Hiatuses are Vastly Overrated

I awoke very early yesterday, about 2:30 a.m., and as my consciousness wandered through the melatonin- and serotonin-draped hallways of my mind, it began to compose this comeback post. Of course, I've forgotten most of what occurred to me to say.

I believe it had something to do with some insights gained in the past half-year, about this living-process thing. It's as if the gods took one of those mallets studded with half-diamond shapes used to pulverize cheap meat to make it tolerable to chew, and beat the living doodie out of me. As if.

First off, I don't believe in "the gods"... I am a Believer in the Judeo-Christian God of the Universe. That's just how I roll. Not to make light of it, but it is intrinsic. Secondly, I was sorely in need of something or someone beating the living doodie out of me, I have come to believe. Consequently, with all which has happened in my life the past six months--- though not special and unique--- I feel I've come out a better person. At least a different one.

One thing hasn't changed... my need to upchuck my personal journey through whatever in print. I still have this basic need to connect, and I know most of us do. I like to do it in writing. Well, talking too, but mostly writing, because I cannot go back and edit the words which sometimes escape from my mouth.

INSIGHTS/LESSONS:

1. I hate having people stand over me/tell me what to do/make comments about my life
2. I frequently need people to stand over me/tell me what to do/make comments about my life...dammit
3. I will never recover from the death of my parents
4. Loss of parents is not a valid reason for over-indulging and under-living
5. I can lose a lot of money and get by on far less than I thought, and be pretty happy.
6. I cannot and will not work for crooked, unethical people or companies, even if it means a regular paycheck.
7. No matter what anyone does, says, or consumes around me, I am the one completely responsible for how I react to that.
8. Waiting for others to change is never a good reason to put changes needed in my life on hold.
9. TODAY is always the best time to start changing anything in my life that isn't working for my good, because Magic Monday never comes.
10. In the immortal words of Stevie Nicks, children get older, and I'm getting older, too.
    

NEW PLAN: More structure from a more flexible program......oh, that's still for getting healthy and fit.

Here's what I've done the last couple weeks: finished cleaning out a storeroom of accumulated STUFF from my old houses in New Mexico, and my parents' house in El Paso, which had been in commercial storage for A DECADE; in order to clean out my own flesh storeroom of accumulated STUFF, begun to eat increasingly more raw fruit and vegetables every day, phased out beef and junkfood which I let creep increasingly back in, began drinking more and more water all day, cut down on the frequency of martinis, signed up for Tampa Bay Adventure Boot Camp, am participating until next Sunday in Frederic Patenaude's FallCleanse 2009, and come upon the way I would like to feed my body and build muscle for a while, maybe longer if I do-- one that uses whole, clean foods, and can be tailored for when you're feeling a little vegany, all the way to feeling a little meaty. That would be Jon Benson's EODD, and he has a great toning/musclebuilding program too.

So I continue my eternal quest for returning my body to some vague semblance of what I have come to think of as its former glory. And to shed toxins, poundage, and old rotten pain and resentments in the process. Time to let go of all of that. I am seriously tired of carrying all the extras around.

I didn't seem to make much forward progress in the past six months, but I have begun to ask myself questions about the basic way I think, like, forward? into what? And let the answers to those kinds of questions inform my subsequent actions. So, in the eyes of the world, my hiatus from activity may have seemed "non-productive", but I am feeling a major shift in my thinking and even, yes, "worldview"... that seems to be carrying me in a totally new direction. Perhaps for reflection leading to life-altering changes, hiatuses aren't overrated at all.

A Healthy Carol: The Ghosts of Successful Weightloss

Among the many things I find I love about blogging, there is one I don't...the level of personal shame one endures when facing the Blog/Blob for the first time after weeks of neglect.

Well actually I've been blogging at SparkPeople more regularly, and it serves to relieve my blogjones'in. I see these people who manage two, three, six blogs and I wonder...how do they get paid for doing that? They must, because then there is no time for that annoying little hindrance they call w - o - r - k.

