Happy Monday everyone!
I hope you have that your week is starting off well. Mine has is hectic already but sometimes that is just what happens and we have to learn to go with the flow I guess.
Here is the recap of what we have accomplished so far to
remind us all of how far we have come during the first 8 days of January:
Day 1 – Defined Success and What is/was Holding Us Back
Day 2 – Determined our Purpose and Looked at Passion
Day 3 – Listed Our Goals for January
Day 4 – Listed the Things We Have Needed to Work on for a
While
Day 5 – Looked at Optimism vs. Pessimism and Fear vs.
Intuition
Day 6 – Practiced Conscious Eating
Day 7 – Hara Hachi Bu
Day 8 – Taking the Stress Out of Meal Time
I hope you have been enjoying the January posts so far. Since you are being shy I can’t exactly
tell. Again if you have any suggestions
please share.
Yesterday we looked at a practical aspect of being healthy,
meal planning. Today I wanted to get
back to the emotional aspects of being healthy.
I believe that we can’t be completely healthy until we learn to love
ourselves. This is a tougher assignment for some of us than others. People like me who are recovering
perfectionists find it extremely difficult to love ourselves because there is
always something that doesn’t quite measure up.
However I have made huge strides in not only forgiving but embracing my
flaws. That is not to say that I am finished with this project only that I have
made great progress. Today’s assignment is something that I feel is very helpful
so I wanted to share it with you. I hope
it helps you as much as it helped and continues to help me.
Acknowledging You:
Women are notorious bad at taking credit for things they
do. Why is that? Men want a ticker tape parade if they take
out the trash without being asked but women aren’t like that. Ladies, we need to be more like the guys on
this one. When was the last time you
patted yourself on the back for doing anything let alone everything? I can almost guarantee you that you don’t do
it at all and if you do I bet it isn’t as often as you should. Today’s exercise is about giving you credit
for all the things you do.
Start a new page in your notebook with a header of “acknowledgements”. Now write down today’s date and when you do
something that you are proud of write it down.
Since you are probably new to this I can see you sitting there staring
at the page thinking “what does she want me write?” Come on, this should be so very easy for
you. I will share my acknowledgements
from today to give you an idea of what I am talking about:
1.
I woke up earlier than Dan this morning and
remained quiet so he could get extra sleep since he was up late working on my
new laptop.
2.
First thing this morning I put on my Body
Bugg. I had taken quite a bit of time
off from wearing it so it is good to be back in the habit again.
3.
I am completely committed to my morning “process”
now and can’t imagine my day without motivational books and meditation. For years I have looked for something that
helped me to start the day on the right foot and this really seems to be
it. Love that!
4.
I made us a delicious and healthy salad for
breakfast. It is wonderful that we had a huge bowl of leafy greens topped with
raw and cooked veggies for breakfast.
*woo hoo*
5.
I soaked white beans overnight in water and a
little baking soda to reduce the raffinose (the portion of the beans that makes
them hard to digest) . I am such a great
wife. ;-)
6.
Lunch was a kick ass bowl of white bean and
barley soup. Dan gladly had two bowls
because he liked it so much. I made
extra soup for his lunch tomorrow too. Go me!
7.
While Dan worked diligently on my new laptop I
made sure he had plenty of green tea because it is good for him. We had no
difficulty getting our minimum of 6 cups in today. I also added fresh citrus (grapefruit) to
enhance our absorption of EGCG and cinnamon for additional antioxidants.
8.
We had our two Brazil nuts today after breakfast
to make sure we are consuming an adequate amount of selenium.
9.
Dan didn’t get much sleep last night and wasn’t
feeling 100% today because of it. I
didn’t remind about the mindfulness meditation lecture but instead let him take
a nap with his precious little fur child (Binky). Binky is bad but darn he is cute. ;-) I am
so glad that I brought that bad little car home. We both adore him.
10.
I am proud of myself for all the creative ideas
I have come up with so far for the January health posts. Something tells me that they aren’t what many
of expected but I imagine they are making you think if nothing else.
11.
During January I have needed to spend much more
time on the computer since these posts are more involved and therefore more
time consuming. To make certain that I
still had time for my critical tasks I have eliminated most of my fluffy
activities. I haven’t given up my
meditation, exercise or reading but mindless web surfing has taken a back
seat. When I am on the computer I am
focused on my next post. If you have
sent me an email you probably noticed that my delays are taking much longer than
usual. At the moment I just don’t time
to respond to them. However I will get
to your email as soon as I can. It is
good to not feel compelled to respond right away. I am getting at quieting my inner
perfectionist and she has been in control a long, long time.
12.
