This Past Week

On the work front: I did a lot of work.  It is amazing how hard you have to work before leaving for vacation.  And it felt good.  I got a lot accomplished.

On the personal front: I did a lot of thinking and planning:

• I’ve been struggling with how to incorporate HAES into my own journey to fitness and I had a revelation.  Read all about it in these two posts: “What is Health?”  and “Where is the ‘Me” in Health? — After all, it is all about ‘Moi’!“
• I have a new truck.  A new truck which I love.  But that thar new baby is a catterwaulin’ and demandin’ hard earned dollars on a reg-ul-LARH basis.  Akshulee, my new baby has been purfect, but them thar nasty wall street banker fellas, they are down right ornery!  And they want me to send them part of my check each month for the next five years.  *sigh*  Which means that I’m been working through next year’s budget to see how much dance I can afford.  The short answer is a whole lot less than I want.  *sigh*  (Special note to any event directors that may be reading this — I work cheap! I’d love to be on your line dance staff!  Hint, hint, hint!)

On the health and fitness front: it was pretty much what you’d expect.  Some small gains, mostly in inches lost (Check my Charts page for the cold hard numbers).  I continued to make better food choices, better, not perfect and I made a promise to myself that no matter what, I would get back on Jenny Craig starting on Saturday, today, whether or not the kitchen was the picture of perfection that I would like it to be.  It ain’t.  I did.  And it feels good.  After all, who wants an epitaph that reads: “He kept a clean and neat kitchen.”   Life is about more than that.  🙂

On the dance front: which I guess is also part of the whole fitness thing.  🙂  I downloaded all the UCWDC advanced dances.  Later today I’ll buy the music off of iTunes and tomorrow or Monday, I’ll actually hit the studio and start learning the dances. Whoo Hoo!

Happy New Year!

I’m gonna tell you now.  Don’t make any resolutions!  People never keep resolutions.  If you really want to change something do three things:

1. Identify what it is that is bugging you; the thing that you want to be different.
2. Decide if the amount of irritation or problems which that thing causes you is worth the effort to change it.
3. Then make a goal, create a plan and do it.  Start small, keep working at it, and accomplish the goal.

That way you will not have made a New Year’s Resolution, you will have started a New Year’s Revolution!

That is what I’m doing.  The year past, 2011, for the most part was a year from hell.  Stress, money problems, work issues, transportation issues, OMG, the list goes on.  I can feel my heart rate spiking even just thinking about it!

But, late in the year, the tide turned, the wave receded, the dawn broke, the storm ended and things are turning around.  In some ways I feel as if I’m emerging from a storm shelter after a tornado.  There is a hell of a mess all around me and there is a lot of hard dirty clean up work to be done.  But I will rebuild.  One small step at a time.  It’s a very Zen kinda thing.  🙂

Week One, Day One, Meal One

Breakfast, Week 1, Day 1

And off we go!  Weeeeeee!

I’m on vacation through Jan 15, 2012.  I intend to use my “off time” to really focus on setting up new healthy routines.  I guess since I’ve been on Jenny Craig before, I should say “recovering healthy routines.”

Since starting my vacation yesterday, I’ve been sleeping.  A lot.  I didn’t realize how worn out my body is.  Sheesh!  I feel like I’m sleeping away my vacation.  But, one should always listen to ones body and if my body says “sleep” then since I’m on vacation and nobody is impacted but me, I’m gonna “sleep.”  However, that does mean I’m eating breakfast at noon.  LOL!

In the photo of my meal you can see the box that Breakfast Sandwich was in before I nuked it.  And you can see the menu where I dutifully crossed off the things I’m eating.  You’ll notice that the coffee is not in the photo.  That’s because I had to have my two cups of coffee before I could even think about preparing breakfast.

Not that “preparing breakfast” was all that tough.  I may be a gay guy but I’m still a guy!  If I can’t nuke it or eat it raw, it ain’t gonna be on my plate.  I do have a stove.  My roommate uses it to bake pizzas and fish sticks.  I use it once a year to fix a sweet potato casserole to take home at Thanksgiving or Christmas.  And this year, I skipped even that much cooking.

On my “Check-List” I had noted that I really wanted to do a thorough cleaning of the pantry, the dishes cupboard, and the frig.  (I’m a native Texan — it is a frig, not a refrigerator or an icebox.  It’s a “frig”)

But I digress…

Needless to say those “cleaning / prep” activities are still waiting to be checked off.  Which brings me to a TIP that I wish to share with you, my dear readers, all six of you reading this blog…

 Don’t wait to start or do something until everything is “perfectly in order”

 because if you do, you’ll never get started and it will never get done!

 There is “what we’d like it to be” and there is “just enough like what we’d want it to be” to get the job done.  Always go with the “hey, it’s close enough for government work” approach.  You’ll get more accomplished that way.  And before all the public service folks out there start reaching for their mouse and going clicky clicky clicky on the Comments section and start tossing those virtual tomatoes at me….  I work for a city government.  I know of what I speak.  😉  But if you want to toss a couple of tomatoes my way, hey, go for it.  It’ll save me a trip to Whole Foods.

Week One Menu

(The menu is down below: front and back — click on it to see it full size.)  As I may have mentioned, part of the reason I like Jenny Craig is that I don’t have to spend time figuring out a menu, calculating the proper calorie level, the correct balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats.  Jenny does all that boring stuff for me.  And, BONUS, I don’t have to actually COOK ANYTHING!!!

Have I mentioned I’m not into the whole cooking thing?  Putting sauce from jar or can on top of something – OK!  Bravo.  Sprinkling one spice onto food – Check!  OK!  Bravo!  No problem!  But start going beyond 1 + 1 and, Heeeeeeeelllllllooooooooo!  Hold up thar Cowboy!  That would be what you call “cooking!’  Sheesh!  I kid you not, my eyes start to glaze over when people start going on and on about how you can mix this and that and voila, you have a nine-course meal.  If I wanted to be a chemist, I would have chosen that as my major, OK?

So, being on Jenny Craig is like having a paid staff of nutritionists and cooks to take out all the tedious bits.  All I have to do is grab my reading glasses and follow the nuking instructions on the entre box, open cans or packages of veggies, nuke those and inside of 10 minutes I’m kickin’ back reading a book or watching Stargate Atlantis and enjoying a tasty meal on which I didn’t waste valuable time!

So there you have it.  I’ve started back on Jenny Craig.  I’ve taken another small step forward on my journey.  Wish me success!  Why do I not say “Wish me luck?”  Because luck isn’t under my control; success is!

See ya on the dance floor!

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