Well, my miracle morning lasted all of one day. Perhaps that was not the right plan. While I have been pretty steady in eliminating alcohol, processed food and unnecessary carbs, I could have done better with my exercising and water intake. So rather than obsess about the negative I am joining my forever optimistic-glass is half full- gal pal in the magical 20 plan. It's really pretty simple. Do 20 healthy things per day. It could be related to food - eating something healthy, or refraining from an unhealthy choice, exercising, stress reducing activities or just random acts of kindness. Each week we will set aside $20 towards a fun weekend away. Also, on the 20th day of each month, we will have a free reward yourself day. In April, the 20th is Easter. So I see a guilt free Cadbury egg (or two) in my future.
Today is Mark's birthday, and as is our tradition, he brought home cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. Thankfully, the magical 20 plan begins April 1st.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The new beginning
I finally began following my miracle morning plan. I have a simple exercise routine that's only ten minutes long, but enough to get the blood flowing. I also picked up a small devotional to read each morning with a Bible verse or two. This blog will serve as my writing. Of course there is silence and prayer.
The season of Lent begins today. Many of the elders in the church are fasting and praying. Each Wednesday they gather to pray together and open it up to others to join. Our schedule works for me to participate. Lent has been one of those times when I am all in or all out. One year I gave up coffee. For those who know me that was incredibly difficult. This year I am going liquid and raw, no alcohol and no coffee. I'm ready with soups, salads, some protein shakes, smoothies, and lots of water.
Since my writing in the morning is only 6 minutes, I can write the rest tonight.
The season of Lent begins today. Many of the elders in the church are fasting and praying. Each Wednesday they gather to pray together and open it up to others to join. Our schedule works for me to participate. Lent has been one of those times when I am all in or all out. One year I gave up coffee. For those who know me that was incredibly difficult. This year I am going liquid and raw, no alcohol and no coffee. I'm ready with soups, salads, some protein shakes, smoothies, and lots of water.
Since my writing in the morning is only 6 minutes, I can write the rest tonight.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
First Ten gone
In mid December I spoke with the life coach, who works hand in hand with the doctor to help me lose weight. After participating in a test to determine metabolism we sat down to talk about menus. That day I had gained three pounds from the last Dr visit. It was an all-time low (figuratively of course) since I was officially the heaviest I had ever been.
After a month of stress management, exercise and a week of clean eating, I am happy to report that 12 pounds are gone. My largest size pants are too big, and since the month is half over, I may go for two sizes in January. So operation tight pants is well on its way.
After a month of stress management, exercise and a week of clean eating, I am happy to report that 12 pounds are gone. My largest size pants are too big, and since the month is half over, I may go for two sizes in January. So operation tight pants is well on its way.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
A burning desire
Who doesn't love a good book? While I could name a few, I can honestly say that I'm not one of them. My go-to selections are usually non fiction business books. Sure I've read some novels and most of the popular trilogy series, although I am waiting for a vacation to determine if I'm team Edward or the other guy. My comfort level is non fiction.
My top three books of 2013 were Quiet, by Susan Cain, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter. Quiet is about introverts and their many positive qualities. The Power of Habit is self explanatory, and Grain Brain discusses the dangers of gluten. Each book was insightful and educational. I enjoyed each one. But I selected them in the first place with the hope of garnering some gem to help me in my weight loss journey. Similarly, with The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Somehow if I can find that magic combination, I will finally succeed.
Then I picked up and started Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In it are the seventeen components for success. The first of which is to possess a burning desire to achieve "X." Whatever X is. As I listened to the stories of successful people, they all possessed a burning desire. One person wanted to be a business associate of Thomas Edison. Yes, that Thomas Edison. Did I mention the book is really old? Another wanted his son, who was born without ears or a means to hear to actually hear and speak. Finally a third, a military leader sailed with his men to a foreign land during war and then burned the boats on which they arrived stating to his men "win or perish." All three stories included successful results. So I have determined that I need to have a burning desire to weigh 135. So what am I going to do to burn all the boats behind me so I have no choice but to win? One idea is to organize my clothes by size and at the end of every month give away every article of clothing of the highest size. I'm sure I will come up with other incentives.
So that's my goal this year: to weigh 135.
My top three books of 2013 were Quiet, by Susan Cain, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter. Quiet is about introverts and their many positive qualities. The Power of Habit is self explanatory, and Grain Brain discusses the dangers of gluten. Each book was insightful and educational. I enjoyed each one. But I selected them in the first place with the hope of garnering some gem to help me in my weight loss journey. Similarly, with The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Somehow if I can find that magic combination, I will finally succeed.
