mntlydfcnt’s BodyBlog

Where do we get our perceptions of ourselves?  How is it that they change?  When we ar born, ourminds are a blank slate.  We are molded by our experiences and our perceptions are a compliation of all those experiences. When I was young, I would have been considered a tomboy.  Iplayed outside, ran, played team sports and was considered athletic.  Just an average kid.  Inever excelled at any one sport and back then, NO ONE had conditioning year round.  I had an image in my head that I would always be athletic with an athletic body.  What happened to that image?  Well, life experience hapened.  During my 8th grade year, during the holiday season, my world changed.  My perception of who I was changed.  My grandfather sexually molested me.  Instantly who I thought I was vanished.  I had become something that no 8th grader wanted (well perhaps maybe none…I was seen as a sexual being)  I did not want that, I was a kid.  I knew that I had to change that image, so I stuffed those feelings far down inside and covered them up with food.  Food became my drug because I certainly did not want to be THAT person.  I worked for many many years.  My old perception left.  Or so I thought.  I have come to realize over the past few months that my perception was only hidden from me.  I realize that where I am today was what I always believed my life to be from a young age.  So, this week, take some reflection time to visit your perceptions of yourself.  Are you where and who you always thought you would be?  Are you happy where you are?  Decide today if this is the journey you want to continue.  For some, the answer is a resounding yes.  I am where I want to be.  If not, delve into why you have not met your perceptions.  It may not be easy, but is living outside your perceptions any easier?

Well, after a small hiatus from blogging, I am now back at it.  Hence the title!!  No, really, I have heard so many people TALK about starting something.  Anything, working out, starting a new program, quitting smoking, start walking, etc.  We, of course, see them every January 1.  However, beginnings can start at any time.  If we take a cue from schools, beginnings are in August.  If you take a cue from the weekend, beginnings start on Monday and if you take cues from sleep, beginnings can start from the minute your feet hit the floor.  Every single day of your life is a new beginning.  You have a fresh canvas awaiting you.  You get to pick colors, textures, prints, thoughts, ideas, and motives every day to change your canvas.  Beginnings can begin every hour if need be.  Every second of every day is a beginning.  It begins with a thought, idea or dream.  Once you decide, you follow the path for that journey.  But so many of us get sidetracked down some alternate path.  It changes our destination and our journey.  Sometimes for the better, usually just back to an old pattern that we are used to and comfortable with.  NOT a good thing.  For lasting change to take effect, you must commit to your decisions every hour.  Every decision you make should be toward your new goal.  We allow ourselves to be taken in by our old habits.  Then we get down on ourselves and say oh well and give up.  You were never told that it would be easy.  The good stuff never is.  To help you commit to your healthy decisions, focus on the end product…what is that you are trying to change?  Think of your body as healthy and how good you will feel AFTER working out, think how your children view you and your decisions.  They will imitate you without even knowing it.  Go beyond your own boundaries and envision a life that makes you happy.  Every beginning needs a commitment, at some level, from you.  Are you willing to make the sacrifices necessary to see your dreams become a reality? If so, don’t wait until tomorrow or Monday or Jan 1.  Start right now.  Commit to your dream, commit to your happiness, commit to your health, commit to yourself; after all, aren’t YOU worth your valuable time? 

When we were children and our parents talked to us about getting an allowance, we were excited.  Then we were told HOW we were going to get this allowance.  We weren’t so happy with that, but we learned that if we want something good, we have to do things that we weren’t crazy about.  Hmmm, sounds familiar.  However, the allowances I talk about today are not the good things we get from working out and exercising.  This is about the allowances we give others.  We ALLOW others to determine how we are going to feel.  These feelings run the gamut from loving our spouse and children to flying the bird at the idiot in the car next to you who barely misses side-swiping your car.  Then there are the stabs in the heart that our children place on us, or the biting words that an ex uses to cut you into shreds.  What happens next is up to us.  What are you going to allow that person to do to your forward progress?  Yesterday I went to deposit 3 checks that were written to me by my ex.  These were court ordered checks so one would think that that would mean something.  However, to my dismay, they were all bad!!!  3 felony checks bc he has such hatred for me some 7 years after our divorce.  What surprised me even more than that, I just stood there and laughed.  No, really I laughed.  You see, I didn’t allow his stupidity to "ruin" my day.  That and the fact that I had just purchased a book at Barnes and Noble last week that can make even your worst nightmare funny.  It is called Creative Cursing and boy is it the truth.  You see, the right combination of words can make anything funny.  I decided that I would not ALLOW him to dictate how I would feel.  This is one of the few times that I rose above and took the high road.  I will tell you, I feel so much better than allowing anger and hatred to surface.  They drain me of the necessary strength I need to reach my goals.  So I challenge you today to stop allowing others to decide how you feel, act and behave.  The negative energy drains you from the positive energy you need.

