Embracing My Health

I think one of the things that make life changes so uncomfortable and hard is that we are straining, eyes fixated, toward the end. Our mind runs through thoughts like these:

I don’t want to be here right now. I want to be THERE… at my goal… where I am DONE! I’m not where I want to be, doing what I want to be doing and being what I want to be. This is claustrophobic and I feel like a victim to this dictatorial regimen (never mind that, not to long ago, I wanted to this regimen to create the change I want in my life) and what would feel really good, really powerful is to do what I want today, right here and now!

It’s no wonder we fight change. In this context, feeling resentment and resistance makes complete sense. From here, today sucks. Of COURSE we want to escape before we get started! And even if it is the first day, we feel the pressure, the need for release from the oppressive confines of our self-imposed regimen. And so we do. We let ourselves off the hook. And most often, after we’ve done that – we regret it. We reassess and rediscover the reason why we made our intention for change in the first place. Something about the way we have been doesn’t work for us any more. It doesn’t fill us with joy and peace. We are unsettled. So we make goals and set up routines and regimens for tomorrow. Wow, are we ever stuck in a loop! How do we get out? Something has to change or nothing is going to change, right?

It’s important, critical even, to have a goal. There is an end, a way of being, that we are seeking. However, we must find a different way to relate to today (today, the day which isn’t the day of final accomplishment achieved and victory) – or that end goal we want and hope for will likely never arrive.

Those habits of ours aren’t completely worthless. I wish they were because they would be so much easier to drop, wouldn’t they? Those habits give you something that you are both comfortable with and addicted to. How they win out over our intended life changes isn’t surprising – rather it’s stunning when our life changes overcome our habits.

The real work for us isn’t the life change regimen so much as creating a new life, for today, that we love! How do we do that in the face of comfortable, addictive habits?

Here we go:

1. Set your day’s intentions before you start your day. It doesn’t have to be long. Five minutes will do. Although, the more you really know and feel what it is you want for the day, the more success you will have. That can be done in five minutes, but it may take longer.

   In those minutes, say what it is that you want for your day and imagine it. See yourself doing what you want to do today. Imagine yourself crawling into bed tonight and feeling that completely delicious sensation of “Ahh… today was a really good day! I loved my day! I can’t wait to have another great day tomorrow!”

2. Fill in your day with things that you love and make you happy! If having flowers at your desk, or a silly bobble next to your work phone give you that little kid happy feeling – do it! Is there an image that inspires you? Put it on your cellphone or computer wallpaper. Is there a piece of wisdom that moves your heart and encourages you? If so, print it and post it on your mirror! If you love the smell of the ocean and the feel of the breeze against your skin… use your lunch break to eat there, or take 10 minutes at the end of your day to go ocean-side and soak it in. If you want to eat healthy food, but feel like something that is comfort food to you – pick the absolutely healthiest comfort food that still makes you happy and eat a portion of that. If you miss your family or a friend, give them a call. If a hot, bubbly bath at the end of the day is bliss – indulge it! It’s often in the spaces that our habits kick in. If we fill them ahead of time with those things that nourish us and ignite our love of life, instead of the rote ways we’ve lived and move through life up until now, things are not only going to change… they already are changed!!

3. Be forgiving of yourself if you slip into a habit. Beating yourself up isn’t going to create a day that you love. What will make a difference for you is forgiving yourself and then filling that space with loving play and nourishment.

4. Connect with friends who love their lives and are accomplishing their goals! I promise, it does rub off.

5. Take some time at the end of the day to look over your day. What did you love about your day? What didn’t you like? Take some time feel those and then think about tomorrow… about doing more of what you loved and less of what you didn’t. See yourself doing that as you fall asleep. And thank yourself for being awake, for paying attention to your day and for teaching you more and more about what things in your life make you happier and what things that don’t and that you are willing to let go. And then, sweet dreams, my love!

Today is the day! Today is the important day! Love the heck out of your day! And the next and the next! Before you know it, that last day, that day of accomplishment and victory – it will be here! And it won’t feel like such a big deal because every day between today and that day will have been exactly the kind of day you were hoping and dreaming of.

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
- Ursula K Leguin

Enjoying my journey, embracing love, life and health!

