Learning to Love Yourself through Loving Your Actions

So I was watching a DVR'd episode of Biggest Loser yesterday and Dolvett said to one of the contestants that was struggling with accepting themselves, "When you begin to love your actions, you begin to love yourself."  And it reminded me of a coaching call I had with Lonnie when I first started coaching with him.  I was having an off day and was having lots of negative feelings and I was kind of whining, okay not kind of, I was whining.  And he told me that instead of focusing on all the negative things and feelings that I was filling my brain with I just needed to focus on getting better.  Because when I became better I wouldn't have all these negative feelings and emotions and I wouldn't feel so stressed.  And boy I can't tell you how right he was.  And how spot on Dolvett was with his comment.  I have found myself slipping a bit back into the negative feelings and feeling some stress.  This past few weeks have been off weeks with the holidays and being sick.  But instead of dwelling on it, I decided yesterday I wasn't going to focus on how off it had been or all the things that didn't get done that should have.  So I focused all day on getting better.   I got up at six and I ran my 5 miles and I cleaned up my house that desperately needed my attention.  I got better and with every task I did and every meal that I ate like I was supposed to, I felt better about myself than I did the day before.  Today I got up at a few minutes after 5:30 and did a little closet purging, and made my bed, did all kinds of cleaning and you know what, I feel better.  I feel better because I am loving my actions.  I am doing what needs to be done.  This blog post is a step in the process of getting better too.  I have been feeling guilty for weeks that I haven't done a blog post because I have told myself that I was going to blog once a week.  So, I decided today instead of feeling guilty about it and laying down tonight thinking, well I didn't blog, again and feeling bad about myself, I would sit down and blog...So right now I feel much better about myself.  It is so much easier to just do the things we know we should.  And it makes you feel so much better!  So if you are stressed out or feeling a little less than proud of yourself today, I challenge you to think about what you can do today to rid yourself of a little stress or a little regret?  How can you be better today than you were yesterday?

Are you ready to change or ready to make excuses?

Ok, so I have another blog post.  I am feeling inspired.  I found this on facebook today.  Not even sure who posted but man is it good!  Then a friend emailed me that she was struggling with consistency and discipline and thought that the message in the picture above probably applied to her situation.  So, I was simply sending her a response to try to help her and I realized that maybe what I said to her could help someone else too.  So, here it is.  That big black post translates to your situation very much. It says it all. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how bad do you want it...??? Do you really want it? Really? Really? Because if you don't really want whatever it is you say you want. I can promise you, you're never gonna get it. For years I was fat, for years I said I need to exercise, I need to diet, I'm gonna start tomorrow. I'll start Monday. Then Monday or tomorrow came and I found a different excuse for why I wasn't going to do it. I was too stressed. I was too tired. I was too busy. It wasn't until I decided I didn't care what it took I was NOT going to be a "fat" mom. It wasn't until I had kids that it really became important to me to not be fat.  So for years, I made excuses instead.  But then I decided I was not going set an example for my kids of how I didn't want them to live and then expect them to live differently.It became important for me to not be fat.   And there are times when it sucks, when I don't wanna do it. I fall constantly. I fail at something everyday. But you know what I no longer use my failures today to justify more failures tomorrow. Every day you have to get up and say today I am going to do better today that I did yesterday. And you know what you can do that. You can do better everyday. And when you screw up, because you will, just say to yourself, well I will do better tomorrow and MEAN IT!!! Tomorrow DO NOT get up and think, well I might as well eat like crap today because I did yesterday or because  I am going to eat like crap on Thanksgiving. That is little life. That is making an excuse to justify doing something you know you shouldn't do. Do what you can when you have control over it. Don't deprive yourself of Thanksgiving or date night or beat yourself up if someone invites you over for dinner. At those times when you can't control what you eat, control how much you eat. And please remember the next time you eat bad is probably not your last supper. You don't have to eat four desserts. Eat one dessert or eat one piece of pie and half a piece of another. If you eat Taco Bell, eat one burrito, not a burrito, a mexi melt, and a taco (that's what I used to do) eat one. One is enough, you can have the other next time. Plan your work outs. Commit to following your plan and don't waiver from it. Make the decision that if it's on your calendar its because this is when you believed you could do it and should be able to do, and then do it. And if you screw up and don't do it when you are supposed to, forgive yourself, move on and by golly, you better do it next time. Don't excuse yourself out of doing it next time just because you didn't do it last time. So here's a reminder of what I did last year. I weighed 221 pounds the day after Thanksgiving. By new years day I weighed 203. That's roughly 8% of my body weight. I believe you can  lose 5% of your body weight by New Years day.And I will make the commitment to you that I am going to do the same. For me it's 8 lbs.What are your goals that you want to have met by New Years Day? What is gonna make you feel like you have lived a big life, lived your best by New Years day? What's your work out plan for the next week. Find someone who can be your accountability partner.  Share with them your work out plan, share with them what you eat.  Hold each other accountable.  It's hard to be consistent if you don't have any accountability. It's hard to be consistent until it becomes a habit. It's hard to be consistent until something becomes important to you. So when you set goals make sure they are something that are important to you, not to me, or your friend, or your husband, or anyone else in this world. Only you. Then your accountability partner will help you stick to it. So do you really want to make a change? Because if you really wanna make a change you can. You just have to decide it's important to you and stop making excuses.  And remember you don't learn discipline over night, it is a process, a greuling process.Are you ready?


