Success

The trouble with success is that you're always waiting to be found out. When you're successful you sometimes feel like a fraud. Why is it hard to accept success? Why are we afraid that we will find out it isn't real and have it all taken away from us? The world conspires to take away the things your success has brought to you. Really? Why do we think that?

If you make mistakes, at least you are trying. If you make mistakes, you often learn from them and never do that again. Or if you make a mistake you might all of a sudden see things in different lights.

Never give up. Keep on trying. The alternative is........................................ ?

Don't settle for poor quality...

I seem to be hovering around the mid to upper 180’s in weight. I am not consistent on my eating…some days too little, some days, too much. Still all says I should be losing. Everything I have read says I should not weigh this much. Is this where I will end up at? WHAT should I truly strive to weigh? I can search until my fingers are raw, and keep finding different numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers...it's all about the numbers, isn't it? I know, it shouldn't be. I know...I know, I know, I know!!! But, it really IS all about the numbers. Someday, I will give up on the numbers game...but not yet.
I've been watching the videos from UCTV titled "The Skinny on Obesity" as well as HBO's series "Weight of a Nation". They are very interesting. There are lots of tidbits of information and helpful tips on how to lose weight or fight the weight battles.

Today I saw a segment on mindful eating that had a man and woman sitting down at their table, about to eat a brownie. They closed their eyes in a sort of meditation for a full two minutes before taking their first bite. Now the message I think you were supposed to take away from this was to slow down and really think about what you are eating, before you even take that first bite. It is a common trick or suggestion that is given to help those who eat too fast or eat mindLESSly, to slow down. I have seen it, heard it, or read it several times in more than one place by many more than on person.

This time, however, I took something else away from the main message of mindful eating. My thoughts were not how the brownie would taste, but the memories that I associated with just having a brownie available to eat. I didn't think of the pleasure of the actual tastes from eating a chocolate brownie but in the specialness of a just having a brownie. It was a special treat. It was something that you'd be really lucky to have. It was important. I associated it with Mom. I associated it with the smells of brownies baking in the oven. I was associating it with memories, more so than the goodness of the taste.
THIS got me to thinking about how disappointed I have been in the past when I have indulged in a brownie, only to have it taste wrong. It was too dry. It tasted of chemicals. It was too raw. It was hard as a rock. It had too many nuts. It needed to have nuts to taste right. It had crappy frosting on it. There wasn't ice cream to have with it. You know what I mean! (And yes, we eat the bad brownies anyway, now don't we?)

What's all this got to do with today's posting? Let me tell you!
Number one, eat mindfully.
Number two, don't eat something that isn't the best quality you can get. If you are counting your calories let your calories count! Not only are WE worth the time it takes to learn how to live a healthy and long life, but WE are worth quality. We are worth quality, especially when we are watching quantity!

Come on now...let's go for a walk! (A quality one!)

I AM SO MAD!!!

What? What happened to Walker Lady??? Why is she so angry??? Well, there are several reasons all rambling around in my brain tonight. I am tired of having to learn all I am learning about foods and ingredients and why things are done to the foods we eat, and MORE.

I should be able to just go out and get safe, healthy foods that are convenient and easy to fix, but I can't. At first I had to look for total calories and per serving sizes. Do you know that one of those little bags of nuts at the checkout counter often has TWO or MORE servings in them?

Then I had to figure out the fatty ingredients. Were they good fats or bad fats? Which fats ARE the bad fats? I forgot. How much is too much fat? And if the fats were low, what was added to make the food taste right?

Now there is a new movement afoot, that is attacking sugars. They are saying all forms of added sugars are responsible for many things such as obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and more. The evidence is piling up in their favor....according to THEIR studies, of course.

When the battle started against fats, the evidence those people had was compelling too. So who the heck do we believe? What do we do now?

I am tired of the food industry skewing the ingredients and the ingredient lists so I feel like I need a degree in nutrition to understand what they are really doing to what they call, food.

I am tired of thinking our government officials are in cahoots with the food industries. Was the reason fats became the enemy of the 70's because they didn't have lobbyists like the sugar growers did? The sugar growers had a lot to lose and I am sure they talked to their congressmen and representatives about this. It makes sense that, that would have happened.

