There’s a story behind each of these things (bet you can’t wait to hear about Chicken-Ito, right??) but no time to write them. But I was inspired to do this great challenge posted by the fantastic MizFitOnline and I encourage each of you to do it too. If you don’t have time for the actual shirt and Sharpies, please tell me YOUR excuses in the comments. Hopefully I’ll have more time to elaborate later.
A lot, in my opinion. See my guest post on this topic over at MizFitOnline!!
An excerpt:
It took me a very long while for my healthy bodily habits to become ingrained and “automatic.” And I am suspecting it will take an equally long while (if not longer) to become an “automatically” organized person. If ever.
Here are a few things I’ve observed that are true in both cases.
Procrastination is the devil.
How many times did I used to say, “I’ll go to the Farmers’ Market… later,” or “I’ll go to the gym… later,” or whatever? And “later” stretched into never. I realize that I am the same way about picking up random crap in my house.
I always tell myself, “I’ll do it LATER.” But later, the pile always grows, it always gets bigger, stuff gets lost more easily, and it’s just a hundred times more awful and messy to deal with it later. Same with being overweight. The longer you wait, the more there is to deal with.
So the awesome MizFit Online has requested that the blogging community participate in the first-ever Christmas Eve Day Virtual Talent Show. How could I resist? I could not.
I laughed my face off at some of the other amazing talent that showed up today!
Josie over at YumYucky takes the cake, by inventing the first-ever cheesecake flavored water! Don’t try this at home! (I sure won’t)
Pubsgal at Opposite Life plays a darn good kazoo.
Fab Fattie Shannon-Knievel performs some absolutely death-defying stunts in the snow. WOW. LOL!
Mary at A Merry Life is a world-class, Olympic level eye roller.
Karla rocks at Healthy Scrabble. Woot!
MizFit has had some sadness in her life recently. She needed some cheering up. I really hope this helped do it for her!! And to all of you in this awesome healthy-blogging community out there, you ROCK. I hope you have a beautiful holiday time.
No, not really fishing. Mostly, teaching. But yes, I’ve been kind of scarce around here. I hope you won’t all forget about me! I’m doing well, just super super busy with my classes. And other stuff.
- Mr. McBody and I celebrate being married 21 years ago today! Woo!! Sometimes this just boggles my mind. Where did all that time go? I am thankful that it has been a good, sweet journey, not without its bumps, but we’ve ridden them all so far. I am grateful for his support and his always advocating for my health even when I didn’t advocate for it myself, in fact I was trying to toss it out the window with both hands. I think we’ll probably go out to a nice dinner, and I will practice my appetizers + wine + 3 bites of dessert method of maintenance. I’ll let you know how that goes. We also got tickets to a play that has gotten rave reviews and is allegedly romantic. We shall see!
- I have been WANTING to write a post about the recent brouhaha about Michael Pollan and people accusing him of Fat Hatred. Unfortunately, this is not something I can just zip off in three minutes. I feel like in order to be coherent and really make any sense, I need to do a LOT of reading and then take a lot of time to formulate my thoughts. Of which I have many. If you’d like to read ahead, and get started on this conversation without me, just Google “Michael Pollan fat hatred.” You’ll be busy for a while.
- I’m going to 4-day intensive WW Leader training starting October 15th! Without giving away any Big Secrets, I’d love to blog that experience.
- I have a winner in the MizFit “unapologetically myself” T-shirt giveaway! It’s LND, who wrote:
Excuse: I cant work out because that work out scares the shileighleighs out of me.
Response: (Don’t look up the workout before going to the gym…CrossFit changes it daily)
Actually, the response is something along the lines of: If you don’t go you are just cheating yourself. Scale the workout if you have to, but results only happen if you do the work necessary to get there.
I just love that word, “shileighleighs.” OK LND, I’ve emailed you. Hit me up with your mailing address and you will have your MizFit shirt in no time!
I will really try and stop in but it will probably be kind of boring. “I ran.” “I went to Nia.” “I maintained my weight.” 🙂
Seriously though. This blog has been my lifeline for MONTHS so I do not want to stay away too long. I know once I stop blogging, I might be tempted to get slacky in other ways. Don’t let me do that. Write me and let me know if there’s anything you want me to write about. I respond well to homework.
