Tag: Perspective

Thinking Differently – Pushing the Elephant Out of the Room

About a year ago, I posted about the elephant in the room and my need to lose weight. Since then, I took on a year-long weight loss challenge and I am coming up on the halfway point on Monday. I’ve never posted what my goal was, but I am going to lose 75 lbs total when it ends. Yep, you heard me right – 75 lbs – the difference in being classified as Obese to sitting comfortably in the Normal range for my BMI at my height. I have had the advantage of my height helping disguise just how overweight I had become, but you can only go so long before you have to acknowledge the weight gain is showing on your face and is affecting your overall health. That brings me to today.
I have already lost 35 lbs, have gone down 3 sizes in my clothes working on a 4th, I approach food completely differently than I used to and now hang out on the treadmill 5 days a week. It hasn’t been easy, but I am going to continue my approach and routine because it is working for me. Why am I sharing this? Because I know I’m not the only person among my friends struggling with their weight (our loving elephant in the room) and I want others to know there are ways of getting things under control. I recognized if I tried to change how I ate and started a workout routine at the same time and I wasn’t successful in doing one of those activities on a given day, I was more likely to quit both as it would be overwhelming and trying to change too much at once. I chose to start with food as I knew it was a way for me to take control of what I could and by learning to make informed choices, it would have an immediate impact.
My Approach to Food
To me, how we eat food every day should not be about being on diet. Diets create fear of certain foods and when you eat something out of a diet’s parameters, it can create an immediate sense of failure. I wanted to set myself up for the best chance of success possible. It was also important to me to be able to go anywhere at any time and be able to eat with friends and family and not feel like I needed to pull items out of my purse to keep me on a diet. It wasn’t a practical approach (or cost-effective) and I didn’t want to be dependent on purchasing certain products to be successful.
Food was something guaranteed I could control day in and day out regardless of how busy I was. I am the only person who feeds me so I am the only one I could hold accountable for what I ate. I signed up for an online app (MyFitnessPal) and through documenting my food choices each day, I was able to learn the calories in each portion of the type of food I was eating. I purchased a food scale and I took the time to measure my food to get an idea of total ounces of my meat portions and what a cup of food would look like. Some of the descriptions I had been told really didn’t really match up and until I saw it with my own eyes, it didn’t resonate. By the way, a cup of wild rice is much bigger than you might realize! Most importantly, I would ask myself a single question before snacking or making my meal choices – do I want this particular item or is there something that is more filling for fewer calories?  For example, I would ask myself if that single candy bar was worth 220 calories or would I prefer a bag of natural popcorn where I could eat the entire bag for a lot less? I could make a choice to eat something or not. Is there anything I have taken off my list that I no longer eat? No, as it isn’t a diet. On occasion, we still eat pizza or go out for Mexican including the chips and salsa. What I have learned is to make choices based on calorie counts and where I want to be every day. It may sound funny, but I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. I have a plan in place for what I’m going to be eating the days before and the days after, but I will enjoy all the food of Thanksgiving.  It will be important for me to control my portion sizes to keep the total calorie count down, but I intend to eat my favorites including the apple pie.
To give you an idea of the impact of our food choices, by modifying my food changes I was able to lose 25-30 lbs. I think if I was a regular soda drinker, it would have been even higher. For me, the best part is I am not afraid of certain types of food like I believe many of the diets can do and I certainly don’t have to experience the feeling of failure for not following the rigors of a particular diet. Do note, this was not something I had control of quickly; controlling my food intake took about four months before I felt comfortable with my day-to-day eating habits.
The Start of Working Out
Even though I do still need the occasional reminder from my supportive husband about my food choices, I felt ready to commit to regular work outs about two months ago. For us and our choice to living out in the country, it meant I would be starting with the treadmill in our house. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have a love/hate relationship with the treadmill. Building it into my normal morning routine before work, I am now on the treadmill 5 days a week for a minimum of 20 minutes as I continue to increase in intensity and slowly increasing duration. I absolutely dislike having to run on a treadmill and feeling my jiggly parts move with me, but I also enjoy the feeling of the strain of muscles as I know the work is going to help achieve the weight loss I desire. I look forward to the day when things are no longer jiggling! I also know continuing to work out will help me successfully cross the finish line on May 13, 2018, the end point of my weight loss challenge.
While running recently, I noticed something very important – my wedding ring. I think of it now as the ring that keeps my world moving in the right direction as I watch it now spin on my finger when it used to be snug. Every time I run, I now use it as my motivation and focus to keep me going for my entire workout. It is a symbol of my husband, our family and our future and the length we have together is dependent on me being as healthy as possible to be able to enjoy our time on this earth together. When you can start to see the positive outcomes of your efforts, it certainly helps the motivation to keep on going.
So as of today, I am going to say my elephant has been successfully pushed halfway out of the room with the plans in place to keep pushing over the next six months.  For those of you who have seen me in person since I have started this journey, I greatly appreciate your support. For those of you who I will be seeing over the holidays and during the course of the rest of the challenge, know that I look forward to enjoying your company. I hope you will also understand and are not offended if I turn down the appetizers, the sweets, or the drinks. Your friendship, as well as my health, are both important to me.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think it could help.  If some of my commentary resonates with you and you have questions, I will be happy to answer what I can.  I’m not an expert, but I can tell you more details of some of the small changes I have made that have been working for me for you to consider. As we get closer to Thanksgiving and the extended holiday season, I wish everyone a happy and healthy season and I look forward to posting a final status in May of my success!
~Steph

A Reason to Smile

Ever get caught with that random smile on your face that seems to have come out of nowhere?  The one where someone sees you and says “What?” and you realize you were smiling because a great memory of someone had crossed your mind?

