23 September 2011
Did you get the number of that bus?
In spite of not pushing myself really hard and stretching after - I am sore. My legs are really sore, making walking and sitting such a challenge. Yesterday was really bad. Today is better but I'm still really stiff. Last night at work was brutal. My legs were sore, my feet hurt, my back was bothering me....Yeah, I was a wreck. Because of this today I am doing yoga. I decided that an hour of stretching would be way better than working out again. Tomorrow though I have to get up early enough to workout. No stopping now.
I have read repeatedly that exercise alone will not help you lose weight, that food is the most important component of weight loss. I believe that because unless you are on the Biggest Loser and workout 6-8 hours a day, you just can not workout enough for it to really make a huge difference. However, for me working out helps in a variety of other ways. If I workout first thing in the morning it sets me up for a day of eating well. After working out I really don't want to eat junk food. I want something healthy, nutritious and filling. Also, knowing how hard I worked out I don't want to blow it by eating junk. So while exercise alone may not cause you to lose weight, it influences the rest of my life and sets me up to eat right.
The point of this is that I haven't been tracking my food. I'm doing pretty well just winging it and feeling really good about things. I do have this cool app for my phone to track my calories though. It even has a barcode scanner that you can scan the item and it will enter the nutrition information. Very cool. I'll probably start using it again once I get the workout in hand.
So, speaking of workouts....time to do yoga.....
22 September 2011
Caution: You have entered the Danger Zone
This is where it gets dicey. Yesterday was a good day. I worked out for an hour. Went to a training class. Went to work. Ate well - though not perfect. Came home, went to bed and slept like a rock. This morning I got up and I'm tired. The body is sore. I could easily lay down and nap for the next 2 hours. And that is what would normally happen here. I would tell myself that I'm sore and tired and I have to work tonight so I deserve to take it easy this morning. I would then proceed to lay around and eat until it was time to go to work at noon. I'm not going to do that today. I'm not going to give in to my sloth nature. There are people all over the world who go all day long without taking a nap. There are people who work when they are tired, sore, hungry, sick. I'm a baby. Anything worth having is worth fighting for! So I need to fight my inner sloth and keep moving. Seriously, what is the worst that can happen?? I spend the day tired. Oh Wow!!! That would be horrible. I am going to workout right now. I am then going to shower and do some things in this room that I need to get done. If I am still tired, at 10:30 I will allow myself an hour on the couch before work starts. That's it. I'm not going to fall victim of this danger zone anymore.
Update: I fought off the sloth and successfully navigated the Danger Zone. I did my workout. It was hard but I actually feel a lot better than I did when I started. Hmm...maybe there is something to this exercise thing...
21 September 2011
Metamorphosis has begun
I'm very inspired and excited about this whole reinventing myself. It is very freeing and empowering to know the source of what's holding me back. Now that I am aware of the problems I am moving on them and I am excited. I woke up a couple of times during the night and the first word in my head was reinventing and I wondered if it was time to get up yet. That tells me I'm pretty excited about this whole thing. I need to be careful though and not go crazy. I have been known to do that and just burn myself out in the first days. So I need to pace myself and keep this momentum going.
So I started today with an hour long workout. I have been babying myself with these 30 minute workouts and telling myself that I need to get into shape to do the others. Bullshit. I need to push myself to the limit and work as hard as I can. That't the only way I make progress, so that's what I'm doing. Pushing myself. Right now I'm on break so it's a great time to push the envelope because if I crash no one will care. So that's what I'm doing - pushing myself. And it felt pretty good. Okay, I thought I was going to die but I made it through. And now I am very proud of myself for a good start.
Now I'm hungry so it's time to shower, get some food and then head to school for a training session before Walgreens. Busy, busy day.
20 September 2011
Re-Invent Yourself
I spent the day at the 8th Annual International Women's Conference in Waikiki. It was amazing. There were speakers from all over the world. All women. All leaders in their fields. Truly amazing and inspiring. I am still processing everything I heard but feel the need to discuss some things immediately.
One thing that everyone talked about and espoused as the one way to guarantee success was hard work. All of them said that anything worth having is worth working for. One talked about the 10,000 hour principle from the Outliers, which basically says that if you want to master something you need to do it for 10,000 hours. Someone figured it out and the Beatles played for 10,000 hours before they became famous. Bill Gates programmed for 10,000 hours before he started Microsoft. 10,000 hours seems to be the magic number. I've heard this before, hell I've told my class it, but for some reason it resonated with me today. I don't give things enough time. I don't give near 10,000 hours.