I hope this helps someone else.  And I hope it helps her.  By the way, for anyone who wants an accountability partner, I am willing to be that for you.  Really I am.  I really feel like part of God's plan for me is to help others through the same journey that I am going through.  If you have my number call me or message me through Facebook and I would love to help you meet your goals!   

Finding time

So, I have been feeling a bit uninspiring and a bit unworthy of writing something that I think might help someone else.  Now that's not to say that I haven't had some major break throughs and made some major life changes.  I guess I am struggling with the fact that it's a bit embarrassing and I am a bit ashamed of some of the things that were "wrong" in my life.  Really a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog.  I have been struggling through making to-do lists and blocking out my time.  It's a love hate relationship.  You see the thing is, I used to make excuses for why I couldn't do this today and I would put off until tomorrow what I should have been doing today.  So I started doing to do lists and I found it incredible what I could get done in a day.  Then I stopped after three or four days because I realized that I had spent the last month to month and a half getting all the "stuff" done that needed doing in my life.  You know the "stuff" no one really enjoys doing.  We're talking deep cleaning the house, cleaning out all the closets and storage spaces in our house, the kitchen, the dressers, the whole nine yards.  I cleaned until I couldn't see straight for days. I have added more work outs.  I have added time with friends.  I have added and added and added things to my life and I have reached a point to where I have more time than things to do.  Nice problem, right?  Well not really.  It's a bittersweet thing.  I look back over the last two years and am filled with regret about what I should have been doing.  So that's something that I am having to deal with.  I have realized that I have been living a life without much purpose outside of these four walls.  Not that my life within these four walls doesn't have purpose.  I am raising two wonderful kids and getting to experience things with them by staying at home that many don't ever get to experience.  But I know that God is calling me to something bigger than that.  So I am in the middle of this journey to find what I can do to make an impact in this world.  How can I use my time to make a difference.  You see I used to give all this time to trying to do tasks perfectly.  I would spend two hours cleaning my floors, now I spend 30.  And no they are not as clean as they were when I spent two hours on them but they are cleaner than they were before I started and now I have an extra 1 1/2 hours that I can spend doing something different and bigger than sweeping and mopping floors.  I used to spend all day Monday picking up the house and doing 7 or 8 loads of laundry.  Now I just do laundry on the fly, a little bit every day and same goes with the picking up the house.  I do it as I go.  So there is a whole day now that I can dedicate to something different, something bigger than laundry and picking up.  You see, I have learned through my coaching with Lonnie that I used to use perfectionism as an excuse.  I used it as an excuse to do it later when I have enough time to do it perfect instead of doing it right now in the time that I have.  He introduced me to the "law" that tasks will expand to fill the time you allow then to.  He encouraged me to block out half the time that I thought it would take to do something and I found rather quickly that sometimes I could still get it done quicker.  So, the moral of this blog I guess is that if you find yourself not getting enough things done, I encourage you to make a to do list and block out time on your calendar of when you are going to do things. You will be amazed at how simply setting a schedule for yourself of what you are going to do and when you are going to do it can change how much time you have and how much you get done.  Try it for one week.  I can almost guarantee you that you will get more done than you ever thought possible.  Setting a schedule has changed me.  I schedule my wake up times, my work out times, my cleaning times, everything so now I don't lay in bed and think should I get up?  I don't walk around the house and think, what do I feel like doing?  I wake up look at the clock and see it's 5:00 and I get up.  I have a run scheduled or a task scheduled and I need to do it.  I look at the schedule and see it's time to clean the bathrooms and I do just that instead of standing there thinking, I need to clean the kitchen, but I don't really feel like it.  I do it regardless because if I don't do whatever it is I have scheduled, I won't feel like when I go to bed that night that I have given my best.  By following my schedule I know everyday that I have given my best because I sat down the night before and said to myself, what do I need to get done tomorrow in order to be successful?  And I put it on the schedule.  Now I will tell you there are days when my schedule gets off and there are days when I get done more than scheduled.  But even on my "off" days, I get WAY more done than I ever used to.  And now I have time to do something that can make a difference in this world.  I don't know exactly what that is yet but my heart and mind are open to finding ways to make an impact.

