tend to play and replay incidents, real or imagined, that make me feel small, overlooked, weak, sad and rejected.

Trick is to catch myself and then think other stuff.
Good stuff.
Positive stuff.

Not happy horse-sh*t stuff.
Stuff that truly resonates with my vision of a good life.

It doesn't come easily.
But then again, eating apples wasn't always easy.

No really.
Stay with me on this one.

My addiction, physical addiction to white sugar, white flour, processed foods and crap, made me want more of the same. My body chemistry (brain and the rest of the body) "wanted" more crap.

Crap tasted better and was MORE SATISFYING than good food.

I remember back in my binge eating days how fruit never satisfied me.
Fruit didn't count as something "sweet."
Fruit was "good girl" food that didn't reeeeeally satisfy me.
I praised myself for eating fruit but deep down I wanted cake.

It didn't have to be Entemann's cake.
Smart Ones (formerly Weight Watchers) desserts were just as satisfying, probably even MORE satisfying because I felt virtuous for eating "diet" food.
I lived on diet foods, diet cookies, diet cakes, diet ice creams, low fat chips, low fat cereals, diet diet diet and still weighed 400 pounds.

Of course the AMOUNT I ate is another story.

What I want to point out is that the foods themselves made me want more of those foods.
Apples didn't taste good back then.
Cake did.

My mind knew better but my body wanted what it wanted.

I would buy fresh fruit.
I would buy fresh vegetables and they would rot in my refrigerator.

How many times have we sworn to turn our lives around, make a fresh start, eat right?
I did.
Many, many times.

I bought the good foods, the whole foods, the fresh fruits and vegetables and swore never to eat junk again.
I always started out ok.
I held on tight to the idea that willpower would save me.
Within days I was sitting with a bag of low fat Pringles and a gallon of Edy's low fat ice cream stuffing myself till my blood sugar spiked to near fatal levels.

I felt betrayed by my own lack of willpower.
I was weak.
An addict.
Hopeless.

I left a comment for SusanPowter recently (I think it was on You Tube)
talking about how I changed my life after detoxing.
She said that no one is talking about that.
No one is talking about detoxing off the garbage foods.

Ok, plenty of folks ARE talking about detox.
Kevin Trudeau writes books about detox and weight loss.
Just Google "weight loss detox" and see what comes up.
Plenty.

Did that mean Susan was wrong?
No, I don't think so.

I could have asked her for clarification but instead I used my magnificent brain.
(You know that YOU too have a magnificent brain sitting there between your shoulders, right?)

I thought about my experience.
What's different about MY detox?
What did I do that no one is talking about??

It's the bypass.

The surgery FORCED me to detox without me even knowing that I was doing it.
I didn't PLAN to detox.
I PLANNED to sip protein shakes, count calories and limit portions for the rest of my life.
I PLANNED to continue eating processed diet foods but in teeny tiny portions.

I remember, shortly after the surgery, how sad I was when I discovered that Smart Ones Chocolate Muffins made me feel nauseated.
I panicked.
How would I get my chocolate??

For the record, I stopped eating Smart Ones Chocolate Muffins within weeks after my surgery.
For the record, I got my chocolate "fix" from Stonyfield Farm Chocolate Underground Yogurt instead.
For the updated record, I no longer crave chocolate and haven't remembered to buy Chocolate Underground Yogurt in weeks.

Last year at this time I couldn't go one day without Sugar Free Jello Pudding.
I haven't bought any in months.

The forced detox created new habits.
The new habits were difficult to maintain...but only for a little while.

It took less than a year to "become" the girl who eats whole foods, who works out 6 days a week, who blogs every day without fail.

In the beginning those new habits took INCREDIBLE willpower.
Now?
It's who I am.
The neural pathways have been blazed.
Habits solidified.

If I could do it once, I can do it again.
Time for new habits.
New expectations.
New neural pathways.

But which ones and how?

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Feeling tense at work?
Take a Scalp Soother break:
Place your thumbs behind your ears while spreading your fingers on top of your head. Move your scalp back and forth slightly by making circles with your fingertips for 15-20 seconds.

Yesterday's Weight: dunno. I worked out in Panzer and they hid the scale!

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hypnotic regression

"Age regression is one way to go back to the incidents and traumas that left an indelible imprint on your personality and soul, to finally deal with them and move on."
~Wisdom Healing .com

It felt like being strapped to the roof of a car, face up, and driven through a car wash.

Last night at my Hypnosis Guild meeting I was the subject in a demonstration of Age Regression with Master Hypnotist Hollis Baker.

I was supposed to be regressing into a past life.
Instead I regressed into the past.
First to the ne're-do-well exboyfriend days, then to my childhood.
I cried so hard I could barely breathe.
There weren't enough tissues to wipe the snot river running down my face.

The main characters in the catharsis were the ex who cheated on me and publicly denied being my boyfriend;
the mother who hit me, criticized me, verbally abused me;
and little Lisa who desperately needs GOOD parenting.

I have a hard time loving little Lisa.
She seems so pathetic, needy and kinda desperate.
She's the weak one in the herd, the one that the predators can't help but stalk and kill.
Ridiculous and vulnerable.
I don't know if I'll ever like her.

There was one singular theme to my anger toward my ex and my mother:
"I deserve better."

I yelled at my ex. I sobbed pathetically, "How could you do that to me? I didn't deserve that. I was kind to you."

Little Lisa yelled at Mommy, "Stop that! You shouldn't have hit me! Shame on you!"

I was in a trance state but still aware of the room around me with my colleagues watching my emotional breakdown.
It must have looked like a tornado tearing up a creaky old barn.
I felt like dried up wood flying to pieces in ripping, violent wind.

It was more than I wanted to experience.
Hollis probably didn't expect me to be such a stormy subject.
The observers looked a bit stunned when I opened my eyes.
It must have been hard to watch.

Did it help?
It must have.
Something changed inside me.
I feel more angry than sad this morning.
Furious is more like it.
Furious that folks have treated me so poorly and furious at myself for allowing it.

"I deserve better" isn't easy.
It's a foot stamping demand.
I don't remember a time when stamping my foot got me what I wanted.
All I've ever wanted was kindness, decent treatment, some consideration, mercy from my abusers.

"Don't do that to me" is an in-your-face command.
I'm not used to that.
I'm not used to sticking up for myself.
I'm not skilled at demanding better treatment.

Yet according to last night's exercise my whole being screams for it.
Demanding better treatment is a skill I will need to learn if I'm going to defend little Lisa, big Lisa, any Lisa.

My eyes are swollen.
I feel foggy from crying so hard.
I'm feeling a sense of dread.
I dread the hard work of NOT turning the other cheek.

Last night's lesson made me aware of what I need.
I cannot ignore my needs any longer.

I need to learn to stamp my foot.


*Movement for the UnMotivated*



Yesterday's Weight: 251 (at 2:00pm) and then
253 (at 5:00pm)

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from Lazy to Focus

The most gorgeous cat in the world, Gabriel, with my new hand stitched linen pillow that I bought at the flea market last Saturday :-)

Me with no makeup just before lying down on the sofa to watch America's Next Top Model .

America's First Top Model, Darren Ventre, between card tricks and making balloon animals, waiting on line to meet Joel Osteen at Barnes & Noble.

****************************

"Success involves creating a new story inside and outside: an evolving internal model combined with new experiences....we do not attract what we want, we attract what we focus on."
~ David Krueger, MD

My focus feels limited.
I say feels limited because I don't want to limit it by saying it is limited.
I know THAT much about the power of words.

So let me say it in an even more expansive way:
I see possibility for creating focus in my life.

Whew.
That was an effort.
But I'm happy to make that effort.

I'm willing to make an effort to realize possibility.

I feel like my thinking has been lazy.
My vision feels like it has been meandering.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love says,
"Wake up and ask yourself, "what do I really, really, really want..."

Knowing what I really, really, really want
has not come easily to me.
Wait, let me say it more expansively so I can allow for possibility, "that has not come easily to me YET."

I forget that thoughts can be tamed.
Hear that self?
Thoughts can be tamed.
Thinking can be focused.

Usually I just let my thinking happen as if I have no control over it.
Then something reminds me that I DO have control.
The universe sends the reminder.
(Perhaps my higher self is more focused than the me who seems to be so meandering.)

A positive thinker on one of the Gastric Bypass Yahoo forums (one that hasn't kicked me out...lol) posted a segment of an article about David Krueger:

***********************************************************
"Is Your Brain Making You Eat?
by Katie Jay, MSW, CTA-certified Life Coach
www.nawls.com

According to Dave Krueger, MD, Professional Coach,
www.MentorPath. com, repetition of behavior is comforting
because it's secure and familiar, and we like to know what
to expect. He says we substitute familiarity for happiness.

...You have well worn neural networks in your brain that get
triggered. When you see a food that used to be a regular
part of your diet, your brain knows what to do with it
"without thinking." In fact, Dave Krueger points out that
your brain likes not having to make a decision about something
every time it comes up. So, without making a decision, your
brain automatically says, "Eat it!"......

Then, of course, your well-worn guilt and shame neural network
gets triggered. And your brain knows how to take you down that
pathway, too...
The reality is, your brain is not in charge.

It is simply
following the well-worn path. But hear this!

You can change
your brain."

****************************************************

See, I'm not re-inventing the wheel here.
When I come down hard on folks who insist that they're somehow hardwired for addiction or failure or whatever it's because I don't believe anyone is stuck being a certain way.

We CHOOSE to be a certain way.

I criticize the 12 Step model because I refuse to focus on being an addict-in-recovery.
I don't wish to carve that neural pathway for myself.
That's not the life I CHOOSE.

I am recovering to get well NOT to be in recovery for life.

Ok, so I choose wellness.
But what does THAT look like?

It looks like the hard work isn't over.
I know what I DON'T CHOOSE but what is it that I DO choose??

Who am I?
What do I really, really, really want??

It's not enough to be thin, fit and energetic, though that's a great place to be when one is deciding what to do with one's life.

I want to be happy DOING something.
But what?

Of the 3 resumes I sent out last week, one employer has responded to me.
It was the job I THOUGHT I wanted least: professoring at the online university.
At the time I applied, online professoring seemed like it would be more hours of me hiding out behind my computer.

See I THOUGHT I wanted a job teaching, training or speaking for live groups in front of real (as opposed to virtual) rooms.
And yes, I DO want to do that, just not a pre-planned lesson for some corporate entity.
Not for a "boss."

