live your life with purpose
Do you ever listen to song lyrics? I mean reeaaalllly listen. The kind of song and lyrics you can’t get out of your head. No, not Row, Row, Row Your Boat (you’re welcome). This week I have been listening to a song. It has …
Do you ever wonder what happened to people in your life? More specifically, people you grew up with. When I was growing up and we moved to the Prospect house, there was a family who lived literally a half a block away from us. …
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How my body looks does not define me as a person. It doesn’t define me as a wife, as a mom, or as a trainer…right now I’m in shape, but I’m not going to ever be perfect, and I’m actually okay with that.
We see it all the time in the media and in fitness magazines. Body image and how you should look. Why is it up to them to tell us how we should look? In other words how society thinks we should look. I think this is absolute bullshit. Why does anyone else have permission to comment on how they think someone should look? Or actually comments about it. I get that sometimes people are trying to compliment people. Okay. I don’t have a problem with that, but why is it usually if someone has lost weight or something like that and someone tells that person, “Wow! You look great.” Does that mean the person looked like crap before? See my point. I realize this can be a pretty touchy subject and it will make you question everything you say to anyone. Not trying to be an asshole here. Just want people to become more aware of what comes out of their mouths and how it can affect someone. Because, even if someone has lost a lot of weight, they still might not be in a great head space to listen to some of the things people say to them. It takes A LOT of work to get through that stuff.
It seems like if someone is overweight, the perception is that they are lazy. I think this is far from the truth. How do we know what is going on in their life? How do we know how they sleep? How do we know how much stress they have going on? How do we know anything about that person? What if that person works out every day?What if that person eats healthy? And OMG, what if that person likes they way they are at this chapter of their life? Just because someone isn’t the normal considered by society, it doesn’t mean they want to be that. Guess what? We can like ourselves just the way we are.
The opposite can also be true. If someone is “skinny,” society’s version of skinny, then we think they are perfect. I also think that is far from the truth. How do we know what is going on with that person? Maybe she has an eating disorder because she has so much pressure to be “skinny.” Also, we don’t know her story. What if she eats like crap? What if she gets no sleep? And OMG, what if she is trying to gain weight?
We just don’t know what chapter anyone is on in their life. We don’t get to judge. It really is none of our business.
One time I was walking out of my office and there were some guys working on the building. One of them came running up to me, which I thought was strange to begin with. Once he opened his mouth, I couldn’t believe what was coming out of it. I thought for sure he was just going to ask me about the building or something like that. Instead, I got this: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how much can you deadlift?”
(By the way, starting with, don’t take this the wrong way, is a sure bet that it is going to be taken the “wrong” way. I find it incredibly funny when people say it. I think we mean well, but it seems that almost always, it doesn’t go over well.)
Seriously! You want to know how much I can deadlift? It kind of stunned me for a second. I could tell he wasn’t trying to be a dick or a smart ass or anything. But, it just threw me that he felt the need to comment on my appearance. Even though I like my muscles, it doesn’t give someone else the right to comment. It’s my body. It’s my choice on how I make it look. I did answer him though. I told him 185. At that time I was going through a deadlift and pressing program. Apparently my hard work showed. But still…my point is words are an amazing thing. On one hand they can do a lot of good, but on the other they can really hurt someone.
At that chapter in my life, I didn’t have my shit together. I wasn’t perfectly fine with my appearance and my fitness and nutrition journey. I thought a lot about his words. I started to play that damn head game. You know the one, you start that negative talk to yourself, “Wow, you must look fat and huge.” So, then the game goes further, you start second guessing everything you have been doing. You let it mind fuck you into thinking you are too big, or too fat or you should hit the next Weight Watcher’s meeting, stat!
Words say a lot.
In my line of business it isn’t all about how someone looks. It is also about how they feel, how much energy they have, how much sleep they get, how much stress is going on in their life. It can’t be just one thing. It just can’t. Fitness and health mean a lot of different things and focusing only on how someone looks doesn’t even begin to cover it. Ever.
Not everyone who comes to me wants to lose weight. Most people want to get healthy.
I have learned a lot over my years of training. I am still learning every single day. It really is amazing to see women’s, and men’s perceptions of their own bodies. It is actually pretty sad sometimes how we have been brainwashed to believe we are supposed to be skinny and men are supposed to be giant. Screw that! I want women and men to be comfortable in their own skin. I want them to feel healthy. I want them to feel empowered. We all weren’t meant to look the same. We are all different. Let’s own how we look. We have the power to change if we don’t like it. That’s the beauty of our journeys. We can constantly evolve. With our own permission.
If you have any comments or thoughts, I would love to hear from you.