Enough intro...I am back hitting the health front on all six (or is it eight?) cylinders. Anyway, inspiration has been coming to me in threes … either that or I’m approaching a manic phase. Whatever. So last week I spent a lot of time studying, reflecting upon the theme of three, and I came up with an acronym that seemed to embody the spirit of my continued frontal assault.

It involves getting reinvigorated employing intense preparation—which I have neglected—and practicing visualization--- I had FORGOTTEN how powerful this can be! --- and staying committed through dedication and communication: commitication! (an homage to Bush--- miss you Dubya! I don’t kerr what they said about you being a moron… don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?)

PVC - Preparation - Visualization - Commitication

PVC is an acronym for PolyVinylChloride. As a building material, PVC is cheap, durable, biologically and chemically resistant and easy to assemble. It’s also easy to remember. This is why I chose it as my mantra du mois (NOT thinking about toxic dioxin by-products in making it or carcinogens allegedly leaching out into the ground). I want my journey to be cheap, easy to follow, last a long time, be impervious to chemicals and certain foods, and be a little bit dangerous. Yeah. That sounds good.

There are not many people I can imagine being more prepared than Adrian Monk. He is my OCD Hero-- I can only aspire to his level of preparedness and organization. I did find a young woman who is in awesome shape and has done great things with her nutrition and physical health. She ranks a close second behind Monk in my book:

I’ll share some thoughts that have been gelling about preparation and how important it is, and how I have been falling a little short, partially due to finances, but partially due to me using “finances” as a welcome excuse to screw around. Pathtofatloss.com is a blog aimed at people who’re looking for sound ideas and proven strategies to lose fat. I came upon it and have added it to my list of blogs to follow about a month ago…written by Anna who decided to start blogging about everything she experienced in the process of fat loss in terms of nutrition, strength training, and mindset. She adheres to one of my favorite philosophies, which I’ve tweaked a bit to shorten:

“If you fail to prepare, PREPARE TO FAIL.”

Following Anna’s prep procedures, you won’t have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen the rest of the week. All she does is grab the pre-cut required ingredients out of the fridge, throw them in a pan and has a meal in less than 20 minutes. She says she prepares enough for her AND hubby to eat 5-6 meals a day plus enough to take leftovers to work for lunch or a snack. She didn’t start out doing all these meal preparations right away. She started with “small, baby steps which eventually became a habit. I can come up with many excuses not to prepare my meals but those excuses won’t do me any good. They would just prevent me from reaching my goals and living a healthier lifestyle.”

I had forgotten how powerful creative visualization could be until I read an article from Coach Nancy Howard. Suddenly I remembered how I had been introduced to CV...it was nearly two decades ago. I've always been in marketing and sales, and always been reading self-help books and going to seminars. I don't remember if I first picked it up from Think and Grow Rich, or The Magic of Thinking Big... but in one of those (which are old but both excellent) I ran across the concept. That was back in the day that I would scoff and snort to myself about any book that told me to go look in a mirror and tell myself I "loved me" to get over self-esteem issues...or close my eyes and imagine myself practicing my golf swing, perfectly, over and over and I would be able to actually hit the ball better...snort, harrumph!

Thank goodness my self-sufficient, all-knowing shell finally cracked enough to allow me to put some of these concepts into practice... it CHANGED MY LIFE. Literally. The first time I really did the CV thing all out, I copied my goals as affirmations on 3x5 cards, kept them with me and took them out 2-3 times a day and read over them, allowing myself to feel the excitement of actually experiencing what it would feel like IF IT WERE actually true. I also put post-it notes all around. AND I did the 10-15 minutes each nite before going to bed, picturing myself doing and being what I had written down. It did not happen overnight. I practiced this for about 2-3 months, then slowly dropped a lot of the intensity, but it had already changed me. I was thinking differently, feeling differently, acting differently. And within four years, most of what I'd written down? CAME true. I mean, from NIGHT TO DAY type of things.

