Ideal Weight

I don’t know whether to burst into tears or bust out laughing in hysterics.  I just googled the ideal weight for a woman 4’7″ tall.  Below is what I got….  68-84 pounds!  I don’t think my left ass check even weighs 68 pounds!!!

Apparently, my weigh-in this morning at 124.4 means that I have A LOT of work to do!  It is no secret, I’m chubby.  I’ve always had a round face and a soft tummy, but I’ve never thought  of my self as THAT overweight.  After-all, I’m Italian–I like to eat!   I do exercise regularly.  On any give day, you’ll catch the hubs and I cruising the neighborhood at a decent clip and I try to practice yoga at least once a week in a class or at home.  But…. being 38.77% OVER what I should be…. oivay!

Now, in full disclosure, getting my ideal weight was a quick Google search, but even looking just slightly further, there is a general consensus around these numbers.  What a wake up call!

When I started this blog, I started it as a means to hold myself accountable in the quest for a healthier life.  I fell off course in my journey, but my blog evolved into daily musings and my truthful thoughts on life.  So in the interest of honesty and giving a second attempt at holding myself accountable, I NEED to lose some weight!

Last week, I downloaded an app called Noom™®.  While perusing Facebook, I saw a catchy ad that said, “You aren’t using MySpace anymore, so why are you still using Weight Watchers?”  Thinking it was clever, I figured I’d give it a go.

I am just under a week into using this app to journal my food and track my exercise, but so far, I really really like it.  What differentiates this app from all of the other weight loss apps I’ve tried (and believe me, there are LOTS), is that is focuses on the psychological aspect of nutrition.  And notice, I said nutrition, not weight loss.

From the second you sign up with Noom, you are assigned a “coach” that chats with you at least once a week .  This person is there to not only encourage you, but to help you think about the WHY behind eating what you are eating.  You are on a ‘program’ and each day you have a series of short readings to make you really think about your food actions.  The best part is that all of this takes less than 10 minutes a day–perfect for a busy working mom!

Of course, like most nutrition apps, there is the usual logging of food and exercise.  However, in Noom, there is a built-in pedometer which seems pretty accurate, so the only exercise you have to “journal” is extra exercise  when you might not have your phone.  What is even better is that they don’t tell you that  you have to start walking 10,000 steps immediately.  They know all too well, that starting out small and feeling small successes is best.  I was encouraged to get at least 2,000 steps on day 1, 2,300 on day 2, 2,600 day 3, etc etc.  I also get reminder to keep moving or to journal my meals.

So, what are the drawback to Noom?  Price.  At $45.00 per month, Noom is pricier than the other options that are out there.  My FitnessPal is totally free and Weight Watchers is $7.15 a week with in person meetings (approx $30 a month).

Also, the food database is not as extensive as other apps out there.  For example this morning I scanned my generic unsweetened almond milk from Stop & Shop and it was not included in their database.  Not a huge big deal to add the information, but part of the ease in using other apps is that a lot more foods are included in their database for journaling purposes.

Overall, I like Noom and after my two-week free trial, I may opt to pay.  I’ve seen some weight loss so far and it has really given me pause before I choose what I eat all while encouraging me to get moving.

When I started this whole thing, I promised I’d be totally transparent about myself and my life and actually putting my weight on paper–to the WWW- was incredibly daunting, yet inspiring.  Don’t expect to see me weighing in at 85 pounds any time soon.  That was high school, pre-three kids weight!  My goal weight is 110.  I’d love to see 100 lbs again, but I doubt that will happen.  And….before you hate me for complaining about the small number, remember you are probably a good foot taller than me!

4’7″ 124.4 lbs 3/29/2018 40 years old

Sooooo…. here I am, tired eyes at 124.4 pounds.   I hope to post a pic soon enough saying “Wow! I did it!”  Like I said yesterday, the power of positive thinking is an amazing thing……

All of this is to say, I got this!

 

The Key to Happiness

If you were to survey 100 people, Family Feud style, asking what is the key to happiness, I’d be willing to bet you would get more than 100 not so simple answers.

