Baby Steps

All or nothing. That is often the way I roll. And that can be a bumpy road. If I want to make these changes long term, I've got to find a way to be okay with a gradual pace. One that can last. For some reason, though I am totally comfortable with this concept in the realm of running, applying it to food continues to elude me.
Ideals are fantastic things. They keep us moving and growing and stretching. They also tend to beat us up a bit on the way there. My ideal usually looks like this:

And I want to be that next week. So, I decide to cut all things delicious and unnatural from my diet, train for another marathon, and only eat fruit until noon. That goes well. . . until noon. And after that I'm so angry at myself for a slip up that I figure the whole day is in the tank, might as well enjoy it. Cue the snickers.
But, this time it isn't just about the weight. It has GOT to be about something more. I've got to let go of the above ideal, and figure out my ideal. Where do I want to be? Here's a summary:
I know that I want to get to a place where sugar is not a part of my life. Where I eat wholesome, natural foods, comprised almost entirely of the wise foods mentioned here. I want long hair and a good looking set of legs. I want to celebrate moments with memories not food. I want to write more, move more, and live more. But, that is not going to happen overnight. And it isn't a place necessarily measured by a jean size. The ideal isn't about how I finally get myself to look, it is about how I allow myself to feel along the way. The honest to goodness truth is, I just am not ready yet to drop all sugar cold turkey. Been there, done that. But, I do know that I want to get there. So, if I am comfortable with starting the race and accepting the pace I can keep up, I think I'll finish. It has worked with every other race I've ever entered.
Baby steps and I'll get there. First baby step? This week I walk back into Weight Watchers with my head held (sort of ) high and rejoin as a Lifetime member/former leader that has lost her way. I'll hate it sort of. But, next Tuesday when I have to get back on that scale again, that accountability will help me succeed, and I bet I won't hate it nearly as much then. The program works. I'm a witness to that. Do I want to track and point forever. Oh heavens no. But, I have to relearn some stuff right now. I have to recognize that. And re-establishing a healthy way of looking at food again will put me on a better track to phasing out sugar completely. For now, I'm going to work that program. And I am going to try very hard not to be ashamed of that. Because, after all, my real ideal should look more like this:

What If Wednesday. . . .

What if I truly treated my body as a temple?

When Christ instituted the Sacrament before His suffering in Gethsemane and on Calvary, He said to His disciples, when passing them the bread, "Take, eat: this is my body." This strikes me as very profound. In a time when His soul was about to be torn with pain and then His body equally wounded, He was teaching His disciples to remember Him in a very tangible way, telling them that His body would be torn, His blood would be spilled, and they should remember that forever.

That tells me what an integral part our body plays in our ability to truly come unto Christ. His body was as critical in His role as the Savior of the World as His unblemished Spirit. The spirit and the body is the soul of man. (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15) Together they learn, together they worship, together they progress. And if our body progresses without our spirit, then our soul is not truly growing. Likewise, if our spirit is growing and straining while our body atrophies, then our soul is left stretching between them, without progression.

This is where I have been. I have been reading, praying, thinking. . . and eating. In the stress of these last few months I have felt hopeless, frustrated, angry, and alone. So, I have tried to do what I thought was best. I have read my scriptures. I have kept saying my prayers. I have written in my journal. But, in my moments of despair, I have also numbly eaten through the struggle. And it has dampened my soul. I have realized that if I neglect my body, I cannot truly learn what I need to learn or grow how I need to grow. Treating my body so poorly damages my soul and has left me feeling depressed and out of control.

So, what if it stopped? It is going to. Sometimes it feels really impossible to get back to where I used to be physically. But, I believe in the Atonement's miraculous power of change, and that applies to both body and spirit. I want it to be fast, immediate, and wonderful. But, all I really have in this life is time, right? So, I take a big breath and try to trust that though it will take time, the process will work.

What does feeding a temple as it deserves to be fed look like? Here's what I think and plan to do. I plan to focus on whole foods from four food groups: Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Legumes. I am cutting out some major trigger foods that do me simply no good at all: sugar, processed flour, dairy, and animal products. Science backs me up on this, but it is also something I feel really good about. I think if I truly cleanse my body, then there will be a shift in my cravings, not just in food, but in so many things. I think my body will crave more light, more learning, more love, and more joy. I think my soul will come together with a greater power to worship the Lord and fill my life with His light.

