Mindful Choices: Day 3

1. Another cool house, 2. Sidewalk Art, 3. Tanya and me, walking, 4. City Market - Shorewood, WI

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Another walk at lunch - only about 50 minutes, leisurely pace because Tanya had 3" heels on. Fresh air, great to talk with her after her trip to Riyadh. Felt good!

Mindful Choices: Day 2

1. John and I had a picnic dinner in the park!, 2. UWM's Downer Woods, 3. Klode Beach Park - Whitefish Bay, WI, 4. Atwater Beach Park - Shorewood, WI, 5. Sunset, 6. Crocuses where yesterday there were none!, 7. Atwater Beach Park - Shorewood, WI, 8. Atwater Beach Park - Shorewood, WI, 9. Kane and Amy, 10. UWM Alumni House, 11. Taking the stairs, 12. My favorite Irishman, 13. UWM's Downer Woods

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Took an hour and a half walk today with Amy and Kane, from UWM to Atwater Beach Park, to the Alumni House, and back to UWM. Also chose the stairs on my way to a 3rd floor meeting in Sabin, and walked around Klode Beach Park with John after work.

The weather was at least 70 degrees, even near the lake. What a beautiful day!

Choosing to walk ... with bare toes!

Yeah, it was warm today! I wore the flip-flops to prove to myself that I could.

John and me.

Not a long walk, but it sure felt good!

Choosing not to move, again

It's too easy to settle in, even with an awareness that I should move, that I want to move. Settling in with the computer, with the TV, with food. I wanted to take a walk today, but not badly enough to actually do it. I did have a headache, and took a 2.5 hour nap ... but then, instead of taking a walk, I checked my email, finished making the spinach pie I started yesterday, and generally wasted the rest of my day.

It doesn't help that I'm watching 98-pound Michele Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys. I have to get a perspective on what's possible and reasonable to expect for MY body. And just do it.

"oh, my...." re: me from the outside

This is definitely a good direction for me to go, if my goal is to be mindful and bring my body image into alignment with reality. I'm not exactly sure whether that's a good idea, overall, though.

I looked at my last blog posting this morning, again. I can't express to you how hard it is for me to absorb the fact that those are images of how I really look.

I have LONG wished that mirrors had never been invented, because I could then believe I was absolutely beautiful, based on how other people respond to me -- honest, it's good! But when I see 'me' I know it's something besides my appearance they're responding to -- which is also good -- but feels incongruent.

ANYWAY ... my only worry in this expedition is that there are things that are irreconcilable. I may be able to lose weight and pare down my overall mass ... but there's nothing I will reasonably do about the overbite, the broken nose, the ... age. Sigh.

I am I.

Onward.

Me, from the Outside

I'm finished with the visual food diary for now. It's clear to me that I don't usually over-eat. I do usually under-move.

Today was another perfect example:

- John dropped me off right outside the building I work in (thank you!)
- I sat at my desk from 8:40 a.m. until 5: 30 p.m., with very few exceptions
- John and I walked to the car (7 minutes)
- and then I sat around the house for the remainder of the night.

The problem is definitely lack of movement.

This is not new news.

I'm just looking for new motivation to get me to do things differently.

The visual food diary helped make me more mindful of what I was eating. I'm hoping a visual record of what I look like from the outside -- all around, not just the part I usually see in the mirror -- might be a visual and mental motivator to get me to MOVE!

Walking on a Beautiful Spring Day

It was gorgeous outside today. I don't mean "nice." I mean 60+ degrees, sunny, I-wore-no-coat gorgeous. In Wisconsin. On March 6.

I chose to leave my desk and go for a walk. I chose to call my husband and ask if he was free to take a walk *with* me. I waited for him to finish his project, and we talked and walked hand-in-hand to the coffee shop up the street, got some food "to go," and went back to work.

That's my kind of lunch date. I'm so lucky!