This evening I walked over to the store for
kale, frozen cherries, Ezekiel bread and also came home with blood
oranges. *woo hoo* I realized on my walk to the store that most
nearly 50 year old women wouldn’t walk they would drive. I was proud of myself for not even
considering taking the car to the store.
Go healthy me!
13.
While my new computer is definitely different
from my now retired one and I am proud of myself for taking my time to learn
the differences without running to my husband for help. Having a husband who is so good with technology
has caused me to toss most of my problems to him in the past. I intentionally worked out my issues on my
own this afternoon and I feel better about my technology abilities because of
it.
14.
Dinner tonight was another late one at our
house. Since Dan wanted a chocolate
cherry and kale smoothie again tonight I don’t have to tell you what we had do
I? I am very proud of myself for
developing a healthy smoothie that my husband requests day after day. Go me!
Are you starting to get the idea of how to write
acknowledgements? Any time something
goes well, or you attempt something that was difficult for you to do (even if
you didn’t get the result that you wanted) give yourself credit. Treat yourself as you would treat one of your
friends. You would notice when they did
something well, or stepped outside their comfort zone wouldn’t you? Give yourself the same courtesy. You deserve praise too!
Today’s exercises are:
1.
Create an acknowledgements section in your
notebook.
2.
Write as many acknowledgements as you can each
day, at least 5 though more would be better.
3.
Continue to acknowledge yourself every day this
month by writing down what you did well each day. You may enjoy this so much that it becomes
part of your evening ritual.
4.
When you are having a bad day go back and reread
your prior acknowledgements. Treat
yourself as you would treat any of your friends. Shouldn’t you be at least as
nice to yourself as you are to others?
The most difficult part of today’s exercise is getting
started. Women find it so difficult to appreciate themselves. However once you get started I think you will
see how easy this really is. Not only is
it easy but it helps you to focus on what you did well. I think of it as giving yourself an
‘atta girl. You wouldn’t praise one of your employee or
friends, do the same for yourself.
Progress on my goals:
1.
Newsletters – No progress on this goal on Sunday. I
should have clearly stated that I wasn’t going to work on my business on the
weekends because I wanted to spend them with my hubby. However that was my intention all along.
Expect to see progress on this and item 5 again on Monday.
2.
Body Bugg – Seven days in a row wearing my bugg
and going strong. I think this has become a habit again. ;-) If
any of you want to know more about this let me know and I will include details
about it in an upcoming post.
3.
Date with Dan – We had an entire date weekend. Nice!
4.
Measuring calorie dense food – I am still doing
this, and it continues to annoy me less each day. I am starting to get a better feel for what a
tablespoon of seeds looks like.
5.
Working on my business – Again no progress on this goal on Sunday for
the same reason as item one above.
How are you doing making progress on your goals? I hope you are pleased with what you have
accomplished so far. Please keep in mind
that this isn’t a race. Small changes
that become habits result in lifetime results.
Are you learning to focus more on yourself? Women tend to have more problems putting
others first. While this is great for everyone else it doesn’t do anything for
us. Think of life like being on
airplane. You know what I am talking
about, when they tell you in the event of decompression to put your mask on
first. Think of it this way if you don’t
take care of yourself you can’t take care of others.
Random Observations:
I read a quote once about health that I found brilliant, the
person said something to the effect that:
“None of us can escape the laws of cause and effect!”
My reaction when I read this was, wow! Such a simple statement yet dead on (or bang
on as my English friend used to say, and I loved that phrase). Many of us go through life thinking that
rules don’t apply to us. We believe that we can have our cake and eat it too
which is how I describe the practice of “moderation” which as you all know I
don’t agree with.
In my opinion if we want to be healthy then we have to engage
in healthy behaviors. That means that we
can’t eat whatever we want, exercise when the mood strikes us and live a
stressful life and be healthy. When we
continually bombard our bodies with things that are less than healthy
eventually we will pay the price. If you
don’t believe me look at the statistics.
In American over 80% of us will have to deal with one of the
diseases of affluence (heart disease, cancer, or diabetes). These statistics are not the result of
genetics because they weren’t even ¼ this rate 100 years ago. So what changed, our diets and lifestyle is
what changed. If you want to escape the
diseases that most Americans get then you can’t engage in the same behaviors. It really is that simple.
We have all read the definition of insanity, “Doing the same
thing over and over again but expecting a different result.” Are you living your life like other
American’s but aren’t expected to get the same diseases? Does that really make any sense? I would contend that you like the ostrich who
buries its head in the sand when the lion approaches, you will still be eaten
alive you just won’t see it coming.
All of us know someone who is having difficulty getting
healthy. People who have lost weight
following a popular diet only to regain the weight when they reverted back to
their original eating habits. However
often these people still want to believe that a specific diet is the answer for
them because it worked in the past. The
problem of course is that it really didn’t work before because the weight didn’t
stay off. If “the diet” had worked the
weight would not have come back right?