I am so tired of the newest - latest - greatest - best - all being - things that come out over and over again, seemingly changing directions with the wind. Is fat the culprit? Is it sugar? Is coffee good or bad? Is soy good or bad? Should I cut carbs? Should I cut fats? Should I eat more protein? Should I eat a raw diet? Will non-organic foods flood my system with pesticides and growth hormones? Should I eat like a caveman...er...cavewoman?
If I follow this person's guidelines, will I later find out they were just out to make a buck at the expense of the fat amongst us? If I follow that person's guidelines, will I later find out they were in the process of writing a book and needed more publicity?

What's better what's worse?????????????????????????

I gotta know! People are starting to follow my lead. They believe in ME! I don't want to be led astray, and more so, I don't want to lead others down the wrong path.

So yes, Walker Lady is mad.
(not loony though) She only wants to eat healthy and enjoy life. Is that so much to ask?

I think I will go for a walk now. Join me? Last I heard, walking was still a good thing. Of course I don't know if the currently recommended number of minutes is supposed to be 10, 20, 30, 60, or if walking actually made no difference any more. I don't care. I LIKE it! And THAT is what counts.

It's a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts!

100 pounds of fat looks somewhat like this:

Maybe this photo is where my 100 pounds went off to? I don't plan to have them come back for a visit!
I never would have thought I would be able to say, "I only have 37 pounds to lose to reach my goal." And though I have seen those numbers at the top of my blog, it just didn't sink in until recently that I ONLY have 37 pounds to lose to reach 150 pounds. I really do not think I will get to that goal, but I DO think I will be somewhere between 150 and 170 when my metabolism, food intake, and life all converge in the same space at the same time. I am only 37 pounds away from 150 pounds. Really? Amazing! I wonder how close I will be?
The photo below shows five women who all weigh 150 pounds. Isn't is interesting to see how different they all are?
Just a quick check-in, check-up here...I am down a pound from last week. Yes, I know, this is not my normal weigh-in day, but I do usually weigh myself after Yoga class on Wednesdays. I just like knowing which way things are going! I have remained cigarette free too. (Yeah me!) I also dealt with a stressful happening without lighting up, without excessive eating, and without skipping my exercise routines. This is a big deal for me, as I do tend to get stressed out about all kinds of stuff and it used to really throw me for a tailspin. This new woman that I keep seeing in the hall mirror is really something else! I like her!

So what does my posting have to do with coconuts, you ask? Well, I will tell you! I have discovered a new obsession in foods. The So Delicious line of milk free products, (their ice cream and coffee creamers, in particular) are pretty tasty. I first discovered their Pomegranate Chip ice cream type desert. It is soooooooooooo good! I like it because it is low in sugar, has a low amount of ingredients, is dairy free, and is soy free. (These are personal choices of mine, based on where I want to go with my own nutritional lifestyle.)

I also tried their coffee creamer:

It was pretty good too! I think I could let go of my powdered creamer and use this all the time! Again, the ingredient list is short. The fat contents are low or zero. The drawback is that these products are not cheap. That is actually a good news bad news thing though. The ice creams are so very good, that I have been tempted to eat more than a single serving at a time! Since they are expensive, over $4 a pint, I won't buy them often and they will become more of a treat to indulge in. Because of that, I will be having a decadent desert that is low in calories, fat, and chemicals, only once in a while. That all, is a good thing!

Walking and Yoga-ing continue to make up the bulk of my exercising. All this will change in less than two weeks. That is when school is out and my son complicates things. I have been planning and scheming though. I have three things that I can do with him that all encompass various types of exercises. I hope he enjoys it as much as I think he will!

Ok folks, time to hit the trail while the weather remains reasonable! Let's go for a walk together!

Who Knew?

I knew...but I tried to pretend I didn't. I knew that I needed to follow along with 'the plan' and needed to keep going through the motions.

I did not feel like getting up and going for a walk. But I did it anyway.

I did not feel like getting up and going to Yoga class. But I did it anyway.

I did not feel like tracking my foods for the day. But I did it anyway.

I did not feel like going shopping. But I did it anyway.

Hey, wait a minute...did she say shopping?

