Reclaming Your Heart in ONE Easy Step

Only one step! You, too, can do it now!

 

Everyone's blog has some article in it about getting over a past love. If you google it, you will find a bazillion other people who have something to say about it. Usually lists. 1. Throw away the pictures. 2. Throw away your full bottle of Xanax. You see where I'm going. But, it's all such trite crap. Do and don't do this, do and don't do that. Most people who feel broken want someone, somehow, to see inside their hearts and souls and somehow validate their experience. And if possible, help them make sense of it and assist them in seeing a future that doesn't include a gaping, almost physical hole in their psyches. People want someone to tell them it is going to be okay.

Okay is relative. Okay is existing, breathing in and out, taking care of business. Okay is functioning. People want something better than okay. People want some sense of peace. Something that allows them to relax. To stop running toward a future or a person that no longer exists. People want to quit thinking about those fragments of human experience--that, with a loved one, are truly imprinted and conscious. It is hard to push them down, and maybe it isn't even good to push them down. Maybe those tiny fragments of past bliss bubble up forever. What people really need and want out of a "how to heal your broken heart" article is something spiritually true and something tangible. The magic key that makes everything better than okay.

Some people are better than others at letting go of those fragments of stored bliss, those tiny bits of consciousness and shared experiences. So many things can form a memory--moments of intensity and connection, moments of spiritually connected and shared space. Some people, through iron wills or superhuman discipline, push their memories down, down, down, and they forget. It seems to me if something was truly full of bliss it's worth remembering. No Jim Carrey's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for this girl, no. But the tricky thing about intense memories is while recalled there is only a memory, but there is also the resulting feelings and thoughts that surround it.

For example: Let's take a man who had a lover. This lover was someone he believed to be the love of his life; that one person who transcended time and space and was somehow with him since the beginning of time. That was who this man believed his lover to be. Over time, as happens with many lovers, they go away. Sometimes they die, but often they just change. In the case of this man, he watched his lover change to him over time. He watched his lover turn against him, bit by bit. He listened as his lover explained why she was no longer a good fit for him and how she wanted her space. He tried to be who she needed him to be. But to no avail. It simply wasn't possible. He couldn't be the person she wanted him to be, because at the end of the day, he was still himself.

Why did she change? Why did she move from perceiving him as the love of her life to viewing him as someone of zero worth? Well, if popular psychology or anyone's best friend is correct, she changed because she found someone else. She was otherwise engaged and a coward. She didn't have the courage to tell the horrible truth to this man. And even if this was an act of mercy in her mind, there is a axiom of human relationships that I believe will always matter first and foremost. EVERYONE deserves the total truth. Because we always know. Sure, people manage to pull up their drawbridges and stock their moats with alligators, but the truth is always there underneath the surface like an ugly boil. This woman might have destroyed him with the truth of her other love interest, but at the same time she probably would have instantly freed him. At the very least she would have given him the respect of giving him the whole truth.

But at this point he will never have the truth. He will only and forevermore have conjecture. He will look for clues and find paths that lead to doors, he will turn handles to find them bolted shut. He will do it again and again until he is old and tired. Or he will give himself his own truth. And this is the truth that is missing in every "heal your broken heart" article I have ever read. If you insist on having a number, let's call it the number one thing to do in a list of one thing.

1. REALIZE:

If someone discards you it is God's greatest blessing. It is the universe freeing you from a person who treats you poorly, who doesn't see the magical, amazing, lovely, brilliant, funny, adorable person you are. Period. You must never weep and wail over someone who doesn't see you and adore you. Weep and wail over the loss of people who adore you and run into buses, or who adore you and die in battle. Weep and wail over the right people. The sadness many people feel at the end of being dumped is the incredible put down they received. They are reeling because their lover said they are worthless. Most people get stuck in misdirected pain. They want that person back assuring them that they are loveable. They want to make it right. They want to reclaim a past that possibly was only smoke and mirrors. You should take your walking papers and kiss them ecstatically while singing "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" if you can remember the words of that old Elton John tune. And then step back from the cliff, take a deep breath and walk the other way, knowing you were saved.

