inspiration

When Lazy is Good

/ leslietoldo.com / 2 Comments

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(This is a photo of me and my dog, Otis, who turned 13 today. It fits the theme, and he is pretty darn cute, after all)
I cannot lie. My own laziness may be helping me succeed in ways I had never imagined possible when I started this whole not-eating-gluten experiment.  Here is the thing, and I am really only giving you a watered down version of said “thing” because I am not completely clear myself on what the “thing” is when it comes to gluten. Oh, yeah, the watered down thing:  you have to look up ingredients of ingredients in a lot of foods to make sure they do not contain gluten. Who has time for that? I probably do, but I am not going to do that. I will have a nervous break down (as if not eating gluteny foods isn’t going to make me snap in the first place). 

I am just getting acclimated to reading ingredients on labels for the obvious, “hey, this is loaded with gut bloating gluten” information. I do not need to worry about whether percolated hypochondrial starch isolate has some kind of gluten festering within. You know? So, how does this help me succeed beyond just avoiding gluten? Well, because silly, I am eating less processed food. The fewer things on the label, the easier to understand, the more likely I am to eat them. 

How cool, right?! I must be losing all kinds of weight and have an arse like Jillian Michaels and ….(insert needle scratch on record). No. I do see a difference in my shape. My tummy is less bloated. I feel better. I mean, I really feel better overall. My joints are not aching. I am sleeping better. My tummy isn’t as tumultuous. I also have more energy- just not enough more energy to read labels with more than 5 ingredients on them- that I can pronounce. 

The truth is still the truth: a calorie is a calorie. They all add up the same way. If your daily pile of calories exceeds what your body needs to make it through, those calories sort of loiter around and you don’t lose weight- well, I don’t, anyway.  But, I am exercising a lot more. I am trying not to get too crazy and put a specific number of pounds I want to lose out there- not today, anyway. 

I was actually not tested for gluten intolerance. I read the symptoms and thought I might be. A few times, while researching gluten as a topic for my day job- ace medical reporter- I read and heard that if you go off of gluten and you feel better, chances are you have an intolerance. The real test is to then eat gluten and see what happens. Well, what happened for me was pretty icky. I felt hung over. I was very nauseated. It was not good.  By “not good” I mean, kind of miraculous. I ate truffles- you know, chocolatey ones- and felt horrible and vowed never to do that again. Say what? I am still sort of in shock. My mother, who found a way to make Atkins Diet shakes higher in carbohydrate content than the ones sold at most malt shops around the nation, would be really disappointed. I did not give her any grandkids, and she is a Saints fan, so she is used to disappointment. 

So, I have been on the wagon, headed away from the gluten fields for a few weeks. It really is not as bad as I thought. I can have potatoes. I can also have any number of “gluten-free” labeled products. I am trying not to get into that, because I like eating kind of clean.  I feel good. Yes, I wish I could report some crazy thing about how my body is transformed and my skin glows and Tom Brady keeps calling and I have to remind him we are both married, etc. My body is getting more toned. I am feeling better. Guess what? That is because I am weight training and running. 

I have been a medical reporter for roughly 20 years. I have talked to some of the great minds of medicine, diet and fitness. It all comes back to one thing, well, actually two things- diet and exercise. If you want to lose weight, what you eat is probably 80-percent of the equation. But, there is still that other 20-percent. Exercise is so good for you. I have never regretted a workout. I always feel better afterwards not because I look like the chicks in my Shape magazine, but because I did something good for myself. 

I really hope I make myself read this again in the morning, when I try to talk myself out of going to the gym. I am sure if I leave myself a note, I will read this again- if I am not too lazy, you know, and hit the snooze button. Oh, wait, I have dogs, they really do not honor the whole “snooze” philosophy. 

So, let’s keep fighting the good fight. 

(are ya happy, Kim? This is your update.)

Emptying bowls, and bags of chips, and… oh you get the idea!

/ leslietoldo.com / 3 Comments

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(The bowls, pictured above, are from a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan. They were all made and donated by local artists. You buy a bowl, you eat all of the soup you want for $15. The soup was provided by local restaurants. No, they do not have much to do with today’s post, but aren’t they pretty?)

I found myself wanting to write, but thinking that I am not “inspired enough” right now. Read: I don’t have a bunch of unicorns and fairies floating through my brain. I don’t have the 10 magic steps to happiness and fulfilment to offer. I do have reality. That was supposed to be the point of this whole blogging venture. Right? Junk I think is not always inspired at awesome. Sometimes it is the uninspired and un-awesome that I need to pay the most attention to. My personal bout of “crazy” has something to teach me.

So, this is where I am. I am still in love with running in the rain- or running anywhere.  But I am in a bit of quicksand this week. I am a little restless. By restless I mean, up at midnight eating Funions, Salt and Vinegar Lays and Fruity Snacks. I do not really even like any of them. They were there. I was feeling anxious. You get the idea.

