So, I’ve apparently caught some kind of virus, sniffling, coughing, fever, blah blah blah. Nothing too awful and certainly common this time of year. I’ve spent the morning in bed, dozing, watching TED talks, blowing my nose and alternately popping Zicam RapidMelts and Halls Triple Soothing Drops and Tylenol. Not exactly what I had planned for today.

Ever since I rid myself of prescription drugs, I have been on sort of a kick to never take any kind of over the counter stuff too. I have developed quite the hearty immune system so that, for the most part, I get by with just an occasional tylenol. As a result, we don’t have a medicine cabinet full of cold remedies on hand. But, the scratchiness of my throat last night and the ensuing fits of coughing had me sending hubz to the drugstore last night for those mentho-lyptus lozenges you can smell a mile away. Nothing stronger tho. I have standards. :)

The lozenges have been helping my throat, and as it turns out my spirit too.

Thanks to the Halls marketing writer who thought this one up. It made my day.

Love me some new beginnings, don’t you? No matter what the past year has held, no matter what successes or failures we experienced, and even no matter if plans and programs were abandoned completely, the calendar tells us that we can begin again. New gym memberships soar, food plans are devised, weight loss commercials buzz their promises, 30 day, 60 day, 90 day challenges are formed, all attempts to harness the hope we feel that this year things will be different.

And, I’m definitely a part of the crowd on this one. One thing that I really want to change this year tho is to stop making goals and plans for the sake of making goals and plans. Know what I mean? I really want to just stop the start/stop jolting of my life, and keep a steady, reasonable forward pace.

So, I’ve decided to do the Choose One Word thing for 2013, and my word is CONSISTENCY. Consistency in however many times a week I decide to go to the gym, consistency in whatever food plan I choose, consistency in however many blog posts (ahem, cough) I decide to commit to…..CONSISTENCY.  It will start out small and oh so doable, and move on from there. I don’t know where the Choose One Word idea got started, but it’s a nice shift away from the long list of resolutions that never seem to materialize toward a theme, if you will, for the coming year that is completely possible.

So, what’s your one word for 2013?

Yours in the process,

Cheryl

Photo credit

My friend Mary posted a picture on her facebook wall a few days ago, and while it didn’t instantly resonate, here several days later now is:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent enough time thinking of my body as something that has conspired against me. I was thinking today about all the different attitudes I’ve had toward my body:

• hiding it
• being ashamed of it
• demanding too much of it
• totally ignoring it
• being disgusted by it
• being disappointed in it
• avoiding it
• getting back at it
• demanding too little of it
• strategizing against it

…as if my body was some kind of enemy to be fought at every turn with every imaginable weapon.

I’m in the process of changing this paradigm, climbing out of this rut that I’ve dwelt in for too long. My body is not my enemy; rather its a gift. A gift!! The inner workings are really nothing short of miraculous! My body is my ally and communicates with me at every turn about the best fuel for optimum performance. I have balked at what she’s been saying, and it shows. I’m going to take the advice in this image and divert my energy into more useful approaches.

Thank you God for forming my body and for how beautifully it functions to keep me alive. Teach me to listen and to not resent what I hear.

How do you treat your body in order to make it your ally? Do you grow impatient with the process and the learning curve involved with listening to what your body is saying?

I have a spoiled child on my hands today. She’s demanding sweet sugary stuffs in a very loud and screechy whiny voice, behaving in a nonsensical and completely irrational manner.

Tantrums could ensue.

Reasoning will be to no avail.

How do you deal with your body when you know what it’s asking for isn’t what it needs?

One of the reasons that many diet plans fail for so many of us is that they operate from a cookie cutter mentality; they assume that everybody’s body will react in the same way. Instinctively I think we all know this isn’t true. Not only are we each uniquely made, but there are also other variables, i.e. medical conditions, the prescription medications we take and their side effects, etc. There ARE some guiding principles, but most of us don’t know which of those principles are sweeping truths, and which depend on other factors.

The short story solution is to pay closer attention to our own bodies, take all factors into consideration, and come up with our own combination that is right for us. Most of us, tho, are too busy to do this. So, we simply let someone else do it for us, telling us what we should eat and shouldn’t eat, and how and when we should move our bodies. That’s a problem. Or at least it’s been a problem for me. Besides my own inborn tendency to rebel, there can be other complications.

I have two primary medical conditions right now that are in my power to reverse; hypertension and insulin resistance. The prescribed way to reverse both of these issues is to lose weight by consuming a relatively high protein diet along with lots of fresh vegetables and limited fruit and grains.

Unfortunately, the medications required to control these conditions until they are reversed have an adverse affect on reversing them!

• One medication keeps the body from releasing fat efficiently, making it very difficult if not impossible to lose weight.
• The other forces fluids out of the cells too rapidly, causing high uric acid levels. High uric acid levels can lead to gout attacks (a very painful form of arthritis) and kidney stones.