And the memories? The undeniable moments of connection and bliss? Let then float around you like butterflies. Pretty, lovely even, but not something you need to chase or put into a jar. The world is full of moments of connection and bliss. Far better to have a real, true moment of bliss, now or in the future, than to hold an old one under glass, examine carefully upon a fingertip, and replace with caution and put away.

Real bliss is strong and hearty. It is in abundance. It is available. It is yours in a summer's sunset or the eyes of a baby or an amazing piece of music. It is yours in the arms of a person you haven't met yet. Believe in the possibility of an abundant universe with more. There is always more. Choose what you will have more of--and go find it.

And a note to my friends who are suffering: Everything I said here is true. But only if you give yourself a chance to believe it.

The Wound

When someone wounds you, what do you do? Do you retaliate? Do you obsess about the circumstances of the incidents surrounding the great personal injury you suffered? Or do you let it go? Like a butterfly, wings gently propelling the memories and the circumstances away from your psyche until you find peace?

Technology makes letting go a complicated process. We are all so hooked in. We are notified if anyone we knows makes a move, bakes a cake, has an issue with their boss, their husband, or their neighbors. We see it in living color. Sometimes too graphic. And there it is. We simply cannot get away from the everyday ramblings of anyone we know--or have known.

There is incredible discipline involved in healing a wound. We have all had that tiny scab in an inconvenient place that, no matter how much we know better, we pick at. I have done it. Scratching a mosquito bite never ends well, if I can trivialize this for a moment. But it's not trivial. It's instantly possible to track the whereabouts and daily musings of anyone with whom we have ever had a connection. Even our arch enemies. Blocking aside. Blocking is only as good as your willingness not to outsmart the block you or another has set in place. Really, with all of the various ways to circumvent a block in most social media, a block is simply a digital "fuck you." Something in place so that the very first time (or tenth time) that person you used to know checks to see if that block remains, you can once again send a technological Hallmark of rejection. I block you. I block you. You can't come to my birthday party. You can't play with my toys. Anyone and anything but you is preferable to you. And so on.

It's a dirty business, perhaps even more so in the clinical sterility of it all. It's not the same as the classic playground scuffle--everyone angry, everyone running home--maybe even a fistfight. A fight on a playground involves real people in real interactions in a real place, engaged. Technology makes it far easier. It allows us to remove a person, a loved-one, a family member, a colleague, even a lover with a simple press of a button. The email "Dear John" letter has become a simple setting in a myriad of social networking applications. The very hollowness and inhumanness of it all makes it wound all the more.

You can be rendered a nonperson with the touch of a button. Click. You never existed.

And that is what has happened to interacting with fellow humans in 2015.

Think of the ramifications of this. Life becomes one big role play game. If you don't like the players, turn the game off, and walk away. You don't have to concern yourself with their feelings or souls or anything at all. You can erase them. Delete, delete, delete.

There's a popular song that says it well. "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye. In the official music video a naked man stands against a wall describing his pain. As he sings, the wall is painted like a huge geometric puzzle, and as he continues to lay out the circumstances of his relationship-strife, he, too, is painted like the wall and eventually disappears. He becomes the wall. Later a similarly painted woman turns to deliver some sort of harsh judgment and basically it's clear to the viewer that everyone naked and painted geometrically is having a very horrible day.

But there is some glaring reality in this song. Something that made it a huge hit. It's starkly real. (Even though it quaintly refers to his lover collecting her record collection. Circa 1984.) But that odd reference, presumably because "CD collection" is a shitty rhyme whereas "record" falls trippingly off the tongue, there is some kernel of incredible pain here. It is the pain of being rendered nonexistent by the person who was so terribly meaningful to you. It's the click death of social media. You are blocked. You cease to exist. He goes on to lament, "You didn't have to cut me off...act like we were nothing." Therein lies the rub: People want to exist. It's a natural human urge--we are wired to it. We especially want to be remembered (even with scorn) by someone with whom we shared a great emotional attachment.

