Progress....

So lets talk about progress this morning. You can never ever compare yourself to someone else. Even the tiniest thing is progress. This lesson has come back around a couple of time in the past weeks, for me. 

So I started learning Aerial Silks in September, with my 11 yr old. We were neck and neck for the first month and after that she took off and left me in the dust. One of the classes we took there was a girl closer to my age who had been going for a month. I don't get to work out with her as often, but when I did last week, she could totally scorch me on climbing ( which let me tell you is NO JOKE - I come down off those things breathing so hard you may think my lungs may fly out!!) BUT I can flip upside down as easily as blinking, and she cant....YET!! Different people, different areas of strength, different progress, BUT STILL PROGRESS!!!!!

We ALL progress at different rates, don't EVER be discouraged at what you do or don't see on the scales, on the tape measure, or you perceived progress. The truth is, the LITTLEST THINGS mean HUGE changes inside. 

Last night my gymnastics class was working on kicking to handstands on mini parallel bars. Even though 30 yrs ago I was a gymnast, 6 weeks ago, I could only kick up with a booster block AND a little leg push from a spotter. Last night, I only need the booster block!!!!! It is a SMALL step, but I CAN SEE PROGRESS!!! Even though I hadn't trained on that move in 6 weeks, my over all physical activity has increased my strength and kicking and I sailed up as easily as blinking....soooo here is what you can take from this....

1. Building strength, stamina, endurance, a stronger heart, a lower BP, etc...ALL HAPPENS as long as you KEEP GOING. While there are some things you have to train specifically for to get good at NEVER underestimate the power of just keeping on training and doing what you love smile emoticon CHANGES ARE HAPPENING STRENGTH IS BEING HARNESSED smile emoticon

2. The little things ADD UP!!! I don't hashtag EVERYTHING COUNTS for nothing, because it does EVERYTHING good and bad adds up. Start putting little marks on your GOOD side smile emoticon

3. Even if you don't think you see progress, or you think your progress is too small to mention, know that thinking is INACCURATE! You cant learn to run without walking, you cant learn to walk without standing, you cant learn to stand without MONTHS of falling, wobbling, leaning, being lead, cruising furniture. So JUST KEEP GOING!!! KEEEEP GOING!!! KEEEEEEEEP GOING!!!!!!!

4. You have nothing but time. Sure we would all like to push an easy button and wake up tomorrow an ideal size weight and fitness level. Sadly that doesn't happen....but the good news is, you don't have to be at X level by next Friday lunchtime! This is your world, YOUR STORY.... you write it!!!!

My daughter will pass her level one skills test in Aerial Silks in the next month or so, and in truth , it will probably take me until well into the summer or fall before I am ready. But it doesn't matter, I am having fun and INCHING (literally) forward and every time I do a move and fail I am getting a tiny bit stronger, a tiny bit fitter, a tiny bit closer.

The time IS GOING TO PASS, spend it making teeny steps of progress - it IS worth it and it ALL adds up 

The way you feel WILL change...and that is good.

Encouragement...

Ok so this whole food thing I encourage you to do every Wednesday.  I know getting your food consistently good is hard. For me it was the last piece of the puzzle to fall in to place. I had been exercising for 3 years with health gains and losing inches, but my weight really hadnt changed more than about 10lbs.  It wasnt until I mastered food that I got to a healthy weight for me.

Here is the encouragement, WHEN YOU REALLY master it, it will no longer be hard all the time.  I loved junk food and chocolate and everything you love as much, maybe even MORE than you and I was 50lbs over weight.

So how do you do it?

The first thing you have to do is get your head around it.  You HAVE ( cant emphasize enough how this is the BIGGEST thing) to have a reason for doing what you do ( eating and moving) that is NOT related to your size or weight.  I know I hear you

"So why else would I do that?  I dont want to give up a thing, but I dont like how I look -  that is the ONLY reason i exercise and try".

I know I used to think that way.  The fact is you HAVE to realize the deeper impact food has you your body, length and quality of life.  You have to be motivated to SAVE your life.  This isnt just the chronically obese, this is EVERYONE.  If you dont take care of your body with food and exercise by the time you are 50 ( assuming you live that long...I kid you not) your body will be so broken and run down you cant do anything you want.

That sort of thing happens to someone else right?  Think of how many people you drove or rode past in the past 24 hours.  To them YOU ARE SOMEONE ELSE.

I am not sure how old you are, but I was 35 when I started having health issues, knee pain, joint issues, low energy.  By 40 I had a weird pain in my side from time to time and re-flux, and I found out my liver was failing.  I was lucky almost no one gets pain from it - it is a silent killer.

