High school speech class. You have a speech and the teacher gives the assignment. Extemporaneous (meaning notes but don’t write out the whole thing and read it) for 3 minutes.
Heart pounding. You think, what could I possibly talk about for three minutes. It might as well be three hours.
Maybe it’s on the importance of the availability of nachos in the lunch line. Maybe it’s a persuasive speech on innate qualities of a fresh Christmas tree rather than a fake one (guilty as charged). Or possibly it is 3 minutes on how to apply makeup (what was I thinking?).
Or you just get up there and freeze. I did that once too.
Somewhere between high school and real life you become a middle school teacher and learn how to talk for 45 minutes straight 5 times in a row. To a group of 13 year olds who could care less (except for Laurie).
Which is where I am now: more than able to speak for longer than the original heart-racing three minutes, but seemingly unable to have a 60 second conversation with my husband in the car.
Which is also why my video blogs are longer than I want. I tell myself: Keep it to two minutes, Sarah. They’ll tune out after that.
So stay tuned. I’m learning a lot about myself, about changing my lifestyle habits and about what is working and what is not. I’m also learning to trust. I’m learning that this isn’t a sprint. Not At All.
I’m also learning that three minutes in front of a video camera screams by amazingly fast. And so does five.
Let me hear you today with a comment: What is working for you? What isn’t? Have you made any progress? If you aren’t on the weight loss journey with us, let us know what you are learning right now.
I am feeling the need to keep you updated (via video) throughout the week as I am progressing in my new motivation for losing the few that I need to. And I need to make a few clarifications:
Caveat #1: I don’t think I am fat. But I have gained about 15 pounds in one year, which is way too much. And my jeans (the ones that do) barely button and let’s just say the middle of me just doesn’t sit nicely anymore. Bulging occurs, and well, you can imagine.
Caveat #2: The weight gain had caused me to lose some fitness. I had been quietly cutting down the lengths of my runs from 5-6 miles every day to 3-4 a few times a week. I can feel it (the extra fifteen, that is) in my rear end as I try to heave myself up a hill. (Read: “I can walk faster than I am shuffling….”).
Caveat #3: I am NOT trying to say (in the video posted below) that I look good or anything like that. Embarssing myself, I make some comment about this is what I look like BEFORE I go to the gym. Which is true. But, what I should have said is that when I come out of the gym I’m all greazzy and sweaty and icky. So, the video, purposefully, was shot pre-workout, so not to expose the entire world to my greazzy-ness.
Caveat #4: I talk a little about my food journal. Let me clarify: the only times in my life when I have been remotely successful with weight loss has gone hand in hand with journalling my food. The way my journal looks now is a small spiral notebook, with each page divided in half horizontally. Each page has two days. I write down the calories, protein and the food item on the lines and also track what exercise I’ve done. That simple. I tally my totals at the end of the day, and once a week I write in my new weight. Simple and it helps to keep the hunger wolves at bay. And lastly, Caveat #5: Those of you who have left comments and are praying for me (and others), THANK YOU! I am working through your blogs to wish you well, and I am praying for you each by name. I am so excited that some of you are experiencing success!
Weigh-in is Monday…hopefully this weekend won’t kick my butt (but if it does, there are 15 extra pounds of cushion to shield me – or 12.6 if you are counting).
Please don’t read this as if I am claiming that lychees aid in weight-loss or anything like that.
They don’t.
But, I couldn’t resist. They were sitting there last week at Trader Joes in a neat little plastic container. Lychees….a snack fruit common in China with a peelable outside and a sweet, white fleshy fruit.
Thank you all for your prayers and your support. Leave a comment to either let me know how you are doing, or if you want to join us in our group effort to be disciplined and accountable.
But this “experiment” (me testing whether posting horribly embarrasing information about myself on the internet, namely my weight, will help me stick to a plan) seems to be working. It really does.
I’m not obsessed, but I am constantly thinking that I can’t give into my sense of self-entitlement or indulgence simply because I can. I have decided that I am going to lose 15 pounds. And I’m going to do it publicly.
Although, I am officially going to do my progress video and weigh in report on Monday, I’m learning a lot this week about myself already.