AND I’ll be here Tuesday night for Biggest Loser liveblogging, without fail.
Today’s post is dedicated to MizFit. She has been inspiring me since Day One and today her guest-blog post felt almost psychic. Her blog post (written by guest George) is about working out every day.
Not too long ago a friend Tweeted me (Twittered me?) and said “Dude you work out every day? You are hard core!” That made me laugh. I do not think of myself as a hard core person, especially in terms of workouts. But gradually over the past months I have come to expect that unless something (see MizFit’s post on what those somethings might be) comes up that makes it impossible, I will work out every day. It used to be that I would work out “when I felt like it.” Which could range from “never” to once or twice a month. Then I began working out, by schedule and appointment, about 2 times a week, maybe 3x if I was feeling extra hard core (ha). THEN I started aiming for 4-5x a week. But then I’d forget, “What is the day I don’t work out again?” and eventually it morphed into, if I am alive and breathing, not injured or ill, then I’m working out.
It helps a LOT that I do different things on different days. Some days I run. Some days I go to a Nia class. Some days I go to my trainer and do weights and stuff. Today I woke up in a hotel so I went to the fitness center (a really, really great one!) and did 40 minutes on the elliptical, a bunch of free weight and ball stuff, and some other stuff. When I read the MizFit post, it made me really happy. I was like YEAH! I feel good now, and ready to do all the other things in my day.
SO, in honor of and in gratitude for MizFit and all she says and does, I am doing a giveaway today! I have a wonderful size L women’s T-shirt designed (I think) by Miz herself. I ordered it because I always assume that if something says “womens” then it is automatically very tiny. But this shirt is actually pretty large, and too large for me. I would guess it is about a size 14-ish. Maybe 12. So I am going to be ordering another in a different size for myself, and I am giving this one away.
In order to be eligible to obtain this fantastic piece of apparel, just leave a comment here about your favorite/most used/most creative excuse to NOT exercise, AND what response you can come up with to turn that around so that you DO exercise. Example:
Excuse: I don’t have enough time. (this is certainly not creative, but it is common)
Response: I have plenty of time. In fact, I am going to ______ while __________ or instead of ________.
OK? Ready set go!
I’ve been getting (and giving) huge support for health and fitness efforts over on Twitter. I love the community there and how it rallies around people, cheering them on for accomplishments, and lending a supportive hand when things aren’t going as well. I’ve found it to be something of a community OA sponsor, talking me down from cupcakes or lying on the couch when it’s time to exercise. I LOVE my Twitter community but sometimes… I find it hard to drag myself away. The thing about Twitter is that it’s going on 24/7, and there is always something to respond to.
This week the awesome MizFit wrote a very provocative blog post with the statement, “You are what you repeatedly do.” I contemplated this for quite a while. (update: the full quote is from Aristotle. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”)
I am what I repeatedly do.
In some areas, this is quite good news. I have been repeatedly working out and making (for the most part) good food choices. I have been mindful. This is all good.
BUT. I have also been repeatedly Twittering, quite a bit. And recently I’ve seen that it’s kept me from doing other things I need and want to do. And I realize that it’s been a bit too much of a good thing. So I have put myself on a Twitter diet, with the invaluable help of a (free) program called LeechBlock. (what a name, huh? So it blocks the leeches from sucking your lifeblood away??)
LeechBlock is a simple productivity tool designed to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day.
I’ve added Twitter and Facebook to this program, and allowed myself five minutes per every two hours. I figure that this is equivalent to a “water cooler” break. I’m not going cold turkey, but it’s a good helpful reminder of what I want my priorities to be, and how I want to spend my time. And of course I can bypass it by changing the settings, but that’s like “cheating” on a healthy eating plan. I’m only cheating myself, so what’s the point?
That quote also reminded me, sadly, of what I am NOT repeatedly doing that I want to do more of, and that’s write. In my “other” non-Foodie life I am (or was) a writer, working on two novels, a book of nonfiction, short stories, a column etc. none of which have been getting much attention since I began this blog. So I am a blogger, but not a Writer. In my mind, these things are quite separate.
My day job is working up to its annual Big Event in a few weeks, and after that I really want to turn things around and spend more time writing. Keeping up the healthy stuff.
Tell me: who are you, based on what you repeatedly do?
foodfoodbodybody 