As we approach the beginning of a new year, the default mode for most of us, myself included, is to draw up plans for the coming year. Many of us have fallen away from those plans in the past, myself included. This year, I've decided to keep it simple, making one resolution and only one for 2014: To use what I have.
The idea came to me when I thought about how I had organized my pantry and, to my detriment, had to throw out a lot of food that had expired. I wasted a lot of food out of sheer disorganization. I could have fed myself, BMNB, and a whole host of others if I had donated the food before it expired. I decided going forward to use what I have -- to look in my pantry before making grocery lists or find recipes using what I already have.
The idea of using what you have applies to more than food in your pantry. Many times I think that if I buy this or that new gadget (Zumba DVD) or pay money for something I already have (a gym membership near my new job despite the fact that my neighborhood clubhouse has a well-equipped gym I already pay for with HOA fees), that I'm more likely to use those things. Tell that to the 7-part Gaiam Yoga series tape (yes, I have a DVD player that also plays VHS tapes) and the more than 60 workout tapes and DVDs I have, not counting the elliptical machine, aerobic step, Windsor Pilates strap, dumb bells, two inflatable exercise balls, yoga blocks and countless yoga mats I already have. If I merely used what I have (I have enough exercise DVDs and videos to do a different one every day for two months), I would have already reached my fitness and weight loss goals.
Just as the food was always in my pantry and the exercise equipment always in my house, what I need to accomplish whatever it is I set my mind to, I already have. I simply have to use it.
Using what I have isn't just about accomplishing things; it's also about the joy that comes from using the gifts that God gave me. If I had to describe myself, I would describe myself as a creator. I like creating things, whether through writing, crocheting, cooking, decorating, starting a business, brainstorming with friends or leading. I like figuring out what I need to do to make something out of nothing other than an idea and then doing it. And I'm pretty good at these things and enjoy doing them.
When you think of it, why would God give you a gift if he didn't want you to use it? And what a joy we get from using those gifts! I recently saw a video on Facebook in which the narrator said that the richest place in the world was the cemetery because it was full of all the unused talents and dreams that people had taken with them to the grave. The video exhorted us to, like a car driving a fumes, "end our lives on E," having used up all the gifts and dreams God gave us. Word.
My wish for all of you dear readers and myself is that we use the gifts God has given us. . . as well as all those Billy Blank Tae-Bo VHS tapes and hidden cans of salsa in the pantry.
Happy New Year!
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Get Me Bodied: The Middle-Aged Adventures of Sasha Fat (Thanks Beyonce and David P.)
Today is my 49th birthday, and for reasons you'll understand later, I'd like to dedicate it to Beyonce and my friend David P.
Forty-nine is supposedly the last hurrah before the official onset of middle age. But time and its ravages don't pay attention to the calendar any more than the seasons wait for the solstices to announce their arrival. I'm already middle-aged and I didn't need a birthday or a calendar to tell me that.
But aging isn't about numbers. It's about vitality, or the loss thereof. I fervently believe that I've lost a great deal of vitality not due solely to age, but due to a sedentary lifestyle and bad diet. Sure, we all slow down with age, we are more prone to injury with age, but we don't have to race the calendar to our own mortality and be miserable in the process. My feeling of middle age is not due solely to the calendar; it's due to lifestyle choices that have helped result in a loss of vitality. Those lifestyle choices, in turn, arise out of complacency and a lack of gratitude for what I have. If I were as grateful as I should be for what I have and what I'm about to have, I'd do more to make sure that I'm healthy enough and feeling good enough to enjoy it all.
I've always taken it as a given that I would predecease my husband. So many of my aunts, uncles and other elders, including my mom, died of cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer's in their 60's and 70's that I just assumed that my relatively early demise was a foregone conclusion. What's the point of living a croissant-free life if you're going to die, anyway?
Vitality, that's the point. I want to have the energy and good health to enjoy whatever time I have for as long as I can. It's even arrogant of me to assume my early demise. No one knows the hour but God, and I guess as far as He's concerned, the time of my demise is none of my business because He sure hasn't seen fit to give me a target date.
