Stuck in the Middle

I am one of three siblings in our family of 8 children that is writing a blog. Both of my siblings blogs are listed here on my blog site. My brother writes very philosophical and very Christian material. He is definitely a "still waters run deep" type of person. My sister writes more light-sided material and delves into serious material now and then. Me, I write semi-serious and not-light-enough stuff. I'm stuck in the middle, I think. I wonder if anyone who does not know the three of us would guess that we're siblings?

There's another spot I feel stuck in the middle... my spirituality. I have gone the gamut of being a charismatic Christian to a died-in-wool agnostic and back again. I have expressed my discontent with committing to anything, except marriage (for almost 20 years). And there are still days that I wonder if can commit for one-more-day? Don't worry hubby, it's just me! Yes, just me, with a phobia about committing to marriage, Christ, a job, a place to live, a food plan, a walking program....... I'm sure you get the idea of what I mean, I hope. Stuck in the middle.
Straddling the fence. Wishy-washy. There are all types of descriptions for people like me.

Anyway, next week I have committed to going to a Christian retreat, Walk to Emmaus. Only God could have led me on the path to the retreat, as I was invited by a casual acquaintance at work. She knew I needed this walk, because God led her to me. God does not work by coincidence, but we humans like to think that, don't we? Hubby asked me tonight what I hoped to gain from this retreat? I responded, "To get back to where I left (God). A willingness to allow Him back in my life." Pretty tough order, I would think. But God knows better than I and we'll see! I'm allowing myself to be open to all possibilities.

Pay Day

Yesterday was payday at my full-time job so today I transferred funds from checking to savings for my upcoming trips. This is the agreement I made with myself a week or so ago that I'd pay myself $10 for every mile I walked for future trips. In the past 14 days I have walked 16.5 miles so I now have $165 in my trips "bank." Yahoo! I might get to go someplace and have enough $$$ for a hotel. :) Now that my walking is getting back in the swing, I hope to add more to my bank in two weeks. Maybe I should start wearing a pedometer and with the walking I do at work, I could rack up those miles, huh?

It feels good!

My younger sister started blogging a year ago and then I took a chance and started too, as I like to write. I write to "hear myself think." I don't know if that makes sense or not, but it does to me. Anyway, once in awhile someone will write or say something to me that I know they have read my blog. Tonight hubby and I were at the American Legion with some neighbors and we won the 50-50 raffle.... $101. Yahoo! One of our neighbors said something like that now I won't have to walk as many miles. She was speaking of my $10/mile walking commitment towards paying for my trips.

A week ago, another neighbor saw me and said, "I see that you're walking again." I asked her if she saw my blog about $10/mile. She replied, "Robbing Peter to pay Paul." I guess that I don't want to think of it quite that way, but basically that IS what I'm doing. Except that every mile I walk, I'm "paying" myself with better health, whereas if I don't walk, I'm "robbing" myself of good health.

On Thursday, I get my regular pay check so I look forward to transferring money to my savings account for my TRIPS! It doesn't matter if I'm "robbing to pay," it's a matter of what motivates me to get something done towards better health!

Islands

My "bucket list" is growing! Added the three US states that I have not been in yet, Alaska, Hawaii and West Virginia. Also added Galapagos Islands, in conjunction with hubby's bucket list. He has mentioned this dream for years, to go to Galapagos Islands and seeing the extraordinary wildlife. I have seen TV shows and photos now and then from there and was not sure if it was high on my list or not.

The other day a travel brochure came in the mail from National Geographic about a trip there. I thought hubby had ordered the brochure, but he claims, "Not." Anyway these islands do look like an interesting place for a photographer! At a cost of around $7000 for the trip (including airfare) I need to walk at least 700 miles to earn my $10/mile for trips. At my current rate of miles per day that's about 15 and half months! Besides walking to get in shape, I might as well walk for a major photography trip to a place not too many people can say they have been.

Sooo many places to see, sooo little time! I guess I'd better get out walking!

