 I recently visited Christian, my physical therapist, and he offered me a quiz, of sorts, to determine my overall health. I love quizzes like this because I work really hard to maintain my health. My excitement was short-lived when I started the ‘movement’ section. Everyone thinks I’m so active, but honestly, I knew I’d fall short. The other section is my emotional health. I sleep pretty well most of the time, but as a people-pleaser, caregiver, and over-organizer, I expected to fall short again. I wasn’t wrong. In reviewing my scores with Christian, my PT, he noted the same thing I did. Movement and emotional health needed some improvement. Yippee. He suggested I utilize my Fitbit app for meditation … that quiet time between one minute and several minutes. I started with one and struggled. I knew Christian was on to something. It’s been one day and I’m up to three minutes twice a day. It’s not so bad but it is a conscience effort. Now movement will take more effort. While I play pickleball at least twice a week, it’s not enough. I noticed about a year ago that I wasn’t meeting my 10,000 step goal so I did the most obvious … reduced my steps to 8,000 and I still wasn’t cutting it on most days. My Fitbit buddies were beating me every week. Christian’s little test was right. He suggested I take a meditation walk - basically killing two birds with one stone. He urged me to modify my walk to include listening, touching, smelling, and seeing - four of the five senses. Yeah, it’s trickier than it sounds. Of course, two days later I found myself stuck in a doctor’s office for over two hours … but had a lovely and lengthy conversation with a delightful woman. I felt so energized chatting with her … we were like kindred souls, like-minded, caregivers, people-pleasers. We validated each other and we both saw ourselves in each other. What I didn’t expect is it checked one of the emotional health boxes … engaging with someone. Good for me. They say pictures are worth a thousand words … so welcome to my meditative walk … I have spent more of my day being present - I mean really present. One thing at a time has never been easy for me. Even now, as I write, I have a cat on my lap and music is playing. There is a gentle breeze coming through our opened windows - deep breathing is a given. Oh, and there is aroma of bacon cooking in the oven as BLTs are for lunch. Allow me to qualify that ... Tom is having a standard BLT, I'm having a BSTA sandwich (bacon, spinach, tomatoes, and avocado).
For those who know me, yes, I eat bacon, but it's not your standard grocery store fare. My bacon is:
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New Year's Day has come and gone did you make a resolution? Many people do and if it works for you - YEA! I made my final resolution in 2000 vowing to never make a resolution on January 1 again and it has worked for me.
While a new year is a good kickstarter, it rarely holds much past mid-January. Why? Oh, there are many reasons least of all there are so many options presented to us via television, social media, links promising success, and then there are those who have had success sharing their how-to! Well, be that as it may, until you are ready to make a change it just won't happen. Recently, it was suggested I try Noom and yes, I'm calling them out specifically because it is just one of the many ways to create failure. I paid their whopping 3-month fee and was pumped and ready to go. In the first three weeks I did lose a respectable amount, impressing even my nurse practitioner. But the kudos stop there. While the 'lessons' were somewhat helpful it wasn't anything I didn't already know. And, yes, I gave it my all! About midway, I found my scale inching up. I hate food logging mostly because I make all my own food so breaking down recipes was a pain in the you know what! But, I was dutiful and hopeful. When my 3-month stint was coming to an end, I reached out to Noom inquiring how to transition to their free version. After all, I had done all my lessons (yeah, that's the psychology part of the program), saved them for future reference (as suggested by the customer service person) and as my renew date approached I was pumped to do it on my own! I felt ready even though my scale was not my friend. As much as I love accountability, I was disappointed at my obvious failure. But, I was ready to move on. After several ... rather, many attempts to make the free version work giving me access to the lessons and food diary, as promised all I got were incessant pleas from Noom to upgrade. The free version never did what I was told it would do. Then, another plea to upgrade, but now it's free for a short time. After numerous emails and texts, I blocked them. I'm done with you, Noom. You are scamming the public with your promises of personal coaches - yeah, there aren't any, just if you join a community then maybe, possibly, a coach will pipe in. Then, get this ... I could be a coach, too ... apparently, anyone can be a coach. Oh, please ... Bottom line? I went back to MyFitnessPal ... logging food is still a pain, but it is considerably more user friendly - maybe it's because I 'grew up using it' or perhaps, it really is a better app. Then, get this ... on my Fitbit, they now offer a 'food' tab allowing me to enter my food. All in all, it is a struggle for me. Now, if you know me personally, you know I'm pretty fit, and depend on my village to keep me that way. What village, you ask? Ah, so easy ... as we age stuff starts to happen - stupid stuff that we either ignored as younger people or it wasn't a big deal because we healed more quickly. Now that I've hit 75, it takes a wee bit longer to 'get over' whatever it is. Who's in my village? My chiropractor - two visits a month keep me aligned. My massage therapist - one to two visits a month to work out the knots I create playing pickleball, walking, exercising, etc. My physical therapist who is always just a prescription away! Oh, yoga. My yogis cover me inside and out! But, the biggest part of my village is my husband, Tom. He is my rock ... always. |
