Got My Walking Papers

That's right. I've been canned.

Well. My attitude has.

Before you go thinking I lost my job, I'll let you in on a fact known only to my close friends and nutritionist and counselor: I have struggled to get walking with any regularity. Despite mental efforts and emotional anguish, and external accountability (such as assuring a friend I would do the mud run this year) I have bypassed time on the treadmill for anything else I can think to fill time with.  I will even do things I don't necessarily like to do...just to avoid stepping on that never-ending belt.

Some of the trouble is a not-so-healthy attachment, a codependency, I still have for my mother who died last summer. Some of the trouble is an irrational fear I can't define - an actual intimidation which builds anxiety. Some of the trouble is my horribly defiant personality. My BFE, my nutritionist, my own thoughts, knowledge of my mom's plight, reminders of the mud run tell me I should get on that thing.  And she who does not like to be told what to do resists. RESISTS!

I believe there are no accidents in life, though there is pain and suffering, and before I tell you how I know my time has come....how I know my days of sedentary being are over...I have to introduce you to Carol Finch.

I met her once. Once was enough to spark an instant connection between the two of us (something I think Carol was able to create with many, many others). And knowing how frail she was from (eventually) several types of cancers seriously taking a toll on her, knowing I might never see her in person again, I signed up for her monthly email alerts where she'd give an update on her treatments and options and remind us all that even in the face of her hardships she was going to her job as much as she could and volunteering in the community which she loved. She went to yoga. She went to lung cancer awareness and fundraising events. She did not stop until Monday when she died.

Here is a glimpse through the eyes of someone she worked with.


"Carol redefined the term “community stewardship” as she freely gave her time and expertise to dozens of not-for-profit foot race events each year. My guess is that at her healthiest she helped run the results of 40 events on any given year. By my rough tabulation these events, thanks in great part to her wonderful leadership, raised over three million dollars for a variety of worthy community causes. Heck, even as recent as two weeks ago she was out helping at The Valentine’s 5K at Old Trail, which raised dollars for our local chapter of Amnesty International. In fact she was so determined to help to the very end, that she actually teleconferenced, from her hospital bed, advice to my daughter and other CTC volunteers, just this past Friday evening, as they registered folks for the MJ8K!"  

That was Carol. At work on Friday, at rest, in peace on Monday.

Then I got her email update for February...on Tuesday morning. Of course it couldn't be her, but my fingers raced to open and read whatever this had to say.


 "In Charlottesville, instead of a church service, we are planning have a gathering in celebration of Carol's life sometime in the next few weeks. Details to follow...


                               The Carol Finch Virtual Race
Walk, run, reminisce, and remember in celebration of Carol's life
Donations go to lung cancer research and can be giiven online or at registration.

We want each attendee to walk or run sometime in the weeks before the gathering. It doesn't have to be far—just a few yards is enough! Walk alone and remember; run in a group and reminisce as you go; run another race, … whatever. Just be ready to report a time and the distance. After all she recorded your times for decades.

 
At the gathering we will have recording stations, so that everyone can share a story of how Carol affected their lives. Then we can burn dvds and post the results online. The gathering will have: t-shirts, awards, grab bag prizes, food and drink."


Thank you, Carol (and her partner Coleman) for this gift. I can quiet my resistance, my fears, my unhealthy attachments and I can walk because I love you. 

Twitter's Stolen My Appetite

You would not believe the behaviors I am conquering just by taking pictures of my meals to share on twitter before eating. Doing this has led me to think about what I'm doing - sometimes cautiously and carefully. Here's how:

It underlines the importance of honesty.
Oh, I've had the inkling to deceive you by taking a picture before adding cheese to a scramble of some kind...but I didn't! Taking shots of eggs and bacon or whatevers every morning and plowing through with images of lunches and dinners has heightened my respect for my personal dignity.

I am more conscious of what goes in.
Changing my diet from a drive-thru and/or quick bites and big dinners lifestyle is a process for me. I'm not 100% there yet...but I've done some mental and social work to tweak my behaviors already (hosting a real foods group has been especially helpful) and am more aware of what is going to pass my lips. Taking a picture of what is about to end up in my stomach? Yeah. I am not going to want to share a picture of a sloppy burger and a heap of fries without having thought it through.

Note: I ate that very burger and gave most of my fries away the Friday night I went out with my friends. And I didn't feel bad about eating it OR tweeting it because I'm taking better care and attention of what I eat ALL the time now. That burger was awesome and a good choice. I make even healthier choices day to day, meal to meal, so I don't feel guilty.

I think about food differently.
And I can't say that tweeting what I eat is wholly responsible for the change in how I think about food, but it does have influence over presentation.

For a while I have planned meals and grocery shopping (as part of yet another group I started for people who want better home organization). I still do that...but because I am tweeting, I plan to make even nicer things to look at. I hate tweeting pictures of blobs of food. I do eat blobs of food sometimes, but I mostly want to make things that look delicious.

Portion control is spontaneous.
My -portion- size has trimmed on its own. It has! I am not going to send you an image of a heaping plate of spaghetti bolognese with two slices of garlic bread and a meager salad of not much in it. I did eat like that.

I don't now.

