"Ok, so, would it be...like...nosy if I asked you how much weight you've lost?" "You're the picture of health," my step-mother said to me at a family cookout yesterday. This was, ironically, the day after having lunch with an old and dear friend that I hadn't spent much time with over the last few years. "Wow, you look incredible!" are the first words out of her mouth. "Have you lost weight?" "As a matter of fact I have," I answer with a smile. A short while later, as we stand at the register to pay for our meal, she steps up to me and lowers her voice to ask me how much I'd lost. When I tell her, she can't believe it. "But that can't be right! It seems like so much more!" I try to hold back my witty tongue from slipping out a, 'What are you trying to say? That I was huge before?' What she doesn't realize is that the "looking awesome" part had very little to do with a drop in the scale, and much more to do with a rise in healthy habits. After a brief explanation of the healthy challenge I'd been following for the last 10 weeks or more, and the insistence of how simple it really is, I agreed to share my insights. RULE 1: Cut out the crap.
This is especially hard when trying to get through parties or special occasions when you really, really want to eat that piece of birthday cake or baby shower cookie. A little tip I discovered that helps alleviate that insufferable sense of deprivation is to take some with you anyway and pop it into the freezer for cheat day. You'd be surprised at how much harder it is to say, "I can't have this," than it is to say, "I can't have this right now." You can choose other items you'd like to avoid, such as gluten, potatoes, or red meat (like I tried to do), but that's the great part of the challenge. It's simple enough for anyone to follow, and customizable to you! RULE 2: Learn to love veggies.Step 1: Have fruit with breakfast. Next on the healthy challenge list: a combination of 5 fruits and vegetables every day. This isn't hard at all if you just know how to do it. "It'd be, like, 8 o'clock at night and I'd suddenly remember I hadn't had enough vegetables and I'd have to go open up a can of peas..." explained a friend of mine who'd joined the challenge with us. Yeah, sorry D., that's not how it's done. The trick is to substitute, not supplement. Cut out those pizzas and potato chips and replace them with fruit and veggie packed goodness. Just because it's healthy doesn't mean it has to be torture. You just need a tasty plan.
Just make sure you keep in mind the amount of sugar that's going into your shake. Read the labels on whatever protein powder you use. Products like Nectar or V Core have as little as 2 grams of sugar. Don't be afraid to throw in some extras, like Ovaltine or Vitamin C powder. Frozen fruit makes it thicker, and if you use refrigerated coconut milk (my favorite) you may need a spoon! Step 2: Have a salad for lunch. Every day.
Step 3: Have a lean protein and at least two veggies with dinner.
Step 4: Always have healthy snacks on hand. Having a protein shake every morning inevitably means I'm hungry by 9am. That's ok, it's just more of an opportunity to get more of those fruits and veggies in! The key is to follow the PRO rule. PROtein and PROduce. Some of my favorites include cottage cheese and pineapple, bananas and peanut butter, cucumbers and hummus, apples and almonds, fruit smoothies, Greek yogurt and raspberries, strawberries and cheddar, and cucumbers and tuna salad. The important part is to always have healthy snacks handy, whether in your own kitchen or in your desk at work (I keep nuts and dried fruit in my bag). Eventually you're going to get hungry. Having something healthy to reach for just makes it all that much easier. RULE 3: Drink A LOT of water. (I mean, like, a TON.)Next on our list is a minimum of 80 oz. of water per day (that's the traditional 64 plus extra because we'll be exercising). To give you a bit of an idea about exactly how much water that is, it's 2 liters PLUS 2 cups. Every morning I fill up a 16 oz cup and a 64 oz jug. I use the jug to continue to fill up the cup throughout the day, until it's completely empty. It's a lot of water--trust me, I know--but eventually you will get used to sucking on a cup of water all day long (add flavored drink enhancers if you have a hard time getting through it). You will also get used to going to the bathroom every hour or so. All of this sounds like a huge hassle, but the benefits of staying hydrated are phenomenal! Not only are you flushing toxins out of your body, you will find yourself more energized, and your skin will literally begin to glow! Just make sure you find some way to keep up with how much you're getting, whether filling bottles or jugs, and stick to that 80 oz. You'll be glad you did! RULE 4: Move.