Yes, I did say shopping. For the longest time, especially after Yoga classes, I would stop and shop for hours at this store called Savers. It is somewhat like a thrift store...on steroids! I have spent a lot of money there as I shrunk out of my clothes and needed new ones. I discovered the thrill of the hunt for those clothes that would fit the new me! I also think I was a little obsessive with all these excuses to GO shopping! I mean, heck, it was a BARGAIN!

Mimosa tree in bloom on the trail

Back to how things are going now. I think that the crazy month we had in April, and having quit smoking led me to a little bout with depression. Especially when things slowed down again and there was this void in my life all of a sudden. I knew it for sure when I caught myself saying, "I should sell off all this fabric and shut down my studio." That is a classic sign of depression for me. You don't feel like doing anything that you used to enjoy. I only have a mild form of depression that responds well to the meds I have. I wish having any type of mental illness didn't have such a stigma with it! Because of that, I foolishly will stop taking my meds, just to prove to myself that I don't need them. I have done this twice now and guess what? Not only was it a dumb thing to do, but I had also done it in the month of April too! No wonder I was such a mess.

Regarding depression, I wasn't suicidal or anything. I realized that I had been suffering with it for years and years. I am on a super low dose of an older tried and true medication that works great for me. It isn't easy to admit. That stigma remains, even with me now, somehow you're less of a person if you have a mental illness. Even though I really know better.

So overall for the last week in April and this first week or so of May, I ended up gaining somewhere between four and six pounds. However, I still have kept off over one hundred pounds. I don't want to forget about having lost that weight. I kept going through the motions of eating right and exercising through this rough patch. I may not have been as enthusiastic about exercising but I did it anyway.

Mimosa Blooms

Today was not an official weigh-in day. However, I do often weigh myself on Thursdays. I was down three pounds from last Thursday. Yippee! Yes, I still DO like seeing the scale move. I know, I know, I should find a better way to validate my successes with fat losing. I'm working on it! I mean, I almost had myself convinced that if I stayed the weight I've been over the past two or three weeks, that I would be ok with that. Ya, SURE I would!

Anyway, I am back on my meds, I still am not smoking, I am still (as I have been all throughout this latest challenge) well within my food plan and exercise regime. Now my patience has paid off. The scale stopped going up and might even have gone down again. That would be very nice, of course! I honestly can't imagine that it won't keep going down. All the research I've done on what I should weigh, eating the amount of calories I do eat, and exercising the way I do exercise, says I should end up somewhere between 175-150. We shall see. Yes we shall.

I hope you are not bored with the photos from the trail walking. This week cooled down a bit and I have really enjoyed my walks even more! It has helped to lift my spirits back up and I really feel a lot better. I know my mojo is coming back because yesterday my nephew and I spent over two hours digging up the front yard! He dug the hole for the tree and helped me out as we both dug up the dirt, moved rocks, and laid down mulch. My flower bed has now doubled in size!
That lacy Japanese maple tree is my early Mother's Day present. My sore muscles are my present to myself! I earned every one of them.

Tomorrow I will be walking to a Yoga class. Talk about multitasking! So, I am doing better, why don't YOU come for a walk with me tomorrow? You'll feel better if you do!

Sunday's Walk

I was looking up at the vines that circled in the tree canopy above me. I couldn't capture the way the vines were circling around, using my phone camera, but I thought I would share this photo anyway.

These pretty yellow flowers were all over along side the trail:

I was actually doing a little running on Sunday and almost stepped on this branch:

Um, it wasn't a branch! I am not sure if it was alive. I wasn't going to touch it, even with a long stick! I wouldn't let Ziva touch it either. I think it was a speckled king snake. It was about three or four foot long and not too big around for such a long snake. I did watch it for a little while and never saw its tongue flickering or eyes opening. It was probably just coming out into the sun to warm up for a day of hunting.
They are not poisonous. I have only seen striped garden snakes back when I lived in Minnesota as a child. I know that there are a lot of snakes in Arkansas. I like snakes, but not enough to want to own one or check one out tooooooo closely! I will keep a better lookout for snakes on the trail in the future! I also saw a baby bird and a box turtle on the trail. None of these are as exciting as the snake, or the deer last fall, but I enjoy seeing all types of wildlife. I should take more photos too!