• Find inner peace
• Find God
• Be happy with who you are
• Be healthy
• Do what you love
• Love what you do
• Have children
• Get married
• Find the partner of your dreams
• Lose weight
• Take medication
• Eat, drink, and be merry

And the story goes on and on…. As someone who has constantly tried to seek and find the key to “happiness”, I am often left wondering, is there any such thing as true happiness or enlightenment or is this something that is just reserved for Buddhists, saints, or heavily medicated people.  Hmmmmm…..

During my separation with Tom, I spent a lot of time reflecting on why my life was in the state it was.  Was it because I had not yet found God?  Was He punishing me?  Was it because I was not accepting of myself?  Did my negative self talk push Tom away?  Was it because I was not an adequate wife and mother?  Did that leave me feeling unfulfilled?  Was it because I didn’t make enough money and I was always hoping to find more?

Truth be told, I don’t think any one of those things were the key to happiness.  I think the elusive “happiness” that we all seek is a balance and combination of many things.

This year I turned 40, and one of the biggest things I’ve gained while joining the “over the hill” club is the idea of true self acceptance.  I am learning to accept myself where I am while encouraging myself to strive for better.  I no longer hate myself because I have 15 pounds to lose.  I accept that I have am a little fluffier than I want to be, yet, each day I make small changes so I can see the weight come off and live a healthy life.  I am no longer disappointed in myself for making under 50K a year.  I am PASSIONATE about my job as a teacher, and each day I try to change lives.  I have given up being annoyed that my house isn’t clean enough.  Rather, my kids have a HOME and all that come here know that this is their home, too.

I’ve learned to greet myself with patience, love, and understanding because after-all, I am human, too.  Part of the process of learning to accept me, is making the conscious decision to turn all of my negatives into positives.  You can’t achieve happiness if your mindset is always looking at the negative side of things.  If you have ever spent any amount of time with a pessimist, you know that the negative energy is draining.  Hearing the whining, complaining, and lamentings of  shoulda/coulda/woulda is energy sucking.  It takes so much more energy to think about all of the things we wish we could be or have instead of smiling and thinking, “Gee, I’ve really been blessed!”  I’ve learned that over time, the more I count my blessings, the more I seem to be blessed.

Am I just lucky?  I am sure in some ways I am, but in others, I am very intentional about the energy that I allow into my life.  I try to live by the Golden Rule–do unto others as you would have done unto you.  And….well, it’s worked.   Generally, in my quest to be happy, I enjoy making others happy when I can.  Even if it is as simple as watching a friend’s kid or giving the homeless man on the side of the street a fin, I find joy in making the life of others better.  The opposite is true, too.  Believe me, I’ve been the recipient of a dose of karma once or twice, rightly so.  But, instead of focusing on the “wrong” that was done to me, I decide to look at my culpability in the situation and learn from that mistake.

Happiness, as elusive as it may seem, comes to me each day in different forms and from different people.  Many times I find it in something I’ve done.  Sometimes it is the incredible hugs my kids give me or the passionate kiss from my husband.  Other times I feel overwhelmed with joy when my student’s trust me and turn to me for advice.  And always, I find happiness in my relationship with my inner self and with my God.

I’ve been blessed, no doubt, and each day I will continue to look for life’s little blessings that contribute to MY “happiness”.  It is the journey that brings me joy.  Finding out the “what”, in my opinion, is better than being in “the what” and not knowing it.  As Buddha said, “There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path.”

 

Blessings~

AMT

 

 

 

A Little Bit of Faith

It is no secret that the past several years of my life have been challenging.  In my quest for peace I have been searching for the answers to life’s hard questions–the why’s, the how’s, the what’s, and mostly the who am I.  Of sorts, I’ve been searching for some sort of faith, a religion, maybe???  Mainly, though I have been searching for something that has given me a sense of serenity when I just can’t rationalize the insanity that is unfolding around me.

My journey of faith is like a lotus flower, ever blooming and ever evolving.  I feel so strongly about my never-ending journey in a quest for faith and enlightenment, that Ihad a lotus flower mandala tattooed onto my back.  As Wikipedia explains, “[The lotus flower’s]  unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul. The growth of its pure beauty from the mud of its origin holds a benign spiritual promise.”   In other instances, the lotus flower is upheld because of its unending beauty amidst the murky waters and mud in which it blooms.  What a powerful symbol!  For me, the lotus flower has embodied and personified both my constant spiritual growth and the inside beauty I try so desperately to uphold amidst daunting times.

