I'm excited this morning, and feeling very positive, because I feel like I'm getting back into the groove of things. I really just need a couple of days in a row of getting things right - which, for me, means I'm meditating, I'm exercising, I'm eating clean, I'm drinking my smoothies, and I'm staying on task relatively well - to start feeling like Superwoman. It's a great feeling. This is one of those feelings I wish I could bottle and save for days when I'm struggling.
We're doing well at making Monday and Wednesday nights regular Y workout nights. That's a big thing for me, because even though it's only two days a week, just the fact of having regular workout nights puts me in the right mindset for taking care of myself and observing healthy behaviors. It makes it easier to do the things I need to do the rest of the time, because I feel I have that momentum. I do make sure to make them really great workouts, just in case they end up being my only two, but the truth is they generally aren't. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can generally get a decent workout playing Wii Sports, and when I get bored with that (which I figure I will in a week or so) I can use the WiiFit or my Jillian Michaels Wii workout (I have to work up to that one. Jillian doesn't mess around, and I've been out of the game for a while now!) or I also have a yoga workout for the Wii...so I have plenty of options.
Weekends are harder, simply because I don't have a regular routine. The day progresses however it happens to progress, and while I have plenty of opportunities to fit in a workout, I tend not to do so. This is something I need to work on - my tendency to need a set, regular routine to make me exercise. For now, however, I'm choosing to be pleased with where I am rather than being dissatisfied because it's "not enough". It's more than it was two weeks ago, and that's great. This is me being happy with that.
The smoothies really make a difference as well, to a surprising extent. I keep being amazed by the increase in energy and focus, the improvement in physical and mental function, and the fact that I have fewer cravings and energy slumps.
Today's smoothie is kiwi, strawberry, banana, baby spinach and kale. And about 6 ounces of water. This one is thinner than some of my recent efforts, which is nice, and it's absolutely delightful. I'm relieved by that; I've been a little afraid of the kale, because word on the street (yes, Incredible Smoothies, where else?) is that kale has a stronger flavor and is a bit harder to cover than spinach or romaine. I really hate leafy vegetables (which is why I'm doing smoothies to begin with!) so I was wary, but the kiwi-strawberry-banana combo is an awesome cover; I don't taste anything else. It's a little sweet, a little tart, and totally delicious. It's also about 377 calories for the whole thing; I drink half in the morning and half in the afternoon, so I'm under 200 calories with each and I definitely feel full; I won't want anything else until lunchtime. The biggest thing, of course, is I'm getting massive amounts of Vitamins A, C, and B6, calcium, potassium...and I'm getting them from an ideal source - fresh, whole, organically grown foods.
It's no wonder I feel good. :-)
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
My Morning Cup of Peace
I've decided that I really can't miss a day of meditation. My game plan has been meditation first thing in the morning, to start the day off on a certain note. I've seen this discussed in several forums (or fora, if you prefer the Latin), and while it immediately made sense to me, I have to admit I dismissed the possibility of applying it in my own life. I'm very protective of my sleep-time, and I'm not a fan of mornings. I'm generally very rushed and barely manage to get out the door on time, so the idea of somehow building even fifteen extra minutes into my morning routine seemed ludicrous at best.
Eventually I recovered my good sense enough to remember that you don't achieve change or improvement by maintaining your current behaviors and routines. [Seems like a no-brainer, really, but it's a mental block over which we stumble with distressing regularity, isn't it?] So I built myself a new morning routine, consisting of three principal elements: (1) Getting out of bed when Scott does, so that I have that extra fifteen or twenty minutes; (2) Meditating immediately; and (3) Showering instead of taking a bath, because frankly, taking a bath does help loosen up stiff muscles and joints, but it also makes me want to go back to bed even more than I already did.
I started out well, but being sick last week threw all my routines into disarray. I think that might be the cause of the perplexing mental and emotional funk in which I found myself this past weekend. I was just cranky. I seemed to be viewing the world through my nasty ochre-colored glasses, and I just didn't like myself or anything else on the planet. I really don't know what the problem was.