You know there are those old movies where a patriarch of a family says with harshness and an unmistakable sense of forever, "He is dead to me. I have no son." This father, in all his infinite evil, knows that there is no better way to destroy his son in absentia. He deletes him. It would be healthier for the son if his father raged against him. Hell, even went after him with a baseball bat. But deleting someone who loves you will always be the quickest way to leave your mark. You are never forgotten in your heartless, evil, and everlasting cruelty. If only the son in this scenario could wash his hands of "Pop" too and go blithely on his way. But it doesn't work that way. The first person to delete the other person wins some subliminal war of sadism. It is the antithesis of honoring our connections with other humans, even the ones that have died a natural death.

So I choose to honor those who have fallen away from me today. I honor their memories. I honor the time spent. I honor the love I felt and the time and energy I gave. I honor the energy and love and time I received from another human being. And in the cases where someone left my life a misery, I appreciate that relationship is a two way street--even the worst of them. We all participate. It's just too bad we can't all come to peace.

However, maybe there is peace in the realization that we are not actually deleted. No one is deleted. We are not blocked from life. We are not erased. We don't even have to stand naked against a geometric wall slowly blending into it, eventually disappearing, like some horrifying Fellini film. We can embrace ourselves. We can realize (even if we don't believe in God or fate) that there is usually some order to things. People come and go. Even Billy Joel knew it.

"So many people in and out of my life, some will last, some will just be now and then."

He was optimistic. He was pre-digital. He knew that reality meant that he might just run into a person again. And hopefully when he did, he was healthy, wealthy and wise. 

I wish you peace in all your relationships,

Beauty <3

Save the Date for my Hugging Party

Recently I fell. I fell on slick tile, wet with coffee. I fell because I was thinking too fast, and moving too fast, and hurrying along my always busy life. In fact, I had been informed of the coffee spill by my daughter, who was getting into her truck bringing her art work to her college final, and going on to her first day at a new job. She told me as I clenched her in an unusual and very tight bear-hug. As I stood in the early Fall light with my arms around this grown woman, who is not only my own child, but my favorite person on the planet, I didn't know, I couldn't know, that this was a very significant hug. It was the last hug. The last real hug for a very long time.

If you know me, you know this means something--I am a hugger. I love to hug. It's part of my DNA. I am an affectionate, touchy-feely person. I like to give hugs and I like to receive them. I am tactile. I touch. I also believe a transfer of love and well being and happiness happens when you hug. I'm a fan. So, when I sped into my house and did a Funniest-Home-Video type long, excruciating fall across first my tiled landing, then over a table, and finally rolling and slamming full velocity to the tile below on my shoulder, you should know I didn't realize then that what I was really doing, besides breaking my humerus in four places, bruising both knee and pelvis, managing to rip all the soft tissue around my arm pit, shoulder, pec, and whatever else is there, was moving myself from a hugger to a non-hugger in the world.

Bummer.

As I fell I had the time to state aloud four times, "Don't get hurt!" Interestingly, this didn't help, but it was a lovely sentiment. It does however help anyone who is interested gauge the length of my fall from inception to "boom."

So boom I went. Being alone I (well, alone except for five dogs, two of them very sympathetic, two rowdy and uninterested, and one dumb) ended up calling for help, and help not immediately forthcoming, I called the paramedics. Happily, the paramedics arrived and proceeded to be extremely lovely to me and extremely calendar-worthy. (My shock-state allowed me to revel in the sheer beauty of the four strapping men before I actually felt how hurt I was.) Miraculously my dogs had quietly exited into my backyard where they all sat like statues without barking. This is a first, and it also proved that The Dogs Know What is Going On.

