Choose One Thing

Stuck.

A blank page staring at you.

On silver-lining days, that blank page is a clean slate, which sounds glorious and refreshing. On stuck days, it is abysmal.

"You are standing on the edge of a chasm," says the old Adventure game narrator.

The chasm says, "I want to be done, but I can't even begin. The tasks are too many. I feel fat. I am tired. I cannot get any rest. I'll never finish. I am doomed."

Some will tell you that those thoughts and feelings are irrational. Cheer up, don't worry! 

I like to be more practical. Those are your feelings. That might be your reasonable assessment. Maybe you ARE doomed. Maybe you will be fat forever! Maybe you will never finish the book. Either way, you aren't happy about it right now, so you might as well just Choose One Thing. 

This is my ultimate method for getting unstuck. For today it doesn't matter how far you will go, and what goal you will reach. Just get unstuck, so your wheels will work again, so your energy can flow, so you can make a decision again after a bit. Just Choose One Thing.

And there is really only one rule--it has to be doable with the energy you have Right Now. So on the fattiest day of your existence, don't choose to run 10 miles if you can't even run. And don't choose to give up night eating when you haven't managed to say no for weeks. And don't choose to finish that chapter today. Choose something you can do, something that helps but that you feel you can do. Can you make a list about the chapter every day? 20 minutes of writing? Take a stroll for 20 minutes? No? How about 5?

Choose One Thing.  And be at peace, for the Spirit of God is upon you!

The Kitchen is Closed

But the Bar is Open!

I am an adult and can have food anytime I want. I am not hungry. I do not need or want dessert this evening. I will have some hot tea after I take a shower and I can enjoy my tea while knitting and watching a an episode or two of my current Netflix show, Murdoch Mysteries.

There are about 28 weeks before my birthday. Can I imagine being under 200 lbs for my birthday? This is what I have to decide each day. How fit and active do I want to be as I head into the future? In the meantime, however, I must live for today. Be happy and kind today. Listen to the call of God in my life today. Blessings upon all who struggle to feel worthy of love because of their body.

FJ 2016-6-30 Thursday

WI 240.5
(No weigh in for a few days after this. Just live my life, one healthy day at a time!)

Activities

Out fishing this morning.

1 hour walk with dog and boys after dinner.

Breakfast
Cheerios and Milk, 5 pts

Lunch
Bowl of Chicken and dumplings, Strawberry and fruit juice Popsicle

Water to Drink

Day Snacks

5 Saltines

Dinner
1 large tomato, 1 serving penne pasta, 5 cheesesticks, crushed tomato marinara

Water to drink

Night Snacks
I will make Hot Tea after my shower.

FJ 2016-6-29 Wednesday

WI 244

Breakfast
Cheerios and Milk, 5 pts

Lunch
2 slices bread, deli meat, pickles and tomato

Dinner
2 waffles, butter, 1 slice bacon

Snacks
White cheddar cheezits before dinner

Fitness
15 minute dog walk
Fishing at Riverside park

Food Journal

I want to track my eating habits, but all of the apps have you input foods, and search, and choose the serving size and count calories, and offset all of that with fitness. But the fact is, my body, and the bodies of many overweight people, completely ignores the simple math of calories in, calories out. Metabolism is tricky, and my mood, the moon, and solar flares seem to have control over the calorie counts than I do. I want to change that.

The most successful tracking that I ever did was back when I first tried Weight Watchers, and we had these little paper trackers. You write down your meals. Either then or later you go back and figure out points, and it was easy.

Here is the modified points system that I will use if I am tracking points:

1 point for every 50 calories, + 1 point per 12 g of fat (I don't do the fiber subtraction)
I balance the calories and the fat and round up if it's fair. No gaming the system.

I am starting off with 31 points and will lose a point every tens threshold until I reach 21 points.

There are 35 extra points to use per week.

BUT keeping points is not the most important part, and I can guess or not bother for now as long as I get in the habit of keeping the food journal - daily meals and any notes.

And here are the other guidelines I will use:

+ Five Servings of Fruits or Vegetables
+ Three Cups Milk
+ Two servings of protein
+ Two teaspoons of oil
+ Six cups of water
+ NO WEIGHING EVERY DAY!!

For Fitness, I will focus on daily activity of 30 minutes.

My first goal is establish the habit of daily journaling for health and wellness and better goal and mood management and daily meal tracking so that I can be honest with myself about what and when I am eating.

A Cuppa a Day

Tea.
Black Teas, Herbal Teas. Heck, even coffee.
A cuppa a Day keeps...
me from gnawing my own arm off.

In the great battle against nighttime gluttony, hot tea is proving to be one of the finest weapons. So I thought I should make a list of possible go-to activities for when the going gets tough.