Hearing from this online university was a blessing I didn't even know I wanted till it came.
When I head from them I realized how RELIEVED I was that I hadn't heard from the other two.

I DO want to make my own schedule.
I DO want to speak and motivate.
I DO want to support myself without being a wage slave.

Hey, looks like some things are coming into focus.
Looks like my thinking ain't so lazy after all ;-)

Blogging (and I highly recommend journaling or blogging to help you get your goals and thoughts aligned with your purpose) helps me tell the story that I WANT my life to be.

Thanks for indulging me :-)

"Stories ... are the "red meat" that animate our "reasoning processes."
Stories ... give us "permission" to act.
Stories ... are photographs of who we aspire to be."
~ Tom Peters in Re-Imagine!

*Movement for the UnMotivated*

View Full-Size © Barry Stone Put both feet flat on the floor. Place your hands onto your knees. On an inhale, arch the back and look up toward the ceiling. On the exhale, round the spine and let your head drop forward. Repeat for 3-5 breaths. Adapted from Cat - Cow Stretch.

Yesterday's Weight: 253

Click here to leave me a message.

Meeting Joel Osteen

Special thanks to Darren Ventre for inviting me.
Click here for Darren's Blog about the experience.

DARSHAN = Seeing or being in the presence of a saint, a deity, or a sacred place.
www.siddhayoga.org.in/glossary.html


"If we say it long enough eventually we're going to reap a harvest.
We're going to get exactly what we're saying."
~ Joel Osteen

If I can stop crying about it I'll be able to tell you what happened.
Every time I start to type the tears come.
I'm not sure why.

I haven't been a fan of Pastor Joel for very long.
I don't care for any exclusivist message that says Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to salvation.
I'm a pluralist.
There are many paths up the mountain and they all lead to the same summit.
I believe that God provides spiritual care for every one of us regardless of the person's religious path.

The "Christians-are-favored-by-God" message is not what attracts me to Pastor Joel's teachings.

I can sift through the sediment of exclusivism to get to the gold.
And there is plenty of gold in his teachings:

Abundance, success and fulfillment are our divine rights.
We're hardwired for a higher quality life than we've been living.
The world can be healed by our prosperity of spirit.

I'm on board for a message like that regardless of its context.
Joel can be as Christian as he wants to be.
The truth of his message is radiant.

He offers hope, authentic hope, based on human potential.

His critics say he dumbs down the Christian message.
I say, "who cares?"
Since when does dumbing-down count as a bad thing if it helps people and it's founded on authenticity?
Let's call it Keeping It Simple.

The people in the pews need to be uplifted.
Leave the philosophical complexity to the theologians.

People respond to Pastor Joel.
I'm one of them.

We waited on line for 4 hours to meet him.
I haven't done that since I was a teenager waiting outside the Capitol Theater to buy tickets for the Heart concert at Giants Stadium in 1981.

The time passed easily.
We made friends with the other folks on line.
We each told our favorite Pastor Joel stories.
We planned what we would say when we met him.

He arrived on time.
We craned our necks to see a whole lotta nothing when the flashbulbs started popping on the balcony above us.
We heard a few shrieks from the crowd.

We stood taller and closer to one another.
Our excitement made the line seem to move faster.

I didn't' get my first glimpse of him till we were just about to enter the autograph signing area.
He was pale and much smaller than he looks on TV.
He was shiny.
His smile never wavered.

He looked every person directly in the eye.
He said something sincere and uplifting to every one of us.
He gave perfect darshan.

My turn.
He looked at me.
I could see he was tired yet his eyes twinkled with life.
I could sense just the slightest bit of fear and anticipation. Maybe it was the way I looked at him. Maybe it was a natural reaction to meeting another new person. His trepidation was so human. It made him all the more endearing.

Each of us came to him with a need.
We needed healing, acknowledgment, validation and his blessing.
He knew that about us.
I could see it in his eyes.

His day had been jam packed with commitments. He appeared on two talk shows. He had an autograph signing in NY with 400 people earlier that day. He was signing another 400 books with us in NJ.

Incredible.

Out of 400 I was person 212 .
By the time he got to me I could tell he was running on pure spirit.
He was merely a conduit for divine energy.
His demeanor was on automatic.
It was all God and bare bones Joel.

I reached for his hand.
His handshake was firm, but not too firm, warm and reassuring.
His skin was soft and feminine.

I locked onto those blue eyes of his and said,
"Pastor Joel..." I shook my head in awe of him, "You've been working so hard all day. How do you keep your energy going?"

He didn't pause to think.
"It's meeting nice people like you..." he said with unquestionable sincerity.

We smiled at each other.
I held his gaze for a few more precious seconds as I started to walk away.

I was lit up, vibrating at a higher frequency than usual.
I didn't cry till I got downstairs.

That's why I cried, I guess.
It's always a surprise when people are nice to me.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*


Yesterday's Weight: 254 (I weighed myself on a strange scale because I worked out in Panzer.)

Click here to leave me a message.

Monday Bargaining

"Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all."
~ Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love; page 2.

I hope I'm not doing it wrong.
Sometimes I feel directionless and that my directionless-ness is unforgivable.
I should know where I'm going, right?

It's strange to be on a journey and not know where you're going.
It's the blindfolded feeling of playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
You get spun around and disoriented.
Then you hear the snickers of your sighted playmates as you lurch around hoping you hit somewhere close to the donkey's tail-less ass.

I'm wondering about that ass.

What is it?
What am I hoping to hit?

A life of meaning, purpose and joy sounds lovely.
But what does it look like?

If I peeped out from under the blindfold would it help?
Would I recognize it if I saw it?

Wanted: Ass without a tail waiting just for me.
Peeking allowed.

I'm happy so far.
I'm grateful.

I woke up this morning before the alarm and got out of bed with no bargaining, no hitting the snooze button, no wishing I could hide out under the sheets.
I did SOME bargaining about getting to the gym.

It had to be done this morning.
Well, it didn't HAVE to be done this morning.
I could have saved it for later tonight.
I could not go to the gym at all.

After I teach my classes today I'm going over to Barnes & Noble to see Joel Osteen and hopefully get to meet him.
Hmph. Talk about lurching around blindfolded. Who would have thought I'd be so captivated by an evangelical Christian preacher?
Mind you, I could do without his religious exclusivism, but that doesn't diminish the value I find in his message:
Abundance is our divine right.
Success is hardwired into us.
We have all the resources we need right inside us waiting to be used to expand our awareness of the divine and heal this broken world.

I'll probably cry when I see him.
I get that way around celebrities.

Anyway, the Pastor Joel experience puts a dent in my day.
Last night I decided that today, going to the gym first thing in the morning was more practical than putting it off till evening.
So, this morning, I almost bargained.

The voice kicked up some dirt:
"Do I HAVE to go to the gym this morning?"
"I'm hungry. Remember the good old days of McDonald's breakfasts? You can't go to the gym on an empty stomach. Eat something heavy."
"Maybe today could be your off day. You're too busy to be running off to the gym."
"My hamstring hurts. I should really stay home and rest it."

I let the voice yap at me.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and drove up to school.
I rode the stationary bike for 40 minutes and read Eat, Pray, Love.

I'm glad I did.

Thank you God for making me who I am.
Thank you for making that yakky, negative voice in my head so I have the opportunity to overcome it.
Thank you for the timid autumn air, not quite cold but no longer summer, that welcomed me when I stepped out my front door at 8am.

Thank you for giving me something to Blog about.

Thank you for bringing readers to my Blog.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*


Yesterday's Weight: 251

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Self Indulgence Ain't No Sin

"What i loved about this book is that she finally felt she deserved to indulge herself. She felt worthy of delight and joy, but also of prayer....this is a book about a woman becoming who she is and always was, without "shoulds".
Love it."
~ Kate's review of Eat, Pray, Love

It's Sunday morning and I'm listening to the preachers on TV as I make my coffee, feed my cats, do dishes and (self-indulgently?) blog.
Creflo Dollar is admonishing those "other" preachers who stand at the pulpit and call us sinners.

Sins are mistakes, he says.
We're not perfect.
We are going to make mistakes because we are human.
We may feel guilty but we shouldn't languish in our guilt.
We should forgive (or be forgiven) and move on.

I think about my own "sins".
I tell myself that my sins have been against myself so they're not all that bad.

But they are.

Taking my anger out on myself by abusing food, refusing to take care of myself, sitting on my ass is a terrible sin. Hurting myself didn't help anyone. It added to the sum total of suffering in the world.

We are way too self-punishing and that doesn't help a broken world.
Beating ourselves up, keeping ourselves small and silent is not going to heal a broken world.
Telling ourselves that we don't deserve to be angry, or joyful, or loud isn't going to heal a broken world.
Yes, I said loud.

I know that I overate for many reasons.
One of those reasons was my fear of self-expression.
I stuffed my feelings in.
I stuffed my anger down into myself with food.

Anger, sadness and fear are painful emotions.
Instead of feeling them with a sense of entitlement I stuffed them back into me with a sense of shame. I did everything to escape them.
Turns out I was only postponing them.

Blogging is important to me.
It lets the feelings out.
I'm entitled to my feelings.

It may even help you, either reading them or writing them for yourself.

Reading give us hope:
H=hearing
O=other
P=people's
E=experiences

We relate.
We get the gee-I'm-not-alone-in-all-this feeling.
And maybe we let some of our own anger escape through our words.
Or joy.
Or hope.
Or sadness.
Or love.

To Elizabeth Gilbert's critics who call her "whiney" or "spoiled" I say
"So what?"
Why are we so put off when a woman complains?
Why are we so resentful when a woman receives help or money or encouragement to pursue her dreams?

Self indulgence is not a sin.
Ignoring the self, denying the self, punishing the self...those are sins.

We can't say that the only women who are entitled to speak up are women who are poor, suffering, struggling and oppressed (though we DO need to hear their stories).
We ALL have a right to speak up.
We all have something of value to say no matter what our circumstances.

Someone may be helped or encouraged or inspired by our stories.
And some folks will be critical.
And again,
So what??

To my critics, I am tempted to say "F**k You" but instead I'll say "Thank You".
Thank you for forcing me to take a good look at myself and consider the validity of your criticisms or rather, the invalidity.
Thank you for making me the focus of your energy even if it's negative and karmically injurious.

I deserve it.
No really, I do.

I have strong opinions.
Strong opinions attract strong reactions.
It's karmic justice.

I have to prepare.
Not everyone is going to love me.
Not everyone is going to welcome what I have to say.

