Tagged: eat less
Big Boot to the Backside
12 weeks ago I sprained my ankle. I doctored it myself. “What would the doctor tell me to do I didn’t already know?” I thought. Unfortunately, I re-injured it. Like tree sap flowing down the side of a pine tree in winter, I slowly continued to tear apart my ankle by walking on it.
Finally I went to the doctor when I couldn’t bear weight on it. MRI was nasty. To me it looks like I have spaghetti instead of muscles in my ankle. Vertical split tear…partial interstitial tear…tenosynovitis…inflammation into the bone…that, dear one, is one class A, super-stupendous ankle injury.
Now I have been told there is a s-l-i-m chance I can avoid surgery if I am ‘compliant’ and don’t walk on it. I have a boot cast which I’m allowed to remove for the shower only. Now I am stuck in the middle of having a very busy life and not being able to move through it, save for crutches and a wheelchair.
Coincidentally, I have embraced a new way of eating and have lost 10 pounds. I couldn’t wait to ‘heal up’ so I could add exercise to my new commitment to health. Cue flushing noise as all of that goes down the toilet.
Or does it?
This past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving in New York City. We borrowed a wheelchair from church. While my husband braved frozen rain and sleep deprivation to share the parade with the children, I was on the couch in the apartment. Depression settled on my shoulders like a heavy, wet, cold blanket. My Doxie was my companion for bad movies and endless napping.
Even Frank Knows the Big Boot Needs Some Love
I put on a brave face as my husband hefted me through Manhattan. I even managed a smile for the lovely Scottish tourists who chatted me up whilst the kids skated Rockefeller Center.
Big Boot at Rockefeller Center
As they ‘parked’ me in various corners to get coffee, I attempted to shrug off my all too familiar companion-failure. Of course I wouldn’t be able to continue the eat less part of this journey. How could I? Four slices of Ray’s pizza and three diet cokes later, I fell into a carb, fat, sugary slumber as the car made its way home.
Big Boot Needs Caffeine and Yes That’s An Angry Bird Blanket
I have a choice. I can, once again, do what I have always done and give in. I can agree with the destructive self-talk of defeat, blame and pain (physical AND emotional). Or I can take this boot into the backside to push me forward.
The boulders in front of me are HUGE. I have to trust those in my life to care for me when I barely know how to care for myself. I have to stay committed to filling my plate and my heart with good things. I have to choose, minute by minute, not to give up. I have to stand up to the challenges before me and decide to go through, over or around because standing still is no longer an option.
So, in what areas of your life is standing still no longer an option? Share in the comments. We can climb the boulders together!
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough to Keep Me from Me!
Prom Dress Progress
Eat Less. Pray More and Love Abundantly. Grand themes for this blog.
As I peeked at my ever so few offerings, I notice I avoid one in particular-eat less.
It’s just food. Eat less and move more. Don’t need a trainer or expensive gym membership to understand or implement this simple truth.
Yet and still, I sit here, picking caramel popcorn kernels from my teeth and stretching my aching knees.
In my mind, I understand I have a negative body image. In my heart, I am still the gawky, brainy adolescent who was too smart, too loud and definitely too big.
Warren Jeffs called. It’s time to come home. (Caption credited to M.A. Newcomer-brother)
For work I was researching youth videos from a recent TEDx event. I was searching for a clip I could include in an upcoming presentation. I love when young people stand tall and proud, declaring in their unique voice truth for all who would hear. Today, I heard a truth which touched my heart and had me taking the stairs.
Watch, as I did from my desk today:
Until I can fit into a sparkly prom dress I will do two things. 1) I’ll go into that prom boutique and scowl at the lady, perhaps spilling a latte’ on her stick figure sized fashions. 2) I will remember I am beautiful on the inside and someday I will more easily see it on the outside.
Eat Less: Peanut Butter is My Go-To Grub
Of late I have been seeking to downgrade destructive foods and upgrade to creative foods. I look at destructive foods as those that have little or no nutritive value. In their consumable vacuousness destructo-foods actually make my joints feel worse and my emotions more out of control and my tuckus ever expanding. Creative foods are those which have nutritive or healing value.
I have come to one inarguable conclusion. Peanut butter is the world’s most perfect food.
I’ll link to a blog about how awesome peanut butter is to professional athletes and body builders, of which I am neither. Suffice it to say, I like it for reasons other than how awesome it will make my abs rip.
Growing up Mom would make peanut butter and jelly sammiches. I would request them to be served, ‘not put together’ lest the jelly sully the nutty goodness. Most of us who were blessed to grow up with mothers who made peanut butter sammiches have some memory or other associated with this creamy spread of joy.
It isn’t the memories exclusively. It’s the convenience. I often eat standing up or on the run. Peanut butter on whole wheat is a staple breakfast for me. It was my snack tonight.
I’m a crunchy, natural peanut butter kind of girl. I am surrounded by a houseful of men who consume their peanut butter from the creamy jar. Perhaps my choice of formats reveals something about my temperament and those in my family. Yep, I’m the crunchy one.
What’s your ‘go to’ grub? Have any peanut butter stories to share? Speak up, I can’t understand you, with the peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth!
That article I promised you: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/other31.htm
Eat Less
There is one sure fire way to lose weight. Eat less and move more. Simple, huh? Not so much.
As “Eat Less” is one of the three pillars of this online journey, I am making a broader commitment to health and wellness. I already know what I SHOULD do. I could give you a laundry list of what I SHOULDN’T eat. I can also identify a gazillion ways to move more.
However, all of it doesn’t amount to a hill of Pringles if I don’t do put the knowledge into practice. If I don’t confront all the ways I don’t eat less.
One thing I know about human behavior. We only do what works for us. In some ways, even our most self destructive behaviors give us some sort of payoff.
An addict is an addict because the drugs keep them from feeling pain. A codependent is tied to people in unhealthy ways because she is afraid to be independent. And I am an addict with serious codependency issues. For this entry we will go with dysfunction #1=food addict.
My drug of choice? Food. I get my fix everyday. I eat to medicate happiness, sadness and to pass the time. Food isn’t my friend, it’s my own personal brand of heroine. For some it’s a particular food like chocolate or sweets. Nope. I can gorge on steamed edamame as easily as I can on doritos. Often I don’t realize I had a binge until later. I’ll ‘wake up’ hours later, bloated and wondering what I was thinking. The truth? I wasn’t thinking. I was eating.
Then there is the coke. I love Coca Cola. I truly do. It’s like battery acid to your body, but I love it.
So, the question becomes, how will I fulfill this journey to “Eat Less”?
It starts by writing more. By sharing with you ‘the real thing’ (coke pun intended). It starts with acknowledging what I have joked about for far too long.
I am a food addict.
They say one cannot change what one fails to recognize. I recognize it. Over the course of this year long journey to eat less/pray more/love abundantly I will change.
Less. More. Abundantly. 