Intentions & Confidence

I thought its time had come and gone, its 15 minutes of blossoming fame, but I woke this morning to two open flowers on my Christmas cactus, with the budding promise of eight or nine more. This 7-year-old cactus has been flowering since late November, more than making up for last season’s one-and-done blooming performance. It’s the perfect mascot for my new year’s Intentions, ones filled with a desire to achieve my goals despite the inevitable changes, setbacks and general bumps in the road.

I like the word “Intention” rather than “resolution” because there’s something more mindful, more encompassing about Intention. So, forget all that “road to hell” BS about Intention because the way I’m writing about it here, it isn’t just a nice thought of what we’d like to do but forget two seconds after we think it.

Intentions are a breeding ground for mindfulness. They are my inquiry into why I behave and think the way I do. Intention, to me, is a proper noun and therefore needs to be capitalized Intention is a friend, a teacher, a counselor with a name. Ms. Intention. And she has a big job ahead of her this year.

For instance:

·     *   “My Intention is to understand and be mindful of why I still – after 7 years – wander around the kitchen looking for something to stuff in my mouth when I’m on a deadline, even though I’m not hungry.”

·     *   “My Intention is to carve a career that is based on what I want to do and not what others thinks I should do.”

·     *    “My Intention is to find peace in my personal life, and to understand how I am responsible for my own happiness.”

Intention isn’t a road map. It’s a starting place. It’s a consciously made list of the behaviors and thoughts I most want to engage in in order to live the life I want. Intention isn’t a wish. “I want to be skinny” is different than “I Intend to lose 20 pounds because I want to better control my blood pressure and arthritis.” Intention implies action.

Of course “imply” isn’t “does.” Intention isn’t going to go to the gym for me or meditate for me or fix a healthy meal for me or study for me or save money for me. Intention is my go-to place when I need to be reminded why I’m going to the gym instead of playing Angry Birds all morning; making a healthy meal, even when I’d rather nose dive into fettuccine Alfredo; doing my homework instead of wandering aimlessly on the web; not buying something I don’t need in order to save money for the things I do need.

Whenever someone asks me how to lose weight, I tell them to not start with a “diet,” but rather to start with writing down the reasons she wants to lose weight. That reflection leads to Intention, and it’s her Intention that she can look back on when faced with the challenges of weight loss.

Intention can’t work alone, though. It needs Confidence (or Faith) to succeed.

Unlike Intention, Confidence isn’t a statement of goals. It’s not a reminder. Confidence isn’t an action, but rather a muscle that takes time and repetition to build. For instance, when I’m aware that I’m wandering around the kitchen, I have the capacity to ask myself, “What’s going on here that is making me mindlessly stare into the refrigerator?” Remembering to be aware builds my Confidence that the next time, I have a good chance of staying present.

It’s not rocket science, yet at times it feels like it. I mean, if our Intention is to lose 10, 50, 100 pounds, it our actions toward that goal that build our Confidence, right? But tracking food intake isn’t easy at first (and sometimes never). Neither is figuring out what food is best to eat in terms of our desired carb/fat/protein ratio, which in and of itself can be confusing! But the more we learn and the more we track, the better we get at it, and in the process, we’re living our Intention.

I liked the example Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal gave in a recent dharma talk, “The Faculty of Faith.” If your Intention is to learn to ride a bike, then the more you ride, the more Confidence you gain. And if you fall off and your Confidence is shaken, remembering that it’s still your Intention to learn to ride a bike is what will get you back in that seat.  

Say you develop a food and exercise plan because your Intention is to lose weight and get fit. You go for a few weeks spot on every day with your food intake and exercise goals. Then you go out to a restaurant or to a party and your favorite foods are there and you take one then three then twenty bites even though in the back of your mind something’s screaming “Stop!” But you don’t listen and then you wake up the next morning feeling guilty. Your Confidence is shaken. Do you say, “I can’t lose weight! I’ll go eat donuts!” or do you get into your workout clothes and hit the gym? Distraction from our Intentions isn’t a crime worthy of guilt. It’s not a crime at all. It’s the perfect place for reflection and mindfulness.