As I yank my vision into shape my message comes more clearly into focus I see my purpose in telling my stories.
Part of my message involves anger.
My anger.
Your anger.
Anger at injustice.
Anger at prejudice.
Anger at the multi-billion dollar corporate system that keeps us weak and victimized.
Anger at the caregivers who didn't give us what we felt we needed when we were growing up.
Anger at ourselves for not living up to our own potential.
Anger at each other for .... everything.

Not everyone wants to hear an angry story.

Sure, it may be off-putting to read my Blog when I'm pissed off, angry or agitated.
But it just might be empowering too.
It just might give you "permission" to be angry, or agitated, or indignant or whatever emotion you're entitled to express.
We need to express anger, agitation and pissy-ness though society tells us those emotions are ugly and should be hidden away.

I've been called self-involved and self-indulgent.
Good.
No, really.
Good.

I let those remarks simmer around inside me.
I felt guilty and rotten and small for a little while.
I got the who-does-she-think-she-is blues for a spell.

And I'm sure I will again.

No biggie.

But I snapped out of it.
It's ok to have a little self doubt.
As long as I don't EXIST THERE.

As long as I don't exist in someone else's (or my own) negative story.
Being small doesn't help anyone.
It doesn't serve the world.

I'm reminded of the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Left alone on a strange planet, Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) communicates with an alien force. The force does not understand linear time, and presents Sisko with a barrage of images from his life, including the day he met his wife, Jennifer, and the battle where she was killed.

Sisko is able to communicate with the aliens' images of his late wife.

The force communicates with Sisko, indicating that he is trapped at the moment in time when his wife was killed aboard the Saratoga.

Realizing his pain has been holding him back, Sisko allows the force to guide him through the circumstances leading up to his wife's death and helps him to finally grieve for his loss.

SISKO:
 "It is difficult to return
 here... more difficult than any other
 memory..."
Alien:
 "Why?"

And this is hard for him, analyzing the death of his wife,
standing by the flames that killed her...  impossible to
stay detached from the emotions this raises...



SISKO:
 "Because this was the day... I lost
 Jennifer..."
  (beat, exhausted)
 "... And I don't want to be here..."

And now he looks up to see the incongruous arrival of Jennifer
alien in her bathing suit... moving cooly down the fiery
hallway to him...

ALIEN:
 "Then why do you exist here?"

SISKO:
 "I... I don't understand..."

ALIEN:
  (confused)
 "But..you exist here."

Sisko looks at her... feeling miserable, confused..

Should I sin against myself and exist in smallness, in self-denial, in misery?
No.
Nor should you.

I refuse to live in fear of negative reactions.
I'll swat them away like the bugs that they are.
Maybe I'll sit like Elizabeth Gilbert and let them sting me while I maintain my meditative stillness.
Maybe I'll expect reactions of all types and be happy that people think my rantings are worthy of ANY reaction.

Then I'll feel, and write and express and try not to feel guilty about ANY aspects of my life's circumstances.

I'll let it out.

It would be a sin to keep it in.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
I like this one because you can do it sitting at your desk.
Take a break.
Move!
Guaranteed you'll feel great after!


Yesterday's Weight: 252

Click here to leave me a comment!
Trekkers welcome ;-)

Laziness devil

"...if you keep asking honest questions and keep giving honest answers, you will always be instructed clearly on what to do next, and when and with whom."
~ Elizabeth Gilbert interviewed by BookBrowse.com

"Once a human being makes a decision to make any change, no matter how small, that decision sets in motion the movement toward the change."
~ John Robbins interviewed in Food by Susan Powter

I gave a motivational talk yesterday as part of a 3 hour seminar on "How to Do the Impossible".
The featured speaker told a story that's been rattling around in my head begging to be told...

It was about our friend, coach and renowned motivational speaker, Ed Agresta,
who has a daily motivational hotline (609) 660-8156.

One day when he was giving a talk to student athletes he offered them a challenge. He took a $100 bill out of his wallet and said, "I will give $100 to anyone who calls my hotline for the next 30 days, every day without fail. Just listen to the message and leave me a short 'hi' after the beep so I know you called. Anyone who does this...I'll give $100."

Ed's colleagues were concerned. How could he make such an offer? There were enough students in that room to cost him a few thousand dollars!

Who WOULDN'T call a hotline everyday with a $100 bill dangling in front of them as a reward??
Surely he had made a costly mistake.

How many people do you think took him up on his offer?

Guess.

How much money did Ed end up paying out?

Would you believe:

Nothing.
Zero.

No one called.

Not one of them.

When I heard that story
I was stunned.

I mean that had to be the easiest $100 a person could ever make, right?

Why didn't anyone call??

I don't like to believe that people are lazy.
I don't LIKE it but I may have to admit that it's true.
People are lazy.

Good news for me I guess.
As a motivational speaker it will keep me employed...lol.

Bad news for humanity.
Bad news for the world.

I don't know what devil lurks inside us like a dark shadow.
I know I've starved my shadow-devil by refusing to believe its lies, but it's still in me, weak but alive.
If people are lazy and I'm a 'people' then I must be lazy.
Laziness must be built into me somewhere as part of my human hardware.
I can suppress it but it's hard work.

"Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious."
~ Carl Jung

I was exhausted after yesterday's talk.
When I got home I took a nice nap.
It was a deep, dark dirt nap.
I awoke uncertain of the time of day or even what day of the week it was.
As I awoke my conscious mind slowly booted up.

I looked over at the clock.
It was around 6:30pm.
Plenty of time to get to the gym.

Problem was, I didn't want to get out of bed.
I was still tired.

My shadow-voice started sniping at me.

"Just go back to sleep."
"What's the worst that could happen if you missed one day at the gym?"
"Just don't eat for one day and that will make up for not working out."
"It's ok to be tired. Stay home!"

The voice tempted me.

Where does it come from?
Why is it trying to keep me from doing the right thing?

"Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help,
inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness."
~ Carl Jung

It's there.
I can weaken it but I can't seem to kill it.
I kill it temporarily but it rises, weakly but surely, it rises to taunt me again.

The voice is not logical so reasoning with it is futile.
There's no reasoning with a trickster.
A trickster cannot be defeated by rational means.
It can only be defied by ACTION.

I didn't argue with it.
I let the voice have its say.
I let it yap at me WHILE I PUT ON MY GYM CLOTHES.

By the time I was sitting by my front door putting on my sneakers the voice had petered out.
It lost the battle.
It had no power over me.
I won.

I wish I could defeat it for good.
I wish I could kill it once and for all.

The best I can do is defy it.

The laziness devil will not shackle me.

Don't let it shackle you!

Get thee behind me, Satan!


*Movement for the UnMotivated*
I hope you have a computer that let's you watch the videos I post for you.
Even if you have no sound, just watch and follow along.
This one is great and can be done sitting in a chair!!
Tai Chi baby, woot!


Yesterday's Weight: 252

To leave me a comment click here!

Progress

"...most people when they stop dieting and scolding themselves for eating are surprised to find that life is much easier than they anticipated."
~ Hirschmann and Munter in Overcoming Overeating

Life was easier yesterday.
I was barely hungry.

I picked at the food in my lunch box.
At the end of the day the lunch box was almost as full and heavy as when I packed it in the morning.
I must resist the urge to call myself "good" for not eating too much.
I must learn to regard my hunger and my eating to satisfy it with no judgment.

It's amazing what can happen when we give ourselves permission to eat.
There was a time when I believed having too much food in front of me, or in my fridge, or on my shelves, meant I would surely gobble it all up in an anxious binge.

I've proven to myself that this is not a true story.
I don't have to be the person who gobbles it all up just because it's in front of me.

In Overcoming Overeating, Hirschmann and Munter advise carrying a food bag so we can provide ourselves with food whenever and wherever we need it. Feeding ourselves when we're hungry establishes self-trust. We diminish our anxiety around our neediness. We get hungry, we eat, we feel taken care of. We heal.

For most of my life abundance made me anxious.
If there was food in front of me I feared I'd never be full.
I believed I would eat and eat and eat and I'd never feel satisfied.
I feared if I provided food for myself that I would eat and eat and eat till I passed out.

This was a well-grounded fear.
I DID eat and eat and eat till I passed out every day for all of my adult life.

My fear matched my story about myself and that matched my behavior.

Why should today be any different from yesterday?

But today IS different than yesterday.
My old story about myself being a glutton no longer applies.

A story loses its power once we stop telling it.

Writing this blog is my way (one of my ways) of telling a NEW empowering story about who I am.

The new, better story matches my new better me.

Some folks dig their fingernails into me with their nasty comments, scold me, tell me I'm too critical, or delusional, or whatever.
I'm tempted to listen to them.

Their story about me matches my old thinking, my own who-do-I-think-I-am self-limiting paranoia tries to defeat the new story. The old voice of the old storyteller threatens to dominate my thinking.

It doesn't win.
I won't let it.

Little by little I'm toughening up.
People's comments (by "comments" I mean the negative, rat bastard comments people leave me here on my Blog) might get to me but they don't stop me.
The negative voices have their say but I let the positive comments (the wonderful, generous, uplifting comments that help me to persevere!) become my truth instead.
That's progress.

If I were truly enlightened NO comments would have an effect on me, but hey, I'm not the frikken Buddha!

Last night I gave a talk in a graduate class to students getting their teacher certification (or MA in Education). I had spoken to many of them in a previous class. One student asked me how much weight I had lost since he had seen me speak in July.

I panicked a bit.
"Not much" is the answer.
I think I've lost 10 pounds or so in the past 4 months.

I felt accountable.
I felt guilty.
Here I am giving motivational talks on how I changed my life and my life seems like it's at a standstill.

Time to read my post about someday never coming and remind myself that 4 months will pass whether I make something happen or not.
Wouldn't it be nice if 4 months from now I had something BIG to show for it.

Then again, 4 months have passed and I do have something to show for it.
Going to the gym every day IS something big.

Last year at this time I wasn't even exercising.
I wasn't calling Success Hotline (973) 743-4690 every day.
I only blogged sporadically.

In telling a more empowering story about myself I need to include the BIG accomplishments of keeping my daily commitments.
There was a time in my life when the only thing I did every day was over eat.
That's changed.
I do good, positive things every day.
I keep my word.
And it's a big deal.

In my wanting to get to the next level I must learn to include pride, satisfaction and acknowledgment for what I've already done.

Keep the story positive.
Keep it real, my version of real, ya know?

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Reaching your arms above your head immediately changes your mood.
Try it.
Smile as you do it.
Change even more.

