Fitness Tuesday Update on Thursday - Exercise

Running late on everything, but better late than...you know!

On Tuesday, my Facebook status report:
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I am loving what I eat, am rarely hungry, have boatloads of energy - need to be better about cardio exercise - Lost 1.2 lbs last week, so at the end of Week 6, the total lost is 12.6 lbs

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So I seem to be settling in to about a pound a week weight loss, which is what I had originally planned. It was a big boost to me to lose 2+ pounds each of the first couple of weeks, but I'm pleased to have a slow & steady pace.

I thought I'd write about my exercise this time. Exercise is always the hardest part of fitness for me. I truly hate to exercise to exercise. It seems to me that's a very modern problem - once upon a time, human life was filled with moving as part of daily work and life.

I remember reading a study that showed that even the simplest things (like having to roll down car windows manually rather than push buttons) burned calories here and there, adding up to hundreds in a week.

So my goal was to figure out what would get me moving and keep me moving. I needed to find ways to make my exercise be (a) part of my daily work & life and (b) tolerable, if not pleasurable.

So to meet the "a" requirement, I park farther away from where I want to go, I take stairs instead of elevators, I go up and down the stairs in my house more often (it's very nice not to feel chagrined that I've left something upstairs or downstairs, but instead see it as an opportunity.)

Theoretically, I could clean house for fitness, and I am doing a little more. A LOT more would help the decluttering, too. Another thing is to stand rather than sit while doing something.

The cornerstone of my moving for fitness & weight loss is Tai chi.
I love Tai chi. I have been doing it for nearly two years and it is astonishing to me that I've kept with it for so long. That's because I love it. It does things for me physically & on another level entirely - an emotional/spiritual level. Here's a poem I wrote during the National Poetry Writing Month challenge: When i do Tai chi sometimes

I do the Tai chi forms created by Dr. Paul Lam, called Tai Chi for Health, in classes at The Maple Center. Pretty soon, I'm going to expand my range a bit in another class and learn 24.

I do my Tai chi practice every day, along with some stretches. I do it outside early in the morning (it's been glorious) and I do it for 30-40 minutes. Many days, I do a sunset practice as well. Calorie burn tables show 30 minutes of Tai chi is very close to 30 minutes of walking.

In addition to Tai chi, I have my choice of walking or exercising with a small pedal exerciser called the Magneciser. I do my walking at the nearby mall because the air & heat just don't agree with me.

When I walk, I generally do 2 miles. I have an iPod and I listen to lively music or interesting podcasts or audiobooks. I try to do 18-min. miles. I stretch afterwards, a special stretching that I created using one of the benches. Sometimes I even do Tai chi there at the mall. It feels good to do it right after the walking.

The pedal exerciser can be used with the arms on a table or with the feet. Sometimes I do both. I try to do at least 20-30 minutes. I have my online friend fiber artist Diana to thank for sharing her experience with the Magneciser and the link to getting one at the best price I've seen. (About $112 with shipping.) I'd put the link here, but the company site seems to be inaccessible.

Finally, I added some strength training - the very simple program in Marian Nelson's book "Strong Women Stay Slim." That's on my schedule for 3 days a week.

So - I feel like I have created a plan for myself that is very tolerable - and truthfully I feel SO good when I exercise that I have become a tad less averse to exercising to exercise.

I'm not doing the walking and pedaling as often as I should, though, and so my current goal is to step up the efforts in those departments.

Finally, I'm thinking of adding "dancing improvisationally and wildly" to my exercise choices.

Movin' on....

My Fitness Project: Tuesday Update

This is Tuesday, which has become my weekly day to measure my progress in the weight loss part of my plan to get fit. Here's what I posted on my Facebook status update:

Lots of energy, knees thanking me, started strength training & I finally learned how to make some delicious marinated baked tofu. 1.4 lbs lost this week, grand total after week 5: 11.4 lbs.

I promised some details, so here goes.
I probably spent about a month thinking, planning, journaling in a serious way. The most important part of this time was building my commitment, coming to the point where I was able to make this project my number one priority. And not feel guilty for doing so.

I also created a vision of myself, limber, energetic...not thin, but...lean & focused, grounded and centered, comfortable in my clothes, in my skin.

As I go on, I'll try to write more about some of the things I've thought about fat, about how I came to be so overweight, about how hard it's been to think of myself, my physical self as a priority.

Food
I chose what is generally considered a minimum for daily calories: 1200.
I eat something every 3 hours or so.
I take a multi-vitamin. (I also take other supplements for health reasons, ones recommended by my doctor.)