In the ancient Buddhist texts, the root word for Confidence meant “hospitality.” As Gil said, it means “being a good host to your experience, a good host to whatever’s going on.” Intention and Confidence does not want us to treat ourselves unkindly when we forget or when we fall down. They merely want us to stay present, to pay attention to what’s going on with ourselves and to be kind.

I’m choosing this year to live my Intentions, moment by moment, to the best of my ability. To build Confidence at the gym, in the kitchen, at school, within my relationships, when I’m lonely, when I’m happy, when I’m afraid. And when I feel myself striving too hard or separating from the present, I will call on my Intentions to set me back on the path.

So I may be a little late to the Happy New Year party, but I wish for all of you a year filled with mindful presence and self-kindness. And look for me a little more often here, too. Blogging regularly is another one of my Intentions *grin*

Book Giveaway! 

If it’s your Intention to get fit and you’re looking for some wise (and fun) counsel, I strongly encourage you to read Carla “MizFit” Birnberg’s book “How to Build Muscle and Lose WeightWithout Losing Your Mind.” I’ve been reading Carla’s blog for years and her down-to-earth approach to life, fitness, motherhood, you name it has grounded me many times, especially those times I didn’t realize I was ungrounded! Her book is helping me rev up my fitness routine and no, she didn’t pay me to say that! I just love Carla’s honesty. It works for me.

To win a copy of Carla's book, all you have to do is leave a comment and your name will be thrown into the hat for the drawing on Monday, January 14. You don’t have to write anything profound. Just “Hi” will do. Or you could list one of your Intentions. That would be great! Good luck!

Seven Times Slower

It’s been almost a month since my last bike ride, and in that time I’ve spent a lot of time logging miles in the Jeep, always with the intention of getting “there” as quickly as possible. So yesterday, when I got on my bike for the first time in four weeks and started pedaling, 10 and 11 and 12 miles an hour seemed really s....l…o…w. But as I rode down the familiar path at seven times slower than in my car, I became acutely aware of what I miss at 70 mph.

At seven times slower, I thought about how much I love this time of year, and that despite its bittersweet theme of death and decay, I cling to its promise of rebirth. At seven times slower, I smelled and heard the leaves above and beneath me.

At seven times slower, I noticed a cat slinking up a hill and I watched a pig sleeping in the mud of his large pen. At seven times slower, I became aware that a farmer, through whose land a mile of the bike trail cuts, found it necessary to post a sign, “Do not throw objects at turkeys.” What kind of person throws things at turkeys?

Anyway… At seven times slower, I said goodbye to my bike path friends for the season. The cows.

And the power lines that let me know I’ve reached the apex of that stretch of trail and it’s all down hill the rest of the way.

And the golf course the bike trail passes through.

And at seven times slower, I felt my body release its 70-mile-an-hour tension, fiber by fiber (even though I was pretty irritated by the whole throwing things at turkeys thing).

At seven times slower, I thought to visit my daughter and grandchildren. I see them several times a week, but usually always because of some need for one of them to be somewhere else. Yesterday, I sat in their presence and absorbed their essence (and snuggled with Claire in her genuine fire fighter hat that she sleeps with like a stuffed animal).

Tethered to my calendar of penciled-in appointments, yesterday was a gift gotten from a miscommunication involving school. It was like being set free, if only for a few hours, from the new tricks this old dog is learning. For many months I have been what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls a “human doing,” but yesterday, at seven times slower, I was a human being.

Hello from “Where Have I Been?”

My whereabouts since my last blog entry isn’t a great mystery, but I wanted to explain where I’ve been and to let you know this will be my last blog entry for awhile.

It’s not that maintenance is more or less important than any other responsibility or event that make up my life. Writing about it, however, takes time, and the things vying for my time this summer are many.

My brother still suffers the affects of the series of petit mal seizures he endured in June 2011. As his power of attorney, his complicated and difficult journey is also mine, and the weight of that responsibility is daunting at times. I say this not to garner sympathy, but to send out empathy to all of you who, in addition to living your own lives, caretake in someone else’s.

