Cleopatra_Nik

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

I am going out of town early on Monday morning and trying to work out like a maniac before I do, so I'm sending this out to you all today.  It's short and sweet.

My inpsiration this week is all of you. 

Why?

Because we made it!!!

The more I think about it, the more Thanksgiving seems like a land mine.  For however many days/weeks/months since surgery we've been re-programming our lives, our minds, our days to NOT revolve around eating large amounts of food.  We focus on other things: our children, fitness, shopping, cleaning, our jobs, whatever.  We diligently train ourselves not to assign emotion to certain foods or portion sizes and to start to see worth in ourselves and our bodies. 

Then comes Thanksgiving.

The holiday's actual meaning is so special.  Giving thanks for the many blessings we each enjoy.  But the tradition is a whole other can of beans.  The traditions represent everything we've been working AGAINST since surgery.  I talk a lot about choices.  All our work to make better choices culminate during the holidays and especially on Thanksgiving. 

Whether you feel you made all the right choices, all the wrong choices, or a little of both...you made it.  You're still here.  You came to OH and you talked about your feelings.  You endured the smells of foods that feel to your soul like home and you did NOT eat seven portions of them.  You employed coping mechanisms to get you through.  You made it.

You wonderful people inspire me so much.  Your stories, your successes, your rants, your raves, continue to inspire awe in me every day and a sense of tremendous gratitude for having the opportunity to know you.

Have a great week and I'll catch you next week...when I'll be another year older and (hopefully) wiser.

Nikki

“An idle mind is the devil’s workshop…”

 

That saying floated around me my entire childhood.  It originated, for me, with my grandmother, who would tell me this as she scooted me out the door to play when I would much rather be reading a Babysitter’s Club book or when she generally thought I wasn’t being useful in the world.

 

During the many, many years when I was morbidly obese I seem to have fallen deep into the devil’s workshop.  I lay idle on my bed for hours, staring at the television but not really watching it.  Sitting on a park bench watching my children play.  Zoning out in meetings.  My mind had gone numb.  There just didn’t seem to be enough mental energy to do the things I wanted to do.  There didn’t seem to be enough energy to simply live…to exist.

 

Now I stand…an emerging person, just four days before a holiday that is dedicated exclusively to eating and this phrase rises to the surface again.  For weeks I’ve been worrying about my “strategy” for the day.  My worry is not so much about overeating as it is about being around all that food.  One thing I’ve discovered in my journey is that being idle around food bothers me.  If I am at a dinner and I’m done eating, I’ll help with the dishes, or serve second plates or prepare a dessert.  Anything so that I don’t have to stand still in a room full of food. 

 

“An idle mind is the devil’s workshop…”

 

My mom often says she feels my grandmother’s spirit still roams the halls of our family home (it is the place where she lived and died).  In a moment of particular fretting I heard this in my head and it was such a comfort.  Basically she was telling me to get busy! 

 

This, to me, doesn’t necessarily mean that I should be doing dishes and fixing people plates all day, but that I should, for once in my life, actually think about the meaning of this holiday and to embrace that meaning.  I will see family I’ve not seen in ages.  This will be my one opportunity to speak with them before I do not see them again for another year.  How have they been doing?  What are their current joys and concerns?  How can I connect with them more or better?

 

It is also a time to remember not to be idle with regards my health.  My mom lives in an area that has been blessed with beautiful fall foliage and an abundance of walking trails.  I plan to take advantage of them.

 

Lastly, I need to be mindful that I am a piece of the grand puzzle that is my family and that my life choices have an effect on them as well.  This would be a good time to remember that I’m not alone in this.  My whole family is rooting for me.  My mom is on strict orders that if she sees me staring lugubriously at a bowl of mashed potatoes that she is to put me to work!

 

I am thankful that my grandmother helped to raise me with this saying always in the back of my head.  It reminds me that the world is not just about me.  That my losses are other people’s constant realities (thinking about the starving people in the world).  That the real joy in life is in living it.  To not live it is a breeding ground for bad ideas and practices.

 

This week I challenge you to battle the devil’s workshop.  Fill your holiday weekend with wonderful memories.  Capitalize on the opportunity that your family gatherings will bring.  Talk to your family elders, listen to their stories, share in the meal being served, be a vital part of your own life story.

 

Have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving

Fall has finally decided to show up in Maryland! That’s a blessing considering the fact that slowly the Mid-Atlantic regions are losing seasonal transitions altogether. It could be 80 degrees on Christmas and 50 on the 4^th of July.  

The drop in temperatures and increase in wind has produced a plethora of falling leaves. When the weather was warm and the wind did not blow, the leaves did not die and they held steady to the branches to which they had been attached so long. They waited, patiently, for their cue to acquiesce to the wind, effectively ending their life cycle but leaving behind their tree, already pregnant with the new leaves and flower buds that will burst to life this spring.  

I already know you’re going through a season of change. Your mind is changing, your body is changing, your image is changing, your clothing size and even your shoe size is changing. Has your mighty wind come? Have you acquiesced to the changes going on in your life or do you hold steady to your old self, waiting for the cue to let go?   This weekend I packed up the very last of my plus sized clothes. I had long since given away what I called my “ugly clothes,” the ones that I was ashamed to admit I’d ever owned. But there were things that had emotional attachment to me. A sweater I always wore at Christmas time. A jacket I thought I looked really cute in. It was unbelievably painful for me to pack these things up. Probably because I didn’t hate the old me. I still don’t. I think for a 330 lb. chick she had some great qualities. But my wind of change has come. I am not her anymore and she is not me. It is time for us to say goodbye so that the person that I am now can emerge and live.  

