Motherhood

Motherhood

Motherhood is seen as such a natural part of life. I mean, what could be more natural than observing and caring for your progeny – little pieces of you; so precious and cute. So, why don't I see it that way?

Motherhood does not come naturally to me. I don't even like the subject. It makes me feel guilty when I see mothers who seem to live for their children. Sometimes I wonder, What's wrong with me? Do I need more time to myself than the average mother, or are we all in the same boat? How can I shift my focus effectively without neglecting my responsibilities or burning myself out?

It is these questions that have led me to investigate the experiences of my peers and their opinions of motherhood. I want to know how much satisfaction individuals feel, what brings them said satisfaction, how they cope with boredom in their role as mother (if they experience it to the extent that I do), how they keep motivated to perform the tasks of life day after day, etc.

Since escaping my own motherhood is not an option, I recognize some interaction with other mothers combined with the mental stimulation of analyzing the data I collect will not only help me gain perspective but it will fill a need I have to be engaged on a level beyond that which can be reached by perpetually cleaning up messes that others have made and listening to whiny voices.

Do I think such a project hasn't been done before? No. I know that it has. But, somehow, reading about strangers and their struggles just isn't as satisfying as connecting with those I actually know or that I've at least met. Maybe you agree. Perhaps I'll entertain or encourage others in the process. Even better.

Let the research begin! Please contact me so I can send you my questionnaire. Thank you!

Lightning Shower

The pregnant air
Pierced by searing light
The broken waters
Of the night
Pounding beats
Rock the still
Pelting coolness
Passion fills
Lend me your passion
Thunder storm
For this, the 8th,
Is in new form
Powerful lover
Join me here
We break the mould
And douse the fear
Walk forward now
Press in close
For up 'til now
I’ve been comatose
Wake me to you
Wake you to me
Rejoin the thoughts
Let the passion free
We’re drenched with nature’s
Cleansing shower
The beauty of our
Three-fold tower
Re-knit the kinship
Of you and me
Happy Anniversary

Self-Care, Self-Esteem and Action

My life is a vicious cycle.

I have stopped to reflect on myself at different points in my life...It might be more accurate to say I never stop...

One of the things I keep coming back to is that I can never just learn something once and then keep it up! I seem to have to learn something and then relearn it and then relearn it again. Hence the need for constant reminders, even when you already know something well.

Over the course of my "adult" life I've taken a look at my self-esteem to make sure it was intact and balanced; neither too inflated, nor too squashed. Recently I discovered that my self-esteem mental software was allowed to become outdated. I have been too preoccupied and distracted with other priorities (big, important ones) to have the time to make the inspection and update the software of my mind. So I have operated poorly, living under the inaccurate assumption that my self-esteem was still in the healthy range. This led to faulty decision-making and reactions to things from a very low place which created bigger problems than I was even aware of.

Thankfully, this kind of thing can be avoided. Even in the midst of chaos and great, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, when I make myself take the time to perform self-care, I am not only in a much better position to help others. I actually have the capacity for clarity. And, from a seat of clear thinking, I can perform the actions of life. Without it, I become literally frozen, unable to break myself from circular, self-destructive thoughts.

Perhaps the types of self-care that do the trick are different for everyone. For me, however, it can be as simple as shaving my legs, eating a healthful meal or allowing myself to pour my heart out to someone regardless of the possible embarrassment.

There is definitely a difference between healthy self-care and unhealthy self-indulgence.

But that's another life lesson...and another blog post.

The Breath that Fans the Flames

Creativity Comes from a Positive Place – Dirges are only the Fuel
Dirges and sadness, rebukes and defeat, crashing and burning, loss and longing... are all the most volatile fuel for my creation. Yet, one sided-creation is extreme and lacks dimension. The most creative moments come from a seat of joy while holding the hurts of the past clearly in my memory. Without the positive seat, there is little motivation to complete the work that it may shine as a piece of art. Negative experiences are the fuel. Positivity is the spark. Creativity is the flame. Without a spark there can be no flame. If ever there were a driving force to swim back to the surface of my pain for a breath before death overtakes my heart, it is this. Quite a strong propulsion if I do say so myself.

