186.5 Grace and Compassion

(Kit, taken on her wedding day, June 2011)

I have a dear friend whose daughter Kit, also a dear friend, is studying at Yale Divinity School. Kit has written a blog post about her weight that is filled with passion, compassion, and self understanding. It was a joy for me to read and I think you'll be moved by it also. Kit is in her mid twenties but reveals wisdom far beyond her years. Enjoy.

http://hellokit.tumblr.com/post/15358531798/i-see-you-twenty-twelve

183.4 Kansas City, Kansas City Here We Come!

My sister Priscilla and her husband Phil live in Kansas City. We haven't visited them there in several years and so we are on our way tomorrow. I know it is going to be fun. KC is a great city with lots to do and see and it has some great restaurants. My biggest issue is what to bring in the way of clothing. Since we moved away from Boston and the weight loss, I have no warm coats, hats, boots, etc. I almost bought a very cute jacket yesterday. I was perspiring just trying it on, and then couldn't part with the $ for it because I couldn't imagine how much I would wear it. Maybe I shouldn't be such a tightwad, and maybe I'd travel more in the winter if I had the jacket. Oh dear, now I'm thinking I should have bought it! Life is pretty good when that's all I have to worry about! Remember "heart, head, heart, head"? Here I go again!

As Promised...

Here's the ID bracelet that I wear now whenever I exercise away from our home. I chose the interactive option which means that besides showing a phone number that can be called immediately, there is a serial number and pin that can be put into a computer and all my info including doctors, insurance, etc., is available. The reason I chose that is because if I have a simple fall, I'll be able to relate whatever information is needed. I'm really wearing this for an occasion where I would not be able to speak and paramedics would be called. I had my choice of style, color, type, etc., and I encourage everyone to wear one of these. It makes me feel safer, it is very comfortable, and if ever needed, wearing it may save my life.

Go to RoadID.com to learn more about it.

184.4 Some Good News!

I just learned that Boar's Head turkey breast contains no nitrites. Funny, the things that can make me very happy. I love to eat turkey for lunch but got all hung up because I had read that all deli meats contained high levels of nitrites. So today I asked about it at our local grocery store deli and, lo and behold, a Boar's Head rep was in the store. So we had quite a chat. She's now on my list of best friends. She told me that the turkey, chicken, and roast beef are all nitrite free. So there you go, another beautiful, great day out here in sunny Scottsdale. Maybe I'm also feeling happy because I got back on the elliptical this morning. It did feel good.

183.4 Starting Again!

Sometimes I feel as if I am wandering in a maze and can't find the right direction to head in. I keep bumping into walls, or I go forever and then realize I'm totally lost and getting nowhere. So this morning I've started writing down everything I eat and I've got a new sign in my pantry reminding me that I do not want to undo all the work I did. Now I am great at putting things in place to help me, and then I turn a blind eye/mind to all of my efforts. But I woke up in the middle of the night and berated myself for my sloppy attitude and resultant weight gain. Then I remembered to love myself and my body for starters and I'm on a much better footing this morning. I'm going to find my way out of the maze.

182.0 An Upsetting Day

Today I headed off to go shopping and turned around because I realized that if I didn't go work out then, I probably wouldn't get it done. So I came in the house, changed my clothes and headed over to the Y. I was doing the elliptical (what else?) when a guy ran into the big workout room and yelled that a doctor was needed. Everyone froze in their tracks including me as we all became aware that someone was in some kind of trouble. I really didn't feel like continuing but I also didn't really want to leave where I was because I didn't want to see what had happened. I know that my reaction may not be typical, but that's where I was. Finally, thinking the emergency must be over, I went into the locker room, got my stuff and headed out. There was a group of guys taking turns doing CPR on the fellow who had obviously collapsed. I could hear them counting. I went on outside and then heard folks saying that no one knew who the man was who had collapsed...which is why I am writing this. And it dawned on me that no one would know who I was if I collapsed there. I show my ID card when I enter and then put it back in my wallet and lock that up in my locker.

