Thursday

World spinning fast.

People are starting to say I look really good. I guess I looked pretty bad but live in a polite world where no one points it out.

So. It's fun to be the recipient of so much encouragement!

I didn't lose any weight this week and I'm glad of it. I've got my appetite back. It hasn't been quite so hot so exercising is easier. I'm best at the easy simple stuff. The kung fu situp I did try on playground over at the school. It was at best a hilarious moment. I have substituted Vsitups. Pull ups are also sort of miniscule midget versions. I had to laugh at myself the other day. Lots of grunting trying to do an actual pull up on this playground high bar thing. Oh well. Might as well laugh. Actually laughing is very similar to crying but not so draining.

The diet is really the thing. I can see that. But the exercising - for me- makes me more aware of my body. Of how I am feeling, of my posture, of muscles I didn't know were there, of my potential strength. The diet has released me from being addicted to food. I've kind of swung a little too far on the pendulum and stopped even liking food very much, but today I made sure to buy some things at the store that I really like - avacado - a great peach - fugi apple - and when I ate I concentrated on taste. My stomach is feeling better overall. Food should be enjoyable and not simply neutral energy. I'll find the balance.

Exercising has been tough here in the valley because I am so exhausted and hot. But this week hasn't been so hot and I've felt better and had more energy to put into pushing my muscles to fatigue. One day at a time.

I didn't get out of shape in 6 weeks. Things take time. enjoy the process says this old lady.

Deb

cycles of life

little cycles blood rushing through body every few seconds

digestion food in, taken apart, some kept, some let go

big cycles

aging process

There is a wisdom in the body if we let it be in charge. If we can actually listen to it.

I'm seeing that more and more - and even with the exhaustion and valley time of PCP I think my body is telling me something.

I've lost quite a bit of weight fairly quickly and my body needs time to adjust. I think I need really really good rest. And steady nutrition. My body works so hard to survive, to keep a set point, and it feels stressed that something has changed drastically and so the internal patterns that I've set up over the last 15 years especially (after having a child and career and all the living stuff) have to be reformated. I need to be gentle with my body. Explain things to her. Stretch, be happy, comfort her (but not with stuffy, fatty, dead food).

I want food that is alive. Food that is still vibrating with life force.

Saturday and Sunday

Blur. Very busy weekend. Old Home Day in my little Vermont church. 100 year old lady greeting at the door. Big potluck.

People are noticing how much fitter I am looking. That's nice.

I'm actually still feeling pretty worn out. I am doing better and I'm back to jumping and exercising - not as well as the rest of you - but as well as I can. Still, I feel a kind of deep fatigue inside. Also, I seem to have lost my appetite a bit. I kind of have to force myself to eat. Not really like me! It seems the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the other direction.

But...one day at a time.

Thursday Day 52

Getting back on the horse. Feeling much better. Putting more into my exercises. Jumping more again.

Whew.

I hope that was the big valley...???

Took a friend through beautiful Vermont yesterday - up over the mountain (Smuggler's notch), took a dip in a very cold mountain stream, ate healthy all day - even with a dinner out (

italian restaurant - had chicken with marsala sauce which was maybe a little over the border but not much - lots of wonderful veggies. No pasta or bread. And no glass of WINE....)

I'm enjoying weighing less. There seems to be quite an adjustment going on in my body, however, energy levels are confused, I'm getting the message to rest but I get so much sleep at night that I know I don't really need it. It has been a pretty quick weight loss (I've been on the two pounds a month less for the last year and a half) and this time it is more like 2 pounds a week. I've never lost weight this quickly.

What I've lost mostly is an addiction to food - eating for comfort. Eating to cover up painful life experience. I no longer have the impulse to cover up what is happening in me. Food is looking quite a bit more like fuel. That is new. Freedom. A wonderful thing, really, to be released from a kind of compulsion to simply eat for the sake of eating and not connect it with my body's need for energy.

Day 51 oh my God my age...

I am feeling my age today. Which means I feel wise, determined, and tired.

