A Few Words of Inspiration

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It's been a crazy week and I haven't had much time to think about a blog post for this week, let alone write one. So this week I am relying on the words of others.

It's no secret that I am a voracious reader, and I often find inspiration and encouragement in what I read. Here are a few gems I keep in my "in case of emergency" file:

"Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs."  --B.C. Forbes

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible!'"  --Audrey Hepburn

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”  --Maya Angelou

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”--Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” --Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing 


More Yogi Bear Than Yogi

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Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration
Last weekend, I saw a report on CNN about simple yoga poses that anyone can do. I decided to give them a try. Of the four poses, I could do....one of them. That's right. One. Uno. Eine. They should have called the piece "Yoga Poses That Everyone But Ilene Can Do."

The first pose was a tree pose: stand on leg A with the foot of leg B resting on the calf of leg A. (Really advanced yogis can apparently put foot B on leg A's inner thigh.) I tried the pose. I fell over. I tried the other leg. I fell over. I've continued to try this pose every day this week. After five days of trying, I can hold this pose for a maximum of 5 seconds.

The second pose was a warrior pose: feet more than shoulder width apart, one foot turned out, arms extended at shoulder height, torso and head facing the direction of the turned-out foot. This is the one I could do. I can hold the pose for 30 seconds or more before my arms start to ache. (Who knew staying still could be such a workout?)

The third pose was a plank pose: basically a push-up position, with your arms supporting your body weight. Except that my arms can't support my body weight (yet). And because I'm horizontal on the floor when I do the pose, Benji thinks I'm down there to play with him. It's hard to give yoga the concentration and focus it requires when a dog is licking your face.

The fourth and final pose was child pose: sitting on your shins, body folded so your torso rests on  your thighs, head down, arms next to your legs. My body shape does not allow that to happen, no matter how much I try. All it does it hurt my knees.

I like the idea of yoga, and I haven't given up on it. (Maybe next week I'll be able to hold the tree pose for 10 seconds!) For now, though, I'm resigned to being more like Yogi Bear than a yogi.

I'm melting!

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I have discovered this week that chronic 90+ (100+ yesterday, today, and tomorrow) melts more than crayons. It also melts my self-discipline.

I was so proud of myself last week for staying active and on-track during the heat wave. But now that the heat wave is in its second week, I'm not as active, not as on-track, and not as proud. And I still have a day and a half to go before the week’s over.

To my credit, I have maintained my gym routine this week. I even did 35 minutes on the elliptical machine--the longest I've gone on that thing yet. (Mind you, I felt like a baby giraffe learning to walk when I was done, but that's beside the point, right?)

The days in between, however, have not been so active. The dog walks, which were short to begin with, are even shorter. Neither my old dog or I can take the heat. (80 humid degrees before 9 am? No, thank you.) Just being in the heat for those 10 minutes or so is enough to suck out any energy I had for indoor activity.

Case in point: the July 4th holiday. I had such plans for that day. I was going to write a letter to a friend who lives across the pond. I was going to e-mail a friend with whom I’d recently reconnected. I was going to finally start revising my novel. I was going to write today’s blog post.

Then I took Benji out for his morning constitutional. By the time we got back inside, my plans had completely evaporated. I spent the day on my sofa watching reruns of Criminal Minds and NCIS. No letter. No e-mail. No revisions. No blog entry. Not a damn thing.

Now, all that wouldn't be so bad if I'd adjusted my eating habits accordingly, but instead I've been eating like a PMS Monster--here a carb, there a carb, everywhere a carb-carb--even though I don't have PMS. I know from experience that carb pattern is not a productive one.

How unproductive remains to be seen, but I do not have high hopes. We're supposed to have a break in the heat wave this weekend. Maybe that's about the time I'll be able to give myself a break, too.

A Pat on My Back

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It's been hot here--the kind of hot I left California to get away from. 90+ degree days that become 90+ degree weeks, but with the added bonus of Midwestern humidity. (Can you say "big hair"?)

I hate the heat. Always have. Sometimes I think I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. Winters energize me; summers drain me. Summer--especially summers like this one so far--make me want to hide in my air-conditioned house and hang out with my buddies Ben & Jerry day after day.  No dog-walking, no exercising. Being in the heat for more than 2 minutes makes me cranky, grumpy, and whiny--not necessarily in that order.