Getting older doesn't necessarily have to mean getting fat and sedentary or having greatly diminished mental capacity. You only need look at Jane Fonda on the red carpet at Cannes to see that. Dr. Gary Small, director of UCLA's Longevity Center, argues that it is possible to stave off Alzheimer's, even though we don't have the proof from longitudinal studies to prove him right. In the January 2012 issue of O Magazine, Small was asked if he had to pick one tip as the most important thing to do to prevent Alzheimer's, what it would be. He said physical exercise, like a daily brisk walk.
Not Pilates, not Hot Yoga; a brisk walk. Who can't do that?
The bigger point is that you have to accept that your body is changing and change accordingly. Even one small healthy change -- like walking or eating more vegetables -- can set in order other healthy changes. They talked about this on NPR this morning, calling it a "domino effect." I had already started making some small healthy changes, like making sure to eat fish at least once a week (not an easy feat for me -- I've hated fish almost all my life), cutting down on the red meat (although I'm a sucker for a barbecued hamburger with Memphis Minnie's rib rub mixed in), increasing my water intake by simply remembering to grab a glass of water every time I have a hot flash (that would be several times a day), and having mixed berry and pomegranate juice smoothies as recommend by Dr. Oz as an "antioxidant cocktail" (very easy -- frozen mixed berries, pomegranate juice -- I used 20% juice cocktail because I couldn't find pure pomegranate juice at the Winco -- ice, some Truvia if you need it sweeter, throw in blender, done).
After I dropped my great-nephew off at school this morning, I decided to go for a walk with a spirit of gratitude for what I have -- relatively good health, a great husband, great family, great friends, great kids to come, great career changes on the horizon. Call it a victory lap for middle age. I cued up what used to be my exercise playlist --mostly songs by Beyonce -- and when "Get Me Bodied" came on, something happened that hasn't happened in a long, long time.
I ran.
No, I wasn't being chased. The beat and the melody of that song are so infectious, it just makes you want to move. So instead of dancing on the sidewalk and looking like an idiot, I ran. I ran for the sheer joy of feeling my heart race, the joy of moving to music, the joy of working up a sweat.
I was, for a brief moment in time, Sasha Fat, with all 180 pounds and 47.5% fat on my 5' 6" frame barreling down the walking paths near my house. I wasn't running to reach a particular point or to last a particular amount of time. I ran until I couldn't run any more. Mind you, it didn't last long, but it was more than I'd done in a long, long time, simply because a catchy female empowerment/dance tune came on my iPhone. You know what they say about the journey of a thousand miles. . . .
Thanks, Beyonce, for making the music that made me move.
And thanks to my friend David P. I rarely name folks by name in my blog, but it was at a dinner a while back that David warned me that my high cholesterol was no joke and that I needed to do something about it -- exercise, statins, whatever. I've been pussyfooting around for a long time about it, and my penchant for soy raspberry mochas and almond croissants at Peet's hasn't been helping. But I'm making changes. Although consistency isn't my strong suit, getting back up on the horse, so to speak, is. I can't guarantee that I'll run every day or that I won't ever have another almond croissant, but what I can guarantee is that I'll keep trying because I'm not in this for longevity; I'm in this for vitality.
Thanks, David.
With that, let's move.
Affectionately,
BWB (AKA "Sasha Fat")
Forty-nine is supposedly the last hurrah before the official onset of middle age. But time and its ravages don't pay attention to the calendar any more than the seasons wait for the solstices to announce their arrival. I'm already middle-aged and I didn't need a birthday or a calendar to tell me that.