My Paramedic Team

My husband arrived mid paramedic massage of shoulders and luckily took me to the urgent care. When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a humerus break, and unreasonable fear. The fear was the urgent care doctor who detailed a horrible round of surgery and pins, and so on. I stayed calm and called the surgeon and went in the next day. I was fairly concerned because my arm, previously extremely useful, was then "flappy" and uncooperative. Well, I did the X-ray and MRI thing, and then I was told while I had a severe fracture, I could manage the first steps of my own cure by simply holding completely and unreasonably still for weeks.

So I did it. I held completely still. My body became extremely aware and self-protective of my appendage. I held it close to my side, I inadvertently tensed all the surrounding muscles as I protected the break, and I held still. This included not being able to lie down, and, basically, not being able to do a heck of a lot of anything. Because my break was my right shoulder and by the Grace of God I am left-handed, I could do a lot of the embarrassing personal tasks we are all loath to include others in--even family members. But, even with all these blessings (break on non-dominant side, no surgery, etc.) the extreme mental and physical discipline of holding still is something hard to fathom unless you have done it yourself.

Happily, if you move too far from still, your body provides you with a gentle reminder: bone searing pain.

So I began my own version of nesting. Because I couldn't sleep on the bed we developed an intricate way of packing me with pillows into a secure sitting-up position on a plush love seat sofa. Complete with a round airline neck pillow and a couple of Vicodin, I could sleep extremely poorly and interruptedly for hour at a time. My horrible cries for assistance to get up or even move position were met with exhausted, but loving, assistance from family members. This kept up for about 50 days. They told me I could type (I couldn't), they told me I could tolerate a bra (right. sure. hysterical.), they told me I could do "anything I wanted but lift my arm."

Taking this literally, I undertook a long trip to my writing workshop six hours away. We had to abandon ship halfway there and get me a hotel and drugs to make it through that night. Eventually I settled into a long and happy love affair with old sitcoms and not having to do Anything in Particular.

At first this was horrible for me. I am an "up and doing" person with something going on at all times. Eventually I began to see the charm and innocence of old sitcoms. (I watched nothing upsetting including talk shows.) I ventured into the Home Shopping Network a few times but because I couldn't type my credit card in the website in the early days of my injury I am still the proud possessor of a retirement savings account.

I can whistle this theme song now.

So, as my family went about their lives, coming and going to school and work, running errands, even leaving the house to take out the trash, I sat and watched Dennis the Menace. I watched Father Knows Best. I went through a series of old Gidget movies. I had no desire for anything current. I didn't want to see anything that could in the least upset me or even make me slightly nervous. I just didn't have the emotional capacity for suspense. In fact, I quit Facebook feeling like it wasn't serving me, I took Twitter off my phone, and I just retreated, feeling like I didn't have any real friends and in all the pain feeling exceptionally sorry for myself.

Hawaii was awesome, Rome, not so much.

In situations like this you get who is there for you really quickly. I began to understand through this reality check that while social media had its place and in fact, I have even renewed a few old friendships there and made some new ones, for the most part, your social media lists, including Facebook are not your friends. The people who are your friends are the people who pick up the phone. They are the people who show up. They are the people who send actual snail mail or text on your (gasp) phone. I got that I have about 10 great friends. I am unbelievably grateful that I have that many. I also have some amazing family. I am a lucky person.

The time I have spent with my shoulder broken has been a series of interesting ups and downs. I have noticed that people won't stop for you in the street normally but donning a sling they get unusually nice. I have noticed that strangers have a tendency to grab your shoulder in exclamation a lot actually, and that even when you are released from sling duty you have to keep it with you to alert crowds. I have learned that without a bra I am a hopeless fashion don't. Period.



This ad just says so much.