The prescribed remedy for gout and kidney stones is not only another medication (which I have yet to agree to), but also to eat a low protein diet, high in complex carbohydrates, severely limiting or eliminating protein from fish and animals.

Do you see my dilemma?

• A high protein diet will help me lose weight and keep my blood sugar in check, but it will also (and has) lead to gout flare-ups.
• A low protein diet will help me avoid gout flare-ups, but the blood sugar goes nuts, releasing too much insulin (the fat storage hormone).

I have gone back and forth between these two, relying on well known and accepted diet plans, and to date have not been able to achieve sustained results. I begin 2012 at nearly the same weight and on the same medications as I began with in 2010, and that is very, VERY discouraging.

That is all changing right now. I am about to embark on a plan for myself this year that, with diligence and consistency, will work. My diet will be largely vegetarian, adding in NON-MEAT protein & supplements to achieve a 1:1 protein to carb ratio, an optimum level for me. My body WILL release excess weight. As my weight comes down, blood pressure WILL come down also. Lower blood pressure means I can safely wean off of the meds that are creating all these complications.

I WILL BEAT THIS.

I tell you all this to drive home the point that it is VERY important to listen to your own body and give it what it uniquely needs. What I’m doing may or may not work for you. Nobody, not even your doctor, can manage your health as well as you can. Women in particular tend to take care of everyone else first, which often lands us in the doctor’s office receiving “solutions” that might just introduce other issues we hadn’t counted on. Simply put, we just have to stop this nonsense. I have to stop this nonsense.

I’m interested to hear what you think, if you’ve had experiences like mine. If you are presently vegetarian, what helpful tips do you have for my new journey?

Cheryl

P.S. I know I just told you last week that I am doing Chris Powell’s carb cycling program. At the risk of sounding like a complete flake, I’m changing that right now. Combining macro-nutrients as he advises may prove helpful, but my primary strategy will be as described above.

As promised, today is the day I unveil the specifics of the carb cycling plan that I’ve decided to try out in 2012! Without further ado, here are the basics:

Every meal has three things in it: protein, vegetables and either complex carbs or healthy fat. High carb days are the days with the complex carbs and low carb days are the days with the healthy fat. All you do to follow a carb cycling plan is to alternate high and low carb days, and eat 5 meals a day 3 hours a part. The seventh day of the week is, guess what, a FREE day! Eat whatever you want. (This is where you can have the candy bar or chips if you really want them.)

This program is followed for three weeks, then the fourth week is 6 days of high carb (protein, vegetables, and complex carbs) and a free day. This is worked into the plan in order to make sure your body doesn’t stop burning the fat and settle into a pretty little plateau.

The following week, you start the cycle over again. Easy peasy.

The exercise that goes along with this (no, it’s not required, but if you are tempted to skip it, watch the video below NOW) utilizes exercises that we all know…situps, pushups, squats and some high intensity interval walks. Basically you do 3 situps, 6 pushups and 9 squats, repeating that cycle as many times as you can in 10 minutes. This is done 3 x a week with a day of rest in between. Adding to that is the HIIT walks. These are done 6 days a week and last 30 minutes.

So, basically, you get to sleep, sit, rest for 23 1/3 hours a day, move 40 minutes, lose weight and gain muscle. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal at all.

Pretty simple therapy, wouldn’t you say?

Personal trainers, fitness experts and transformation specialists are singing the praises of carb cycling.  But, what do you think of carb cycling? Have you heard of it before? Wanna try it out with me? Think I’ve lost my marbles? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks for being here,

Cheryl

P.S. If you want more details about the carb cycling food plan or exercise program, pick up Chris Powell’s book Choose to Lose. He has been extremely successful with the super obese on the TV show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. The book is available on Kindle/Nook also.

Good afternoon! I’m happy that at least a few of you have stuck around and not deleted me from your readers! You are definitely appreciated and are to be commended for your patience! I will be expanding the blog this year to include some of the other passions that drive my life; my family, my writing life, my faith and my love of the outdoors.

I’m taking up a new hobby this year also….photography! Very excited about that and if you stick around you’ll have to get to witness it all. We’ll also be moving sometime in 2012, so it promises to be a year of adventure. We’ll be losing our behinds in more ways than one!

But whatever content is offered, as always I want to be a hope and grace dispenser…to share my own humble journey with you in the hopes that you will find what you need for your own. Please feel at home here and in the comment section to engage with the content, me and the other readers. So many good things can happen in community, and that’s what I’m hoping to create here once again.

My goals for this year are pretty simple: Develop my gifts; Lose 90#; Make money; Focus.  (Hubz really likes that last one…I may or may not have frustrated him in past years when I didn’t need to do that, hehee.) I’ve got these goals on paper along with specific measures and plans on how to reach them. THAT is the really hard work I think.

