Health And Wellness, personal

Core Motivation

I am posting this on both blogs because I think this is one of the most profound videos I have seen.  Frank Kern gave this address back in 2008(?) at an Internet Marketing seminar.  It’s roughly 2 hours long (that’s my disclosure, there) but the first hour and a half is spent on you and how you can learn who you truly want to be (what you truly want out of life).  Well, at least that’s how I saw it.

So, you want to lose weight?  Why?  Do you think you’ll be happy once you lose the weight?  That’s what a lot of people think: I’ll be happy if or when.  Those are the people who, once they reach their goal and find out they are still the same person, just in a skinny body, end up putting on not only the weight they had originally lost but more!  Those are the people who win the lottery (literally) yet wind up penniless and miserable, with no friends or family.

Before we begin any journey in life, we need to really take a look at who we really are and what we truly want out of life.  The exercise that Frank walks them (us) through is: What would be your perfect average day?  Not a day when you are doing something special (like taking a trip) but your perfect normal average day.  What time would you wake up?  Who would you be with?  What would you have for breakfast?  That sort of thing.

Think about it.  If your dream is to never have to work again, what would you do to occupy your time?  If your dream is to lose 100 pounds, what would you do next?  How would that change your life?  Let’s say you want to run marathons.  O.k.  So, how would you spend your day if you were snowed in?

Once you do this exercise per Frank’s description, take a good honest look at it.  You need to take action now to become happy with your life.  After watching this video, I realized that I’ve been doing this for a number of years without consciously realizing it.  I have let friends go (some of my oldest friends) because they were not conducive with my happiness.  I’ve done the same thing with family members.  My attitude about life and circumstances has changed dramatically, all for the better.  I used to be angry and ready for a fight.  I was very active in the political arena with my primary focus on the injustices of this or that.  While that is alright, I never truly focused on how I could turn that around to make my (or anyone else’s) life better.  I was extremely negative, spending the majority of my time just bitching, ranting, and buying more ammunition (it’s like food or money or air … or happiness.  You can never have enough). 🙂

Now, I’m doing my best to improve my life and sharing it with you along the way, in the hope that it may help you, too.  I haven’t sat down and officially done the exercise mentioned above yet (I will in a little bit) but I have been thinking about it a lot.  My perfect, average day would pretty much be my life now (just in a location where I can smell pine trees when I open the front door and not hear sirens and police helicopters for hours at a time, like this morning … 4 hours!).  I would have the strength to split wood or hand-turn soil all day long if need be.  I wouldn’t have neighbors that I can hear cough (it’s not that bad but you know what I mean) and I can raise any animal I damn well please!

So, what about you?

Journal, Just Because

How To Get Sh*t Done


I can’t tell you how much I enjoy Elliot Hulse.  He doesn’t censor his language and each video is just one guy talking to another.  This one is especially pertinent to me lately.  I’m still in “look back” mode.  What did I do before and how can I do those things differently so I will actually get results?
The one answer that encompasses everything may shock you.  I do not get up every morning with a smile on my face and jumping for joy because today is weight training day or cardio day.  I’m not beaming with anticipation about tracking every bit of food that passes my lips.  It’s become just what I do.  It’s a habit.  It’s Monday?  Weights today.  It’s not an option, it’s a fact.
But it’s too hard!
I’ve re-connected to a group I met on the Atkin’s website back in 2010.  The Lord knows I have overcome much in this leg of my journey but one of the biggest is the negative self-talk.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you’ve read plenty of it in my weekly rants … I mean updates.  One of the issues that I have overcome (and what I hear a lot of people complain about) is tracking my food.  When I first ventured into the low carb arena, I only tracked carbohydrates.  Heck, that is what was encouraged (“Carbs are all you need to worry about”).  When I began this journey again in August of 2013, I began low carb eating the same as before … only tracking carbs.  When I continued to see the spikes in my blood sugar, I decided to track everything.  Now, it’s just not an option.  My browser’s home page is My Fitness Pal and the first thing I do is track my coffee/supplements and work on what I plan to eat for the day.  It’s a habit and feels strange now if I don’t track throughout the day (it feels like I’m forgetting something).  For those who aren’t seeing the results they want with any way of eating, the only way for you to discover WHY it isn’t working is to track your food/liquid intake, then dissect and analyze your food choices.  If it’s “too much work”, then I really do not see how you can truly be committed to improving your health.
So, what do I track?  The only no-calorie beverage I track is water (to make sure I’m drinking enough).  Otherwise, if it has calories, I track it.  You would be amazed (or at least I was) with the massive database on My Fitness Pal (I haven’t used any others, so I’m not sure how they are).  If I made something from scratch and REALLY don’t feel like inputting my recipe, I will find one that’s close.
If it’s Monday, it’s weight day.
Now for exercise.  I just do it.  If it takes me 4 hours to get my energy levels up to exercise, then that’s how long it takes.  If (like this week) I just don’t feel like doing it (Monday became my “rest day” this week, which I spent tearing up some of the linoleum in the kitchen), then I begin the next day.  I do my best to NOT do this, since that means I will end up exercising on Saturday (which I haven’t incorporated into my routine because the weekends are reserved for 48 straight hours of wonderful time with my husband).
My mornings are all based on routines.  I get up, let the dog out, relieve myself, get the coffee going, feed my dog and let him back in, boot up my computer, brush my teeth, get hubby’s lunch ready, make hubby’s coffee and wake him up, get him off for work, make my coffee then start MY day.  I track my coffee, decide what I’ll have pre-workout (for breakfast), then an hour after I eat, I exercise.   As long as I’m healthy, this happens Monday through Friday.  Period.  It’s now a habit and feels odd if I miss one thing.
So, what about those days when nothing seems to be going right?  Here was my Tuesday: I did everything listed in the last paragraph until the exercise part.  I was dressed, out in the garage, and getting ready to begin.  My son comes home and we have a lengthy discussion.  That discussion put me into a deep dark place.  It wasn’t depression, it was a mix of anger, frustration, disappointment, irritation, etc. and I said, “F*ck working out” and came back in the house.  I had decided that I wasn’t even going to bother (yeah, that’s my blanket defeatist statement that I have been working hard to eliminate from my vocabulary but it still rears its ugly head once in a while).  I sat here, at the computer, brooding.  It took me almost 2 hours to bring myself out of the funk but once I did, I got busy.  I got dressed, went back out to the garage, did my weight training, and decided to start some work on the exterior of the house.  Tuesday was the longest I’ve worked in over a year (not only did I do my weight training, I also spent 2 hours pulling concrete shingles off the exterior of our house).
So, what does this have to do with me, if I’m not dieting/exercising?
Everything.  If you are not one of those that naturally has a list of things to do for the day (and does them on a consistent basis), building habits is how you will accomplish all those things you desire in life.  Hate how messy your house is?  Make a habit of picking something up every day.  It doesn’t have to be a 10-hour cleaning marathon but you have to develop the habit of doing that one thing (putting your dishes in the sink or putting your dirty clothes in hamper) every single day.  That one small act will become a habit, that can be expanded on.  Start today!