Two fire trucks and an ambulance finally arrived which is another upsetting story. Because the Y is in Scottsdale, emergency crews had to come from a Scottsdale fire station even though there were three stations closer to the Y but not in Scottsdale proper so it did take forever for help to arrive.

Maybe I'll work out at my community center workout room. I need to think about keeping an ID with me, also. A very upsetting day.

182.4 Feeling Alive

I think my spirit died a little this summer. I have lots of reasons I can think of as to why that happened and none of them are very good. Jeff and I are already thinking about next summer and changes we might make so that this doesn't happen again.

Today, as I was leaving the college after teaching the ESL group, I was struck by how alive I felt at that moment. I could teach over the summer and perhaps that is something I might do next year. And I want to find other activities even now that give me that sense of aliveness that I seem to need.

My time with my children and grandchildren always gives me that sense of feeling alive and of being in the moment, and I cherish that time with them so much.

So I am grateful for so much today. I even did the elliptical and realized how alive I felt while doing that. Why don't I do it more often and more routinely? That's a good question. So I'm working on lots of things mentally and physically. Welcome back to life, Sue!

178.8 Attitude

One of my friends ends every email with this saying: Attitude is so important! Have a good one!

Another friend called this morning and recommended the book The Happiness Project. I've just downloaded it onto my iPhone and look forward to listening to it.

So maybe I'm okay! I just need a little or big attitude adjustment about where I am in life. This sounds like a good path to take as I move on.

No, I'm no longer high on vicodin. I woke up this morning pain free and feeling good, and ready to go do my water workout. I heard on the news this morning that the low during the night was 93 degrees so I'm sure the water will be very warm!! How's that for a good attitude!

180.6 Beginning To Move Away From Chaos

I'm trying to put more discipline in my life and so not writing a post isn't an option anymore. My sister Priscilla called this morning to encourage me. She suggested that every night I make a list of things to do the following day. I like this suggestion. It will give form to my day and will help with the chaos of not knowing how to spend my time. We also talked about the importance of getting out of the house everyday, something I have tended not to do, especially this summer. So I made a list for today and will write another tonight for tomorrow.

One of the things I put on my list for today is "create". That word wrote itself and so I"ll pay particular attention to it. I'm not sure what today will bring in terms of creativity, but I'm excited to find out. Life is too good to waste staring at a computer without purpose which I had to admit to Prill that I have found myself doing. So now I can cross off write blog post from my list and can move on. This feels good!

Prill and me... a long time ago!

180.4 Answers and Questions

My daughter responded to yesterday's post with this comment:

I wonder if it's not taking the weight loss for granted, but the disappointment that it hasn't changed your life in every single possible way. People say all the time, if I only had more money, if I only lost those 20 pounds, if I only had a new car:) everything would be great and I will never feel sad, mad, lonely again. While weight loss/healthy living is a wonderful and healthy thing and does often change our lives for the better, it doesn't solve everything. And that's disappointing. Does this make any sense?

This makes perfect sense but I'm not sure that's where I am. What I am hearing in my heart and mind is that I have slipped back into old habits of less exercise and eating more, and eating less carefully. But why did I slip back after all of that work? Is there a stasis that we can't control without fighting it all of the time? I wrote recently that I thought maintenance would be easy or at least much easier than it has turned out to be.

So now the question is why did I fall back into old habits and maybe that's what Alee's addressed in her comment above. And another question is how am I going to go forward? I think I have already outlined the plan... more exercise and eating more carefully, with more care in terms of choices and amounts. Of course the over-riding question is how much do I want to do this?

180.0 Loss, Maintenance, Remorse

Now this is really something! One of my friends became inspired by my weight loss and we've had several conversations in person and via email about how I lost the weight and how he was handling food issues. I just got an email from him this morning and he's lost 12 pounds! I am so happy for him, but... did I attract that weight on to me?

I've been thinking a lot about the bump up in my weight and wonder if it is a little like buyer's remorse. Another friend of mine lost a lot of weight and has put a chunk back on. And another friend of mine achieved a total body make over through exercise and weight loss. In fact she won a women's body building competition and now seems to be suffering from depression.