I religiously keep a fitness log, writing down everything that goes in my mouth, and adding up the calories for the day. This is a vital part of my plan. Many people would find this tedious, and some days I do. But I know that eventually this will pay off in my having a better sense of healthy eating, of portion size. I won't have to do this forever. I will just know. Finding how many calories in a food is blissfully easy with Google.

The log also helps me to balance my diet - I can see that one day I had too much fruit & not enough veggies, or that I need to get a little more protein. I'm not sure that I can get a perfect balance every day, but feel I can over a 2-day period.

I have made a set of measuring spoons & cups my best friend. I divide suggested serving sizes in half & have discovered that a little bit of the higher-calorie things can go a long way in complementing the lower-calorie foods.

As for what I'm eating, here's yesterday's log entry:

Tea: black, honey, milk (26)
Snack: 1/2 Luna bar (85)
Breakfast: scrambled eggs (1 whole, egg whites ) (115), 1/2c chopped onions, gr. peppers, zucchini (30), tomato slices (15) 3 carrot sticks (10) 1/2 tsp olive oil (20), 1 T 2% grated cheddar (20) (210)
Lunch: 1/2 pita (80) baked tofu (125) 1T hummus (25) spinach & cut veggies (30), 3 carrot sticks (10) (270)
fruit cup (melon, 5 rainier cherries, apple wedge, 1 prune) (100?)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
Snack: cacao nibs (30) caramel rice cake (50) 1/3 small banana (25) (105)
Tea: black, honey, milk (extra) (31)
Supper: 3 oz. chicken baked bbq marinade (130) 1c broccoli (30) sliced tomatoes, onions (25), 3 carrot sticks (10) (195)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
1 square dark chocolate 6 gr. (28)
Snack: 1/4c yochee (43), 3/4c mixed fresh fruit (peach, apple, blueberries) (50) 1T Special K cinnamon pecan (8) (101)

(1186)


My biggest food problem has always been sweets. My basic diet preferences are pretty healthy, whole grains, lots of fruit & vegetables, yogurt, small amounts of meat. (I probably ate too much cheese, though. )

But once I'd eaten the healthy meal, it was as though it permitted me to have a big ol' sugary, fatty reward: the red velvet cupcakes w/ cream cheese icing at Bella Rossa, the tiramisu or Boston cream pie at Crossroads, a bag of cookies & brownies to take home. Newman-O's!

This remains somewhat of a mystery to me, but since May 19 when I began this journey, I have not had any of those treats, nor have I actually fought serious cravings for them. In fact, I have almost an aversion to them. There have been two exceptions: when friends got married ten days ago, I chose to enjoy their wedding cake (and it was lovely indeed - a strawberry cake, with a perfect rich icing/luscious cake ratio) and I had a small chocolate cherry nut cookie baked by my friend Marta who has recently opened a bakery. I put that one cookie on a blue plate, put milk in a little 2 oz glass, and took 6 mindful bites.

In any case, I am pleased to report that my sense of sweetness has become much more acute since I stopped bludgeoning my palette with refined sugary treats. I have even switched to 1/2tsp honey instead of a heaping tsp of sugar in my tea- something I thought I'd never be able to do. Another shocker to me was switching to nonfat, plain yogurt from lowfat vanilla yogurt.
I will occasionally add a bit of honey, but most of the time I'm quite content with how it tastes with fresh fruit.

("Yochee" on the last snack above is drained yogurt. It is a bit denser and therefore more calories in a cup than non-drained yogurt, but it has a wonderful rich creamy texture.)

So that's a little something about what I'm eating and what I'm not eating.
Next time I'll write about exercise.

Namaste,
Zann

Diet Clutter

For the past month, I've made fitness and losing weight my #1 priority. I have many thoughts about this effort and about women & weight issues, and I feel ready to start sharing this journey. Not because I think anyone should do exactly what I'm doing, but because maybe some of the things I'm doing might work for others, and because maybe it's just inspirational to share such things. Also because blogging & going "public" about this is part of my plan to help me stay focused, to keep this my #1 priority, to keep my eyes on the prize.

I was a little scared to blog about this from the beginning for a lot of reasons, probably some of the same ones that made me delay announcing to my family & friends that I was attempting to quit smoking 22 years ago, until I was certain I meant it. I was successful in that beyond my wildest dreams, so much that I feel as though I had a healing, not a battle.

In many ways, what is happening for me right now seems like a healing, too.

