Sonya Triggs-Wharton

Waiting...

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31 (KJV)

I had a profound moment the other day.

It’s interesting – I’ve always thought of myself as someone who is fairly self-sufficient and God-directed. Meaning, I do what needs to be done, but am empowered and directed by God.

I have game plans and backup plans and alternative plans and the like.

And – generally, I’m pretty good about following through on the directives that God has given me – even if they take time.

I’ll try something again and again until it makes sense or I figure out how to make it work. In fact, I often find that the way I had envisioned doing something is not the way I succeed at doing it at all.

Take my exercise life for example.

Years ago, when I was working out very regularly (as opposed to the half-hearted way I do now), I’d get up in the mornings and run or do a workout video or get on the treadmill or what have you.

I learned that (for me) getting up first thing in the morning ensured I knocked my workout out and I wouldn’t get interrupted by the myriad things that I come across in a given day. I wouldn’t be thrown off track when I got an extra project at work (and had to work through my lunch, when I planned to work out). I wouldn’t have to detour to pick up my child early – ruining my plan for getting in a few miles after work. I wouldn’t decide I was too tired after pushing through a meeting to make my afternoon 2-mile track walk.

If I got up in the morning, it was the first thing I did and then – surprise, surprise – it was over! No more thinking about when I’d get my workout in or fighting my fatigue as I collapsed on the couch at the end of the day (or is that just me?). No more 9pm guilt because it turned out 8pm was the worst possible time for me to work out because I had zero energy by then.

So in the last year or two, I still work out – just haphazardly and half-heartedly.

I noticed my motivation was low because a. I love myself exactly the way I am (which doesn’t help when you’re trying to lose weight!), b. I have a wonderful husband who appears to love me exactly the way I am and c. I have a small child, who takes up a lot of emotional and physical energy.

So I’ve been busy working full-time and raising my child.

And – apparently – I’ve been waiting.

Waiting for the perfect moment.

Waiting for the perfect day (when the sky is sunny and bright and beautiful and the temperature is perfect and only cloudy enough to give some much-needed occasional shade).

Waiting for the perfect inspiration.

Waiting to have more time.

Waiting to become more motivated (which apparently happens entirely alone by magic!).

Waiting until my body decided it’d had enough.

Waiting until I got fed up and changed my habits.

Waiting until – I couldn’t even tell you for what.

I can only tell you I finally stopped waiting.

Because in my prayer life the other day, God said….

Wait for it, this is profound….

Still waiting, right???

He said “Nothing just happens.”

Yep.

That was it.

Nothing just happens.

No bluebird is going to land on my shoulder and give me the inspiration to run a marathon (though I finally did manage a half-marathon last year).

No super fit workout gal is going to show up at my doorstep and force me to run each morning.

My child won’t magically be able to put together the right sentences to remind me I need to be in good health to see her graduate and to see my future grandbabies.

A voice from heaven isn’t going to rush down from the clouds, lift me into heavenly spaces and divinely inspire me to work out (or do anything else for that matter).

Jesus isn’t going to run beside me (though that would be quite lovely) and keep me company during my runs.

Nothing just happens.

And the only reason I actually heard that voice was because I wasn’t busy doing something else (which is a subject of a whole other post).

Wasn’t worrying.

Wasn’t stressing.

Was just….listening. For a change.

Praying to God and actually listening for His answer.

Strange, right?

It was quite delightful in fact.

So with that knowledge, I turn to face the challenges on this particular day.

And if nothing just happens…

Then I need to make it happen.

What are you willing to make happen today?

Beeminder, i.e., My Journey To Force Myself to Do Things I Don't Want to Do

I’ve decided to start using Beeminder to help me stay focused and on track to meet some of my tougher goals. Purportedly, this reminder system will help me stick to my goals over the long term with the added bonus of enacting a penalty if I fail to do so.