Two pieces of good news are taking up my time:

1) Daughter Carlene is getting married in October! Originally slated for April, they moved up the wedding not because of a baby, but because, quoting Carlene, “We just want to be married.” No better reason than that! Let the frenzy begin.

2) Grandbaby #4 will arrive in February! #4 was not planned, but sometimes the best things in life are serendipitous. To update you on ages, Claire will be 5 in October, Luca was 3 in May, and Maelie is 18 months old. I said to Luca the other day, “So, your mommy’s having a baby?” and he said, “Yeah, but we’re keeping Mae.” I couldn’t tell by his voice if he was relieved or resigned. I hope he gets a brother, but even though he tolerates Mae, he insists he wants another sister. And while on the surface that sounds sweet, I think he knows if it’s a boy he’ll have to share his room.

Within the planning, the watching children, my brother’s issues, I’ve managed to read several books ("Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner is fabulous!) and ride many miles on my bike. One of my favorite things this year was meeting another Internet friend, Lori from Finding Radiance. She’s as down to earth in person as she is on her blog. The woman knows her way around a bagel and a latte as much as a bike path and dumbbells. She’s taught me more about balance than any gymnast could. Her blog is a highly recommended read!

School starts again in 10 days. Chemistry, Algebra... ‘Nuff said.

Even though this will be my last post for awhile, our dialogue can continue. I will still post on Lynn’s Weigh on Facebook, so I hope you’ll join us there. If you don’t do social media, that’s fine, too. Know that I wish you well in your journey, wherever you are on that path, and I will be back.

Thank You, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

It was predicted that the Internet would turn us into an isolated society of bleary-eyed hermits who shun human contact and subsist on a diet of news feeds, weather updates, and cyber porn.

“They” were wrong, at least for me and a few thousand other people I “know.” The Internet introduced me to a world of people I’d never have met in the physical world. People who have made a lasting impact on how I think and live. People armed with compassion, snark, empathy, and tough love.

“But the beginnings of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!” from The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Entering the world of weight loss is all that: vague, tangled, chaotic, disturbing, _______ (insert adjective). And the reality is that most of us don’t journey in the first, fifth, or tenth time with a cohesive plan and the right equipment. We attack weight loss with dogged determination and motivation for about a day, maybe a week, sometimes – if we’re lucky – a month or longer. The problem is that we usually go at it alone, and inevitably we fail because, let’s face it, the self-determination and self-motivation of weight loss is hard to maintain for the long haul. But it can be sustained with a little help from the right friends. The friends who’ve been there, are there, done that, doing that.

Some of my best friends are the people I’ve never never met, or at least didn’t meet right away in the traditional face-to-face way. They are the folks I’ve met through the Weight Watchers 100+ To Lose message board and through blogging. Without their support and occasional ass kicking, I’m pretty sure I’d still be in that “Gotta lose weight. Crap, this is hard. Oh what the hell, eat a donut. Now I feel guilty. Starting tomorrow, I’m eating only celery” cycle.

Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune of meeting face-to-face the User Names who’ve supported me on this journey of dieting, maintaining, blogging, and learning that weight loss is not pretty, it’s not easy, and it’s not a path to happiness. One of the first people to educate me on that latter part was Marcia, or as I first knew her: Aging2Perfection.

When I joined the WW message board in February 2005, I learned quickly that Aging2Perfection was not prone to delusion. She was firmly grounded in the reality of the weight loss world. But she also had the innate ability to love herself, something I floundered with, tangled up in that sticky web of self-acceptance. It was Aging2Perfection who challenged me to step back and breathe and be a better friend to myself.

Finally, last Sunday, I met Marcia. We met at Pamela’s in the Strip. I ordered the crepe pancakes and she ordered the banana walnut pancakes. Our server set a plate in front of me and a plate in front of Marcia while we were talking. We started eating while talking. It wasn’t until I bit into a walnut halfway through a pancake that I realized that she was eating my order and I was eating hers. We laughed, swapped, and kept talking. And if it wasn’t for the fact that people were waiting for our table and she and her husband had to go home and I had to watch Mae, we’d still be talking. Talking about everything, particularly about how our lives as mothers and grandmothers have run parallel the last three years. Weight didn’t really enter into our conversation.