I do, however, know the cure. I woke up still cranky this morning, and immediately followed the advice of Mariel Hemingway from the latest issue of Living Without - I sat up in bed, rubbed my feet, and thought grateful thoughts. (It was harder than it should have been. I have a lot to be grateful for in life, but when I'm in this mood, I tend to not be able to feel that way.) I realized how dry my skin was and rubbed some lotion on - yay for self-care, right? - and then I got up and got going.
I didn't meditate. I hadn't allowed myself time, because I didn't get up when Scott did. Tomorrow, there will be an alarm set. I did make my daily smoothie and prepare my healthy food for the day, and I listened to the Sirius/XM Spa channel on the way in - which seems to help my innate road-rage a lot - and (most importantly) I meditated at lunch. Oh, the difference it makes.
I get most of my guided meditations from iTunes, primarily a podcast by Mary and Richard Maddux, whose wonderful work can be found at Mediation Oasis. Today's meditation was a chakra meditation, which may sound fruity, but it's really all about body awareness. And honestly, it doesn't seem to matter much what the topic of the meditation is (though there are some specific ones that have been very helpful, like Beyond Pain). The process of consciously focusing my attention and being aware - in other words, deliberate mindfulness - truly calms me and helps me to be more aware, more alert, and stronger within myself. It also helps me to be truly mindful of the good things in the world, and more joyful and grateful throughout the day.
I feel good now. I've been able to recover my excitement at little things - most of which are so little I'd feel silly mentioning them, but they make a difference to my day. I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic, I'm resolute and determined, and I'm more alert and mentally sharp. It all makes me wonder why I would ever skip this?
A blogger I adore, Carla Birnberg of Mizfitonline.com, talked today about journaling when you feel really good, so you can recapture that feeling later when you don't. I'm taking that advice. This is how I feel when I've meditated - to help me find that feeling, but also to make me think twice when I'm tempted to lapse in my practice:
I can feel my entire body. I'm aware of every sensation, every muscle contraction or induction, every breath, every reflexive movement or twinge. I can feel the way the energy moves through my body, and this energizes my entire outlook. I feel alive and strong and as though anything is possible. Odd as it might seem, this hyper-awareness seems to make my pain and stiffness less. I could speculate on why, but that's not what this is about. Later, maybe.
I also care more about what I'm putting into my body. Everything I take in, I feel working toward the nourishment of my whole self, and this makes me care more about what it is; it makes me glad that every ingredient in my daily smoothie is organic and fresh; that the water I am drinking is (to again quote Mariel Hemingway) good water, drunk from glass; that the clothing I chose this morning fits well and is comfortable as well as making me feel well-groomed and put together; that I will be going tonight to work out and following that with the stretching and myofascial release techniques that have made such a difference in my mobility and pain management.
I am more conscious of my posture and the way that I move, which will also improve my pain levels and mobility. I am more aware of my connection to and interaction with the world and people around me, which makes me a kinder, more compassionate and helpful person. It makes me feel less isolated, resentful or alone. I feel more creative (I can feel the words begging to be written, hence the length of this post!), more perceptive and just generally more aware.
I'd like to feel this way all the time. Realistically I know that I won't, but I can make it happen more often than not. That's a good feeling, too - knowing that my choices determine my life.
Eventually I recovered my good sense enough to remember that you don't achieve change or improvement by maintaining your current behaviors and routines. [Seems like a no-brainer, really, but it's a mental block over which we stumble with distressing regularity, isn't it?] So I built myself a new morning routine, consisting of three principal elements: (1) Getting out of bed when Scott does, so that I have that extra fifteen or twenty minutes; (2) Meditating immediately; and (3) Showering instead of taking a bath, because frankly, taking a bath does help loosen up stiff muscles and joints, but it also makes me want to go back to bed even more than I already did.
I started out well, but being sick last week threw all my routines into disarray. I think that might be the cause of the perplexing mental and emotional funk in which I found myself this past weekend. I was just cranky. I seemed to be viewing the world through my nasty ochre-colored glasses, and I just didn't like myself or anything else on the planet. I really don't know what the problem was.