Here’s how it works – I commit to a quantifiable goal for a specific period of time and Beeminder outlines a yellow brick road to show me if I’m on track. If I fail to stay on track, I get charged $5 initially to unfreeze my goal and be allowed back on the yellow brick road. The fee continues to escalate if I cannot or will not stick to my goals over the long term.

'Enjoying' The Journey

I was talking to a good friend of mine yesterday about this whole idea of ‘enjoying the journey.’ You know  - the conventional wisdom that we should enjoy the journey to wherever we are going as much as arriving at that destination or goal.

I have to admit that - previous to this conversation – I didn’t think a whole lot about this idea. Enjoying the journey? How can you enjoy the moment 30 minutes into an hour workout when you feel like your sweat-soaked, exhausted body is about to pass out? How can you enjoy the emotional ups and downs that come with finally resolving that childhood trauma that’s been haunting you for these many years? And how can you enjoy the discipline necessary to show up to work every day at a place you’re not even sure you like (though you believe it will lead to a better career down the road)? After all, what we actually enjoy is accomplishing our goals, not the process of getting there. How then could we better enjoy the struggles, ups and downs and pain that often comes with change, discipline and persistence? Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Positive Affirmations Videos and MP3s (Audio Podcasts)

Has life been a bit hard lately? Need a little boost to help you manage your stress and anxiety, help you deal with your depression or just need something to help you get through your every day life? Visit my YouTube Channel or listen to my podcasts to hear positive affirmations and meditations designed to help you get the most out of your life, love and accept yourself the way you are and get that boost you need to make your life a happier and positive experience.

 

 

You Can Have Anything You Want...

You can have anything you want, really.  You can become a CEO of your own company. You can become supermodel skinny. You can run in the next Boston Marathon. You can even go back to school to become a doctor if you wanted to.

What's the catch? I can hear you asking me. If it was so easy, everybody would be doing it - right?

Here's the catch - in order to accomplish any of those things, you must be willing to pay the price for it.

Maintenance Mode

Here's a really good reason to develop better habits today: it's much easier to maintain a habit than to start a new one from scratch.

It's easier to rise every day at 6am than to try to train your body to get up two hours earlier than your normal 8am rising time.

It's easier to write several pages of your book daily than to try to develop a new writing schedule.

It's easier to maintain your weight at 135 than to try to lose that 50 pounds you just put on.

And it's much, much easier to have only a few social glasses of wine on occasion than to cut back on partying every weekend.

How are your habits? Are you doing the things that will help make you a better person or are you nursing a few things that'll lead you to an early grave (smoking), obesity (too much midnight snacking) or decreasing the quality of your life (internalizing anger, too much stress, etc.)?

This Weight Loss Journey

As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been seriously trying to lose weight for the past 6 months or so and I’ve found it to be much harder this time around.  I have successfully lost weight in the past (up to about 10 pounds) and have generally maintained my weight over various periods of time. But what I’ve seen in the last 20 years is that I gain about 1 pound per year.  Good in the micro sense, bad in the sense that I’ll be 10 pounds heavier when I’m 50 (about 10 years from now). So I decided to get back on track with my diet and exercise.

First of all, I noticed that it was definitely harder this time around. I decided not to go the extreme route and opted instead to try for simplicity and sustainability. Meaning, find something easy enough to stick to that I could stick to for a very long time. In other words, make a lifestyle change rather than go on a ‘diet.’

First, I established the reasons why I had gained weight (I’m up about 20 pounds since high school and 10 pounds since my mid-20s). I realized something very sad but true. As compared to my early and mid-20s, my lifestyle had completely changed and I hadn’t changed my fitness or eating routine to match it. The ‘success’ I had gained in my business life had translated to a much more sedentary and comfortable lifestyle than the one to which I had previously been accustomed. I kid you not, one of the reasons I used to be so skinny when I was younger was because I didn’t have any money then! After I got my first full-time job at 18, I survived for months on Ramen Noodles, bread and bologna (supplemented of course by a stash of cookies and Hostess products). But even with the junk food I was eating, I didn’t eat very many calories in a day. Mainly because I couldn’t afford to. Now, I can afford to eat pretty much what I want (see the previous article detailing my love of Krispy Kremes, Cinnabons and Auntie Anne’s pretzels) when I want it. Our home, fridge and pantry is well-stocked with a lot of food (I think I’m afraid the world is going to end and I’ll be the first to run out of food) and we actually eat regular meals each day (a dream when I was younger). That means things like bacon and eggs for breakfast (or yogurt and fruit when I’m being good), soup, salad, or sandwiches for lunch and dinner and even going out to eat on a regular basis. And who can eat out without a nice serving of bread or a healthy quantity of dessert to follow? You see where this is leading.

