I’ve learned a new skill recently that has empowered me and given me an apetite to learn more.  I suppose I should give a little background to help put this into context. 

I do not like to cook.  I’ve tried changing that.  Hubby and I took a cooking class together.  I watch cooking shows with him.  I absolutely love Top Chef.  And of course, I love food.  But interested in the process that the food goes through before sitting on my plate?  Not a bit.

Well, being a stay-at-home mom and not liking to cook don’t really go hand in hand.  Regardless of how I feel, meals do need to be prepared and in the interest of having a family dinner with nutritious food, I try to make this happen.  I try to avoid handling raw meat because it’s gross, and since I love baking, I try to do casseroles and stuff like that.  But there aren’t very many healthy casseroles so… you get the drift. It’s an ongoing battle in the kitchen.

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TJ’s post the other day and this article from Gail Blanke, the awesome Life Coach from Real Simple Magazine, really got me thinking about listening and how important it is for us and those around us.  This is a skill that I was born with and growing up I was always good at.  And just to clarify, I am not talking about the kind of listening where your mom says “go clean your room” and you “listen” to her and go do it.  Nope, I was never good at that kind listening.  :) 

I’m talking about the kind of listening that helps develop friendships, deepen relationships, and build trust.  The kind of listening that we do when we are genuinely concerned or care about what someone is saying. 

Growing up I always made friends with the outgoing types, because I was not.  As you probably know, outgoing types like to talk!  And what better friend for them than someone who likes to listen?!  But somewhere along the way, my listening skills literally diminished.  Let’s just say that the older I get, the more my attention span has grown shorter right along with my patience.  I swear I thought it was supposed to happen in the opposite way!  That being said, I would like to improve my listening skills.

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Well, I’ve decided to try something different.  After months and months of hard work, dedication, and frustration, I am ready to take a different track on my weight loss journey.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that my body does not want to budge from it’s current weight and that I need to make a change from what I’m doing. 

That being said, I am going on a diet.  Yep, an actual diet to get this weight off.  I’m already living my lifestyle change.  I already eat healthy, exercise, and am living a much healthier lifestyle than I ever have before… I’ve been doing really good with it.  My food portions are good, my caloric intake is right on target, and I do cardio four days a week and am training for my two 5k runs this summer.  Doesn’t it seem like the weight should be coming off? 

So yes, back to this diet.  I found a diet that I am going to try because I think it has some good potential without doing anything too crazy.  It’s called the Upday Downday Diet.  Very simply put, you alternate between low calorie days and higher calorie days.  Apparently the jumping back and forth between the days helps kick the metabolism into gear.  Sounds easy enough, right?

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I’m baaaaack!  And boy did I learn A LOT while I was gone.  Here’s a run-down of all my Disneyworld epiphanies (in no particular order)!

1.  I love spray-able sunscreen.  It is the best stuff ever and I will never ever squeeze another bottle of sunscreen again!

2.  I was able to walk forever and not get tired.  We went to at least one park everyday and I had no trouble with the constant movement, in fact I enjoyed it.  Very cool!

3.  I need to find better strategies for eating healthy on vacation.  Around the 2nd day I started making some minor bad food choices.  By the time we left, I was making MAJORLY bad food choices.  I’m not gonna freak out over it, just going to get back on the horse and keep going from where I left off.  Although I really find it interesting just how easy it was for me to say “screw it” and eat bad.  It doesn’t seem like it should be that easy.

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I was thinking, there are really two sides to this whole getting healthy thing.  There’s the mental side and the physical side.  Let’s call them Brain and Body.  And they rarely seem to agree.

For instance, Brain really isn’t too keen on running.  Brain would rather be reading, sitting at Starbucks sipping a white chocolate mocha, watching Top Chef, or something like that.  Brain thinks running is pretty draining because it takes a lot of mental work to stay focused enough to keep going. 

Body, on the other hand, absolutely LOVES running.  Body loves running so much that it practically begs Brain to take it running.  Body loves the feeling of pushing itself to the limits and seeing just how far it can run.  Body loves sweating, moving, and any kind of activity because it makes Body feel like it’s alive!

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So I promised you an update two weeks ago about my plateau, formerly known as “not a plateau“.  I had discussed changing my eating habits even further by cutting out some of the sweet cheats I’d still been eating and by adding more healthy calories to my diet.  I did those things, and to a large extent, they did not make a difference.  I was surprised because I really thought for sure that those changes would help solve the problem, and they didn’t.  They did, however, help me to realize some things about my frame of mind during this plateau.

I’ve realized, through prayer and talking to friends, that I am relying way too much on the number on the scale.  And I don’t think it’s healthy.  And aren’t I trying to just be healthy?  Well I can’t let my weight loss become an obsession and go and screw up my mental health, right?!  So this has all brought me to the conclusion that I need to cut my time on the scale down to once a week for a weekly weigh-in and that’s it.

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My daughter has started whining.  This must come with toddler-hood because she rarely whined as a baby.  But her new way of expressing her emotions is through scrunching up her face and spitting out this high-pitched whine.  And oh no, not just once or twice, but over and over and over. 

So it got me thinking about whining and it reminded me of a story I heard about last year.  It’s about a pastor from a church in Kansas City who decided to encourage his entire congregation to become complaint-free.  (Apparently his congregation had been full of trivial complaints and it was really having a negative impact on them.) 

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I need to take a moment to thank my dear husband for all his help in putting together this blog.  He has been incredibly supportive from the beginning, and in fact, it was his idea that I start writing to begin with.  Ever since my daughter was born he has been saying, “you should be a mommy blogger!”.  And now that I am, I could not be more grateful for his ideas and support.  I truly enjoy writing this blog and sharing my experience, strength, and hope with you.

Not only has my dear husband been supportive with his words, he has also lent me his talent.  He created the new heading and fixed many of the kinks in the theme of this blog, and not to mention basically setting the whole thing up to begin with.  Talk about dedicated!  So with all that being said, thank you my dear husband for being so awesome and helping to make EvolvingMom.com possible!

Goals can be a very empowering and motivating tool to use in life.  Have you ever set a difficult goal for yourself and achieved it?  And how did you feel after?  Yeah, now there’s something money can’t buy.  I read something the other day that said we should set small goals for ourselves to achieve, even if it’s several small goals that add up to one huge one.  The reason being that our brains do not know the difference between almost achieving a goal versus giving up and the feelings associated with that.  Our brains only register success and failure.  So to feel productive and successful at whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, small goals are worth trying. 

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I want to share something that has truly helped change my life in so many ways. I was a member of Narcotics Anonymous for 6 years and this is something that I learned there.Write on the top of a sheet of paper,

God, please help me to be:

And on the bottom of the paper,

God, thank you for helping me be:

In the middle of the paper, write down your every desire for the person you would like to become. Some examples from my own list are: responsible, helpful, loving, an awesome wife and mother, a better decision maker, etc.

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