Yesterday, I was given feedback that hurt. It was honest and not given in malice or unkindness. It hurt because it is true. The feedback was about three things: 1) my weight, 2) my skin and 3) my teeth.  I’m taking time to write this morning to allow the space for me to heal and grow. It’s about my health, weight and food. And it’s not. Everything is my teacher now that I’ve chosen to become a student. I’m looking to learn.

My weight is something I can transform. My skin is a mystery and I don’t know or understand the cause. Because I don’t know the cause, I don’t know the cure. And, my teeth, that I can’t change. A little over 3 years ago, I lost 4 teeth to a chronic bacterial infection. As I’m writing, I see plainly that there are three different types of issues here. First, the things I can change (my weight), second, the that I don’t know that are a mystery (my skin) and third, those things I can’t change (my teeth).

The thing that I can change… that’s where my opportunity is… or if you rather, that is where my personally addressed, hand-delivered invitation for spiritual growth is. This spiritual growth invitation is using my weight as its vehicle. It could be something else. For me though, today, it’s my weight. And it has been for a long time. I wasn’t okay with my weight, even *before* I was overweight (funny that!). It was a problem for me in my mind before it was a problem for me in my body. It points to me that the solution, the peace I will find will be in me before it is in my body. The work is internal. Spiritual.

When I was given the feedback yesterday, my heart hurt. The first thing I did was react. I cried. I buttoned it up as soon as I could. I did this, partially, because I didn’t want the other person to feel badly. It wasn’t her fault. And partially, I did it because I didn’t want to feel it. Once clear of the initial emotional blast, I started doing normal things that I would be doing in my day. At some point though, I noticed… in the gaps… I’d find myself the kitchen looking for something to munch on. It’s filler. I’ve done this with books and movies too… filling up space so I don’t have to be with what I feel. I’m starting to see my filler activities for what they are. They are crafty tools of avoidance. The activities themselves are not the problem. How I am using them to avoid my emotions, my spirit and the invitation that’s there for me to grow… that’s the problem.

These invitations aren’t loud and so they are fairly easily quieted or drown out by my filler activities. In the space, quiet, open and meditative places, that’s where they speak with clarity. They are easy to hear. Not surprisingly, they are healing and transformative even in hearing them. It’s the resistance and avoidance of them that is so painful and self-destructive. In the things I can change, there are my opportunities for growth. Rather than using fillers, my intention is to seek out those spaces. I’m going to leave them empty and allow whatever is there to come up. And like today, I will discover that I’m stronger, I am more than them. I transcend them. That’s the invitation there for me.

The second is issue is the things that are a mystery in my life. The physical embodiment of mystery for me, today, is my skin. Five years ago, I beat my rosacea. Three years ago, something went wrong with my skin again. My skin is in the worst condition it has ever been in. I thought it might be because we were living in basements. My theory was that there were molds that I was reacting to… but I’ve been out of that environment for almost four months and there’s no change. My skin is angry, broken out, peeling and red. I’ve tried eliminating certain foods with no change. I’ve taken careful care of what I use on my face for skin care and no change. I just don’t know what has caused it. It causes me embarrassment because it is disfiguring. I’ve had young kids ask their moms: “What is wrong with that woman’s face?” They aren’t mean. They just want to know why my face doesn’t look normal. Me too. Sometimes, it makes me want to hide. I haven’t given into that desire, but it’s there.

So, the opportunity for spiritual growth for me is – what is there for me to learn when there are no answers? Ignoring it doesn’t help… and truly I can’t ignore it. It is, quite literally, in my face every day. My desire is to find how to live in the question and be with the mystery in such a way that has me listening and open… as well as accepting and peaceful. I’m remembering this from Rilke:

I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms of books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. (emphasis mine) Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”

Do I stop looking for hints and clues as to what’s causing this? No. Do I give up trying possible solutions? No. What does it mean for me to love the question… to love the mystery that I desperately want an answer to? Good question. I’m still figuring that out. The first piece of the puzzle I have and get though. I’m not to hate or struggle against it. That means, I’m not to hate or struggle against my skin and face. I’m to love it. Love it! That’s easier said that done… but spiritual growth is a choice and a discipline.