The other thing that really struck me was the last speaker. She said you should reinvent yourself to keep your passion. You may reinvent yourself for a variety of reasons; divorce, fired, empty nest, etc. Or for no other reason then it's time. This struck me. She also had stories of women who had reinvented themselves and most of them were not for any great reason. One woman decided she was tired of being overweight and entered a beauty contest to keep her on track. She won. Another took a vacation at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and ended up selling her house and moving to Utah to work there full time. This really hit me hard. This was very close to home. I have reinvented myself a couple of times over my life. The latest one was when I quit the lab and starting teaching. When I did that I felt good about. Really good. I was never so positive of a decision in my life. I had secretly wanted to be a teacher for a long time and really felt that the time was right. I was confident deep down in my soul that I was doing the right thing. Part of the reason I felt that way was because of where I was. I had been working out for a couple of years, I was in the best shape of my life, and I felt awesome. All those things played into me feeling so completely confident in my decision to become a teacher. Once I actually started teaching the wheels started coming off the bus. Teaching is hard, hard work. Harder than I thought it would be. And I had stopped working out so much due to injuries and school consuming a whole lot of my time. I started to lose confidence in myself. I started to doubt that I could do this. And I started to think I had gotten in over my head. I lost my faith. The more I doubted myself the more things went wrong. I felt like a horrible teacher and I became a horrible teacher.
So, what is the take home message from all this? Well, it's time to finish my reinvention. I wanted to be a teacher, and I still do, but I want to be an awesome teacher. I want to be an excellent teacher. I want to be a nationally certified teacher. I want to be the absolute best I can be. Time to get my dreams back on track. Time to take control of my life again. I can't change everything immediately but I can start making little changes right now. Starting with working out. It is not an option. Working out helps keep me focused and confident so it is non-negotiable. That is step #1. Step #2 is to get myself organized. That starts on Thursday morning and it begins with this room.
I feel good about this. There are a whole lot of things I need to do but one step at a time. I need to get things in order before I can continue on my journey. So it begins again but I have a greater understanding of things this time. I know not only what I need to do but why and it makes a whole lot more sense to me now.
19 September 2011
Paleo Diet
I have done a lot of reading and studying about biology, nutrition, and human history. I have often thought about how our ancestors lived and ate. Biology tells us that our bodies were designed thousands of years ago, yet most of the food we eat was "designed" in the last 30-50 years. I remember as a kid the grocery store being vastly different than it is now. First, it was much smaller. Second, there was not much processed food at all. Most of the store was the fresh produce and meat departments. There was bread, some snacks, chips, and baked goods. That's about it. There was not entire aisles of chips or phony food. You couldn't buy anything resembling a lunchable (okay, I have no idea how that is spelled and neither does spell check). I have often thought that the "food" we eat is not how we were meant to eat.
I've also watched a number of documentaries on food and food production in this country - and it is scary. In the past I have toyed with this so-called paleo eating. Basically what I've done is cut out grains and sweets. I've eaten only whole foods - meats, fruits, veggies, eggs, etc. After I've eaten this way for a few days I notice that I feel pretty darn good. I have more energy and generally a feeling of well being that I don't normally have. The problem is, I've never done it for very long. A week or so at the most. So, I'm going to give it a serious chance. I'm going to stick to eating this way for 30 full days and see what happens. I'm going to be fairly strict with myself but not crazy anal. My plan is basically whole foods only. Meat, eggs, veggies, fruits, some nuts, beans, and that's about it. No processed foods, dairy, or grains. Also, good fats. I'm going to try and switch to organic foods - getting hubby to switch thought is going to be difficult - but I'll try. If I can convince him that we only need a little bit of the organic stuff it might work. I'll let him discover how much better it tastes. Also, if I eat organic food for breakfast and lunch (which I generally eat away from home), if I eat mostly veggies for dinner with very little non-organic meat I should be just fine. Whole Foods will be opening nearby soon and I will start shopping there for my stuff. I can totally do this and I'm excited. I know how good I feel when I eat this way and I want to feel that way again.
That is it, I am done!!!
I have just filed for a divorce! I am divorcing my past, divorcing my pain, divorcing my doubts, divorcing my setbacks & divorcing lack. The Judge awarded me full custody of my destiny, full custody of my calling and full custody of my life. I am divorcing myself from my past in order to release my future.**
So what does that all mean? Well, I'm done looking backward. I can not keep looking back if I'm trying to go forward. I have to focus on the future, where I'm going instead of where I've been. So as of this moment I'm divorcing my past. I will no longer dwell on the fitness I used to have or the shape I used to be in. I instead will focus on the here and now and work towards making that better. No more whining about what was, time to look forward to what will be.
**This was taken from Facebook and altered to fit me :)
**This was taken from Facebook and altered to fit me :)
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