But aging isn't about numbers. It's about vitality, or the loss thereof. I fervently believe that I've lost a great deal of vitality not due solely to age, but due to a sedentary lifestyle and bad diet. Sure, we all slow down with age, we are more prone to injury with age, but we don't have to race the calendar to our own mortality and be miserable in the process. My feeling of middle age is not due solely to the calendar; it's due to lifestyle choices that have helped result in a loss of vitality. Those lifestyle choices, in turn, arise out of complacency and a lack of gratitude for what I have. If I were as grateful as I should be for what I have and what I'm about to have, I'd do more to make sure that I'm healthy enough and feeling good enough to enjoy it all.
I've always taken it as a given that I would predecease my husband. So many of my aunts, uncles and other elders, including my mom, died of cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer's in their 60's and 70's that I just assumed that my relatively early demise was a foregone conclusion. What's the point of living a croissant-free life if you're going to die, anyway?
Vitality, that's the point. I want to have the energy and good health to enjoy whatever time I have for as long as I can. It's even arrogant of me to assume my early demise. No one knows the hour but God, and I guess as far as He's concerned, the time of my demise is none of my business because He sure hasn't seen fit to give me a target date.
Getting older doesn't necessarily have to mean getting fat and sedentary or having greatly diminished mental capacity. You only need look at Jane Fonda on the red carpet at Cannes to see that. Dr. Gary Small, director of UCLA's Longevity Center, argues that it is possible to stave off Alzheimer's, even though we don't have the proof from longitudinal studies to prove him right. In the January 2012 issue of O Magazine, Small was asked if he had to pick one tip as the most important thing to do to prevent Alzheimer's, what it would be. He said physical exercise, like a daily brisk walk.
Not Pilates, not Hot Yoga; a brisk walk. Who can't do that?
The bigger point is that you have to accept that your body is changing and change accordingly. Even one small healthy change -- like walking or eating more vegetables -- can set in order other healthy changes. They talked about this on NPR this morning, calling it a "domino effect." I had already started making some small healthy changes, like making sure to eat fish at least once a week (not an easy feat for me -- I've hated fish almost all my life), cutting down on the red meat (although I'm a sucker for a barbecued hamburger with Memphis Minnie's rib rub mixed in), increasing my water intake by simply remembering to grab a glass of water every time I have a hot flash (that would be several times a day), and having mixed berry and pomegranate juice smoothies as recommend by Dr. Oz as an "antioxidant cocktail" (very easy -- frozen mixed berries, pomegranate juice -- I used 20% juice cocktail because I couldn't find pure pomegranate juice at the Winco -- ice, some Truvia if you need it sweeter, throw in blender, done).
After I dropped my great-nephew off at school this morning, I decided to go for a walk with a spirit of gratitude for what I have -- relatively good health, a great husband, great family, great friends, great kids to come, great career changes on the horizon. Call it a victory lap for middle age. I cued up what used to be my exercise playlist --mostly songs by Beyonce -- and when "Get Me Bodied" came on, something happened that hasn't happened in a long, long time.
I ran.
No, I wasn't being chased. The beat and the melody of that song are so infectious, it just makes you want to move. So instead of dancing on the sidewalk and looking like an idiot, I ran. I ran for the sheer joy of feeling my heart race, the joy of moving to music, the joy of working up a sweat.
I was, for a brief moment in time, Sasha Fat, with all 180 pounds and 47.5% fat on my 5' 6" frame barreling down the walking paths near my house. I wasn't running to reach a particular point or to last a particular amount of time. I ran until I couldn't run any more. Mind you, it didn't last long, but it was more than I'd done in a long, long time, simply because a catchy female empowerment/dance tune came on my iPhone. You know what they say about the journey of a thousand miles. . . .
Thanks, Beyonce, for making the music that made me move.
And thanks to my friend David P. I rarely name folks by name in my blog, but it was at a dinner a while back that David warned me that my high cholesterol was no joke and that I needed to do something about it -- exercise, statins, whatever. I've been pussyfooting around for a long time about it, and my penchant for soy raspberry mochas and almond croissants at Peet's hasn't been helping. But I'm making changes. Although consistency isn't my strong suit, getting back up on the horse, so to speak, is. I can't guarantee that I'll run every day or that I won't ever have another almond croissant, but what I can guarantee is that I'll keep trying because I'm not in this for longevity; I'm in this for vitality.
