My New BFF

Well, there she is with all her possibilities! My new bestie! My new BFF, best friend, companion and yep, my confidant!  This gal probably doesn't even know what's coming, if she did she might run...and fast!!! 


I have myself convinced of one thing, its all or nothing. I have been blogging about losing weight for five years, three months and 6 days.  I have lost, I have gained, I have learned and I have forgotten.  I have been all in and focused on the goal, and I have been at times hanging on by a thread.  I have an arsenal of recipes and favorite low carb foods.  I don't eat beef, choosing instead to eat lighter, leaner meats like turkey and chicken. But I am still overweight.  What gives?
I am convinced this is the hardest thing I have ever done and why is that?  Because it is a choice I have to make every day! 



Think about it, usually in life the big responsibilities come with built in rewards and consequences, things you cannot easily ignore.  When you have children, once that baby is in your presence you can hardly ignore it and walk away, there are laws against that.  When you start a job, there are people counting on you and that expectation keeps you going through your daily routine and showing up, performing and in a week or two you get your reward.
But...weight loss is all about choice, daily choice, weekly choice, moment to moment choice... the reward is both immediate, and long term, it is illusive because you can have it in your hand and feel the glory, turn around and lose it so quickly. 


There are no laws that compel me to eat healthy, exercise or take medication, except the laws of nature and those are easily ignored by sticking my head in the sand. It is a constant battle, winning one, losing one.  There is no screaming baby ( ha, unless you count me throwing a tantrum because I want carbs and then again I don't).  The point being, there is a short list of reasons to do this and do it right, they are life or death reasons but those decisions come in such miniscule moments they seem insignificant.  But the sum total of each of those equals the success or failure of any break of habit, any huge life changes. So what's a gal to do???


Go shopping of course!  Ha hahaha - I cracked myself up on that one.  But yeah, shopping for new habits, new outlets for stress, new bffs in the form of a commitment machine otherwise known as exercise equipment.  I realize after five years of ups and downs that there is no golden grail. There are strings of decisions, that all add up. Like life itself, it happens while you are planning to make it happen and while you are sleeping away in oblivion.


There are ways to set myself up for success and ways to let myself off the hook.  So with my new equipment, I have removed all excuses. (Well maybe not all - I'm sure I can come up with something) but I have given myself the gift of convenience that is hard to ignore. This is a chance to ramp it up. To take the higher road.  My new BFF  stares at me longingly across the room, beckoning me to join her. She is asking me to trust her, to tell her my worries and my woes.


I guess I better "shoe up" and go do that thing.  Spend time with my new friend.  I want to keep her happy.  She and I  are developing a good relationship of give and take. I'm gonna give her everything I've got and she is gonna take me to the next level! 


That's all ~ Thanks y'all!

Pardon Me But I Think I Just Spilled My Guts On Your White Coat

Well I really went and did it this time.  Something I have dreaded, then craved, then chickened out on, then finally, pushed to the wall, I did.  I found a new doctor and I spilled my guts.  Gross sounding I know, but not literally spilled my guts, just figure of speechly.  She (Yes, young female doc) came in expecting a new patient consult and I think I may have surprised her because I certainly surprised myself with my candor.  So much so that when I left her office I felt depleted.  I felt like I had a two hour heart to heart with the principal, or the judge, or some other force of man's laws.  I gave her the whole run down on the symptoms, the known to me causes, and the efforts I have made to cure myself.

She sent me down the hall.  I had to sit in the little chair and offer up my veins in ceremonial sacrifice to the taker of the blood. She was nice enough but I am a big wimp.  I didn't cry though.  I toughed it out and it was over soon enough. Thank Goodness.

So we talked about my sleep apnea and the need for sleep.  We talked about a new sleep study and a new approach to treatment. We talked about my blood pressure and the pain in my lower legs.  She talked about the vein doctor, and the possibility of Type 2 Diabetes.  I laid it out there, stroke by stroke, and she matched each volley with a plan, a possibility for better life results and sent each ball right back into my court.  And you know what, it wasn't so bad.  I felt purged.  I felt like I had a partner in my quest for better health and that partner was all about action and accountability. 

So maybe you are thinking big deal, so what??  But I'm not so good when it comes to seeing a doctor.  Trusting doctors has never been my strong suit and I have to say, I am still a huge advocate for taking care of yourself with the right diet and exercise.  And I'm a private person about the physical stuff. I share what I want to share, but no more.  But at 50 I realize I do have to let the professionals in on my dirty little secrets. Stuff like numbness in my feet and fatigue.

My lack of blood pressure medicine refills forced me to seek out a doctor but my need to be wholly well again finally overcame my fear and self consciousness and I plunged forward like the Labradors I see at the dog park chasing the tennis balls into the pond with passion and abandon.  I'm surprised I didn't scare the poor girl.

