Thank You!

 
Day - Final Blog Post

Good morning, my dear friends & family who actually read my blog.  I had every intention of continuing my blogging ritual and working on Phase II starting this morning.  As fate would have it, simultaneously, I am involved in an 8 week self-care challenge through an acquaintance who recently started an Ayurveda practice.  I don't really know what Ayurveda is right now, to be honest, but I am interested in learning.

Today marked the start of the first week's challenge.  Among other things, we (the participants in the group) were to begin our day with a 5 minute meditation or breath awareness exercise and then drink a cup of hot (or room temperature) water.  There are supposed digestive benefits to this practice and since that is sometimes an issue for me, I was game to try.  I have a special tea pot that I never use, but always thought would be nice for a ceremony or spiritual practice.  I filled the pretty tea pot with hot water and sat on my meditation cushion to begin.

I did a 5 minute meditation, then brought the tea pot to the floor with me and filled the small cup.  I began to sip the water, sitting there in my workout clothes, sort of wanting to get this "ritual" over with so I could get down to my gym and start my workout and get on with my day.  I was first surprised by how much the taste didn't bother me (as I expected it would) and how much I actually enjoyed it.  I brought a notebook and began to make a list of what I absolutely needed to get done today, because sadly, I am behind in so many things.

Little by little though, I felt more and more relaxed and contemplative.  When I was finished, I couldn't bring myself to go down to my gym, so I decided I would do some yoga instead.  I got all set up for yoga and began following a dvd and then just couldn't seem to move my body anymore.  I stopped the video, rolled my yoga mat back up and ventured to my kitchen to make breakfast.  The hot water really stimulated my appetite.

I did work on my kitchen over the weekend and stocked up on meat and protein-rich foods.  I felt so unmotivated that I reached for my box of Special K with protein in lieu of making anything more complicated and used regular skim milk (instead of my usual unsweetened almond milk) because of the added protein boost.  My breakfast came in at 307 calories with 19 grams of protein.  And I wrote it down in my new tracker (as I hastily ripped out the crazy pages I began last week in favor a more simplistic tracking approach).

Then, I just sat there feeling sort of numb.  It is a very dreary, rainy day which hasn't helped my mood.  But more than that, I just feel I am at a cross roads.  I love writing my blog, but as I thought about it and the evolution of my "diet" and weight loss efforts from my initial experiment, I realized that in the most simple terms, my experiment failed.  And now it's just me back to the grindstone, somewhat wiser perhaps?, but just one of billions of people trying to lose weight and become healthier.  And maybe that isn't really what I want to be writing about day after day?

I will continue along my journey, making the necessary adjustments and keeping my eye on the prize (which for me is reaching closer to my pre-pregnancy weight than my highest pregnancy weight).  But, I have some serious soul-searching to do regarding my next steps career-wise, a lot to learn and research and think about.  A lot of meditating.  And getting back to "being" more and "doing" differently.  Doing less in general so I am not on a constant hamster wheel running fast and getting nowhere.  But doing more in strategic steps forward, spending time on the things that will elevate my day to day life experience and get me closer to my long-term goals.  Sometimes it is challenging to discern what those steps are without stepping back to get a broader view.

I wish you all a great summer!  I wish you great success along whatever journey you are on or are soon to be!  And don't forget to look for striveheedfully.com coming this fall.

Until then...  Be well!
And THANK YOU for all of your encouragement, support and friendship.
~Tracy  


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