I am heading out to jump after reading Naoko's inspirational blog about Patrick pushing her to keep going and not give into defeatism. We can push our bodies much farther than we think we can.

Okay.

I will report back later.

SundayMondayAahhhhh

Okay. It's a blur. Feeling a bit better but still so TIRED.... Augh. I think I was dehydrated. My blood pressure was very low. Sunday was so busy, I literally dragged myself home after driving all over creation. Oh the slow country life. Ha. Everyone in Vermont drives huge distances to work. Idiotic.

Stop whining.

Saw the relatives of my ex-husband this past weekend who all said I look great. What are you doing? Oh my God you look so much younger! I was too tired to explain everything so I just said, "Oh this and that. A little less of this and a little more of that."

I did not exercise yesterday. I'm telling you the truth, I could hardly walk up the stairs. So this morning I went out and for my indulgence I had an everything bagel, toasted and dripping with butter. It was great. I was very careful to measure everything today and I drank tons of water. I am feeling better but I still am weak. I'm going to exercise tonight, however. Psyching myself up for the picnic table.

Haven't checked the blogs for the day yet. Hope that you are all feeling more energetic...

Saturday

The lady in the center of this picture is Edith Mikkelsen. She's 100 years old. She has always been active. Thin. I went to visit her, she lives in her own home, her son recently came to live with her, and she was doing her taxes. She said, "Don't tell anyone, I don't want to do anybody else's!" Notice she doesn't wear glasses.

Now to me.

Yesterday I felt sick - not in the regular way like the flu or a cold. But deeply tired to the point that I simply couldn't do regular things. So I rested today. Ate carefully. Drank a lot of water. Am feeling much better! Still a little tired but not that overwhelming feeling that I could hardly walk up the one flight of stairs to my apartment.

Facing the valley. Took pictures today but couldn't figure out how to link it with flickr. They don't look much different although I've continued to lose weight this week. Man I have so much weight to lose. There must be muscles under there some where.... Where?

Hard not to get discouraged. I might only be half way through, however, so I'd better get healthy.

Friday Fatigue

Weight loss fatigue. Whew. I was so tired today.

And jumping. Yes. I don't like it. Trying to be positive.

One day at a time.

Thursday Heat Wave

I have always found four leaf clovers.

It is 90 degrees and almost 8pm. I went over to the park bench. Stretching, sweating, swearing, etc... you know the drill.

Why, I asked myself, have I always found four leaf clovers?

Well, I said, panting, because I look for them.

Duh, I answered wittily.

Seriously. I don't look for 3 leaf clovers I only look for ones with 4 leaves. It saves so much time.

So then I started doing my training and my looking and I realized that (big drum roll) looking at 3 leaf clovers and despairing at how many of them exist is like focusing on how many jumps I can't do or how far I am from perfection in general. There is much imperfection in me. Like 3 leaf clovers, my imperfection populates my life. Why focus on it? I'm not interested in finding that!

I want the perfect moments.

I want 4 leaf clovers.

I want the 3 sets of lunges I CAN do. I want the 38 seconds of the plank that I DO manage.

Tonight I found eleven 4 leaf clovers.

Oh - awesome food today - chicken with corn (stripped off the cob) grilled onions and garlic. And a bit of rice. And some avocado.

Wednesday Day 44 Halfway

White bleeding hearts in the shade of my friend's porch. True Vermont image.

Halfway.

For someone of my overweightness and general lack of fitness I think this program is going to take quite a bit longer to reach a peak condition place. That's okay. It took a long time to get this way so it makes sense that it will take time to return to my natural body. I never lost the weight I gained in pregnancy (Tara!) and that was 16 years ago. Add working like a dog, under lots of pressure, divorce, single momness and lack of funds... eating becomes a way to get through the day. To distract myself from unhappiness. As a pastor it is an acceptable addiction...I ate my way through troubles. Eating had little to do with nutrition.

But I am headed in the right direction and much faster than I thought I ever could.

