Celebration of the Body

Last Saturday, April 25th was the 10 year anniversary of breaking my neck. It was a hair line fracture to the C2 vertebra. It's a crazy anniversary to have but when I let my thoughts go as far to playing the "what if" game I know a celebration is in order. I've been told over the last decade how "lucky" I am that everything worked out the way it did as the result was miraculous.

Any miraculous situation calls for a celebration right!? What better way to have a party for my body than to attend my favorite yoga class? It's a 1.5 hour sweat fest and Gina's best torture techniques blended together in a way that keeps me coming back for more.

It was a great time of focusing on how much my body can do. The whole 1.5 hour was focused on the unique appreciation I have grown to have for my body. It was an amazing time of realizing how blessed I am to be able to move through each pose and enjoy the benefit of exercise. I was even able to practice (for the first time) a forearm balance. I didn't get it but the ability to be able to practice and the reality that I CAN attain it someday was enough.

The past decade since my injury I've been blessed to experience life with movement of my arms and legs-something that could have been taken away in the blink of an eye. Yet it didn't turn out that way but since April 25th, 1999 I've had a different perspective. Now looking back it's not surprising that the path I went down in the last 10 years was what it was. I believe my life today would be different had I not experienced what it was like to almost have life and mobility taken away. Here's a list of the last 10 years; a summary of what I've done with the gift of life and mobility I've been given:

1. Up my expertise in the sport of slalom water-skiing.
2. Figure out I love white water rafting.
3. Discover the pure joy that comes from having a child.
4. See parts of the world and experience different cultures. I love feeling cultured!
5. Find that I love working with people and helping them make their bodies stronger.
6. I can run 12 races in 12 months.
7. Some college degrees.
8. Getting married.
9. A love for learning and experiencing new things.
10. Feeling the wind on my face while riding a bike.

My hope is the next decade will bring just as many milestones. I just need to keep pushing the limit and always remember how wonderful it is to experience life and mobility and to do something with what I have.....hallelujah, my body works!

Quote of the Week

“When the world says, 'Give up,' hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.' ”

Quote of the Week

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection.”

—Thomas Paine

Stages of Change

Transition. That seemed to be the thought I couldn't escape during a solo run the other day. I reflected on personal transitions as it relates to food. Acknowledgement that I've never been a super-healthy eater entered my realm of thinking.

I love food. That's probably one of the single most important factors that led me to a life as a trainer. I've consistently exercised since I was in the 7th grade. Actually, I can't remember a time in my life where I wasn't active. Up until the end of last year I can honestly admit the #1 reason I exercised was so it would balance my eating habits (as I LOVE food). As I age, I've quickly concluded my wonderful theory of habitual exercise and unlimited food no longer holds true.

Over the past months as I've publicly struggled with my one sweet a week goal for 2009. I am slowly transitioning my perspective of food but still fight it most everyday.

I really like the stages of change model and thought it appropriate to put myself as an example in order to explain it better.

Pre-Contemplation: Living the life, eating whatever came my way and not realizing it was an issue because, hey, I exercise.
Contemplation: Looking for a 2009 goal of something I could do on a monthly or weekly basis. I contemplated the sweet goal for a good month before having the confidence in myself to go through with it.
Determination/Preparation: I'd classify this as the month of December where I "practiced" eating one sweet per week. Here I was definitely trying to convince myself it could be done...by me.
Action: I'm here today. Certain weeks seem like a struggle and it's 100% WORK to stay away from a sweet most days. I'll get glimpses of easy weeks where the days go by without the thought of a sweet...oh how I love those weeks.
Maintenance: This is my goal stage. I want to live this sweet thing out and I believe I can.
Relapse: If I go back to my old ways of eating sweets each and every day I'll be back to square one. I already know, I'm not going there.

Quote of the Week

"If you aim at nothing, you will hit it everytime."
-Zig Ziglar

Quote

“Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.” -Anthony Robbins

Vice Buster!

One interesting book I went back to in order to get some facts on sweet consumption is, The Vice-Busting Diet. I remembered from a couple of years ago, when I read the book and took a group of ladies through the steps, it had some very fascinating facts on sweets that would be worth sharing.

However once I read through the parts that interest me, I quickly remembered it's not all about sweets...even though sweets is the number one vice in America! Hi Sweet-a-Week friends...we might not have gotten it wrong after all!

The book is based on the top twelve vices that Americans have that contribute to weight problems. The top three vices are:
1. Soft Drinks
2. Fast Food
3. Television

I'll briefly give some facts on the top three vices. They are very interesting, so keep on reading.

Soft Drinks
1. Soda drinks that aren't "diet" is the single most important factor in making our nation obese. (This doesn't mean Mandy wants you to grab a "diet" soda though!)
2. In the 1950's the typical soft drink order at a fast-good chain contained about 8ounces of soda. Today a "large" at McD's is 32ounces!
3. The USDA recommends the average person on a 2,000-calorie/day diet include no more than 40grams of added sugars. In the year 2000 the average American consumed an average of 152 pounds of caloric sweeteners.
4. In the 1950's Hi Fructos.e Corn Syru.p was practically negligible, while in the year 2000 it accounted for almost 64pounds per person (based on dry weight). And they say it's not bad for us?!
5. Calories from liquids don't seem to register the same way as solid foods with the same "bad"calories like candy. Our bodies processes liquids much more quickly than solids, so a soft drink or high-calorie beverage won't fill you up the same way food can. Also, these types of sugars dehydrate your body.

Those five reasons above confirmed my life-long quest of living without sweet drinks but rather learning to love water as my sole daily drink two years ago. I haven't looked back since.

Fast Food
1. The most commonly consumed item at a fast-food restaurant is beef. Our consumptions of beef over the last 50 years has steadily increased. In the 1950's we consumed an annual average of 53 pounds per person. While in the year 2000 the annual average was 65 pounds per person. The number continues to rise today from all viable evidence.
2. Cheese has also increased. It went from 7.7 pounds in the 50's to 29.8 pounds-average in 2000. That's an increase of 287%
3. Consumption of milk and eggs is down. Milk has gone from 37 gallons to 23 gallons per person. The egg consumption is down from 374 per person in the 50's to 250 eggs per person in 2000.
4. The book also suggests that we eat more bad stuff now because we have things like light beer, low-fat crackers, low-carb cookies and 100 cal paks, which seem to give us permission to have more.

Television
1. The average American watches 4 hours of TV per day. That's 1460 hours! That's 25% of our waking hours. It keeps us from things we always wanted or dreamed of doing.
2. TV can also be a brain-washing tool. In 1999, more than $40 billion was spent on advertising, and the commercials we're watching encourage us to eat at fast-food restaurants and indulge ourselves. So we sit doing nothing and the only motivation we get is to put high-calorie, high-fat foods into our mouths.

Hopefully this is just as fascinating to you as it was for me. A good reminder of how NOT to live life, along with some fun facts!

Quote of the Week

"When you are through changing, you are through."