Just the other day I tweeted a photo of spaghetti squash with three meatballs and sauce. I skipped the garlic bread and the salad and was still satisfied, not left feeling hungry or wanting, which means I can eat less and feel just fine about it. Being aware of how much food is on my plate is all twitter's fault. I love it. I won't cheat myself by going hungry because that will just push me to binge eat between meals. I eat enough to satisfy my stomach but also appeal to my sense of pride (and embarrassment!) because I am tweeting what I eat.

I get to share my life.
Now I find myself excited to show you what I'm doing. I am not having but wanting to photo journal every day....and I get to avoid food logging the old fashioned way and I inspire people to cook more and I get asked for recipes. This feeds my slightly social personality.

I encourage you to try this for yourself in case you find the same benefits - or even better ones. #tweetyereats with me @wendytime

Why I Won't Play Tetris

if you can't watch the sun rise,
i'll watch it for you.
if you can't get on your feet,
i'll stand up tall.
if you want to feel the ocean,
i'll run through it.
you gave me life, the greatest gift of all.
if you can't say you love me,
i'll just know it.
if you can't take a breath,
i'll drink mine in.
if you can't fight the fight,
i'll find the will, mom.
i'll savor life, your greatest gift of all.

I wrote that for my mom two days before she died. I felt so strong -  yet so helpless - then. I was willing to do and to be whatever it took to help her carry on in this world (because she so wanted to live) and I was struggling to let her go to be free of pain. She was in so much pain. I had to look back in my timeline and find this poem to read it again...mostly to remember what I promised.

One of the hardest things to do so far is the "I'll just know it." I do know it, innately, that she loves/loved me. And it's heartbreaking that I can't hear her tell me.

I love my mom and I miss her so deeply my heart hurts. 

What's nice to notice is that I am savoring life. I recognize the importance of taking care of myself and modeling that for my own daughter because of the insurmountable obstacles that eventually cost my mother her life.

I liken the end of my mom's life, and maybe my own life, to that game called Tetris because for a while she was able to navigate easily despite a barrage of difficult decisions and laborious tasks, right? Especially in her last five years on earth. She'd avoid pile ups and think really quickly and find last-second fits to the constant puzzle that rained. She would hurry to the next uncommon thing to come down toward her and pray and pray and pray and try and try and try to make the right adjustments to get all the pieces where they needed to be.

But life was too fast. Her burdens were too many. Her health was too out of shape. And she died.

I don't want my end game to be a scramble for survival. I want to come to a successful end I can be content with and glad about. I want to grin at my final score and know I rocked life.

I promised to fight that fight up there in that poem, but I can't play my mother's game and win. I have to play something more rewarding....more slowly, methodically, strategically in all fairness to myself and everybody else.  I wish she could do this with me.

#TweetYerEats

I have a confession to make: I am not so good at passing up confections and there are times when the worker at the Drive-Thru window still gets my pay.  I can not say, nor would I believe, that I'll never ever ever ever do either of those things again.

I've gotten to where I can pretty quickly and easily determine when I am gaining weight.  Taking control by using more real foods more often in my diet, limiting simple carbs, drinking more water all has helped me to feel and function much better. So when I'm slacking or retreating, it's not difficult to notice feelings of sluggishness. I can't excuse away the tight feeling of a waistband either.

I do notice that whenever I stop paying good attention to what I'm eating, I stop moving as much and I stop working as much and I stop enjoying as much. I get in a funk and I snowball. Snowballing is no fun at all.

Most of my feelings are mom-related because she is my weakness, living or not. I miss her. I get sad. I feel blue. I lose motivation. I lack ambition. I skip cooking. I buy prepared crap. I stop doing things around the house. I put off work. I reason myself into a cocoon of depressed feelings and unhelpful fatigue - and when what I eat gets that out of whack, too, I am only making it harder to succeed.

How to combat this behavior? Is there is a way that will make me think twice...or three or four times, even, before caving into temptations that won't do me any good? My nutritionist would like me to keep a food journal. I hate the idea. I hate the tediousness of keeping track. I also hate using online record keepers.

I can dip into the reasons why with my counselor some other time. Right now, I want a "fix." So, I asked myself, "What's something I can do to be accountable for the food I eat - if  maintaining a food journal is never going to happen?" And then it came to me. I can tweet what I eat.

I love two things about the idea: I get to share food I (very often) make from scratch. I get to take pictures with my phone. I also love that if I am going to get more than a hot tea for breakfast at the Dunkin Donuts that is conveniently placed near my door, I'm going to need to tweet it.

A lot of my problem eating is done in solace when nobody else could know. But I know. And my body shows it. And I feel what it does to me. And my life span suffers for those choices.

I started tweeting today. Just meals, not snacks. I will probably work up to snacks if I continue this trend. I hope I continue this trend. It's an idea that could really work for the kind of person I am. I love to cook. I love to amaze. I love to inspire. I love to encourage. And, what's more, I love to feel good and know that I really could live to be eighty what's-it. It's in my genetics to do so! Now, if I can just stop screwing with that.

So, I've started a hashtag #TweetYerEats and I'll post my food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) @wendytime  You are welcome to join me if you like.