Friday Five

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty

being only skin-deep. That's deep enough.

What do you want - an adorable pancreas? ~ Jean Kerr

I'm starting what I hope will be an ongoing blog project: the Friday Five. It will be a list of my top five in random categories: some serious, but mostly silly. I have to admit to "borrowing" the idea from an old blog I ran across while looking for a photo of the gentleman above.

So, the theme of my inaugural Friday Five is:

The Five Most Handsome Male Celebrities!

1. George Clooney. He's got it all, in my book: he's handsome, funny, has the most soulful eyes, seems like a throwback to the charming movie stars of old -- and did I mention that he's handsome?? He's at the top of my list.

2. Johnny Depp. From serious roles to Jack Sparrow, I think he keeps getting better and better. And cuter and cuter!

3. Matthew McConaughey. How can anyone resist those blue eyes and those dimples, not to mention that soft southern drawl?

4. Tom Selleck. Ok, I know I'm dating myself with this one. I mean, Magnum P.I. isn't exactly on the list of current tv programs. But he stole my heart way back then, and keeps doing it today. He just gets better with age.

5. Russell Crowe. He's tall, dark and handsome - and has that cute little roll of curly hair across his forehead. I love the he-man roles he plays, but when he does comedy, my heart just melts.

So there's my first Friday Five list, just for the fun of it. I wish I could figure out how to upload more than one photo to each day's post. I found some really handsome shots of the other four men listed above. But one sigh-inducing picture of George will have to do!

Now - who would you add to the list? :-)

Until next time...

Attitude of Gratitude

We often take for granted the very things

that most deserve our gratitude. ~Cynthia Ozick

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, it was a real challenge this past week to make note of three things I was grateful for every day. Not because I’m not grateful, but because it’s hard to remember to do it! But it was a good lesson on staying conscious of all the positives things around me.

Here are a few things I was grateful for last week:

* How good a hot shower feels.
* That I have a patient quilting teacher who believes nothing is a mistake, only a learning experience.
* That my husband made it safely home from his business trip to France.
* How fabulous fresh blackberries taste.
* For the United States Attorneys who present cases to us every Friday, for defending what is right.
* The love of my husband.
* For the high-school-aged bagger at the grocery store who told me that he tutors other students in math (there is hope for the next generation!)
* My friends in AAUW, and in the Master Gardener program.
* For a cat who adores me (our dog adores my husband.)
* A warm bed on a chilly night.

These are just a few of positive things I noted (sorry, some are just too private to share!) Even now, typing them out here makes me feel incredibly lucky to be living the life I live. I am blessed!

How about you? Do you think it might help your outlook on life if you started to focus on what’s right in your life instead of what’s wrong? It’s easy to come up with a long list of everything that makes us unhappy, including our own behavior: I know I’m really good at making a mental note of the mistakes I make. But how about the things we do well?

Why not start now? If you leave a comment, make note of at least one thing you’re grateful for today. Let’s develop an attitude of gratitude in Blogland!

Until next time…

Heathier Me

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams

to someone else. ~ Erma Bombeck

It's been a pretty good week, overall. I journalled every day, with the exception of the court-day melt down (see previous post.) As suggested at the bottom of that entry, my journal for Friday says, "It's a Vegetable!" Then I moved on... back on track the next day, as if it didn't happen.

I'll be accountable when I hand in my journal and weigh tonight at my meeting.

I didn't meet my activity goals for the week, so that's something I'll need to focus on more in this coming week.

My goal of writing down three things for which I'm grateful each day was surprisingly challenging. What a good lesson that is! It really makes me stop and think about what went right that day, instead of the things that went wrong. I'm also learning to write things down as they come to me, rather than waiting until the end of the day (menopause memory, you see.)

But you know the biggest surprise this week? I did not meet my goal to do something intentionally self-nurturing. Wow! Frankly, I'd forgotten I'd even set this as a goal, which tells me I REALLY need to focus on this area! Isn't it amazing that we get so busy doing and caring for others that we forget to do something nice for ourselves?