I think that it's appropriate to blog about weight loss in my decluttering blog. Over on Flylady (the organizing/decluttering site), she's even got a book about applying her system "...to your Body Clutter, the most personal clutter of all." I haven't read the book, so can't comment on her approach, but I'll bet she's got some great ideas.

So. Four weeks ago, after a month or so of journaling and planning, I got started on my own personal Fitness Project.
My starting weight: 176.4
My original goals: to lose 50 pounds over the course of a year, to feel well & strong & limber & flexible. I had a mini-goal of losing 20 pounds by my September birthday.

I have since revised my weight loss goal to 40 lbs which would put me at 136. However, I reserve the right to revise again (up or down) as I go along. I am not going to let the scale be the sole measure of my fitness level, but also consider how I feel, how I move through the world, how my clothes fit me, and what my doctor has to say about my health issues.

My plan is the tried-and-true: reduce calories, increase exercise.
I am also adding a third component: to nourish my spirit and keep my resolve strong.

I'll add details of exactly what I'm doing in future posts. I'll end this one by saying - it's working for me!
I started feeling wonderful by Day 3. At the end of 4 weeks, I've lost 10 pounds.
Wooo hooo!

magazines, magazines

Partially read New Yorkers, some dating back to December, 2008

No solutions here, just a statement of the problem.

I buy (and subscribe to) a LOT of magazines, possibly too many magazines. They tend to pile up, partially read. There are quite a few magazines which I need...er... want to save. I need to figure out a system for dealing with them.

I did decide that most of the New Yorkers above were finished as is. Out of that batch, I reserved only 3 more recent issues to (hopefully) finish reading.

My art and craft magazines are the primary ones I save. And they truly are quite useful to me. Articles which I barely skimmed have, years later, proven of great interest as I embark on the exploration of a new technique or art form. So those just have to be keepers. These are magazines which often retain some value, too. (So here's public notice to my heirs - that collection of Spin-Off magazine going back to 1985, the first 20 or so issues of Threads -- put 'em on eBay!!!)

So, that's my current clutter issue right now: thinking about a system both for reading the magazines and for storing the ones I keep.

I'll let you know what I come up with, if anything.

'Zann

Spring Cleaning of THE CHAIR

I like to take a picture of The Chair every so often to record the ever-shifting flow of Stuff that accumulates there. When I decided to document its end-of-winter09 state, I was seized with a great desire to Spring-Clean it.

This was best accomplished by sorting all the Stuff. I wound up putting everything on the sofa and felt amazed at the sheer volume of Stuff that The Chair manages to hold.


Over the back of the sofa is a pile of clothes, winter coat and jackets, shawls and scarves.
On the seat are a nice selection of books, files, miscellaneous winter accessories.

There is also my purse (an ergonomic Healthy Back Bag) and The Bag That Keeps Me Amused In The World (its weight negating any healthy effects of the aforementioned purse) and my purple labyrinthe tote which serves as my auxiliary Bag of Amusements, and a secondary cloth tote which serves as a Bag for Important Files & Papers for Meetings. Then there is my Tiny Purse, into which I transfer Absolute Necessities when I must go purseless and without amusements into the world, something that doesn't happen often.

I'm thinking the subject (and contents) of these totes and bags might be explored in a separate post. Or with my therapist.

On the floor, the stunning number of pairs of shoes that can be stuffed under that chair, along with a nice pile of socks and a whole lot of dust bunnies clinging to them all.

I sorted, hung up all coats and put away shawls and scarves and gloves. Sent socks and hoodies off to the wash. Found Coraline book!! Got out the vacuum and vacuumed under the chair, then vacuumed all the shoes, put 'em in a box and took them to my bedroom. Emptied the Auxiliary Totes.

And here is The Chair, as of this morning, a week later -- in an almost Zen-like state of simplicity and relative emptiness.

Happy spring to all!

Namaste,
'Zann

long and wordy road...er, post

I think I'm at a new stage in my long journey to declutter my life and house, get more organized and have the time and energy I want to devote to creative work. I think.

So much has happened since I began this journey: my son Patrick's death, the down-the-rabbit-hole years with my mother's dementia that followed, and now this year, my mother's death.

I'm not who I was when I began this blog.

Things are a little bit better in the physical aspects of my house -- less cluttered in ways that were serious impediments. Much of the work I documented here has held, decluttered spaces have not (for the most part) filled up again with clutter.

I feel like I'm closer to creating the sort of life I need. I have an abundance of time for myself that I have never had before.