But--and this is a big BUT (pun possibly intended)--this summer I haven't been hiding with Ben & Jerry. I've been out. I've walked the dog every day. I've kept up my gym routine. I've been outside for 30-60 minutes at a time watering my trees and shrubs in a desperate attempt to save them from being scorched.

Mind you, I've been cranky, grumpy, and whiny the whole time--but I've done it. And I'm almost flexible enough to pat my own back in congratulations!

Why Walking the Dog Is Not Exercise

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I used to think that walking a dog was a good form of exercise, but I now know with absolute certainty that I’ll never get fit walking my dog. My eight-week gym sabbatical reminded me of that, because walking Benji was my only so-called “exercise” during that time--and what I did during those weeks was the opposite of getting fit.

Let me give you picture of what walking Benji is like, using this afternoon’s walk as an example:

We step out the front door and off the porch. Benji finds the perfect blade of grass and pees. We walk down the driveway. Tomorrow is garbage pick-up day and one of my neighbors has already put their garbage bag by the curb. (I live in a townhouse community. I share my driveway with 15 other units.) Benji must inspect every inch of the garbage bag. It will be worse tomorrow morning, when Benji must inspect every garbage bag on the curb. Eau de garbage is his favorite scent. We’ve been out the door three minutes, and we haven’t made it the street yet.

Finally, we make it to the curb. I make Benji sit, and we wait for any cars to pass by. Then we cross the street to the sidewalk. (Yes, I have to cross the street to get to the sidewalk. That's one of my community's many quirks. It's especially fun in winter, after the snowplow has been through.)

Once we reach the sidewalk, all is not smooth sailing. There’s more grass on that side of the street—not to mention trees and lampposts and mailboxes. Plenty of places for Benji to check the neighborhood pee-mail, and apparently there are quite a few messages to exchange.

If I’m lucky, I can put together ten continuous steps before I have to stop to wait for Benji to take care of whatever business occupies him.  When it is time to take care of business, so to speak, Benji must again find the perfect blade of grass upon which to leave his deposit. This requires a great deal of sniffing the grass and walking in circles, then changing his mind and repeating the process until my little Goldilocks has found the grass that is just right.

It’s not only the stopping and starting that hinders my dog-walking “workout.” Benji’s an old dog—he just turned 13 in March. He has a heart problem and mild arthritis. As a result, he can’t walk as much or as far as he used to. On a really good day, he can go for 20–25 minutes. Most days he can only manage 10 or 15.

That’s enough for him, though, so he stays slim and trim. I, on the other hand, don’t.

The Thighs Have It

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I bought a new pair of gym shorts this week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because I’d lost so much weight that my old ones were too big. (Oh, how I wish!) Nope. I had to buy new shorts because I’d worn holes in the old ones—near the inseam, where my thighs rub together.

My face is burning bright red with embarrassment from typing the last four words of that paragraph. I can’t even bring myself to say those words out loud.  Of everything I dislike about my size and my body, that tops the list.

More often than not, I have to replace pants, sweats, and shorts not because they’re too big or too small but because my rubbing thighs have rubbed their way through the material. I have a pair of denim shorts that are approaching that point now.

And it’s not just the wear on my clothes that bother me. When I wear pants—especially jeans—my rubbing thighs make a swooshing sound as my pant legs rub against each other. In any quiet place, you’d be able to hear me coming before I ever enter the room or turn the corner. The swoosh-swoosh gives me away every time. It's mortifying.

Dresses and skirts are also problematic because of my thighs. When I wear them, my thighs get all sticky and sweaty from rubbing against each other, even when the weather is cool.  It’s downright uncomfortable, to say the least.

As I write this, I can hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me, “Well, you know what to do about that.” Yes, I do--and I'm trying to do it. But it’s far easier said than done. 

I have been exercising regularly for more than a year and have dropped 1 dress/pants size. Still, though, my thighs touch. I have no idea how much exercise I have to do or how much weight I have to lose to turn my thighs into separate, distinct, not-touching entities.  But I cannot wait until I get there.

Back in the Saddle

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It took longer than I expected, but I’m finally back to the blog. Back to a lot of things, actually. Once I stopped blogging, I stopped exercising regularly (this was my first week at the gym in at least 6 weeks), stopped writing in my diary, stopped focusing on healthy eating habits. Basically, I stopped doing everything that had helped me get closer to being the healthy person I want to be.