Hindsight - Why I Was Successful

Hindsight – Why I Was Successful

This, my most recent physical achievement, brings with it the biggest sense of accomplishment of any in the past. Though I have lost weight before, somehow the struggles surrounding my current success run deeper, in addition to the amount of weight lost being greater than any before it. For this reason, my thoughts keep coming back to it, pondering the implications. I may as well use what inspiration I have. Perhaps expressing it can help someone else, or help me to succeed again in the future, if ever I am confronted with that need again. And, if not, at least it’s cathartic.

In the Beginning

When I first got started with exercising, I wasn’t yet ready to change my diet. So I started with what I felt I was able to start with. My blood sugar was fluctuating so wildly that I was constantly ravenous. To deny myself what I wanted seemed like the worst kind of torture and left me useless to my family because of the crashes. So, starting with exercising was really the best thing for me to do. It helped balance my blood sugar, which decreased the intensity of the cravings. Herein lies the necessity of exercise combined with diet changes when trying to lose weight. Exercising, by itself, does not lead to weight loss; not really. Reducing caloric intake does. But caloric restriction is made easier by exercise.

Baby Steps

Next, I changed my diet bit by bit, not all at once. First, I reduced the indulgences, especially at night. It was easier to “deny” myself these things because the exercising replaced it as self-love and I also felt that what work I was accomplishing by exercising would be undone by overindulging. Next, I traded out simple sugars for whole grains/foods. This reduced cravings further, making it easier to incrementally reduce caloric intake. Exercising regularly also afforded me the freedom to eat more than I could have gotten away with eating if I wasn’t exercising since I was burning so many calories each week.

Bumps are OK

Each time I experienced a setback in my exercise routine, I actually found that I lost more weight on the scale than when I was exercising regularly. Don’t get me wrong, when I’m exercising regularly, my body looks much better than when I am not and there is certainly shrinking happening as I build muscle in place of fat. However, with my food intake now kind of naturally in check (I don’t even think about it anymore), when I have stopped exercising, the weight loss is all “loss.” So the scale readings are more exciting. My point? Don’t freak out on yourself if you have some minor setbacks. Just get back on track as soon as you can and enjoy what each step brings you. Also, I’m gonna have to research it a bit so I understand it better, but another experience I have had on this journey has been rather interesting. Occasionally, here or there on my return road to thinness (lol), I have had what feel like intense cravings. I have given in to them, sure that I would pay for it. After a couple days of what has felt like complete overindulgence, I found I had actually lost more weight. So, who knows what that’s all about. Just don’t beat yourself up! Keep positive, keep moving forward! Love life! You can do it! You are doing it! I love you!

The Romance of the Rutabaga

The children sit around an ancient, rickety table on matching, backless wooden benches waiting eagerly to fill the pits in their stomachs with something warm. They wear dirty, tattered clothing and expressions of eager anticipation. Mama ladles broth into bowls for each of them from the blackened pot hanging above a fire in the corner of their one-room home. The four walls barely insulate from the cold outside. The broth is made hearty by a softened, orange fleshed root vegetable; the rutabaga. This is the kind of imagery I get every time I see rutabagas at the grocery store. It’s a romantic notion of the past, and one that I experience when I cook them. Their stinky aroma, slightly bitter, earthy taste and odd texture add to the experience. I love rutabagas. Lol.

Picture Perfect

I see photographs of couples I know with smiling faces and confident postures, whether they're happy or not. Do we all do this? How great a divide is there between our mental picture of what our coupledom should be - how it should be presented to the world - and the reality of the relationship?

I vacillate greatly from one extreme to another; between my two natures. At times, I want the exact truth, with all its nuances and contradictions, to be known. It's the stuff of this life. There's beauty and pain in it. It's a blending of our sameness and our differences, of our easy flowing and our conflicts. It's what makes us unique and what makes us the same. It's ugly and it's just what I want it to be, even if it's, at times, difficult.

Other times, I want fewer brush strokes visible. I want the view to be from a distance, where you can't see the imperfections and the overall impression is more simplistic.