 

In some ways not being able to maintain my usual schedule of working out, dressing up and facing the world looking as good as possible was the worst part for me. I have hated buying clothes a size bigger for comfort and I have hated not being able to get my hair right. I have hated my emotional fragility. I have hated the crying.* That is until I decided I had to cry. And once I allowed myself to cry I have just kept it up. I am now officially a person who will cry every time I feel like it--hopefully forever. If you are with me I won't adopt my mother's old "put on your sunglasses" privacy stance. No, I will just cry. It prevents migraines. I will also laugh. Loud and hard. And someday when I am healed I will laugh like Santa and giggle and jiggle and bounce and fly across the room.

And while I fly across the room dancing and laughing and filled with amazing mirth, if you happen to be there I will grab you and we will twirl in a happy dance. We will twirl the way we did in the grass as 8-year-olds. We will laugh until we cry and fall into each other's arms and hug and hug and hug.

And that sounds like a beautiful time. Doesn't it?

Hugging.

Come to my Hugging Party.

So save the date. This is your invitation to my hugging party. I might send paper invitations to real people. There will be a crowd of less than 20 and the hugs will be the best part.

Happy Holidays!


Love--

Beauty

* If you have ever had physical therapy you know that crying is an every day thing--and in fact the thing that PT survivors recount the most when they discuss it.

You Just Don't Get It



When I am looking for more Twitter followers, I post a saying that Buddha said. Usually this is in the form of a neat image with some sort of flashy picture with a saying superimposed on top: Buddha says, "Be cool." Buddha says, "Start being who you want to be today and release the past." Buddha says, "Get over your anger." One great thing about posting this sort of thing to Twitter is an instant increase in followers. Another, (and actually the real reason), is that all of these pithy sayings actually make sense. You should, indeed, let it go. You can only lose that which you cling to. You shouldn't believe everything you read. Including this. I figure if I post these things I will remind myself what I need to think about. I will connect with people who also want to remind themselves. There is nothing at all negative about it. My daughter (who is college-age and a bit of a cynic) calls me a "Namaste Hipster." That's okay. Namaste as a concept is something to aspire to, and certainly being a hipster gives me some level of street cred, even if it's only with myself. That's something.

But, I am blowing smoke. This isn't what I am here to write about today. I am writing today to talk about how social media is just a tiny keyhole into our real lives. That sometimes we post, thinking that people will see what we are posting, and "get" something we wish we could say to them, perhaps some information we want them to have about us. Something to improve their image of us, or to ensure them that we are fine without them, or let them know that we are missing them, or a myriad of other reasons.

The problem is, how the heck do you really know if they are stalking your social media on the level needed to grasp your veiled meanings? And like everything in text, veiled meanings and deep subtext are just rife with the possibility for misunderstanding.

I have a family member from whom I am estranged. That's an ugly sentence. It means that the relationship is so broken down, so damaged, so negative, that we have walked completely away from knowing each other. The person that I am estranged from has been, in the course of my life, a very important person to me. One of the people I counted as the inner circle, a friend of my heart. Until.

Until the break. Breaking off a love relationship--even a platonic, family relationship, is a serious thing. It is something you think about every single day. But as each day passes, the idea that you can just pick up the phone becomes more remote. The passing of time makes the gulfs between people wider and more complicated. Anger and pain seem to be more willing co-conspirators than peace and acceptance. People get cloaked and choked in their own stuff.

And sometimes you really do have to make a break for it. The person in your life is truly hurting you. They have made it clear they don't respect your life choices, they have has mocked what you love, and made it clear that they hate you more than they love you. You can't build a relationship out of someone's hate and disrespect and anger. You can't build anything. The best you can do is walk away praying that some day they will get it. That they will wake up on some imagined morning of the future and say, "Oh, my God, I was wrong. I need to call and say that I love and accept this person."