Is it really this simple? It's all about perspective

So, this week I started my coaching with Lonnie and Pamela Crim.  Monday night I talked with Lonnie and the thing that struck me the most was he said, in regards to me grumbling a bit about "having" to clean my kids car seats which are long overdue a cleaning, "Jennifer it's all about your perspective.  You need to change your perspective.  Do you know how many mamas would LOVE to be able to clean their babies car seats.  What about all the women whose children are sick and in the hospital." And then my mind went to or what about all the women who are struggling to even get pregnant.  You can betcha I will never grumble again or say I have to clean my kids car seats.  Now my week has been rough and tumble a bit.  I was completely out of commission on Tuesday with a chest cold and didn't get home until Wednesday.  I was still feeling pretty rough then too.  Long story short I haven't gotten to clean the car seats because I have needed to use them.  The covers have to hang dry so they take a while to dry.  But I can guarantee you Sunday we aren't going anywhere and I am going to clean those car seats like it's nobody's business.  I am so thankful to have my two beautiful children to put in those car seats, the car to put the seats in, the funds to pay for the car and the seats and the gas to drive the car down the road.  And as life has a way of doing, I got another lesson in perspective yesterday.  My cousin Bonnie and my Aunt Rhonda came for a visit.  Bonnie was oogling and googling over different things about my house.  And it made me laugh because you see, when I went to Bonnie's I did the same thing.  I oogled and google over the fact that hers was newer construction, mine was built in 1979.  And her furniture was newer and looked like it belongs in her house.  I used to feel that mine looked off because I had picked it out to match a entirely different house.  She oogled and googled over my "vintage" light fixtures and design.  Which again makes me giggle because often times my husband and I grumble over the fact that it's not new construction, the real master bedroom has a tiny closet, and a myriad of other things that we find to be imperfections.  But that's not what Bonnie saw.  You see Bonnie fell in love the instant she drove in the driveway.  She said it was the most beautiful house she had ever seen.  She drooled over my white kitchen cabinets (my 1979 made cabinets which I painted and put new handles on, which my husband and I constantly talk about replacing) she loved the really cool see through fireplace (which has always driven me crazy because it makes it hard to arrange furniture) and she even loved the old brick hearth.  And you know what is even funnier to me is that the kitchen table with chairs from a different table, her and her mom just both loved, and let me tell you now seriously those mismatched (dirty) chairs and table have made me hesitate to invite people over....oh my how embarassing is that to admit.  So, the long and short of it is...I have changed my perspective...I do have the coolest house ever!  I have a house that was built by my husband's grandpa.  It's imperfectly perfect because it is a non-traditional design with a floorplan that you're sure to never find again.  2100 square feet spread out on three levels.  A master bedroom on the main floor with a tiny closet perfect for Griffin.  Which leaves us upstairs with Sydney, which is perfect because Sydney comes to sleep with us every night at some point, so she doesn't have to climb stairs.  Perfect because Griffin will never be the kind of kid that wants to crawl in bed with mom and dad.  A kitchen filled with cabinets that his grandpa made by hand that has deep indentations and scratches on them on the doors that Rob's grandma used a lot that came from her wedding ring.  A counter built for her that's built to her 5'1" frame (I'm 5'9") that is the perfect place to pull up stools to and let the kids eat.  A house that was built so sturdy the basement is as dry as the Arizona desert with plenty of wall space to display my kids pictures.  A house that is a home to my beautiful family that was full of a wonderful history already before we ever started making our own here.  It really is amazing what a shift in perspective can do for you.  It has totally change my view on almost everything including food.  Food is fuel.  Food is not a reward.  and because of that shift in perspective I have lost 11 lbs since attending the Smokin Hot Mama Retreat the first weekend in October.  Wooooo hoooooo!!!  I'll end this post with Lonnie's example that I will never forget.  He shared with me that maybe I was watching the 3D movie of my life without the 3D glasses.  You see you can watch a 3D movie without the glasses and you are still watching the same movie as everyone else in the theater, but how much cooler is it when you wear the glasses.   So my glasses are ON!!!