So, onward. Here's to the progress made this week, and an even healthier week to come!

Until next time...

If You Fail to Plan...

How am I going to live today in order to create

the tomorrow I'm committed to? ~ Anthony Robbins

Boy, did I blow it yesterday.

I had jury duty in Los Angeles, and I was running late (one too many hits of the snooze button!) I debated for a nano-second about making something healthy to take with me, but decided against it. Maybe today would be a short day, I reasoned, and I could come home early to fix myself a good lunch.

That didn't happen. It was a very long day in court.

It was also a day when several of us brought goodies to snack on. There were bagels and cream cheese from two fellow jurors, granola bars from another, chocolate Easter eggs from yet another. Luckily, I had brought apples and string cheese for the gang.

An apple and a string cheese just aren't enough to get through the day.

So you can guess what happened. I started nibbling, thinking, "just one won't hurt." I even kept track, mentally calculating how many Points I was consuming so I could write it all down. Five chocolate eggs, one granola bar, and apple and a string cheese. Not too bad. But not enough.

When they finally released us late in the afternoon, I was that dangerous combination of tired and very hungry. When I got on the freeway and found wall-to-wall traffic, I added "anxious" to my list of feelings. All during the 1 1/2 hour drive home, I kept reminding myself that I had stuff at home to make a lovely salad: chicken that I had precooked, spinach, an apple to add in along with a little feta cheese. So yummy!

But the more I sat in traffic, the more I thought how much easier fast food would be, and where I could turn off soonest, and what could I eat in the car.

Long story short, my tired, anxious hunger won out and I stopped at Taco Bell.

I share this with you because I know you've all been there. We "give in" and then we beat ourselves up and cry, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I be strong, like every body else? I'll never be able to do this!" Well, guess what? We're not weak, nor do we lack self-discipline. It's not about being strong: it's about planning.

One of the biggest lessons I learned when I lost weight the first time was to never let myself get too hungry. If I do, then all reasoning goes out the window. Our bodies need fuel every couple of hours, and I didn't take time to plan for that fact yesterday.

The good news is that it's over. It's behind me. It doesn't matter that I blew my Points: that was yesterday. Believe me, guilt over what we ate in the past ends up costing so many more calories in the long run, if we let it.

So, as a very wise former Weight Watcher colleague of mine used to say,

Count it as a vegetable, and move on!

Until next time...

Musings...

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear,
but around in awareness. ~ James Thurber

Diana at Scale Junkie tagged me today, to write a Six Word Memoir. Holy smokes - only six words?? I could go on and on and on.

But perhaps that's the point. Boiling down the essence of our lives into six words really makes you focus on what's important, what you're all about. So I sat down with a cup of coffee, and came up with my Six Word Memoir:

Life keeps bringing me amazing lessons!

Want to play along? Here are the rules, from Diana:

· Write your own six word memoir
· Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want
· Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
· Tag at least five more blogs with links; and
· Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

I'm officially tagging Grumpy Chair, Lora, Steph, Rebecca , and Janet (check out her gorgeous quilts!)

Even if you don't play, or you don't blog, think about it. What would be your Six Word Memoir?

Until next time...

No More Wishing

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Well, well, well… I believe that I’m finally ready to tackle this weight loss journey once again. It’s time. I’ve spent the last year depressed and cynical over gaining back the weight I worked so hard to lose. I no longer want to carry that burden, both figuratively and literally.

I’ve had flashes of this feeling occasionally in the past year, but something feels different this time. For one thing, I feel ready to take an holistic approach, which I know is a critical element to being successful at losing weight. It takes changing what and how much I eat, becoming more active, being accountable to someone else by weighing weekly, and finding ways to nurture myself that don’t involve food. The process can’t work for me unless all four of those elements happen, and I feel that I’m finally ready to tackle all of them.