Going over this now makes me realize the problem, for me, is you can't control the audience and what they bring away from a piece of artwork. Whether the detailed portrait or the more cartoon-ish picture, the person who is going to see only the imperfections is the same.

I prefer the reality to the lie, since there's no control of what anyone does with the information one way or the other.

Writers as Characters in Stories

Why do writers so often write about writers? Well, in part, I’m sure it’s because writers like writers. But I think it’s more than that. Consciously or not, doesn’t everyone see themselves as a writer, at least hypothetically? There’s something we’d all like to put on paper, to immortalize, some piece of ourselves. And, even if we don’t devote ourselves to the pursuit of that goal, it’s in the back of our minds. It’s easy to connect to the concept of being a writer. What a fantasy it is in and of itself, to imagine creating a fantasy – even one based on the realities of life. Whether it be to escape from the bitterness of the experience by putting it into the abstract realm of stories or to voice an injustice that has gone unseen, we all have something to write about. Do you agree?

Pure Romance

Here begins a self-indulgent project I will be posting in serial-form, if I end up being self-disciplined enough to continue to produce on a regular basis. It will be posted in rough draft. Feel free to ask any questions it raises for you and to point out any mistakes. Thanks!

As I lay in bed, slowly drifting into that most sacred state of sleep, my mind came to the subject of my life. What would be the defining theme? I flash on childhood, somewhere around five or six years old. Life was more frightening, more magical, and more exciting. I picture myself sitting on the cold open-concept steps leading up to the second floor of our tiny Van Nuys apartment building, holding my vinyl ET doll. It, like all the others I had, was alive to me. I was sure if I didn’t give it appropriate attention and if I ever said anything bad about it or looked at it wrong, it would hurt me somehow in my sleep. And yet, I loved my dolls to the point of pain. They all had unique personalities and, if any one of them ever went missing, I would mourn. They, like no breathing persons in my life, truly understood me. They liked me and saw when I was hurting and when I was happy, even if the adults in my life were too busy to care or notice. Life was a great romance, even though I didn’t yet know to define it that way. Back then, the romance of which I speak was a quiet ache in my chest that could send out bursts of hot energy into the sky, or at least, that’s how it felt. It took years to understand my relationship with my own personal concept of romance. It’s taken me until now to see it as the running theme of my life.

In fifth grade, though I still had the dolls, my relationship with romance had moved more toward inner dialogue. At school during recess, I revelled to go to the large grassy slope where kids weren’t allowed to play. The kids weren’t allowed to play there because the yard supervision felt it was dangerous to roll down the hill. But I didn’t want to roll down. I wanted to play in isolation, where I could forget there were other people in the world. I would walk down just far enough that, if I were to sit on the slope, my head would fall beneath the crest of the hill and I could remain unseen. I’d find rocks in the grass and pull them out of the ground to see the caves they created. I imagined little families of cave people lived there. I made grass beds for them and imagined their lives together in this remote part of the uncharted earth. The days I remembered to wear my red sweatshirt, another of my favourite games, also played in this same isolated area, was to tuck myself entirely inside my sweatshirt and watch the sunlight shine through the redness of the sweater. From inside, I pretended I was in my mother’s womb watching the sunlight shine through her skin on me. The peacefulness of imagining that was unmatched anywhere else in my life at the time. If I’d had a chance to spend time in the “womb,” I’d return to class in a blissful state of mental separation from any frightening, intrusive forces that were other kids and their unpredictable thoughtlessness and stupidity. On the days the yard supervisor caught me on the hill and told me I couldn’t play there, I felt robbed of that bubble of security.

