Nutrional objectives:
--I've been on plan for a full week. Feel really good about it, too.
--Have been preparing healthy recipes, but nothing that new. Eating healthy is exciting enough for me at this point, but the experimentation urge has been dampened by the foot and cold.
--Didn't take work to lunch last week, must do that some this week.
Exercise objectives:
--Foot became less painful, enough to exercise, by mid-week...and then I promptly caught a cold. Hit me hard and fast. Finally feel better as of today, but going back to the podiatrist this AM to see if this process is going to start over again or not. Due to the foot/cold, no exercise that got my heart rate up, but some stretching here and there has help keep my loosened up.
Spiritual objectives:
--I really really need to focus on these. The energy in the house these days is so potent and nourishing. What Duane and I did here really is amazing.
--Listen more often.
--Rediscover the candle flame.
--Start "Ramtha" or "Dwelling On Two Planets"
I'm doing well on the nutrition front, but my foot is my arch (wince) nemesis when it comes to exercise. By the time I get home these days, the foot goes up, 1200 mg of Ibuprofen get swallowed and chased by a glass of wine. After 30 minutes or so, I can walk better, but am in no shape to exercise. I can walk in the old tennis shoes that feel like I tred upon the soft squishy bodies of the pain monsters that plague me, but barefoot is a no-go, not even good slippers help. I abhor shoes by nature so I deal with the pain at night cuz there's no way I'm wearing shoes at home. (Arms crossed, chin raised, lower lip pouty.)
I'm doing well nutritionally, asforementioned. I actually stared peanut butter in the face last night at 11:00 pm and said 'no'. For those in the know, this is real work for me. Certain things will be a challenge, and I'm still up for it.
It's the 22nd of September, and Happy Solstice.
Start watching nature. Most people only pay attention to temperature changes around Fall in California. Keep your eyes peeled. Colors, smells, sights - so much is changing and true to California patterns, it's all happening very fast.
Current weight: 250 pounds.
Next objective: 242 pounds. Dropping below 246 would mean real change.
Ultimate objective: 210 pounds. Worry about that weight when you're 220.
Nutrional objectives:
Stay on plan.
Try 1-3 new recipes each week.
Take lunch to work more often.
Exercise objectives:
This week - test the foot on the bike pedal.
1-3 bike rides per week, as soon as possible.
1-3 weight routines and moderate cardio at the gym
Morning yoga when weight bearing floor work possible, AM stretch until then.
Spiritual objectives:
Listen more often.
Rediscover the candle flame. Foster the new energy in the house.
Dust more often - stagnant energy is detrimental.
Read "Ramtha"
I have a pessimisstic fear of failure. Despite all of my good intensions to get back on, and stay on plan, I've already convinced myself I'm going to fail. And now that I have this foot issue to deal with, and can't manage a good amount of exercise, these feelings are compounded. I've developed a lack of trust of myself.
Here's a forehead-slapping statement: I know exactly how to lose weight and get into very good shape.
I'm not touting a new regimen, a new fitness guru I've recently discovered, or found a pill that makes it all go away overnight. I'm serious when I say I know how to do this on my own, with everyday grocery foods, and the exercise equipment and gym membership I already have.
There is this fog I walk into when I approach food and exercise, however. It's like captaining a boat...you know where land is, you know exactly where to dock, but when you point the bow in the right direction, fog lifts and clear sight is gone. Why does this happen to me with food and exercise? It feels like a complex psychological conundrum, but for some reason, this morning I can break it down: (1) I don't believe I can change my body when faced with a very old, very big, very scary issue in my life, (2) I don't trust the knowledge I've gained designed to help me complete that task.
Let me tear those two points down into even smaller bits. First, that I don't believe in myself as a person who can accomplish a goal I've reached for since I was a very young man. Problem One: I've never felt that I've attained an impressive goal I've set for myself. Problem Two: When I do attain a goal, it's taken a lot of hard work, but the ultimate goal still seems so far away and I feel that I'll never make it.
Second, I have major baggage when it comes to the core knowledge I pulled from my education. I was terrible at taking tests, managed to develop a phobia of them that I never directly faced. The result was that I felt I couldn't trust what I thought I knew. I would study and study and converse with fellow students, be able to critically analyze the concepts or data, but when asked to take tests...I froze up. The bulk of my formal education was a binge and purge process, cram the info in, spill it out on paper. How well you spilled, labeled you either a "good" student, or a "bad" one. More often than not I was just filling my brain instead of using it. Now, where is all of this going? Back to my original point, that's where - I know how to lose the excess weight I'm carrying, and prodce a healthy, flexible muscle tone. I have all the information I need. I just don't trust that information to work. I feel like I'll fail the test and be deemed "bad" by the harshest, nastiest teacher I ever had: me.
I don't have to settle for the fog. I can admit the fog isn't really there. It's in my head.
Here's a summation of what I logically know that I know...you know?
--I have a tried/true method of logging my nutrition. I've used it for a few weeks at a time and have seen the results it brings even without exercise.
--I know enough about food nutritional content to know what works for weight loss and what doesn't, and in what proportions.