As Coach Nancy says, "Visualization, [or] mental imagery, is so powerful, it can truly catapult us to our goals faster than almost any other technique. And don’t think this is just for athletes. Everyone can benefit from this technique. When you visualize yourself eating healthy, you will eat healthy. Visualize yourself making it through your workout; you will make it through your workout. Visualize yourself being successful and you will be successful. The irony is the brain essentially produces the same chemicals during visualization that it does doing the actual task at hand. Psychologists have shown that when we incorporate all five senses-hearing, taste, smell, touch, and seeing, into our visualization practice, our chance of success sky-rockets."

Finally, what Three-Spirit Visitation would be complete without an appearance from Janet Jackson, before her wardrobe ever started malfunctioning? I've always like little Janet, her music and choreography, her adorable little films...the persona/image she has branded of herself embodies health and vigor and determination. To me, she is the Heroine of COMMITICATION NATIONSunday was liftoff...C-DAY...the first day of an all-raw challenge that I've actually committed to in a long time. It has taken me several weeks to get psyched up this time, but I have finally reached a level of internal excititude that I hope to maintain, to sustain me through the next 3 (and maybe more, who knows?) weeks. Even though several other people are getting involved, once the ball got rolling I realized, it's for ME. If no one else suits up, shows up, and tells the truth on the forum each day, it is still about ME. I am really the only one I have to worry about getting her fluffy tuchas in gear each day...it's a lot of fun when more than one are actually experiencing what you are, all at the same time-- kind of like Boot Camp, the thrills, the rewards, the sukky parts-- but if that doesn't happen, I STILL have to make MYSELF HAPPEN.

I'm Afraid I HAVE TO QUIT

"Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul"

~Simone Weil

... who, after a lifetime of battling illness and frailty, died in August 1943 from cardiac failure at the age of 34. The coroner's report said that "the deceased did kill and slay herself by refusing to eat whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed." Despite all her concerted efforts,

apparently the light never did flood her soul.

I decided to focus on the Healthy Reflections from Sparkpeople quote for the day because it was just so darn spot-on in what I've been thinking about since yesterday.

What we can learn about patience from a diamond
"Trying (but failing) to see your goals realized can be frustrating. Margaret Thatcher once said "You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it," and she was absolutely right. You've got to believe that you will succeed! Never admit defeat as long as time and effort remain. Our greatest asset is patience; our greatest weakness is throwing in the towel. Banish discouragement and feelings of impossibility by working hard, doing more, and not giving in! A diamond was only made beautiful after millions of years as a lump of coal."

I was just thinking about how painful is the loss I feel after having released 62 pounds, to re-acquire 24 of them back. I realized I have been beating myself up, over and over again, every day, all day... when I notice the bulge at top of my legs that was gone, the little bloop of flesh around my knees that had disappeared, the extra fullness around my waist in the back which had miraculously smoothed out... and I keep mentally berating myself. I must QUIT IT.

I have to QUIT with the self-flagellation, I have to QUIT getting my hair shirt out every day and putting it on. If the rest of the world-who-actually-knows-me who has seen me regain some weight thinks negatively about me? What business is it of mine? The only way I can change it, is to CHANGE it. And beating myself up day after day about not being able to enjoy RIGHT NOW the benefits of shedding the particular amount of pounds I had, is not going to put me any closer to get that 24-pound battle won this time. And now is all I have right now.

I remember something somebody once said: "If you've got one foot in tomorrow and the other in yesterday, you can't help but piss all over today." So graphic, but so true. So I am HEREBY PUBLICLY FORGIVING MYSELF for being human, being like (unfortunately) 80% of all people who lose weight, and letting it creep back on. If any of those self-destructive thoughts come again, I have selected a suitable phrase I won't print here I'll use to get rid of them. And I will simply move forward, SET FREE from the tyranny of my own self-defeating guilt, and FINISH BANISHING THE 24 into oblivion!