But that doesn't happen. People don't do that. People don't stay and work on it. People don't try to make amends, they don't try to see the value in those with whom they are estranged. The problem with estrangement is it becomes so self-aware and uncomfortable. The leap to communication is across a huge gulf, filled with hatred. A soul-sucking, defeating, soup of disrespect. Who wants to take a pole vault and try to make it over that?

Estrangement has another bedfellow. Time. Time and estrangement are in it together. They are in cahoots. Anger makes people forget to check their watches. To check their calendars. To check reality. And time is a thief. Time takes your hand and kisses you gently on the lips and then tosses your unsuspecting ass off a cliff. Just like that. Just like that.

Have you ever been so pissed at someone you want to write explicit instructions preventing them from attending your funeral?

Funeral notes: A live band with people singing songs I have written, a full dance floor. A seafood bar and a martini fountain. A slide show of my theatrical hits. A case with my Tonys displayed. A bouncer at the door to prevent (insert offending name here) from attending.

Anger makes some pretty elaborate plans. Love isn't so organized. Love says, "Come on. Whatever. Just be kind." Love says, "I forgive you. I know you didn't mean it. I know you have your issues as I have mine."
Anger gets bouncers. Love gives hugs.

Life is so very short. Life is a wisp of smoke, a flower that blossoms briefly and wilts, a shining brief instant, a falling star. Lovers and friends and siblings and children, and people who should love each other but have replaced their love with anger should consider taking heed.

Anger throws a casual arm around your shoulder and says, " You have plenty of time. You have pressing concerns! You have to work. You have to produce. You have bills to pay. You don't have time for people's emotional baggage."

Love knows you don't have time. And the time you do have is never going to be enough. You will never have enough time to hold the hand of someone you love. You will never have enough time for those side-splitting laughs. You will never have enough time to raise your voice in greeting, in excitement, in happiness, and in song.

So make the call.
Answer the email.
Book the flight.
Show up for coffee.


And, for everyone's sake, jump across the table and the scary gulf of hate and fear and clench people in those bear hugs that we all love to receive.

Get over the fear. Life is remembered by the moments of love and connection we share with other living beings. Nothing more. Even the greatest art is really only mass connection. Everything that we love and share is about connection.

So, here is my paragraphs-long Buddha post. Except I am the Buddha today. I am a living representation of spirit and as such I claim my higher self and speak those words to the people who need to hear them the most.

Everyone I love--let me take this time to tell you how I love you. How I remember our friendship and our childhoods and our moments of laughter and our deep conversations. Let me tell you I am honored and grateful for the things we have shared. I am grateful for the days on the beach and the glasses we clinked. The moments of recognition. The warm hugs. The happy hellos. The emotional reunions. I am grateful for the jubilation. I am grateful for the understanding. I am grateful.

And to me: Take your own advice. Just try.

Don't Bring Me Down!

You've got the power!

Have you ever tried to change your life in some meaningful way and found that sometimes people who you think are supposed to be in your corner just aren't? Have you got "friends" or loved ones who say they are on your team but in reality are alienated by your attempts to change your life, reinvent yourself, or get healthy? Have you just assumed you were too sensitive, even though they were negative, or passive aggressive, suddenly just not interested in your progress, or downright mean? Have you assumed that it was somehow not them, but you?

Well, guess again. When you are actively looking to change your life and people freak out and suddenly act less positive to you it can only be a couple of things:

1. They are envious. Maybe they want to change something about their lives too, but as yet they don't feel ready. Instead of getting real with themselves your attempts for something better alienate them. People who are like this can often turn their own negativity about themselves toward you.

2. They fear that your transformation will take you away from them somehow. They fear that you will lose weight or get healthy or follow your dream and leave them. It's a fear-based reaction and not based on reality. People who we love hope we change for the better. They support and encourage our dreams. They cheer us on--even if they are not where they want to be in life.