I do, however, know the cure. I woke up still cranky this morning, and immediately followed the advice of Mariel Hemingway from the latest issue of Living Without - I sat up in bed, rubbed my feet, and thought grateful thoughts. (It was harder than it should have been. I have a lot to be grateful for in life, but when I'm in this mood, I tend to not be able to feel that way.) I realized how dry my skin was and rubbed some lotion on - yay for self-care, right? - and then I got up and got going.
I didn't meditate. I hadn't allowed myself time, because I didn't get up when Scott did. Tomorrow, there will be an alarm set. I did make my daily smoothie and prepare my healthy food for the day, and I listened to the Sirius/XM Spa channel on the way in - which seems to help my innate road-rage a lot - and (most importantly) I meditated at lunch. Oh, the difference it makes.
I get most of my guided meditations from iTunes, primarily a podcast by Mary and Richard Maddux, whose wonderful work can be found at Mediation Oasis. Today's meditation was a chakra meditation, which may sound fruity, but it's really all about body awareness. And honestly, it doesn't seem to matter much what the topic of the meditation is (though there are some specific ones that have been very helpful, like Beyond Pain). The process of consciously focusing my attention and being aware - in other words, deliberate mindfulness - truly calms me and helps me to be more aware, more alert, and stronger within myself. It also helps me to be truly mindful of the good things in the world, and more joyful and grateful throughout the day.
I feel good now. I've been able to recover my excitement at little things - most of which are so little I'd feel silly mentioning them, but they make a difference to my day. I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic, I'm resolute and determined, and I'm more alert and mentally sharp. It all makes me wonder why I would ever skip this?
A blogger I adore, Carla Birnberg of Mizfitonline.com, talked today about journaling when you feel really good, so you can recapture that feeling later when you don't. I'm taking that advice. This is how I feel when I've meditated - to help me find that feeling, but also to make me think twice when I'm tempted to lapse in my practice:
I can feel my entire body. I'm aware of every sensation, every muscle contraction or induction, every breath, every reflexive movement or twinge. I can feel the way the energy moves through my body, and this energizes my entire outlook. I feel alive and strong and as though anything is possible. Odd as it might seem, this hyper-awareness seems to make my pain and stiffness less. I could speculate on why, but that's not what this is about. Later, maybe.
I also care more about what I'm putting into my body. Everything I take in, I feel working toward the nourishment of my whole self, and this makes me care more about what it is; it makes me glad that every ingredient in my daily smoothie is organic and fresh; that the water I am drinking is (to again quote Mariel Hemingway) good water, drunk from glass; that the clothing I chose this morning fits well and is comfortable as well as making me feel well-groomed and put together; that I will be going tonight to work out and following that with the stretching and myofascial release techniques that have made such a difference in my mobility and pain management.
I am more conscious of my posture and the way that I move, which will also improve my pain levels and mobility. I am more aware of my connection to and interaction with the world and people around me, which makes me a kinder, more compassionate and helpful person. It makes me feel less isolated, resentful or alone. I feel more creative (I can feel the words begging to be written, hence the length of this post!), more perceptive and just generally more aware.
I'd like to feel this way all the time. Realistically I know that I won't, but I can make it happen more often than not. That's a good feeling, too - knowing that my choices determine my life.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Smoothie of the Day
A little bit of intro info: Weekdays, I do one green smoothie for the day. They're big smoothies; I drink half in the morning at about 9:30, and the other half in the afternoon at about 3:00 or 3:30. This kind of helps me straddle the fence between eating every few hours, which I know is effective for me in terms of weight loss and blood sugar control, and wanting to keep my calories down so that my three "regular meals" can be a bit larger. Depending on the smoothie, one-half generally averages about 200 calories, so that leaves around 1100 to divide among the rest of the day. Also, these are incredibly nutritionally-dense calories.
On weekends, since Scott has been warily joining my smoothie kick when he's at home, I'll make two smoothies so we can share one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I've been making essentially the same smoothie pretty much all the time (variations on banana/strawberry/apple combinations with baby spinach or maybe some romaine if I'm feeling adventurous) but have been branching out a little lately.