Not wanting those lost weeks to be completely wasted, I ‘ve spent this week not only getting myself back on track behavior-wise but also looking for lessons I can take from the experience. This is what I’ve come up with:

1.    Newton was right. A body at rest does indeed stay at rest. Each day I didn’t go to the gym, it became easier not to go. Getting that body at rest to become a body in motion? Putting a man on Mars seemed easier. It took all of last week for me to psych myself up to go back to the gym this week.

2.    The gym is the key. Every building needs a foundation if it is going to stand. Going to the gym is apparently the foundation of my building of healthy habits. Without it, the building collapses. Last week, I tried to get back to practicing healthier choices. It didn’t stick. This week, as soon as I finished my first workout on Monday morning, those healthier choices became easier. Maybe it’s an instinct not to damage whatever progress I made at the gym. Maybe it’s a rise in endorphins from working out. Whatever it is, I get it at the gym and nowhere else.

3.    I need this blog. On those weeks when I was overwhelmed with work, this blog felt a like a burden: one more thing to do on a list that was already too long.  I discovered during my “time off” that blogging is a necessity for me on this journey. Like the gym, it keeps me on track. It keeps me motivated. It’s where I find accountability and encouragement. Without it, I feel perilously alone on this journey.

I can’t say I’m excited about being “back in the saddle.” I feel like I’m treading the same ground I covered six months ago. (Because I am, but let’s save that for another post.) I can’t say I feel especially motivated to get healthy, either. I can say that I feel the ship of my life is being righted again, and after six weeks of listing, that’s a good way to be.

Gone Workin'

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You may have noticed that my blogging has been sporadic lately. That's because Ms. Workaholic (that's me!) has overcommitted herself and has been scrambling to keep up with her deadlines and missing far too many for her comfort.

Blog posts just haven't fit into my schedule or my priorities list. Heck, some days even posting 140 characters on Twitter seems like too much.

So, in the interest of saving what's left of my sanity, I have decided to take a vacation from blogging. For the next few weeks, I will be focusing on meeting my work responsibilities.

Of course, there's always the possibility that inspiration will strike or that I will suddenly figure out how to put 26 hours in a day (in which case I will make the secret available to you for the special friends-and-family price of $49.99. Everyone else will have to pay $99.95.)

Should that not happen, I will meet you back here in mid-May. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.

A Dieter's Dayenu

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At every Passover seder, we say a prayer called "Dayenu." Dayenu is a Hebrew word that means roughly "It would have been sufficient." or "It would have been enough." The prayer is a series of statements recounting how God helped the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt and reach the promised land of Israel. Each statement follows the pattern of "If God had done this for us but not that, it would have been sufficient."


This is a dieter's Dayenu.

If I could lose weight by taking a multivitamin and not drinking eight or more glasses of water a day, it would be sufficient.
If I could lose weight by drinking eight or more glass of water a day and not exercising, it would be sufficient.
If I could lose weight by exercising and not breaking a sweat, it would be sufficient.
If I could lose weight by breaking a sweat when exercising and not monitoring what I eat, it would be sufficient.
If I could lose weight by monitoring what I eat and not cooking fresh meals every day, it would be sufficient.
If I could lose weight by cooking fresh meals every day and not constantly thinking about my food and hunger levels, it would be sufficient!

I Take It Back!

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All that stuff I said about how wonderful it is to walk outside and how beautiful the flowers and greenery look--I take it back. All of it. Every single word.

Sure, walking outside was a beautiful multi-sensory experience, but I forgot three key facts:
  1. Those beautiful blooming flowers produce pollen. 
  2. The comfortable spring breezes blow that pollen into my face. 
  3. I'm allergic to pollen.

So after two weeks of doing my thrice-weekly two mile walk outside, I found myself with itchy eyes and a sniffly nose and sneezes that sent chills down my spine.

Those beautiful flowers aren't so pretty anymore.

So, I have once again retreated to the safety of the gym, where I can see the natural beauty from behind a window and walk my two miles without itching eyes, sniffling nose, or spine-chilling sneezes.

