I finished a 5k today - and I want to share with you what happened...

My daughter and her friend asked if I wanted to do a fun 5k with them - we would walk it. Since I haven’t done steady cardio in ages I said - sure!

Now race day came and for absolutely valid/important reasons, both of them had to cancel so I was at the start line... by myself (my thought)

Now, I’ve read and embraced some really interesting concepts over the years...and I’ll share them with you here... someday during your meditation, think of your inner self as a bus. And all the parts of you are sitting on that bus. Some of them you can see and know well - they are usually sitting at the front of the bus and they are the ones we let drive and/navigate the most. Some are in the middle. Maybe you don’t pay attention to them as much and some of them get obnoxious to try and get that attention. Some are quiet and don’t want to be noticed. Some are waaaay back - so far back we can’t even see or recognize them. But they are all US and they are neither good - nor bad. They just are. A fun excercise is to try walking theough the bus - talking to each one and getting to know them better - find their names.. Some of mine are - the mother, the child, the sister, the father, the dictator, the feast beast, the wild child, the vixion, the minx, the Amazon. So - if all this entities are us.. who is it that’s looking at them, talking to them, and processing their characteristics? That’s who I call the watcher. Some might call we the inner goddess - I think there is a physiological term for it - but I’ll get it wrong if I try to guess. Anyway-they are the one who can separate our selves, observe them and does nothing but love them. When I’m not getting the results I want or not feeling the feelings I want I engage the watcher and try to observe everything from that place of non-judgement.

Soooo back to the race. I was at the starting line and The Child was in the drivers seat fighting with the dictator and others

The child: this sucks! Everyone is here with their friends and we’re here alone. This was supposed to be fun, but it’s no fun at all!

The mother: stop - they couldn’t be here for good reasons!

The child: I know, but this still sucks. It’s hot and we only agreed to do this cause they were doing it!

Announcer says the race is three laps and we can stop after any of them.

We start and...

The child: good! This is boring! We only do one then go home!

The protecter: it’s hot, we didn’t train we shouldn’t over do it. Only one

The perfectionist: but it’s a 5k, one lap is not a 5k. We have to do all three

The dictator: stop being a lazy cow! I can’t belive you would even think of stopping!

On and on...

Then 1/2 way through the first lap - someone maybe the mother said “does any of these thoughts making doing this any easier?” (Even the ‘helpful ones?)

Everyone: No!

Engage the watcher

The watcher: Well then - what will

Everyone:....thinking of our goals!!

It started then. “What are my goals?” And the ones I write on my planner every day popped up - fitter, faster, stronger... I held onto those like a mantra with the dictator leading the chant with ever step

Then others started joining in:

The vixen: sexier running is sexy

The minx: and it makes our butt look good

Amazon: running is badass too

The crone: and it makes our bones strong so we won’t be a ‘bent’ old lady

The rest of the event flew by! All the reasons to finish coming up - even the feast beast helped by reminding me that his goal is to eat more... and running means we can do that

“With in reason” reminded the mother

When I got hot - the Amazon reminded me that Amazon’s don’t fear the heat!

When I got bored - the child started making up games

When I got tired - the protecter reminded me it was ok to slow down...

And we all crossed the finish line together with a big SMILE!!

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442Kim Siberski, Angela Moore and 440 others

 A long time ago (over a year... oh god a year and a half!?) I was struggling with my inner dictator - the one that tells me a diet is the only way to lose weight (must not eat bread... you know, that guy) - and I went on a coaching call. Corinne asked me if I was waiting for hunger to eat and I said Hell Yeah!! She then asked if I was stopping at enough. And I wasn’t as confident. She suggested THAT was my work. So, I’ve dropped the diet bullshit and I’ve been working on figuring out enough since then.

Fast forward to present times. I’ve gained some weight back. There’s not a lot of drama about it cause I know I haven’t been consistently doing the basics. I love myself as much as ever. Anyway...(making a long story longer - hah!) something struck me when we were going through basics 2.0. Corinne mentioned that ‘doable hunger’ didn’t roar at you. Doable hunger sounded more that Kathy instead of Corinne and a lightbulb went off!! I started tracking when I was eating. My accountability partner (my daughter) and I made a scale that made it fun - naming our hunger levels after each of the coaches. And you’ll hear us tell each other. Ooo waiting too long - I’m Corinne hungry right now... or I’m MJ hungry!

That’s when I realized I was still having some diet BS going on. You see I’m REALLY REALLY good at waiting for hungry. I mean, 35 years ago I was drinking bullion and diet tea for lunch to lose weight...10 years ago I went 8 months only eating 900 - 1200 calories a day. Add on top of that a little ADD and when my body ‘whispers’ it’s easy to forget to eat cause...something shiny! It has to roar at me to get me to put food in my face more than 1/2 the time. And when my body is roaring it makes finding enough harder... (not impossible...) my feast beast kicks in and says we need to eat cause there is no telling when this bitch is going to stop to eat again!!