I realize everyone has different plans and approaches and just like everything in life, there are countless ways to do good things. For me, this is also a cleansing experiment. How different could I feel if I really only put wholesome things into my body? We shall see.

And, oh, thank goodness for chocolate soy milk and luna bars. . . just saying.

I don't care. .

if it was the day after I fasted.

or if I was only wearing a towel.

or if I had just run thirty minutes (ahem, on the hills setting on the treadmill. . .may I say.)


The scale said I had lost two pounds, and it is the first time in many moons that the scale has gone down and not up. If there was a notary that would've felt comfortable standing next to me in only a towel, I would have had them make it official. I am taking it and running. I am a realistic gal, so I don't aim to lose big next week, in fact maintaining would be grand. But for today, I lost.

I am a rockstar.

How Thoreau Eats.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

I don't love everything about Henry David, but I do live this precept. Life gets far too busy, complicated, and messy. We have access to so much. We can watch anything, read anywhere, and keep in touch with every single person we've met since Kindergarten. It is all just a bit too much sometimes. We take thousands of pictures, record every event, and cram our lives with good stuff, mediocre stuff, hard stuff, fun stuff, and just . . . . stuff. But, what do we savor? What really feeds our souls? What really matters?

This is an intensely personal question and varies perhaps from day to day. I think there are a few things that every person would vote on to the "really matters" list: family, God, love, relationships. Of course. But, how does that break down into hourly living? How can I pace my life so that what really matters gets real time and honest attention? Because life isn't lived in sweeping gestures of prioritization. Life is lived one itty bitty minute at a time. And sometimes those minutes slip by very quickly while we are idling our engines figuring out what we want to do next. Well, I speak for myself anyway.

So, what does this have to do with eating? For me, plenty. Not only do we have immediate access to books, movies, and embarassing youtube videos, we also have unlimited access to foods of the world and hundreds, nay, thousands of opinions on how to cook/eat/prepare/buy said food. Thai. Indian. Japanese. Ethiopian. You got it. Kosher. Vegan. Raw. Grilled. Bring it on. But do we really have to eat it all? Do we have to taste every good thing in the world? I won't do every good thing there is to do in this lifetime, and I can still die happy. Do I have to eat every good thing to lead a fulfilling life? I certainly hope not.

In my loooong quest to figure out how to make food and eating and body image all work out, I've created several plans. I've even followed some of them. I know quite a bit about nutrition by now. I also know enough to know that you can find someone to support or condemn pretty much any plan you come up with. Eating involves decision making. Every bite is a decision with sometimes much too much emotional baggage informing that decision.

It is just food.

I'm fully aware that I need that sentence tatooed on my eating hand more than probably anyone reading this. But, I don't believe in tatoos, so I'll have to figure something else out. Still, I struggle with this. But, it is just food. It is fuel. And there is no reason that every day be a field trip through the gastronomical adventures this modern age has to offer. So, in the spirit of my transendental kindred spirits, I am experimenting with simplicity. I am going to cut way down on my decision making regarding food. Fewer meals, fewer decisions, fewer minutes wasted worrying and wondering. Lots of people all over the world eat basically the same food every day. There are countless other ways to fill my life with variety. Heavens my three children throw me curve balls hourly. I mean, do you know how many different ways there are to spill milk and/or break a glass? I've lost count. They keep me hopping.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

I'll keep you posted. I'll have a pocket of meal planning time wide open. Or maybe I'll use it to learn Russian.

I'm getting a new elephant.

So, you know the twenty pound elephant I've been chewing on? I'm spitting it out.

Here's the thing--my scale is determined to drive me to cliffs of insanity and perhaps off them. I promise. This is what happens: I step on the scale, it blinks at me and gives me a number. I don't like that number very much, so I yell at it and step off. Then, I give it another try, carefully positioning my feet in exactly the same place. It blinks. Magic! I've lost four pounds! So, did I? Did I gain? Did I lose? Does this scale think it is doing me a favor by lying to me? Don't toy with me little machine, I have a hammer and a destructive four year old and I know how to use both of them. . . sort of.

I've been rethinking that perhaps judging my success by those numbers alone is a little unwise. What other measures are there? There are several, but none of them are as quick as weighing in every week and seeing the numbers shrink. Unless of course you have a psychotic scale that delights in toying with your mind. (I am really taking this personally)

I am revamping.