A Sunburn for St. Patrick's Day

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Most people will be wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll be in red—bright, glowing red, thanks to an unseasonable sunburn from this unseasonably warm weather.

With this unusual summer-like weather, going to the gym and using the treadmill just wasn't an option. Being on a treadmill does have its advantages, and there are times when it is exactly what I want or need. However, walking on a treadmill is like being the last dog in a sled team--the view never changes. In fact, the treadmill bears a striking resemblance to a human hamster wheel.

So, I decided on Wednesday to take advantage of the weather by walking in my neighborhood instead of going to the gym. I found a map online of the Lake in the Hills 10K race route and decided to walk as much of it as I could handle. Turns out I could handle about 2 miles, round-trip. Not bad, considering the hilly terrain.

The walk was perfect. Sunny blue skies. Birds chattering happily. No traffic. No Fox News (which plays constantly at the gym. Thank goodness I have an iPod and headphones!) I even found a little lakeside park that I never knew existed. (By little, I mean tiny. The whole thing can probably fit in my basement. I made a mental note to picnic there when I have time for longer, more leisurely lunches.)

By the time I plodded my way back to my front door, I felt both tired and invigorated. It wasn't until that afternoon that I realized I had been sunburned--not because I saw my red face in the mirror, but because I could feel the heat radiating off my face.

Today, the burn has calmed considerably, but it's still quite visible. I'm wearing it as a badge of honor.

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

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There's nothing like working ten straight 12+ hour days (including weekends) to make a person dream of a life in which she doesn't have to work at all. That was my mindset when I found this.

The photos are of author Neil Gaiman's basement, and it is certainly my kind of basement. It rates second on my all-time list of favorite rooms. (First place goes to the library in Beast's castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Of course that's an animated movie where the laws of physics don't apply--so if reality is a criteria, then Gaiman's basement rates first.)

Someday, when I win the lottery (without having bought a ticket, mind you), I will find my dream house and it will have a basement just like that one.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

For Valentine's Day: Letters to Myself

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To My Body:
I am so sorry for abusing you.  I blamed you for all of my shortcomings, especially the ones that have nothing to do with you. I hid behind you, and then held you accountable for the results.  I  overemphasized you, when I should have recognized that you are only one part of who I am. I  treated you badly—I gave you the wrong kind of attention, instead of the nurturing kind.

Please forgive me. I am trying now to correct my errors, to treat you with the love and respect you deserve. Please be patient with me, for the path is a rocky one, but it is a path I am determined to tread. Together, I hope we can find our way to healthy.


To My Soul:
I apologize for ignoring you for so long. I became so focused on my body that I forgot you were there. It took decades for me to finally hear your voice, and even then it was so beaten down, it came out as little more than a whisper. I did not listen to you when you told me I was following the wrong path. I did not believe you when you told me I had the strength and ability to do what I dreamed of.

I am listening now, and you are right. I do have the strength and ability to follow my dreams, even when I feel like I’ll have to climb Mt. Everest in flip-flops to get there. I promise to keep listening, and to nurture you as I nurture my body, to treat you with the respect that you too deserve.  Like my body, you too have much healing to do. I hope you will help me make that happen.



Lessons Learned

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Another challenging week. This is what I learned:
  • The sandwich habit is hard to kick.
  • Alarm clocks are the spawn of Satan. (Actually, I knew that already, but this week was a cruel reminder.)
  • Pulverized Sun Chips make a great breading for chicken.
  • Dishes and clothes neither clean themselves or put themselves away. (Another reminder of something I already knew.)
  • My eating habits decline in direct proportion to the number of days I play hooky from the gym.

A Song of Sandwiches

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I tend to go through phases of food--weeks where all I want are spicy foods or grilled foods or foods smothered in tomato sauce. My current phase is sandwiches. For the last week or so, I've been eating sandwiches for nearly every lunch and every dinner, and sometimes breakfast, too. Peanut butter sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, mushrooms and Swiss, cheese and onion--you get the idea.

So why do I suddenly feel the need to indulge myself in sandwiches?

Maybe it's because they're simple. I'm working on a rather complicated project at the moment, and the simplicity of a sandwich is a comforting contrast.

Sandwiches are also convenient. This complicated project has required a couple of really long days, with more on the horizon. It's nice to be able to quickly throw together a simple sandwich meal instead of making my day even longer by having to cook.