Further, I realized that my lifestyle was much more sedentary now. Right up until my late 20s, I had a series of unreliable cars, which led me to take public transportation often. So instead of getting in some plush vehicle to drive to and from work (where I could park within a reasonable walking distance), I instead had to get up early, schlep to the bus stop, walk quite a distance to get to work and then reverse that trend to go back home. (In high school in fact I didn’t have a car at all, so I actually walked the 40-minute route home at least 2-3 times per week.) Currently, my vehicle works just fine and deposits me within a comfy walking distance of my desk. And my desk is filled with such a wonderful array of comforts as a variety of coffee and tea products, snacks, radio (or my Ipod), internet and a whole host of other things that make me reluctant to ever leave its welcoming embrace. Luckily, as an Instructor, I don’t get to sit at my desk on a daily basis, but walking to my classes and the energy I burn teaching in no way makes up for the fact that I get less exercise than I used to. PLUS, home is an oasis of relaxation as well. I have the ‘good’ cable (i.e., actually have a number of premium channels rather than the basic cable which is all I used to be able to afford), wireless internet, a comfy recliner (with a wide assortment of pillows and the extra blanket for my frequent naps) and tons of snacks (did I mention the snacks???) which are readily available in the kitchen. I mean good snacks too, like kettle corn, Oreos, Nutter Butters, fruit, fiber and protein bars, yogurt, parfait, etc. Not to mention the baking experiments which still live in my freezer (can anyone say cinnamon challah bread?) which I regularly unthaw to eat and enjoy.

And as far as exercise, as I mentioned earlier, I no longer ‘killed’ myself, but worked out at a moderate - even conservative - rate. I had good reasons for this, mind you.  School and work took up most of my time and I felt like if I at least did the bare minimum, that was better than doing nothing. And it was fine for what it was worth. But the bare minimum (and the above factors) only contributed to that slow creep of about a pound a year. Needless to say, by doing the bare minimum, I also consistently lost muscle tone (which burns more calories than fat), which led to me actually needing fewer calories now than when I was younger. And that’s a serious issue. Most of us don’t realize that as we get older and particularly as we become more sedentary, our dietary needs change. Though it’s a hard truth to face, unless you are working out on a serious basis (meaning 4-5 days a week of intense, hour-long exercise), you probably don’t need as many calories as you used to.

So when I started re-focusing on my diet and exercise about 6 months ago, I tried some old strategies, experimented with some new ones and pretty much figured out what ‘worked’ and did not work for me.

Overall, my diet now is pretty simple. As is obvious from reading these posts, I absolutely love desserts. So I decided giving up desserts (or at least being more moderate with them) would be the last thing I’d eliminate. I stopped eating three meals a day (which was something I’d never done when I was younger) and reverted back to my typical ‘grazing’ behavior. Meaning, a little of this and a little of that every 2-3 hours (basically what the experts recommend – eating small meals 6 times a day rather than eating three large meals with snacks). I usually have just one ‘main’ meal per day – usually lunch. My main meal would just be a more complete meal with probably a protein, starch and vegetable (and maybe even a piece of bread!). That one larger meal would pretty much satisfy me for hours, allowing me to then go back to my normal grazing behavior.