Soooo, I want to tell you about my “diet” and what I’m currently doing to move my body. I began yesterday, January 9, 2012, on a carb cycling food plan, combined with some shaping and fat burning exercise.

When I first heard the term “carb cycling” I have to admit I thought “fad”, but I changed my mind after I looked at the science behind it.  Carb cycling is nothing more than eating the food you already eat in such a way as to maximize fat loss. A healthy diet, eaten however you please, isn’t necessarily a diet that will help you lose weight. I have learned that cute little fact first hand.

Carb cycling takes healthy eating to a new level to maximize fat loss, and what I love most about it is that I’m not giving up any food groups to do it. Not even candy bars and potato chips. Those are a food group, right? ;) (You can still have these, just not whenever you want.) There are foods you build your life on, and then there are foods you indulge in now and then. Hang with me, I promise you that this is one of the most sane programs I’ve ever seen. You don’t leave your head or your heart at the door.

Many personal trainers, fitness experts and transformation specialists have jumped on the carb cycling wagon and recommend it for fat loss. So, I looked at a couple of different programs and decided to follow Chris Powell’s, as described in his book Choose to Lose. Chris has had some amazing success with the super obese on his hit TV show Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition. The book is very well written, the food plan is sound and simple to implement, and the exercise program doesn’t require you to join a gym. Personally, I don’t want to spend my whole day thinking about this stuff, do you? I. NEED. SIMPLE.

I also need a way, not just to lose the weight, but to also keep it off. If it all comes back when the “diet” is over, there’s no point, right? Carb cycling claims to break through the carb/sugar addictions and teach us how to manage our weight safely and sanely. Of course, there’s a limit on how much a food plan can do, but the assumption here is that we’re fully engaged in the process and spend time looking at what drives our undesirable behaviors. Stay tuned to hear more about it in the next few posts, and afterward to follow my progress.

Next time I’ll share exactly what the program entails, but until then, have you heard of carb cycling before? What do you think?

Cheryl

Hello, hello….um, hi there….uh, remember me? I’m Cheryl, I used to write here a long time ago?

Goodness, I’ve been gone a WHOLE entire year! If you are still here, THANK YOU!, and I will tell you exactly what’s been going on and why I was gone. But first, let me just say Happy New Year to you and yours! I sincerely hope that you have an exciting and challenging 2012 plan laid out, and are filled with hope for all that is and will be new in the coming year!

So, here’s my story. Early in January 2011 I visited my doctor for a checkup, and some of my blood results were very, very discouraging. As some of you know I worked hard in 2010 to lower my blood pressure and glucose numbers naturally without the use of medications, and made some great strides forward. Over the holidays I indulged in a few treats, not anywhere near what and how much I would have indulged in years prior, but nonetheless it showed up in my blood work. The only person more unhappy than my doctor was ME. I was, honestly, devastated. And, I became quite cynical about this whole process for a few months.

I eventually emerged because I knew I couldn’t give up on getting back my health and vitality. But, I will admit to you, I wondered if it was possible and if I was going to have to swallow my doctor’s advice along with his prescription drugs. I can’t begin to describe how every fiber of my being fought against this. My 2010 work appeared to be lost, tho, and I myself felt more lost than ever on how to care for this body of mine. I had to do something.

I tried a few different things in 2011. I gave Medifast a good run, and it worked for me quite well. It DID help me get all my numbers under control as well as get some of the pounds off, but I was never quite comfortable with the whole replacement food thing…eating out of a box. I told myself it was medical food…and it WAS, fortified with vitamins plus soy and some other stuff. My plan had been to stick to that and then go through their transition and maintenance programs to learn how to keep the weight off. But when hubz was laid off his job, we no longer had the funds for me to continue. Sigh.

And, the questions and self-loathing started all over again…what ‘diet’ should I follow, why can’t I stick to anything long enough to reach my goals, what is wrong with me, and on and on. I needed some time to figure things out, and decided to take 12 weeks and challenge myself to get to the bottom of these things. I had no idea what to expect, I just knew I needed to find out what was going on, a time-out to get back in touch with exactly what I wanted from my life.

So, there were no diets or scheduled exercise programs. No weigh-ins or measuring my waist. No weekly meet-ups to check in. None of the diet behavior I’d made such a big part of my life. It was a little scary going into this, but I was truly at the end of my own resources to push my life forward. My engine stalled, and could not, would not be power jumped.

Getting it started again was quite the process! I will confess to you that October, November and December were a failure if you measure success by the scale. But, they were also a smashing success, filled with many many good and helpful things . . . introspective periods, examining what was important to me, what my needs are, what my desires are, and how I want to spend the next 30 years of my life.

During this time I sometimes found myself eating food out of habit that I wasn’t even enjoying. Pizza, French fries, chips, shoveling it all in so fast I barely tasted it, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t feeding my body, I was feeding something else entirely.