Thanks, David.
Affectionately,
BWB (AKA "Sasha Fat")
Do Me A Favor -- This Year, Choose You
“There was this epiphany, “ she says. “I am sitting there with a new baby, angry, tired, and out of shape. The baby is up for that 4 o’clock feeding. And my husband is lying there, sleeping.” That’s when it struck her that if she weren’t there, he would eventually have to wake up. It worked. “I would get home from the gym, and the girls would be up and fed. That was something I had to do for me.”
“The Real Michelle Obama,” O Magazine, November 2007
Happy New Year! We’ve entered not only a new year, but a new decade. So all you tired and haggard mothers, dutiful daughters, caregivers and the like, do me a favor: This year, choose you.
I came across the passage above from an interview with Michelle Obama featured in O Magazine in 2007, and I couldn’t think of anything better to emphasize the importance of occasionally -- or even regularly -- choosing yourself first over the competing but not life-threatening demands of family and work. I don’t mean choose yourself in a selfish way, damn the consequences, but in a self-preserving way in which you sacrifice domestic and career perfection for a little self soothing, care and preservation. In those moments when the world won’t fall apart if were to you do so, choose you.
Last year was tough. This year might not be any better. If you don’t take care of yourself, well, then, who will? How will you have the physical and mental stamina to endure whatever is to come if you don’t take care of yourself? In those moments when we choose mopping over crocheting, balancing the checkbook over balancing on the Wii Fit board, please, please ask yourselves: Is the world going to fall off its axis if, just this once, I choose myself over the needs of others? If the answer is “no,” well, then, consider this a permission slip a la Sherri Shepherd, and please do choose yourself.
Let’s all take a cue from our First Lady’s epiphany and figure out those things we need to do for ourselves just to keep going as ourselves, whether it’s yoga, going to the gym, reading, gardening, whatever. And when the occasion arises that, by choosing yourself, you’re making yourself physically and/or spiritually better off without making anyone you care about detrimentally worse off (I doubt that getting up to feed his kids made then-State Senator Obama any worse off), please, please, do me a favor – choose yourself.
If you don't do it for you, do it for me.
Happy New Year!
“The Real Michelle Obama,” O Magazine, November 2007
Happy New Year! We’ve entered not only a new year, but a new decade. So all you tired and haggard mothers, dutiful daughters, caregivers and the like, do me a favor: This year, choose you.
I came across the passage above from an interview with Michelle Obama featured in O Magazine in 2007, and I couldn’t think of anything better to emphasize the importance of occasionally -- or even regularly -- choosing yourself first over the competing but not life-threatening demands of family and work. I don’t mean choose yourself in a selfish way, damn the consequences, but in a self-preserving way in which you sacrifice domestic and career perfection for a little self soothing, care and preservation. In those moments when the world won’t fall apart if were to you do so, choose you.
Last year was tough. This year might not be any better. If you don’t take care of yourself, well, then, who will? How will you have the physical and mental stamina to endure whatever is to come if you don’t take care of yourself? In those moments when we choose mopping over crocheting, balancing the checkbook over balancing on the Wii Fit board, please, please ask yourselves: Is the world going to fall off its axis if, just this once, I choose myself over the needs of others? If the answer is “no,” well, then, consider this a permission slip a la Sherri Shepherd, and please do choose yourself.
Let’s all take a cue from our First Lady’s epiphany and figure out those things we need to do for ourselves just to keep going as ourselves, whether it’s yoga, going to the gym, reading, gardening, whatever. And when the occasion arises that, by choosing yourself, you’re making yourself physically and/or spiritually better off without making anyone you care about detrimentally worse off (I doubt that getting up to feed his kids made then-State Senator Obama any worse off), please, please, do me a favor – choose yourself.
If you don't do it for you, do it for me.
Happy New Year!
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