For a long time, yoga and many of its tenets have and continue to speak to my soul.  Hinduism’s “main purpose of human life is to get closer to God so that one’s soul can be released from a cycle of human suffering, death, and rebirth and achieve unity with the divine” (https://ri.pbslearningmedia.org/).  Through the practice of yoga and meditation, I have learned self acceptance, meeting myself where I am, and also learning to challenge myself even in discomfort.

At times, I dabbled in the world of paganism.  I have my tarot cards read regularly and even own my own set of Goddess Cards.  I shuffle and read my cards a lot, especially when I feel like I need guidance from the universe.  I’ve spoken to spiritual mediums and practiced Reiki.  I’ve even contemplated visiting the Buddhist temple.

All of these things filled my soul with bits and pieces, but nothing yet has totally fit that missing piece and truth be told, having grown up Roman Catholic, I was always in conflict with disregarding the teachings of Christianity.

Then, one day, I was sitting at home lamenting to an old friend about how I felt like a failure as a wife.  He said to me, “you didn’t fail, you are fallible…just like all of us.”   Then he said something I haven’t heard in ages, “Just put your trust in Jesus.  Let him do the work.”

Let someone else do the work???  You mean trust and have faith in something I can’t see.!!!  That was an idea I hadn’t really considered.  So…..I prayed, and I prayed, and I PRAYED.  I prayed to ANYONE who would listen–to Jesus, to God, to the Universe, to my Spirit Guides, to my Hindu Gods and Goddesses….. but my friend kept challenging me to think about going back to church and putting my faith back into Jesus.

So I did….I let it all go and just asked Jesus and God for help.  I sat on my bed one afternoon and wept and I prayed like there was no tomorrow.

That is when things began to turn around.  I just believed that God had a better plan in store for me, like He had me in the palm of His hand, and that I wasn’t doomed to be a divorced mother of three.  Things were always easy, but when they were tough, I prayed.  I pulled out my Bible and looked for passages about marriage. I began to understand.

I also started to read a Christian book called The Love Dare.  This book talks about and teaches us to love our spouse unconditionally and without reserve just as Jesus loves us.  Amazingly, Tom and I began to see each other in a different light.  I kept talking to my friend about the small miracles I was seeing, or maybe it was just the changes I was making, but there was a difference in my house.  He kept encouraging me to try going back to church.

One day I walked into a church called New Life Worship Center.   What a difference from anything I had ever know.  It was full of joy and people were happy to be there!  Actually, people didn’t want to leave there!  The music worship is great and my kids love going to the kids ministry.  I’m learning to read the Bible and what a fascinating read it is!  Sometimes I just open it up read and take notes in my journal.  On Easter, I’ll be going to their service, “Easter At The Dunk.”  

 

Each week I leave service with a sense of serenity that I haven’t felt in really long time.

Am I becoming a born again Christian?

I don’t know, but, what I can tell you is that I feel in my heart that God exists and that His grace is AMAZING and UNENDING.  I know that when I read the Bible, through my eyes, it is a book filled with wisdom and living life as a good human being.

I believe there are a million ways to reach God.  I’ve spoken to my God in so many ways and using so many traditions, but right now, reaching God in this community feels right.  I still do yoga, I still read the teachings of Buddha, and I have a new tattoo of a different mandala called the Hamsa, but I know in the depths of my heart that God is good.

 

 

 

While we live in a world that is so full of hatred, why are people so afraid to invoke the name of God whose teachings are about love and tolerance and turning the other cheek to those who wrong you.  As far as I’ve read, and in full disclosure, I still have a lot to read, God teaches us to love ALL people especially our enemies.   As it says in Luke 6:32-36 (NIV)

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

Thinking about the climate that my children presently live in, I’d rather them be raised with some sort of faith that encourages kindness, gentleness, and love.  I don’t have the answers to it all and never pretended I did, but as I go through the continual journey of spiritual growth, I am learning so much about the person I want to be and the people I hope to see in the world.

 

 

 

Building brick by brick

I haven’t written in a LLLLOOOOOOOONNNGGGG time, like a really long time.  I have had so much happen in my life over the past 6 months, that I didn’t even know how to process what was happening and the last place I wanted to turn to was the world wide web of misinformation and misinterpretation.