Weight is a part of our lives, not our entire lives. Weight (A) is the proper subset to the superset of life (B). I often forget that and make weight the be all and end all of my day. I let it set the tone of my mood and intentions. It’s people like Marcia who bring me back to reality, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

Some people have a Bucket List. I have a Face-To-Face Thank You List. I wish I could be like Jeannie and blink every one of you who have supported me and been my teachers these last seven years to a face-to-face pancake (or egg white omelet or oatmeal or smoothie) breakfast. We could even chat over leftovers! Or ride bikes or take my daughter’s spin class. Walk or hike. Drink coffee. Whatever.

I just want to say: “Thank you.”

Weight Doesn't Disappear When It's Gone

In October 2007, I had the good fortune to meet a very sweet and inspirational man: David Elmore Smith.

David is in the white sweatshirt.

David was sexually molested as a child and lost his mother when he was 17. Yet, at 650 pounds, he found the courage to lose 400 pounds and he told his story to the world. David and I met when we were on Oprah, and he went on to do many other TV appearances, including the TLC documentary, “650-Pound Virgin.”

David has been out of the spotlight for a few years, but he resurfaced on the Today show Wednesday, having gained 300 pounds. In this Huffington Post article, there is a link to the Today video, and below is an excerpt of his sad, yet very honest, truth.

"All my life I was this monster in my head and all of a sudden to be this good looking guy, it blew my mind away, I didn't know how to deal with it," he said. Smith also felt like "a terrible mess" on the inside, and eventually turned to alcohol and drugs to cope, "Today" reports.

When those outlets didn't help, he turned once again to food. "A lot of people were counting on me to be inspiring, and I didn't want to let anybody down. But I just felt so bad, I didn't know how to cope," he says.

Weight doesn’t disappear. It hides, waiting for you to feed it your fear. David’s gain put me face-to-face with my own 20-pound gain and the 150 other pounds lurking in the dark recesses of my mind.

I’ve searched (not as desperately as I think I have) for a reason for my gain. Something outside me I can blame. But the truth lies not in what I eat or my reluctance to move or the pain of arthritis or perimenopause. The truth is deep inside me and buried in mistrust, and David’s truth has nudged me to at least admit that (lately) I’ve been walking – zombie-like – down the path I swerved to avoid seven years ago. When school/family/friends/love and all its ensuing conflict/euphoria/worry/obligation piled up and I couldn’t sort through it all like laundry, I looked longingly back, like Lot’s wife, at the path of “How I Used To Live” and turned into a 20-pound pillar of salt, with the very real potential of adding 150 more.

Losing weight and, more importantly, keeping it off, takes a lot of concentration. Yeah, yeah…it takes determination and motivation and inspiration and all the other “tions” you can name, but first and foremost it takes concentration.

Distractions, however, deactivate concentration, and when it comes to weight loss and maintenance, the distractions that deactivate concentration aren’t simple things like the lure of an ice cream cone on a hot summer day. They are deep-seated emotional issues or family issues or work issues that not only distract, but cause a reaction that is counter to what our concentrated self would “approve” of.

David didn’t consciously gain 300 pounds back. Nothing in him said, “I want to be morbidly obese again.” I didn’t consciously gain 20 pounds. And nothing in my mind is saying, “I want to be 300 pounds again.”

A lot of people were counting on me to be inspiring… 

I want to inspire, but I’m as vulnerable and flawed as anyone on this path, including David. And that truth in and of itself is inspiring. I wish David all the love and self-care he can find as he works through his “terrible mess,” and I hope he finds the truth that lies beneath, the one I could see in his smile and in his eyes when I met him: kindness, sincerity, and a strong desire to live.