So last night I made a goal to ‘find Kathy hunger and listen to it’ I’ve taken my urge jar and every time I eat within 15 minutes of the whisper, I get a rock...

This AM - I missed the whisper by about 40 minutes. Was at MJ hunger when I started to cook my breakfast. But even then I could tell the difference! I had put a pancake on my plan... but didn’t want to go through the trouble of fixing it. So I grabbed an English muffin. Then though hmmm may that’s not totally an equal swap...so I grabbed 1/2 of one instead. Then sat down to eat and 1/2 way through —- I lost interest in my food. Like I seriously looked down at my plate and went ... eh I totally don’t need the rest of this. Guys!! Before, finding ‘enough meant stopping when my body was still yelling at me and having to sit with hunger for about 10 minutes or so and seeing if it went away...this was such a different experience!

I can’t wait to see what the rest of this week’s experiment shows me!!!

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27Nancy Martin Curran, Paige Allison and 25 others

 I had an interesting experience at dinner tonight.

We had delivery...Chinese food, ice cream and cookies. I had some chicken and rice and then served myself a large bowl of ice cream and cookies.

A couple of things happened that I’m celebrating.First, a couple of bites in, I actually had the though ... “oooo I’m at enough!” I was excited to hear that as I’ve been working on my enough.

But, then I had that follow up of ‘I’m not ready to stop’. What was interesting for me though was that there was no “should” or “have to” in my conversation with myself. Instead there was this question of “OK...do you choose to over eat then?”

The answer ended up being “yes” but the difference in the feeling in eating from a place of “I’m choosing to overeat right now..” and “Fuck it” was incredible.

When eating was a choice not a rebellion, I finished my bowl and was just...done. And these was no beat down no guilt none of those other feelings that could have pushed this from an overeat of a bowl of ice cream and into a longer eating experience. And for that... I’m really proud. And it really speaks to the power of laddering up your thoughts and recognizing a level up...

Experiments 1, 2, and 3

 Can I lose 2 lbs this week? Can I do it without planning/counting calories/counting macros/just listening to my hunger signals?

Weigh in this AM was on the high end of 270 (279.8) so this weeks experiment is to see if I can lose 2 lbs this week.

They say 'lose it how you want to live it' and I would rather live it without a plan for the day.  This is an experiment to see if that is possible.

However - want to pay CLOSE attention to my hunger signals - I believe THAT is the real 'magic'.  It means I need to be a lot more in tune with myself.  Soooooo I'm going to log some details about my meals each day so I can refer back.

I'm also going to run a few other experiments

Experiment 2

Can I workout (30 minutes -even if it just a walk) every day through the end of May - how does that feel? (already did some weights this AM)

Experiment 3

If I have no alcohol after 7PM (three hours before bedtime) will it improve my sleep?

Meal 1:

eggs and sausage cooked in butter -- breakfast goto

1oz sausage

1 egg

1Tbs butter

Ate around 10:55 and was 'very hungry'

ate at a 'moderate pace' - cleaned the bowl

Went from 'very hungry' to 'I could eat more'

one hour check in at 12:00 

My very own hunger scale

Starving!

Very Hungry

I could Eat

Not hungry/Not Not Hungry

I've got some fuel

I'm Full

I'm Stuffed!

 Hello Blogger land..

Decided to make a post today... It's more of a.. I need a place to write something down... type some free form thoughts than actually ... blogging, but, whatever....

I mean, between facebook, youtube, twitter, instagram and whatever... does anyone even blog anymore?  There is a big part of me that misses the community that used to live in and around blogging... I don't know if it stopped or I did and lost contact.  :D Guess I could find out...

Anyway... the real reason I'm here... weight loss

I think I said before I joined the PNP tribe (now No BS Women) back in April 2019.  I lost some physical weight (about 65 lbs) and a LOT of mental Bullshit.  I stopped hating myself, stopped believing I had to be fit to be worthy, or beautiful or sexy....

With covid changing life as we knew it, and me struggling with my why.. I gained back some physical weight.  BUT I never stopped working on me. 

I've learned some things.  

When I see pictures or think about the times when I've lost a great deal of weight.  Thought one is.. damn I looked/felt good then! I wish I could get that back. Thought two is always.... ALWAYS -- that's going to take a lot of work... remember you did....((whatever program I was on at the time)).  And when I 'go there' it brings up feelings of deprivation, white knuckling ... etc.  Not very motivating! I've discovered that I have a belief that weight loss is hard... I want to fix that.  I've found that much of baggage that comes from weight loss (dieting) is because I've always approached it as project.  A set of tasks with delivery dates on a set timeline.  One that I want to complete as efficiently as possible.  But I've proven that doesn't work...

