Category Archives: Weight Loss

The Directive

Exercise, Humor, Inspiration, Motivation, Weight Loss, , , ,


It was like my own version of Fight Club.

Me, fighting with myself about everything.

Every decision was up for negotiation.

Every boundary was ripe for a breach.

I was indecisive.

I knew this about myself, and yet sometimes I would still need the reminder.

Some days it was easy to be strong, because some days I didn’t want ice cream at all. But other days?

Other days, it was all I could think about.

And it was on those days that the conversation would go like this:

-No. (Very firmly stated)

-Well….maybe just a bite.

-Ok, yes, but just a single serving.

-I will stop when I’m full.

-I can’t stop. (Why can’t I stop?)

-I’ll start again tomorrow.

-Why didn’t I just say no? (oh wait, I did)

-Why did I not follow through when I first said no? (I wish I knew)

-Tomorrow I will say no (and follow through)

****and repeat from top****

But I was never specific about how I was going to achieve that. I never set a well thought out plan in place to facilitate that outcome. I invariably left myself twisting in the wind with a destination, and no route mapped out to get me there.

And I found out that if I gave myself an inch, I would take a mile.

I needed to stop treating what needed to be done as “optional”. Continue reading The Directive →

The Turning

Enlightenment, Nature, Poetry, Spirituality, Weight Loss, , ,

As the pendulum swings in measure,

The hands of time have moved once more-

For the shift has come from cadence,

The sway that unlocks this temporal door.

 

The equinox chimes in balance,

All things equal of day and night-

As soon the darkness gathers,

With the fading of the light.

 

The change is now upon us,

That which revolves, comes back around-

By letting go of olde,

We gain strength to stand our ground.

 

You can feel the weather shifting,

When an icy chill comes in the air-

And with the summer quickly drifting,

Autumn’s bluster comes to bear. Continue reading The Turning →

The Maid in the Mist

Humor, Inspiration, Motivation, Weight Loss, , , , , , ,


Niagara Falls.

I had always wanted to see it for myself.

Several years ago, while visiting the East Coast and getting ready to leave Baltimore, we found that on our way to Philadelphia we still had three days before we were expected at a family get together.

So we sat in the parking lot of the Civil War Memorial near Antietam Maryland and tried to decide where we would go.

The Captain and I have long since practiced a little something we call accidental tourism, where we will just randomly pick a direction or destination and head out without so much as a reservation and the fervent hope of seeing where the adventure will take us. 

So we started looking at the map and trying to decide which direction we would head.

And there I was, waiting for some kind of sign from the universe, when a delivery truck drove by with the logo for Tim Hortons donuts emblazoned on the side.

*cue slo-mo montage…

It was like that moment when the clouds part, and a ray of sunshine breaks through to a chorus of euphoric accolades.

What? We love Tim Hortons! I did not even know that they had stores in the US, I thought they only had them in Canada! Living in Washington State, we were frequent visitors to Vancouver B.C on the western side of Canada, and sometimes we would even go across the border just for a coffee and donut run. Lemon crullers for me and apple fritters for The Captain. And then, we always got a box of assorted TimBits donut holes with a few extra cherry chip ones for the road.

This might be a game changer.

I started feverishly looking on my phone for the nearest Tim Hortons, and found that in upstate New York they had one in Buffalo.

It was decided. We would be heading north.

I looked at the map. I had wanted to see the eastern side of Canada, and I had always heard about how beautiful upstate New York was.

Done. Let’s go.

And then I spotted it. Right there on the border… Niagara Falls.

And as it so happens, that one was on my bucket list. Continue reading The Maid in the Mist →

What Happens in Vegas…

Humor, Motivation, Weight Loss, , , , , ,


You know the scenario.

The all-you-can-eat-buffet binge hangover scenario.

The one where you wake up face down in the carpet asking, “What the hell happened last night, and why am I holding a half eaten turkey leg?”

