Creating The Perfect Diet Creating Rule 4

Just Another Manic Monday...

Good morning Warriors!
I have finally sat down to write out this post, it only took 3 hours to get here! I love my kids, I love summer, I actually love to be busy, but mom-busy is such a different thing from regular busy isn't it? Mom-busy requires so much more. You must make breakfast, get out clothes for the day, begin to clean the kitchen you were too busy to clean the night before, and listen to your children tell you stories as each one fights to be the first to make themselves heard. Sometimes I will find myself standing in the middle of my kitchen, dish towel in hand, desperately praying that my child will not end their story with "what part of my dream do you think was the funniest mom?" Uh....? You see, my children think they are on to me. They believe there is no way I can make breakfast, clean the kitchen, start a load of laundry, and correctly take in all of their little stories at the same time, so they call me out on it. Amazingly though, they are wrong. It may take a moment as my brain scrambles, and synapses fire..but there it is, I did hear them! The cluttered attic of my brain stored what they were saying, it just took a moment to find that hanging string, pull the light bulb on, stumble past the boxes of Christmas lights and Easter decorations and there..in the corner of my brain-attic..their story! And I am able to say "uh....the part where you thought it was a dinosaur in your room, and then you realized it was just your brother and he spiked his hair up with Axe Gel to the ceiling, that was hilarious!" and actually, it really was funny, so I laughed with them!
There was so much fun and delight I would have missed this morning, if I had not taken the time, even in the busyness to hear the good stuff.
Not to be too much of a Socrates and over think these things ( I totally know that some of you, in your head or even out loud just chuckled and said "So-Crates, dude" in your best Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure voice ) but it left me to wonder...is there a lesson here for dieting as well? We are so inundated by ads, t.v. shows, advice columns, doctors and the checkout girl at Walgreen's, telling us about the newest diet out there, about the new food that will make us skinny by Friday, about a pill that if taken 2 hours after waking but 3.6 hours before eating again will literally melt the fat from our butts..that we shut down, don't we? We start to do some eye rolling, and some shrugging..and we tune out. So when asked..."Hey, what was your favorite part of that diet I just told you about?" We are very likely to think "uh...", then we do a frantic search of our brain-attic, our brain-basement, and come up the brain-stairs ( my brain is a large spacious ranch, 4 brain-bedrooms, 2 brain-baths, brain-attic and brain-basement..not finished though ) brushing cobwebs from our hair and declaring "I got nothin'..". Is it possible, that we are missing the good stuff in the dieting and medical world? Not just in weight loss, but even in the health arena? What causes cancer of the ta-ta's one day, is good for colon health the next.
Don't tune out warriors, tune back in! Let's see what we can find..the good stuff!
For today...live well, and listen well, and in the words of the Bangels "It's just another Manic Monday, wish it were Sunday, cause that's my fun day..."

Grace-Full!

Let me begin writing today by letting you know that I came home from work last night completely prepared to type, type, type..and I had my A-game on..I was ready to go. However, my multi-million dollar, cable conglomerate (who shall remain nameless) had obviously left their A-Game at home last night. No phone, Internet, no TV. Punks!

So I apologize for the delay! While I am on the subject ..I think I will be moving to more of a once a day posting, unless the mood to type should strike with a ferociousness that can only be quelled by additional blog postings! But back to creating our perfect diet.....

Grace. Grace is so important in life. Dictionary.com defines Grace in many ways..mercy, clemency, pardon, an act of grace, favor or good will, favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.

Yesterday I took my youngest son's out to do some birthday shopping for Daddy. The day was progressing just fine, everyone was healthy, non-injured, and accounted for. Knowing better, but doing it anyway , I decided to glance at the woman's clearance racks and turned away..but I swear it was only for a second! My second probably seemed like 20 minutes of slow motion to my 8 year old who, in that moment, sat on a chair. Shouldn't be a big deal, right? Except the chair, was placed in front of a sofa table, the sofa table was holding upon it a large porcelain serving dish, the chair bumped the table, the table wobbled, and the dish went crashing to the ground. I turned around to make sure everyone was ok, knowing instinctively that it was one of my own who was responsible for the crash, Boys and crashes are a natural part of life..like peanut butter and jelly! No one was hurt, but the look on my 8 year olds face broke my heart. The guilt, the fear, the sadness and then the face crumpled and he began to sob. I immediately grabbed him, pulled him close and said over, and over what any self respecting mama would when faced with that kind of overwhelming response from their child "It's okay, it's okay honey..mommy will pay for it! It's fine!" He continued to cry but I could tell that the stress was leaving his body bit by bit with each word of comfort I whispered to him. He trusted me, he knew I would make it better, he knew that he had messed up, though it was totally by accident. He felt the rush of regret surge through him, and then the rush of relief as I offered to him the one thing he needed most in that moment ( other than mommy throwing a little money at the situation )...Grace.

So of course, as we left the store and headed home I was left to wonder if maybe this again was a lesson, if the whole situation had something in it for me to learn ( other than the fact that the management of TJ Maxx is wonderful, kind, and does not ask one to replace inadvertantly broken serving dishes ).

I realized this..do we dietiers, warriors in the war on fat, offer ourselves the same amount of grace when we feel we "mess up"? When we cheat? In a comment by a lovely reader "TammyZ" she says this ( and I hope she will forgive me for posting it again here ):

"Press "re-start" IMMEDIATELY. ..If I "cheat", planned or unplanned, do not take it as license to blow the rest of the day, week, year. Simply start right away to the goal, the prize of skinny health!"

Love it! But do we all know to do that when we cheat? Do we offer grace to ourselves, and hit that re-start button? Do we remember that when a couple pounds extra show up on our scales, and we know we did the best we could, that we should simply offer ourselves the grace to say "It's ok, it's ok. We'll take care of it, don't worry about it, you didn't do it on purpose!" Do I extend to myself this same goodwill, that it seems so easy for me to extend to others? Do you?

So many studies have come out in recent years about how much our stress levels can effect our weight. Release CORTISOL much anyone?

My lovely, all-knowing buddy Wikipedia ( I call him Wikki for short ) defines Cortisol as such:

"Cortisol, also known as hydrocortisone, is a steroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress, and to a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increaseblood sugar through gluconeogenesis,suppress the immunesystem...It also decreases bone formation."

Um...wow. So it would seem that in addition to so many other reasons, the ability to offer ourselves some grace, especially when dieting could actually help us to lose more weight? I am in! I will be the most graceful, umm..grace-full? Gracefilled? Whatever. I will offer myself a re-set, a re-do, a do-over..whenever needed. The grace to say "It's ok!"

And from this shall be born...Rule # 4 Give yourself GRACE whenever it's needed, feel free to press the "Re-Start" button at any moment!

So here is today's full recap:

Creating The Perfect Diet


Rule #1

Eat with clear focus and intent.

Rule #2

Once a day think about the cost of not losing weight.

Rule # 3

Create a "Perfection List" and read it daily

Rule # 4
Give yourself GRACE whenever it's needed, feel free to press Re-Start at any moment!

That's it for today my friends, enjoy the day! Live, look, listen, love and offer yourself some nice calming, non-stress, non-fat Grace whenever possible!