A Year of Healthy Living - Tip #2

If you choose not to take care of yourself now, you might have to rely on someone else to take care of you later.

A Year of Healthy Living, Tip #1

How many times have you decided to wait until tomorrow, Monday, after vacation, New Years etc?  Each choice we make daily moves us closer to or further away from our goal.  Which was do you want to be headed today?

There have been many times in my adult life, where I thought I had reached that point, but obviously must not have.  This week sitting in the hospital at 4 am watching the pain physically and emotionally my son was going through I think I saw the wall.  Torn between heartbreaking sadness over his losses and my incredible gratitude he was alive, it suddenly seemed what was most important was life and appreciating every day.

The emergency room was filled with people in pain and the pain was equal on the faces of the family members sitting there with them.  I realized I don’t want my actions or non-actions to be the cause of pain in the faces of those people who love me.  I have an obligation of  love to make choices which show not only my love for my own life and honors the love of others who love me.  Living today as if I did hit the wall yesterday morning at 1:30 am when I got the dreaded middle of the night phone call from the police department we all dread.

Living in gratitude today for everyone in my life.

Day 4 of my Eat to Live, 6 Week Plan for Aggressive Weight Loss and drinking a great Shakeology right now almond milk, bananas and fresh strawberries.

Several years ago I read the book, Younger Next Year for Women and loved it.  The basic point I took from the book was “you have to age, you don’t have to rot”.  The book talked about how important exercise is in keeping our bodies healthy.  One of the authors has a new book called Thinner This Year and I started reading it last night and could not put it down until I went to bed.  It is the how to book for Younger Next Year.  The message coming in loud and clear from this one is:

“Stop eating crap and move your body.”

One of the authors is 78 (Leonard’s age by the way) and frequently rides bikes a 100 miles daily.  Chris Crowley and Jen Sacheck are the authors of the book.  What made a big impression on me is how each high fat meal we eat interacts with out body.  This book is not sugar coated (excuse the pun) and tells it like it is.   As I was reading, was thinking how relieved I was all of my food choices yesterday were healthy, whole foods and not a French Fry anywhere in site.

I am only to Page 89 and highly recommend this book.  Let my share just a couple of sentences from Chapter 2, The Mountain of Slop and Despair which is pretty time appropriate:

“I’m afraid because the enemy is so many and so strong.  Because the government and our leaders have been bought, plain and simple, by lobbyists and agribusiness billions and the power of those who make their living selling us slop.”

Teaching Healthy Living,

Judi

Excited to begin Day 2 of my 6 Week Plan for Aggressive Weight Loss on the Dr Fuhrman’s Eat to Live program.

Yesterday was a really good day went to bed very proud of myself.  Every day is a new day and we need to continually find what motivates us.   Motivation changes and focusing on what is most important to us each day is a great way to follow your plan and fulfill you intentions.  We are self motivating creatures.  I can get excited and pumped listening to other people and enjoy hearing about success of others.  However, it is my job to maintain my motivation from within.

Think about your goals; weight loss, financial, professional etc and decide what about those goals is most important to you.  What tends to happen is we lose track of the big picture and get distracted by short term gratification.

When I got out of bed this morning and my back hurt, I decided that was my motivation for today.  As I release weight, my back will feel better.  Remembering waking up and getting dressed to go running felt great.  Lately I have let myself fall into a bit of a pity party over not being able to go jogging.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I intend to use that feeling as a motivation to get back to being able to do that.

Today my motivation in making healthy choices all day is back health.  I will only consume foods which are healing and follow the plan I am committed to.

What is your motivation today?

When I saw Dr. Roger Gould, the author of Shrink Yourself, speak there was 1 point which really struck home with me.  He talked about accepting things the way they are and if there is something we can’t change, learn to deal with the reality of the situation in ways other than eating; giving up regret over things we can not change.  Being a person who typically likes to think they are totally in control of their life, I find myself lamenting things in the past which I have no control over, feeling badly I can’t change them and using that as an excuse.  In other words, on going pity parties.