Then I picked up and started Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In it are the seventeen components for success. The first of which is to possess a burning desire to achieve "X." Whatever X is. As I listened to the stories of successful people, they all possessed a burning desire. One person wanted to be a business associate of Thomas Edison. Yes, that Thomas Edison. Did I mention the book is really old? Another wanted his son, who was born without ears or a means to hear to actually hear and speak. Finally a third, a military leader sailed with his men to a foreign land during war and then burned the boats on which they arrived stating to his men "win or perish." All three stories included successful results. So I have determined that I need to have a burning desire to weigh 135. So what am I going to do to burn all the boats behind me so I have no choice but to win? One idea is to organize my clothes by size and at the end of every month give away every article of clothing of the highest size. I'm sure I will come up with other incentives.
So that's my goal this year: to weigh 135.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Off to a good start
Yesterday I cut my blog a little short, but my daughter suggested we watch a scary movie together. Since I am usually persona non grata in her eyes these days I jumped at the chance. Due to her love of all things scary, I knew it would not be the last time I jumped. We settled in and watched The Invisable. I was relieved it was more thriller than horror, and was glad for our time together.
I began describing one part of my miracle morning, affirmations. The five I choose to memorize are:
I am forgiven and I will not be tormented by my past errors. 1 John 5:4
I am healed and sickness will not lord over my body. 1 Peter 2:24
I do not worry about everyday life. God knows my needs and meets them because I make His Kingdom my primary concern. Matthew 6:25
I forgive those whom I have anything against so that my prayers are not hindered. Mark 11:25
The Holy Spirit is my helper; I am never alone and I have the peace of God. Philippians 4:7
This ought to give me a good start.
Five out of six parts should be easy to incorporate. Prayer, reading my Bible, affirmations, visualizing, and writing. In fact these five can all be done in a half hour. It's the exercising and meal planning that will be the most challenging. For me it always has been.
The most important part of my success is taking some time each week to plan and prepare. It took me about three hours yesterday to cook, measure, chop and pack meals for the week. There is plenty of food, so no risk of starving. There is also plenty of variety, including carbs. But carbs are only consumed during the first three of the five meals. I bought some gluten free pretzels and one loaf of gluten free bread. As I transition I won't need these, but did not want to stop cold turkey.
Today is a day off from work for me so there is a little more flexibility in getting all of my workouts in. And staying on task with food. So here's to success.
I began describing one part of my miracle morning, affirmations. The five I choose to memorize are:
I am forgiven and I will not be tormented by my past errors. 1 John 5:4
I am healed and sickness will not lord over my body. 1 Peter 2:24
I do not worry about everyday life. God knows my needs and meets them because I make His Kingdom my primary concern. Matthew 6:25
I forgive those whom I have anything against so that my prayers are not hindered. Mark 11:25
The Holy Spirit is my helper; I am never alone and I have the peace of God. Philippians 4:7
This ought to give me a good start.
Five out of six parts should be easy to incorporate. Prayer, reading my Bible, affirmations, visualizing, and writing. In fact these five can all be done in a half hour. It's the exercising and meal planning that will be the most challenging. For me it always has been.
The most important part of my success is taking some time each week to plan and prepare. It took me about three hours yesterday to cook, measure, chop and pack meals for the week. There is plenty of food, so no risk of starving. There is also plenty of variety, including carbs. But carbs are only consumed during the first three of the five meals. I bought some gluten free pretzels and one loaf of gluten free bread. As I transition I won't need these, but did not want to stop cold turkey.
Today is a day off from work for me so there is a little more flexibility in getting all of my workouts in. And staying on task with food. So here's to success.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Stacking the deck
As this year comes to a close, and as I was taking down the Christmas ornaments, I was reminded of all of the great memories we have made as a family as represented by what we hang on our tree. Whether its Kat's 17 month old handprint from 2002, or the paper moose made from tracing Ry's hands and feet, or the plethora of Disney ornaments, I was left with the satisfying feeling of being very blessed. We were healthy and safe this year and all together. I know not every family can say that.
Like Karen, I reread some of my past posts. I discovered that I wrote a lot about starting and failing. Why did i mostly focus on the negative? I read a statistic this morning that 80 percent of self talk is negative. And negative self talk leads to negative results. I'm living proof of that. Therefore it seemed fitting that one of the songs we sung this morning was "Jesus, my only hope." One of the lines states "when satan's accusations make my poor heart afraid, I hear my King declaring Father, that debt is paid!!" I was reminded that I do not need to speak negatively. I am forgiven and am a new creature in Christ.