Kitchen and Closet Organizing Disaster

Okay, so you would think that organizing your kitchen and organizing a closet is no big deal right?  Well, for most people, maybe it's not a big deal.  For me it caused a near melt down.  I'm not even really sure if it was Monday or Tuesday, this week has been a little bit crazy.  So let's start with what happened in the kitchen...I needed to organize my silverware drawer, my cooking utensil drawer, tupperware drawer, and my vinegar and oil/junk cabinet.  Well, let me just tell you what was lurking in there...glasses that I had kept of Rob's grandma's, my grandma's (who was killed in a car accident in 2006) cookie cutters, the kids baby spoons, various oil and vinegars from various failed diets, and junk, junk, junk, and a little more junk.  I decided that since we have lived here 2 years and never used Rob's grandma's glasses, very fancy glasses, that it was time to part with these, they were taking up two shelves in a room where I have very little real estate...and that is hard.  It is hard to part with something that meant something to you.  It hurts to get rid of a little piece of them and it hurts to remember them.  And this was a woman I had only known since 2003.  My grandma's cookie cutters stirred emotions in me that were like a knife in my heart.  Growing up my grandma made cookies for every holiday and I miss her.  I miss her every holiday and everytime I read her bible and everytime I see something of hers, I miss her and it hurts.  It hurts just as much now as it did then. She was such a HUGE part of my life.  And it is hard to get of baby spoons, when they were your babies spoons, its hard to process that they no longer need baby spoons, and it's hard knowing that these babies are the last babies you will have.  And oh, my the old vinegars and oils.  Well, they may as well slapped me in the face and said, yeah, you're not going to lose anymore weight, and look at how much money you wasted on us. Same goes for the junk, why in the world did I buy or keep all this junk. It's hard to face sometimes, all these emotions that can come up when we really dig in and start trying to clean up and organize things.  I think this is a huge reason people or at least people like me put things like this off.  Getting rid of things is hard.  Seeing how you let something get so messy is hard.  Admitting failures and moving on is easier said than done.  And all of this from cleaning a few cabinets in the kitchen.  I swear, I almost felt like someone on the show hoarders...I wanted to go stomping out of the house screaming, I can't do it.  Just leave my stuff alone.  It's my stuff.  But thankfully, I kept it together.  In the closet I was greeted by old clothes that are still too small to wear, trinkets bought as souvenirs that never left the closet, Sydney's baby things, leftover Arbonne from when I thought it was a great idea to sell it, and a general mess.  It's just a huge struggle to get slapped in the face with so many failures in such a small little space.  It took everything I had to get through cleaning these two areas of my home.  But now it is done, and I feel so much better.  I feel like I processed through the emotions of all of this and have a new commitment to losing that weight.  I will so wear those shorts from my skinny days again.  I will make better decisions on everything I buy.  I don't want to be back here in five years wondering why I ever accumulated so much junk and wasted so much money.  Facing your fears and failures head on really does make you a stronger person and that's the life lesson I received this week while doing a seemingly mindless task.   It's amazing how writing a blog makes you process things differently. 