Final issue, the things I can’t change. Wow. This is tough. All three are tough, but this one is a challenge at another level, right? There is no hope for anything different than what is so. My four teeth are gone. I’ve had elated dreams that my teeth were growing back and I woke up crying. I’ve had nightmares were all my teeth are falling out. Losing my teeth was traumatic because my smile was one of those parts of me that I defined myself by. Sometimes, we don’t realize what we have attached to as being ourselves until they are threatened or gone.  Our smile, our youth and beauty, our ability to run, or to be the center of the party, or… well, the possibilities of what we use to identify ourselves as are as varied as we are. Honestly, I’m proud of how I’ve lived after my teeth were pulled. I haven’t withdrawn and I’ve not let it stop me. I don’t feel the pain of the loss often. Once in a while, I cry. Overall, though, I’ve been accepting. In being accepting, I’ve found opportunity after opportunity for growth. One of the biggest is that all this concern, embarrassment and shame I feel about my missing teeth, it does not matter one iota when it comes to being the woman I want to be in this life. Not even a little. Granted, would I rather have a full, radiant smile as I meet and encounter the world? Abso-fricken-lutely!!! But, my ability to love, to grow, to revel in beauty and grace that flows abundantly in every day… well, no teeth are required for that.

So, there you go… three physical “problems” are the foil for three incredible and triumphant spiritual transformations!

Everything is my teacher now!

Enjoying my journey, embracing love, life and health!

one snail, going it alone

Day Ones are always pretty exciting. I feel the energy of what I’ve decided. I’m putting together structures and plans for what I’m going to do. It feels bright and hopeful. But it isn’t too far into that same day… or maybe the next day.. and I start seeing the long haul. I realize that what I want to accomplish isn’t going to happen quickly. It’s going to take time. It will mean taking one step and then another. There might be leaps ahead, but most likely not. When that starts settling in on my mind… the one step at a time thing… feels excruciatingly slow. That energy I feel starts to become less of an energy and more of solid, heavy weight sitting square on my shoulders.

I know this pattern because I’ve had a lot of Day Ones. Years and years of them. I remember them even as a kid. I struggled with applying myself in school and I would create ‘Day One’ of being an A+ student. I had Day One after Day One from 8th grade and into college, over and over again.  There have been Day One goals spanning everything from being a better friend to exercise to taking more risks in my life.

A lot of those Day Ones were launched in my mind the night before the new day. And, in the light of day, I could see the long haul. My mind would start making up what that long haul experience would be. I would start to think I’d know how hard it would be, how miserable I would feel and how little joy would be in my life. Inspiring you yet? Yeah, me either. So my Day Ones rarely made their way to Day Five or Six.

Day Ones have been private affairs too. I learned early on to stop sharing them because I didn’t want to have to explain how I had given up on them. And so the cycle spun on.

Today, as I walked back home from dropping my daughter off at school – I saw a little snail. She was working hard to navigate over the top of the succulent plants. It looked awkward. AND SLOW. Her antennaes reached out to find the next bunch of green leaves to move onto. The expanse of succulent plants was immense. Where was she going and how on earth was she going to get there?

Transformation is slow. I can imagine the end result clearly in my mind, but the in between portion of things seem interminable. I was thinking about this as I watched the snail. I also thought about the people I know and others that I have seen who have transformed their lives in one form or another. Their journeys seem short to me. One moment, they are at Day One and suddenly (from my frame of reference) they are there. If I look more carefully, I notice that it has been weeks, months or years. But having not been a part of their day to day journey – the time has flown by in a flash. Suddenly, they are where they wanted to be! Inspiring!

Walking a little further down the path this morning, I noticed that there were a lot more snails on the succulents. All of them heading somewhere. And I noticed that many of them had found other snails to travel with. And while not an aesthetic image thing… you know those slime trails they leave behind them? Well, that trail created easier paths for the other snails to follow.

two or more are better

This afternoon, I’m imagining myself as a snail traveling up the succulents. It’s awkward and slow. And, good news! Some have gone ahead of me to help ease my way. As I travel, I find it encouraging to know that, my own journey will make it easier for those coming alongside and after me too.

Enjoying my journey, embracing love, life and health!

After declaring to yourself  and maybe others that you are setting out to accomplish a specific goal… do you find yourself swinging wildly in the exact opposite direction?

This is a pattern that I have and one that has buckled my commitments at the knees again and again. There is one key difference this time from the others though. I know it. It isn’t happening or going to happen without my being clued in. So even if that backlash happens, I’m feeling okay. BECAUSE, I now know about it and can see it for what it is… a tactic, a trick for staying in the status quo I’ve lived in up until now. And seeing it as that, its power shrinks. Even if that backlash “wins” this time and maybe another one, two or more – it’s running scared. That tactic has been spotted. Brought out into the light, it is much easier to see it for what it is… and that is something that I no longer want.