Ok, you may be wondering.  Isn’t that one of those wonderful words we call oxymorons… jumbo shrimp.  How can we possibly know what our regrets will be in the future?  We don’t know our mistakes until we have made them.  Otherwise they wouldn’t  be mistakes, right?  The problem is we get clues, we just refuse to listen to them.  Every time you here yourself saying, "well, I should…" THOSE ARE THE WORDS THAT CLUE YOU IN TO FUTURE REGRET".  Let’s start witht he easy ones, I should eat more vegetables and fruit.  I should go outside for a walk, I should go to the doctor for a checkup.  Now when we are talking along a continuum, these future regrets fall on the low part of the meter.  Let’s up the ante…I should go see my son play this game; I can finish my work later, I should go to my child’s play, it is important to them; that moves the meter on the regret stick.  How do we not listen, well it is easy, we rationalize.  LOVE that.  All we are doing is prolonging the pain.  See, we don’t like pain, so we are constantly trying to avoid it.  We don’t workout because it causes pain.  However, what about the pain of a heart attack.  You see you either pay for it now, or you pay double later on.  It is your choice.  You have to live with your choices.  Today make the decision to listen to your words.  Make a decision that will not live with future regret.  How do you do that, just keep doing the right thing, over and over and over.

Our lives have become so complicated that we forget how it is we are supposed to be living.  I just realized that THIS is Memorial weekend.  I thought it was next week.  I realized that I am letting life get too complicated.  We celebrate Memorial Day for those that have been in our lives and made an impact…good or bad…they made an impact.  It made me start thinking about my own imortality.  Jon and I were driving to the gym the other night and he told me that he was going to put together a playlist on his IPOD that he wanted played at his funeral.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  Death is not something we sit and talk about.  Music has always said things that he was unable to communicate with his own words, so you see it makes perfect sense.  I have always told me children that it truly does not matter what you make or own in this life, it is what you leave behind that is truly important.  I believe that we all need to give back…to the world, to society, to your neighborhood, if you prefer, to your church.  Whatever, but give back.  I am a teacher and a personal trainer.  Monitarily, I don’t have much.  But I am richer than Donald Trump.  I started wondering…what will people say about me at my funeral?  More importantly, what do I want them to say?  When I get up in the morning, I know that on this day I will give my best.  My life is one more of service obviously because I can’t give money!!!  I regulary give blood and platelets.  It is the one thing I can do that may save a life.  I am an organ donor.  I believe that what you put out to the world and your family, you will get back several fold.  I know there are people that say, "I am not going to treat them with respect until they treat me with respect".  Hopefully, I have just not offended anyone, but REALLY.  How do you expect to receive and earn respect if you dont’ give it.  If you want energy, you must put forth energy.  If you want love, you must first give love.  As you enjoy your weekend with friends and family, as you remember those that have been in your life and are now gone, reflect on what they meant to you.  Hear what you have to say about that person.  If you want to pass things on to your family, then you must start living it today.  Start today to live…thoughtfully, wholly, faithfully, lovingly.  After all, this is your legacy, what are you giving others?

No I am not talking about the magazine!! However, let’s take a look at the word and what it means.  The dictionary gives the following for prevent:  impede, preclude, forestall, stop, block, check, halt, interrupt, deter, slow, obviate, hinder, obstruct, thwart.  I know that we all know what it means, but lets look at the synonyms.  Impede:  when you impede someones or somethings progress it is generally NOT a good thing!!  HOWEVER, lets look at the world of health.  If we use the term prevention in this category, instantly we have a mind shift.  There is a saying in the health world, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".  Have you ever measured an ounce of anything (let’s keep it clean!!)?  It is a miniscule amount.  What does it mean?  Well, have you seen the cost of a pound of cure these days…antianxiety, antidepression, high cholesterol, high blood pressure…The cost is exhorbitent.  Pharmacuetical companies are calling THAT prevention.  If we ran our lives like we run our health, chaos would erupt.  We prevent fires in our house by unplugging unused sources of energy.  We buy surge protectors/strips, we prevent fire catastrophies by changing the batteries in our smoke and CO detectors.  We drive defensively so the cost of our auto insurance does go up.  We buy locks and alarms for our cars and houses.  We set budgets so we can prevent bankruptcy.  We set out tonight’s dinner before leaving the house to prevent "starving" kids and spouses.  We are constantly "preventing" things from happening in our lives that we don’t want, or are we!!!  Prevention means doing something BEFORE something happens.  Taking medicine is too late.  Something has already happened because we didn’t prevent it from happening.  There is enough genetic crap going on inside us that we don’t need to add to it by not exercising or eating properly.  Take a moment today to take stock in the things that you are trying to prevent.  Are you doing enough?  Can you do more?  Do you know how to do more?  If you don’t prevent disease from happening to you, it doens’t matter what else you try to prevent…you won’t be here to prevent other things from happening.  Take stock in yourself.  Make today your first day of true prevention.  Remember, you are worth it!!!