What is it about getting what we want and then not appreciating it enough to live into the changes. What makes maintaining the change so difficult? I was convinced that by taking the weight off slowly and thoughtfully, consciously, I would be able to maintain the loss easily. That hasn't proven to be the case. There are lots of explanations/excuses I can give for the weight gain, but it really doesn't matter. Especially after my recent stroke scare, I need to work very hard at staying healthy. Weight loss is good! Remorse is not!

178.2 Living My Life With Tiramisu

Honeymoon Celebration!

Here's something to write about! Jeff and I just celebrated our 46th anniversary. We had a great day. It was a gorgeous day so we headed down to our very special place to go for special occasions, Lon's at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley. We went for a late brunch and it was divine. Those who know me well know that I love tiramisu and because it was our anniversary the restaurant presented us with a complimentary dessert that happened to be Mexican Chocolate Tiramisu! OMG, it was the best I have ever had.

I'm working on letting go of all of the stroke issues and just living my life. My neurologist said that if I take a full aspirin a day I should stay out of trouble. And he said to go live my life! And so I am!

178.2 Hanging In There

Sometimes I just have to hang in there. After my roller coaster week I went back to the basics of listening to my weight loss CDs made by Jennifer Scott, drinking lots of water, reaffirming in my own mind that I want to get back in the 170 range, and being kind to myself. When I listen to the CDs purposefully, I realize where I have been and how much more I enjoy being slender than carrying around all of that extra weight. That phrase "staying conscious" is so important to my being able to stick with this. I don't really have a choice if I want to live the best life I can. There is no way that gaining more weight back is going to enhance my quality of life, and isn't that what this is all about?

179.0 More Exercise, Fewer Carbs

I remember writing probably a year ago that exercise was easy to accomplish. Just do it, I wrote. But for some reason, now I put off doing it. I find all sorts of excuses for why I can't do it, and I'm writing this at this moment because I know I should get going but don't want to. It's odd that I find myself with this frame of mind. I think that it may have to do with getting out of the habit, and I could list lots of reasons (aka excuses) for that. I need to press reset and get back into the habit so that it is more automatic. Less thought Sue! Just do it!

I'm also thinking about limiting carbs, especially after mid afternoon. I do eat a lot of fruit for a late afternoon snack, and often for dessert, and again before bed. I don't eat the white carbs (potato, rice, pasta) much at all, any time night or day. So here we go on a new search to discover why I am stuck again. (I was talking to a great friend of mine last night about the haboob, the big dust storm we had out here recently. Maybe I need a big haboob in my life to shake me up. But wait! I just had one with the stroke diagnosis. Sue, sign off and get moving.)

179.0 Friday Was Not A Good Day

Friday, the day I ended up in the ER, was not a good day for another reason. A woman whom I had met the day before also ended up in the same hospital. Unfortunately, her diagnosis will not be changed.

After meeting her on Thursday, I saw her again on Friday morning and introduced her to my friend and walking buddy Linda. She explained to us that she used a walker because she had peripheral neuropathy in her left leg. (That makes my numb thumb seem much less significant.) After chatting for a bit, Linda and I walked on ahead of her and suddenly heard her cry out for help. She was in the middle of the street and had fallen. We raced back to help her and realized that she was badly hurt. To make a long story short, she was taken to the hospital and I learned that she had suffered a broken hip. She's 87 years old and now needs hip replacement surgery. I've been thinking that it is a little odd that we both had medical issues on the same day, we ended up at the same hospital, and that we both have neuropathy issues, and we live on the same street.

I woke up this morning more determined than ever to take care of myself. Accidents happen all of the time, and most accidents are just that, accidents. We think she walked into a low hanging tree branch and lost her balance trying to move away from the branch quickly. I hope that when I am 87 I will have the spunk that this gal has. I expect to see her out walking before too long with her new hip.

