The Old Fashioned, Cost Effective Way

I've noticed there has been a lot of new things circulating about....

weight loss.

For example, there's the new procedure called the Lap Band. From what I understand it's a surgery that places a ring around part of your G.I. track that inhibits you from over eating. It's pretty expensive, as most surgeries are. The commercials show thin people, liberated by their weight loss but what I'm wondering is how can you be liberated when your weight loss is souly dependent on something/someone else putting restrictions on you. Where is the personal freedom in that?

There are other procedures (stomach stapling, lypo, all types of injections, etc.) as well as

expensive gyms, fad diets, and even resorts advertising for you to drop your life as is for a period of time and come loose weight. These all cost large amounts of money and take time away from other, highly more pressing and important things (our families, our jobs, or our education). So what I'm wondering is why people spend so much money and disrupt their lives for a quick fix? And more importantly, what happens in five years when the surgery is no longer effective (oh yes, it happens) or you come home from the resort faced with all the temptations that got you overweight to begin with?

Actual weight loss isn't the issue; a person's weight is a symptom of what they did/are doing that caused them to gain the weight in the first place. There could be many reasons for this that are not part of a severe issue (surgery and an inability to exercise, injury, having a baby, etc). There are other issues that are a little more psychologically debilitating that are getting in the way of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Regardless, what I want to know is what happened to the old fashioned way of loosing weight? Output vs. input. You know, the one that forces us to be accountable for what we eat, if we exercise, and most importantly, that's FREE? Are we really unable to loose weight at home during our day-to-day lives?

(*Yes, sometimes in life threatening situations surgery is necessary and yes, some facilities and resorts legitimately fix your head so your body will follow, but most people are concerned with just their body. Hence, it's the programs that only target one's body and not their emotional/mental health and well being that I am focusing on.)

When I knew I wanted to do a post about weight loss, I decided I had to walk the walk if I was going to talk the talk. So, I committed to only weighing once a week and counting calories. I've lost 3 pounds in 7 days by exercising everyday and paying attention to what I eat. Granted it took me about 5 days to finally eat within my proposed calorie allotment because I had NO IDEA how much I had been consuming (I ate 1500 calories in ONE meal last week, and they were SMALL portions!) but by the fifth day I started getting a handle on things and it paid off in only a week. (And yes, I did step on the scale this morning with my eyes closed, all the while cringing inside until I finally opened them to read the numbers - 1 3 4 . 3. REALLY?! YES!)

I'm pretty stoked if I do say so myself. The fact that I'm paying attention and learning how many calories are in what I eat on a daily basis is giving me the tools for long term success, something a lot of dieters/surgical patients don't think about.

I also got the privilege of meeting this gal-

this past week (for FREE I might add).

After 25 minutes with her I looked like this-

I got to hear her story about how she got to the point she was at when she first started the show. She spoke very strongly about not making excuses and not comparing ourselves to others. She had a severe car accident that caused her body to not allow her muscles to grow as quickly as the other contestants and so she had a really hard time on the show. "I was the slowest, I finished last...

...but I lost 100 pounds. Who cares?"

I know a few people that started loosing weight recently 'the old fashioned way.' One mom had amazing success in only a month! Since she's started, she's lost 20 pounds in just 8 weeks. I'm good friends with another mom who says some people have suggested to her things to help her loose the weight "faster." "Faster? It's coming off on it's own, why spend money to speed up the process? What's the rush?" She admits she was slightly annoyed with the suggestion. I love that philosophy.

What is the rush? Why not take responsibility for our actions and put in the hard work? It's hard admitting what we've become, but we're better for it when we do.

Don't. Make. Excuses.

Mountains Out of Mole Hills

I get teased quite often about the phrases I use to illustrate a point I'm trying to make during conversation. Most of them come from having lived with my grandma since I was a little girl. She would say things like, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," "The chickens have come home to roost," "Close the door, were you raised in a barn?", etc. Lots of these have stuck with me, but one phrase that seems to fit the theme of this blog is the one that says "Making mountains out of mole hills."

This idea seems to go hand in hand with spinning sometimes and building mountains can add unneeded stress, illicit the involvement of more people than necessary, and can basically make us look like the little boy that cried wolf. No thanks.

Example: This past weekend I was helping with a wedding reception. We had a babysitter for Friday and Saturday and back up just in case. Well, the babysitter threw out her back doing yoga (no spin) and by Friday evening I couldn't get a hold of our back up. I called a total of 8 people to watch our son for Saturday morning. 8 PEOPLE. Why didn't I just decide to let my husband stay home and watch our son if the back up never called? Instead I panicked, calling in serious favors from friends (which I HIGHLY DISLIKE doing) only to have them be busy or not return the call (to be honest, I probably wouldn't have called me back, either. Saturday morning sitter? The nerve! lol). The back up did come through and things were fine, but now do I look like one of those 'user' friends? I don't know. But since I'm trying to not make another mountain, I guess I'll just wait and see if any of them call me to hang out ever again. Moving on...

The basis of this mountain/mole hill idea is that we make large issues by building up something that is rather small in origin. There is some good news! This isn't always a bad thing. I have a positive example of this as well.

Here is my mole hill...

And here is my mountain...

19 blankets in total.

I had a miscarriage about a month and a half ago. I've heard lots of people talk about them and even have a family member that works in LBD so I've heard extremely detailed descriptions of miscarriages, still births, etc. So when I got pregnant, I stayed up the night before the doctor's appointment putting together a back up plan in case there ended up not being a baby just in case. I'm a big planner.

I had a plan, but ho-ly crap was I unprepared. Forget the hormones and the emotions, the physicality of the experience alone is more than I think a lot of people realize. I'm not going into detail here because that's not the purpose, but it honestly opened my eyes-- no spin.

Well, afterwards we were left with having gone through 2 weeks of labor and no child. No headstone, no memorial, nada. Being the somewhat busy bodied person I am I decided I needed to do something productive to fill up my few spare minutes I had each day. So I took my mole hill miscarriage and turned it into a mountain of 19 blankets for the still born babies and their parents at the hospital that I delivered my son at. Granted, a miscarriage isn't a small experience, but outside my little family it doesn't affect much else. Likewise, 19 blankets won't satisfy the masses, but they will reach and affect at least 19 moms (possibly dads, too) which is at least 16 more people than my miscarriage affected.

This is NOT a pat-on-the-back for me. This post is to raise awareness of several issues:

1) We can easily landscape our life to have less stressful and unhappy mountains and more mole hills. When it comes to the little things just repeat after me: IT'S NOT THAT BIG OF A DEAL.

2) Miscarriages actually are kind of a big deal and I feel like the topic is a little taboo and I don't think it should be. They happen, they stink to go through, and we don't ever "get over" them but we move on. We'll bring them up here and there but we're coping and re-coping, so let's remember we should try and cut those we know some slack.

Finally-

3) Everything has it's opposite. I've given spinning a negative connotation, but think of those we know that spin what facts we tell them about our lives. "I bought a house, but it's really old." "WOW, your first buy! I'm so excited for you!" (Aren't those friends the greatest?) Similarly, we can choose to build either negative or positive mountains out of either mole hills. Don't forget that size is relative- what looks like a foot hill to one may seem like a steep summit to another. We can't ever comprehend what affects who to what intensity (just like in spinning, we never REALLY know). So don't hesitate to create influential mountains of goodness, no matter the size.

IT ALWAYS MATTERS.