One of the parts of the miracle morning includes affirmations, which I admit caused me to be a little skeptical. I wondered if Christians should be using affirmations. Turns out there are a host of websites, CDs and books on the topic. One such website is written by Maurice Lindsey. His article "15 Affirmations that will change your life (if you believe)" has just the right amount of affirmations I was looking for. So I quickly bookmarked it, but not before speaking them....twice.
Like Karen, I reread some of my past posts. I discovered that I wrote a lot about starting and failing. Why did i mostly focus on the negative? I read a statistic this morning that 80 percent of self talk is negative. And negative self talk leads to negative results. I'm living proof of that. Therefore it seemed fitting that one of the songs we sung this morning was "Jesus, my only hope." One of the lines states "when satan's accusations make my poor heart afraid, I hear my King declaring Father, that debt is paid!!" I was reminded that I do not need to speak negatively. I am forgiven and am a new creature in Christ.
One of the parts of the miracle morning includes affirmations, which I admit caused me to be a little skeptical. I wondered if Christians should be using affirmations. Turns out there are a host of websites, CDs and books on the topic. One such website is written by Maurice Lindsey. His article "15 Affirmations that will change your life (if you believe)" has just the right amount of affirmations I was looking for. So I quickly bookmarked it, but not before speaking them....twice.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Choices choices choices
It's been about two weeks since I have met with the weight loss coach and I've received the breakdown of meal plan. It's been over a month since I've read the Miracle morning. Yet I haven't implemented anything constructive or helpful. I have however finished several bottles of wine, dozens of levels in Candy Crush and eaten more crap than I care to admit. So why do I choose one thing and not the other? Paul writes in Romans that what he wants to do, he does not do, but he does what he hate to do. (Romans 7:15) In other words I'm not the only one.
One thing my coach suggested was to write down my meals the night before I plan to eat them, when the ability to succeed is still present instead of confessing what I actually ate that day. He also suggested spending a few hours on the weekend cooking all of my food for the week, slicing vegetables, and fruit and cooking chicken and turkey so I can just grab and go. It is also helpful to get my exercise done early in the day. This particular suggestion falls in line with the miracle morning, which involves six things to do first thing in the morning.
Because I do not want to violate the authors copyright and because part of his practice and my spiritual beliefs are not necessarily in sync, I've made a few adjustments. My six things include prayer, listening, affirmation, Bible reading, blog writing and exercise. It should take approximately 75 minutes to complete. So waking up at 5:00 am should do it. The biggest obstacle is not waking up at 5:00.in fact I am awake most mornings by 4:30 and capable of getting up and staying up. I take the dog out and attend personal business, make a cup of coffee and by 5:00 am I've crawled back to bed to watch an hour of TV. So it shouldn't be difficult to make other choices.
I just have to choose to do it every day for the next thirty days and then I will make it a habit. This will require willpower and a really good incentive. I'm back to my goal of ten pounds per month. So, I'm choosing to start right now...and will get my exercise over with for today. Stay tuned.
One thing my coach suggested was to write down my meals the night before I plan to eat them, when the ability to succeed is still present instead of confessing what I actually ate that day. He also suggested spending a few hours on the weekend cooking all of my food for the week, slicing vegetables, and fruit and cooking chicken and turkey so I can just grab and go. It is also helpful to get my exercise done early in the day. This particular suggestion falls in line with the miracle morning, which involves six things to do first thing in the morning.
Because I do not want to violate the authors copyright and because part of his practice and my spiritual beliefs are not necessarily in sync, I've made a few adjustments. My six things include prayer, listening, affirmation, Bible reading, blog writing and exercise. It should take approximately 75 minutes to complete. So waking up at 5:00 am should do it. The biggest obstacle is not waking up at 5:00.in fact I am awake most mornings by 4:30 and capable of getting up and staying up. I take the dog out and attend personal business, make a cup of coffee and by 5:00 am I've crawled back to bed to watch an hour of TV. So it shouldn't be difficult to make other choices.
I just have to choose to do it every day for the next thirty days and then I will make it a habit. This will require willpower and a really good incentive. I'm back to my goal of ten pounds per month. So, I'm choosing to start right now...and will get my exercise over with for today. Stay tuned.
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