lesliealex

Thanks to all who didn’t forget me while was away!  I have been working like crazy.  I have been exercising and eating well and have lost about nine pounds total–VERY slowly.  (Haven’t had time to log it yet, hopefully this week.) I feel so much better.  I hate that I can’t blog and encourage everyone on a day to day basis–I never know how the day will go-but I am still in the game with all you ladies and gents.  We will make it.     Thanks again for all the love and support!

Love ya

xxxooo 

Well, I guess I wasn’t really awol.  I have been super busy and also dealing with certain issues known to people of the female gender (that grow more awful as you get older until they stop alogether and start messing with you in a different way), so let’s just say my cravings have been intense, and yes, I succumbed more than.  Given that my daughter is about to fly out of town without me for a week I am pleased that my anxiety level hasn’t been even higher.  I have been reading the blogs, sending notes and keeping up a good attitude.  Good luck to you all this week and please say a silent prayer when you read this that my girl returns safely.  Thanks to you all and  have a great day!

Just a little yogurt

or so you thought

albeit the kind with mocha and nuts

98% fat-free, says it right there on the sign

then out of the blue

(or out of the Walgreen’s)

BAM!

a double-packaged TWIX comes calling for you 

In this case ME

I inhaled it and devoured it 

Checked the calendar, right on schedule

my monthly friend lying in wait

Kind of an explanation

still feels like a bad occasion

of bad habits creeping back

Yes, tomorrow is a new day

 need to get my head straight! 

God help the compulsive sugar-lovers…

Today, I will try to

1) Remember that my life’s  journey has gotten me to this point, so there must be a purpose in the struggles I have.

2) Remember that for every defeat and every setback there is a victory and a triumph;  I am me, and I am the sum and total of every effort I have ever made.  I have lost nothing unless I quit.

3) Forget the self-recrimination and “should haves”–this is where I am; today, I accept that.

4)  There is much to be thankful for, and life will never be perfect.

 Happy Weekend to you all. 

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/mIGD2LQGJGU6I:m1DIC0V4ECADRX

HAS ANYONE HEARD OF THIS HYSTERICAL WOMAN, JAN LANCASTER?  I am going to buy this book tonight.  It looks freaking hilarious.  Just what we need to lift us out of the weight doldroms.  If you can’t open  the video. someone tell me and I will try again.  Cheerio.  

I know that exercise is the key for me.  I know that once I start, I will probably continue.  I lost my rhythm the last couple of weeks with everything going on in my life–didn’t lose as much, either.  Anyone have an exercise motivation problem?  Stupid question, right?

What if overweight people could forget that the world calls them overweight, and in fact are, and concentrate on living as healthy a life possible regardless of what the scale says?  What if, just for the sake of argument, the world and the facts said that whatever that number saiid for each of us was the absolute perfect, best number?  How would we go about our lives differently?  I think I would begin living in a way that reflected a true self confidence.  And this self-confidence would then transform my whole life.  I may try an experiment:  I will pretend that weight and food don’t matter–oh, that’s right, they don’t!-what matters is healthy, truthful living and caring for myself as much as I care for others.    Don’t get me wrong–I want to live and be happy in an attractive body.  I  am just convinced that the body will follow the HEAD.  Thank you, Mr. Mind, for understanding that you have a new boss in town, and it’s me.  Now do as you are told.   . 

Many of you know that I am, for the first time, approaching my food and weight issues from the standpoint of my head, not my body.  I believe strongly that it was my head that got me here, and it will be my head (on straight) that will naturally and healthfully get me to a new place.  I am not weighing every day or every week, but rather measuring my daily success by making my mental attitude priority number one.  Three days ago I visited a new hair salon, my usual stylist being away, and experienced something unbelievable.  I get my hair highlighted and layered, and have been for ten.  Well, that day I was treated to black and orange hair, huge streaks of an unrecognizable color, and a cut that looked like someone had run over my head with a lawn mower while under the influence.  I saw all this happening, and tried to point it out, and stop it.

“I’m wondering about thise big chunks of black on top of what I think was supposed to be blonde…?”