Clearing out the Clutter

Since I got back from the Smokin Hot Mama Retreat two weeks ago I have focused on clearing out the clutter.  Out of my house, out of my car, out of my head.  I've made a discovery.  It is easier to function in life without so much clutter in my head and in my house.  Let's start with the mental clutter.  For a while now, I have had in my head that my mother in law looks down on me for staying at home with my kids and for buying yellow box flip flops, a kinda pricy brand of flip flops that I LOVE...I had thought for months about trying to talk to her about some things and could never quite get the courage to because "she kinda scares me a little bit".  I totally say this tongue in cheek.  She is a wonderful woman and one I admire very much, but she is also one that I don't want to make mad, and I value her opinion of me, so I was scared to say some of the things I wanted to say because I thought I might make her mad...  I let this clutter my brain up.  So, I decided when I got home to write her an email to tell her some of the things I wanted her to know.  And her response was everything opposite of what I had been thinking she was thinking.  And here I had let this clutter my brain for months, thinking that she was thinking poorly of me and mad at me, when that was anything but the case.  I have also been dealing with some health insurance drama that is a long story.  But what it boils down to I could stick my hand in the sand and not make a few phone calls to get some answers to questions and worry for the next 6 months or I could make a few phone calls and possibly here some answers I didn't want to hear.  Well, I tackled those phone calls, and turns out I have nothing to worry about, everything is fine with my current policy, and they can't cancel me in 6 months like I thought.  And again, I could have spent the next six months off and on worrying about something that there is no need in worrying about. 
Now let's move along to the house.  I am starting to see that how I keep my house, greatly effects my mood and my stress level and even my relationship with my husband.  There is just something soothing about walking into a bedroom at night and seeing a bed that is made and the room is neat.  I used to never make my bed, my thought was, what's the point, nobody's gonna see it and I'm just gonna mess it up again tonight. There is also something refreshing about opening my medicine cabinet and knowing exactly where to look for the cold medicine instead of getting the feeling of searching for a needle in a haystack.  And my kids are having a blast playing in Griffin's cleaned out closet that is no longer bursting at the seams.  Sydney calls it her dog house.  For me a clean house is easier to function in.  Things don't take as long to find.  Things don't take as long to put up when you aren't trying to cram them into a cabinet, closet or drawer that are stuffed to the gills.  There is less stress when there is less mess.  And you can ask my mama...this isn't something that comes naturally for me.  But unfortunately, yes I'm gonna say it.  My mama was right.  It is easier when you clean as you go...This isn't something that happens over night.  I still have a long way to go.  But, I am now finding when I go to my room in the afternoon to put up laundry, that I look at the bed and think...hmmmm I don't even remember when I made the bed.  There are a few things that have helped me in getting organized.  One, my sister in law's mother once told me she uses the philosophy "Don't Pass it Up, Pick it Up"  and wow, try this for a few days and you will be amazed.  Instead of thinking I need to pick up those toys or I need to unload that dishwasher, I now pick up the toys or unload the dishwasher.  It's phenomenal really how this little saying has made my life so much easier.  The other thing I do is I play a little game with myself.  I say in the morning, okay, what about my house would I be the most embarrassed about if Rob's Aunt Cindy saw it if she stops by today.  (She's gonna kill me if she reads this, but I'm trying to be an open book so, there ya go)  You see Rob's Aunt Cindy keeps the cleanest house I have ever seen.  She and my mother are my heros when it comes to cleaning house, but my mom can't stop by any day because she lives in Wichita, so Aunt Cindy it is. 
So I know everyone doesn't tick exactly like me but maybe just maybe if you are feeling a little stressed out, worn out or out of control, you can clear out some mental clutter or literal clutter from you life and maybe one of my solutions to my struggles might help you too! 