Yet these people don’t want to see that the diet failed. How do we get them to realize that there are
other options available to them that might be more effective? This is one of the questions that I struggle
with regularly. People can be very
stubborn when it comes to holding onto beliefs that don’t serve them well.
If any of you are struggling to lose weight or to improve your
numbers (blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, etc.) maybe it is time to
try something different. After all what you are doing now isn’t working
so what do you really have to lose by trying something different? What is the worst that could happen that it
didn’t work? Since what you are doing
isn’t working you haven’t lost anything by giving something new a try have you?
Sunday:
Since we were up until the wee small hours (after 2am)
Sunday started with more of whimper than a bang. We had grandiose ideas of what
we would accomplish today but in the end it was a very laid back, and not
terribly productive day. However I am
not complaining since we all need lazy days like this on occasion.
As is customary at our house we started our day with our new
favorite tea, a double strength green and white with a little fresh grapefruit
juice and some cinnamon. I haven’t
figured out what we will do when it is no longer citrus season but for now we
are enjoying this immensely.
We had another big bowl of salad for breakfast again
today. I know salad doesn’t seem like
traditional breakfast food but we both enjoy eating over 5 servings of veggies
first thing in the morning. Every time
we do this I remember reading that the average American consumes 3 servings of
vegetables per day and half of those are potato products. How is that even possible? I think the same thing every time this little
factoid crosses my mind. Thank goodness we wised up and cleared up our dietary
habits.
After breakfast Dan dove right back into to setting up the
new laptop. Honestly I have no idea what
he was doing but whatever it was it worked. All my stuff has magically appeared
on the new machine and life is good. Thank
you sweetie for taking such good care of me.
You are the best, and I mean that.
Last night before bed I starting soaking two cups of dried
Great Northern beans in filtered water with a little baking soda (about ¼
teaspoon). I had heard Dr. Linda Lee
(Hopkins Gastroenterologist) that soaking dried beans in water with baking soda
overnight reduced the raffinose making the beans easier to digest (translation
less gassy). Since I like to double
check my facts before sharing them I did a quick search and realized that lots
of people said this but couldn’t find a scholarly source. Needless to say I
asked Dr. Greger if he knew anything about this. Within short order Dr. Greger had written back with a link and
confirmed that baking soda does reduce raffinose. Dr. G is the best isn’t he? If you haven’t checked out his new site (nutritionfacts.org)
please do. It is full of good
information and all of it is science based.
On a related note, both Dan and I think we are experiencing
less intestinal distress since I started soaking our beans overnight with the
baking soda. Just be sure to throw away the water the beans soaked in because
that is where the raffinose goes. If you
try this I would love to hear the results of your experiment. Let’s all share what we learn.
Getting back to the beans I had soaked 2 cups of Great
Northern beans because that was what Dan suggested. Of course I had no idea what I was going to
do with them. I popped them in the
pressure cooker with fresh water and cooked them for 20 minutes. It turns out
that was too much after soaking the overnight.
What do you do with overly soft beans? Well you make soup of
course. I added ½ cup barley, 1 red
onion, 8 cloves garlic, 4 carrots, 1 bunch celery, no-salt seasoning, fresh
minced rosemary and sage and cooked this until the flavors married and the
barley was tender. This soup turned out
great. We both had two bowls and now I
will be making more beans tomorrow.
Dan and Binky had a little Sunday afternoon nap while I
worked on this post and then it was time for a quick trip to the store for
kale. Somehow we had run out of kale
again. It couldn’t have been all those
chocolate cherry smoothies I am sure.
;-)
When we came home from the store Dan told me that what he
wanted for dinner (drum roll please) was a chocolate cherry smoothie. Okay, now I am convinced he is addicted to
them. LOL
While we drank smoothies for dinner (who does that?) we
watched lesson 2 of the mindfulness meditation course. Dan is sticking with it though I am not
entirely certain how much he is enjoying it.
He did say that he thinks it is a good reminder to not sweat the small
stuff and to pay more attention to the things that happen in life. I would say that means he is benefitting from
watching it with me.
Happy thoughts:
·
It is good to have my new laptop up and running.
I am slowly getting used to the difference in the keyboard and the odd track
pad. However I am sure it will be fine
in a few days. I am very lucky to have
my technology problem taken care of so quickly.
·
I used the time when Dan and Binky were taking
it easy yesterday afternoon to get ahead on my post for today. I was nice to have it mostly finished when I opened
my computer this morning.