So, here is my plan:

My first goal is to lose 5% of what I weigh today by July 1st. That means losing 10.6 pounds in 13 weeks (Ok, go ahead and do the math if you have a burning desire to know how much I weigh. I’m not telling!) This is very doable and who knows: I may even lose more. But for now, it’s enough. I’ll set another goal on July 1st.

In order to reach this goal, I need to have a strategy, which is:

1. Write down the food I eat everyday, and its Points value.

2. Exercise. I’ll start by walking three days per week and going to the gym two days per week. I’ll gradually increase this over the three-month period to walking six days per week and going to the gym three times per week. I have the time: I just haven’t made exercise a priority – until now.

3. Accountability. I’ll weigh every Tuesday night at my weight support meeting.

4. I’ll do something good for myself that feels self-nurturing at least once per week. Geeze, that feels weird to have to write it down like that! But I know that if I don’t commit myself to doing it, I’ll let other people and other tasks take priority over me. I need to make sure that I feed my spirit and my body with something besides food.

5. Finally, at the bottom of my food journal, I’m going to take time every night to write down three things for which I’m grateful. I believe that having an 'attitude of gratitude' helps keep the focus positive as we go along this weight loss journey. It’s not about diet and deprivation and struggle. It’s about choosing to get healthy. There’s a huge difference in those two ways of thinking.

It’s all about attitude and as we all know, Attitude Changes Everything!


Until next time…

I Did It!

We should be taught not to wait for
inspiration to start a thing.
Action always generates inspiration.
Inspiration seldom generates action. ~ Frank Tibolt

Guess what I did yesterday?

I WENT TO THE GYM!

I know some of you are probably going, "Ho hum - I go to the gym all the time." That's what I used to say, too. But I haven't been in almost a year. I was afraid the roof would collapse when I walked through the doors. :-)

Things have changed since I was there last, of course. But I was happy to note that all my favorite machine were still there. I did a five-minute warm-up on the treadmill, then worked all the major muscles in my body. Nothing strenuous, and I used light weights. It was hard to start over, but it felt great!

I am on my way once again to becoming a calorie burning machine.

Can I put on my former Weight Watcher Leader's hat for a minute?

If any of you out there are looking for a way to ramp up your weight loss or to change the shape of your body, please check into strength training. Unlike popular notions, you will not end up looking like Mr. Schwarzenegger. We women just don't have enough testosterone in our bodies for that to happen. The women you see who are body builders, with large, chiseled muscles, have to work out a LOT to make that happen, a lot more than you and I ever will.

Muscle burns calories: it's as simple as that. Increasing your muscle mass is the one true way to boost your metabolism. If I could find a way to bottle that benefit, I'd be a rich woman!

And let's quell another misunderstanding, one that stops a lot of us from strength training: muscle does not weigh more than fat.

I know -- you read that everywhere you turn. But think about it: a pound is a pound is a pound. A pound of lead and a pound of feathers both weigh a pound, right? The difference is in the volume, the space they take up. A pound of lead would fit in the palm of your hand. A pound of feathers would fill a room.

It's the same with muscle and fat. A pound of muscle is very tight and compact, but it still weighs a pound. A pound of fat is very loose and takes up lots of space on our body, but it still weighs a pound. That's why two women standing side by side, both the same height and both weighing 200 pounds, can look very different. One can even wear smaller clothes. The 200-pound woman who looks smaller has more muscle mass, so she's more compact, even though she weighs the same as the woman standing next to her.

Yes, there can be some small weight gain when you first begin to build muscle. It has to do with the water held by the muscle cells, or some such thing (this is where my knowledge ends - I'm not a physiologist!) Don't let that deter you from strength training, however. It will go away and you will become a much more efficient calorie burning machine.

* * * * *

Ok, I'm going to take off my Leader's hat now, and speak as the humble, overweight woman that I am to tell you that it feels SO good to have gone to the gym! I have lots of information in my head about how to lose weight. It feels good to have taken action. As my friend Eve says, we need to get out of our heads and stop thinking so much, and just do it!

Until next time...