Shangri-La Epiphany

"We believe that the pressure to diet and body shape is part of the ongoing backlash against the changes in the status of women.
It seems that the more space we occupy in the world , the more pressure there is to reduce ourselves."
~ Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter
(psychotherapists and faculty members at
the New School for Social Research, NYC).

"Just as important as finding "heroes" is protecting them.
All freaks need guardians."
~ Tom Peters in Re-Imagine!

I love Seth Roberts.

Seth Roberts, Ph.D. wrote the controversial book The Shangri-La Diet: The No Hunger Eat Anything Weight-Loss Plan.
(Click here to read his Blog)

I love him because he used his own body, his own experience to discover some incredible truths about how humans process calories.

I love him because he put himself out there and people pelted him with criticism, cynicism and doubt but it didn't stop him. He kept on speaking his truth.

I love him for affirming what I already know: our bodies are smart.

Our bodies are SOOOO frikken smart. Our bodies are programmed for self-preservation. Our bodies work to achieve and maintain balance. Our bodies almost, ALMOST override our minds when it comes to how we eat.

When it comes to food we always have the power to choose (Seth doesn't say this explicitly, but I do).

What DOES Seth say?
He talks about our bodies having a set-point, like a thermostat, that works to keep us AT A CONSTANT WEIGHT. Our bodies don't like to fluctuate up or down too radically. Our bodies will be hungry or not hungry based on the fuel needed to maintain weight at the current set-point.

Here's a great explanation of his set-point theory from CalorieLab.com:

"Set point: Roberts believes in a “set point” theory of weight control: at any given time, your body wants to be a certain weight, and it will increase or decrease feelings of hunger and its metabolic rate in order to achieve that weight. Any attempt to modify your weight away from your current set point will meet with failure, or at least will be very difficult to achieve and maintain. Roberts compares the set point to the temperature setting for a thermostat."

The good news is that thermostats are adjustable.

Here's the thinking that led to my epiphany...
I've been kinda stuck in the 250's for MONTHS despite increasing the intensity of my workouts and being born-again-hard consistent about getting to the gym every day.
My diet contains little to no fat.
I eat high fiber, high quality foods.
I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full.

Aha!
Hunger.
I read Seth's book.
Still adhering to Hirchmann's and Munter's and Roth's concept of demand feeding to overcome my eating disorder,
I decoded my hunger.
That's when I had my epiphany.

As a woman recovering from severe binge eating disorder, I believe it is essential that I feed myself on demand in order to form a trusting relationship with myself concerning food.
I try my best to eat EXACTLY what I want at the moment (but no junk foods)
and I eat as much or little as I want until I'm sated.

I learned this strategy for overcoming my binge eating disorder from the books Overcoming Overeating and When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Drs. Hirschmann and Munter.

Hirschmann's and Munter's take on demand feeding is summed up well on the Dealtime website:

"Hirschmann and Munter ... urge readers to cast aside social conventions and schedules and eat what they want whenever they are hungry. They call this “demand feeding.”

They also discuss the difference between “stomach hunger” and “mouth hunger.” Stomach hunger is true hunger, the empty feeling we get in our stomachs when our bodies need food. Mouth hunger is hunger that is based in our emotions instead of our bodies. It’s the desire to comfort ourselves with food or to “stuff” bad feelings. Stomach hunger is a biological drive and should always be met with food. Mouth hunger is an emotional need or emptiness that can be addressed in other ways."

Ok, with me so far?
Bodies get hungry because they need food either for fuel or for emotional comfort.
Great.
Wonderful.
Empowering truths.

Based on these truths,
here are my convictions:

I believe that our bodies are innately intelligent.

They tell us what they need in the form of cravings.

Not all cravings should be honored especially prior to a rigorous detox.
We crave sugar, flour, fried foods and junk if our bodies are chemically addicted to those foods.
Prior to detox our bodies send signals that they "want" marshmallows and cookies when they really want high quality, nourishing foods.
Detoxing off the processed, sugary, fatty, chemically processed foods will allow our bodies to send signals, cravings, for better, whole foods.

Healthy bodies crave healthy foods.

Now... for the epiphany (thank you darling Seth!)

Our healthy, brilliant bodies are more apt to hold onto weight (fat) than they are to let it go.
Survival, that wonderful programming that keeps our bodies alive, prepares us for possible famine by holding onto fat.

Our bodies "like" staying the same weight.

Our bodies "like" to burn calories rather than burn fat.

Therefore...

I've been stuck in the 250s because I've been feeding my body's needs.

I've been listening to my body and answering it's needs by feeding it.
My body has been wanting carbs.
I've been craving brown rice, Wasa, whole grain cereal, oat bran bagels, whole wheat pasta, etc.

The more I work out the more my body craves the high quality, high carb fuel.
I've been feeding myself on demand (good, applause, wonderful, overcoming that binge/purge cycle, brava!) by listening to my body's needs and feeding it without guilt.

HOWEVER...
My body's needs don't align with my goal for a lean, tight body.
My body wants to burn food calories rather than burn the stored fat.

My body is BRILLIANT (so is yours) and I LOVE it for working so well.

BUT and who doesn't love a big BUTT...
I don't have to feed my body exactly what it wants.
I can make different choices based on my goals and vision rather than make choices based solely on biological needs.

I'll continue to eat WHEN I'm hungry but not necessarily WHAT I'm hungry for.

I can do this without judgment.
Making choices that align with my goals rather than my body's biological desires is OK.

This is not deprivation.
This is not punishment for craving sustenance.
This is not restriction.

I'm talking about choice.

Loving, nurturing, aware CHOICE.

It's choice and it's hard work.
It takes focus and discipline to acknowledge hunger and honor it without judgment.
It takes an iron will to feed that hunger in a caring, conscious way.

Sure, some folks might read this and oversimplify my epiphany as a need to 'cut back on carbs' but it's more complex than that.

This isn't black and white polarized thinking where certain foods are 'good' and others are 'bad'.
This isn't restriction for the sake of making me 'smaller' in the world.

I'm talking about freedom.
I'm talking about self-care.
I'm working at wellness, mental and physical wellness.

Eating with resolve rather than judgment leads to freedom.
Making choices rather than restricting carbs leads to peace of mind AND body.

These words mean a lot to me.
The way things are said makes all the difference in how I feel and behave.

I'll let you know how it goes.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Laughing as you move heals the soul and makes working out hurt less!
I was watching stand-up comedy as I rode the stationery bike yesterday.
I laughed out loud.
I didn't care who looked at me funny.
I hope my laughter gave other people permission to laugh as well, even if they're just laughing on the inside.

Yesterday's Weight: 253
Today's Blood Sugar: 171

Leave me a comment or question by clicking here!

kicked out

"You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light."
Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray Love

"There was an answer other than starvation, deprivation and beating myself to death with the body-image sledgehammer."
Susan Powter in Food

"I ate less processed food: oranges instead of orange juice, brown rice instead of white rice or pasta, simple home-cooked food instead of take-out or deli food. I stopped eating baked goods, including bread. For the first few days, the new food seemed bland and dull. Within a week, however, I came to enjoy it and found my former food unappetizing."
- Seth Roberts, Ph.D in The Shangri-La Diet

...and then they kicked me out.
On September 22, 23 and 24 I wrote about a certain Yahoo Group for post-op gastric bypass folks. I was arguing with the moderator.

(Click here to read 9/22/07 blog post called "Controversy and Bad Body Thoughts").

On 9/22 I declared that I would no longer put my energy into arguing with them.
On 9/24 I mentioned them for the last time (until now).
I visited the group and switched my membership to "Special Notices Only".
I have NOT visited the group since.
When I said I was done arguing with them I meant it.
I even resisted the urge to visit the group to see if that moderator had anything further to say about me.
I wanted to look, but I didn't.
I was done... till I received this email last night:

Greetings :)

I visited the (name of group that I won't mention) YahooGroup today to learn that you've unsubscribed from the group. On occasion, YahooGroups unsubscribes people automatically because of bouncing posts or due to Terms Of Service (TOS) changes or errors in their system.

If you did, indeed, unsubscribe and feel comfortable letting me know the reasons for doing so, this will help me towards making the group better. If you unsubscribed due to too receiving too many emails/posts in your email inbox, you are welcomed to rejoin and subscribe with the message delivery set to "special notices only". Then, you can read and respond to posts via the group's website at your own leisure.

If you didn't unsubscribe (or if you unsubscribed by mistake/changed your mind if you did), you can subscribe again by sending an email to (group's name) -subscribe@yahoogroups.com or by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com (group's name) and clicking "Join".

Sincerely,
(owner's name)
Owner/Moderator, (group's name) YahooGroup


WHAT
THE
F**K??

I never unsubscribed from the group!
Someone must have unsubscribed me!

Or am I paranoid?

I almost want to say something to the group's owner about this.
But part of me knows it's right that they unsubscribed me.
They saw me as a threat to the safety of the group.
My wacky ideas were unwelcome.
The moderator viewed my ideas as dangerous.
According to their values they did the right thing.
They got rid of me.

I'm almost flattered.

I must have really hit a nerve for them to want me GONE although I had been silent since September 22. Guess someone's been reading my Blog.

As I mentioned, the moderator, the one I'm believe unsubscribed me, is a one-day-at-a-time person in recovery 12 Stepper type.
(Funny that I would suddenly be unsubscribed after saying what I had to say about 12 Step over the last week's worth of posts on my blog.)

Her behavior is typical of cult-like, black & white, no grey areas allowed thinking.
People who CRAVE certainty and cling to it for life are threatened by critical thinking or questioning because it might shake loose the foundations of their certitude.

I won't even say "cult-like". I'll just say CULT.
That moderator, having worshipped at the altar of 12 Step for however long, has now created a cult of WLS Post Op living. There are rules to be followed and never questioned. Anyone who disagrees will be outcast.

This exclusivistic isolation is typical cult-thinking. It's part of the isolation used to create insiders and outsiders and to assure there is no threat to the cult's stranglehold on "truth".

There are several excellent websites that offer a checklist of cult characteristics such as:

~~ Isolation - the rest of the world is not saved, not Christian, not transformed (whatever) -- the only valid source of feedback and information is the group"

Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

‪The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society. ~~

Taken from
Cults 101: Checklist of Cult Characteristics

and

reFocus Recovering Former Cultists' Support Network

Having been in a few cults in my lifetime, I know one when I see one.
Yeah, I've been in a couple of cults.
Amway/Quixtar, Soka Gokkai International ... am I forgetting any?
I understand the insider/outsider thinking, the pressure to recruit others, the time suckage, the money taking, and the frowning upon any kind of questioning as being a form of not-wanting-it bad enough, whatever "it" was at the time.
Gee, think I have enough material to write a book or two?