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I am not even going to label my food style. It’s what I choose. It’s how I choose to eat. My eating style has changed in the last year. It is customized for me. I used to eat paleo pretty strict most of the …
I went to Lincoln Elementary School. It is apartments now. It was on Prospect Street. When I was in second grade I had the best teacher. My most favorite teacher ever. Her name was Mrs. Eklund. She was a tiny lady and seemed old, although …
Tomorrow (April 21st) is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 77. Hard to believe. I wonder what he would look like today. My boys looks like him, I think, especially my oldest. My dad was very athletic and super cool. I looked up to him and I respected him. His name was Gary.
When I got divorced I could tell he was disappointed. When John and I started dating, he asked my mom, “Is she really dating that hippie?” Hilarious as hell. John had long-ish (not really long) hair when we met. It did not take long at all for my dad to realize that John was pretty special. Thanks Dad!
My dad was 60 years old (so young) when he died. My husband is 61. Stew on that perspective.
Dad’s crummy health history began at a pretty young age. I know he had high blood pressure. I’m not sure when that was diagnosed. I can remember him getting really bad bloody noses that would not stop. He also had heart problems. When he was 48 years old, he had quadruple bypass surgery. He smoked before that. He didn’t smoke after that. They say that procedure usually lasts about ten years. So after about 10 years, he had double bypass surgery. I remember that surgery being really hard on him. He had a hard time sleeping. I remember him saying he had a hard time sleeping because he wasn’t sure he was going to wake up again. His brother had it too. They would joke about how it felt like there was a little man with an axe standing on their chest and breaking it open, one little chunk at a time. He had a great sense of humor.
I can remember clearly when he died. He and my mom had been over at our house for supper. He was playing with Tayler. He absolutely adored her. She was ten months old at the time. He was so good with all my kids.
While they were over, he complained about how tired he was. He had been doing yard work that day before they came over. He kept telling mom that he was tired and he just wanted to go home. That was the last time I saw my dad alive.
I can still hear the way he said my name. I can still hear him saying, “Peg Leg Jones come rattle your bones.” He said that to me all the time. I can still see him coming down the steps with his hair all crazy and pretending to be Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and saying, “Heeerre’s Johnny.” He would laugh and laugh. So many good and funny memories of him. He liked life. He lived it well. He liked fast cars, dogs and country music. I miss him every day and think about him every day.
When you see things about people setting goals or reasons why they want to do something, such as lose weight or eat healthy, or whatever. Finding your why, which by the way, I wish there was a better way to say it. Finding your why sounds weird to me. Maybe finding your proof, or your reason or your motive. But, whatever.
I came to the realization that my reason is my Dad. I believe his health or lack of good health is why I work out. It’s why I eat as healthy as I can. It’s why I bust my ass. He had a strong work ethic and I believe he passed that on to all of us kids. None of us are lazy. It’s why I became a fitness professional. It’s why I became certified in nutrition and training. It’s my reason. It’s my “why.”
His poor health pushed me to be better about my health. It pushed me to not want to be like him. It pushed me to change the family history. It was very important to me to be healthy. I did not want to feel like crap when I got older. I wanted to stay in shape. I wanted to be healthy. That’s why I do what I do. I want to help as many people as possible to get healthy and stay healthy. I want them to be able to outsmart their genetic predispositions.
It’s NOT all genetics. My dad had several brothers and sisters. Two sisters and I think four brothers. There is one brother left. The other brothers all died from heart issues. The sisters had different health histories. My dad’s brother will be 92 this year. Not one of the others made it past 70. The interesting thing about Uncle Bob, that I can remember from when I was 14 or 15, is that he ate well and exercised every day. I remember being at their house and he would have eggs and grapefruit for breakfast. He took pretty good care of himself. There is a saying I heard one day that is totally relevant here: “Genetics are like a loaded gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.” This could not be more true in this situation.
After dad died, two weeks later one of his sisters died. She told someone that since Gary was gone it was okay for her to go. He was the baby. Maybe she felt obligated. Two weeks after that, his brother, Don, died of a heart attack. Some pretty whacked out family history.
Every year I put a pic of Dad on Facebook in remembrance of his birthday. I will continue to do that. Also this year I am getting a cardinal tattoo. Have you heard the history behind the appearance of cardinals?
“A cardinal is a representative of a loved one who has passed. When you see one, it means they are visiting you. They usually show up when you most need them or miss them. They also make an appearance during times of celebration as well as despair to let you know they will always be with you. Look for them, they’ll appear.”
Cardinals visit our house all the time and tap on the windows or the door. One time when my sister was visiting, a cardinal showed up at the deck door and was suspended in the air, just looking in at us.
His name was Gary.