Then again, it could be something much deeper, much more fundamental. Maybe it's simply that I enjoy eating with my hands. Eating with my hands feels more satisfying than eating with utensils. At least, that's what my inner cave-woman believes, and who am I to argue?

Whatever the reason, sandwiches are my current thing, and I'm certainly enjoying the ride.

What a Week

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You know it's a bad day when the healthiest thing you ate came from Panda Express. That was my Wednesday. And Wednesday might turn out to be the best day of my week.

Given the amount of reading and writing and editing I've been doing, I feel the need to once again express myself visually. I found this finger puppet at the Art Institute Gift Shop last summer, and it bears a striking resemblance to what I've seen in the mirror the last couple of days. (Except for the baldness, that is.)


On the positive side, I do still have one foot on the wagon. Despite the Scream feeling, I haven't missed a day at the gym this week.

All hope is not lost.

Gym Tales

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I know this is resolution season because my gym has been packed for the last two weeks. I find myself hoping these new people will slack off on their resolutions so I can get a treadmill or elliptical more quickly. Mind you, one year ago was one of "these new people" and I'm sure the gym regulars back then were placing bets on how long I (and the other newbies) would last. I have to say, I surprised myself by sticking with it so long and so consistently.

A year ago, I thought if I could make it to the gym two days a week, that would be good progress. Compulsive overachiever that I am, of course, I had to beat that and went to the gym three days a week most weeks.

With the new year, I've decided a new routine is in order. I've started going to the gym four days a week. It's been only two weeks and my body is not happy. I'm working out the same amount of time per week as I did last year. The only difference is, I'm alternating lower intensity and higher intensity workouts. Two days a week I do a longer, lower intensity workout. Two days a week I do a shorter, higher intensity workout. It's the shorter, higher intensity workouts that my body doesn't like. It has made it very clear that it does not want to work that hard, ever.

To which I say, "Too bad!"

Last January, I could barely complete 30 minutes on the treadmill. Eleven months later, I was able to complete a 5K in less than an hour. So the shorter workouts are hard on me. Eleven months from now, I'm sure they'll seem easy--or at least, easier. Until then, there's Tylenol.

A New Year's Word

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One of the things I love about Twitter is that it introduces me to websites and blogs that I would never find otherwise. It led me, for example, to a blog by writer Laura Lippman, who makes a one-word New Year's resolution each year. (Read Laura's blog post here.) Her only rule is that the word must be a verb in the imperative form, such as Change or Strive.

The idea appealed to me. I've always had issues with making goals, especially those corporate performance objective goals. Goals have to be concrete and measurable. But more often than not, the things I want to focus on are neither concrete or measurable. So I end up making goals that are only loosely related to what I want for myself...and then I don't meet the goals, because my heart's not really in them.

So, instead of creating a list of goals that I write and then forget about and eventually chastise myself for not meeting, why not identify a single word to guide me throughout the year? One word is so much easier to remember than a list. That word would be my motto, my mantra, my theme for the year. Because it is more of a guiding principle than a goal, the word would apply to not only the concrete, measurable things I do but also the intangible parts of myself that I want to nurture. It did not take me long to get on the one-word bandwagon.

The problem became, which word do I choose?

I thought about Change, but that didn't feel right. It seemed both too broad and too narrow. Change what, exactly? There are many things in my life that I don't want to change. I want them to keep moving in the same direction they started in 2011. So, I nixed Change as my word of the year.

I considered Relax, but that didn't feel right, either. It did, however, feel closer to what I want. I do want to relax more, not push myself so hard, not set such high expectations for myself,...

And that led me to Accept and Enjoy, the two finalists in my New Year's Word competition.

I like Accept because accepting myself is something I most definitely would like to work on. More often than not, I look at myself and see everything I don't like--whether it's really there or not. Choosing Accept as my 2012 word could help me see myself more realistically and more positively.

I like Enjoy for a similar reason. I tend to obsessively look forward or backward and forget to live in the present. I become so focused on what I want to have in the future that I fail to recognize what I already have right now, which is pretty darn good--if I may say so myself.

What it comes down to, when I practice saying Accept and Enjoy, is that I like the sound of the word Enjoy more. Simply saying it makes me feel happier. For that reason, my 2012 Word of the Year is:

ENJOY!