I can’t think of a more fitting coincidence than to have New Years Day fall on our Health Group Day! (Or the other way around).

Unfortunately for me, it’s a little depressing. I was hoping to have lost more than 25 pounds this last year. That being said, I do not regret the effort I spent. And I’m certainly happy being 220 as opposed to 245! But I was hoping to have done better. The last month plus a week has been really bad for me. I made it down to 212 at one point, right before Thanksgiving. Then I started eating really, really bad. My exercising has slacked. I’ve put on almost 10 pounds in the last month plus a week. I’m not too proud of that. And that’s the end of my whining.

This is a new year! I’m excited! I will do better! I know I can do better, and I finally know that if I do my exercises faithfully, and eat the things I know are good for me, the weight will come off. This is very significant, and I’ll explain why. I’ve been trying to lose weight for over 11 years now. I have never been able to. I was frustrated. I didn’t know what to do. Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. The weight simply wouldn’t come off.

I’m not sure what’s changed, exactly. The only thing I know for sure is that over the past few years I have slowly been working on my eating habits. Building, bit by bit, a healthier lifestyle. Learning how to cook from basic, unprocessed foods. And more recently, exercising harder. Lifting weights.

Half way has never worked for me. I’ve learned this over the past 11 years. I have never been willing to do anything stupid or damaging to my body to lose weight. I believe our bodies are amazing, and very capable of healing themselves, but each body is different, and finding exactly what a particular body is lacking or needing to right itself can be a long, difficult trial that tries patience and even sanity.

“Trying to watch what I eat” while dabbling in exercise here and there didn’t work.

Walking two miles nearly everyday, drinking 16 glasses of water a day, and eating salads for lunch, for a year and a half, was very beneficial to my health, but wasn’t enough to shed significant pounds.

Here is what I’ve found, over the last year, that works for me:

1. Exercising harder- What I like about the treadmill, as opposed to walking around the neighborhood, is the control factor (as well as the lack of rain). I can set the speed and the incline, and then adjust things as needed by carefully monitoring myself. Walking outside means I walk down hill at times, which drops my heartrate. Even flat stretches aren’t ideal as I can’t move my legs fast enough to keep my heart rate up without a gentle uphill. The treadmill enables me to keep my heart rate up.

2. Weights- I can’t say enough about weights. I love them. I’ve been slacking for a couple months, and I need to get back on it. There is the physical truth that weights build muscle, and muscle is hungry, and therefore burns calories all day. That is true. That is beneficial. But let me tell you the reason I really love weights. The day I folded my arms, and felt a muscle there… a beautiful, round, shapely and strong muscle there, I will never forget. I cry just thinking about it. You all know I am fat. I have padding. I can’t see my ribs, I can’t see my hip bones, I can’t see my abdominal muscles… I can’t see these things, because I have 75 pounds of excess fat covering my body. But I can FEEL them. And when I’m feeling muscle, I know there is a strong, healthy body down there, that is actively working to help itself. I feel alive. I feel hope. I frequently walk around the house with my hands on my quads. I can’t see the muscles there, but let me tell you.. I can feel them. They move with every single step I take. I can feel each of the four muscles there, working at different times in my stride.

Sometimes the weight doesn’t come off. Sometimes you try with every ounce of courage and energy you have, and can’t see the benefit. There is nothing more discouraging than that. But when, while doing some routine thing you do everyday, you suddenly feel something different, buried in the depths, you feel power. You feel like your effort has made a difference that doesn’t depend on the scale. That isn’t going to go away after one indulgent dinner party. It’s there, it’s growing, it’s helping, and it will inspire and uplift you at times when you need it.

Another benefit to weight lifting is liberation. It is amazing to learn about weights and muscles. I have learned many things talking to people. No one person has all information. I have collected information from many different people. One caution here, one helpful tip there. And physical therapy was invaluable. I have learned which pectoral exercises I want to focus on to lift as opposed to bulk. I’ve learned some upper back exercises that have literally taken pain away. I’ve learned to stand just so, adjust, tweak, and listen to my body while performing my exercises. Your body tells you things. Lifting weights has brought me more in tune with my body, and I literally feel liberated. I feel capable of spending effort in a way that will undoubtedly be of benefit, as opposed to that horrible feeling of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

3. Food- That’s the kicker, isn’t it? I have learned a few things that help me, and may, perhaps, help you. I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DENY MYSELF. I can’t do it. If I am hungry, I’m going to eat. If I am intensely craving something, I am going to eat it. This was true before I was fat, and it’s true now. I am no longer trying to change that fact. I’m working with it.

Once again, I will tell you that I think our bodies are amazing. They are powerful. They are capable of healing themselves significantly more than we give them opportunity to.
I am going to share a story…

Three years ago, I turned up the heat on my health efforts. I got a dog (not Abner, but that’s an entirely different story) and started walking every day. I started eating better, yes, but this story is about water. Everyone knows water is beneficial, but that isn’t my point either. I would wake up in the morning, drink a glass of water, go for my walk, come home, drink another glass of water, and set my oven timer for 1 hour. Every single hour, on the hour, I’d drink a glass of water. Even if I wasn’t thirsty. I drank between 14 and 16 8oz glasses of water every single day. Do you know what happened? I was thirsty. I would go to bed at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night, after having drunk 16 glasses of water that day, thirsty. I woke up thirsty, I went to bed thirsty, I drank and drank and drank water, all day, every day. Before I started drinking water, I was never thirsty. Seriously, NEVER thirsty. My body had shut it off. I never drank anything. I rarely urinated. I could never nurse my babies for very long, because I was living dehydrated. And I didn’t have a clue. All of a sudden, I had introduced water to my body, and I literally couldn’t get enough. It was months before my body settled down. But an interesting thing happened. I would be busy doing something, and suddenly feel thirsty. I would go to the kitchen to get a drink just as the timer was about to sound. Every hour, my body was telling me to drink.

