Thursday, May 24, 2012

Bookwork

When I started this whole process I decided that I needed to do an inventory to find out some important information.  Without information, there is no transformation. 

Eat. Sleep. Move 

I had to take stock and measure not just what I was eating, but how much I was moving and sleeping.  People underestimate how important the last two items affect your health.  Not just moving to exercise, but how much do you move in an average day.  I had no idea how sedentary I had become.  My job now entails sitting at a desk 8 hours a day, only moving to get a cup of coffee or to find files.  Never mind exercising, I wasn't moving at all during the day and very little at night.  So I took stock.  I measured not just my steps with a pedometer, but how many miles I logged on the exercise machines or miles I walked, I measured how much yard work I did and walking around the big box stores or at the mall.  It was interesting that when I became more conscious of how little I was moving how easy it was to increase. 

So in addition to keeping a food diary I keep a exercise chart and a sleep chart.  I've mentioned before how important it is for a person to get sufficient sleep.  I have noticed that since I started to keep track of the amount of sleep I'm getting, I can accurately guess how much weight I'm losing.  It's true, the better you sleep, the more weight you lose.  The more you sleep, the better you move.  The more you sleep, the better your attitude toward this whole process.  So keeping track is now a must for me. 

Does this all seem a little obsessive?  It does to me sometimes.  I think there is a fine line between being focused and being compulsive and I do at times cross that line.  But again, if I don't inventory my mental state I wouldn't notice that I was being overly focused, that inventory helps keep me balanced. 

You have to walk that fine line.  You have to be aware without being obsessed.  I often use to wonder how people with total body dis-morphia get that way, I wonder no longer.  We get busy in this world and we focus on other things.  How much money we make, how much crap we can buy, how much the neighbors buy.  We lose track of ourselves.  Inventorying is a way for us to find ourselves again.

At this point I'm hoping that this constant surveillance will soon move into a type of observation that is less focused and more natural.  Keeping track of my body, mind and attitude without having to be obsessive about it.  That's when I know that the lifestyle change is truly taking affect.  Like Zen it will be doing nothing and achieving much.

An update, I'm online to reach my goal of a ten pound weight loss in the month of May.  I have 3 more pounds to go.




Friday, May 18, 2012

Eating Plan

Sorry I haven't posted in a few weeks, life sometimes interrupts. 

Many of you have asked about what eating plan I'm following and I do recall that I said I would share that during this process.  I'm a bit hesitant though because it's not my plan, I received it from someone else and I don't want to step on their toes economically or otherwise in order to share.  So I'm looking for a way to link to their site and they may ask for a small fee for the advice.  I will keep you up to date as to that process. 

Trust.  Big Issue with me.  I trust no one.  Never have.  While that is a defensive mechanism I've built over time in response to others trustworthiness, or lack thereof, its' not a trait I'm particularly fond of.  The question for me is how to negate my natural instincts and go with my head, not my gut. 

In the past month I've had this situation come up several times.  I'll make a decision with my head and afterword I get intense buyers remorse.  I start to question myself and it's because while my head says this is ok, you can trust this situation, you can trust these individuals, my guts are tied up in knots.  In fact my instincts bombard me with icky feelings and it quite literally drives me crazy. 

I had not realized how much of my decision making is not in my head.  A year ago I would have told you just the opposite in fact.  I've started to notice that I intuitively pick up on feelings, vibes and energy when I decide things.  I've hired many a person not based on their qualifications, but on the vibe I get from them.  I just never realized that I was doing it.  Now that I do, I just need to learn to trust it.  Because quite frankly I have really good instincts.  I also need to learn that sometimes my head isn't right, those icky feelings are trying to tell me something that I need to know. 

Before this epiphany I think I used to try and avoid those icky feelings.  I would ignore them, I would try to eat them away, drink them away, or some other avoidance mechanism.  Quite frankly they are not fun feelings.  But a wise person once told me you have to feel, good or bad, you have to allow yourself those emotions, or you are dead inside.  I've spent my whole life trying to avoid the nasty icky instincts that I have, when I really should have opened myself up to them, they have served me well, if subconsciously. 

I hope everybody has a great weekend.  And remember, let people in your life fuck up every once in while.  That's what makes them human and that's what makes them loveable.  I for one don't want to be in a relationship with a robot.  I apologize to anybody out there who I've judged lacking because they were going thru their shit.  I'll try my best not to do that anymore. 

Good weekend all. 

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Just call me Daffy Duck

I tend to slam through life like the proverbial bull in a china shop.  I can't remember ever being reflective, just blast through to the next thing at mach 1 with my hair on fire.  This tendency, while not exactly expansive has served it's purpose in my life.  I have no regrets.  I don't think back and say if only I had done it this way, or if I had made this decision, or not done this.  I've never had a guilty conscience, nor do I want to go back and have do overs.  Recently I have figured out that this modus operandi is a survival technique. I needed it to navigate my way through the mine fields of my existence, however perhaps I have grown past the point in my life when I needed to operate this way and needed to search out a more meaningful existence. 

I don't know why it is but I've been very introspective of late.  I've been thinking about how I got to where I am, I guess in preparation to figure out where I'm going from here.  For the first time in my life I am thinking not just in the present, but in the future; and more specifically how my present behavior and the choices I make are going to affect my future.

My journey isn't just about weight loss folks.  You might say I've had a series of small epiphanies.  Nothing grandiose, just little every day mini enlightenment.   Maybe it's because I'm sitting still for periods of time now days, instead of doing a complete daffy duck impression.  Or maybe it's because somebody who I admired as shown me the example of what a blessing a fully examined life can be.  That in order to grow as an individual I need to figure out how to make better decisions.  Maybe it's my current obsession with reading the obituaries in the paper and wondering what mine might say and how I am defined.  Not how you define me, but how do I define myself.  If I'm not Mary Lou's daughter or Jacob's mother, or so and so's boss, who the hell am I?  Once I started on this question it opened up a whole bunch of new cans of worms. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I have any regrets about the decisions I've made to this point, I'm just saying that in reviewing the decisions I've made I might make a different choice in the future. I did some dumb ass things in my youth, and frankly I continue to do dumb ass things, but if I'm to become a fully evolved Sarah, I need to make some changes and become less reactionary and more thoughtful.  Wish me luck. 


I have lost an additional 5 pounds in the last week.  I don't know why or how, I haven't altered anything I'm doing.  I'll take it even if I don't know how I did it.

Stay tuned, next week I'm going to address my working out and rediscovering the athlete I buried under layers of fat.

  

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