Those months were also filled with looking at my relationships, the ones that were occupying most of my time. I spent time and emotion deciding how to manage them in the future in order to build the kind of intimacy into my life that I so want and need, and that when lacking, is the primary driver for the crazy eating I engage in.  It was all good, but it was hard.

I also gave lots of thought to my talents and gifts, how I was both using them and not using them. I thought and prayed over making changes in managing them. I looked at my business ventures, did some soul searching to discover what fits and what doesn’t fit. I examined my goals from years past, looked to see whether or not I reached those goals, and if not, why not? I realized that as much as I’ve talked about dreaming big dreams over the last many years, I wasn’t doing much dreaming myself at all. I wasn’t even sure where to start.

I visited my three sons more often in 2011 also. These young men are the apple of my eye, I can’t even tell you how my heart skips with joy when I hear what they are thinking, believing and doing, the young men they are, and are becoming. Being with them made me want to be with them more, and when it was time for me to return home I found myself dreaming again about living back in the pacific northwest, family dinners and holidays, and hanging out with them.

And, instead of blogging about all of this, I took to working on these personal matters privately, many times just me and Jesus, other times with hubz or trusted, close friends. I listened like I’ve never listened before to other writers and speakers that I respect. I cried out to God with my longings, my needs, my wants, and realized anew how desperately I need Him every single moment. I read my Bible, searching not so much for answers but rather for the One who gives those answers. As the Don Miller book title so aptly puts it, I was “Searching for God Knows What”!

So, you could say that 2011 was a pivotal year for me. It held both enormous blessing and numbing pain. I was lifted up to heights of joy I’d never known before and lowered to depths of sorrow I hope to never experience again. But in all of that I was able to let go of some things in my life, and take hold of the new path I’ve been given.

I thought about apologizing to you all for not sharing this last year’s journey with you, but I’m not sure it would have been what it was had I done that. I hope you can accept that this journey was one of solitude, and know that by me not being here in 2011, I am better able to be here now.

And, there is much to talk about for 2012! I’ve got plans that I’m eager to share, beginning with the next post.

Thanks, as always, for reading my thoughts.

Cheryl

A friend of mine was shaken to the core when her husband told her if she didn’t lose 50 pounds in the next year that he would leave her.

No joke.

He said he wasn’t trying  to be mean but rather to motivate her, and he knew that fear of losing him would do that.

I don’t know for sure how this story will end, but I can guess.  One time I lost 65 pounds in 4 months because I feared rejection of someone I really really liked. And, you know what happened? After that rejection happened anyway, those 65 pounds came barrelling back into my life.  The reason to lose them was now gone.

Coming from a completely different angle, the other day BK Boreyko, CEO of Vemma Nutrition Company talked about a vacation to Maui that he would give me for reaching certain goals I’ve set for myself in 2011.  But, it’s what he said right at the end that really got me thinking. He said “Don’t do this for the trip or for the money. Do it for the person you will have to become in order to reach your goal.”

New Year’s, the big resolution making day is right around the corner. You know that magical day when everything changes. ;) So, I’m wondering dear blog readers, what motivates you?

If your significant other said to you what my friend’s husband said to her, would that work for you? Would what BK Boreyko said motivate you? And, why? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Best,

Cheryl

Beautiful, Snowy Minnesota!

Brrrr, can I just say that living in Minnesota is a mind-stretching experience?! You have to stretch your mind into thinking only positive thoughts when the temps are in the nether regions of the thermometer!

The weight I’ve lost this past year (nearing the 40# mark!) feels very good in every other way . . . but honestly, I think I was warmer last winter!

Since I’m still working toward my goal weight, I won’t be buying a new & warmer coat…instead I’ve opted to dress in layers. LOTS of layers.

It’s been fun, but it takes time and preparation….wearing more clothes means more laundry to keep clean, more time to get dressed and make sure it all coordinates, fits, works. But, I’m finding that as long as I do a little preparing ahead of time, I can stay toasty warm without that LL Bean ankle length parka I’m lusting after.

Losing weight isn’t any different. If you want to lose weight, you have to work with what you have and where you’re at…you have to make sure your plan is realistic and relevant to your life.

You have to be willing to be a little different, eat something other than macaroni and cheese, and spend time thinking ahead and preparing your meals. And once you get going, it’s really kind of fun.

Don’t listen to people (aka advertisers) who want to sell you a quick fix solution and say you can lose weight without exercise and while eating all your favorite foods. Seriously? Isn’t that how we got this way in the first place?

We’ll be talking about goals over the next several weeks….which are really very different from New Year’s Resolutions. Stay tuned!  If you haven’t already, start thinking about where you want to be at this time next year. What do you want to accomplish in the next 12 months? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

staying warm,

Cheryl