Do you train for looks or do you train for health? Is there anything wrong with either? I know I will never be skinny. I’m not built that way, nor would I want to be. I actually really like my muscles. I worked my ass …
Finish your program or whatever project your are doing. I know, it’s hard. I even have trouble finishing a program. You either get bored with it, or you find something else that looks better or more fun, or more something. Why are we always …
I remember stuff from when I was way little. I can remember things from when I was about three years old. But today, we are talking cereal. The reason behind this blog post is because my friend and I were talking about this the other day. Even though we were texting back and forth, I can assure you were dying laughing, texting about this very subject. What does this have to do with remembering things when I was little (by little I mean probably around 9 or 10)? Grocery shopping. We shopped at Sooper Dooper. A great little local grocery store, where I ended up working all through high school.
We rarely got to go grocery shopping with our mom when we were little, but when we did, we would hang out in the cereal aisle while our mom was shopping. The cereal aisle was in the center of the store, across from the frozen foods. Once she got to the cereal aisle, we would get the look. You know that look. The one that pretty much insinuates that we should not even bother asking for it. See, we always wanted Cap’n Crunch or Lucky Charms or Sugar Pops, or basically some of that sugar laden, chemically laced cereal. What we mostly always got was Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Wheat Chex, Cheerios or Puffed Rice—GAG. That stuff was so disgusting. Do you remember? It came in a bag, not a box. Cheap! That should give you a clue. To this day, I still hate that stuff. It was like eating a piece of cardboard, laced with air. You couldn’t put enough sugar on that crap. Her argument, if I remember correctly, is that the sugared stuff was too expensive.
But once in a while we could catch her in a weak moment, or in reality, she was probably sick to death of us bugging the crap out of her begging for sugared cereal. Once in a while we begged enough. We got to pick a box of sugared cereal. The good kind in our eyes.
Do you remember how many kinds of cereals there were? Just like the cereal aisle now. A crap ton. So we would look at every box trying to decide what good kind we were going to get. Sometimes we just wanted the prize that came in the box. Scouring and scouring forever to find the best crap cereal with the best crap prize. It took a while sometimes. Quisp, Sugar Pops, Corn Pops, Cocoa Pebbles, Fruity Pebbles, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms (my personal fave), Life, Golden Grahams, Count Chocula, and the list goes on and on. Those tricky cereal marketing people. How is anyone supposed to pick with that many kinds?
Like I said, Lucky Charms was my personal fave. I also liked Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries, although if you ate too much of that the roof of your mouth was shot for a few days. The only bad thing, in my opinion.
To tell the truth I’m not sure how healthy or frugal our mom thought she was being. I can vividly remember sitting at the table, putting my Cheerios in my bowl, adding milk, and then adding teaspoon after teaspoon of that pure white sugar. Our sugar bowl was pink depression glass. It was a cool sugar bowl. I bet I put at least six teaspoons of sugar on my Cheerios. Then the cereal feast. Once you got to the bottom of the bowl, you could see the thickness and syrupyness (not sure if that’s a word) and the gray color of the sugar that had leaked through all the Cheerios and made it’s way to the bottom of the bowl. Mmmmmmmmmm. Wheat Chex was really good this way too.
Buuuuttt, that’s rookie stuff. Moving on to the pro cereal eating session. I know most everyone has done this. It’s not foreign to any of us. Anyone in my circle of friends anyway. Step 1, get a box of cereal. Step 2, get the bowl. Step 3, get the spoon. Step 4, get the milk. Finally, step 5, belly up to the table. We will use my personal fave Lucky Charms in this cereal eating session. Okay, ready?
Channel yourself into your younger self sitting at the table. You fill your bowl with Lucky Charms. Next you pour the milk, not too much, not too little. Next comes the spoon, you have to dunk all the cereal into the milk, including the cereal against the sides of the bowl. And now, you start eating. As you are eating you peruse the back of the cereal box and see what’s happening on this box. Any good prizes? You probably read the ingredient list too, although at that age it really doesn’t mean anything. By now, the cereal is getting a little softer and is almost gone. Hmmm, but you still have milk left. So you add more cereal, just enough. Or not. Now you have to add a little more cereal. Repeat until the milk or the cereal is gone. That, my friends, is the pro version of sugar-laden cereal eating. You didn’t get the gray sugar at the bottom. You got the sugar throughout the whole cereal eating experience. Pure heaven in a bowl. I haven’t done that in years, probably 10. Thank God! I have to admit, I bet I could still do it.
Do you remember? What were your favorites? I’m glad we didn’t ever get the Crunchy Loggs!!!
What do you do if you don’t like vegetables? Really? This is a real thing? I love vegetables and I feel bad for people who don’t. You know they are good for you and you want to be able to eat them, but you just …