Things Can Turn on a Dime (Blog #901)

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Okay. I’ve been on a diet for twenty-four hours and my thighs still rub together when I walk. What the actual hell? If only deciding to take care of yourself produced immediate results. Alas, this is not the instant gratification station. This is the work hard, be consistent, make good choices station. This is the chocolate cake makes your ass bigger not smaller channel. This is planet earth.

I know. I hate it too.

I’m grousing, but the changes I’ve made in the last twenty-four hours truly haven’t sucked. Last night before blogging I went to the grocery store for snacks, fruits, vegetables, and protein, then went to the gym with my dad after. “Are we going to do this every night?” he said.

“What about every other night?” I replied.

Every other night seems like a reasonable goal, one I could achieve instead of overachieve. What’s the saying? Set yourself up for success.

Today I’ve eaten three reasonable meals–no bread, no refined sugar, no alcohol. After each meal I felt full but not stuffed. What’s this feeling of non-expansion? I thought. In terms of exercise, this morning I mowed a lawn. Tonight I went for a twenty-minute walk. And whereas I used to think a walk didn’t count unless it was at least an hour and uphill all the way, tonight I thought, Twenty minutes is twenty minutes. I mean, I broke a sweat.

What’s nice about all the changes I’m making this week–and I admit they’re a bit “all at once”–is that none of them are new. Like, I’ve eaten mostly paleo before, I’ve been a gym rat before, and I’ve gone on walks before. This means that with little resistance I can slip into these routines like an old shoe. The part of my mind that loves carbs kicks up a bit of a fuss, of course, but most of me is like, Oh yeah, we know how to do this.

All this being said, the one thing I’m doing that I haven’t done before is intermittent fasting, which basically amounts to not eating between 8 PM and noon the next day. Eat however many meals you want (within reason) between noon and eight, but then zip your lips for sixteen hours. The idea (behind any type of fast) is that it not only gives your body a break (because digestion takes a lot of work), but it also allows your body to burn fat for fuel instead of all that pizza and ice cream you’ve been chunking down your throat. (Or is that just me?) Anyway, a friend of mine has been raving about it–they’ve lost fifteen pounds in the last six to eight weeks–so I figured, What the hell? I’ll give it a shot.

Now, I realize I’ve only been at this one day, but so far I like it. Sure, last night was rough. Two hours after having a smoothie at 7:30, I was starving. I went to bed hungry. Boo-hoo. But I told myself, If I’m starving in the morning, I’ll eat. Surely a little fast is better than no fast at all. But get this shit. When I woke up at nine this morning, I was fine. Not really hungry at all. So I skipped breakfast and went to work. Well, I had a cup of hot tea (non-caloric beverages are allowed.) Y’all, I mowed and weedeated in the hot sun for two hours and was fine. What’s more, I actually had an excess of energy (an excess of fat, boo-hoo). Now, was I READY to eat when the clock struck twelve? You bet your sweet bippy. But in my head I’d made it out to be this awful thing–I can’t eat for 16 hours, somebody get me a cross to hang on!–and yet it wasn’t awful at all. It simply wasn’t.

When I got home from mowing today I took my shoes off and banged them together to shake off the grass and dirt. As I did, I noticed a small rock–a large pebble–dislodged itself from the grooves in one of my shoes and landed in my parents’ flowerbed. And maybe this is weird, but I thought about that rock as if it were a teeny-tiny person. Like, it’d probably been hanging out in Fort Smith in my client’s driveway for years, and then all of a sudden got swooped up and transported to Van Buren. Just like that.

Along the same lines, get this. This evening I taught a dance lesson to a couple about to be married. The guy was born in another country, came to the United States, bounced around a bit, and finally met his fiancee up north. Then he got a job down here, and kind of like my shoe picked up that rock and brought it across the Arkansas River, he picked up his fiancee and brought her here too. Through a strange series of events, they ended up on my dance floor. After all these years, we finally met.

I really am astounded by this. How a rock or a person can hang out in one mental, emotional, or physical place and then–bam, like that–be transported to another. Is there work involved? Of course. There’s always work involved. In terms of bodily transformations, you gotta do shit. God’s not gonna strike you skinny. (Although, I guess, you could get one of those awful stomach viruses). In terms of personal growth, you gotta do shit. (My suggestion: see a therapist.) But my point is that at some point there’s a tipping point. (That’s a lot of points, I know.) This is why people say things can turn on a dime. Sooner or later, your hard work, your patience, pays off. Sooner or later, you see results.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Since one life touches another, we can never really say how far our influence goes. Truly, our story goes on and on in both directions. Truly, we are infinite.