But I need to be wise about how I use that precious commodity. As I've made certain volunteer commitments (that seem to expand and expand!), I'm finding myself feeling that my time for my own art is being compressed. An image arises of painting myself into a small corner of my life.

I just found something in my MacJournal - an exercise from the book, It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys. I was earnestly working with that book when Patrick died and I haven't picked it up since. That was well more than two years ago.

I'm of a mind to begin working with it again. Now my focus is less on dealing with the physcial clutter (though there are certainly still some 'hot spots' here!), but more on protecting my time, making conscious decisions about how it is spent, being more organized and thoughtful, setting priorities. And dealing with my lifelong tendency towards procrastination.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and post the exercise. It's pretty personal, but I think it's a useful thing to share. And I made some important observations that make this a good place to pick up working with the book again.
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This was written in February 2006 from the exercises in Chapter 2, "What is Your Compelling Purpose for Organizing?"
What disorganization is costing me:
Money
I spend too much money on things I cannot use because of the clutter.
I buy things I already have either because I can’t find them or I forget I already have them.
I tend to shop (online mostly now) and buy things because of moods (either low or high!)

I always want more of something - as though I will run out of a favorite thing and not ever be able to get more. Or, if I love something, like a pretty roving, I will try to buy more as I am using it. Sometimes I won’t use something because I don’t want to use it up and not have it any more. Hoarding.
Sometimes I amass books (on a subject I’m newly interested in, by a particular author I’ve gotten interested in) or every tool and material for a new art form, etc.

I am unable to work at my home business of bookselling, so I have no income of my own anymore.

Time
Disorganization is costing me dearly in terms of time. I have terrible senses of regret and guilt over the time I have not used wisely in the whole course of my life.

It’s not the amount of time I spend trying to find things - finding things is not one of the big problems of my clutter/disorganization. In fact, I seem to have an almost psychic gift for finding things and I can even do it for other people! I find things in others’ clutter!

It’s the amount of time I have been left in a state of inertia because of the clutter.

It’s the time I didn’t spend creating something because it was just too overwhelming, trying to find the space for the work, gather the materials all in one place, then clean up afterward. Of course, if I did manage to overcome the first two, and actually work on a project, I rarely clean up immediately afterward. And I often don’t finish a project, so I leave it out, thinking I’ll get back to it. My project tools and materials, the project itself at times, will just remain on whatever flat surface I manage to find to work on, make me feel guilty about not cleaning up then get dispersed, scattered - cleaned up by the natural movement of things in a house.

So - my clutter/disorganization costs me the joy of seeing the fruits of my creativity. It has robbed me of the growth and skill I might have at 54 if I had been able to work regularly on writing or drawing or fiber arts.

(Another area to explore: process/product, procrastination, attention...)

The cost has definitely been to my purpose and journey as an artist.

Family & Social Costs

I have begun to wonder if my panic disorder is also connected to my clutter/disorganization.
My family has certainly suffered because of my panic disorder keeping me from travel.

My kids have probably felt uncomfortable having people over. I certainly feel uncomfortable having people over.
My kids haven’t had a good role model for life management.

My husband has had to live with clutter and he is my polar opposite - compulsively neat and tidy. He must find it excruciating to move through my clutter.

Psychological Costs

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there is a connection between my clutter and my anxiety. And maybe even the panic attacks.

I feel tremendous guilt at having this clutter about.
I often hate to go to others’ homes because I wind up being filled with longing for the neatness and beauty I see.

I start an enormous number of things that I don’t finish - impulsiveness? disorganization? short attention span??
My clutter distracts and diverts my attention.

Health Costs

I am stressed by the clutter around me.
Dust probably impacts my breathing.
Clutter depletes me, robs me of energy

Spiritual / Soul Costs

It actually hurts my spirit to be surrounded by clutter. It’s ugly and jarring.
To be surrounded by clutter, depletes my energy on a spirtual level as well as physical.

Summary:
My disorganization and clutter stunts my growth and prevents me from fulfilling my potential as an artist. I have lost years of accomplishment to this problem.
My disorganization and clutter creates difficulties for my family and sets a poor example of life management for my kids.
My disorganization and clutter prevents me from inviting people to my home and diminishes my social network.
My disorganization and clutter may well be a significant cause for my suffering anxiety and panic disorder (both of which cause me mental agony and prevent me from enjoying life and travel.)
My disorganization and clutter fill me with guilt and feelings of low self-worth.
My disorganization and clutter rob me of vital energy, both physical and spiritual.
Time, money, energy, creativity, fulfillment, joy -- all are costs of my disorganization and clutter

What I will experience when I declutter and become more organized:

I will have energy, both physical and spiritual.
I will enjoy being in my home and inviting people over or welcoming in an unexpected visitor.
I will have a sense of serenity and peace and will not feel the burden of all the things that need to be done around the house.