Below, you’ll find a list of the things I generally eat. Because I am not certified as a nutritionist or fitness expert, I can’t recommend that you follow these guidelines, but I have found that they contribute to my own personal success (even if it’s a slower process now):

Lean Proteins

Chicken, fish, seafood, steak, eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc. I eat at least one of these per day (usually eggs) in smaller quantities (think a 6 ounce steak rather than a 12 ounce one or half a chicken breast instead of a full one).

Complex Carbohydrates

This means whole wheat or whole grain breads, cereals, fiber, fruit or protein bars and pastas. Everyone makes a whole grain version nowadays and all you have to do is read the label to determine what you’re eating. Whole grain pasta tastes just like regular pasta, so it won’t be much of a change.

Fruit and Vegetables

I eat pretty much all the fruit and vegetables I want (or can take). I tried the low carb approach where I rarely ate any fruit and then I realized I was probably shooting myself in the foot when it came to getting adequate nutrition. I figure eating 10 apples is not going to make me fat, so if that’s what I want, then that’s what I eat.

Fiber, Fat & Protein for Satiety

I make sure I have an adequate amount of fiber, fat (generally the good, unsaturated kind) and protein so that I stay full throughout the day. It’s a well-known fact that these things (fiber, fat and protein) make you feel fuller and help you stay on your diet. In particular, I eat something with fiber or protein before I have anything sweet to avoid the blood sugar rush (and subsequent crash). Foods in this category include nuts, cheese, dairy products and fiber and protein bars (and of course eating my dessert after a well-balanced meal helps).

Non-Caloric Drinks

I generally don’t drink my calories as they don’t seem to help in any discernible way. Drinking juices (for me at least) simply adds calories and sugar that I don’t need and don’t make me feel full. I instead opt to have the fruit itself (which has fiber in it) rather than fruit juices (which are usually over-processed and overly sweet). Or dilute juice with water. Other than that, I usually stick with water or artificially sweetened tea, coffee or juices. I prefer Splenda. And, yes, I’ve read all the reports about artificial sweeteners and decided I can live with the risk of Splenda (which has not yet been shown to have any adverse health effects). Choose wisely for yourself, but Splenda seems to work well for me.

Consistent Exercise

This, of course, has always been my Achilles heel, but I’ve learned that consistency over a long period of time (much like investing money) pays the biggest dividends. It’s better to work out 2 times a week for 10 years than spend 2 years working out 7 days per week. In order to get the most out of exercise, you have to condition your body (get it used to the level of intensity you’d like to accomplish) and the only way that happens is by regular exercise. I’ve read that for every week you don’t work out, it takes two weeks to get back to where you were and I really do believe that. My take-away from that is that if I just do enough from week to week, I won’t have to work so hard to get back to where I was. Therefore, my goal is to work out 5 days per week, for at least an hour at medium to high intensity (meaning sweating, rapid breathing, but not about to keel over from exhaustion). I’m at 3-4 days per week consistently now and it’s finally starting to pay some dividends.

Other general things that seem to work are eating moderate portions, only eating when I’m hungry (an art, to be sure) and not splurging at social occasions. Though I still am more likely to eat junk if I’m out with my friends or at a party, I generally feel okay just sticking with the above categories of food.

Last but not least, I still eat my sweets. As I write this, there’s a bag of kettle corn (which is about 150 calories per 2-3 cups) sitting on my desk looking at me.  I’m looking back at it, thinking, I can’t wait to eat you later! Having and enjoying sweets is one of my main motivators in terms of sticking to my diet. It’s much easier (for me at least) to eat moderately, with lots of fruit and vegetables and lean protein if I know the big payoff is right around the corner. Knowing I can freely eat this kettle corn at some point today makes it so much easier for me to have the cherries I’m going to have as a morning snack and the chicken vegetable soup I made myself for lunch and maybe the toast I’ll have for dinner later.

So that’s what’s working for me. I’d be interesting in hearing what’s working for you.  And at some point, I’ll post a list of the low-calorie, delicious foods I’ve found that have basically saved my diet.

Happy Dieting  :)

Weight, Weight Go Away!