How Blake Shelton Helped Me Take My Clothes Off (not literally, I swear, Miranda)

Sagging, bagging, wrinkles and all, I strive to love the body I occupy. I tell myself that it’s a good place to live in now, in this moment, and in every other moment past and future. I say that, I mean that, I embrace that…

…as long as my clothes are on.

When I want to de-stress, I take a bath. A long, hot bubble bath with candles and wine. I turn on my “Bath” playlist, and once everything’s assembled and the tub is filled, I quickly take off my clothes and slip under the suds.

One of the songs on the Bath playlist is Blake Shelton’s “Who Are You When I’m Not Looking?” Every time it comes on, Blake and I have a conversation.

Do you pour a little something on the rocks?

“I don’t drink the hard stuff, Blake, except a Maker’s Mark on occasion. But I confess I drink chardonnay on ice. Sometimes the boxed stuff. I’m culture with a side of pork rinds, my friend.”

Slide down the hallway in your socks?

“Well, I’m no Tom Cruise, but I do a pretty good lip sync to ‘Old Time Rock n’ Roll.’”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“Blake,” I say. “I imagine there’s a lot of freedom associated with undressing on my way to the bathroom and not in the bathroom with the door closed, lights low, and seconds before I hop in the tub.”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“I wish I could, Blake, but you see, I have this body image thing that’s hard to shake…”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“I feel pretty beat up, Blake, over this whole ‘body image’ thing. The last time I didn’t care about my body, I was in 5th grade, not yet wearing a bra and still happy to just fish bullheads out of Split Rock Creek.”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“I’ve never walked around my house in just my skivvies or less, Blake. Why, you ask? Do I really need to tell you this? OK, fine, I’m embarrassed to expose myself to even myself. I always wrap myself in robes or towels. Can we move on to the next question?”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“Why do you keep pressing this issue, Blake? Yeah, sure, I’ve always suspected there was something about walking around the house wearing only a bra and underwear. Something sexy. Something daring and freeing. But that’s not me, Blake. I’m not sexy or daring or carefree. I’m Lynn, Queen of Body Issues, remember.”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“What do you mean I was never appointed Queen of Body Issues? I pulled the body image equivalent of Excalibur out of a stone many years and many pounds ago, for cryin’ out loud! I’ve worked my whole adult life to defend my throne! Don’t tell me to abdicate!”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“Fine. I’m tired of arguing with you Blake. Next bath, I’ll leave a path. Will that make you happy? Good. Just promise you won’t look, OK? That would be a deal breaker. Promise me. PROMISE. OK…pinky swear works. It’s a deal.”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“I did it, Blake. I took that walk from the bedroom to the bubble bath, leaving a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a bra, and my underwear in a path to the bath like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. Sorry, but I left the socks for the bathroom. You know my feet are always cold.”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“I sunk to my nose in that bubble bath, and I reveled in the feeling of walking my body – in various stages of undress – to the bathroom. I had no idea that air cascading over my wrinkles and sags and bags and folds could feel so empowering!”

When you undress, do you leave a path? Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

“Yes, I do.”

What Would Uncle George NOT Do?

Exercise has become so dull and predictable that I practically sleep through a workout. It’s the same old thing on the elliptical and recumbent – up and down, round and round, rote, like an actor playing Hamlet for the gazillionth time. I know every crack in the sidewalks around my neighborhood and every rut on the bike path. It’s Snoozapalooza!

It’s not that I’m slacking physically. I’m just not challenging myself psychologically through exercise, which is the very thing that makes exercise so important to my overall well being. Riding my bike in the same place, walking the same route, and reading books on my elliptical is safe. I like safe. There’s nothing wrong with safe. But safe can be pretty boring and unfulfilling.

I have no excuse other than complacency. I live near a park in which there are at 7 hiking trails, including 3.5 miles of the 35-mile Rachel Carson Trail. I take my grandkids to the playground there all the time, but I do little else than intend to hike there. Same is true for the infinite number of bike trails I’ve yet to discover in western PA. “Some day…”

My great-great-uncle George always used to say, “It’s plenty good the way it is!” George wore loose fitting dentures and had a heavy Norwegian accent, and he’d say “It’s plenty good!” with a dismissive wave of his hand. I loved George, but the man changed nothing. Not even his underwear. My mother used to sneak into his room and take his dirty clothes and wash them on the days he drove 35 miles to Sioux Falls to fill his tank because gas was two cents cheaper there.