A friend of my husband’s and by extension, mine, passed away last year.  It was completely unexpected and he was way too young.  My husband and him were pretty good friends, but it wasn’t like we saw him every day or we all spent a ton of time together. He was one of those people filled with a ton of energy, genuine, true to himself, respectful, and at times, a bit off the wall in his thinking and his actions. Being around him was a bit of a crapshoot as you never knew what he was going to do, but it was always an experience you remembered and often times, you would be laughing about it later.  There are some great stories about the tree people documentary he saw on the Discovery Channel and a particular incident in a Mexican restaurant, but they aren’t as funny if you weren’t there and even less so, if you didn’t know him.

What is interesting though to me is how much we talk about him now. The most random things will trigger a thought about him.  My husband and I will look at each other and just start laughing and commenting on something he did, said or a guess at what he might think.  And we realize we miss him, more than we knew we did, and we smile.  It is the lasting impression of his character that has stuck with us.  It was how he made us feel, how he treated those he kept close in his life, and did I mention he loved his pet chickens?

In my last post I was talking about who we let into and keep around is in our lives and being ok with letting people go if they are toxic to our well being, but I hadn’t mentioned the role we play in our own environment.  And then I thought about our friend, and smiled.

“Show respect to even those who don’t deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.”

~Dave Willis

We all make choices every day. Not only do we choose who keep in our life, but we also need to think about our responsibility in creating the environment around us.  I encourage you to look inside yourself and ask yourself how you are doing.  Are you adding negativity, anger, and resentment to your environment or are you adding love, respect, empathy, and compassion?  It is a choice.  We make it over and over again, numerous times every day with every personal interaction we have.  We have to hold ourselves accountable for what we put out into the universe.

watch-your-thoughts-for-they-become-words-watch-your-habits-for-they-become-your-character-and-watch-your-character-for-it-becomes-your-destiny

This has nothing to do with changing anyone’s beliefs or everyone needing to agree or lettings things go.  It is about how we treat the people we come across in our day to day. Our environment and how people will remember us comes down to fundamental respect and compassion for one another as human beings.  We all have our own life struggles, some beyond our wildest imaginations, but as fellow occupants of this planet we need to each be responsible for our own corner of the world.  When you conclude your time on this planet, how will people remember you?  Will they remember you with a smile?

I know I would prefer people to smile when they think of me, both now and after I pass. I also know that I have to continue to work on my thoughts and actions like everyone else. It comes down to this – we are the making of our own legacy.  Our friend, I think he would be amazed if he had any idea the way he has touched so many people.  I will smile at the memory of him and only hope to someday be someone else’s reason to smile.

Wishing you all the very best day and until next time,

~Steph

PS – For everyone wondering about my elephant, she has slowly started making a turn for the door.

That Funny Thing Called Passion…

I had all sorts of things going through my head this morning as I was trying to decide what I wanted to talk about.  I decided on passion.  So many people seek to find their passion in life that it leaves me wondering if we end up missing it all together in our continuous quest to find it.  Do we have assumptions about what it means and feels to have found it? Has what we are looking for been romanticized by books and movies about people finding their passion that we miss what is right in front of us?  The reason I ask is I am wondering if I could truly tell someone what mine is.  I can’t really say that I could in the traditional sense.  I know the things that I like and what I find interesting, but saying it is my passion, that’s tough.  If you don’t mind indulging me, let’s look into this a little bit together.

Looking at Wikipedia, here is what the site puts forth as its description:

“Passion is a very strong feeling about a person or thing.  Passion is an intense emotion, a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.  Passion may be a friendly or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, discovery or activity or love to a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion, a positive affinity or love, towards a subject.” Wikipedia – Passion

Reading through this more closely, I’m finding that passion is a very broad term that ranges from the simple  – “a friendly interest in” to something a bit more extreme – “a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion.” So how are we supposed to know what it is to mean for each of us and what our passion may be?  Does that mean I can have more than one?

For me, I know I am interested in all sort of things and sticking with the simple definition of “a friendly interest” then could all of these things be my passions?  It sounds odd to think of having a wide variety of passions so when people talk about finding their passion, is it really a reference to the more extreme definition of a “compelling emotion?”

Here are my thoughts after reading through this and thinking about it a little:

I think we have a wide variety of passions in our lives.  I think we have to acknowledge the passion we have for our families, our friends, our work life – maybe not everything about our jobs, but at least certain tasks that keep us there  – and our hobbies.  Our passions can drive how we spend our time when we allow ourselves to focus on what we want.  I also think that with time and age, we start to naturally grow into understanding ourselves better and what we do and don’t want.

When I was 20, frankly, I didn’t have the confidence and courage to live my life for myself to say that I was living in line with my passion.  It was a life lived for my boyfriend, my parents expectations, and my perception of what life was supposed to be.  Now that I’m 40, I still love and trust the people in my life, but they also aren’t going to decide for me what I do and how I do it.  I’m living life for me and that means spending time doing things I’m interested in.  Or by definition, I guess that means what I’m passionate about.

So I think it comes down to keeping it in perspective and understanding you may already have identified some of your passions.  The thing is, your interest might not be fully developed to the be the extreme definition yet – that compelling emotion – we all are looking to feel to call it our passion.  It could be the next step in evolving our interest that could make the difference.  Once we do unlock the passion for a particular area of our life, I think it helps us start the next chapter in our lives.

“We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves.  The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents and interest.”

~ Sheryl Sandberg

Have a great day!

~Steph