In my last entry, I talked about how I’m trying to lose weight, but that it’s going slowly. So I wanted to explore that a little bit more and talk about some things I’ve learned along this journey.

Considering that about 45 million people diet per year, (and some estimates go as high as 90 million folks), the fact that I’m also dieting and trying to lose weight puts me in pretty good company. Consumer Reports did a diet survey in 2007, which showed some pretty interesting results. Women, not surprisingly were more likely to diet than men (47% versus 34%). Women also had more lofty weight goals than men – with 23% of women and 15% of men trying to lose 50 pounds or more (complete pdf report here). Weight loss results were somewhat promising, with 38% claiming to have maintained their target weight for the past 5 years. ’Claim’ is the key term here, as I’m not sure that everyone who says they have maintained their weight loss really have. In a strictly unscientific survey of my friends, most have gained weight over the years rather than lost it. (Of course I’m in the age range where women have toddlers or young children, so having been through a pregnancy may have contributed to some of that.  But I’m just saying…)

And I’m definitely in the weight gain category. I’m about 20 pounds heavier than I was in high school and about 10 pounds heavier than when I was in my mid-20’s (I’m 39 now). So, my weight seems to have a  upward trend of about 1 pound gained per year.  Good when considered in the micro sense, but bad when I realize that I could be 40 pounds heavier when I’m age 80! The thought of my older, wrinkled, heavier self is fortunately enough to horrify me, so I’ve been working diligently to reverse this weight gain trend.

So what am I doing about it? I’ve always been relatively fit and active. My eating habits have always left much to be desired, however, and I’ve only been consistently eating healthy for the past 10 years or so.  By ‘relatively’ fit and active, I mean that you could usually find me in the gym or out jogging at a minimum of 2 days per week (in my less active seasons) all the way up to 5 days per week (when I was really motivated). Currently, I work out about 3-4 days per week, focusing mainly on cardio (meaning running on the treadmill or outside). My miles are still relatively low at the moment – about 2-3 on the weekdays, maybe 3-4 on the weekend), but I’m starting to have fun again.  I’ve been enrolled in school full-time since 2006, as well as holding a full-time job. So, as you can imagine, much of my former workout ethos has gone by the wayside in the past 5 years. The main thought that has guided me since 2006 has been – just do enough to maintain (while focusing my energy on school of course). And, doing enough to maintain meant about 2 days per week at a moderate intensity. Which explains the pound per year weight gain.

So this year I have re-committed to a more balanced and consistent approach to weight loss, fitness and health. As mentioned, my eating habits have always left much to be desired. A perfectly fine meal for me would be a grilled chicken salad and Diet Coke, followed by a nice large brownie with ice cream on the side. And don’t even get me to talking about Apple Cobbler, fresh-made cookies, pound cake or Krispy Kreme donuts. I used to sincerely believe I liked desserts more than I liked people (and for some people, that probably still applies). Desserts were my heaven and my hell.  They would transport me to highest realms of delight at their sheer deliciousness and then cast me down into despair and remorse with bloat, oversized calories and a sad, empty feeling in my stomach. Why, I wondered, didn’t Krispy Kremes love me the way I loved them? Why did I immediately feel sick after attempting to eat six at a time when I thought to cleverly split the box with a friend? Why could I not have apple cobbler as often as I wanted it? Weren’t apples, in fact, considered HEALTHY? Forget the sugar, butter and crust for a minute – weren’t apples GOOD FOR YOU??? I was terribly frustrated people, let me tell you. All the things that felt so very right turned out to be so very, very wrong for me. Sad…

So eventually of course I realized that my love of dessert was leading me down the toilet. In effect, it was cancelling out every workout I did and negatively balancing every healthy thing I put into my mouth. Sure, it was good that I loved to eat salads and soups and ate small portions, but surely that didn’t make up for the Cinnabon or Auntie Anne’s monster Cinnamon Pretzel I’d ingest because I felt like I’d been so ‘good.’ And while it was great that I in fact liked working out (for the most part – mostly when it didn’t involve me getting up at 4am) and that I’d consistently run and that I could still fit my clothing. But surely I could have done better than just maintain my weight at different periods of times and actually lose weight if I could put those darned Krispy Kremes down.