‎”‘How does one become a butterfly?’ she asked pensively. ‘You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.’” -Trina Paulus

I don’t know that this particular post will resonate with anyone else. But the truth of it and it’s message are ringing clear and true for me. And I do hope it does and will for others too.

After I posted my recommitment to embracing my health – I got ready for bed. As I was brushing my teeth, I created the intention to remember my commitment. I know myself . I can be so disconnected with my own commitments that I will “forget” them by morning. More than once, at the end of a day, I make a commitment to eat healthy and do what supports my body physically and my heart spiritually. But then the next day, maybe sometime around 1 or 2pm, I’ll suddenly stop and think: “Wait! I was going to do better today!!” It’s as though I’ve thrown all my intentions and commitments right out of my mind, as if they never existed. Once I remember, I feel disappointed and want to back up the clock and start the day again. Ugh, what a cycle, right?

But today, I remembered and quickly. I made myself a yummy green smoothie (watermelon, strawberries, and spinach with all the healthy goodies). It tasted and felt great. I was feeling good.

Fast forward to dinnertime. We had cabin fever and decided to head out for dinner. We went to Taco Del Mar. Because I had been so good all day and eaten so sparingly, I thought it “wouldn’t hurt” to have a bigger dinner. So instead of a smaller portion and the healthier ingredients of say, two soft tacos or a taco salad… I had a chicken quesadilla. And not just a chicken quesadilla, but a chicken quesadilla platter! It was tasty… (but so are the tacos).

How I went from a too large and nonnutritious meal to thinking I needed something for dessert is lost in the mysterious workings of my addict-addled mind. Trust me when I say… when it comes to sugar, I’m not sane. Seriously! Ask my husband, Paul. He’ll vouch for it. In fact, he gamely and bravely tried to talk some sense into me while I stood perusing the various ice creams (looking for the brand with no HFCS – a form of insanity right there – but we can talk about that later…) in the freezer section. But I rationalize it away and carried on. I picked up two quarts of Breyer’s All Natural ice cream, one flavor for Amira… and one for me, since I wanted a flavor that had wheat in it and my daughter is allergic.

With the ice cream safely in the car on its way home with me… Paul starts to get through. He talks about how I help and consult my friends and family with their health challenges. He talks about how I spend hours researching and coming up with suggested plans and “prescriptions” for their healing. Then Paul says to me: “You need to do that for yourself.”

And I realize he’s right.

If I take even a cursory look at a file with my health concerns and issues… ice cream wouldn’t be on my recommended list. But I’d rationalize with you that I want to eat the occasional cup of ice cream. Don’t buy into my addict talk, though. The problem with that approach? Two things. One: quite honestly, my definition of “occasional” is a unfortunately loose. If there is a carton of ice cream in the house, you can be pretty certain I’m having more than a cup of ice cream more than maybe once or twice a week. And two: Healthy people CAN eat an occasional bowl of ice cream without harm or detriment to themselves. But me? I’m not healthy. I’m not healthy physically or spiritually. The dinner and then the ice cream right on its heels – it was a physical filler and numbing agent – in hopes that it would carry over and fill and numb my spirit too.

There you have it – not even 24 hours out from my declaration and I hit my own resistance to what I said I wanted! When I’m disconnected with myself, a rote and habitual form of resistance runs me.

I realize now, as I’m thinking it over and sharing it with you – what I have ahead of me is the work of being connected with the healthy life I want. Embracing my health is more than eating the right foods and exercising. It’s not really about that. It’s being awake. When I slow down, meditate and am listening and present to my life and my spirit – the work I want to do is no longer work or agonizing resistance. Instead, it is pure joy and passion again.

I’ll close with a version of the “tagline” I created for this when I first started out…

This is me, signing off and Embracing Love and Life! Embracing My Health!

PS – It wasn’t the most economical thing to do – but after having a cup of ice cream, I threw out the rest of my carton of ice cream.

I’ve been mentally composing this post for a good couple of weeks. I’m so glad to be sitting down to do it now.

The work I’m starting, as I type these words, is a renewal of commitment to embracing my health (personally) and Embracing My Health (the website). Since I started the Embracing My Health website, I have lost 40 lbs and am eating healthier than I ever have. Yay me! It’s a start and a good one. I want to acknowledge that. It was a start and not continuing journey through to the finish though. That’s why this is the time to reconnect to the journey of my love and desire for personal health.

