Exercise | BulgingButtons

June 9, 2014
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You Can’t Hide a Sonoran Hot Dog, At Least Not From the Scale

“What’s a Sonoran Hot Dog?” you ask.

It’s pure genius. For those of you who like hot dogs (and I imagine that’s most of you) this is a wonderful South of the Border twist. It’s a hot dog served with chilis, pinto beans, tomato, cheese, and mayo. Mmmmm. I know it may not sound all that great, but trust me, it’s fantastic. Oh, and did I mention that it’s typically wrapped in bacon? Yeah. It is.

Now in my defense, the dog I had yesterday was only based on a Sonoran Hot Dog. It was lacking the bacon. It did, however, have everything else, and it was fabulous. So was the steak dinner complete with baked potato and wine and half a piece of lemon cake, and so was the dinner at the fondue restaurant. Oh, and the drinks from Starbucks and that croissant, and the ice cream cone and the tacos and beer and the oatmeal cookie and the piece of cake at the baby shower. It was all fabulous. And it was all a mistake.

I know I messed up, but for some reason I kept messing up. I needed to go to my Weight Watchers meeting and assess the damage so I could start doing damage control. I knew I gained back some of the 15 pounds I lost, but I didn’t know how much. I braced myself. There was no point in waiting any longer. I wasn’t going to magically change my ways without a kick in the rear. So, steeling myself, I went. I got on the scale expecting the worst, and got the news. Yes, I gained. But here’s the bizarre part… it was less than two pounds!

How did that happen? It must be all the physical activity I’ve been doing recently. That’s all I can think of, because my eating has been way off track (see paragraph two). I dodged a bullet for sure, and now I get to dust myself off and start over. Every day you get to start over. It doesn’t matter if it’s weight loss, addiction, relationships, or exercise. Every day you get to begin again. I love that about life. Even if I mess up today I get to have another crack at it all tomorrow.

I did mess up today. Not just with my eating, but with my friend. We made tentative plans to have lunch together. I knew I might have to do something that would make it impossible to meet her, so I told her I would confirm. I didn’t. I just plain forgot. I forget things so I set reminders in my phone. Well, for some reason my phone decided to do nothing but act as a clock for several hours. I missed the reminder. I missed her text messages. I missed the lunch. I wouldn’t have been able to meet her anyway, but I needed to let her know. I felt like a heel. Lucky for me, she’s a good friend and very forgiving. Now I need to be as forgiving to myself and my dear friends are to me.

Don’t we all deserve to treat ourselves as we would treat our closest friends? We wouldn’t beat them up (verbally I mean) for making a mistake, would we? But we do hold them accountable. We aren’t doormats, but we do forgive and move on. I think I need to remember that as I work to be my own best friend more often than my own worst enemy.

June 1, 2014
by BulgingButtons 7 Comments

Happy June

I don’t have a cute alliteration for this month as it relates to selling my house. I guess “Just Buy It, Already!” is the closest I’ve got. People keep coming to look, but nobody wants to buy. Oh, someone did, but they cancelled their contract. Ugh. I know it’s a great house. I know it will sell eventually. Maybe even today.

On to other things for the month of June. Tomorrow I start teaching a writing workshop for students entering grades 4 to 8. I have three boys and six girls. I have been preparing lessons for them, hunting down YouTube videos of spoken word poets, gathering picture books to use as mentor texts, and generally stressing about how the whole thing will come together. Yesterday my family took a ride out to the site and we walked the campus, mapping out the relationships between the drop off site, the bathrooms, and the classroom. This is all important information. I’m really excited to start working with these young writers. I know we’re going to learn a lot from each other.

In other news, I’ve finally started exercising again! My pool has finally warmed up and with daily temperatures over 100 degrees I’m glad to get in it and get moving. Since I started Weight Watchers a month ago I’ve lost 15 pounds. This addition of exercise can only help that loss along. I’ve done Weight Watchers before, but this time they have something called “Smart Start” where you don’t start tracking and counting points right away. You start by eating certain foods that they refer to as power foods. It’s all common sense really. Eat fruits, vegetables, lean protein, non-fat dairy, whole grains, etc. It’s not that difficult, and there’s room for “indulgences,” the foods and beverages that make life worth living. This is what I’ve been doing, and it’s working for me, so I’m not switching over the all the crazy point counting as long as it keeps working.

I’m not down on the point counting, but for me it makes me focus way more on food and eating than I normally would. I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how many points this or that food is, and how many points will I have left for the day after I eat something, and will I end up hungry? This way works better for me. At least so far.

The move into June has also brought into sharp focus the many items on the 47 for 47 challenge that I have yet to accomplish. The year is up on July 3, so I have just over a month to get in gear and see if I can knock a few more items off the list. I know it’s too late for some of them, but maybe I could sneak in a Zumba class in the next month? I have to revisit that list and see what I can get done.

What are your goals for June? In a nutshell mine are 1. Sell this house 2. Run a successful Writing Camp 3. Continue to eat well 4. Continue to exercise 5. Write! 6. Revisit my 47 for 47 Challenge and complete a few more items.

In the meantime, please enjoy Sarah Kay, a remarkable Spoken Word poet. The video is about 18 minutes, as it’s a Ted Talk, but the poem is just the first three and a half minutes. I believe it is worth your time.

May 28, 2014
by BulgingButtons 11 Comments

All or Nothing Has Got to Go

I don’t know where we get the “all or nothing” attitude. I suppose it stems from perfectionism. If we can’t do it all, why bother doing anything? But that thinking is flawed, and it keeps us stuck.

I’ve been thinking about this as a negative, but let me turn it to the positive for a moment. I’m a “big picture” kind of person. A while back I had a principal who provided the whole staff with Strengthsfinder 2.0 books, and we all took the test to find our strengths. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that my strongest came out as “ideation.”

According to the Strengthsfinder folks, “People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.” In other words, I see things as part of a whole, and can envision how they all connect together. This is very helpful when I’m planning lessons and units in school, when I’m renovating parts of my home, or when I’m designing a quilt.

The flip side of this, for me anyway, is that I sometimes get lost in the details. I know what I want the whole thing to look like and how I want it to function, but all the little bits and pieces of making it happen sometimes trip me up. That’s where I get stuck.

Instead of writing a whole novel, I need to start with an outline. Instead of cleaning the whole house, I need to wash the dishes. Instead of losing 100 pounds, I need to go for a walk. Breaking down these big goals into smaller, more manageable ones, isn’t hard, it just doesn’t come easily or naturally to me. I want to do it all, and I want to do it now. I know that’s not realistic for large goals, so I tend to do nothing instead. How crazy is that?

I have to stop myself and make myself hear how ridiculous I’m being. I would never expect a student to get an idea for a research paper then turn in that finished paper the same morning. I wouldn’t expect my son to take up a new sport and be and expert at it in the same week. I wouldn’t expect my dog to master a new behavior the first time she tries it. So why do I expect so much of myself?

I CAN lose a hundred pounds. It will take a long time and I will get tripped up along the way, but I have to expect that and forgive myself and keep moving forward. I CAN be a published author, but not if I don’t hone my craft and submit my writing to publishers. I CAN keep my home neat and tidy, but not if I don’t spend 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to keep up with it.

Many imperfect steps in the correct direction will lead me far further down the path I wish to travel than just a few perfect steps. I have to keep this in mind and just keep moving. Living in a state of inertia, while easy, holds no rewards. With risk comes reward, and with work comes success. Wish me success and I try to learn this lesson over and over again.