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My “Too Much” Gene (Blog #702)

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Last night I went to bed at two, a little sooner than normal, in order to wake up early this morning to help my friends Todd and Bonnie pack. (They’re getting ready to move.) And whereas I’d hoped to doze right off, I tossed and turned for over two hours. I finally fell asleep about four-thirty. For thirty minutes. (Not funny, Mr. Sandman.) I lay awake until six, at which point I drifted off into blissful sleep. When the alarm went off three hours later, I was like, What the hell? You know how it is when your brain and body are exhausted, the way it takes concentrated effort and three repetitions of The Lord’s Prayer to simply put on your socks. That was me this morning. Foggy. I swear, if someone had seen me stumbling around trying to tie my shoes they would have said, “His cornbread ain’t done in the middle.”

Speaking of bread, Todd and Bonnie provided donuts for breakfast. Oh my gosh, y’all, I only had two (I’m not a complete animal), but they were delicious. This is why one should periodically eat healthy. Sweets taste even sweeter, and whole milk tastes even, um, whole-er when you haven’t had them in a while. Anyway, all of it did the trick, perked me right up. For fifteen minutes. Thankfully, I didn’t have to be fully awake to work, just awake enough to move furniture and bubble wrap a few other things.

Since Todd and Bonnie had invited several friends and relatives to their “packing party,” things went quickly. “Many hands make light work,” Bonnie said. No kidding, we were done in less than three hours–just in time for pizza. That’s how Todd and Bonnie got all of us there, by the way; they promised us carbohydrates for breakfast and lunch (and they delivered).

Confession: I ate four pieces of pizza.

This afternoon my regular gym buddy (my dad) went to work out with my aunt, so after I got home from packing I went by myself. And get this shit. The girl at the front desk, who’s almost always there when I am, greeted me when I walked through the door by saying, “Your father was here earlier!” Oh my gosh, y’all, talk about embarrassing. People are associating us together! (Also, they’re apparently not buying my “he’s my roommate” story.) Anyway, my neck and shoulder have been giving me hell lately, so I didn’t do any upper body work today. Rather, I did knee rehab. My physical therapist cleared me to start using the elliptical machine, so for twenty minutes I pretended I was a gazelle prancing through the grasslands of Africa.

Granted, a gazelle probably wouldn’t grip the stationary handlebars for fear it would fall over, but it probably wouldn’t have broken its knee trying to jump over another gazelle’s head either.

Now it’s nine-thirty, and my brain and body are mush. With any luck, I’ll be in bed and passed out before midnight. All afternoon I’ve been thinking about something my friend Corban, who helped Todd and Bonnie today, said. We were packing an antique rocking chair, and he was really going after the legs with the bubble wrap. He kept going around and around with the stuff. Finally I said, “That should do it,” and he said, “My ‘too much’ gene may have taken over.”

My “too much” gene. Is that perfect, or what? I completely relate to having it. When given a task, I almost always feel like I have to knock it out of the park no matter what. Consequently, I often wear my mind and body down in my attempt to overachieve. Honestly, it’s probably why my neck and shoulder hurt–because I got obsessive, because I did something “too much.” God knows I’ve gained weight in the past not because I ate too much donuts and pizza one day, but because I ate too much donuts and pizza too many days. Too much, too much. So again, this is my reminder to myself to slow down and take the middle path, to trust that moderation can get me where I want to go, to let my “that’s enough, that’s more than enough for now” gene take over.

Surely I have one of those.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"We were made to love without conditions. That's the packaging we were sent with."

A Reprieve (Blog #678)

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Well shit. After six weeks of rehab-ing my knee two to three times a day, which I was told to do, I was given a reprieve today. I’ll explain. This afternoon I had an appointment with my surgeon, who said my range of motion looked great. Then he said the swelling in my knee (oh, there’s swelling in my knee) was probably due to overuse. “Most people rehab a day, then take a day off,” he said. “I’m officially giving you permission to rest. It’ll take all of six months for your strength to come back, so don’t rush.”

Afterwards I met with my physical therapist, who confirmed, “Yeah, if you come here, you don’t need to do anything else for the rest of the day.” Ugh. That’s not what was said in the beginning. “Do your exercises two or three times a day.” So much for living in the golden age of communication. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to be able to chill out. These exercises have been taking up two to three hours every day, and now I get to back off to about one hour every other day. Plus, instead of going to physical therapy twice a week, now I’ll only be going once a week or once every other week.