179.0 Where Is The Wiggle Room?

I just mistyped my weight and saw 199 when I looked up! Yikes! It's hard enough to acknowledge my weight as it is without adding 20 pounds. I met Jennifer at the Paradise Bakery this morning and she asked me why I thought I had gained weight while in Boston, why is it was so hard to just eat the right thing? I told her that there is a part of me that wants to be able to eat what I want or at least have some room to stray a bit now that I lost all of the weight. The fact of the matter is that I don't have much if any wiggle room. I need to always be vigilant and not think I can indulge with food. Hmmmmmmm!

177.5 Do I Have To Share?

Recently I have had some upsetting times in my pool. I would be doing my Mamma Mia thing, singing and doing my workout and look over and see a dead vole (like a big mouse) floating near me. I'd fly out of the pool and get Jeff to remove it. I felt sorry for the poor animal that obviously had struggled before giving up the ghost, and it totally creeped me out. Yesterday Jeff told me there was a huge night frog in the pool. He used a net and got it and threw it over the wall. So today I checked for voles, dead voles, and I checked for night frogs, dead or alive, and saw neither so got in the pool and started my workout. After a while my eye was drawn to the filter area and I thought I saw something, but then talked myself out of it and kept going. When I looked again, a frog was staring back at me, sort of hanging out in my pool.

Did he think it was his pool? I was out of that pool faster than I've ever moved and when I gathered my wits, I started to laugh. Even though night frogs are huge as frogs go, it was a lot smaller than I am. Jeff was napping after a morning of golf so I let him sleep. I screwed up my courage and got back in. As I was trying so hard to be okay with everything, that blue and white filter thing bumped into my back and I was sure it was the frog so I flew out of the pool again.

Jeff finally came out and used the hot pink noodle to trap the frog in the filter system and was able to get it out.

It is now living on the golf course. I don't play golf so I don't have to worry about sharing the golf course with him.

What this has to do with weight loss, I have no idea, but if moving more quickly than I ever dreamed I could burned up some extra calories, let's hear it for the frog.

173.0 Heart? Head?

Jeff and I have a new game that we play to make each other laugh as we try to make a decision. I call it the Heart? Head? game and it goes like this. You want something but you know it isn't really good for you to do or eat or drink, etc. So you ask what the other thinks and then start saying, "heart? head?" and keep repeating those words until you decide what you're going to do. It can go either way. I'm thinking that a goal in life might be to integrate your heart with you head (mind) so that the best solution is the one that you always go with. Hmmm...heart? head? No matter what, it makes us both laugh. That's a good outcome any day.

172.6 Gearing Up For Snow!

It does snow in Arizona. In fact, there's a big ski area just above Flagstaff, AZ. Most of us don't think about snow when we think of AZ, but it's part of the landscape in the northern reaches of the state.

But we are gearing up for snow in the Phoenix area, in my neighborhood in Scottsdale on Sunday. I'm really quite excited about it. The last time we had snow was 3 Christmases ago, when all the relatives were here and it snowed for about 5 minutes. Before that, on the day that my friend Ann flew in from Massachusetts to enjoy sunny Scottsdale, it snowed! Yes, it was embarrassing but fun to see kids snowboarding around cactus plants!

So what's going to taste good on a cold, snowy day that isn't loaded with calories?

170.6 Tea Is Good

It is funny how we are gearing up for the cold out here. While our friends and family in the Mid West and Northeast are facing the threat of yet more cold and snow, we are all in a tizzy because tomorrow the high is going to be only 43 degrees and it might get down into the 20's over night. The plants are wrapped up like Christmas presents, and the outdoor faucets are wearing old quilted bathrobe fabric to keep them from freezing. We are spoiled out here, but it really feels cold!

The best part about the cold weather is being in the house and drinking hot tea. It's like a yummy comfort food. Drinking hot tea reminds me of spending time with my daughters after school on cold afternoons in Wellesley. And now I've got my grandsons drinking "Sleepy Time Tea" before bed when I visit them. Tea is good! It loves you back.