So, getting kicked off a Yahoo group doesn't make me the bad guy in my mind.
It makes the kicker offer seem pathetic and desperate.

Questioning shouldn't be regarded as a threat.
If what you're doing is sooooooo right, then questioning should be welcomed. Questioning is a way for a person to get their ideas sorted out. Only someone who is DEEPLY FRIGHTENED would feel the need to silence someone's questions. If my questions had no potential to shake the foundations of their false-certainty they wouldn't seem threatening and there would be no need to silence me.

I must be on to something.

What gets me is that I was SILENT already.
I was no longer reading or posting on that discussion forum.
They swept me off their doorstep like a dried up leaf.
My mere presence as a member of their board was unacceptable.
I was unwanted even in my silence.

Keep in mind, I always point the critical finger back at myself.
I asked myself if I was silencing anyone on my Blog.

Notice something.
The comments on my Blog are moderated meaning anyone who posts a comment to this board needs to have their comment approved BY ME before it's posted.
Notice that I post them all (except commercial spam).
Criticize me?
Go ahead.
I can take it.
I can take it PUBLICLY.
I let ALL comments through.

What kind of exclusivist jerk would I be if I only let the positive comments through?
I would be just as bad as the moderator who kicked me out of that Yahoo group.

Dissent is necessary.
Criticism is valuable.
If something is good, worthy and wonderful it CAN BE KNOCKED DOWN and easily built back up again, new and improved for its having withstood the destruction.

Friction shapes us, smooths us, refines us.
Any system that WORKS will be one that is open to new ideas.
If it refuses to allow criticism and questioning it will never change for the better.
It will never grow to accommodate the needs of its people.

Buddha said, "To learn is to change."

You won't catch me hiding in the safety of certitude.
I'm willing to be wrong,
every day.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
This is a great one that you can do sitting at your desk, on the sofa, in your bed.


Yesterday's Weight: 252

Click here to leave me a comment, good or bad ;-)

Someday never comes

click picture to enlarge
Hister (ne're do well ex boyfriend), Lisa and Mom aboard World Yacht 1994.

I'm not 100% sure that was taken in 1994.
So many of these "old" pictures are not labeled. They were so current and so familiar at the time. Losing track of the year they were taken was unthinkable. I put them in a box assuming I'd always know. The 'now' was the most relevant time. No future could erase it. No changes could sweep away the importance of the present. I could put a date on them later. Not for myself of course, since I would always know, but for anyone after me who might be rifling through my things wondering when that picture was taken. As for me, I figured the 'now' would always be clear in my mind.

How arrogant of me.
How arrogant to think that the present would outlast the future.

Time erases the 'now' and turns it into 'then' without our consent.
Time erases importance.
I was 27 once.
I turned 43 without any warning.

That's how time works.
It's relentless.
While we're procrastinating and fooling ourselves into thinking we have a million tomorrows to handle our problems, time is advancing, steadily, invincibly until it runs us over when we've turned our backs on it.

I could have cowered against life till it ran me over and killed me.
I wised up.

Good thing I didn't want to turn 40.
Good thing I turned 41 and hated that even more.
Thank God that at 42 I panicked and turned my life around.
The magic number 4 0 woke me up.
Stunned me into wakefulness.
I AM MORTAL!
Praise God that at 43 I have a self to love.

It could have gone the other way.
I've watched people DIE without doing what they thought they would do "eventually".
That could have been me.
Eventually I was going to lose weight.
Eventually I was going to clean up my eating habits.
Eventually I was going to exercise and get in shape.

Eventually never happens.
Trust me, I know.

I figured that my WANTING to do something about my life would EVENTUALLY make me do something. As long as those big, important things were on my To-Do list, they'd get done...one of these days.

One-of-these-days never comes.
Someday never arrives.
I turned 40 without "someday" coming.
I hit 41 and "someday" hadn't miraculously materialized out of my vague desire for it.

I had to make it.
With my own resolve I had to declare it.
Resolve created my "someday" and made it real.
I must NEVER forget that lesson.

I'm tempted to wait again.
I'm getting comfortable and getting the "someday" feeling.
Someday I'll write my book proposal.
Someday I'll get my resume in order and apply for a great job.
Someday I'll get the cosmetic surgery to put my body back together.
Someday I'll get this knee taken care of.

I've been waiting to be ready.
I've been hoping to be able to trust myself with what I've done so far before taking more risks.

Here's a bold declaration:
I trust my habits.
I trust my NEW habits.

Yesterday was a busy, cluttered day.
I made time to go to the gym and sweat my ass off on the bike.
I made time to Blog.
I made time to call Success Hotline (973) 743-4690

Those daily habits were once HUGE, inconvenient tasks.
Keeping those daily commitments took all my energy, all my will.
That was then.
Now, they're a part of me.

Now, I can add more.

Hear that self?
You can add more.

I don't want to turn 50 with my someday's still in me.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
You're holding an invisible ball.
Hold it near the center of your chest.
Pretend there's a giant clock in front of you.
Move the ball slowly around the clock.
Do it in reverse (counterclockwise).
Make sure to BREATHE as you do it.
Nice Tai Chi.

Yesterday's Weight: No idea. I worked out in Panzer.

Leave me a comment!
Click here.

yank the vision

"I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."
~ Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love

"If you don't take control of your life, don't complain when others do."
~ Beth Mende Conny, author of Art of Shmooze

I know that vague visions bring vague results.
Knowing it doesn't help me yank my vision into focus.
It just makes me feel guilty for not knowing exactly what I want.

Star, my 1000 year old (ok, more like somewhere in her late 80's) psychic whom I see twice a year at the S.T.A.R.T. (Save the Animals Rescue Team) Tricky Tray events, read my cards last Sunday.

According to Star things are looking better for me healthwise.
I need a kick in the pants careerwise.

She dealt the cards and read them.
She saw my future.
She saw me talking...something involving talking to groups.
She saw me in front of a room full of people.
"They're depressed," she said "and you're going to help them."

My eyes teared up a bit.
I was a little choked up.

She saw it more clearly than I did.
Her vision made me want to cry.

Deep down I know what I have to do.
I need to get in front of the room and talk.

I've watched MANY motivational speakers, trainers, consultants and teachers in my lifetime.
They SEEM special.
They have a star quality.
But when the spotlight is turned off and they're mingling with us common folk, they lose their luster. They're just people after all.

People with stories.
People who struggled.
People who made some discoveries.
They talk about it.
They get paid.

So what's stopping me?
I'm not taking the first steps toward making my speaking career a reality.
Something must be stopping me.

It's always the same answer: fear.
The mind-killer.
The little death.

I'm afraid I'll be tired.
I'm afraid I won't want to do it once I start.
I'm afraid of being unhappy, bored and uncomfortable.
I'm afraid to change.

We all know the true meaning of courage, right?
Courage isn't the absence of fear.
Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.

I'm afraid to change but I'm doing it anyway.
Getting smaller frightens me.
I'm afraid I'll like it.
I'll like being small then some horrible relapse will overtake me and I'll balloon up again.
Yet, for all my fear, I am shrinking...slowly.

I may not be jumping headfirst into the water with one giant splash, but I'm slowly dipping my feet in. I'd say I'm wet up to the knee.

I'm afraid to be attractive.
I'm uncomfortable with men.
I don't trust them and I don't trust myself around them.
It's understandable.
Men have been unkind to me all my life.

They've been critical, harsh, judgmental and disingenuous.
I let them treat me that way.
In my desperation for their attention and approval I've allowed them to say and do terrible things to me.

Like the time my boyfriend ended up in jail.
We were living together at the time.
He borrowed my car.
I knew he had no license.
He was in a fender bender.
(No one was hurt.)
He parked my car and ran to avoid the police.
He ran across a field where kids were holding soccer practice.
A field full of witnesses saw what he had done and could describe him perfectly.

Within the hour the cops were at my door looking for him.
He hid in the bedroom.
I tried to lie to cover up for what he had done.
Since no one was hurt in the accident I figured lying wasn't so terrible.
Except that there were witnesses.
We were both led out of my apartment in hand cuffs. (Ok, they didn't cuff me. I was so fat I couldn't keep my balance or hold onto the railings wearing cuffs so they had mercy on me.)
I was fined for disorderly conduct.
The boyfriend was to appear before a judge.
The judge threw him in the clink for 30 days.

Meanwhile, out here in the free world, my mother and I found the best lawyer money could buy and began working on an appeal for him.

The ne'er do well boyfriend called me every day from the jail payphone.
He acted evasive when I asked about visiting hours.
I wanted to see him, reassure him, talk to him through the bulletproof glass.
He told me I didn't HAVE to come and see him.

Long (too long) story short, his OTHER girlfriend was going to visit him.
(He cheated on me relentlessly for 4 years, did I mention that?)
He didnt' want the two of us to bump into each other so he tried to dissuade me.

Me, the live-in girlfriend whose mother was shelling out a few thousand dollars for a lawyer to get him out of jail, and I was the one he didn't really want to see on visiting day. He was cheating on me WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL and while I was bending over backward to get him out.

The stories of what I tolerated could fill a book, and they will.
Lied to, cheated on, used and verbally abused they mistreated me and I allowed them to mistreat me.
I figured I deserved it.
I figured I was fat and unworthy.
I should be grateful for any tiny bit of anything these ne're do wells were willing to toss my way.
They systematically wore me down, made me a non-person and I complied.

End result?
Not so trusting of men.
Go figure.

So, yeah, I'm not anxious to put myself out there, though I MUST.

If I don't work through my karma now I'm only postponing it rather than avoiding it.

I need to toughen up.
I WANT to toughen up.

I need to yank my vision into shape.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Clasp your hands together and lift them high over your head.
Keep your elbows close to your ears.
Stretch!

Yesterday's Weight: dunno. The gym was closed due to a power outage.
I took a walk instead.

All or Nothing is Easy

Getting out of my comfort zone is not easy.
Please don't read my blog as if I have it "all together" or as if I'm even CLOSE to being a finished product.

I'll never be a finished product.

I'm not sure I'll ever have it all together.

Being done once and for all is easy.
Staying in flux, always striving, always changing...that's hard.

When I was 400 pounds, depressed and sedentary, I looked at fit, healthy, active folks like they had something that I didn't.

They were special.
They had been blessed with energy.
They had it all together.