I believe that our body, when offered what it really needs, will begin to crave it. I believe that as a society, we are far removed from the basic food habits that our bodies need to survive and function properly. Our bodies crave garbage because that’s what we give them, and it’s never enough because the crap that we eat doesn’t contain the basic components that we need.

The most amazing thing happened to me earlier this year. I think it was in the spring. Once again, I had stepped up the quality of my eating. (You can’t do it all at once, it is a slow process). I decided to make sure that I ate something that would benefit my body at every single meal. Even if I started out stuffing my face with garbage, and was no longer hungry, I would eat some vegetables, or a salad, or something else really, really good. Know what happened? I stopped snacking. I didn’t crave crap food. My portions decreased significantly for the first time in my life. None of this was because I was denying myself. I’ve told you already, I can’t DO that. But I didn’t need it. My body was content. I was full and satisfied with less food. I started losing weight.

Now, I’ve already blogged in Health Group about what ruins it for me. Eating this way takes a phenomenal amount of time, effort, and energy. I get busy. I start eating empty food again because it is convenient. After awhile, I start craving again, I need more meals, and I eat more food. That’s only if I let it go too long. It takes awhile, I believe, because I’ve built up healthy reserves. The interesting thing is, I don’t want the garbage. When I grab something quick, I don’t even enjoy it. I want good food. There have been times when I’ve eaten something, (and I wish I could remember what I was eating the last time this happened. I remember the experience, but not the meal), and I come away from the meal feeling that same high I get when exercising. About a half hour after eating, I have more energy, and it’s the good, solid kind of energy, not the shallow energy of simple carbs that is usually accompanied by a pit in my stomach. I even feel like my brain has been enlightened.

I’ve been very vague about food to this point, so I’m going to give you some examples of how I eat for those who’d like to know.

I cook from scratch.

I soak dry beans such as dark red kidneys, pintos, black turtle beans, Great Northerns, and make my own refried beans, soups, etc from them.

I cook unprocessed brown rice. (Not all brown rice is the same. Pacific is my favorite brand. Fred Meyer brand, for example, is mushy and gross).

I grind hard red wheat and make my own bread. We live off of that bread. All of my family prefers that bread to anything store bought. I even like my bread better than Great Harvest’s. It was years of bread making before I found this recipe, and I LOVE it. I make fluffy french toast with it. I also make whole wheat raisin cinnamon bread for toast. I use my fresh ground wheat flour to make pancakes.

I make granola using raw oatmeal, wheat germ, walnuts, honey, oil, brown sugar and dried raisins or cranberries. We eat it for breakfast frequently, and we eat it with soy milk. (West Soy is my favorite brand right now. I get really annoyed when a good brand changes their recipe and I have to hunt around for a good one again. I am not one that likes most soy milk).

Most everything I cook is made entirely from scratch. I use basic, unaltered or minimally altered foods from the earth. I make lentil soups, potato soups, minestrone soups, chilis, pasta sauces, etc that way, and they energize me.

I haven’t gone organic. So far, I haven’t felt the need to.

We don’t eat a lot of meat, mainly because we’re broke. But I like what the lack of meat has done to our diet. It has forced me to find more ways to use grains, beans, and vegetables. I have benefited from that.

I don’t believe in artificial substitutions. Man-made chemical substitutions for necessary food ingredients such as fats and sugars aren’t natural, and I believe they are harmful.

When we can afford it, I’d like to get a wheat grass juicer. I don’t know why, other than general common knowledge, I feel so strongly that I need it in my diet. I literally woke up one morning, some time ago, thinking that I needed to make wheat grass juice readily available. I haven’t done it yet.

I know I have gone on and on here. It is mainly for my benefit. It is inspiring for me to see how far I’ve come. This has been my New Year’s pep talk to myself. Many people will not have to go to such extremes to be healthy or to lose weight. For some reason, I have to. Many people lose weight by simply drinking more water. That didn’t do it for me, but I am confident I am significantly benefiting from drinking it. Many people lose weight from simply exercising more. That doesn’t do it for me, nor does only altering my diet. For me, it has been an all-encompassing journey. It is frustrating at times to be trying this hard, devoting so much energy to my health, and still being 75 pounds overweight. But this I do know… No effort has been wasted. By continually trying, listening, learning, and experimenting, I have slowly built a healthier lifestyle for myself that I will take with me forever. It has taken years to get to where I am now, and I will spend years working on it. Probably forever. But I can stand here today and see that I am doing better now, and have learned more, than I ever have before. More importantly, all other efforts, whether perceived as successful or not, have contributed to where I am now. They were all valuable. They were all worth it. I have learned much about myself, my health, my body, and how to live healthier. I anticipate that as I continue to try, I will continue to be the better for it.

I have high hopes for this year. I want to lose weight, obviously, but there are other things too. Many of which hinge upon my health improving. I have appreciated this Health Group. I have learned some good things. I enjoy the weekly check in. Thank you to all who have participated, and may this year be a great one!