The Dangers of Rejecting Turkey

When I first glanced at this subject heading in my email inbox last week, I briefly thought, oh, heeeeere we go. Some idiot has decided eating turkey is absolutely necessary to the survival of the human race. Life as we know it, according to some scientist in god-knows-where Azerbaijan, will end, turning upon the mandatory consumption of a giant NorthAmerican fowl.

Imagine the jarring feeling I got when I read the first paragraph of the article: "Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of Davos in a huff last week during a discussion about Gaza in which he berated Israel..." and I subsequently discovered that the COUNTRY of Turkey is apparently hugely strategic, a NATO ally and a longstanding friend to the West. "What Turks do and think affects the balance of power in the world, positioned as they are between the Middle East and Europe, between Russia and the Arab-Islamic bloc, while serving as Iraq's conduit for trade and supplies in the south and Georgia's in the north." Oh. THAT Turkey.

Which leads me to my reflections for today, dear reader. How insulated I have become in my own mental construct, how completely attuned to ALL THINGS COMESTIBLE... that I automatically think of the food-related meanings with regards to all communications. I am truly food-centered. This has got to stop.

So I asked myself, what would the Prime Minister of Turkey do in this instance? Why not randomly take a look at my personal issues from Turkey's perspective? To start with, let's examine Erdogan's personal motives, the first and most important: "As the global economy tanks and brings Turkey with it, he needs to distract attention from the bottom line." So taking a lesson from Erdogan, I must begin to DISTRACT myself from FOOD. I came up with these strategies for this week:

1. Spend as much time engaged in my work, my projects, and exercise as possible.
2. Avoid ALL commercials and advertisements involving food.
3. Think about NO recipes...engage in monoeating for the next several weeks.
4. Plan for weeks, but execute the DAYS...mayhaps the HOURS.
   

That's it. Oh, I won't go into how two-faced Erdogan is behaving in the world arena. In all of this, it doesn't matter whether the Turks are right or wrong, wise or ill-advised in their sense of grievance. Or how Erdogan is certainly playing a dangerous game. What may bear ill omen: the West is not in the game at all. As Melik Kaylan says in his Forbes article this week, "While Russia has become Turkey's main trading partner, Iran a partner in the struggle to contain Kurdish separatism, Syria ditto, and Arab oil money a major investor, the West [keeps standing Turkey up at the dance,] while Turkey waits, publicly humiliated."

He was, after all, a mere pawn in my arbitrary choice of a blog topic.

Validation and A Pity-Pot That Will Leave a Mark

Apparently up until about a week ago, I had been utilizing a pitypot built for my convenience, since I had been spending so much time on it. First of all I was stressed because I had an extra marketing project to get done, working in an arena in which I hadn't been for several years. Then I was pissed when they removed it from me after a week. Then I got stressed about jumping back into, complete immersion as it were, my own business I've had for the past seven years, and taking complete responsibility for making it work. I haven't lost all hope, but I am very concerned about finances. As they say, have said, and most likely forever will say, Things right now are tough all over. My industry is particularly cut-throat-- that is disheartening in itself-- and at this point there are so many of us who were accustomed to making a good living and have had to learn to w-w-w-w-o-o-o-o-o-r-r-r-rkkk harder for it, that when you finally get a good prospect, it is tantamount to throwing a bone into a pack of starving Dobermans.