I've also figure out, I don't have a strong why.   Before, when I would berate or demean myself to get myself to comply with a program -- I could drum up some short term 'motivation'.  I mean, I could tell myself when I lost some weight... I could stop hating myself.  Well - that method got me nowhere.  So how do I do weight loss without disgust as my touchstone?  How to I say no to a delicious piece of cake when my counter to that isn't -- I'm not having cake because I hate my thighs.  ('because I love myself' hasn't yet motivated me to say no)

These things have been the focus of my past year or so of work it's lead me to the decision that I want to approach weight loss with a spirit of fun and curiosity and to do that I need to see it as an experiment rather than a project.  What's the difference? Well, there is no failing an experiment - Because an experiment is by definition "a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis or demonstrate a known fact".  There is no failure...  you just discover something, learn something or demonstrate something.... it may not be what you were expecting to discover, learn or demonstrate... but it is NOT a failure.

I also needed to take on my why... and why I'm writing this blog post, because I needed to capture this in a place where I could refer to it later. 

After all - what's the point of doing an experiment in weight loss if there isn't a gain somewhere in the end.  simple curiosity isn't enough for me - at the moment.  Why go on this journey in the first place? If the lower number on the scale isn't the key to happiness or self-worth or self-love... what's the point?  especially if there's the underlying belief that weight loss isn't easy.  Why do the hard thing and leave food behind, sit with feelings instead of eating them or any of those things if there isn't a good gold reason to do so....

How do I make weight loss easy? well there are actions I can do to make weight loss easy... and making those actions easy is by making the outcome more valuable than the short term...

And so I'm back to.. what is my why or why?  or, as I think I'm going to try calling them - my expected outcomes.

• diminish the belly - and this is not about the hate it's about the bulk
• My belly is bulky and uncomfortable its heavy and the weight hurts my back
• My belly inhibits my flexibility - something I value 
• My belly keeps me from sleeping comfortably on my stomach - what used to be my preferred position
• My belly gets in the way while working out... it makes deadlift, squat and biking harder than it has to be
• stop the shoulder (and other) pain...
• I'm pretty sure that weight gain has probably been at least part of the issues I've been having with my shoulder and arm pain as well as finger numbness
• The recent hip pain and escalated back pain could also be due to excessive weight
• Normalize Blood Pressure
• This is something I KNOW I fixed with diet and exercise before I don't know that it's back to being a problem, but I suspect it is (and hence why I haven't checked) 
• Walk - go up stairs - do normal things without becoming winded
• Yes, there is a portion of this that is fitness - but there is also the fact that carrying 270 lbs up a staircase is harder than carrying 170 lbs
• Run Faster
• I know, I know... training fitness blah blah blah, but, I've proven that just by lowering my weight I can get faster, training longer and train faster
• Wear all the boots!
• I love boots - I want to go back to being able to wear most boots - this means smaller calves and smaller calves come with weight loss
• Enjoy Food
• This is really the basis of my experiment... I want to prove that I can lose weight... get all those benefits and more while still eating food I love... while still being carefree, fun, spontaneous, adventurous
• For years I've lived with the belief that in order to lose weight I had to be a food snob (clean eating... how can you eat something so unhealthy!? etc etc).  I don't want to be a food snob.  I want to continue to eat like a toddler and reduce the pull of gravity on my body... 

there are also things I don't want

• I don't want to feel bloated, sluggish and overfull
• There is a feeling I can only describe as 'toxic' that I get when I overeat... I want to avoid that feeling.  
• This is a DIRECT... Measurable...IMMEDIATE thing I can track
• 
  

 It fits it fits!! I bought this dress in June thinking that if I hit my July 4h goal it would fit...I hit my goal...it still didn’t fit. I’ve been checking my my progress monthly since then and today, it finally zipped up!! YES!

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614Kim Siberski, Angela Moore and 612 others

I wanted to share my 'self care' experience from this morning.... ((copied from my share with my accountability group))

My breakfast this morning was scrambled eggs with cheese... It's a meal I love and that feels fantastic in my body. I eat it nearly every morning... seeing this as a gift to myself was an amazing shift for me.

It was like --- here nose.. I'm giving your this plate that smells good! Here tongue - I'm giving you a flavor that is pleasurable. Here tummy, I'm giving you something that makes you feel satisfied and digests easily. Here muscles, I'm giving you protein to grow...Here brain, I'm giving you fat to think... And when I thought about ALL of that... my simple meal became an event! It released ALL the endorphins ... But, in a different way than a piece of cake would have.

It led to a satisfaction that had staying power... Impulsive eating NEVER feels like this. I might get a 'hit' - a moment of satisfaction, but all it leaves is sense of wanting more (cause I was eating food to solve a problem it couldn't solve) Whereas viewing my morning meal as a loving PLANNED gift to myself seemed to fill up spaces I didn't know were empty.