I rationalized, told myself that I was blessed with the ability to think clearly, to feel deeply, to use my brain instead of my body and that physical discomfort was the price I had to pay.

I convinced myself of that utter nonsense.

I was convinced that some folks are designed to be well and others of us have it worse off than others.
It's simply not true.

My big, fat ass was just as movable as the fit, small lycra-clad asses I saw jogging in the early morning or dancing on TV in a bare midriff.
I had it in me. I just didn't know it yet.

On an intellectual level I knew it.
I knew that I was physically able to get up off my ass, stretch, walk (or do the 'walk and plop' since I couldn't walk more than a few yards without excruciating pain) to start slow and build up my fitness level.

BUT... On a deep level, I thought I was doomed.
I didn't really believe I could do it.
So I stayed doomed.

I believed I was stuck in a self-destructive loop of misguided self-soothing (overeating) that would be impossible to break without bypass surgery.
My beliefs created my reality.
I had the surgery.
I got out of the self-destructive loop.

Yesterday I was garage saling with my mother. We pulled up to a driveway just as the wind was knocking over a clothing rack in front of a small, frail older woman. She backed away from the killer-clothes-rack without being hurt. I jumped out of the car, asked if she was OK and helped her pick up the clothes from the driveway. Her daughter-in-law thanked me a million times over for helping. We got to talking.

The daughter-in-law had just lost 68 pounds.
I asked her secret.
"I stopped eating," she said.

She told me she had considered the bypass surgery but was denied by insurance.
She was determined to do it 'on her own'.

I told her to take heart. She COULD do it on her own.
I told her that the surgery doesn't guarantee success, that it kinda stops working after a few months and forces the patient to do it 'on her own' anyway.

I told her that I totally transformed my eating. I told her that I went to the gym 6 days a week.
She nodded, then
she said it again, "I just stopped eating."

I didn't want to get into a debate with her about how wrong-headed I thought that was.
Stopping eating is not a healthy way to live.
We are fuel burning machines.
We need to eat.

I've been really mouthy (mouth hungry as opposed to stomach hungry) over the past 36 hours.
Craving carby foods.
Cereal, whole wheat pasta, Wasa....not so much craving my brown rice, though.
What is going on?

Well, one way to decipher that would be to say I'm a "carbohydrate addict" and then punish myself mentally for being 'weak'.
I could DENY my cravings and let myself go hungry.
It takes willpower to NOT EAT when you're hungry, right?

OR

I could eat the foods I crave, high quality, nutritious, high fiber foods and think of it in an empowering way.

Think about it.
If I were suffering from a straight up carb craving, why wouldn't I crave the brown rice or worse yet some chocolate brownies?
Why was I craving certain foods?
Did my body need the energy?
Did my body need the iron??

Last night I made whole wheat pasta with marinara tofu sauce.
(Marni gave it a thumbs up :-)
As I was making the gravy (red sauce for you non-Italians) I threw a giant handful of leafy greens into the sauce and let them simmer down.
It was delicious.

Leafy greens are highly nutritious and contain IRON.
So does whole wheat pasta.

For the record...
I got my period 3 weeks early (yes, one ended and the next one started up a week later, yes I should go for a pelvic exam).
I'm bleeding kinda heavy.
Think my body needs iron rich food??
Think my body is smart enough to crave what it needs???

I'm going with the innate intelligence model over the addiction model.

"I stopped eating" doesn't sound like the mantra of a person who is healed.
"I stopped eating" is not the credo of someone who has learned to love her body and embrace her physical and emotional needs.

Hunger isn't weakness.
Hunger is the expression of a legitimate need.

It takes character, integrity, strength and compassion to take the middle path.
The all or nothing approach of "I stopped eating" doesn't create healthy habits.
It's restraining.
It's denial at its worst.
It's denying our innate ability to learn PEACE and balance.

We should learn to have a peaceful relationship with food.
We need food to survive.
We need GOOD food in order to thrive.

The non-eating garage-sale woman looked at me as we spoke.
"How many kids do you have?" she asked.

"I have four cats....haha. No kids. Never married," I answered.

She looked like she felt sorry for me.

"You're how old, about my age, about 50, right?" she asked.

I hoped I didn't sound too defensive when I corrected her.

She thanked me again for helping her mother-in-law with the flying clothes rack.
She gave me a generous discount on the giant bag of clothes I bought from her.
I grabbed all of her husband's old Aeropostale
t-shirts for 50 cents each.

I was happy with my bargain but perplexed by her "I stopped eating" remark.

It's one of the things I don't like about 12 Step.
This extreme view of abstinence as an all or nothing proposition doesn't seem right to me.

Did you see the South Park episode where Randy Marsh goes to AA for his out of control drinking? The episode skewers the whole addiction-as-disease model for its tendency to mislead people. The addiction as disease model leads folks to view addiction as something that afflicts them (victimizing them permanently) rather than something they have the power to cure for good.

Addiction is NOT a natural condition that some of us are unfortunate enough to inherit, develop or catch like an illness.

No one is inherently an addict.
We are ALL inherently able to be well.
If we'd just get out of our own way with our defeated thinking maybe we can use our innate intelligence and move toward wellness, naturally.

Stopping eating ain't the way to do it.
Being hungry and not eating is not as difficult as being hungry and making the tough choice to cook, prepare or get off our asses and go buy the GOOD food our body craves at the moment.

It's easier to lock yourself into your room and go numb with some other obsessive activity than it is to be at peace with one's own neediness. It takes guts to stand at the register and grab the apple rather than the Hershey bar. Not eating at all is actually easier than DOING THE RIGHT THING.

I'm not talking out of my ass here.
I'm living it.
I know.

Don't take my word for it, listen to Stan Marsh...



Stan: Dad, you like to drink, so have a drink once in a while. Have two! If you devote your whole life to completely avoiding something you like, then that thing still controls your life and... and you've never learned any discipline at all.
Randy: But, maybe I'm just the kind of person who needs to have it all or nothing.
Stan: No. All or nothing is easy. But learning to drink a little bit, responsibly? That's a-discipline. Discipline come from within.
Randy: How did I manage to raise such a smart kid?
Stan: I've had a great teacher.
Randy: Thanks, son.
Stan: No, not you. My karate teacher. He's really smart.
Randy: Oh.


*Movement for the UnMotivated*
It feels good to stretch.
Swim in slow motion.
Reach out far far in front of you as you swim through the imaginary water.
My breathing gets heavier from this.
Who says gentle movement isn't exercise?

Yesterday's Weight: 251

Click here to leave me a comment!

Butterfly Wanted

"In simplest terms, if you tend to regularly eat really rich food, you will tend to crave really rich food all the time.
...not a matter of will power or even food preferences.
It is a physiological imbalance created primarily by highly flavorful, calorically dense, processed food and it promotes binge eating!"
~ Weight Loss and Longevity Based Fitness

Monday night I will be presenting my argument for the vitalistic philosophy, a belief that all living things possess an innate intelligence that predisposes them toward health, vitality and wellness. Vitalism views illness as an obstruction to our natural tendency toward good health. Healing modalities are ways of removing those obstructions to allow the flourishing of our natural state of health.

I apply this philosophy to recovery from addiction. I offer this as an alternative to 12 Step's view of the addict as powerless over their drug of choice, defining themselves as an addict for life, taking one day at a time to struggle to maintain abstinence with the help of a sponsor, support group and their higher power.

The person opposing me is bringing in a recovering heroine addict as evidence that his view of addiction is correct. Apparently this young woman craves heroine on a daily basis though she remains abstinent, presumably with the help of a 12 Step program.

The main question is: Can people REALLY change?

I say YES.
People CAN change.
Our essence is infinitely powerful and strives toward wellness.
Addiction is a condition that can be eliminated.

He says NO.
He says only the behavior changes, the essence of the person (in this case, the person as 'addict') remains the same, lying dormant, coiled like a snake ready to strike should a whiff of their drug of choice pass anywhere near them.

He says I can bring in truckloads of evidence to support my case, but I would like to bring a human being.
But who??

Who can attest to a person's ability to fundamentally change??
Who has quit a habit, drug, substance and never craves it???

Besides me.

Who can I bring in for show and tell to help me present my case?

I'm looking for that butterfly.
Email me belovedideas@yahoo.com


*Movement for the UnMotivated*


Yesterday's Weight: 253

To leave me a comment or question Click Here!

more life

"We are not computers, Sebastian. We're physical."
~ Roy Batty, Nexus 6 Replicant in Blade Runner

I feel kinda beat up.
I have aches and pains in places I didn't even know existed.
I've been taking Ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatory drugs every day.

Sometimes it hurts to stand.
The bottoms of my feet flare up and stab at me.
My knees pinch.
These workouts are taking their toll on me.

I thought about quitting.

Sitting here at the computer right now my left knee is burning.
There's a stinging pain in my right side.
My body is stiff and achy.

Why am I punishing myself like this?

I'm getting healthy to eliminate the aches and pains not cause more of them!
Is all this pain worth it??

My thoughts turn to the replicant (artificial person) Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer) in the movie Blade Runner.

His time is running out.
His body is fading. He feels his life energy shutting down.
In a fierce finale foot-chase between him and Agent Deckard (Harrison Ford) we see Batty pause to look at his hand. It's going numb. He grips it in frustration, grabs a 9 inch nail and thrusts it through his palm. He howls in agony.

Why would he deliberately cause himself such pain?
Because pain is SOMETHING.
Feeling alive, even if it's searing pain, is better than feeling nothing.
If you're in pain you're alive.
He wants more life.

SHOULD life be horribly uncomfortable and painful?
No.
I'm not saying that.

I've been in pain for years.
The discomfort of having NO fitness level whatsoever and the pains of deterioration are not the same as my achy workout pains.
One is death.
The other is life.

"I want more life, f**ker," says Batty when he confronts his maker.

I want more life too.

Pains and all.

Maybe I'll take up some Tai Chi to balance out the hardcore workouts.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Sit up comfortably. Breathe.
Hold up your hands at waist length with your palms down as if you're pressing the air down toward your feet.
Pretend there's a giant, round serving platter in front of you.
With both hands, palms facing down, move your fingertips around the edge of the circular plate in a clockwise motion.
Do this slowly.
Gently.
Move with ease.
Breathe as you go.
Do this 9 times.
Then, do it in a counterclockwise motion 9 times.
Now face your palms together as if you have a softball between your palms.
Feel the chi?
Feel the chi.

Yesterday's Weight: dunno. I'm going to the gym on Sunday to make up for missing yesterday.