I tried to focus on the light coming in from the hallway that was flooding in from under the crack at the bottom of the door.

I blinked my eyes a few times to bring everything into focus.

I had been awoken by the hum of a vacuum cleaner and with a strange taste in my mouth.

The room was dark, and my head was spinning.

I sat up and looked around, and I noticed that there were a handful of tiny hotel soaps scattered about.

I was alone. Thank goodness.

I’ve seen enough movies to know that I could have woken up to any number of embarrassing predicaments, including a most regrettable encounter with an angry monkey in the bathroom wearing a shower cap and pelting me with hotel soaps.

I checked the bathroom. No monkey, but the soap said Caesars Palace…

The buffet. I remember a buffet.

I wiped my face.

Was that blood? Oh my gawd, was I bleeding?
Oh, wait…

Nope. It tasted like barbecue sauce.

What the hell had happened last night?

One minute you’re having a few cocktails, and headed to an all you can eat buffet, and the next….you’re waking up from a all night binge covered in hot mustard, with indigestion and a death grip on giant turkey leg.

The last thing you may remember was trying to plot out your strategy, to decide if you needed one plate or two, and figure out if you could discreetly tuck the extra pork chop under your arm while you put the gravy on your mashed potatoes…. Continue reading What Happens in Vegas… →

The Happiness Jar

Enlightenment, Humor, Motivation, Weight Loss, ,

Find 365 days of happiness.

The idea was simple enough, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to follow through with.

The challenge was, to find one thing, every day for a year, that made me happy, then write it on a piece of paper, and put it in the jar.

Piece of cake, right?

Challenge accepted.

But what is happiness, really?

Could it truly be that simple?

Is there a difference between being happy, and experiencing happiness?

When I started this challenge at the beginning of this year, things were going well, and I had no trouble finding a happy thing in my life to contribute to the jar each day.

But what became very evident soon after, was that happiness does not necessarily come in days… it comes in moments.

Moments that can get lost in a sea of negativity if you don’t snatch them up.

It’s easy to lose perspective when things go awry.

It’s easy to string a series of unfortunate events into a general sense of disappointment.

But even when you’ve had a bad day, if you take a step back, and look at the entire day, it breaks down into many thousands of individual moments. And somewhere, in there, despite the overwhelming initial negative take away, there is bound to be at least one moment of happiness to salvage. Continue reading The Happiness Jar →

The Legendary Saga of Brokebutt Mountain

Exercise, Humor, Motivation, Weight Loss, , , , , , , ,

It had started out innocently enough.

“Let’s go tubing,” they said, “it’ll be fun,” they said…

Liars.

That mountain became my nemesis.

That mountain humbled me.

That mountain gave me a reality check.

I went in there with a head full of fun and frolic, and I left with a limp, a whimper, and a cracked tailbone.

The night had begun uneventfully enough, with a fierce quest for adventure and winter time thrills.

I had never once considered the dangers. Especially since I had gone tubing before, and enjoyed it quite a bit.

I had also dipped my toe in many another endeavor without pause. I had skydived, and zip-lined, and navigated the roaring whitewater rapids in a raft…

I had jumped in headfirst into so many an adventure, that a night out tubing at the pass seemed harmless.

Not so.

We had arrived to find a bit of a snow/rain mix, and everyone was scrambling for the tubes, and rushing to catapult themselves down the icy hill into oblivion. So I grabbed the first one I could get my hands on, and quickly got in line.

The first time down, I definitely felt the rush. It was pretty slick due to the dense snow pack, and the light rain had added an invisible layer of slippery ice. But the tube I had chosen was a bit over inflated, and since I couldn’t nestle securely down into in it, I felt a bit vulnerable. And as I was going down the hill, I felt as though the tiniest bump might bounce me out of my vessel.

I furiously clung to the handles for dear life, and white knuckled it all the way to the bottom. Like a bolt of white lightning, I had rocketed to the base of the run.