RULE 5: Get accountable.
Using the checklist above as a guide for your daily activities, each checkbox counts as one point (with every 30 minutes of exercise counting as one checkbox). There's even a section to add one area you want to work on daily that's not listed. The way we did it was to have a max amount of points each week (the above chart would equal 49 points, with all points "free" on cheat day) and then get extra points based on the total percentage of weight loss. FitWatch was the site we used to calculate the percentage of weight lost each week. There are other items that we included in our challenge, like adding an extra challenge point each week ranging from taking a multivitamin to flossing. Customize your challenge to meet your needs, but the basic outline and simple steps above will definitely get you started on the right track! *Disclaimer: I am in no way a physician, dietician, trainer, or nutritionist. This is simply what has worked for me. Everyone is different and every body is different. Always consult your doctor before beginning any new fitness or diet plan.
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"Through trials and tears, through death and pain, hope must endure...to fight the rain." "Oh, life is bigger. It's bigger than you. And you are not me." -R.E.M. Once, when I was younger, I was called into my bishops office to be given a new leadership position among the young women in my congregation. As we sat in his office, he leaned across his desk and looked me straight in the eyes. "You're the only one who can fix your family, Misty. Your dad's not going to do it. Your mother certainly isn't going to do it. It has to be you." Over the course of the next year my parents would divorce. I would drop out of school in order to work full-time to support both me and a mother who I knew was incapable of so much as even taking care of herself. I'd live in 9 different places, from hotels to efficiency apartments to spare bedrooms. I'd even move in with a boyfriend for a while, simply because I had no where else to go. Eventually I would be dragged across 3 states, kicking and screaming, by police escort. I'd spend the next year under such stringent restrictions that I wasn't even allowed to know my own phone number. I was 15 years old. "You want to know why I'm so crazy? I want to know how the hell I"m still sane." I step into my house on a Sunday afternoon 16 years later, after another one of my physically and emotionally exhausting hour-long walks. It's the third one that day because, yet again, I'm behind and I have to make up time. My incredible husband has already managed to start and fold a load of laundry, direct and stay on top of our 11 year old to take a shower and dress, bathe our 7 year old, feed everyone, and do a million other things that I couldn't. I admire and appreciate his support and patience. It's something he's had to give quite a bit of lately as a direct result of my inadequacies. I wipe away yet another tear at the thought of it. I think back to when we were first together, at the conscious decision that I had made 14 years ago. If my father could leave my mother after 18 years of marriage due, in part, to a lack of her maternal and domestic abilities, then I wasn't going to let that happen to me. I was going to do everything in my power to live up to my obligations as a mother and wife. I was going to be different. I would not fail my family. "Is there anything I can do for you?" my husband asks me as I try to load dishes into the dishwasher. "I'm sorry I haven't gotten to them yet. I was just about to." I choke back a sob. "No, it's ok. I was really just trying to be productive while I waited for the shower." As much as I love his willingness, I can't help but think about how much it hurts to have to have the help in the first place. To no longer be able to "keep up." After all, this was the life I had chosen. This was my job. It wasn't fair to him to spend forty-five hours a week at work, do hours of college course work and classes to further his ability to provide for us, and then have to come home and do what I invariably saw as my obligations. My "part" of the partnership. It just simply wasn't fair. Sure, I got that other women did it, and that was totally fine. But I was different. I was Super Woman. I was capable of anything. I was the strongest and most resiliently "kept together" person I knew. And then one day, I just wasn't. "That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight, loosing my religion." "Congratulations on being knocked off your pedestal," someone said to me during one of my recent "sessions"--all part of my "treatment plan" to resolve the ailment I had suddenly been stricken with. Thanks, I think to myself and roll my eyes. That helps a lot. Unfortunately, she was right. And I really, REALLY hate it when other people are right. So I'm not Super Woman. At least, not anymore. Though I'm not so sure I