Click here to leave me a comment!

Addiction Can Be Cured

For more on Passages: The World's Premiere Addiction Cure Center click here.

Looks like I don't need to open up that "Better than a Bypass" binge-eating recovery spa after all (but then again...).

There are plenty of progressive, wonderful programs out there that tend to the underlying PHYSICAL and emotional causes for addiction and substance abuse. They work to get the patient well for good.

My thrown-together cure for my binge eating disorder turns out to be a proven method for recovery offered by the best centers in the world.

The philosophy behind a holistic recovery program found at
http://www.mindyourbody.info/addictions.html
describes their approach to permanent recovery:

"Being sober is the first step but it is not enough to avoid relapse or to be happy and free.
Addictive cravings, depression and the many other symptoms that trigger relapse must be addressed.
Biochemical damage ... must be repaired for optimum health..."

Hmph.
What do you know.
Permanent recovery relies on optimum physical health.
Go figure.
I read the info on that website, nodding and smiling the whole time.
Besides the one- on-one therapy,
group support,
nutritional needs analysis,
and spiritual counseling
there were 2 of the aspects of the program that especially thrilled me to pieces when I read
about them because I believe they are essential components to recovery:

"Detoxification
There are many different ways we approach detoxification depending on individual history, health condition and personal preferences. In some cases we use sweating induced by far infra red sauna or the practice of Bikram Yoga or brisk walking. In other cases we use water fasting, juicing, elimination diets or herbs and supplements. We use various forms of meditation (Vipassana, laughter and tears) and psychotherapeutic approaches (Gestalt, Breath Therapy, Cognitive therapy) to deprogram the mind and replace self-destructive patterns by life-affirmative ones.

Restoration
As the tissues and the organs are rid of toxic materials and deceased cells, it is important to rebuild them with proper nutrition and physical exercise. Physical exercise can be as simple as going for a walk or it could involve a personal trainer. Mental restoration is accomplished with relaxation, rest and sleep. A simple, rustic close-to-the-earth lifestyle in tune with natural rhythms, hammock therapy, visualization and guided imagery techniques allow the deep self to emerge and stress to vanish. Creative activities and artistic expression are an important part of the recovery process."
- Dr. Baylac of Mind Your Body, HAWAI'I NATUROPATHIC RETREAT CENTER
FOR FASTING, DETOXIFICATION & MEDITATION
A center for health, longevity and happiness.

*************
Ok, I guess I'm not such a rebel nor am I so terribly original in my thinking about addiction recovery after all.

The originality in MY story comes from my using weight loss surgery to "get clean" (the detox part of the addiction cure) and benefit from nutritional healing to overcome my binge eating disorder. Whereas most WLS post-ops use the surgery as a restrictive device to control portions and "change their eating habits" (read: diet) I used it to detox off the toxic, addictive food substances and bring me closer to a state of physical well-being that supports addiction-free vitality...forever.

Now, I don't feel so alone in my convictions.
No need for me to reinvent the wheel.
The wheels of permanent recovery and a radical alternative to 12 Step are already spinning.

Researching all these fantastic recovery facilities has given me renewed hope for the future of addiction recovery and the relevancy of my experience.

I guess I know where I'll be sending my resume next!

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Change the sheets and pillowcases on your bed.
It's a great way to move and care for yourself at the same time.
The great reward is a nice fresh bed to retire to with a sense of satisfaction.

Yesterday's Weight: 251
(the lowest weight since my surgery!)

Leave a comment by clicking here!

Almost a Cutter

Lisa 17 years old weighing 150 maybe?

The next summer, after the moped-accident, at Seaside Heights on the crutches I used for 3 full years.

In the top picture I'm self-consciously holding the jacket closed and sucking in my stomach.
In the bottom picture, notice that I'm wearing a tube top and shorts.
Why?
I thought I was too FAT to wear a bathing suit.

Now I look at that bottom picture of me and I'm in awe of my smooth, scarless, beautiful skin, my slender shoulders, perky bosom, perfect shape, and look at all that hair!!
My arms were gorgeous.

I didn't love myself back then.
I didn't love the way I looked.
I didn't know how.
So what happened?
My body became the disaster that I THOUGHT it was.
My vision of ugliness became a reality.
It may be "wrong" to call myself ugly, but I don't know how else to describe my reflection.

I caught myself in the dressing room mirror at the gym the other day.
My body is covered in deep red marks.
Many of the marks are scars from the multiple boils and carbuncles (that nearly killed me) back in my out of control blood sugar days.

Not all of the marks are old scars.
Many of them are new.
Too many of the blood colored marks on my body are current injuries.
Self-inflicted injuries.
I self consciously pick at my skin.
It shows.

A strange disassociation happens as a self-mutilator.
The skin picking behavior is automatic.
The picking at my skin is unthought-out like the way one would scratch an itch.
The backs of my thighs, my back (I can reach it now so my poor back is a victim of my digging and gouging) , my butt, my breasts, all the hidden places that no one sees are mine fields of self-injury.

Sometimes, I'll self-consciously pick my face and neck.

It's not like I'm picking at weepy, enormous zits or anything.
Tiny little bumps or blackheads become excavation sites for my gouging fingernails.
My skin is loose and stretchy so the pores become distended. The pores get a little cloggy. Rather than use a nice body scrub to keep them clean, I sit and pick, pick, pick, pick pick till I'm covered in scabby sores.

Seeing myself in the mirror at the gym helped me to SEE what I'm doing to myself.
It helped me to call myself out and name my behavior.
I physically tear at my own flesh.
I injure myself with my fingernails.

I scroll up and look at that picture of me on crutches. I see my perfect, tanned, young flesh.
Back then I was a picker. I used to tear at my face, not my body.
My poor teenage face was a minefield.

It's difficult to end a compulsion.
Last night I tried to dissect the feeling of wanting to destroy my skin and stop it.
I caught myself about to dig into the flesh on the back of my thighs.
I stopped my hand.
The urge was difficult to suppress.
I felt a terrible anxiety and an unwillingness to sit still.
I breathed.
I stretched out on the sofa and distracted myself with the TV.
Without even being aware of how it happened, the moment I stopped consciously keeping my hand from touching my thigh, my hand reached back to started picking.
Damn.
I yanked my hand away.

I understand compulsion.
I also understand how to defeat compulsion.

For instance, eating too much too fast makes me nauseated.
BUT the nausea is delayed, it's not instant.
I have to anticipate that the next bite will be the one that pushes me over the edge to queasiness and have the foresight to NOT take that bite.

The compulsion to keep eating is like a fire inside me.
At first, I get the anxious fidgety feeling like I WANT that next bite and nothing else will soothe me unless I have it.
My NOT wanting to be nauseated helps me to put down the fork.
Will wins over.

The mirror image of my poor skin covered in marks will have to function like the threat of nausea. Now that I've surveyed the damage in the gym mirror I can use the memory of those red sores to stop myself from doing more damage.

It's a lesson in self-care.
It's not easy.

Last winter I was able to stop picking at myself for a couple of months.
Someone had planted a suggestion in my mind by talking about a girl who had recovered from being a self-mutilator. I was convinced that the person telling that story was talking to me, that they cared about me and didn't want me to hurt myself. Their concern made me feel worthy.

The idea that someone cared about me and preferred that I didn't hurt myself kept me from digging at my skin.

Then it wore off.
My self-image as someone who's stupid and irritating and doesn't deserve to be cared for took over and I started digging again.

That's the problem with relying on the compassion of others.
Once we perceive that they no longer care we lose the motivation to care for ourselves.
Not good.

I have to rely on my OWN self-worthiness. Other people can be cruel.
I can't start tearing myself apart every time someone mistreats me.

I need to be stalwart and at peace when people hone in on my vulnerabilities and try to tear me down.
I need to stop being so surprised when people are cruel and not let it destroy me.

The person I wrote about yesterday who told me I was in denial must have read in this blog about how my family physician lambasted me with the same accusation of being an addict in denial (Click here to read the family doctor calling me an addict story). They HAD to know I would be hurt by what they said to me.

The person who left the comment on how I was probably breaking my parents' hearts by asking for financial help when IN THAT VERY BLOG I talked about how crappy and anxious I felt about doing that must have known their comment would hurt me.

That's so difficult for me to accept.
People WANT to be hurtful?
No.
I just can't accept that.
If I can't learn to accept that, I'll keep getting hurt.
I don't WANT to believe that people are capable of being mean. I don't WANT to anticipate or expect the worst from people.
That just makes me more hurtable.

Putting myself out there, expressing my weaknesses publicly puts me in a vulnerable position.
I can't walk around in life like some naive Pollyanna type who's shocked when folks do things that hurt me. If I'm going to put my feelings on the line I need to toughen up.

If I'm going to enter the public arena with my story I have to be prepared for folks to pick at me, make fun of me, criticize me and contradict me.

First, let me learn to stop picking at myself.


*Movement for the UnMotivated*
There must be better things to do with our hands besides stuffing our faces or picking at ourselves.
How about some nice self-massage?
The next time I get the urge to pick I think I'll thwart it with a handful of lotion and a nice rub up (as opposed to rub down!...lol)

Yesterday's Weight: 252
Today's Blood Sugar: 234

Got a comment or question?
Click here!

not THOSE steps

"He who guards his mouth keeps his life,
but he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin”
(Proverbs 13:3)

"This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words."
(I Corinthians 2: 12-14)

Would you like to know the definition of a "fanatic"?
A fanatic is someone who won't change their mind and won't change the subject.

I've met a few in my lifetime.

But, hey...
I won't point my finger at them without the willingness to point that same finger back at me.
One-way criticism doesn't lead to dialog or discovery, so I try to remain open.
If I hit hard then I have to be willing to GET hit.
If I dole out criticism I should be prepared to take it, right?

I don't want to be a fanatic who's so stuck that I'm unwilling to hear all sides of the story.

But sometimes I DO make up my mind about things and hold steadfast to my beliefs.
Then I talk about it.

If I believe that what I'm saying can help people, I have a moral obligation to speak my truth, right?
Or should I keep a guard at my mouth and stay quiet, keep my place, cow-tow to the systems that didn't work for me because SOMEONE might be offended by my viewpoint?

Someone challenged me last night.
I was a guest speaker in a room of about 30 college students.
The host asked me to speak about motivation, specifically about behaving differently than we feel when it comes to keeping commitments.
I was supposed talk about doing the right thing vs. doing the comfortable thing.

I don't remember how 12 Step recovery came up in the conversation.