So, as I feared, I have not lost my excess weight quickly enough and since the last couple of months I have been letting my diet veer further and further away from what it should be, I have crossed over from pre-diabetic, to just over the line in the world of Type 2 diabetes.  My doctor has given me six weeks to clean up my act and see if diet and exercise are enough to put me on the right path.  After that, I don't know, I am trying to just focus on tonight and the lovely salmon, kale salad and small bowl of navy beans I had for supper. Trying to keep my chin up so I can see clearly how to walk the path ahead a day at a time. 

I'm glad I went.  I'm glad I spilled the beans and told her everything.  We have a plan.  It was the plan I already had but with a little more help and a few more cheerleaders (well the professional kind you have to pay - but still, they are necessary sometimes) and those cheerleaders are also my link to more knowledge and that means more power and if I need it, more tools to help me on the path.  I haven't given up on being healthy again, quite the opposite, I have gathered an army and that army has access to the arsenal.  People we are kickin butt and takin names!

So to the nice lady in the white coat, thank you.  Thank you for listening to me.  Thank you for caring about what happens to me.  Thank you for being kind but firm and wise beyond your very young years.  Thank you for all your medical school learning and the hard work it took to fill your brain with all the knowledge necessary to help people like me get better.  I am sorry I spilled the beans all over your nice white coat.  Next time I go to see you, I'll bring a bottle of  "Spray and Wash" or maybe two.  Life is messy, you could probably use more than one. 

That's all ~ thanks y'all!

Judgement Day

We haven't seen a speeding ticket in awhile and our son Reed has never had one so it wasn't completely surprising when he visited a couple of weeks ago and produced the dreaded ticket as soon as he got his courage up.  After raising four children you come to expect this kind of stuff will happen occasionally.  It's a learning experience. 

Reed had traveled from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Cordova, TN which is about a 5 hour trek and that is a huge chunk of time for a student in the architecture program at the U of A. Those guys practically sleep in the studio. But Reed declares on presenting the ticket that he wants to go to court and see if he can get this dropped. Really?  You wanna hoof it back over here and sit in courtroom and take a chance on a goose egg and then hoof it back?  Plus you will loose a day of school which is like losing a week up there. Yes. (That's his mama in him - I hate to back down without a fight)

So Reed shows up in the middle of the night ready to drag it to court the next day.  We drive over to West Memphis where the offence occurred and endure hours of waiting in the hallway and courtroom for all manner of criminals and soon to be criminals to talk to the judge. It was an experience to say the least. I can't remember the judges name but he was a great guy.  He took time with each person and tried to think of the fairest treatment for their situation. He used humor and sage advice to work his way through the sea of human infractions against the laws of man. In a humble kind of awe I watched his technique. I saw his judgment apply only to the matter at hand but not to the person at foot. It was good to see a person of authority trying to help those who society had probably given up on, not all of them but many of them. His goal was clear - to hand out justice in the best way possible hoping that judgment would help the person do better in the future.

Then it was Reed's turn.  It's a strange thing to be proud of your son as you see him stand before a judge for breaking the law.  But in a weird and warped way only a parent could understand I was proud of him.  He had on a nice button down with a sweater and even though his jeans were red they looked nice with his dress shoes.  Even though his hair is long and curly like only a wanna-be rock star architect student would wear it, it was clean. It was obvious, this kid was a good guy.  He stood up straight, he answered with respect. The judge was clearly exhausted from telling the same people the same stuff - so many repeat offenders and he actually knew some of them by name. The judge looked visibly relieved when he talked to Reed. He had to get all the way to the "W"s but finally here was a good guy trying to make something of himself.  The judge even said so, "I like to see a young man doing something with his life". 

Long story short, the judge really cut him a huge break.  Reed learned a few powerful lessons and you know what, so did I.

Lesson 1:  Don't break the law
Lesson 2:  If you are going to break the law be prepared to accept the consequences
Lesson 3:  Show up for your judgment day prepared and with the right attitude
Lesson 4:  Judgment of someone's actions is different than judgment of the person

As a heavy girl I have to admit I can be pretty hard on myself. Perhaps the take away for me is that even though my son broke the law, I could still love him and be proud of him for being a man of character.  Can I not apply that to myself? I went against the law of nature and consumed more calories than I burned.  I am paying the consequences.  Does this make me a bad person?  No way!  So what should I do on "Judgment Day"? (Which for someone overweight is ongoing and I am both the judge and the offender...)

My thoughts? Show up each day dressed and prepped for success.  Stand up straight and accept the judgment.  Have a good attitude. Judge the offence and not the person.  Be kind but be firm, use humor and sage advice but most of all be fair.  That's the only kind of judgment that changes lives.

That's All ~ Thanks Y'all!!

Beautiful Plate = Beautiful Life

If you read my blog, you already guessed, I am a creative.  Boring as it is to talk about oneself, indulge me please, just for a moment. 

I get very confused sometimes because I can be quite the chameleon.  I was raised on a farm in a farming/quasi blue collar family. The values there are hard work, little recreation, more hard work, honesty, faith in God, family, love thy neighbor, do not steal...you farm folks know what I'm saying - the simple, wholesome, God fearing values.  Somehow for some reason I sought out and embraced a totally different set of values to add to the mix.  I seriously thought I was adopted when I was about 10 years old because I felt I did not fit in with my family.  I even launched a secret quest to find my adoption papers buried somewhere in the family vaults. Seriously. I think my mother had to show me my birth certificate and even then I was hardly convinced. 