ever was. I take a good, long hard look around before heading to the shower. At the clutter in the dining room. The homeschool calendar board that still says December. The unfinished phonics chart. The "Mom-Board" dated for March. The novel that's been a "work in progress" for the last three years. The kids' bedrooms that look like a tornado tore through a Toys R Us. The baskets of unfolded laundry. The distinct "funk" of a sink full of dishes. The unpainted chair railing in the office. The yet-again over budget bank account. And the blog and Facebook posts I once used to announce my achievements to the world. "Sometimes you have to stop beating yourself up for wanting to throw a chair through a window and start patting yourself on the back for not actually throwing a chair through a window." Ok, so I get it already. I'm not perfect. And perhaps I never was. But the important part is that I'm still trying, right? That despite the 30 lbs I have yet to loose, I've lost 15 so far this year. That despite the fact my 7 year old doesn't even know his ABCs, he no longer hates learning. That despite the many, MANY times I've massively messed up over the last year and a half since my body went completely haywire, my husband and children somehow still love me and my friends haven't totally abandoned me. That despite my never-ending list of flaws, somewhere deep down inside me I'm still the strongest person I know. And that despite how completely hopeless things may seem at the moment, eventually, this too shall pass.
And maybe, just maybe, it will all be ok. “You were right, Dr. Grant. About what you said. In writing we have something called M/R Units. Motivation and Response. But between that motivation and response is a space, and it’s the choices we make in that space that defines us." -from Book 1: When Darkness Builds Who is your favorite fictional character? Who was it, when you were a child, that you wanted to be like when you grew up? Sherlock Holmes? Superman? Or even (if you're twelve) Harry Potter? What is it about this character that you idolized? Were they intelligent and witty? Strong and brave? Charismatic and ambitious? Were they everything you ever wanted to be? But how did you know? Did the supporting characters excitedly whisper every time your hero entered the room, "Oooo, he's so intelligent...witty...strong...brave...(insert admirable trait here)"? Or did you get to discover first hand that he was strong and brave because he saved the girl, or intelligent and witty because he solved the crime, or charismatic and ambitious because he always managed to end up with exactly whomever or whatever he wanted? Was it what he did that made him all those things to you? So, I'm an author (in case you didn't notice) and one of the key rules to writing that gets pounded into an author's head is "show, don't tell." If you want your readers to know what kind of person your character is, you do it through verbs. You show that they are brave by having them act bravely. You show that they are intelligent by having them act intelligently. In other words, they are what they do. But why is that? Why does making someone act brave make them brave? It's because before they could act bravely, they had to make a choice to be brave. "They say if you want to get an accurate picture on a person of interest, you should look at how they act. What they do. It's supposed to matter even more than how they dress. Well, I don't believe that. I believe you can tell just as much about a person by what they wear or where they live or what kind of car they drive, and do you know why that is? It's because in the end it's not about what you do or what you wear. It's about the choices you make. Because everything we do, from getting dressed in the morning to holding a room full of people hostage, first requires a choice." Dwight V. Swain, professor of creative writing for over 20 years at the University of Oklahoma and my personally favorite expert on the craft, said that all stories occur in Motivation/Response Units. Your hero is acted upon, either through external or internal stimulus, and then he reacts. Acted upon, then reacts. Over and over again until he is somehow changed, and that is how you craft your scenes and subsequently your entire story. It's just like life. Man cannot exist in a vacuum. (How boring would that be?) He lives each day of his life faced with various stimuli and consequently reacts, forming his own existence, his own private story. His world is filled with M/R units. He is motivated, and based on his character, he responds. He makes a choice. It was author and motivational speaker Stephen Covey who made popular the idea that there is a space between motivation (or stimulus) and response when he quoted Viktor Frankl, who said: Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. And it is the choices we make in that space that define us.
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