I have never run for a time goal. I finish, and I am content. But, I think I've become enough of a runner to set some higher, faster goals. But to get faster, I will have to get lighter. See how that works? If I reach my speed goals, I am pretty sure my weight goals will follow. And if I follow my plan and zip up those elusive khaki pants I've had in my closet for at least a year, I bet any normal, non-sadistic scale will tell me what I want to hear.

It will still take one bite at a time. It will take more patience to believe my body is changing without weighing myself in every week. I will try on the pants every month. I will run three miles in 27 minutes. I will do a 10K in under 56 minutes. To some of you, these might seem paltry, sluggish goals. To you, I say, with all my heart. . . please go eat a plate of brownies and take a nap.

To everyone else trying to nibble away at an elephant, I say throw your scale out the window too. Celebrate that there are so many other things that matter about you. It isn't all about the number. It isn't all about the plan. Choose what you want to measure. Pants, push-ups, pace, or performance. Just make it something that won't beat you down or drive you crazy. That defeats the whole purpose.

(As a note, I recognize that weight is really important, and my weekly dates with the scale helped me shed more than fifty pounds, so if it is working for you, awesome. Weight can be a great gauge, it just isn't the only one.)

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

One Bite at a Time.

I've got this big elephant staring me n the face. Okay, it isn't that big. It only weighs about 22 pounds, but sometimes it feels totally insurmountable. It is me. Well, it is the extra me that has been creeping up in these last few months. And I don't like it. The thing I really don't like is that I've kicked this elephant out before.

I've lost sixty pounds. Problem is, a few of them have found me again. Last summer I found a wonderful groove and lost the last 15 pounds I thought I never would. And then. . . I freaked. Suddenly, I was on the brink of not trying to lose weight anymore, and I've never been there. I've always been trying to lose weight. So, suddenly I was trim and strong, and I was getting looks from guys at the gym, and I got really scared of that. So, I ate. And I ate some more. And over the last 9 months, I've successfully buried myself again, hidden behind extra weight and comfortable insecurities. And now I am far away from that brink and planted firmly on a slippery slope that could lead me back where I was eight years and fifty pounds ago. No way.

But, it feels so hard. It feels so impossible. It feels so. . . . slow. But, I know how to do this. I've done it before! And so, I'll start chewing the elephant. One bite, one day, one best effort at a time. Funny thing is, I look at pictures of me last summer and I realize that I was pretty hot, but at the time, all I saw was how much hotter I could be if only. . . . I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that boat, I think that is more of a cruise ship full of people who look in the mirror and go straight to their triceps, hips, waist, you name it. Now I know that I looked good. I'll get there again. I'll come close, and I won't run away. I'll get the looks and I won't get scared. I'll buy the clothes, I'll look in the mirror, and I'll smile. And along the way I'll smile too. And I'll keep you posted.

I won't share my plan here, because everyone has their own method. The main idea? Eat less. Move more. And be patient. I'll try every day. I'll weigh every week. And this elephant will slowly disappear. And in 15 weeks when I board a cruise ship, I'll have disappeared a little too. Poor Mickey won't be able to keep his eyes off me. Daman will have to keep a very close eye on me. . . though my plan is to make that much easier for him.

Direction Without Disdain

My scale tells me that between yesterday and this morning I somehow lost five pounds. This is very unlikely (especially considering the four cookies I ate yesterday). There is only one explanation: There is a cruel little pixie living in my scale intent on driving me to insanity. What a jerk. Well little pixie, I’m not taking the bait. The day before, when I’d thought I’d gained five pounds, I cut loose and lost it a bit. I let the scale tell me what to do, and I’ve learned that I’ve got to stop doing that. I’ve always had this natural, wholesome, healthy, long-haired, enlightened vision of myself that I want to become. I feel like it is just one layer down inside of me. I have used this vision as one of two things:

Option A: A 2X4 which I use to beat myself into “healthy” submission (temporarily)

Option B: A change too dramatic, too different, and too scary. This keeps me from breaking through to that level of health and wholeness. (an option which made me turn back in self sabotage lately and undo a ten pound weight loss from the Summer)