I'm openly critical of 12 Step recovery because of its failure to address the physical causes of addiction and because IT DIDN'T HELP ME.

I criticize 12 Steppers for their cult-like fanaticism.

It's wrong to tell people that they're somehow deficient if they're not willing to submit to a low-success-rate 12 Step recovery program.

Hey, I may criticize the Overeaters Anonymous program but I'm willing to look critically at my own beliefs, too. My critical eye works both ways.

I admit,
I may be a fanatic.
I may not be willing to shut up about the things I've discovered.
I may be fanatical about the truth of my own experience.
I may be a fanatic because I DO cling to the idea that recovery does NOT have to be a lifelong, one-day-at-a-time battle of will and I REFUSE to shut up about it.

I DO believe that all the Anonymous programs need to address nutritional aspects of wellness in order to increase their odds of success.

I had no idea that this idea would be so controversial.
I thought society had moved on from the idea that 12 Step is the last hope for addiction recovery.

I know from experience that the battle of will doesn't have to be ongoing day after day.
My life is proof of that.
I got off the white sugar, white flour, processed crap foods (forcibly via my gastric bypass last August) and suddenly the battle of will became a pinkie-toe blip on my recovery radar.
It was difficult at first but now things are different.
Food no longer torments me.
I no longer binge on sugary, fatty, starchy garbage foods.
I no longer crave them.
I really don't want them.
Really.

This past Sunday I was at a charity brunch. I pigged out on fresh pineapple, string beans, salad, a bagel (I know, I know, white flour), and coffee. It was great.

I also took lots of food home.
I had the foresight to bring ziplock baggies with me so I could bring food home to my friends. I must have smuggled out 5 pounds of danishes, pastries, muffins, bagels, cookies, brownies and cakes (and fruit for me :-).
I came home with my giant bag of food.
I unwrapped my booty and arranged everything, buffet-style, on 3 large dinner plates on my coffee table.

I had one bagel from the center plate and that was it.
Nothing else.
Was there a battle of will between me and the 3 plates of food?
No.
I didn't want any of the food.
For real.
I wanted my friends to enjoy themselves.
It wasn't food for me it was food for company.

I left the food out on my coffee table overnight so it would be set up for my Monday night guests.

Still, with all those carbs there for the taking I felt no temptation, no battle of will, no need to "taste" the icing off the top of anything.
No cravings.

Was it the surgery that stopped me?
Only partially.

The aversion to foods that make me feel nauseated is a huge part of this no-cravings lifestyle.

This doesn't totally get me off the hook.
I AM ABLE to eat junk food.
If I really, really want it I can eat the desserty foods.
It is possible for me to eat a rich, chocolaty brownie or cookie or piece of cake.

If I take one tiny bite at a time I can eat it fairly comfortably.
Remember, I ate an entire piece of apple pie at the Flop House Inn (the fabulous Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, VA) one tiny bite at a time stretched out over 3 hours.
(Click here to read the story)

The gastric bypass isn't the magic bullet that made me completely immune to sugar cravings. It helped but it's not the sole reason for my transformed eating habits.

I thought I had explained all this in my talks and here in my Blog.
Was I unclear?

See, I was surprised when last night's host, without warning, put me on the spot for my criticism of 12 Step.
He claimed that it was the "most successful program in the country" and that when people fail it's because they failed to work the program NOT because the program failed the person.

I asked if he believed I was a failure.
He said he believed I was in denial.

His belief is that once you're an addict, you're always an addict.
That even one drink (or marshmallow for the OAers) will lead to a terrible bender/binge and that this is the truth of the addict's existence for life.

"What's so great or new about what YOU'RE doing?" he asked.
Gee, I thought I had explained that.

He defended 12 Step programs for being oh-so-very helpful and never charging people any money. (So a program that's free and has good intentions should be immune to criticism??)

It didn't help that the host presented his objections in a hostile, who-do-you-think-you-are tone of voice.
It wasn't even an argument on his part. It was more of a "how dare you contradict my beliefs" kinda in-my-face scolding than an argument. I felt steamrolled and misunderstood.

I was shaking.
Tears were caught in my throat.
His hostility was so unexpected.
I tried to keep my sense of humor.
I tried to handle his objections with grace and tact.

To tell you the truth it's such a blur I don't even know if I handled it well.
I have no idea if the students could sense my anxiety.
I think I did ok but it was unnerving.
I was so tense and upset I couldn't even cry about it till this morning.

Is this what the skeptical world has in store for me?
How dare I recover once and for all.
How dare I refuse to declare myself powerless.
How dare I challenge the great 12 Step programs that have saved so many, you know, the ones who work it.
How dare I REFUSE to call myself a failure.
How dare I pursue self empowerment and the empowerment of others in a new, vitalistic way.

"The treatment usually begins by being repeatedly told that the first step to recovery is the declaration: I am an alcoholic. For the sinner to be saved, the sinner must first admit he is a sinner. (I am not claiming that A.A. uses the word 'sin' or 'sinner' or 'grace' or that there is any official use of theological terminology.) To refuse to do so is proof the sick one is “in denial” and without grace. The only way to prove you are not in denial is to admit you are an alcoholic:"
~ from Skepdic.com
(Click here for the whole article)

Hey, looks like I'm not the only one who feels this way about the cult of 12 Step.
(Click here for a well-written criticism of Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous.)

What's so great about 12 Step?
It helps SOME folks but it didn't help me.
Why SHOULDN'T I criticize it??

I think a 10% - 25% success rate is PISS POOR!
I'm not alone.
(Click here for an interesting website of a Rational Recovery practitioner who says,

"The worst possible way to quit something you love is one-day-at-a-time.
Stay away from recovery groups of all kinds; you can’t possibly recover there.
They’ll never let you go, and you’ll be 'in recovery' forever."

Whew.
So my ideas AREN'T so wacky after all.
There are plenty of sane, intelligent, good people out there who agree with me about the ineffectiveness of 12 Stepping and are striking out on their own to find ways to help people permanently recover and stay well FOREVER.
Thank God.

I'm a rebel but I'm onto something folks have been discovering for years.

There's nothing terribly new about what I'm saying.
I'm saying that NUTRITIONAL transformation is an essential factor in the transformation that leads to permanent recovery.

I did some Googling.
This field is full of great research and insights.
There are plenty of hard-scientists and medical practitioners as well as holistic healers who are recognizing the need for nutritional treatment in the permanent cure of addiction.

One article claims that

"nutrition is often overlooked as a necessary component of detoxification and recovery...When treatment programs utilize body-mind-spirit approaches with well-designed nutritional protocols, the successes are dynamic."

(Click here for the article)

Look, I know I'm getting very linky in this post. I just want to show you that I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel here.
I just want to indicate that nutritional support for curing addiction is out there for you and me to discover.

I don't even have to read and research this topic thoroughly (yet) to convince myself because my progress is evidence enough for me that I'm doing the right thing.
When it's time for my book on the topic, then I'll do the thorough research.

For now I'm going to live my life as evidence that I'm on the right path.

As for my confrontive critics, I'll just have to keep sparring with them till I toughen up.

I will not be intimidated into silence.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Doing one good thing for yourself makes room for you to do more.
Even washing ONE piece of your handwashable clothing and letting it drip dry makes you feel good.
Look at that ____ hanging there. YOU washed it!
YOU took care of yourself.
Pat yourself on the back.
You've just made room in your life to do something else for your own self-care.

Yesterday's Weight: 254
Today's Blood Sugar: 204

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Pay offs and Spite

"Spite is a powerful motivator." ~ GhostLake Outdoors

I know I'm not supposed to let the naysayers bother me.
Never let anyone's negative comments get me down, right?
Let their negative comments roll off my back like water off a duck,
yadda yadda yadda.

BUT...
they DO bother me.
Naysayers piss me off.
They doubt themselves and then try to pass that self-doubt onto me.
If they fail then I'm obligated to fail so they don't feel so bad about themselves.
They naysay me based on THEIR self-doubts.
It's like they're triple-dog-daring me to prove them wrong.
I sure do love to prove them wrong.

Maybe that's a shortcoming in my character.
Maybe it's karma reducing to be motivated by others' doubt.
Maybe it makes me a rebel...

"Never tell me the odds. " ~ Han Solo

Proving people wrong is an ego-inflating, I'm-right-you're-wrong activity.
And...it motivates me.

Last year, when I made the commitment to working out 6 days a week I got some flack from a friend (I'm no longer speaking to her. Wonder why?)
She told me that going from NO activity to 6 days a week at the gym was crazy.
She said she wouldn't LET me work out 6 days a week, that 4 days a week was enough.
I protested.
She claimed she was giving me advice for my own good.
She said she didn't want to see me "crash" because I was overdoing it.
She said, "Only athletes work out 6 days a week."

So, I proved her wrong.
Maybe I AM an athlete.
I'm definitely crazy.
Crazy and proud.
6 days a week at the gym is not what I do it's WHO I AM!

That naysayer who left the nasty comment the other day (click here if you want to read it)
shouldn't be pissing me off.
That rotten comment they left should have rolled off my back like a duck by now.
It hasn't.
Guess I'm not the Buddha after all.

Today I made a promise to a friend that I would work out in the morning so that I could watch Rocky IV with him and some of my students this afternoon after class. I set my alarm for 6am. I was up and out of bed with little effort (of course playing fetch with the Bosie kitten is a great way to start the day with exuberant energy).

I've always been afraid that if I demanded more of myself I WOULD crash.

I'm starting to feel less afraid of fading.
My body has more stamina.
I don't have to be as concerned about conserving my energy.
I'm enjoying the pay offs of consistent, determined activity.
My crazy only-an-athlete workouts have made me strong.

I proved one naysayer wrong.
Now what about this latest naysaying event?
What if I DID have to work 40+ hours a week?
Could I keep up with my commitments?
Yes.
I would blog.
I would work out.

But how would that FEEL?
Would I be exhausted?
Would I turn bitter and resentful like that jealous naysayer?

I have abundant energy.
I will succeed.

I am just spiteful enough to do this.
Work my ass off at the gym, work my ass off for money, continue to blog, create a career, keep my house in order and succeed
just for spite.

Well, not JUST for spite.
Spite may be a powerful motivator but the real motivator is the payoff.
The payoff is success.

Ain't nothin' sweeter.

*Movement for the UnMotivated*
Don't wait to feel motivated to start moving.
Move against the draggy feeling.
Lift up your hands to the sky.
Breathe deep.
Be grateful for your life.
You'll feel better instantly.

Yesterday's Weight: 255

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