Houston, we have a problem...

Okay, so last time I told you that I fell off the wagon.  It all started with two pieces of paper.  Two pieces of paper than gave me a whole lot of information I was not prepared to deal with.  Those two sheets of paper told me that I have digestive sensitivities to the following plus some I won't mention, it's a really long list.  Milk, all cheese, eggs, garlic, wheat, gluten, yeast, oatmeal, tumeric (the stuff in mustard), pineapple, honeydew melon, crab, and the list goes on.  I never counted but there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 things that I am either never supposed to eat or very infrequently.  Dairy was such a high sensitivity I was advised to never eat it.  Same goes with yeast and oatmeal.  This information was life a bomb blew up in my life.  These were things I was living on, and achieving weight loss on.  Milk and oatmeal in the morning.  Sandwiches at lunch.  It rules out bread. So I felt completely out of control.  These two pieces of paper told me something I didn't want to hear.  And I was faced with the choice of giving this all up or living with digestive issues which would prohibit me from being able to lose much more weight.  They were also causing inflammation in my body that was not allowing my muscle to recover like they should from my workouts, so I was having headaches and shoulder pain.  I found this out just before I left for vacation.  For three weeks I did a cleanse to repair my digestive tract.  And it was brutal.  But my pain lessened and I did feel better and I started losing weight again.  But it was so strict that I felt deprived.  So I went on vacation and I stuck my head in the sand.  I ate whatever I wanted.  And I gained a ton of weight in the two weeks I was away from our house.  We were in Springfield for Rob to work just before leaving.  Then when I got home everything seemed to spiral from there.  I felt spun out.  I felt out of control.  This spilled over into feeling out of control of our finances, out of control trying to keep the house clean, out of control making my children behave, out of control of the fact that my husband was having to travel so much, ok so you get the picture.   I allowed one area of my life to spill into all the others.  You see the problem was for 5 months I was all in.  All in on losing weight.  All in focused on weight loss and when I plateaued and found out about my food sensitivities, I wasn't ready to go there.  I had defined feeling good about myself as being successful at weightloss, and when I couldn't lose more I felt helpless and I gave up.  So, I'm having to learn how to control one of the not so finer sides of me.  I am having to learn a little balance in my life, a little discipline, and a whole lot of patience for my own failures.  Everything in life can't be all or nothing as I had made it with losing weight.  Everything in life can't be perfect, one of my packages, as Mrs. Pamela Crim calls them.  But if you stick your head in the sand, like I have a tendency to do and did with the eating, I can almost assure you that your problem or issue will get worse, like mine did.  So when it comes to weight loss you have to get rid of the all or nothing mentality that so many of us have.  I'll either be on a diet or I'll eat everything in sight. So don't start a diet tomorrow, don't start it on Monday, start now.  And actually don't diet.  Just decide right now that you are going to make a lifestyle change because this is the only way it's going to work. And start small, don't start by trying to take your biggest problem head on, start with something you know you can handle and have success at.  It turned around for me when we started the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Course. It gave me something else to focus on, it gave me a different way to define my success.  My focus shifted.  I found myself obsessing less and less about not losing weight.  And when I got control over this area, it trickled into other areas.  I'm back in control of my weight,I'm working out more and finally back to running, my house is neater than ever, I'm at peace with Rob traveling, I'm more patient with the kids (although, this area still needs work)  So look at your life, what small things can you conquer right now, today that might give you a jump start to conquering your goals, gaining control of your life?