Those of you who know me, you know I’m a health and fitness research junkie. I love to read articles, research journals, magazines, and books. I watch documentaries and religiously follow blogs of experts in the field. I love to do research and help my friends and family as they seek their own optimal personal health and well-being. This is all awesome stuff. I love it.

In fact, just last night, I watched Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days. What an inspiring, honest and human, documentary. I cried when the subjects went off insulin and achieved healthy, undreamed of milestones in improving their health. I was struck by how tightly their health was tied to their sense of self, their spirituality, their dreams and hopes for their tomorrows.

Getting to watch these people transform not just their physical health but to also launch a new path of spiritual vitality was beautiful and moving. Getting glimpses into what they were going to create moving forward was exciting and inspiring. Seeing it – being around it – it lights me up! I started getting geeked out thinking about the people in my life being healthy, vibrant, and engaging their world from a platform of energy, fitness, and optimal health. My brain began to spin. How can I help people do this? How can I help them into and through their next steps? What can I do to help my friends and family understand the importance of personal fitness, the necessity of eating the yummiest and healthiest foods, and experience the joy and satisfaction these things bring to our spirit. I went to bed with these things spiraling through my mind, my thoughts and dreams reaching out and asking for an answer. As I was about to fall asleep, I thought, maybe I don’t need a perfect, magic-bullet answer. What I need is a path. My prayer, as I drifted, was for a path to put my feet onto.

Ask and you shall receive! It’s no accident that this morning, one of the first things I read was this quote by Ramana Maharshi:

Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

Um.. yeah. Yeah. YEAH! That’d be that path I asked for! Thank you!!

As I read and reread those words, I realized something. See, I turned 40 this past March and while milestone birthdays like this one are prime and often good reasons to recommit to what I believe in – they’ve never held adequate motivation for me. As I read those words, I realized what does hold motivation for me. It’s my family and friends. It’s my community. It’s you!

With the answer I was given today, and with this post – my Embracing My Health journey begins again – or continues (depending on how you look at it).

Transforming my health and my life for myself – it seems like it should be more than enough for me to follow through on the desire I have to embrace my health. It’s not. What IS motivation to me is this; that through my journey, my struggles and achieved milestones and my stories – that these beautiful, amazing people who are in my life – that they see paths to health, fitness and spiritual growth. And if they want it, it is possible for them because it was and is for me.

Each week, I help my friend Dana Roc, put together her ezine for Monday morning distribution.  Dana is one of my dearest friends and I am inspired by her.  Her  weekly insight this week really gave me a great reminder that to be one of those individuals who “makes it” – whether it be in my health goals, or my personal and professional life — there’s a price.   Dana’s words echo my Dad who told me for years “Nothing worthwhile comes easy…”

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I am not the first to acknowledge the fact that there are no shortcuts to greatness and I will not be the last. Many before me have discovered for themselves that there is, after all, no easy road to extraordinary accomplishment and no unobstructed path to achieving that desired sense of profound self satisfaction and reward. Many more will inevitably conclude the same, and discover for themselves that -

True greatness will demand much more of you than you might be willing to give.

If the desire of your heart has been to leave behind undeniable evidence that you came and that you played, altering forever what once was, you have no doubt figured out by now that you have to pay the price, crystal clear that if you aspire to get beyond what has become excruciatingly mundane, you will have to wage war against your undercover commitment to keep having more of the same, while you struggle to resist the urge to settle for whatever it is you don’t have to pursue.

It was as clear to me as the nose on my face – I was meant to be an actor. And, as I mapped out exactly how my life would logically unfold from the safety and comfort of my own imagination, I was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would, one day -

“arrive”.

What I would eventually discover is that merely wanting is not nearly enough. I would learn through one agonizing experience after another that ambition hurts sometimes, that rejection can be cruel and that patience rarely, if ever, occurs like a reward.

I wanted to be an actor. I studied it. I lived it. I loved it – until – it demanded of me real sacrifice. At the point where the rubber should have met the road, I rationalized myself right out of the chance to finally play.

Imagine.