My personal values, seemingly since birth, included creativity, emotional expression, compassion for other cultures especially minorities, justice, individuality and later in life these grew into a quest for education, travel, anthropology, adventure, recreation, personal style, and many other beliefs that I'm not sure my family always understood completely.  They love me, but they don't always get me.  

So this blend of values I hold dear has created a hardworking, God fearing artist who can still produce a garden but also loves the farmer's market. I can fit in with a variety of people and I can be successful at a variety of endeavors. But I have a hard time really knowing what I want in life and following a single path.  Where is my focus???? I want so much and at 49 I am afraid I am running out of time to really pull off anything great. Leaving a legacy of change is one thing I greatly desire.  I want to make a difference in peoples lives. Is that just me getting older and embracing a new set of values? Hmmm...

All of this to say, even though I am unsure which path to pursue in the days ahead, I am sure of a couple of things.  Clarity is important to me, knowing myself is high on the list and I don't like to be too long around people who don't understand that.  If you habitually lie to yourself and never try to see yourself and your context to the world, I probably don't have much in common with you.  I like to see the big picture and I like to talk to others about their place in the big picture as well. That's just me.

By the way, thank you for indulging me in talking about me without any obvious point but there is a point to all of this rambling I think.

The point is, even though I don't know what to do with myself employment wise during this hiatus in Tennessee, I do know two things that I always want and those are a peaceful life and a beautiful life. The farm girl in me says to work hard and not worry about where I work, but the other me says change things, make the world around you better, even if it is just helping one person at a time and you only have time for a handful. Beauty to me is appreciating the little things, the nuances.  Some Japanese would say, "the crystallization of the moment" like appreciating the beauty of the tiny cherry blossom, forget the whole tree, focus on the one blossom and soak it in, remember it and cherish it. This is the beauty of life to cherish what we have today, in this moment.

I made a yummy omelet this morning and because I have been watching the food network so much these days I put it on the plate with a focus on presentation.  I realized that focusing on the presentation gave me more pleasure in the food and the meal as a whole.  It reflects so very much about the life I am trying to cultivate here.  I can only imagine if I set a plate of food down in front of my dad that was well designed and purposely presented.  He would either be skeptical of what the "fancy food" had in it or he would not even notice.  Not a problem - presentation is not important to him.  He values other things like sticking to the staples of food (meat and potatoes), the texture of food, and taste of food, the cleanliness of food and the man of the house providing the food.  Those are good values for sure, just a not altogether my values.  We learn to disagree on things without being disagreeable. It costs me nothing to let other people live their values and vice versa. Live and let live.

Strangely enough even though I miss them terribly I feel more free to be me when I am miles away from my family.  I gave birth for the first time at 19 so almost all my life has been geared around being what someone else needed or wanted me to be.  Almost straight from my parents home to building my own home with children and a spouse I went from being someone's child to having a child, then three more. Not to mention being born in the "don't question your parents" generation. I tried to be every thing I thought they wanted me to be growing up and later even as a mother and wife I strove to live by their specific values.  Until I realized one day, I can't do that anymore.  I have to be myself.  To live my life for anyone else is too much pressure and it robs me of the peace I feel in just being me. 

I am thankful for the values they taught me.  They are strong and worthwhile values and I cherish them.  But I also cherish my own additions and subtractions from their values.  Case in point, creating a plate of food that looks beautiful and tastes beautiful and adds health to my life as well as satisfying my need for creative expression means I am being me.  I value that.  This is the life I am trying to live, a peaceful, beautiful life. 

If your life values lead you to cook five chicken breasts with rice and broccoli on the side and eat that every day this week then by all means - go for it. Eat a half of grapefruit for snack everyday while you are at it!  I'm no hater but that just doesn't work for me.  At least not today.  And the beauty of being me, if that works for me next week, then I will adjust accordingly. This is how we do it!  We find the healthy life according to our values.  We embrace what works for us, we examine the results and finding them satisfactory, we dismiss the rest.  This is true and real.

Today is about finding beauty in healthy living and that's all ~ thanks y'all. 

Resurrection of the Athlete

I decided to write some poetry for today's post.  I think this sums it up. 
That's all ~ Thanks y'all



Resurrection of the Athlete
      Kimberly Wells

Weakness, pain
invade the brain 
to flow from dripping pores

Posture, fatigue
self defeat
buzz around the stench

Mindful thoughts
of yesterdays
broken plays
that could have been glory days
but fell off before

Moments caught
like fireflies
glory dies
in jars with lids

But

Resurrection
comes creeping in
with tentative
hopeful
hues

Until the day
that gains the sway
fierceness finds
a hold

And fiercer still
the mighty will
of athlete
with foe

And finding there
behind the veil
the reflection
is one's own