PUSH!

I am childless, I have never delivered a baby. But when you see a delivery on the screen, there is usually someone saying to the mother, "Push, push, harder, harder!"

I delivered my own "baby" of sorts today. I decided in my morning walk to lengthen my stride. Well, let me tell you.... after the first few steps I was a jet on the concrete runways of my neighborhood. With each longer step propelling me forward, I picked up speed and my body bend slightly forward and I was on the way! By the second lap (half-mile lap) around the neighborhood, I was feeling the burn in the muscles & the heart racing. How can a half-step or so longer use so many different muscles?

I told myself, "push, push, harder, harder!" Of course to me that meant, "let's see if I can go this pace for 3 laps, a mile and half?" Then I promised myself the fourth lap would be leisurely. I did it! By the end of three laps, my jet was flying in the air! Emotionally that is! After my fourth lap, I came in for a landing and when I parked my jet in my terminal (home), it felt damn good! :)

Walking & Walls

I have an aptitude for accounting. I like to figure out how much of this and that. I know that I have two routes to work. One is 9.8 miles & takes me 15 minutes from garage to parking lot. The other route is 12.1 miles and takes approximately 20-25 minutes. I usually take the shorter, faster route, but last night I took the "scenic" (i.e. longer, slower) route to go home. I work in a five-story hospital that you can see from the nearest intersection on the scenic route and of course I have clocked-it so I know that is 2 miles.

When I got to the intersection last night, I thought "that was 2 miles." I looked behind me and my hospital looked soooooo distant. "Oh, my gosh! That's how far I walked this morning." Two miles! If someone would have told me a month ago that I would walk the distance from the hospital to that intersection at one time and in less than an hour I would have said they were crazy!

The body is really quite remarkable. The fact that it keeps us alive when we feed it high calorie, low nutritional food is remarkable. The fact that it can go from being sluggish and being short of breath going across that parking lot to walking two miles in 40 minutes is remarkable. And all within three weeks.

A couple of days ago in my blog I mentioned how I have gotten in and out of the habit of walking quite regularly. Yesterday I told my boss that I have started walking in the mornings. She had previously told me that she runs every morning before work, so I was quite surprised when she said, "I have not run for 2 weeks." Long hours at work and the stress of a major project (that thankfully I don't have to be a part) has caused her to miss her running. I suddenly felt sorry for her as I know she had expressed joy in running. Yes, it is so easy to slip back into habits that may not kill us, but certainly aren't the best. Yes, our bodies are remarkable and resilient to our habits and actions. Sometimes.

"You deserve a break today." Isn't that slogan for some company? Well, I tell myself that very often, especially when I have made some accomplishments or suffered some stress. I have made accomplishments in the past three weeks, walking, losing weight, eating smaller portions, eating healthier foods, and expressing myself. This is the point where I hit the wall! Not the wall of pain but the wall of .... I have lost weight, I deserve a treat.... I walked two miles yesterday, I deserve a morning off.... My clothes are looser (never mind that they are size 20-22!), I deserve... I deserve.... I deserve. Get the picture. In my past and in my present, this is where I have to work at fighting complacency. Complacency: A feeling of contentment or satisfaction; gratification. Self satisfaction, smugness. Yes, I think I will definitely call it the "wall of complacency."

That wall (another W word) has been my un-doing on more than one (more likely one hundred) occasions. This week was tough for me. Hubby was in California visiting daughter & grand kids and I had the house to myself. I get to eat what I want! I made some good choices and some not so good choices in food and drink. However, I did walk every day.

Complacency is a feeling, an emotion. So as I said in the beginning, this project is not just about the physical aspects of healthy living, it's the emotions and the spiritual too. Right now, the emotions need to be .... I don't know... maybe expressed is the best word. Emotions need to be expressed.