I was pretty active until I was about 30.  I was a good weight until I was about 33 - maybe 10 -15lbs over weight.  My health went into the trash in about 8 years.  I was lucky, my youth carried me through with a good metabolism until then.   But as soon as that changed, my health deteriorated in 8 years.  EIGHT YEARS!

FIND a reason NOT linked to your size and weight to motivate you to start.  Your health, longer life with your kids, to see Grandkids, to do your bucket list....you ONLY get one body, you ONLY go around ONCE.  Dont you want to see and do as much as you possibly can in that one ride?

From there, you find a way to eat that you LIKE.  You dont have to love it, you just have to think,
"ok. I could do this except for special occasions".

DONT EVER START AN EATING PROGRAM YOU CANT LIVE ON FOREVER.

From there, you live it.  You remember that you want to LIVE BETTER more than you want that 2 second taste.

Here is more encouragement - commit to it for a year.  REALLY commit.  I promise you by the time the year is up you wont see food the way you do now.  You WONT think "oh I couldn't never go without X food"  You WONT feel like you do now about stopping eating certain things you now basically use as a drug.

The biggest thing I want you to take away from this is....EVERYTHING you think you cant live without and cant give up - YOU CAN and given time you WONT CARE.  How you see food and how you eat will change.  It isnt a life time of feeling sad about not eating X food every week.  THAT is why people dont like changing what they eat - and I get it, I was there it was why I didnt get the eating thing down til I was 43.  But if I can YOU CAN.  You ONLY feel that way when you start.  I fyou have a LONG RANGE GOAL and you see the bigger picture, the foods you choose to avoid wont bother you in a few weeks.

:) Start, keep going, NEVER GIVE UP!!  :)

Eating well all the time is hard...

I dont think anyone will disagree with me on this.  I think for some people it is harder than others.

I recently hit 900 days of healthy eating.  When I started I knew I had to change permanently; I hoped for success, I had a different plan than the last 73 tries at losing weigh, and I had a different mental view going.  I think the different mindset has been a key factor in making the change long lasting.

So what did I do?  I found a plan that made sense to me, that I WANTED to live by for reasons OTHER than weight loss.  Then I found a way to get my head around it, so it was something I WANTED to do, rather than had to do to be thin.

What do I do?  I am primarily vegan, but not fanatically. As in there have been rare occasions where I have had egg that was in something, broth that might not have been veggie, and I have had about 4 slices of regular pizza in that time because nothing was available, or some well meaning person "made" food for me and I didnt want to be rude. In general I will avoid meat and dairy all the time, just not to the exclusion of all reason and courtesy  I cant do it for more than a meal here or there, because it really impacts how I feel physically and how well my body performs over all. I put some pretty hard demands on my almost 46 yr old body, and I really want to be able to do all these things I love - so I dont like to eat off my plan for more than a meal here or there.

I have been 100% true to my zero sugar consumption. No candy, desserts, or chocolate that contain refined sugar, fake sugar, artificial sugar. I have had 4 muffins made with honey. 900 days. I am really proud of that one. I dont miss it, I do remember it fondly. I know I can never go back. Does this make me sad? Not often, and not for long - it just isnt my reality to be able to have a little. I am an addict. My choice is, eat sugar and die young, fat, diabetic, with low quality of life, or to avoid it and gain more quality of life than I ever imagined possible. I choose the second, every time, and move on quickly because what I have FAR outweighs the moments of taste I am not having. 

Anyway, I am hoping someone reading this out there who needs a boost or a kick will read this and be inspired, or helped, or spurred on. It is not an easy path, but just know as you sit there and think "oh I could NEVER give up............." it is no where NEAR as hard as you imagine.

You take one day at a time, one meal at a time and "TIME" will take care of itself. I have done this now for 900 days and I am living proof you CAN overcome food addiction and binges, and being controlled by cravings.

This is what works for me, there are MANY paths to health and fitness, this is just the one my body loves.  Yours could look different, have a look out there and see what there is you could LIVE ON FOREVER.

I know I hear you - some of you are thinking,

 "well that is nice but HOW, I need specifics on HOW to get in the right place mentally".

Message me, I am happy to help.  I can help you make a meal plan, I am happy to share what I learned.

Also, simple strategies to cope with foods you love that trip you up.

Here is one that works for lots of people...

The PUSH IT OUT PLAN..