Here’s to sleeping in and saving gas money.

Since leaving the doctor’s and physical therapist’s, I’ve been in a mild state of shock. As a former straight-A student, I’m so used to giving a hundred and ten percent all the time. Work, work work. Push, push, push. What’s more, unfortunately, I’m used to giving, giving, giving, and it never being enough. If this sounds like a recipe for exhaustion and constant frustration and disappointment, it is. But these last few years I’ve been learning (slowly) that you don’t have to go balls-to-the-wall every minute of every day in order to get good results, and today was another reminder of this.

A slow and steady effort will do.

This evening I taught a dance lesson, my first since injuring my knee over two months ago and having surgery six weeks ago today. Y’all, it was the perfect thing, this darling engaged couple getting ready for their first dance. This meant I didn’t have to spend an hour dancing with someone and could limit my movements to demonstrations. And since they weren’t advanced, I didn’t have to turn or spin, which I’m not allowed to do anyway. I can’t say how much fun I had. Not only did I enjoy teaching, but the lesson got me out of the house and took my mind off my problems. Well, one problem in particular. Ugh, this is so important, having something worthwhile to focus on.

Tonight, for the third night in a row, my dad and I went to the gym together. And since I was given a reprieve from leg exercises for a couple days, I worked on my upper body. I’ve been studying some muscle-balancing exercises online, so my plan is to try a new thing or two each time I work out. I figure I’ve set aside time every day to focus on my body, so I might as well keep it up. But you know, not go too fast. This is really a big lesson for me, that I don’t have to overachieve all the damn time, that a smaller amount of effort, applied consistently, will get the job done.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Ultimately, we all have to get our validation from inside, not outside, ourselves.

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The World Won’t Fall Apart (Blog #671)

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Things I am grateful for today–

1. Space

Last night I went to the gym at midnight. There were maybe three other people there, but basically I had the whole place to myself. It was crazy. There were three dozen treadmills and all this equipment, and I got to use whatever I wanted while I rehab-ed my knee and listened to podcasts. So often when visiting big cities or going to the movies I feel cramped or confined, but last night I could spread out. It’s just been on my mind lately, that both at the gym and home I have room to learn and grow in. Even on the internet, I have space to explore my insides and figure things out.

2. Time

This morning after breakfast I felt like going back to bed, so I did. My body’s just been tired lately, my stomach’s been upset. And whereas the productive part of me feels like I “should” be up doing things, I’m trying to do better about listening to and following the wisdom of my body. Like, it’s tired? Then I need to rest, not push. It’s that simple. And I’m glad that I can, that my life is such lately that I have the time to take it easy. Not everyone does, and I’m sure I won’t always.

3. Information

This evening my friend Bonnie gave me my second knitting lesson. Before I learned to knit; today I learned to purl. (There are two basic stitches in knitting–knit and purl.) Then Bonnie taught me how to read knitting instructions (a pattern). Y’all, I was absolutely fascinated. Just like dancing or any specialty thing has its special words and phrases, so does knitting. That is, it has its own language, a language I’m excited to learn.

4. Permission

Recently my therapist and I talked about the fact that the famous author Wayne Dyer apparently ran eight miles every day for over twenty-five years. Well, he missed one day. Anyway, I’d read about this and brought it up to my therapist because, well, it seems extreme. I mean, that’s every day, including days when he was sick or had the flu, and days when his children or grandchildren were born. Not that I really give a shit what other people do, but I wanted to talk about it because I recognize that extreme tendency in myself. Take this blog, for instance. I’m getting close to 700 days in a row, and there have been plenty of days when I was sick as a dog or simply tired that I did more harm than good by staying up and blogging just because I’m so often such a hard ass with myself.

Granted, I think there are times when you need to hold your own feet to the fire. This unbroken chain of blog posts gives me a great sense of pride and accomplishment, and that’s something. Plus, I know it will–one day–come to its natural end. (All things pass way.) But until then, I’m trying to give myself permission to lighten up in other ways. For example, I’m doing my knee rehab exercises twice a day instead of three. I was told, after all, that I’d reach my goal with “two or three times a day.” So, because three times a day was simply wearing me out, I’m choosing not to overachieve and rather simply achieve instead.

Surely the world won’t fall apart.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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A storm can leave your life just as quickly as it enters it.

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