As much as we might wish to make it so, we can’t change history.  We do have the power to choose the future and we decide the future with each choice we make.  The first step he said was to just accept the situation.  We don’t have to like it, but we do have to accept it, period.  We can’t go back and do it differently.  We need to move past it and make choices consistent with our goals.

This has been coming up a lot for me in the past couple of months.  Next month is the 2 year anniversary of my very 1st juice only fast.  I juiced for 60 days, lost 30.5 pounds and began running up to an hour a day.  I felt great about myself and loved saying I was running 3 times a week.  I did not even care I was the slowest person on the beach.  As the saying goes, no matter how slowly I was going I was lapping the person sitting on the couch.  It felt marvelous to walk into the house, hot and sweaty, tired and feeling like a million dollars.

For the past several months I have been having a lot of difficulty with back and even walking for an hour can hurt for days.   I find myself grieving the loss of that feeling.  So today, as I begin the again the Dr. Fuhrman, Eat to Live Program, which I personally believe is the most healthy, sensible plan out there for losing weight and keeping it off, I am telling myself to:

Pull up my big girl panties and get over it!!!

I am beginning the Eat to Live, 6 Week Plan for Aggressive Weight Loss with a heart full of possibilities and excitement about the choices I have the opportunity to make every day.  And today I am going to be starting with an amazing fresh pineapple from my new Whole Foods market for breakfast and savoring every bite.

Is there something you need to “get over” today?

The person making the appointment asked which area of my life I was working on currently and as he read the list I picked 1, 3, and 5 and he chuckled.  Think I was only expected to pick one.  The 3 I chose were growing my business, improving my health and personal development.  The next question was what was getting in my way of achieving the success I was looking for and I answered the fact I had to sleep to night which took up so much time.  Even as I said that, I knew that was a common excuse I give myself.  The most successful people and the least successful people in the world all have the same 24 hours a day.  So I modified my answer to Time Management and …..

Attitude.  My own answer shocked me.  I work hard on my attitude, spend time daily listening to and reading wonderful, motivational. personal development teachings.  What I realized is that as I have come to recognize I have lived more years than I have left to live, wondering if it was really worth it, if there really was enough time to do and accomplish my goals.  That is an insidious little thought which has been sneaking in for the past couple of years.

Discovering Leonard Cohen and becoming completely mesmerized has had a wonderful impact on my life.  Turning 79 this coming September and doing almost 100 3 hour+ concerts this year with passion and enthusiasm has really inspired and impacted me.  My great grandmother was 95 when she died and my grandmother 93.  My very cool mom will be 87 and going strong.  I am grateful today for good genes and must learn to look at all the time and opportunities still before me.

To improve on your attitude today, you need to work on it.  Here are some tips from The Strangest Secret:

1.  Set yourself a definite goal.

2.  Quit running yourself down.

3.  Stop thinking of all the reasons you can’t be successful and instead think of the reason why you can be successful.

4.  Trace your attitudes back through your childhood and discover where you got the attitude you could not be successful, if that’s the way you have been thinking.

5.  Change the image you have of yourself, by writing out a description of the person you would like to be.

6.  Act the part of the successful person you have decided to become.

Reminding myself I am at choice today and committing to make decisions consistent to my goals.

How will you you see yourself today?

Teaching Healthy Living,

Judi

The Dr Fuhrman 6 Week Eat to Live Plan for Aggressive Weight Loss is really what I have chosen for my life plan.  Since we already don’t eat animal products, it is pretty close to how we normally ate.  What has changed is giving up processed oils and using whole foods. For example I had cashews and avocados instead of olive oil.  It is a process of getting used to making different choices.

Was listening to an audio yesterday and this quote really caused me to reflect on my challenges with sustainable weight loss.

“Fat people eat for pleasure, fit people eat for health.” ~ Steve Siebold

Working to listen to my body and eat only when hungry, so just because the clock says it is time.  Last night ate for dinner a great big bowl of steamed broccoli and was not that hungry when I got up this morning.  At 10 am I decided it was time to make my Shakeology (Almond milk, frozen strawberries and banana) and sipping on it now.