That little moment of avoiding the real issue was a great follow-up to the 36 bowls of soup I had at a fundraiser for the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, called “Empty Bowls”. Oh, I emptied some bowls alright. So, maybe I did not eat 36, but I ate four. Yes, FOUR! Where was all of my, “damn I’m good and healthy” bravado that I was waving around earlier in the week?

While the lbs scale and the fat scale slowly continue to trek downward, it is not fast enough for me. I took my measurements and had lost only about two inches- across my entire body- over two weeks. Never mind how differently my clothes are fitting. It is all about cold, hard numbers right?

Here is the thing, it is- and it isn’t. I have been working pretty hard and keeping up with a training plan, except for this week. I got in two great runs, but I skipped my weight training because I spent the time I could have been weight training weighing out whether I actually had time to squeeze in some weight training.  Any time I start doing that is a good time for me to stop and ask, “hey, chick, what is wrong? Do you want to do this or don’t you?” No one is holding a gun or anything else to my head. I made a choice to get healthy. I am either in or I am not. Period.

Skipping the things that I know make me feel great- like the workouts – and then doing things that I know will make me feel bad, like pounding down Funions et. all-  are signs that I need to be honest with myself. About what is really floating through my kooky little brain. Something has to be off, especially since I specifically schedule time and set my alarm so that I will be able to fit in workouts. I specifically do not buy snacks I love so that I will not go on midnight benders.

I am trying to get healthy, not win a body building contest. Still, there is a voice in my head telling me that things are not happening fast enough.  A friend posted yesterday that she had lost 23 pounds. I am sincerely happy for her, but wondering why is it going so slowly for me. The answer is simple: because it is. Comparing myself and my progress to anyone else’s is a recipe for failure.

Maybe my friend did not go and empty a bunch of bowls at the Empty Bowls event. Maybe she did not power-eat snack food she did not like last night. Maybe she has been at it longer than me.  Maybe, when she is not feeling inspired, or feels like sabotaging her own efforts she stops and listens and tries to understand why Funions seem like such a great idea right now.

Don’t Miss the Boat

/ leslietoldo.com / 1 Comment

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So, yeah, you could say it has been a while since I wrote a new installment. How does that happen? Well, I can’t speak for you, but for me, it is about procrastination which is actually just “lazy” with more syllables.

I receive an uplifting message in my email every day from a Kabbalist named Yehuda Berg.  I do not practice this particular spiritual path, per se. I just love what the guy has to say. He actually sends the emails to anyone who requests them, not just to me.  I didn’t meet him in rehab or anything like that. He has a blog- one he keeps up with much better than I have been keeping up with mine. I’ve been keeping up with the Kardashians better than I’ve been keeping up with my blog.

Today’s Yehuda installment is a doozy:

“Carrie Fisher once wrote, ‘Instant gratification takes too long.’
It’s a funny quote, but it’s the way a lot of us feel and it leads us to pacify our desires with short-term fulfillment, delaying all our dreams from coming true. Instead of waiting for our soul mate, we settle for someone who is good enough. Instead of putting a few hours a day into making our dream job or a promotion manifest, we become complacent with the position that merely pays the bills.
Where are you substituting your birth right with a short-term fix?
It’s time to start thriving instead of merely surviving.”

Ouchy, ouch, ouch! So much here to think about. This is what I do. Even with a silly blog that I started for the exact reason-  I did not want to become complacent about life. I love to write. This is a perfect venue. Actually, any venue, including the back of a napkin will work. I get caught up in the mundane. I’m not just caught up in it,   I am wound up in it, like a fish in a net.

Making healthy changes in life is all about just that:  making the changes. No one ever finished a novel by talking about finishing it. They actually did it.

I am not certain if writing a novel or becoming more healthy in every aspect of life is a “birth-right” as ole Yehuda put it.  I actually do not like that expression at all.  I don’t believe in birth-rights. I think too many things feel like they belong to us or are somehow owed to us just because we exist. Nothing worthwhile is ever just handed to anyone. I know this because I have had so many things handed to me. I have not appreciated many of them.

Wow, that is a lot of honesty for a Wednesday morning. Bottom line, I am either going to do (insert thing I say I am going to do here) or I am not. If not, move on, stop talking and thinking about “one day when I (fill in the blank)”. My one day is now.

Ps the scale has stopped moving. Actually, the lbs part of the scale has stopped for a bit. I have, however,  lost body fat. I have a body fat scale. I do not put a lot of stock in its accuracy, but the little “F” number is dropping. I will take it.

So, now, I have to ask myself, “am I missing another boat today, like the cartoon dinosaurs, because I am all caught up eating trees or something boring like that?  Am I missing the best part of life while I am zeroing in on the most mundane?”