I am doing ok, in spite of the rise in poundage. I am officially up four pounds from my lowest weigh-in of 184. I am not happy about it but I am not giving up on myself because of it either. I am still thinking the let down after April's craziness, a bout of mild depression, and having stopped smoking, are the major contributing factors. I did reassess my food and exercise regime. Both are right on track. I triple checked to be sure the calories I am eating are correct for me and they are. For now, I plan to just enjoy being 100 pounds lighter than I was a year and a half ago. I am in a wait and see mode, to see if anything changes. At the end of this month, my exercise routines will change due to school being out for summer. That alone may just kick my metabolism back into weight loss mode.

Ziva says, "Let's go into the light Mom."
"As long as it is sunlight, Ziva, I am ok with that."

Bye for now and see you on the trails!

What's Going to Happen Now?

Many people that know me in 'real life' know me as a quilter. I also dabble in fiber arts...that means I make stuff out of fabric that can be artistic. I make a few items of clothing, but am not a patient detailed seamstress, so my attempts at clothing from scratch often turn out odd.

As you've read, life and I are not in tune with each other these days. One of the first clues that I get is when I think about selling off my studio full of fabrics, crafts, sewing machines, and artist supplies, to name a few things. When I start thinking that way, I know it is time to pay attention to myself and figure out what is going wrong.

I know I am still eating right and I am going through the motions of the same exercise regime that I always have been doing. I also know I am not doing either with the zest, energy, or conviction I've had in the past. As to why this is happening, I still think it is partially the let down after all the excitement of April's events. I still think it is partially having given up cigarettes again. I need to find a new goal to push myself towards. Perhaps with school ending in a few weeks and the major shift in my exercise methods, there will be a shift back to a more enthusiastic self.

Now as to today's feelings...
Yes, that is how I felt today..........the damn scale was up...a lot! Six pounds! You can bet I am going to be looking long and hard at why this is going on now. It makes me want to use it as an excuse to say thinner is better so I should pick up those smokes again! Ya! That makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? You and I both know the answer. I will be patient and ride this latest thing...whatever it is...till the weight goes in the other direction again. I have a few guesses that I may try. I think changing up my exercise will be one of the first things I will attempt. Food wise, I really think I am doing ok on...but I will double check that too.

You know how I almost always end these posts with something about going for a walk? You know that movie that came out a few years ago with the dog that is talking and gets distracted by a squirrel? Have you ever heard the expression "Ooooooooooooo, SHINY!"? I get distracted by things like these cool socks...
Aren't these great! I would wear them while going for a walk...in public! Do you think anywone would notice? I love kooky socks. I need to find some with skulls on them.

NOW..........go for a walk!

There Are Always Ups and Downs

I have been having somewhat of a rough time of it these past few days. April was a pretty busy month and ended with a surprise visit from my oldest son. I haven't seen him since last July and it will probably be at least a year before he makes it back this way. It was a good visit. Of course I cried when he left. (youngest son on left, oldest son in the middle, and me on the right)

With everything finally slowing down a tad and trying to get back in the swing of things, I am feeling a bit out of it. I imagine quitting smoking has a part to play in this. (dang nasty evil sticks)
I miss my support group too! I was out of town one of the days that I missed. Then there were a few meetings that only included one or two others in the room. Although we had good talks, it wasn't quite the same as having five or more there! A few special folks have been noticeably absent. Of course I cannot find their phone numbers so I can call and check on them. It really IS true, that a support system helps a lot, when making lifestyle changes. As I tell my fellow support group members, when these times hit, just keep trying to stay on track as best you can until the funky feeling is gone. Those are good words to live by!

Yesterday I didn't eat the best I could, but it wasn't real bad...just an extra serving of pistachio nuts. Big woop-de-dah. Today I have eaten a lot better and even went for a walk on the trail this morning. I was still in a bit of a funk for most of the day, but I soldiered on. Tonight I am feeling a little bit better. I had planned ahead to have some snacks for tonight if I feel the need to have some. I am looking forward to tomorrow, which is good. I have Yoga and then get to go watch my son in a school math competition.


I know I will come out of this funk. I always have. I know some of the contributing factors and have acknowledged them. This helps me deal better with such things. This funky lady will be back to her foxy lady self soon! In the meantime, let's go for a walk!