Dr Fuhrman talks a lot about Toxic Hunger.  Here is an excerpt from an article by him:

“Instead of true hunger, people get detoxification or withdrawal symptoms that they mistakenly consider hunger. They feel shaky, head-achy, weak, fatigue, get abdominal cramps or spasms and other symptoms which they consider manifestations of hunger symptoms because they are relieved by eating. I call this “toxic hunger.” Toxic hunger is the symptoms a person experiences that are due to toxic wastes being mobilized for elimination. It occurs after a meal is digested and the digestive track is empty, and it could make us feel very uncomfortable.”

Challenge yourself today to determine if you are truly physically hungry, experiencing toxic hunger or just really want to be eating.  Focus on eating when you are really hungry and stopping when you are satisfied, not stuffed.

With my commitment to follow the program for 6 weeks, planned dinner yesterday morning and made crock pot split pea soup.  When we eating dinner last night was deliciously reminded how good meals you make at home are and doesn’t need to be difficult, expensive or time consuming.  Probably took less than 20 minutes to make the soup Kevin and I both had for dinner last night, he took for lunch today and I am having for breakfast this morning over a head of red leaf lettuce.  The ingredients had to cost under $5 and was better than any soup I have had in a restaurant.  Our secret ingredient is loads of Rosemary from our garden.

Not really being the domestic type, I have used that as an excuse for poor eating choices for many years.  Excusing myself by saying things like:

~ I don’t like to cook

~ It takes too much time

~ Not good at planning

~ Blah, blah, blah

All of which is really I am not valuing my health enough to take care of myself.  I don’t like to get gas in my car either and I have run out of gas more times than I embarrassed to say.  When you run out of gas, the time and effort it takes to get back on the road again is way more time than it would have just taken to stop and get gas.  Notice any parallels there?

We need the right fuel to run our bodies most efficiently to prolong our life, just like gas for our cars.  Kevin tells me if you consistently run your gas to the very bottom each time (running on fumes) it sucks all these gunky little things from the bottom of the gas tank into our engines.

You will never find the time to take care of your health.  You must MAKE the time to take care of yourself.  I am committing to take the time before I have no more time.  What are you doing for your health today?

Teaching Healthy Living,

Judi

Antipasto ~ Marinated Olives

Primo ~  Truffled Asparagus Risotto

Secondo ~ Pasta Puttanesca

Il Dolce ~ Tiramisu

All were 100% vegan and delicious.  They had a little tiny serving of each and I did taste the 1 bite of everything and loved it.   Most of the recipes are Eat to Live Adaptable by leaving out the oil and will try some at home.   Of course, we had our normal front row seats and took lots of pictures.

However, 4 bites did not quite fill me up so when we got home, Kevin made me a big fruit bowl of fresh oranges ( 2 types), apples and guava.  I was tempted to hop on the scale this morning, but restrained myself.  I committed to weigh next Tuesday and did not want to risk whatever number appeared to quash my excitement.

Not sure what is it, but feeling very calm and comfortable about my commitment to the Eat to Live way of eating and not a bit deprived as I have sometimes in the past.   Excited to get our spring garden going and eat fresh from the yard.  Our Swiss Chard from last year has blossomed again and looks great.  I just got the cook book by Nava Atlas, Wild About Greens ~ 125 Delectable Vegan Recipes for Kale, Collards, Arugula, Bok Choy and other  Leafy Veggies Everyone Loves.  Excerpt from the book:

“The Health Benefits of Leafy Greens

When it comes to nutrition, leafy greens often tops the list of the most nutritious veggies and for good reason.  The greens offer numerous benefits, including these:

~ Leafy greens are good sources of vitamins, notably folic acid (a B Vitamin), vitamin A and vitamin C. The are a particularly notable source of vitamin K, which is essential to good bone health…”