Tea

Shower

Prayer

Journaling

Write a Story
Knitting 

Crochet
Meditation

Painting

Coloring

Drawing

Prayer

Latin Study

Karate

Writing

Play Instrument

Sing

Minecraft

Bed

Walking

Zumba

Read the news

Call a friend

Play with kids

Get together with friends

Cooking

Happy Naked Time

Cleaning

Pet Care

Write Letters

Craft

Time for PJs

I need a name.
It's not a diet.
Dr. Phil, Beck, Weight Watchers, American Diabetic Association, Food Pyramid.gov, My Fitness Pal, Spark People...It's a long list of dieting advice that I have tried, sometimes achieving intermittent success, and set aside.

All of these methods have one thing in common for me: I cannot trick myself into pretending that it is natural, good, desirable, or helpful to count and plan calories for any longer than a couple of weeks as a baseline. This causes me to think, THINK, constantly THINK THINK THINK about food all day, every minute and moment of the day.

Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise!!
(from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, animated version)

It turns me into the Grinch, hating food, avoiding it, disliking myself, resenting the process. Deep down I feel that food is a beautiful and inspiring gift of God, meant to be (respectfully) loved and enjoyed and shared, and I just cannot bring myself to treat it as the enemy for very long. I do freely admit that these are my own hang-ups, not necessarily caused by the advice givers of various diets and programs. And if those programs work, are working, or have worked for you, and you are able to be happy -- truly content and satisfied -- then awesome! But for me, these food focused programs do not stick.  In the past I was so focused on a need for steady progress that I was at the point where losing a pound was like being done. Oh I made progress! That's great! I have succeeded! And....I'm done.

Indeed the reason why I am following this higgledy-piggledy health plan approach is because I have found that, for me, the other things out there simply do not work.

 Do you know what works for me? Deciding to change my outlook and then focusing on one or two things at a time, shifting in an evolutionary spiral, until I have slowly transformed my habits, my mental, attitude, and my life focus. When I work on the joy, on what I think and how I feel, on how I want to think and feel, on what I can do and what I want to be able to do, the weight pretty much melts away.

I have had two times in my life where this happened. But wait, you might say, what happened. If it worked so well, why are you in the pickle you are in now?

Well, I discovered these two times in my life and named them as lifestyle reform and weight loss periods through careful reflection. At the time, they were just periods in my life where I was extremely unhappy, and I worked through it using some tried and true techniques of re-focusing, activities, meditation, and prayer.

I have finally come to a place in my heart that I am ready. I am ready to change. I am not on a diet, I am changing. I am not sure that it will be a "plan" that other people could follow. And, I am just at the beginning of my journey, with many miles left to go, and no clear must-meet goal to signal to others when it's over.

IT WILL NEVER BE OVER.

So perhaps I will name it the "Peace and Joys Forever" plan. PJs Forever! LOVE IT! Let's get our Jammies on -- Jam to the music while you get things done.

So let's Make our Peace and Share our Joys by being the best we can be, following the will of God in our lives.

Peace and Joys, y'all.

I Don't Know If I Can Do It

I don't. I don't know what I can do. I cannot begin a diet with a proclamation of where I will finish.

While working on my PhD, at some point in my research I was weary and despaired of ever finishing. I had to decide, do I stop here, or FINISH? There could be no middle ground.

But my problem now is not a task that I can do and be done with. I am trying to shift my mindset. Treating my weight like a goal to simply accomplish is not working for me.

But neither is giving up.

Being extremely obese is not working for me.

The goals of the diet books are not motivating enough, so I am finding out what will. I like many of the ideas of the Beck Diet Solution, but daily tracking and menu planning does, not fit into my lifestyle or skill set for any longer than a few weeks. It might be the best way, but I need to find another.

So for now I am going to focus on becoming a Karateka, earning my black belt in Karate. I need my body to be lighter for this, but I also need further mind-body-spirit development.

I combine this with my desire to better fulfill the will of God in my life.

I need to keep working on cleaning the house and my life. 

I will dig out my weightloss and depression meditation CDs from Belleruth Naperstek. 

So I do not know what my weight will be when I am satisfied, but I will not give up on my goal to be healthy, fit, and strong. I will not say I am fat anymore. I will say I am strong and active.

Challenge one: conquer nighttime gluttony.

I am strong and active. I am doing this!

Just this for today.

I'm tired, I'm worn, but my sink is shiny. And I am tired and going to bed. Tuesday always makes me feel a little overwhelmed, with co-op in the mornings, Latin lesson in the afternoon, and straight into and Karate in the evening.

O God, help me to rest....

Year of Mercy 1

The beginnings of our Crèche and Jesse Tree (doors are made from tree branches), our Advent Wreath.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the first day in a new church year. Then on December 8, we will begin the Year of Mercy, a Jubilee year, a year for forgiving debts and righting wrongs. My task is my self as a homemaker and the cleanliness and order of my house. I will be using Flylady to help me reform (form anew!). It did not get this way in a day, and will likely take the whole year to get things going. Tomorrow I will start the baby steps. Today, I cleaned up in my closet, putting away clean clothes. I will wash laundry tomorrow. May my house become a place of blessing for others.