How many of you have ever heard George Carlin’s stint on "stuff and shit"?  If not, this a poor description but it goes something like this:  we are constantly buying stuff.  But it is our "stuff".  We want our "stuff".  It makes us happy.  It is great until one day you wake up and say, "how did I get all this shit?"  I am going to have a garage sale and get rid of all this "shit".  Then your "stuff" which was so important becomes "shit" and you sell it to become someones else’s "stuff".  We are constantly buying and selling stuff and shit!!!  Well, I made a decision this year that I was not going to bring anything else into my house unless I got rid of something.  I am taking it drawer by drawer.  I am doing this because I am feeling overloaded.  Do you know the feeling you get after cleaning a room?  You feel so much lighter.  Well, that is what our body is telling us.  You know, when you get rid of weight, you put on your pants and you have room to breath!!!  That is what you feel like when shedding your life of stuff that weighs you down.  So this weekend, take stock in the stuff around your house.  How do you feel when you are surrounded by it?  Does it make you happy or do you feel tense and uptight?  Your surroundings should make you feel at ease and happy.  I am on a mission to make every corner of my house serene.  I am going to get rid of every single item that does not make me happy.  Think of your body as your home.  Take stock of your "stuff".  Get rid of anything that hinders your breathing and your happiness.

What an absolutely wonderful weekend I had.  I got to witness my daughter receive her college diploma.  I am so very proud of her.  She has had many obstacles that she could have used as excuses not to succeed. But she took the high road and made the best of her situations.  It got me to thinking….you know our whole lives we have been graduating.  We graduated kindergarten, then 8th grade, perhaps, then high school, possibly college or trade school etc.  At some point in all those years of graduating, we have an "ah-ha" moment, or as I like to say "oh shit".  But there is no "o.s." handle to grab!!!!  That defining moment goes something like this, "what am I graduating to…I am now the baby of something".  This is change, I don’t like change, I was safe and secure; I knew what I was going to do when my feet hit the floor; now what do I do?  If you stop and think about it, our bodies are accustomed to change.  Businesses force us to change.  You ask how, well when was the last time you walked around with a black eye because you lost the "you turn the channel, you are closer battle".  Some of you will remember that, others won’t.  Processed food, microwaves, organic, etc.  If businesses didn’t change, they would close up.  We fight change as much as we can, yet we deal with it every day.  So accept the fact that you will deal with change in some form every day.  Your body needs it.  Use it to stay fit and mentally healthy.  If you become dormant, you stop living.  Challenge yourself today to change for the better in some way.

Today I get the awesome opportunity to witness my students participate in a day that has so much potential to help them through life.  Just as there is special olmpics for sport, this is for jobs.  The students take so much pride in the work they do.  I have one student that has practiced his "lines".  I am so very proud of him.  Every one there is full of unadulterated enthusiasm.  It is contagious and exhilarating!  I enjoy this day so much.  If you ever get the opportunity to participate or witness some part of special olympics, I challenge you to catch the joy.  There is something freeing about witnessing the accomplishments of others and being there to see their efforts appluaded.  I hope for you this weekend, joy.  En…joy the weather, en…joy your family, en…joy your health and en…joy your mothers!!!

It is simple math, correct.  4-2=2.  So it stands to reason that if you just cut calories, you will lose weight, right?  If math were the only thing involved, then yes, that would be right.  However, we are not that simple.  We are not just math, we are science.  Every cell in our body converts food into energy.  That alone, negates the fact of simple math.  Then add exercise, sleep, every day life activities and the hodge podge of calories and types of food we put in our bodies and it is no wonder our bodies are confused.  Our bodies are remarkable machines; made to withstand and adapt to a vast array of circumstances.  One of those remarkable things is to prepare for emergencies.  During times of famine, our bodies adapted by holding onto fat stores that could be utilized when there was little sustanance.   When cut our calories so low thinking we will lose weight, our bodies says "whoa, famine, store, store, store".  And what does it store again….fat!!!  So be severely restricting your caloric intake, you are gaining FAT!!!  You must think just the opposite.  In order for my body to shed fat, it must be fed.  Not only must it be fed, it needs to be fed every 3 hours.  BUT, it is the combination and types of food that you eat that will get your furnace burning and use up your stores of fat.  We must rethink our math logic and listen to what your body is trying to tell you.  So many of our bodies are screaming at us to stop destroying beautiful pieces of work.  Stop, take notice, listen, ask questions, take care of the most important thing you will every own…your body, after all, you are worth it.