3. They are rescuers and your ability to heal yourself and take care of yourself and show some gumption and resolve gets in the way of their need to fix you. Some people are into the "broken wing" syndrome. That is, they love fixing people, rescuing people, and helping others to the point that they don't deal well with those who hook into their own empowerment.

4. They are toxic and you didn't see it. People who love you empower you. People who love you are on your side. People who love you applaud your efforts and want the best for you. People who love you who are having their own problems have the grace to tell you that and make it clear that their personal issues are theirs, not yours.

Long ago I had a friend who gave me a short and sweet piece of advice: "Hang around people who like you." This is a golden rule and one to live by. It is also completely true. People who like you and, especially, love you should make you feel more good than bad. When you need them they should try to be there for you as often as they can. When you share your successes they cheer--they don't say, "Stop bragging." Look at how you treat those you like and those you love. Are you good to them? Are you doing the things you ask for in return? It's not a one-way street. You must be willing to give to them as well. You must give what you want to receive.

So, try something new this week. Just start paying attention. If people aren't supporting you or are acting hostile or passive aggressive to you as you start to change your life to live healthier, sit them down and have a kind and loving discussion. Ask for what you need. People who love you will always try to give you more of what you need, not less. Give people time to get on board. Especially those you love. Rome wasn't built in a day. But, after you have informed people gently and with love about what you need, make some good decisions for yourself. You deserve respect. In fact, you must insist upon respect. It's never too late to learn this or to change your circumstances.

The message for today is: Take care of yourself. Align yourself with people who help, not hurt. Align yourself with people who make you feel good, not bad. Do not allow anyone to make you feel the good things you do for yourself are selfish. Surround yourself with positive, nurturing, supportive people. Send those who aren't off to deal with their negativity and personal issues with your support and love, but let them have space and time to heal.

All of this takes incredible bravery and strength, but you will find, once you try it, that strength grows with every positive action you take for yourself.

Thank you for your amazing support and generous hearts!


Love--
Beauty

Paleo--In the Beginning...

Well, I made it through the first day. I tossed out everything in my refrigerator, and because I can't stand to throw away good food, I have given anything I don't choose to eat to someone who will enjoy it. It was strange to see huge bags of trash coming out of my fridge, but maybe it's symbolic--this process is one of cleansing. Eating clean, starting over--and in a sense, resetting my body. A reboot of sorts. If you are reading The Beauty and the Blog for the first time--welcome! Please check back often to see my updates about the 90-Day-Challenge. Also, please join my on Twitter (BeautyNBlog)  or TEAM GRACE on Facebook, and feel free to follow this blog too for instant updates when I post.


Yesterday I did a lot of research for Paleo sites online and they really run the gamut--from people who are trying to improve their health, or dealing with their children's auto-immune diseases, or dealing with their own ill health or diabetes, or like me, trying to get healthy which also requires a large weight loss.


Paleo, in short, is eating like a cave person. The theory is the more natural the better. So, if you see a huge list of ingredients that you don't recognize, don't eat it. If you can imagine yourself dressed like someone from the Flintstones gathering this food, or spearing it if you are more like Bam Bam, then, that is Paleo.  A no brainer is looking at it like this:


Eat:
Vegetables
Fruits
Lean meats
Fish
Good oils (Olive, coconut, avocados)
Nuts and seeds
Don't eat sugar, dairy, gluten


I will include resources for you to read more every day, both here and on TEAM GRACE.


So, Day One Menu highlights included:
Lunch
An organic salsa and avocado omelet, served with baby carrots.
Snack
Dried banana slices from Trader Joes. Amazingly sweet, tasted like candy and low calorie.
Dinner
Grass Fed Beef with sautéed organic mushrooms
Organic spinach salad with tomatoes and avocado, olive oil, fresh garlic, and balsamic vinegar dressing
Cantaloupe and berries

Day Two Menu highlights:
Breakfast
A premeasured 170 calorie serving of raw almonds
1 cup coffee (yes, I am still using coffee, and may for the whole time, but I am thinking about this. I am a coffee addict and cutting down is a process!)
Lunch (Really more like brunch today.)
Organic spinach, grass fed beef and egg scramble
Fruit
Dinner
Swai
Sweet potato
Zucchini
a very small piece of 85% dark chocolate (people on Paleo generally allow this, and heck, it's Valentine's Day!