So I'd been struggling within myself all week to stay off that PityPot, when I got an uplifting comment from a drive-by encourager the other day on my Sparkpage, that reminded me even when life gets crazy, how GOOD it feels to at least be in control of one thing, and for me, right now, that's being on track with food and exercise. It refocused me on the things I can absolutely control...how much time I spend working in my business productively (as opposed to just working at it) and how much time I spend planning and executing a healthy lifestyle. Then I got another email right after that about a video on YouTube called Validation. If I could figure out how to embed it, you could see it right here, but you'll just have to click the name and link over to it! Validation is a short narrative "fable" about the magic of free parking., starring TJ Thyne (from Bones) & Vicki Davis, by Writer/Director/Composer Kurt Kuenne, and well worth the 16+ minutes you'll spend to view it. Seeing it, really lifted my spirits, and I resolved to spend more time and energy on trying to make life easier for other people.

I set about acquiring and implementing some new marketing tools. I'm designing a new campaign, and began getting back in touch with previous clients. I got back to eating and exercise-walking consciously through planning. I joined a couple of walking groups, the Clearwater Recreational Walkers and Friends, Fitness & Fun, which have interesting outings, and imported the planned walks and hikes into my calendar. I began calling and checking on people I had not heard from in a while. I renewed a habit I had begun years ago of always acknowledging aloud that special something you can see in every human being you meet-- thanks Kurt Kuenne, for reminding me! I, in essence, began validating my own life again by simply infusing it with positive, productive energy and remembering the importance of others in it. By crikies, after only a week of trying out that "new" plan, I feel about a thousand percent better!

Oh, and I did away with the more enticing pity-pot, and installed one with a STUDDED SEAT.

FREEDOM's Just Another Word for Something Left to Lose

I'm hot on FREEDOM today... the fear of it, the responsibility of it, the sheer joy of it! I collected a few quotes that really spoke to me.

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom. ~Marilyn Ferguson

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom. ~Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear,

our presence automatically liberates others. ~Marianne Williamson

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better. ~Albert Camus

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have been thinking a lot about the missing link in my weightloss program, and what I really desire. First, I still have pounds left to lose, weight of which I want and need to get FREE. I decided I really desire to feel FREE, inside and out...as free as I did when I was a child! I figure I can have that feeling, but now I must pay a steeper price for it. I must pay the price of honoring all my obligations to others and myself, and in doing that I find freedom. In that freedom, I find the impetus to do the most positive thing for myself and release these toxins that are imprisoning my body. But as I pursue this freedom, I want to do it lightheartedly, without a sense of being driven. More with a sense of joyfilled determination. Pressing on, firmly yet with ease. There is a fine line between being enthusiastically engaged, and being an unbalanced zealot.

One of my obligations to myself is to put myself in the best position possible for success in regaining a healthy body. That includes putting into practice on a daily basis ALL the things I have learned and doing it NOW. If I know clutter leads to confusion... leads to despair = depression = emoeating, I have to tackle clutter immediately. Same thing with things left undone. Same thing with tempting foodstuffs.

Today I'm making a list of the things I know lead ME to failure in my healthquest/weight-release, and use them as a personal challenge for the next 21 days, along with my Liquid Feast cleansing, which I LOVE to do when I am prepared for it! So here goes, prepping for THE LAST DAY ONE:

FREEDOM LIST

• Clutter
• Things Left Undone
• Free Myself From Gnoshing In Front of the TV
• Trigger Foods Out-of-Sight
• Healthy Raw Food Eyelevel in Fridge
• LEARN how to use Juicer!
• IF IT MAKES ME FEEL GUILTY, GET FREE OF IT!

OKAY... I ended up with seven on my list, which is a perfect number, so the Monk-side of me is satisfied and at peace with that. I may not end up with seven every day, but hey, I'm FREE to have as few or as many things on my Freedom List as I want. I put these on a yellow legal pad-- doncha just LOVE a yellow legal pad?-- so I can have my personal focus list separate from my business calendar. Should further eliminate some of the complication which will invariably throw me into limbo about taking specific action. Limbo is the single most dangerous place I can be in this journey, and not a destination that is healthy for me, ever.

I'm excited to see how the rest of the day and tomorrow pans out!

Oh heck, let's just go ahead and say it: I'm excited to see how the rest of my life pans out!