I will have time and space for my creative work. It will be a pleasure to begin a project, with materials at hand and the proper place to work.

I will feel fulfillment when I can be creative.

I will again be able to sell books and have a small income of my own.

I will be able to let go of feelings of shame and embarrassment.

I will not fear that I will end up like my mother, wasting years and my spirit, fretting about ‘tidying up’ or getting things done that will never get done.

My anxiety levels will decrease.
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Decluttering by Flood - Part Two

Here are some pictures of the storage unit, the first taken when I opened the door, others after we'd cleared it out some:



This plastic box was lying on the floor right in front. I was amazed that it was dry inside, so right away I knew that I had at least whatever is in here saved:
Two similar plastic boxes did not fare well.

Roy (Roy is one of Patrick's best friends and has been working for me on and off as my 'personal assistant) worked tirelessly to help me save what could be saved. I am so very grateful to him for the way he worked, putting up graciously with the moments when I just had to show him something and tell him a story evoked by the object - that happened most often when it was something that had to be tossed. It was a way of honoring the thing that would be lost, and maybe a way of preserving it by passing on its story to another.

It took us about three hours to get to the point where it was obvious that everything left in the unit was soaked through with the nasty flood water. At that point, we decided to take a break, get something to eat. Then it would be time to tackle my other storage unit.

First we decided to just take a look at it. It was one of those roll-up doors and it was very hard to move. Roy did get it open about 2 feet -- many things were pressing up against it, soaked books tumbled out...

I decided right then that I was finished. We pulled down that door and walked away. I signed off on the units, preferring to just let go of what was in mine. It was mostly books and art magazines - not my better stock, or I wouldn't have kept it in this sort of storage unit. I also had a few personal things in there, but I don't remember exactly what. It's better that I don't.

I'm going to close this entry with a journal entry I wrote the next day.

June 12, 2008 10:30 AM
This morning the tag on my teabag says:
“I make the most of all that comes. And the least of all that goes.” Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

(ST was one of my mother’s favorites.)

In any case, that little quote is quite pertinent to my life right now and I will do well to remember it.

Yesterday I spent 3 grueling hours in the hot sun, clearing out my mother’s storage unit. It had been filled with 3-4 feet of water. It was a terrible mess and much was lost, but that makes the items saved more precious. I wound up being able to save a wee bit more than I expected. I had just assumed that the only items that might be safe were in the two huge plastic garbage cans at the back of the unit, marked “family history.” Those indeed were dry (several dozen plastic bags in each, filled with papers, though I think it is not the “best” family history stuff.)

I was also able to retrieve a handful of other papers,that were in a plastic bag and had not gotten wet inside. In that was: a copy of my mother’s birth certificate, a 1952 letter from my Great Aunt Anna May (Auntie) to my grandmother saying all sorts of nice things about the months-old me, a charming letter from Mom to Dad in 1962 detailing her perennial difficulty with housework, a sweet and poignant 1944 letter from Dad pleading with Mom to let him know for sure where he stood with her....

And I also found the small photograph of my grandfather as a young man and a little booklet of his poetry that I had found when we were beginning to sort at the unit last week before the flood.


In addition, there was a box of scrapbooks and notebooks Mom had been compiling. At first, I nearly tossed the whole box - it was soaked. But I pulled out the scrapbooks and only the edges of them seemed damp. So I set them out in the sun while we worked.

I am so glad - they are books filled with my mother’s earliest published writings, my parents’ wedding album, a notebook of Mom’s correspondence, the album started when Dad died. I also managed to save a few very old pictures, of my great-grandfather (in a wheelchair in what I believe was the conservatory of their villa in Nice circa 1890), my Aunt Suzanne (Hooty), Aunt Nell, my grandmother and her sister Eleanora (who died in 1904.) Ah, just an amazing jumbled-up assortment of family memorabilia.

I could pretend the flood jumbled it all up, but the truth is that no one ever organized these papers (though my mother made some efforts here and there) and a hundred-plus years and a few interstate moves acted like one of those giant tumblers used to mix up entries in contests.



All is well.

'Zann