And my very first thought after reaching the bottom of the hill, was that I needed to trade in my tube for a better one. 

A safer one.

But what I did not know then, was, that decision would drastically change the next ten months of my life… Continue reading The Legendary Saga of Brokebutt Mountain →

A Tale of Two Races

Exercise, Motivation, Weight Loss, , ,


Originally it started with “I won’t…”.

Because I thought, “I won’t fail if I don’t try.”

“I won’t be dissapointed if I don’t expect anything.”

And since I did not aspire to prove myself correct, I told myself I could not. And that is how it became, “I can’t…”.

And I was stuck in “I can’t…”.

Until, Type 2 Diabetes came into my life, and gave me, my “I should…”.

And there I was, in conflict with myself.

The “I should..” brought yearning and expectations of action.

The “I should…” made me uneasy.

The “I should…” brought with it a nagging need to do the impossible.

So I cautiously began to entertain the idea.

And when I started out on this journey, it was with the sole intention of transforming my body.

But, I did not, however, expect to be led down a parallel path, that would teach me the importance of also transforming my mind.

And eventually, I was to be brought to a place, where I would discover, that in doing both simultaneously, I had completely transformed my life.

These two races were the markers of that evolution.

These two races were the beginning and the end of that internal transformation.

But here, at the beginning of this tale, it all began with the “I should…”. Continue reading A Tale of Two Races →

The Pretzel Heist

Humor, Poetry, Weight Loss

This is Fergus…and I suspect that he is on to me.

In a clandestine caper of snack-a-licious proportions, I have taken to a life of crime, and unlawfully lifted The Captain’s (my fiancee’s) coveted pretzels.

And Fergus, who is an adorable busybody, at the moment, is giving me the stare down while watching me eat the evidence.

I’ve gone rogue.

I have stolen them, and he is the snack sheriff.

I am a thief, and he is the pretzel police.

He is Sir Fergus McFluff of the Clan McFluff, and I can feel him silently judging me.

I am trying not to make direct eye contact in effort to dissuade him. But his gaze is locked on my every move and I can see him in my peripheral vision as he watches the pretzels go from my hand to my mouth and back again.

And as I have mouthful of sourdough pretzel deliciousness, I am caught in his cross-hairs of justice, and I find myself making excuses to his sweet face to justify my pretzel-napping.

On the other hand, he might just be waiting for some errant crumbs to come flying of my mouth in his direction for his own benefit…but that would probably just implicate him as an accessory after-the-fact.

Although I’m not sure if he knows about that contingency.

He does, however, look somewhat concerned that I may crack, and throw him under the bus if I am hauled in and pressed about the pretzels whereabouts. Continue reading The Pretzel Heist →

The Care and Feeding of My Fitbit

Exercise, Humor, Motivation, Weight Loss, , ,


There is a monkey on my wrist.

And its called a Fitbit.

I have owned a Fitbit for a little over a year now, and sometimes, I wonder, if I actually own it, or if it really owns me.

Its kind of a symbiotic relationship.

Yes, I said relationship.

Because it has ceased to be a “thing” in my life, and become my technology created companion, a virtual cheerleader, and a finger wagging busybody. 

It is an all around ever aware conscience that follows me EVERYWHERE, and… I feel grateful.

What???

Yes, grateful.

It holds me accountable, and nudges me to push a little bit harder. It gives me a competitive edge, and for that, I am grateful.

But, as a byproduct, it has irrevocably changed my life, and the way I live it.

Gone are the couch potato days of yore, when I could sit quite happily for hours.

Gone is my urge to sit in a waiting room, or park close to the mall entrance.

Adios to seeing the world from a stationary vantage point, and hello to “let’s walk, I need my steps anyway”.

Back in the day, when I was 25, I was going out to clubs in my mini skirt, happily drinking wine coolers, and anticipating the impending alcohol induced “buzz” that was to follow.

And now? Continue reading The Care and Feeding of My Fitbit →