And really the kicker was that slow creep. One pound a year isn’t so bad until you visualize where this slippery slope will take you. One pound a year meant I’ll be 10 pounds heavier at 50 and 10 pounds even heavier at 60 and so on and so on until I finally couldn’t fit my clothes and I’d have to admit once and for all – what I’m doing is just not working!

So, I admitted that what I was doing was just not working! This finally became clear to me about 6 months ago when I get serious about losing weight. Now, when I’d lost weight before (read: when I was younger), it had been relatively easy. I’d start running insane miles, or do low-carb or some combination of the two. And the weight would magically fall off (or at least that’s the way I remember it).

Then of course I’d eventually creep back up to my regular weight because I couldn’t sustain running insane miles and if I had to eat another bag of beef jerky as a ‘snack’ I would punch somebody out.

So I decided that this time, I’d make only sustainable changes. I’d eat moderately, exercise consistently (but not insanely) and, overall, make better food choices.

And – for the most part – that’s what I’ve done.

Of course, it’s been a somewhat up and down journey for me.  I am down a net 3 pounds since my highest weight, but have been down lower at different points and of course gained it all back when I got a bit too relaxed (or rewarded myself just a bit too much).

The problem with me is that I get comfortable, busy or distracted. I mean, I’m not really overweight, I’ll start thinking. So why am I bothering? And then I’ll have a little too much to eat for a little too long and watch the pounds come back on. Or, I’ll get super busy at work or at school and of course there is no good way to write a 14-page paper or finish a project without the sustaining influence of a nice bag of kettle corn. So over one weekend, I’d erase all the hard work I’d just put in the previous week. Or I’d find some other worthy goal to pursue and attempt to get to work by 7:00am every day (never happening of course) or to be more spiritual or to treat people better or to call my friends and family more often or whatever self-improvement project I’d assign myself that week. And while those goals are indeed worthy, they didn’t help with that extra few pounds creeping back on.

Besides the above, I discovered something truly horrific when I got back into my more serious workouts. Remembering the glory days of running 4, 5, 7 or even 10 miles, I thought I’d immediately jump back to my previous level of fitness. I’d decide to LOSE THE WEIGHT, start back on my running program and get in a good 10 or 15 miles a week, no problem.

BIG problem.

I found that just doing the minimum for the past five years had prepared me for…..just doing the minimum! I couldn’t jog more than a mile or two without sucking wind (and I literally found out what that meant one day when I was gasping for air), thinking something might be wrong with me, or collapsing in a pool of sweat. I literally thought I had some medical condition when I finally realized – hey – I’m just out of shape! This lethargic, sweaty, heavy-limbed, asthmatic feeling is how you feel when you’re out of shape. Wow! Big lightbulb moment,obviously. And the sad part was - it really was.

So it took a good 3-4 months of jogging to even get close to what I used to run easily. I was so angry at my 20-something self for taking for granted how easy it was to run 5 miles, or hit the gym 5 days a week or any of the other things she could do and I no longer could! I’m sincerely telling you – it’s better to maintain some level of fitness than to let it go entirely. It’s so much harder to get back from a big drop than to continue doing what you’ve been doing.

So first I had to get myself back to a reasonable level of fitness. And that meant getting up in the morning at 4:45 IN THE MORNING (the only time I had free), committing to working out at least 5 days a week and, overall, eating fewer and healthier foods. It’s been a challenge – no lie.

As I said, so far I’ve lost a net 3 pounds, but gained a whole lot more in knowledge. I’m truly focused now on obtaining and maintaining good habits that I can sustain for a lifetime rather than a 2-month mad dash to lose 10 pounds (which I would eventually put back on).

I’ll write more next week about the specific foods I’ve been eating, what meals I’ve found that are both tasty and low calorie and the eating tricks that have literally saved my sanity.