...
If you are struggling with certain foods, tell yourself, yes i can have than ice 

cream or chips or cake, AFTER i have had some carrots or an apple Some 

piece of fruit or raw veggie you LIKE. You still get your junk food, but you wont

 eat as much, as you will be more full. it is win win.

Hopefully, some of this is helpful to you!

You are welcome to message me.  You can find me on FB click here and I will be happy to help you out.

A Case of the Mondays

So many Monday mornings people trying to get healthier, or thinner, or stronger, look back on their weekends and shudder.

Cue regret.  Cue self hate.  Cue a slew of things that wont help you at all.

Monday is THE day of the week most people PROMISE THEMSELVES they will...do better, restart, rebuild, make a change....just do something.

I am here to tell you, YOU CAN.  You just need a coupe of things to be successful...

1. A plan ( if you need help putting one together, message me, I am happy to help)
2. A goal NOT related to size or weight.
3. Support and accountability on the way.

I don't like the phrase "it is never too late" because honestly, if you don't take your health seriously there WILL come a point where it IS too late.  Not death, just being so badly damaged that you are trapped in a body that cant move and is a prison, and will drag you painfully to your demise.  ( so cheerful this morning...NOT!! )  Sometimes, some things happen with no warning and your body cant recover from them.  If you are NOT in that position as you read this, then you CAN start doing something.  Stop waiting, stop hoping you will slip through unscathed, and do something to help your body.  There are no guarantees, you could do all the right things and still have something in your body fail.  You will still die at some point.  We aren't avoiding death, we are just hoping to change the quality of the ride before we get there.  :)

YOU CONTROL NOW.  :)  So grab a friend or two who need to get working on this, and use this MONDAY!!

If you need help, message me here https://www.facebook.com/fighththefluff

I had that dream again last night....

no, no, no - not THAT dream about being under clothed and unprepared...I actually haven't ever had that dream!



I have a few recurring dreams, the flying like superman one - can't ever have that one enough!  I also have the dreams where something is out of place and I realize I am dreaming - at which point I then try to fly like superman!  But the one I am talking about today is the dream where I can do something physically that is virtually impossible to me in real life, and it is EASY.

The dream usually involves doing a pull up of some kind and not only can I do it, it is TOTALLY EFFORTLESS!!!  It is the best thing ever, just fantastic, and I get so happy about it.  ( I know I am strange!!)   This is VERY far from my real life, I can do about HALF of a single pull up.  I am constantly in awe of upper body strength, and working really hard at getting some, so I can do more fun things.  So when i can suddenly do it in my dreams it is like Christmas morning times 10!

So in last night's dream, I was near a ledge going down stairs in a house, and I grabbed the ledge and hung on it and it was easy, and I thought,

"wow this is really GREAT, I wonder if I can pull up".

So I tried it, and I did and it was SOOO easy.  I was actually able to pull up, and then keep going until I was actually pushing down on the ledge and was above it.  It is called a "muscle up" and it was magical - even if I could only do it in my dream!   THEN the funniest part was I looked around for something in the dream to be weird, or off, so that I knew I was dreaming....and I when I saw nothing out of place, I decided it was real and it was fantastic!!

Wish this was me!!




Of course, as with all good dreams, then next thing that happened could be typed like this....



...feeling REALLY happy and excited for a moment....but then the reality of my half pull up set back in!!  LOL

What is interesting to me is how my whole life is SOO different from 5 years ago.  I would never have had dreams of doing pull-ups back then.  I have always loved and admired physical skills and strength, but always thought it was too hard to achieve.

What changed?  I realized that all that time it would take to try to learn something - that would take TOO LONG was going to pass anyway.  It isnt like the clock stops when you think "well that would be nice but it would take to long".    I had NOTHING to lose by working a little on some things.  I either get there or not, but I am stronger, better and healthier for trying, not to mention the things I have picked seem REALLY fun to me.  So it all seems like fun!

FIND SOMETHING YOU LOVE, something physical, and chase after it!!  If you need ideas or help coming up with this - message me!  #fighttheflufffitness will get you to me, and FB, Google, Google+ Pinterest, and IG  :)  Just click the hashtag to get to FB and message me :)

Clearly my quest to learn and master those six moves from my last post,  is REALLY embedded in me!!  I have some progress reports to share later in the week, so stay tuned!!


:)

46 is coming....

So I am going to be 46 in November 2014.

Since reclaiming my health I get to do so many fantastic physical things that make me so happy.

Paddle boarding is my new found passion....love it!!!