I don't see this "diet" changing at the end of 3 months. I really like it. I feel good. I feel more even, although some days, like today, I am quite tired. But I haven't eaten enough protein in the past few days - to be honest. This past week has been very hot and I've mostly eaten tuna fish sandwiches and eggs. Also there has been lots of stress (I love my mother but whew!!).

The diet is becoming simply the way I eat. I am absolutely not tempted by sugar or salt. Or, and this is the most surprising, my beloved cheese. The one thing I miss is a glass of wine in the evening. That is the one thing that is still very tempting.

Well...maybe I'll become a wino.

Exercising... I know I am not as good at it as most people who do this program. I'm simply very unathletic. Always have been. Was always the kid chosen last for every team. (In grade school they would GIVE me to the other side...free...like an extra...) But I am doing, again, much better than I thought I could.

Monday and Tuesday

Rode my bike for the first time in a while. That was supposed to be my activity but somehow I forgot. It was fun. Fun! I didn't ride too far, just down to the grocery store and back.

Overall I feel stronger. Although the past two days I've also felt very very tired. I think it is the heat, my mother's long visit, and I need a day off. My jobs, being a minister and freelance writing, are both kind of ongoing - there aren't set hours and so I can tend to do them too much. I worry too much. I'm going to worry less. Today I could have driven an hour to "be there" for something that I am not actually needed for. But I am not going to go. Listening to my body.

I'll go for a bike ride instead.

I'm hungry.

Sunday

Sunday was busy. My plan of splitting my jumping didn't happen. I find all these new exercises very challenging. Feel like I'm spending more energy figuring out how to do them than actually doing them well! I like the simple squats, rowing, crunch stuff. There are a few I simply can't do - like the pistol squat. So I try a few but then resort to the regular squat.

All right. Enough whining.

Overall I'm feeling very good. I am continuing to lose weight. Down 10 pounds as of today. And I feel so much stronger. And not worried about hurting my back or something when I pick things up. My posture is better. I'm feeling my body more - and I notice when I'm slumping or sitting in a strange position for too long. I'm much more aware of my physical self. Not so sedentary and intellectual.

Can't believe I am doing this

Okay. I am going to post four pictures - two from when we started and two from today. I am middle aged, and not exactly a pin up model. But I can really see the progress. Of course it helps that in the first pictures I look completely miserable. Which I was at the thought of sending such photos out to strangers. But now you are not strangers and you will understand the work that went into the progress... which, although it is not some kind of fabulous babe - it is more my self - my true body. So here.

and the side view...

Good Heavens

I guess Patrick was talking about me not posting for so many days. Augh!! How did that happen. My mother has been here all week. I was busy, had a very big funeral yesterday. And it has been extremely hot.

Enough whining.

Things are 0kay... I am making progress, slow but sure. I also got my photo thing to work finally - it connects to all the extremely honest pictures on Flickr.

Food is fine. Exercise is fine. My progress is slow but sure.

Yesterday I divided my jumping and managed to do 400 in the morning and 400 at night. So... I know it is still a ways from what I am aiming for, but it is more than I've felt comfortable doing in one run. Knees still feeling good. Lots of stretching.

I am more in my body now. Aware of my posture. More aware of what my body is actually feeling. The diet is great - it seems to have cut out all the external influences that were whipping me into energy or taking me down. Although I have kept coffee, everything else seems like it is giving me slow, steady energy.

I like it very much. It feels "clean."

Yesterday I was in a bakery, looking in the glass case at plates of cookies and brownies and the like. I wasn't even slightly tempted. Odd. I left with a small thing of yogurt and a hard boiled egg. (Vermont bakeries are eclectic.)

My journey is bringing me back from a pretty lost place where my body didn't matter. Two years ago I kind of felt like I was standing at the line of life and death. Not exactly a question of suicide, but rather of what the rest of my life would be. I chose life. Since that time it has been a slow but steady climb back into a body and a life that is happy and healthy. My progress has been slower sometimes than I want. There is so much to balance in my day - single mom, two part time jobs, worries about money and the future, loneliness, and all that junky junk. But I have kept at it.

