The days rush by, the weight hangs on

Well, I accidentally got on the scale a couple of days ago and get this--I weighed exactly what I weighed when I first started this blog. Sigh.

I suppose in a way that's not too bad, considering the holidays were one long and joyful food-fest and the month of January has evidently been chosen by my body as the time for one loooong period, with all the concomitant hormone fluctuations, emotional disorders, bloatedness, and chocolate cravings. C'mon, menopause.

One of my favorite bloggers has started a 30-day raw food diet (DH asked, "So how's the raw chicken working for him?") and I admire and envy his self-discipline. All veggies and fruits, nothing processed at all--except for juicing--so even though he's usually a vegan a large portion of his diet has been curtailed. I think it sounds dreadful.

Dreadful on the tongue, that is. I can imagine how good it must feel to his body. I am still trying to get my head into the place where I can cut out the truly unnecessary food items from my diet, and my head is stubbornly still stuck in the self-indulgence zone.

So, I downloaded the free EFT manual. EFT istands for "Emotional Freedom Techniques" and it's a system of affirmations and an accupressure-like series of taps that is supposed to help a person overcome all kinds of conditions. www.emofree.com, if you're interested.

I actually tried it out on DS yesterday. He's been terrified to put his face in the water, which has thrown a major roadblock in the way of progress in his swimming lessons. But I tapped on him in the prescribed places, and whispered, "Even though I am afraid to put my face in the water, I'm still an awesome kid," over and over.

Amazingly, it worked--he did it! He was a lot braver this time around, got his hair wet and managed to get wet up to the eyebrows. I mean, he's not Flipper or anything yet, but it's a big stride forward.

So maybe I'll try the EFT on me, trying to get my head in the right place for both exercise and diet. I'd really like to cut down on our meat intake, eliminate the sugars and desserts, and introduce a morning exercise program. heck, the EFT doesn't hurt, and since I'm here in the basement it's not like anyone will notice me acting silly.

Waiting on the New Year

There's something so louche, so decadent, about the last few days of a year. It's so easy to put off starting the new plans until that magical day arrives, so easy to indulge in whatever pleasures attract the most, that it's sinful.

I reach for another cookie and think, "Next Tuesday I'll start eating nothing but vegetables. When the New Year begins, then I'll wake up early and exercise every day." I cook all the things I love the best, make any new recipe that strikes my fancy. I even scarfed down a box of Williams-Sonoma toffee, which I love. Ah, bliss. How I'd love to get another box--but it's too expensive.

Come January first, I will buckle down. I will get real with my diet and exercise plans. I can see myself happily eating salads, snacking on fruit, drinking water and green tea. I will dig out those exercise tapes (because my plea for $200 for karate lessons for me and my son -- as a Christmas present -- went unheard) and work out by myself. My body is a temple and I will treat it that way.

I found a book in which prayer was described--the kind of prayer I'm interested in learning about, where praying is a combination of thought and emotion, when you concentrate on feeling the blessing of having what you want to come to pass. Not a formula, not a mouthing of words, not wrestling, just entering the stream of reality and giving thanks for the ability to experience the joy of choosing a desired outcome.

So here is my prayer for 2008, that says to the God that is all around us and in us:
Thank you for my body, which has been my faithful servant for nearly a half a century and has done everything I have asked of it.
Thank you for giving me a perfect body, beautiful in every way, lovely even by the standards of the world.
Thank you for helping me to take care of this body and appreciate it in all its wonder.
Let me keep this body safe and healthy, show it love and gratitude, make it as lovely as it can be.
Help me live up to the responsibility of caring for its every need, lavishing it with attention and love as a privilege and not a burden.
Let me feel pleasure for each thing I do for my body.
Let me make this body a high priority in my life. As it has served me, let me serve it too.
Let me begin my next fifty years with a body that is ready and eager to advance effortlessly into the future.
Let me always remember what a blessing my body is.
Thank you for showing me my self every time I look in a mirror, and letting me see the beauty that is there.
Thank you for every day of my life on earth.

Welcome back

That's welcome back, me. I've been AWOL for months, it seems, and now that I have no other possible method of procrastination I've resorted to adding a post to this blog.

Oh, my diet? Nah, I haven't really been paying attention to it. I may have lost a small amount of weight, but the bulk of my efforts have been spent on trying to cope with a major life-transition: from frantic, hyper-busy, no-time-to-think mom with a full-time job and tons of obligations (not to mention dreams and aspirations, which were taking a back seat) to a stay-at-home mom trying to construct a meaningful life all by myself. The latter is much more difficult.

I mean, jobs and schedules provide structure. You're forced into it. But when there's no structure at all and anything is possible (except whatever costs money) then you have to build the structure yourself. That takes motivation and self-discipline on a level that I'm not used to.

It's the same thing with diets. Programs give you the structure and you have to live within its confines. Trying to invent your own diet is hard work, and I find that it's much easier to just eat whatever I feel like instead of making up my own rules.

But I have been trying to find the motivation and inspiration. I've read tons of books on motivation, success, intentional living, prayer, meditation, mystical energy, and so on.

Here's my conclusion: I need to join a group. I want to start taking Tae Kwon Do again, because when I've got a group of people around me, I try harder.