Then, recently I started doing Silks 

And I also get to teach gymnastics to adults 3 times a week.  Gymnastics has always been something I LOOOOOOVED.   I was a gymnast for most of my childhood until college.  ( If you are local to Baltimore and want to take my class it is Monday nights from 6pm - 7:30pm  at  Urban Evolution )  It is for anyone who used to do gymnastics and wants to relive the fun - and for those who always wanted to give it a try and never had the chance.  

Soooo to that end - the point of my post, I am almost 46.  No matter how much I love gymnastics, there is only so much that is smart to do with my body.  As I retrain, I am getting stronger, so I will be able to reclaim much of what I used to do, but the super bendy spine stuff is not a good idea to do tons of when getting back into it.  

I decided in the realm of things I can still do easily....handstands, cartwheels, basic rolls, balances and a couple of flips I am going to work on control and strength, and as such, part of my blog is going to be to track my progress with things I want to learn....some are short term easier goals, and some are long term - at least a year away :)

Here is my list...

Hold a handstand for a minute or longer

Sloooooow controlled handstands and cartwheels

Floor straddle to handstand

Crow to handstand

Planche stand

What I am curious about is this....

Can a 46 year old woman learn to do these things?

Stay tuned!!  I am going to document my progress right here weekly.  :)

You are what you eat.....

... yes, yes I know, you have heard it.  I heard it my whole life and knew it just meant I needed to eat better....  then something happened.



I actually experienced what it was like to REALLY nourish my body, for a consistent amount of time, and it was like my body went from being an old junker car to a formula 1 racing car and I FINALLY got it.



In the space of 3 weeks my body changed.  Inside and out.  Inside my BP went from 118/72 to 99/68.  My Cholesterol from 183 to 127 in THREE WEEKS.  My liver levels from above normal ( bad) to normal.  Outside, my face and skin and hair and nails all looked younger and better.  I lost weight, I FELT AMAZING and I suddenly GOT IT....I am what I eat.  Before I was just surviving....now I was THRIVING.

Soooo I was recently on a day trip to the beach with my family.  This meant I was at the mercy of eating out.  I ate fruit for breakfast, but decided to enjoy some of these little beauties.  Nope, not at all healthy, but when you eat as cleanly as I do, the odd french fry here and there is an indulgence I allow....


Also in the interest of time and speed of eating with the family, I had cheeseless pizza.  Read here, picked the cheese off regular pizza and ate the sauce and crust....from a pretty decent pizza place ( small business, makes their own stuff from scratch).

Discovery...I dont actually like Thrashers any more.  Bit surprised, cos about once a month I do have a small serving of fries, which I generally enjoy.  But Thrashers were just icky to me and I USED to LOOOOOOOOOOOVE them.

So after the various deviations and making do with what was fast and available ..... Let me tell you, I felt WEAK.  Sooooo weak and sluggish.  I generally have 7 servings of fruit and veggies by the time breakfast is over.  It was just a day trip, so I didnt have my Shakeology and blender with me - which is how I start my day....

Vegan chocolate Shakeology with 7 strawberries, 1 banana, 1/4 cup raw almonds.

Then I move on to a snack of fruit.  Lunch is 2 cups of veggies and Non gmo tofu ( recent kick).  Another snack of PB and crackers, dinner is 2-4 cups various veggies and a protein of choice.

I was out of the house 48 hours and got home feeling like total crap - even though the only diversions were those fries, that pizza crust and some plain chips.  Tired, no energy, lethargic, and really WEAK!!  It STUNK.    It drove home the message, once more.  YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

My point?  So many of you reading this feel tired with no energy LOTS of the time.  You are caught up in how food tastes and you dont want to give it up.  I know.  I was there I lived it for 43 years.  3 things I want you to know....

1. If you change what you eat for a lifestyle you WONT always feel the same way as you do right now about "all those yummy foods" you wont be eating.  I promise what you want WILL change.  You will not always be pining for those cookies or cakes or cheese doodles or desserts.

2. YOU WANT TO THRIVE, not just survive.  Surviving ISNT living.  You thrive by focusing on putting GOOOD QUALITY nutritionally dense foods in your body, and that whole, being tired, no energy, feeling blah will GO AWAY!

3. Hear these words, and take in their meaning BEYOND "eat better"  You ARE what you eat.  Your life DEPENDS on what you put in your body.  Food is the SINGLE most important thing in your control as to your basic health.  Food, it is ALL FOOD.  

If this strikes a nerve for you and you want to change, but dont know how.  message me, email me, contact me, I am HAPPY to help you get started.  :)