Which friends, brings me to a simple nugget for a Friday:
(I am praying for each of you who left a comment on Monday telling me you are joining me in this quest to be more disciplined. If you don’t know what I am talking about, click here. )
Its not a confession of deep hidden sin, or of indecencies performed against me by someone else. This isn’t a confession of inner desires or the sad story of past wrongs I’ve committed against people I love.
This confession is one of laziness, of lack of discipline, and the deep want to be different.
And as I think I actually say on the video, I am going to do this before I lose the nerve.
(The first couple lines I am really nervous…I say something like “I pushed record this time” and “Oh gosh, there are screams coming from the other room.” Bear with me, I get less fidgety as it goes on.)
When I was a little girl, I hated this ride. And I hated Ferris Wheels.
I think it has something to do with the freedom of swaying, the not-being-stuck-to-the-groundness of it. They aren’t coasters, on a track with a five point harness to smash me against the seat.
On these giant swings, suspended high above Southern California (incidentally, inside of a GIANT orange) my feet hang free. Kids kick off their flip-flops before they ride. I notice a LIFE-PRESERVER near the entrance, no doubt there because of some municipal code. I look around for the water hazard and remember that the Big Orange is in the middle of the man-made lagoon in Disney’s California Adventure. Okay, life-preserver noted, I figure that we will be swinging at such an angle that a potential broken chain might fling a person through the openings in the orange peel and out into the lake.
But my daughter, she has no fear. As I’ve written before, she accepts all the thrills of life with a squeal of joy and welcomes new adventures without hesitation.
We jump on, and I purposely sit behind Chad and Hope so I can video.
As we lift up, the ground seems to sink down and I can feel the weight of my body in my hips without anything for my feet to rest on. Hope immediately begins to laugh and scream (the constant high pitch in the video is her) and I’m not scared. Even the feeling of the loss of control, the knowledge that it’s only a few thin chains that keep me from being hurled into the murky water, it doesn’t scare me. I am watching Hope and she makes me laugh. She spreads her arms wide like a bird and giggles.
For the brief 90 seconds in the Big Orange, I feel like a kid – sitting on a chair or a sofa when your legs are too short to reach the floor; swinging at the playground so high that the chains give a little slack at the top.
I realize I no longer hate this ride. Its taken me awhile to let go enough so that the joys of being six infect me again.
I’ve written about the crazy sleep-cooking habits of my husband before (scrambled eggs, anyone?), and about the tantruming of my two-year-old.
And there have been studies done about people who get up in the middle of the night and binge on hoagies and ice cream and then go back to bed without a single memory of their midnight meal.
But what do I write when all of these ideas come together so nicely? I don’t.
On our almost two hour car ride back from the desert yesterday, both girls fell asleep. Exhaustion from a morning trying to squeeze in as much swimming and ping-pong as possible took over and they immediately closed their eyes as soon as the air conditioner kicked in enough to make them comfortable.
Forty-five minutes later, Naomi woke up, unsure of where she was but sure she was unhappy about being in a sweaty carseat.
“GOLDFISH, MAMA!” between whines and whimpers.
Of course, Your Royal Highness. Whatever you need to stay quiet and and not wake up your sister. That and we have about another hour in the car. More brown desert. No windmills to wow you and not many clean places to stop if we need to.
I handed her a cup of Goldfish crackers and she closed her eyes again. She began to eat while she fell back asleep.
I guess she takes after her father. We all know that he doesn’t necessarily eat in his sleep, but he certainly does cook.
Bear with me. I am not Cindy Beall (thanks for upping the ante), or Mandy Thompson (the whiz at amateur film-crafting) or Annie Downs (the funniest girl I know…”I’m Dyin’ Here!).
But I did try my first EVER video blog. My last day of vacation and my first video blog.
Watch for it…a bug really did fly up my nose on my first video blog.
Don’t worry. There won’t be many more of these. I am really not good at it. I am much better with a keyboard in front of me.
As you are watching this, I will be leaving the coast and driving down the middle of California. Through Salinas (can I get a shout-out for John Steinbeck), then Paso Robles (where I had the best dinner ever with my great friend Lisa), down through San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and then on to the sprawling city we call home.
