Step Away From the Cake

Well, yesterday was supposed to be my spruce myself up day. I was going to get my nails done and put makeup on and everything. Yeah..... That didn't happen. Instead we had a health crisis with Rocco. Seems he's developed pancreatitis. I spent most of the day at the vet. Hopefully we'll be able to turn it around but there is a good possibility it could kill him. Keep your fingers crossed for him. The final piece of the puzzle I was missing was the art of balance. I have always said that I can do anything extremely well if I can focus solely on that. Well, duh!!! Who couldn't do that. The thing is life doesn't work that way. I'm not on the Biggest Loser, I don't get to think about only my weight loss for 4 months, it's just not going to happen. But what happens with me is that I will focus on eating right and exercising and that will go along really, really well but other parts of my life will fall apart. Then something will come up in anoth...

In yesterday's post I got so caught up in how you say things to yourself that I never got to the second part. Because in all my reading what I discovered is that not only must you say things positively and as if they are fact, you must also act like it's a fact. So this person that I was reading said to picture in your mind how you will dress, walk, act, when your goals are reached and to do that now. That led me to thinking. For the past 8 years I have worked in a lab. That has meant not wearing nice clothes. I always had to wear clothes that I didn't care if they got destroyed or not (which almost all my clothes did). As you can imagine I did not dress very nice. Jeans, shorts, and t-shirts were the order of the day. Before that I was a nature tour guide and led hikes in the mountains. Again, not something you would dress up for. So I thought about this for a while and I realized something. Wearing those clothes that I didn't care about led to a mindset. I ...

the 'motivation' (for lack of a better work) that I was looking for. I've been cruising around the net, reading lots of different things about motivation, staying on track, getting started, yada, yada. They all pretty much say the same sort of thing and nothing I don't already know and/or do. But I found one that pointed out something I had forgotten. First, when stating a goal don't say 'I want....' you say 'I have...' or 'I am....' as if it's already happened. I want gives you a built in out in that you may not want that anymore, or at least you can say that you don't. Goals stated in the positive (we all knew that) as if they have already occurred become fact in your mind. So if I say, repeatedly, that by my birthday, April 15th, I will weigh 150 lbs, that becomes a fact in my mind. I will do everything it takes to reach that goal because in my head there is no out. Does that make sense?? I think this might be the little...

Or HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I love beginnings. New things to experience. New people to meet. New things to see. Do. I love the clean slate that the first of the year represents. Lots of times I make big plans and have all these goals for a new year. Or month. Or week. This year not so much. I do have goals and plans but I find myself a lot more introspective as this year draws to a close. It was a tough year in many ways and I'm frankly glad to see it go. But there are some things that will be happening in the coming year that I don't to blow and that has started me thinking. Today I was thinking about motivation. What is motivation? According to the dictionary motivation is the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior. So hunger is a motivation to eat. Tiredness is motivation to sleep. Money is a motivation to work. I get it. I have my motivation to finish school, save money, things like that. We want to move to Colorado and all of those things will further that. So that...

My plan was to get up early and workout every day this week. Well it's Tuesday and that hasn't happened yet. I go through periods of being really tired and I'm in one right now. But there is no more beating myself up. I'm all about acceptance and just doing my best. So I'm good. One thing I have noticed is that due to my screwed up eating for the past couple of weeks my blood sugar is all wacky. That I need to correct much more then I need to lose weight or workout. In the past 2 days I've had 2 blood sugar reactions. That is not good. So it's back to basics No sugar. Or should I say, no added sugar. Naturally occurring sugar, read fruits, don't seem to bother me unless I over do it. But really, it's hard to overdue fruit. So we are back to no sugar, no processed foods, whole foods only. I know this is much better for me but having my blood sugar in check is much more important. I wonder what damage is done to my body every time my ...

At work that is.  This is so weird.  Whenever I’ve ended a job before I had someplace to go or something to do.  Right at this point I don’t.  I plan on changing that but it’s kind of like stepping off a cliff not knowing exactly what is below you.    Enough about that, on to my weight loss efforts.  I have made some decisions about how I’m going to do this.  First and foremost exercise, exercise, exercise.  Since this is my last week I have no excuses not to work out.  Even if I have something going on in the morning, I have no excuse for not getting up early and working out.  So the plan is strength training 4 days a week (alternating muscle groups) for about 30-40 minutes.  Running 3 days a week.  Elliptical 30 minutes or so at night 4 days a week. Saturdays, which should be my ‘rest’ day, are going to be for fun stuff, hiking, swimming, biking, whatever I’m in the mood for.    Second will be the eatin...

But I did it. I made an astonishing discovery this morning. I'm afraid of running. I have had so many injuries and problems because of running that it now scares me. I didn't realize that before and I didn't understand why I would avoid running. Now I get it. So with that knowledge, and the power that goes with it, I headed out for my 4 mile run. I was taking it slow because I figured if I'm afraid of running take it easy and get used to it slowly. I'm not in any rush to break any records so why push it right??? I started off pretty good and was feeling great. I had a nice pace going, about 12 min/mile, and was feeling fantastic. At the 1 mile mark my blood sugar started going wacky. I didn't have anything with me because I was only doing 4 miles. I walked for a couple of minutes and things settled down. I managed to run 2 miles and then headed back. On the way back things got worse. Every time I ran the blood sugar would take a nose dive and I...