I’m not knocking “plenty good.” Things ARE plenty good the way they are right now, but plenty good doesn’t translate to growth. And without growth, I would become complacent in more than just my exercise life. Good grief, the last thing I want to do is become that person who does nothing but talk about “the good old days.” That would be a big “Uffda!”

So last week, I got off my complacent butt and went to the park and hiked Pond Trail, which took me to…of all things…a pond. A really lovely pond with a wooden birding lookout made by a Boy Scout for his Eagle Scout project. It was a fairly easy hike, but the change of scenery was just enough to call out the part of me that welcomes and embraces change and challenge. That lead to this weekend in which I tried not one, but TWO new bike trails.

Saturday, I decided on a 13-mile stretch of the Allegheny Trail. I was a little nervous about it since I’d never been to the town where the trailhead was, and I didn’t want to look like a tourist. I wasn’t 100 percent sure (certainty is big for me) how to get to the parking lot described on the trail’s website, and Google was no help. So with nothing more than a good sense of direction, BF and I loaded the bikes and drove northeast.

A few miles in, Colton asked, “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Kind of,” I said, handing him the printed directions to the parking lot. “I can get us to instruction number 4, then you need to read the rest to me.”

“Ok, Puddin’,” he said. (That’s my nickname. Puddin’. No, you can’t call me that.)

As we got closer to the road to the parking lot, Colton said the directions were to drive past the entrance to the marina. What did I do? I drove into the entrance to the marina. Tourist! At least I turned around without running over the fisherman carrying a bucket of bait and an oar, and I eventually found the parking lot. We unloaded the bikes and started riding.

It started out pretty.

Then it got kind of industrial and urban.

When the trail stopped abruptly with no signs of where to go, I asked a biker who was coming the other way where the trail picked up. He said the next part of the trail went through town and that the gravel trail picked up at the power plant near the bridge. Goody. A bridge.

We followed his instructions and soon I could see the bridge in the distance.

Living here in the land of rivers, bridges are hard to avoid, so I suck them up and think happy thoughts when I’m driving over them or riding under them. Stopping to take photos was actually therapeutic. They’re concrete and steel, for cryin’ out loud. They aren’t going to grow legs and chase me, right?

We continued on into Kittanning.

Having passed – up close and personal – several bars and living rooms (there’s a stretch of trail in which the path itself is literally a front yard), we concluded we’d had enough urban and turned around at the 6.5-mile mark. We biked back to the car and agreed we were glad for the experience, but not enthralled. Too many people, too many roads, too many stop and starts.

Today, Colton wanted to head north of the Flannel Curtain to see his parents and do some work around their house. I really wanted to ride again, so I searched online for a trail near Meadville. I found the Ernst Trail, a rails-to-trails renovation that is 5 miles in one direction and runs along French Creek. No traffic, no towns. Perfect. Colton loaded up his hedge trimmers and I threw my bike on the rack and we were off.

I got to the trail at 2:45. It looked promising.

A quarter mile in, I was treated to this.

There was a slight incline all the way, which I knew would bring great coasting opportunities coming the other direction. And since the temperature was 86 degrees, the breeze would be welcomed.

The last quarter mile was steeper than the previous 4.75, and I had to downshift to 2. When I got to the top, I turned around and coasted down the hill. ‘You can do that again,’ I thought, and I downshifted and charged back up the hill. My thighs might hate me tomorrow, but the downhill was sooo worth it. I felt powerful. Best of all, I felt psychologically challenged again.

Tomorrow I’m going to hike a 2-mile loop in my local park. It is rated as easy-moderate, so I’ll probably do it twice. Or perhaps I’ll go back to the Pond Trail and do some bird watching. Either way, it will be my own personal mental-health-through-exercise adventure. Uncle George wouldn’t understand, but “plenty good” isn’t good enough anymore.