--I know that long-term, moderate intensity level exercise will decrease weight on my body without creating physical stressors or pains that keep me couch-bound with injury, or bore me, etc.
What I know challenges me, and what I have to focus on:
--Avoiding the fog. I think the fog is pure emotional crud. Fear of failure, lack of trust. I need to practice listening to my conscious mind, not my Id.
--I need to learn to balance my levels of: "must do this" and "must be able to let go now and then" without compromising everything I'm doing.
I tend to me a man of extremes (off/on, black/white) when it comes to things I find difficult. Like as a kid, I'd eat my vegetables first, fast, just to get them out of the way. In the past I've staved off alcohol completely, tried pure Atkins, fasted, etc. All very intense approaches to issues. It's been said that amazing willpower is needed to to these kinds of things, but I feel it's misplaced willpower. I need to really learn what "moderation" means. Really really focus on how it would help me. Learn patience. Find some peace, and be. If I could hold onto moderation as rabidly as I've been black/white about these misplaced uses of willpower...I honestly think I could one day stop fighting with myself so much.
I got to do something I've wanted to do for years over the weekend. It came about after an odd set of circumstances. Well, at least they were interesting to me.
At the beginning of each month I read my monthly astrological reading, from a woman who's called all my important dates/events for years. She mentioned that I'd be gaining a lot of space in my home in the near future, either from a roommate moving out, or moving into a new apartment, or buying a new house. Well, the idea of any of these options freaked my shit out. So, sort of like putting down a 1/2 eaten mother-f'ing good cookie you *know* will make you sick, I stopped reading and tried to think clearly.
D and I were not in trouble, but we had been talking about buying a house recently. We'd put the idea on hold after some preliminary research, and had confirmed that decision after another bout of research over Labor Day weekend. So what was the clincher?
A week passes. Work work work. The next weekend comes and - bam. I pointed at the dining room table and asked him, haltingly, "When was the last time we used that...that...circular flat object with spindly legs yonder?" He followed the path of my finger and said, "I sat there and wrote a list the other day..." The next morning, I was sipping coffee and diddling the table with an alan wrench and rolling the round glass top down the hall. An hour later, carpets were moved, everything was vacuumed, plants were shifted...and voila! We had a huge amount of new space in the apartment. Two days later, we're still marveling. It's way cool. I walk into work this AM and an auto-notification pops up on my computer screen: "*watch*". I open the reminder to find the astrological portent reminding me of an increase of space, and domestic matters take precedence, and now is the best time to do it, or get future domestic matters going...
A smack to the forehead, a giggle, and a healthy sigh later...I have more space, the thing which people tell me is a "dining table" (how silly) is gone, and my apartment looks frickin huge now.
Oh, and what I'd always wanted to do was admit I don't need/use a dining table. We eat Roman style on the floor, or the day bed in our home, thank you very much.
*snap snap*
I've been off/on plan for the last few weeks, but my body seems to be in a reducing mood. I've not excercised with any regularity, but have done some. I've eaten around the max to just over max of my food point range. But my body is still dropping weight (granted at a microcropic rate). After 3 weeks of this off/on approach, I'm down 1.5 or so. Odd. Current weight 246.2 pounds.
I'm going to be anti-ambulatory for a while (foot fun), so it's imperative I keep my points to low/med range if I'm not going to be active. That's my goal for the next 2 weeks - low/med point range as often as possible until I can get some exercise going again.
Oh, and a BIG happy birthday to meriko ;) A true treasure in my life.
Have you ever decided that some things in your life need a change and not been able to actually make the changea stick? I'm not going to go into specifics because some of the things I struggle with aren't interesting to other folks as they're small, and deep in my head, and have little or nothing to do with other human beings. Not trying to be secretive, just learning to look deeper inside on my own.
I'm a being of grays, so that these thoughts are of the black and white type is pretty alarming. Example: Have a problem? Fix it. And when the solution doesn't work or even present itself, I say Guh? I crack myself up.
I guess I'm having fun unravelling the things in my head that don't make sense when thought of rationally. "*Why* do you keep that pot on that back burner if you don't need it? Hell, why is that in a pot? I should be using these burners for important stuff. Guh?" I may sound like I'm in danger of spending too much time in my head, but I'm in the business these days of finding root causes for behaviors, mental attitudes, reactions, etc. Am I being overanalytical? No. You have to anayze *too* much to be that. I'm just starting to pay attention to the bits and pieces that have made up part of the autonomic me - the part that just does things or feels things that sometimes feel unhealthy afterwards.
I am sometimes confused - hear me Guh.
I'm having one of those weeks where I know I want to write in here, but can't find the time or energy. So here goes a list style of events last weekend:
Kings Mountain Art Faire
cooler woods in the heat
cedar wood shavings on the ground
lots and lots of people eating breakfast at picnic tables
heat
pricey booths
beautiful art
breakfast at Alice's
heat
comic books in front of a fan
popsicles
blooming plants
lots of watering
hot tubs/cold plunges at Watercourse Way
drinking beer in a public park after dark looking at stars in the cooler evenings