Are these my only options? I think I’ve finally realized that they are not. I can want that vision and be okay with where I am right now. . and tomorrow. . and in two days when probably not much will have changed. Goals are good. Direction is necessary. The other day on NPR I listened to this wonderful report about scientists who set people to walking in a straight line across a huge field. They blindfolded them and turned them loose. Across the board, everyone’s first 10-20 steps were straight, but then they began to veer in one direction or another. Then they veered some more. And then something incredibly curious happened with all of them: they began walking in circles. Still, the people were convinced they were walking in a straight line. The scientists created countless variables to understand why, but couldn’t figure it out. Their only deduction is that unless there is a point in the distance they are marching for, everyone just winds up going in circles. What a peek into humanity in general. If I don’t have a goal, I will just wander in circles without progression or growth.
I need goals. I need that vision of a more wholesome me. But, I can have that vision without spitting the present out of my mouth in disgust. I can have direction without disdain. So, I’ve gained a few pounds in the last few months. Wah wah wah. Life goes on. The common denominator between the Morgen that is now and the Morgen that will be when I am living a more wholesome life is me. I will still be here. I am the one taking on this challenge. If I try to run away from that to catch this other vision, I won’t be complete, and I certainly won’t be happy.
So today, I let go. Today I don’t think so much about food. Today I eat a few meals and make the best decision I can at each of them. And between those meals. . . I live.

Good Enough

I was probably eleven or twelve when I first cried about being fat. We’d gone to see a doctor and he spoke to mother about my weight, gruffly warning her that I was going to be obese. I don’t remember saying anything on the way home, I only clearly remember sitting on the deck when we got home, sobbing, and asking my mother “why God made me fat.” She didn’t have an answer for me. Probably because there wasn’t one.

I’ve since come to believe that God didn’t make me fat. . . food did. And I also have realized that I wasn’t really all that fat. I wasn’t slight by any means, but the middle school taunts created an image in my head of myself as a bloated, disgusting, ugly, fat thing. I always wanted to be skinny and pretty, I just couldn’t do it. I was the fat girl. Smart, funny, blessed with great skin and a killer set of cheekbones, but fat. Every once in awhile, I’d get to a point of total self disgust and vow to give up this or that, and exercise this much. Guess how well that went. I tried countless plans, ambitiously taking hideous “before” pictures and gearing up to finally be pretty if I could just learn to like running.

And then one day, through a process I couldn’t really outline, I woke up and looked in the mirror and realized that I was just fine, thank you very much. I decided I was pretty darn good looking, hips and all. And it was at that moment that I began to lose weight. I stumbled across a plan that looked promising. I signed up and began. And I succeeded. I lost sixty pounds, having three babies in the process and losing baby weight plus a little more each round. The difference was that it came from a place of acceptance, not disdain.

I began to see food as fuel, instead of entertainment. I wrote down what I ate and became aware of my body and how it felt when it ate what. Then, I began to move. I had always dreamed of running a marathon, but then would remember that I hated running. Most people would see that as an impediment. So, I decided to go out and run until I didn’t like it, and then I’d stop and walk. I put zero pressure on myself. That’s the place of acceptance talking. I wasn’t in a race to become a different person, just a journey to be a better one. So, the first time I went out I probably ran 30 seconds, then walked the rest of the way. Bit by bit, I began to enjoy the running portions more. I ran/walked my first 10K in 2002 and ran my first marathon in 2005. Running has become a sort of meditation for me, a place I never dreamed I’d reach on that first “jog.”

In the years since I began to change my body and my lifestyle, I’ve had several peaks and valleys. I reached the jean size that I had once thought would be the pinnacle of success and beauty. But I rarely feel successful or beautiful; I still somehow always yearn to be a little skinnier, a little stronger, a little more beautiful. When I hit low points, when food suddenly takes over my life again, I feel terrible about myself and wonder how I can get back to that good place again, that place where I relish the good feeling of healthy eating and steady exercise. I have learned though, that those feelings don’t create self worth, they follow it.

I am realizing that the idea that I’ll be good enough when I lose ten more pounds, or finally give up sugar, or can run a 5K in under 29 minutes is going to destroy me. I am good right now. I was good 60 pounds ago. I am happier now and grateful to have lost that weight. I don’t know where my life would be if I hadn’t turned that healthy corner. The fact that I did turn that corner when I did proves I was good then. And I am good now. That I consistently yearn to be better proves that I am good. And I’ll keep getting better.