Today, after I did my exercises I walked down to the thrift store (that's a used clothing store) and there was a Brooks Brothers black silk evening gown, with the original tag still on it ($188). It was beautiful. Simple, elegant, and sleeveless. I tried it on and it fit like a glove. It was $20 and I can't imagine where I am going to wear it. But it is in my closet.

Cheers.

Ritual

I'm guessing we all have a ritual with the exercising rigamarole.

This is mine.

When evening begins to fall and the air turns cool, I go across the street to the high school. There is a place next to the building, a dirt path, in the middle of a bunch of trees, quiet and private, with a picnic table.

I set my list of exercises, water bottle, beloved jump rope, cell phone (in case of heart attack..ha ha...) on the table and then I stretch. Knee stretches...every which way. Hip stretches (they also ache). And then I stop and look for a four leaf clover. An old habit of mine. I often find one.

Today I found one right away.

I jump. I stop every 50 or so jumps and make sure my knees are feeling loose and warm. Sometimes I have to stop for a while and catch my breath. Every 50 I make a mark in the dirt.

When my knees start hurt, I get these little sharp pains, then I take a longer break. I try to jump a bit more but if I get a really strong pain - I stop completely and stretch more.

Then I go through the exercises. I use the picnic table for the incline thing and triceps thing (had to come inside for that double chair thing). When I'm done I lay on the picnic bench and relax.

As I was doing the exercises I kept finding more leaf clovers.

When I lay on the bench I looked at my clovers. My luck. I thought - We make our own luck. We find it if we look for it. We make our own bodies if we try.

So my global comrades...we're making our own luck because we're looking, pushing, pulling, leaping and reaching for it.

Stretched ... not but stretched thin...

Whew. What a week. I over scheduled, over stressed and over extended myself. It was instructive.

So at the end of this incredibly busy week I ended up at a table, set up outside of my friend's house who lives in Brookfield Vermont (she runs a restaurant there actually) by the side of a beautiful lake. Sun going down. And I gave in. I did not do the indulgent thing last week because I spent that week in NYC and drank some wine so I figured that counted. But tonight, the husband of my friend, who is an actual sommelier wine genius person, offers me a glass of low alcohol wine from Spain. Oh my God, I think. Just say no. But I was too fricking tired. I grabbed it and with it a cookie. The cookie was made by Mrs. Jenny Brown for coffee hour at church this morning and I had been so busy this weekend that I hadn't made anything for the July 4th party. So I bought a plate of gingersnap cookies from Mrs. Brown. There I sat with a big beautiful sugary cookie and a glass of cold wine on a hot July 4th night.

Okay. Time for the indulgence.

It was okay. Kind of made me feel sleepy. And my hands and feet got kind of puffy and swollen.

It wasn't really worth it. The evening with friends and lovely lake and great food (grilled chicken, poached salmon, lots of home grown salad...) would have been enough. The food wasn't on my diet but it wasn't "bad." Be honest. The evening with friends would have been enough. Laughing.

So I'm home and heading out to do my jumping at 8:30 PM, sigh. Don't want to go. I don't mind the other exercises but the jumping feels like penance, like punishment. It's just not my thing. None the less. I do as many as I can. When my knees start twinging, around 450, I slow down and then stop if there is any sharper pain. So far that has worked. I can't keep up with the rest of you but my knees are getting stronger and they aren't hurt.

Wish me luck.

Deb

30 Days

End of the Month.

I worked hard yesterday - physically - did the workout - did almost 500 jumps (which is good for me although my right knee started hurting a bit) - went for a bike ride and a walk. Today I am slammed with life. My mother coming, house a mess (16 year old boy similar to 2 year old girl Tara...), copyedit job due, Sunday sermon, wedding on Saturday, meeting with dying man and family and preparing for his funeral, paying bills, sigh... life. No exercise yet and it's almost 5PM and I've still got to drive to Montpelier and get my mom. Sorry to bore you all with the grim details of my life.

Still. Body feeling good. Made incredible Mole Chicken with Zuchini and Peas. Should last for several days.

Triceps thingy on chairs - not so good. Thought arms might snap off.

Roll on...roll on... trying to seize the day.