I Want To Be Totally Truthful With You

Just like many of you, I’ve been reminiscing about last year and thinking about my hopes and dreams for this brand new year.

To be honest with you I have to admit that for me, 2011 was the most challenging year of my life. I knew some of what to expect and had prepared myself on how to not only survive but thrive. But just when I was feeling really good about how I was handling life, the illness and unexpected loss of my son Chris shook me to the core.

In the past I have lived with bouts of depression, eating and anxiety disorders. By finding the right people to help me, experimenting with many different ways of eating and spending lots of time relearning to hear and listen to my inner wisdom, I finally felt comfortable and strong. What had gotten me to this really good place were what are now the 7 Keys.

With the loss of my son my world turned upside down. For almost 2 weeks I couldn’t eat at all and during that time I was very present and living in the moment. I wanted to feel all the pain of losing him and receive the love that was so generously given.

But then the enormity of what had happened really settled in. Grief is not only an emotion but also a very physical experience. To deal with it’s rolling waves I have reached out to some old coping friends of mine, bingeing and sugar. These had been my favorite ways to self medicate and become numb so I wouldn’t have to feel anything. I went back to what I knew and I’ve ended up feeling not only sick but totally out of control. This is not how I want to live my life.

So now it’s a new year and I am ready to take baby steps each day to let go of what I’ve been doing to move back to being me using the 7 Keys. As part of this journey I will share with you each week what I am working on and how things are going. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find an idea here that could change your life.

Sending you lots of love,

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MY PLAN FOR JANUARY
January Key: Feed Your Body
January Affirmation: “I treat my body lovingly with nourishing, delicious food.”
January Focus: Since sugar is such a trigger for me I want to crowd out sugar

Week 1 Action Step: Make soup to have on hand for meals or eating as needed.
Week 1 Musings: Making my favorite soups (Lemon Chicken Pasta, Vegetarian Split Pea, White Bean Chicken Chili) helped me be in the present and create nourishing food for myself. I felt less anxious having it on hand so it was easier to make healthier choices. I will be trying a new soup recipe next week.

Week 2 Action Step: Do a pantry and refrigerator purge looking for hidden sugars.
Week 2 Musings: I did get rid of things at home that had excess sugar in them. I also grocery shopped for lots of whole, fresh food and tried a few new recipes. By having good ingredients on hand and spending an hour prepping, it made it easier to stay away from my trigger foods. Baby steps.

Week 3 Action Step: Eat meals on a plate while sitting down instead of grazing my way through the day. My definition of sitting means at the dining table or kitchen counter – not in front of my computer or on the couch with the TV on.
Week 3 Musings: WOW, this was a big week! There was lots of heavy emotional stuff going on this week so I was concerned about whether I would be able to work this step. Well, I had forgotten just how much this change really connects me with my food. I didn’t restrict what, how much or how often I ate, but it had to be on a plate with me sitting in one of two places. So even my dark chocolate that I’d been keeping at my desk (yes it’s true!!), I would take a piece and go to the designated place and really enjoy it. It was amazing how much less I ate naturally by just being present. Also by having only one thing I was trying to work on, it really helped me be with my emotions and to not turn to sugar or bingeing to numb myself.

Week 4 Action Step: Taking Week 3 a step further and removing other distractions while eating. No reading or watching TV.
Week 4 Musings: I thought this step would be easy but it was really a challenge! I hadn’t realized how much I’d fallen back into the eating/multi-tasking habit. It was hard to just sit and eat but I was able to do it.

At the end of the first month I feel so much better, am eating mindfully and having wonderful foods that really nourish me and my body. My daily processed sugar consumption is down to a half serving of dark chocolate and a whole food ball that has raw honey, eaten at the table, on a plate, with no distractions and they total 2 1/2 teaspoons of sugar. And if you don’t know my story, I was someone who at times binged on nothing but chocolate (and not dark) for days at a time just trying to make it through the day. And there’s something else. An added benefit of living my steps is my weight is down 5%. All this and without going on a diet! This is just me creating how I want to live my life. So in a few days it’s a new month and I will be continuing my Feed Your Body changes and start adding another Key.

MY PLAN FOR FEBRUARY
February Key: Love Moving
February Affirmation: “I love how I feel when I move my body.”
February Focus: Get back into a regular physical activity routine and have fun doing it!

Week 1 Action Step: Wear my pedometer and average a minimum of 6000 steps a day.
Week 1 Musings: Since I hadn’t been active for a while, it was interesting to see just how many steps I would get through normal activity. It was shockingly LOW with 2500 steps pretty typical. When I lived in a 2 story house with my office upstairs it was not uncommon for me to get 10000 steps without having to do much else. Well in the small 1 floor apartment I really had to step (!) it up to get to 6000. The weather has been cold and rainy so I needed to walk inside and when I walked in the apartment, I did intervals of 100 steps fast, 300 steps normal paced. By doing this I was able to average 6400 steps a day for the week. And something has happened over the last 5 weeks – I’m sleeping again! I’m getting 7 hours or more a night consistently with the change in food and starting to be more active. WooHoo!

Week 2 Action Step: I will keep increasing my steps by 500 a per week until I reach 10000 a day. In the meantime I also want to add some stretching exercises 3 days this week to help me be more flexible.
Week 2 Musings: Well adding 500 steps was not a problem and it’s now feeling just part of my day again to be walking. However I kept procrastinating about stretching. I finally made a decision over the weekend to use a Qi Gong tape that has several stretching programs for morning and before bed. I started with the easy AM routine on Saturday and Sunday. Not sure what my hesitation was but this tape feels right for me. Here is the information about it: Lee Holden’s 7 Minutes of Magic AM & PM Routines.

Week 3 Action Step: I will increase my steps to 7000 a day and do the 7 minute stretch daily.
Week 3 Musings: There were lots of distractions, mainly good ones, that made this week more challenging for me to meet my goals. I found myself several time having to walk right before I went to bed to get my steps in. The week ended  with six good days of walking and stretching and on the 7th day I realized that rest was what I really needed. It felt good to honor and give my body what it was asking for.

Week 4 Action Step: I’ve decided that I’m not going to up the number of steps this week. Instead I want to use that time to add some weight exercises to go along with my stretching. I’ve never had much upper body strength and tend to ignore it that area, so I feel it’s time to exercise all my body.