Passing My Mom

My Dad, me, my sister and my beautiful Mom

Day Something-or-Another

I came up with a brilliant plan just now. I'm doing a fairly good job of sticking to eating really healthy foods. At the moment I have so maligned sugar in my mind that the goblin is cheese. All in all even that hasn't been much of a problem although I may cold-turkey it for a while.

Oh, yes, my plan. Call me crazy, but I have decided that trying to lose 50+ pounds by the end of the year (four months from now) is probably not going to happen. So I've come up with an alternate timeline. It may sound gruesome, but my goal is to outlive my mother. I am almost 60 and 1/2 (remember when you used to say, "I'm not 5, I'm 5 and 1/2!!"? It appears those halves return late in life when every moment counts). My mother died suddenly just two weeks shy of her 63rd birthday. That's a little close for comfort. Two and 1/2 years. But for my health effort that is a timeframe I can work with. Slow and steady wins the race.

So, here's what I see happening - on my 63rd birthday (March 6, 2018) I will be the glowing picture of mature health and vitality that I want to be. One day at a time, putting health first.

(Now my great-grandmother Nana lived to 104. We'll work on that after we hit the 63 mark.)

The Girl's Alright With Me. You Know the Girl's Alright.

Me, Earl the Cat, and a dog  Athens, Georgia 1975-ish

Day Two

“Wake up and think about your health.” Almost. Pretty close. Better than ever before.

Had a fantastic healthy breakfast of oatmeal to which I added: chopped apple, chopped dried plums (cracks me up – we all know they are prunes, you’re not fooling anyone, except Millennials, which I guess is the point), sunflower seeds, chia seeds, and hemp. I haven’t put sugar on my oatmeal in years and can’t believe I ever did. Surprising. It was a delicious meal and I savored every bite.

Took all of my vitamin, thyroid, and turmeric (my new thing) pills and those pills with 10 billion somethings that are supposed to be in your stomach. And, coffee. Thank God they’re saying coffee is good for you.

Did some of the exercises my old physical therapist gave me for my posture when she was treating my shoulder, um, torn rotator cuff, that’s it. I forget. I have had so many injuries. I’ll tell you about them some time. It’ll be fun. Really. Like the time I broke my arm when I fell off a train in England on the way to school in the Cotswolds. Wish someone had filmed that! But, that’s for later.

 Recently I’ve had call to look at old pictures. Very old pictures. This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks that I have spent my entire life berating myself for how I look. But, I look at those pictures and I think I was kinda cute. And, I wasn’t fat, I just wasn’t Twiggy. Seriously, I wasn’t bad and I like the spirit I see on my face and in my eyes. So, I decided to be ok with how I am today. If I do nothing I could still look back at pictures of me today and say, “Jeez, I wish I had appreciated how good I have it.”

So, day two. I appreciate how good I have it today.

Are You Noticing a Pattern?

Granddaughter Riland, a good reason for living!

Off an on, off and on. I signed in on the computer at the Y the other day and it said “Congratulations! You’ve been coming here for seven years!!” Oh, #$%@, are the words I used to congratulate myself as I looked down at my body and realized how tired I felt. Ever the optimist (or, eventually the optimist) I then thought, “Well, think how bad off you would be if you hadn’t sort of worked out for the past seven years.” Nice spin.

I don’t know what it takes to finally commit to something. A decision? Yeah. A decision made 100 times a day. My son desperately wants me to be around to watch his children grow. I do, too. My husband wants us to travel the world for years to come. I do, too. But, the fact is I just turned 60. My Mom died at 62. My dad died at 64 (smoking-induced lung cancer so that isn’t as much of a warning as my Mom’s death, but still). Those numbers can bring on some serious thinking and panicking.

How many times did I have to quit smoking before I actually quit? 100 times? I thought it would be impossible to quit. But, one day, I just did. I realized that knowing I had to quit was worse than actually quitting. I visualized myself so healthy and alive and it worked. It has been about 40 years since I smoked (ouch, guess I didn’t need to say that out loud). 

So, here I am, back from the doctor (again). This time it’s because my knee, hip and small of my back hurt so much I can’t sleep. But, the great news is that he prescribed physical therapy and I have really wanted to have somebody tell me how to work out without hurting myself all the time. At last. Nice spin.

Driving home from the doctor I called my son. He said, “You have to make your health the first thing you think of in the morning. You can’t put anything in front of it. You won’t have your work and your family if you don’t have your health.” Luckily, I have a wonderful husband who is at the grocery store right now buying all kinds of good stuff. I’m going to make an appointment with a PT ASAP. 

One day at a time. It works for other things, why not for changing my life? I have a VIVID picture of what life will be life if I don’t change. Now I need to find some fun pix to post around to inspire me. What do I want the rest of my years to look like, to be like? What do I want to accomplish? I know the answers to a lot of these questions. And that big huge stack of books on getting healthy all say basically the same thing: move, eat fruits and vegetables, cut out sugar, move some more, meditate and love. 

So, from “on again off again” to “One day at a time” and “Just do it.” I have a lot to live for. And, today, I will eat and live accordingly. No spin.