Just 40 Days

As if I didn't already know, my environment changed when my son and granddaughter moved in.  They filled my pantry with snack crackers, granola bars, and potato chips. There is ice cream in the freezer.  Today's focus is design: a plan to create an environment for health. I have been eating healthy for over a week now.  I have lost over 10 pounds and over 5 inches with 1.5 inches coming from my belly.  I feel a lot better than I did a week ago.  When I think of myself, and my environment five years ago, when I had an empty nest for a little while,  I am reminded of the comments my kids would say when they came home: There's nothing to eat! All you have is nuts and berries!  I would smile and say: I just went to grocery store, there is plenty to eat.  There's veggies and hummus, or have an apple!  So it looks like, a large part of my decline in health is my environment.  I must make the change back to what is good and healthy for al...

Taking care of me; encouraging my spirit; developing my body and mind, that is what today's focus is all about: nurturing.  When I take care of myself, I am defusing the stress in my life.  That is a big statement, 'stress in my life', as I tend to deny that I'm stressed.  I deny it by going through my life events by searching for the good.  Believe me, I am good at seeing the bright side of everything! But if I would be honest with myself, I would acknowledge that I have stress. I think that is the first step: Wow this is hard or this is stressful.  If I would acknowledge it, then I can better cope with it.  As obviously, I tend to overeat when I'm stressed.  How else would I have gained 15 pounds each year for the past three years, leading me to be close to 50 pounds overweight. So today I will give name to some of the stress in my life.  First of all, I have been a single parent for more than 25 years. I worry about my kids and they're ad...

Our thoughts control our actions.  Today's focus is think.  I read somewhere that we have thousands of thoughts per hour.  That's hundreds of thoughts per minute!  It's truly an amazing amount of brain power we are given to take charge of our body. I am lucky that many of my thoughts are positive.  But I'm also plague with stinkin' thinkin'.  I learned that term of negative thinking about 30 years ago in an Al-anon meeting.  It was referring to the times I let my brain believe that I wasn't good enough, or that I didn't deserve to be happy. Our thoughts determine our behavior.  I remember my favorite saying or mantra I used eight years ago when I lost 70 pounds and kept 60 of it off for nearly five years. "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." I also used to say: You only get one body, so you better take care of it.  Along with: If you don't care of yourself, no one else will. Today's thought to myself is all of those and...

I noticed that today's focus was not notice but listen.  So I had to edit my previous post. Listen is similar to the verb notice as it helps you to be aware, to pay attention, to give an ear and hear a sound. So I will be tuning into to my body and try to hear what it's saying. Believe it or not, my waist measurement is down two inches in five days!  I really was retaining fluid.  I also noticed that my bones ached yesterday.  That's something I don't usually feel.  Thank goodness, today they don't feel that way.  My muscles, which I have a lot of are trying to get used to the fact that I'm not retaining as much fluid.  I'm not as inflamed as they had been and they're adjusting with cramping, reminding me where everyone of them resides in my body.  I'm thankful that that too, seems to have subsided for today. I am totally amazed that the inflammation that my entire body was having is going away without the help of ibuprofen! For that I am to...

The focus for today is Move.  Nearly ninety percent of American's do not exercise!  This is astonishing to me.  Over half of my friends and family move their body through space by walking, running, riding a bike, or going to the gym.  I am lucky to be around active people.  Moving helps reduces stress and overall health. I must admit, my activity level has lessoned in the past three years.  I remember going to the gym for close to two hours.  Or doing laps at the track for 45 minutes.  Now I stay at the gym for about 45 minutes and am at the track for 30. So my goal is to increase these times by fifteen minutes.  Adding regular strength training back into my gym workouts and go back to doing 12 laps at the track instead of 8-10.  It'll be good for me!

Today's focus is empty and that means poop! Yes, that's a clipart of happy poop.  Hmmm - well here goes - It's poop talk and it's not even Sunday! Haylee loved to talk about her poop, so much though, that I restricted my having to listen to her poop stories to Sunday.  Those are memories I cherish. Back to my empty...fortunately, I have always been regular.  I could be Sheldon Cooper's roommate as I his 7:30-8:00 a.m. bathroom slot fits me.  I usually empty twice a day - every 12 hours.  And that's all I have to say about poop.

Today's focus is detox and I'm reading about some of the symptoms I may have at the beginning of this program: bad breath, constipation, achy, flulike feeling, fatigue...offensive body odor!  Why do 'they' always warn you of side effects?  I think they're trying to scare you away from it because if I would of read about the body odor before this I wouldn't have started!  All kidding aside, I slept well except for the three times I woke up to pee!  I started peeing alot more than usual last evening, without even drinking beer :),  and low and behold I lost five pounds of water!  I have to mention that when I started this, I had weighed the same for a week, between 190-192.  But on the first day, I weighed in at 196.6.  [Don't you just love a woman's ability to gain five pounds of water overnight?] So as you can tell, I'm feeling pretty chipper this morning.   I'm drinking a green smoothie, with kiwi, lime, mint, kale and chia seeds....