I really, really wanted to become an actor but what I had yet to reconcile for myself was the fact that really, really wanting to become is very distinct from being willing to work and reach and grapple and believe when there is absolutely no reason to. Wanting and willing are two entirely different conversations. Wanting talks a good game while willing walks the walk. I could talk the talk with the best of them. But, when it came down to walking the walk, I chose to turn and walk away.

And you?

Are you a talker or a walker? A dreamer or a doer? Have you found deep within yourself the courage to go after what you say you really want – no matter what — for the opportunity to achieve that sense of profound self satisfaction and reward?

Most people will not accept the invitation to go through the fire for what waits on the other side and not everybody will resolve within themselves to do whatever it takes. Many will indeed begin and some will even try hard, but few of us however, will actually achieve greatness because -

True greatness will demand much more than most are willing to give.

Because ambition hurts, because rejection can be cruel, because patience will not provide you comfort, because you have give it everything you’ve got -

the odds are, like me, you’ll choose to walk away.

Once upon a time I did give up and I used to wonder what might have been had I demanded of myself to work and to reach and to grapple and to believe when there was every good reason not to. Now, equipped with what only experience can inflict, I look forward instead to what might one day be, with the full expectation that who I think I am will battle relentlessly each and every day with who I imagine I can still become.

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To learn more about Dana, visit her website, DanaRoc.com and sign up for her weekly ezine.  You’ll be glad you did!

Thanks for the encouragement and support in response to my last post.  Seeing the progress really is a motivator! 

I’ve got a week and a half of holidays ahead and I’m thinking about them this morning.  I don’t want to back track.  I’m feeling two things.  One, I’d like to continue losing weight, or at a minimum stay at my current weight.  And two, I want to feel great.  I don’t want to feel that physical malaise, icks, blahs or that “ooph, I shouldn’t have eaten that” feeling.  

I’m going to have to be flexible since I will be staying with family.  But here’s my first thought.  I think I will buy enough produce when I get into town to make a massive salad to go along with each meal.  That way, I can pile on the raw foods and minimize the amount of cooked and less healthy food choices I’m eating.  Paul & I decided we are going to pack our juicer and blender too — if you can believe that.    We both love our green lemonade juices first thing in the morning.  And I definitely want to keep my green smoothies going as well.  It’s a little unorthodox to travel with a juicer and blender, sure…  But keeping the high quality nutrition coming our way feels more than worth it.

My question for you today:  Do you have any strategies you are going to be following through Christmas and New Years?  If so, share with us! 

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!

This month has sped by.   We’ve had snow, ice, and sunshine.  It’s been a lovely Christmas season – and sharing it with my 4 year old daughter, has been such a gift.

I haven’t been rigid with my eating and my progress, while good, isn’t as far along as it could be.  I had goaled to be at 230.  That was a good goal, provided I had created an effective structure for achieving it.  I didn’t though – and without that, I continued progressing but not as quickly.  That said, I found these two pictures that really help me see how far I have come.

The more I think about it, the more I’m certain that having a structure will bring me the biggest results.  That will be my focus in the coming year… automating everything so that it becomes like breathing to the food that I want to, exercising, and living a fully embraced life. 

So, click more to see the numbers…

(more…)

Weight: 246
Height: 5′8″
BMI: 37.4

Measurements

Neck: 14.25
Bicep: 14.5  (-.5″)
Forearm: 11 (-.5″)
Chest: 46 (-1″)
Waist: 44
Hips: 48
Thigh: 26
Calf: 18

No weight loss this week, but I’m not surprised.  I am happy to see some body “restructuring” though — with some inches lost around my upper body.  It’s interesting that my size has shrunk in regions.  My waist and hips have lost weight first, and now my upper body is seeing some results.  My neck and limbs have seen the least reduction… I’m guessing that will start to appear as I continue on.  Any loss is exciting though.

Oh, and I have to tell you.  I reconnected with a friend yesterday who I haven’t talked with for 4-5 years.  I found her blog and was so inspired by her.  She has a son, who is only a couple of weeks younger than Amira, who inspired her to transform her life to be the healthiest she can be.  Last I saw her, she was beautiful but carrying some extra pounds.  The new pictures I saw of her – she’s fit, trim and.. a TRIATHELE!  And not just a triathlete – one who wins first prize in her category!  Absolutely inspiring!  She’s definitely inspired me to get my fitness routine into gear!  More on that to come!

My question for you: What motivates and inspires you to be your healthiest?

Embrace Love, Embrace Life, Embrace Your Health!