Today I decided I'm going to start shaking it up a little. I want to do three different smoothies each week, which would mean I'll do each smoothie twice. I want to work in some variety (the whole point of this is to be able to get in a lot of different fruits and veggies that I would never force myself to eat by themselves) without spending a thousand dollars at Whole Foods or filling the entire fridge with different forms of produce. (As much as I love a fridge full of produce, I have to be practical about this.)
So today's smoothie is kiwi, pear, banana (banana goes in pretty much all my smoothies as the base; I'm a big fan of bananas), radish greens (I thought they sounded gross too but I don't even taste them, as promised by IncredibleSmoothies, and romaine. I didn't manage to get home with cilantro (long Whole Foods story, which I'll spare you) so I used romaine instead and I know that changes the flavor somewhat, but honestly, I'm fairly obsessed with this as it is. It is absolutely amazing. Kiwi turns out to be an amazing "cover" fruit that I will be using a lot. I even gave this to the 12-year-old to try and she liked it. [She adores fruit but does not do vegetables, other than green beans, and particularly despises green, leafy ones. So that's quite an endorsement, right there.] I would like to experiment with kale as it is evidently very strong, and see if the kiwi will cover it, but haven't quite worked up the courage yet.
Anyway, this is a fantastic smoothie with roughly a third of your daily calcium requirement and massive amounts of vitamins A and C (follow the link to Incredible Smoothies for exact nutrition info), which is great for those of us with compromised immune systems.
Tomorrow I'm going shopping armed with a list of ingredients for my Smoothie Trifecta for the coming week, and I'm looking forward to trying some new stuff. It's amazing how much healthier, stronger, more energetic and alert I feel since starting the smoothie regimen. I'm very excited about this!
*A note - I'm using strictly organic produce for these smoothies, as leafy greens in particular will hold pesticides rather badly. That does make it a little more expensive, but for me it's worth it. YMMV.
On weekends, since Scott has been warily joining my smoothie kick when he's at home, I'll make two smoothies so we can share one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I've been making essentially the same smoothie pretty much all the time (variations on banana/strawberry/apple combinations with baby spinach or maybe some romaine if I'm feeling adventurous) but have been branching out a little lately.
Today I decided I'm going to start shaking it up a little. I want to do three different smoothies each week, which would mean I'll do each smoothie twice. I want to work in some variety (the whole point of this is to be able to get in a lot of different fruits and veggies that I would never force myself to eat by themselves) without spending a thousand dollars at Whole Foods or filling the entire fridge with different forms of produce. (As much as I love a fridge full of produce, I have to be practical about this.)
So today's smoothie is kiwi, pear, banana (banana goes in pretty much all my smoothies as the base; I'm a big fan of bananas), radish greens (I thought they sounded gross too but I don't even taste them, as promised by IncredibleSmoothies, and romaine. I didn't manage to get home with cilantro (long Whole Foods story, which I'll spare you) so I used romaine instead and I know that changes the flavor somewhat, but honestly, I'm fairly obsessed with this as it is. It is absolutely amazing. Kiwi turns out to be an amazing "cover" fruit that I will be using a lot. I even gave this to the 12-year-old to try and she liked it. [She adores fruit but does not do vegetables, other than green beans, and particularly despises green, leafy ones. So that's quite an endorsement, right there.] I would like to experiment with kale as it is evidently very strong, and see if the kiwi will cover it, but haven't quite worked up the courage yet.
Anyway, this is a fantastic smoothie with roughly a third of your daily calcium requirement and massive amounts of vitamins A and C (follow the link to Incredible Smoothies for exact nutrition info), which is great for those of us with compromised immune systems.
Tomorrow I'm going shopping armed with a list of ingredients for my Smoothie Trifecta for the coming week, and I'm looking forward to trying some new stuff. It's amazing how much healthier, stronger, more energetic and alert I feel since starting the smoothie regimen. I'm very excited about this!
*A note - I'm using strictly organic produce for these smoothies, as leafy greens in particular will hold pesticides rather badly. That does make it a little more expensive, but for me it's worth it. YMMV.
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