Roads

I'm an emotional eater. When my emotions are even-keeled or on top of the mountain, it's easy to eat what I need. But when I fall down that valley, I struggle to climb my way out. It's probably not a "valley" as much as it is a ditch. You know, those engravings in the earth along our roadways that catch the rain water, garbage from cars, and grow weeds. When I get in a funky mood like Sunday, it feels like I have fallen into one of those ditches, yuck!

Surprisingly, sometimes all it takes for me to get out of that ditch is get up on the roadway or have someone pull me out of the ditch to the road. Hubby did that for me on Sunday. He said, "OK, get in the car, we're going for a ride." :) I'm smiling just thinking of it! We got in the car, took a Texas map & went over to a small fishing village on the Gulf coast that I had not visited. We have this fun saying that gets my adrenaline going, not sure about hubby's but he seems to enjoy it. "New road, new road!" That means we're on a roadway that we have not been on before. We enjoy seeing the countryside and what it has to offer. Sometimes it's sagebrush and cactus, other times it is fields of sugar cane and now and then we see cattle. We even saw a barn that resembled a Midwestern-style barn, painted red and gambrel roof.

I have a self-proclaimed theme song, "On the road again" by Willie Nelson. It's been my favorite for years. I enjoy traveling the roads in a car and recently I have taken to the "roads" on foot, in my walking shoes! It's a different kind of traveling. It's hot and sweaty versus sitting in an air-conditioned car. It's moving down the road using my own fuel and energy. I have done my stints at walking before with moderate success. However, I fall out of the habit very easily and then it's months or years before I start walking regularly again. There's a saying that is often tagged onto me, "No moss grows under your feet," a tribute to my many moves around the country. However, I have allowed "moss" to grow under my feet by being a couch-potato! That "moss" has added poundage to my body and caused muscles to atrophy, both conditions of which I no longer want, much less need.

What roads is this project taking me down? What hills, valleys, curves, ditches will I encounter along the way? How many others will I meet on the roads?

W.W.W.

W.W.W. Does my title puzzle you? If you are one of my sisters of which I have six, it means Wild Women's Weekend. But that is the source of whole other blog next fall.

Actually the W's stand for three important things & actions in my success this week.

W = WRITE Write down what I am eating. Write down what I am feeling.
This is the first time in my years of trying to lose weight that I have consistently and honestly written down what I'm eating. It builds my responsibility to myself by being accountable. I write down what I eat, how much I eat, the calories and the fat grams. Others might write down their consumption of sugar, food exchanges, carbs, sodium, etc. It's so important to write it down as it's so easy to forget that single piece of sweet that ends up being 100 calories or that spoonful I ate while cooking that ends up being more than the 1/2 cup I thought I consumed.

Writing in this blog is helping me. It keeps me accountable and helps bolster my feelings (emotions).

W= Weigh Weigh my food. Measure my food. I have to know how much I am putting into my mouth. There are a lot of good resources that tell me that 4 ounces of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. Otherwise I use a food scale, which I keep on the counter as a reminder. No more hiding it in the back of the cupboard. One more weigh .... I weigh myself on a scale. In the past I have done daily weigh-in. This time I'm doing it differently, once a week and on Wednesday.... there's a couple of more W's! I don't want to be a "slave" to the scale. I want to focus on eating appropriately each day, one day at a time! However I do realize that the scale will help me see if I need to change some aspects of my food plan.

W= Water Water is such an important part of any food plan and thankfully, I love my water. It hydrates me, it fills me up, its quick and easy and cheap, it's wonderful! Exercise, a word that I often frown at, is important and with any type of exercise, it's important to keep hydrated.

That reminds me there's another W word that is part of my success this week, WALK! I have walked everyday for 20 minutes and today I did 40 minutes. There are so many ways to exercise and right now, I choose to walk. Again, it cheap & easy.

It's been a week since I started this project of changing my lifestyle. It's been very interesting for me. It's different! It different than other times in my life. I am not using the D word diet, because that word and concept punish me and I realize that after so many attempts. This is a change for the better. This feels soooo good! It's uplifting to my spirit and emotions.