·
The ideas for daily posts are coming into my
head so fast I think I am going to forget some of them. It is nice to not be in a creative
slump. I hope this lasts for a
while. *fingers crossed*
·
While I have been enjoying writing more detailed
posts this month it is taking up a huge portion of my day. Since you only need a few minutes to read the
posts you may not realize that I spend 4 or more hours writing them. This time on the computer definitely has its
good points in addition to the obvious down side of little free time. On a positive note I have received a number
of nice emails about the posts, now I just need to get some available time so
that I can respond. In case you are one of the people waiting for a reply now
you know what is holding me up. Sadly it
might be a while before I have time to get back to you. But know that I appreciate your comments and
I will respond, eventually.
·
Monday morning I added another book to my
morning reading. I am really going to
have to stop soon or my morning reading will start stretching into the
afternoon. Can you tell that I love to
learn? ;-)
·
I am really becoming addicted to the mindfulness
meditation course and now I want to learn about Buddhism. Who knew this would ever be something that I
would find fascinating, not me that is for sure. If you know anything about Buddhism and can recommend
a good book, DVD or anything else please share.
Thanks!
·
I love that my local grocery store has been
carrying beautiful kale lately. *yay* I also love that they have migrated to mostly
self check out in the evenings when I shop.
Who wouldn’t love getting in and out of the grocery store quickly?
·
Blood oranges are back in season. I love these
beautiful ruby hued oranges. J
Signing Out:
Why can’t Monday being a good day? I wish I could wake up on Monday and think,
yay the start of another week, woo hoo.
However Monday and I are just not buddies. Monday is the day Dan goes back to work and
after spending two whole days with my sweetie I miss him when he goes back to
work. I really need to get back to planning
something fun for my Monday so that I don’t get this blah feeling once a
week. I think the cloudy grey day we are
having isn’t helping my mood. ;-)
Today has been a hectic day. I left the house at noon and didn’t get home
until after 10pm and tomorrow appears as though it will be another long day for
me. I will try to get a post out
tomorrow but I may miss a day. Sorry
about that if it happens. We had an unforeseen
crisis come up. It is always something isn’t
it?
I hope you had a great Monday and I will try to talk with
you again tomorrow.
I have never added baking soda to my beans when soaking overnight. I am going to be sure to try that next time as beans are a big favorite in my house.
ReplyDeleteI am really enjoying your posts! I already eat fairly well, but there is so much room for improvement. Yesterday I started juicing again and restocked my fridge with all of my favorite veggies. I have also eliminated sugar. This is probably the hardest thing for me as I am definitely addicted. I don't use much, but I can see how even a little can make one addicted.
I need to look over previous days to see if I missed your recipe for the chocolate smoothie. It looks so yummy!
I hadn't heard about adding baking soda. That's a great idea. I'll have to try it next time. I find that soaking them for as long as possibly greatly helps me in reducing the stomach pains. I cannot quick soak -- it must be AT LEAST over night.
ReplyDeleteI love your posts, as you know! I'm reading them each day, and even if I don't physically do the exercises, I've been thinking about them. Thanks for dedicating so much time to them. It makes me want to do a monthly theme, too.
As for Mondays, I apologize in advance if this comment makes me sound like a goober, but I just choose to embrace them. Yes, I would rather be at home, but I have to go back to work on Monday mornings, so I have decided to view them as new beginnings that come every week. They are an opportunity for so much positivity. I hope that helps, though I understand that I'm a little crazy. :)
Oh, and I forgot to add that we're blood orange obsessed over here right now. The farmers market has them, and they're incredible!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea it took you so long to write a blog post! Thank you for all that you do and all the work that goes into this blog!
ReplyDeleteCourtney
Hi, Ali! As you can see I'm several days behind. What a crazy week, both personally & professionally! Anyway...
ReplyDeleteMy affirmations:
1/I'm eating savory oatmeal this morning, which has become a habit. I make a big pot on Sunday & then package it for the week (I bought those Ziploc 2-cup containers for this purpose.). In the morning, I pour a little water over it, heat it through, stir, eat. It's much more practical than making a little oatmeal every night after dinner, and I'd never do it if I had to make it in the morning. I loosely use Debby's recipe found at http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/happy_healthy_long_life/2011/01/cheezy-oatmeal.html
2/Ryan told me yesterday that he spent the morning AT THE GYM!! If you knew my husband you'd know that this is nothing less than astounding. He said that he & two other guys at his work have committed to working out twice a week. I feel that this is party my accomplishment because I'm the one who insisted on getting a 'couples' membership. (That was a year ago, but who's counting? ;) )
3/I went to Zumba last night even though I really wanted to go home and sit on the couch. Like I said, it's been a long week. But I told myself I had to go for 15 minutes, and by then my mood had turned around, like I knew it would.
As I'm writing this on Friday, I hope you & Dan have a wonderful long weekend!