But alas!!! Here I am, stronger and ready to share my experiences because, after-all, isn’t it our life experiences that make us human.  Sharing what we go through and how we persist and prevail is what brings us together as beings.  In any case, let me begin….

Marriage is by and far THE.HARDEST.THING.I’VE.EVER.DONE….EVER!  You put two independent people together in front of close friends and family and ask them to swear off all evil with the promise of living happily ever after….. Yeah, right!  I call bullshit!  What no one tells you, until you are going through hell, is that marriage is tough.  Marriage is hard.  You will grow into different people from the ones who said I do.  You might have little beings that suck the life right out of you.  You forget who you are and why you fell in love.  You will neglect one another.  The romance will die.  You might even hurt each other–gravely.  And for me, all of this was true.

In January, my husband and I of 15+ years separated for a s short time.   Sitting down in front of my three beautiful children, explaining that daddy was going to live somewhere else, was the most painful experience of my life.  I couldn’t quite understand it myself, and here I was trying to tell my children that although Daddy and I still loved each-other very much, we could no longer hurt one another .  My son rolled over and slept in disbelief.  My two girls cried and pleaded for him to stay.

10 minutes later, he pulled out of the driveway.   For days I was a walking zombie.  THANK GOD for my friends and family who helped me pull it together.  I just couldn’t make sense of how we got there….but the truth is we just let life get in the way.

Tom and I met at 19 years old and essentially we fell madly deeply in love immediately.  I was in such a state a disbelief that the man of my dreams loved me back.  5 years later we were married at age 24.  At 28 our son, our firstborn, arrived.  Shortly thereafter, number 2 and 3 made their entrances into this world.   Life was a whirlwind and raising three kids was even crazier.

Together, we were great life partners.  We were a strong team, doing what we needed to do when we needed to do it, all in service of our happy little family.  On the outside we were your white picket fence, perfect family photo, living the dream kind of family.  On the inside, little pieces of us as individuals were dying off and big pieces of us as a unit were being ripped to shreds.

We’ve hurt each-other so much—infidelity, lies, nasty words, coldness, anger, distrust–all of it–the ugly stuff that tears apart beautiful strong marriages.  We are BOTH guilty of all of this–ALL of this!  Finally we were at a point of no return, and the hurt was too much, and he left… a family broken.  Never a place I thought I’d be.

Then, one night, he was talking to the kids and JT handed me the phone.  I thought he hung up, but he was there.  Something amazing happened….for the first time in 10 years we talked–really talked. We talked about the hurt and the anger and the forgiveness that never happened.  We talked for over an hour.  We reluctantly hung up.

The following Friday we met as a family to take the “baby” out for her birthday.  We vowed, that no matter what happened we would remain amicable and keep intact the unit we had created.  At first dinner was awkward, and as the night progressed, we once again found that easy conversation that had eluded us all of those years.  As dinner ended I asked if he’d be willing to continue the conversation somewhere where the kids could play and we could talk.  There were tears and laughter and all of the emotions we’d been missing.  That connection, we so deeply needed began to take root once again.

A few days later he moved back in.  It wasn’t easy.  A week later I asked for a divorce and he was all too happy to give it, but for some reason, we pushed through.  The first few weeks were really trying.  So so many tears were shed and things said in frustration, but we persisted.

We began dating again-every Saturday.  We got a sitter went out and became us again.  We stole a few overnight trips away and rekindled the romance and connection we missed.  We LAUGHED!  We SMILED!  We CONNECTED!  Wow…..all of the things we should have been doing all along finally were falling into place.

It has been several months now and our relationship hasn’t been this strong in years.  We’ve both grown so much and continue to grow together.  There are definitely days that are tough, but now we know that if we persist it makes us stronger and better.  Anything worth doing takes effort, right?

Again, marriage is THE toughest thing I’ve ever done, but there is no one in this world I would do it with except Tom.  Despite our hurts and wrongs, we stand strong and love each-other more deeply today than we ever have.  Most days I don’t think I deserve him because of all the shit I’ve done, and I know he feels the same, but I know God has put us together and nothing can tear us apart.