“Don’t worry, it’s the way your hair is parted.”

“And why do the layers look like chunks of grass ripped out by Hurricane Katrina?”

“Oh, it’s the way I blow-dried it.”

That night I looked in the mirror and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, yes, the woman had indeed decimated the color and cut of my hair, but being the nice person that I am, I was willing to give her an opportunity to fix it.  I AM INSANE.  The next day, after two more hours in the salon I was ready to blow.  I looked in the mirror at the back of my hair and came as close to tackling her as I have any person I am not related to.

“I blended it for you,” she asssured me.  

“You what?” I asked, trying to breathe.  “My God, what did  you do?”  I left the salon then, because if I had stayed there another minute I would have ripped into her for her incompetence so viciously that she would have never recovered.  My daughter took pictures of my hair-”Mom, it looks like you grabbed a pair of scissors and reached behind you and started chopping”–and I sent them to the corporate office.  (The salon had hung up on me when I tried to resolve it with them.) Long story short, I am getting a full refund of $129.00 for my brush with assault by scissors and hair color.

I did not, for the most part, rush to dull my feelings with food or sugar, and for the most part did not fall into a depressed and frustrated state–fatal for me.   I may have eaten a little more than I needed, and have not exercised as I should have, but I do not believe I regressed much at all.  I am hopeful that as soon as things settle down I will restart my forward progress.  My daughter is going away with her dad soon, and every summer it is a week’s job to get her ready.  She is also bringing her puppy, Sammy, and he needed his shots! 

My point:  Hang in there, ladies, it’s not about the food–it’s about the head.  That I know for sure. 

If you are wondering what a mental report is, it’s the report you give on your mental and emotional state when you haven’t technically weighed in or eaten or exercised perfectly.  Life has intruded, with all if its twists, turns and demands and has prevented you from executing your plan exactly, but a wonderful thing happened:  You didn’t pig out excessively, you did exercise a little, you didn’t bury your stress under mounds of ice cream and cookies (okay, one dark chocolate bar) and you stayed fairly positive under very trying circumstances.  I stayed in the ”zone” with Buddyslim friends and didn’t depart too much from my goal. So I feel good, although I staved off a bunch of emotional stuff that in previous times would have had me headed straight for a two-day sugar buzz/binge, and more weight.  (I had a disagreement with a friend, she has not called me back, and I am kind of at a loss–do you press it, demand to talk, confront, overlook, rise above–I am no good at this).  Thanks to all my buddies, known and unknown, who stayed in my space even when I was temporarily AWOL.  Keep a positive attitude today; I am learning so many decisions are based on that.  We are all in this together.  Thanks, friends.   

I will admit that, when dealing with my own personal demons, it is easy to lose perspective.  I can quickly get so embroiled with my own problems that I lose a grip on the problems and issues of others.  Today, Memorial Day, is a good time for me to reassess and remember that however pressing my issues and problems are, they can never even approach the challenges and sacrifices faced by those who have fought and died to give me the right to bitch and moan.    

It’s sobering to remember that, even today, there are those whose service, directly or indirectly, will continue to ensure my safety and liberty;  that those who have died have made it possible for the rest of us to live with security and liberty; that even today there are more people coming here to realize these liberties than are going to any other country on earth.  No, it is not a perfect system or country, but as the saying goes, “It’’s the worst system ever devised, except for every other one.”

So I will remember that, as I struggle with my issues, there are young men who scaled the beaches at the Normandy, their hearts pounding, so I can be free; that other young men died in an Asian jungle, in a conflict little understood and poorly executed, so that the cause of freedom would be strengthened; that today, politics aside, young men and women are risking their lives to grow a democracy in the middle east that will make the world safer–yes, yes, I know all of the arguments.  The fact remains they are serving for me and for you, and that’s irrefutable.  Today, I can walk out of my house and do whatever the hell I want to–within reason–because somebody fought and died to keep that right sacred.

So, Happy Memorial day, God rest the fallen, God strengthen those who serve, God comfort the bereaved, and God help me to be a little more grateful.