Yes, a sensitive child was I with high expectations of those around me that were usually unmet. That’s why, when I would meet someone who seemed able to read my mind and empathize with my every hurt or joy, the euphoria of it was mind numbing. In sixth grade, amidst moving to a new school for the sixth time – half way through the year, as per usual – and amidst my first real experience with bullies, I was reacquainted with a cute boy named Michael who would happily spend time with me and indulge me in my silly imaginings and games. I made up a board game that was based on intuition and feelings. It was a game that had no logical rules to follow. Yet, when Michael and I played it, we anticipated each other’s moves and followed the “rules” exactly. That was extremely romantic to me, sharing an intimate understanding of another person and having it reciprocated. Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand it the way I do today. It created as much fear in me as it did exultation, because I didn’t know how to voice what I wanted from the experience and I was afraid it might be asking too much to experience it again. This was the beginning of my search to connect to the depths of my soul with other people every chance I got. My dance with the romantic notion of the perfect emotional experience began. And, though I understand it better today and know its limits, I have to admit, it’s still a thing of precious worth. It is so dear to my heart and so addictive, it can blind me to all else while I experience it, on those rare occasions. Certainly, this is the ever budding theme of my life. How has it landed me here? I’ll tell you.

Meals

I just spoke with my trainer today, who is enthusiastic about my results so she shared a diet plan with me. Hee hee. What I’ve been eating for the past few months isn’t quite as strict as her plan, but it’s pretty close. So I thought, instead of sharing some haphazard eating plan that I’ve been using, why not share a plan put together by a university-educated athlete trainer instead, especially since it is pretty close to what I’ve been doing anyway!

She explained this is a diet plan for someone who is working out regularly; to make sure you’re getting the nutrition you need to keep up with your workouts. So, the portions would depend on your personal activity level and weight loss goals.

Between 7am and 9am

Eat one lean protein from the following list and one carb from the following list. If you are working out pretty hard that day and you prefer a heartier breakfast, you may add a second carb.

Eggs, chicken, turkey, tuna, salmon, ground turkey or chicken
Lean beef or ground beef once per week only

Multigrain bread/toast, whole grain or steel cut oats, high-fibre organic cereal (no sugar added), any vegetable (veggies are carbs too), sweet potato, whole grain pasta, whole grain rice

11am

Fruit as a snack

12pm-2pm

Two carbs from above list plus lean protein from above list

3pm-5pm

Afternoon snack of nuts, yogurt, or veggies

6pm-8pm

One green veggie carb and lean protein from above list
If you have the inclination to snack after dinner before bed, try to eat your dinner a little later and drink unsweetened green tea or herbal tea to give yourself “something.” Try to avoid snacking after dinner. No starchy carbs after 4pm.

Allowed drinks list:

Water, milk, green/herbal tea, V-8

I’m about to get more strict with myself and follow this diet. But I did lose weight being less strict with myself. Just get started! One step at a time! If it keeps you going, have the occasional dessert or glass of red wine. Don’t feel bad about it. Keep moving! You can do it! Share your experiences with me? Who worked out today, even if it was difficult to work it into their schedule? Who ate a really good breakfast or lunch today even though they wanted to just eat donuts? Tell me about it! I want to know!

Also, this is just from memory, so when the trainer prints out a copy for me, I’ll make any necessary adjustments.

One Step at a Time

The purpose of this blog is not, primarily, to inform, for I’m sure most – if not all – of what I have to “tell” is pretty common knowledge (or at least easy to find elsewhere).  I’m sure you’ll all agree there’s a big difference between knowing something and doing it.  So the purpose of this blog is to remind, motivate and encourage people who, like me, want to do good things for their minds and bodies and want peers to share the experience with! 

With that said, I will begin with where I started.  Perhaps it will be a good starting point for you!  The first thing I did that began this current journey of losing weight and feeling better was I found a web site that counted calories for me.  I wanted to know what I was eating.  I am not promoting perfect adherence to calorie counting.  But I found it very helpful to get a good idea about what is in various foods I was eating and how much someone of my age, weight and activity level should healthfully eat when trying to lose a little weight.  I recommend livestrong.com.  They have a free service that calculates the amount of calories you should eat depending on how fast you want to lose or gain weight and a very easy-to-use program for tracking what you're eating.

The next thing I did was I chose a work out DVD and tool kit by Bally’s and decided to make myself do it!  You can find a wide selection at Walmart.  It only cost about $30-40, and it got me excited and feeling confident I could do this thing!  Never mind it took me several months to actually open the thing and start using it!  Ha ha ha!

What's your biggest weakness?  This time mine was eating way too much junk food for comfort.  When I started working out, the exercise replaced my need for comfort eating.  I was showing healthy love for myself by exercising and my mind recognized it, which made it easy to stop eating junk.  Could it work for you too?  Dunno!  I'd love to find out.  