Water is vital. I am also almost immediately noticing that everything is tasting more intense. I feel like I am getting food and I am not terribly hungry. One nice thing is you can really have as much as you want on Paleo, the only thing you truly need to limit are nuts and seed and oils--while they should definitely still be enjoyed in moderation.


Check back later for my emotional check in--Getting Support.


PS Check out these sites for information on Paleo: http://www.paleoforlife.org/html/intro and http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/10/04/the-beginners-guide-to-the-paleo-diet/


Love-
Beauty

The A$$ is Half Empty

These could be hearts, turn the computer over...
 

Kim Kardashian take a seat. Hell, you already have one! For some reason as I start this blog post today, I am full of stupid plays on words and even lamer one-liners about reality TV stars and the size of people's a$$es--but I promise there's a point. And the point is this:

I am starting my own hardcore weight loss program in a very, very ambitious way. I have joined my gym's 90-day challenge and I intend to lose 50 pounds during this process. (Or come as close as I can, working as hard as I can.) I will be working with a trainer and eating a method of clean that is known as "Paleo"--(read: Cavegirl).

Why?

Well, a couple of years ago I lost about 75 pounds. I have managed to keep most of it off even though I struggle to re-lose the last ten pounds of this about three times a year. I have managed to improve my fitness to a level where my blood pressure is holding (with meds) I can do 30 minutes on an elliptical about 3 or 4 times a week with no stress and I wear normal size clothes--although I am at the top of the heap in normal sizes, I am not in fat lady store land. So that is awesome, right? Sure it is, but (and the big but is) I am still overweight. I am still on blood pressure meds. I am still having migraines. In short, I am half way done. What seemed like amazing progress three years ago has now become the far thinner version of the fat me.

So, what to do? My gym (Lifetime Fitness) has a 90-day-challenge a few times a year. I tried this once before and didn't stick for various reasons, most of them not really good enough, and that was the best I could do at the time. But now, because I see myself needing just as many years on the clock as I can manage to pursue my revitalized career writing for the musical theatre, I don't see myself in any kind of "wind down" phase. In fact, I see myself ramping up. However, unlike Sheldon Cooper in my favorite episode of BBT, I don't have a Virtual Presence Device to take me around town while I hide in my my cozy bed protecting myself from the dangers of living in the world.

I just need to be healthier. I don't know about your family tree, but in mine we have heart attack and stroke and some cancer thrown in just in case that wasn't fun enough. I am not a child (yes, I know I am ageless), and I need to take control of my fitness and health now if I want to be the Betty White of the theatre when I am in my 90s.

So, here's my plea:

I need support. I want community. I would love it if everyone would join me on the quest and spend 90 days eating right and working out and doing whatever necessary to meet their own personal goals, but I understand not everyone is ready, able, willing or even needs to do that. I do. So what I ask of you is your virtual support.

So join me here, on FaceBook (Team Grace), on Twitter (BeautyNBlog), and heck if social media isn't your bag, baby, join me mentally. I can use support, I will be working my "a$$" off (apologies Kim K.) and I will report here. Maybe every day, certainly every week.

I have a friend who told me I am a very sensitive person. Well, perhaps. But I am as sensitive to good news and positive attitude and high energy as I am to anything else. I intend to start a fire. I intend to light my own candle. I intend to rock this. Who wants to come along? I have a party bus with many large, comfortable seats (sorry again, Kim). So get your yoga pants on and let your freak flag fly. We leave on February 10th.


Love--

Wilma Flintstone
(Yeah, it's me, Beauty) ;)