This week I’d like to inspire you to be like the autumn leaves. It’s not easy, but let yourself give in to the winds of change blowing through your life. Hold on to the memories, both good and bad, of those times in your life because they rightfully belong to you, but also give yourself permission to live in the life that you have now. We talk so much about having a “fat person’s mentality.” I challenge each and every one of you to start defining who you are…not as a “fat” person but as a person. What do you like now? What don’t you like? How have your beliefs changed?    Recognize and let go of who you were so that you can become the person you went through surgery to be.  

Have a great week.

This weekend I was in Wal-Mart buying a few things for around the house.  While there I couldn’t help but notice the interesting juxtaposition of Halloween and Christmas.  Before Halloween was even over, Christmas trees were going up, wreaths being hung, and this weekend as I shopped and passed racks of abandoned pirate and witch costumes, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” played on the loudspeaker. 

 

Knowing that these are tough times, I also know that the reason why Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier each year (my guess is that by the time my daughters are mothers it’ll start right around Labor Day) is not only to give buyers a longer shopping season (because in reality we can shop anytime, can’t we?) but also to create anticipation for the upcoming holidays. 

 

Anticipation is a persnickety monster.  On the one hand, it can motivate you, fuel you toward a goal.  It can be the thing that makes you run a little faster, take one less bite, drink one more ounce of water than you would have before.  But it can have a down side too.

 

If you think about it, anticipation carries with it a connotation of inevitability.  You are waiting for something you know will happen, you just have to get there.  That’s where me and anticipation have problems, especially with regards to the peculiar situation of being a WLS post-op.

 

Have you ever anticipated something that didn’t happen?  That’s the quickest way to know the true nature of anticipation as it relates to your personality.  Stalls, for us, are a good example.  We anticipate a loss on the scale and when get on there and don’t see it we feel cheated and hurt because we wanted it so bad and it didn’t happen.

The thing that gets lost in translation when we anticipate something is the process.  Getting to our goal weight, unlike Christmas, is not guaranteed.  It’s not inevitable.  But if you follow your plan, and work your process it is highly probable. 

 

So this week I’d like to challenge you to enjoy the process.  This is one instances where I am the main person who needs to follow the advice that I give.  Instead of worrying about a number on the scale, enjoy your bodies getting stronger.  Enjoy watching back pain disappear.  Enjoy being able to run around the playground with your kids.  Enjoy looking in the mirror every day and seeing a person motivated and ready to conquer the world. 

 

Give yourself that time and space to enjoy all the little, teeny, tiny things about this process that you find amazing.  Post about them on the boards.  Heck, PM them to me because they inspire me!

 

Have a great week.

Yesterday, if you lived in every state except Arizona (I believe), you turned your clocks back one hour in accordance with Daylight Saving Time.  The practice of setting our clocks forward in the spring and backward in the fall comes out of a desire to make better use of daylight for various reasons: work, leisure, and, in recent years, we have finally begun to recognize that we are happier in the light than we are in the darkness.

There are two things about “DST” that are reflective and inspiring to me.  First is the general concept of time (what it is, what it represents) and the second is how we use our time.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot but I’ll try to be brief and not write a book here.

 

The measurement of time, if you think about it, is a measurement of distance.  It is the distance between when the sun rises and when it sets.  Between when you wake up and when you go to sleep.  When you arrive to work and when you leave work.  Between when you are born and when you die. 

 

That’s it.  That’s all time is.  Because that’s all time is, it is fairly easy to manipulate.  But the manipulation of time is not beneficial to all people in the same way.  Daylight Saving Time, for instance, doesn’t help people in the tropics out much because they live near the equator where day and night are nearly equal all year round.  My point is this: if we think of time not as some authoritative, universal concept, but as something that belongs to each and every one of us, then we can begin to learn to manipulate it in our personal favor.  Think outside the box.  We associate certain things with certain times of day but really, that marriage is in our heads alone.  Breakfast does not necessarily need to be in the morning and sleep is not reserved solely for at night.  Time is the distance between two points.  What those two points are, and what you do on your journey between them is completely up to you.

 

Which brings me to the best use of our time.  Just like daylight saving time makes great use of the daylight for various reasons, I would argue that each and every one of us could and should do an audit of our time every now and again to see where adjustments can be made.  I would further argue that many of us “waste” a good deal of time.  On negative thoughts, self deprecation, self abuse.  Time is a valuable resource because it is the one thing you can expend, or give away, and never, ever get back.  What are you spending your time on?  Do you constantly look back to your mistakes, your shortcomings up to this point and wish they could have been different?  Or do you look to the future and what could be and how you want to get there?  I would argue a little of both is best.  If we don’t learn from our mistakes and celebrate our past achievements, we can’t move forward in a productive way.  Dwelling on those things, however, keeps us in the same place.

 

Time is the distance between two points.  How will you travel them today, tomorrow, next week?  Think about it and have a great week.