If even the cost of the DVD/workout tool kit is too much, something else I did that can be free to you is following the simple interval workout recommended by a fitness instructor Dr. Mercola promotes.  It's very simple and can be used with any cardio exercise that is workable for you.  Take, for example, running/jogging.  

This is how it works:  Jog for about 5 minutes to warm up.  Then, run as fast as you can for 30 seconds.  Next, continue jogging at a steady but less intense pace for 90 seconds.  Then repeat 7 more times.  By the last couple sets, your heart rate should reach the desired bpm, which is what will trigger your body to respond to the exercise.  Best part is, it can take less than thirty minutes...and it was free!  Can you do that twice a week?  If you try it, tell me about it!

Next...meals.  

What I've Been Doing

My goal for this post is to create a brief overview of what I've been doing to lose weight, increase cardiac health and tone up!  I have another blog that I plan to begin writing regularly, if I can discipline myself to do it.

I will be having another fitness reassessment in a few weeks.  At that time, I am going to post my original measurements and test results along with my current ones.  In the mean time, I have some numbers to share.

I started at a size 16, which was my personal biggest ever.  I actually gained weight after Charlie was born.  I allowed myself to shamelessly eat over 3000 calories a day because of all the stressors in my life at the time - money, travel, children, sickness, death, moving (twice in six months), new baby, etc.  I think that's enough to justify it for a bit.  lol.

I finally couldn't stand it anymore.  I've wanted to have a gym membership again for years.  I always viewed it as a luxury and we don't usually have any "extra" funds to spend on luxuries on a regular basis.  But I was living in a tiny, one-bedroom attic on top of an elderly lady's house, was getting no sleep at all (literally) because we all shared a room and woke each other up all through the night over and over.  I was responsible to get everyone back to sleep so that the money-maker could get some sleep and keep us fed.  I was mentally slow, emotionally uncontrolled (more than usual for me - which is saying a lot), unhappy, tired and eating out of control.  So, when I was at the Booster Juice (Ontario's version of Jamba Juice) and a gym employee approached me with a special scratch card and I "won" a free 1 month membership, fitness assessment, and 2 free personal training sessions, I thought, "YES!  YES!  YES!  Gimmee!!"

Since I was so desperate and David was visibly anxious about my state of health and fitness, it was easy to get him to agree to my getting a membership.  I also paid for a small 6-session group of personal training sessions.  We broke them up into 30-minute sessions to make them last longer.  I was very fortunate to be put with a trainer who is a real athlete.  She's been competing in ice skating for ten years or more.  She's so great!  I'm hoping to get her to let me take a picture so I can post it.

At first my only real goal was to get more oxygen pumping to my brain.  I couldn't think straight and my brain is my most precious possession.  I wasn't aware of just what I really looked like until I went into a pilates class and saw I was the biggest person in there.  I kept seeing other people that I thought were heavy and then seeing us next to each other in the mirror and realizing I was bigger than they were!!

Once I started doing the intense cardio a couple days a week, I was more motivated to eat better.  So, I reduced my calorie intake.  I started eating unsweetened whey protein shakes with unsweetened almond milk and fruit, whole grain and multi-grain bread, lots of veggies sticks, a little cheese, lean meat.  I continued to eat about 6 small meals a day (cause I seem to need to - my blood sugar fluctuates too much).  I stopped allowing myself to gorge myself on sugary snack foods into the wee hours of the night, which was probably the biggest difference.  I started taking greens again, being more regular with supplementing my EFAs and high-potency B-vitamins, drinking water heavily.

After about 4-5 months, I was down to a size 10 and decided it was time to add strength training.  I am currently working out 4-5 days a week - cardio and weights.  My body is changing on a weekly basis!  It feels so great!

Hope this wasn't monstrously long.  I'll be more detailed as to work out routines, meals and supplements in my fitness blog.  I'm hoping to try different things, express my experience with them, etc.  Don't know how interesting it will be to the population at large, but it'll probably be pretty therapeutic for me. 

Thanks for caring!  More soon!