Month: May 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

It is simple, I thought I was cured.” Like all the other get-fit and weight loss programs, at the final weigh-in,” I am cured,” or so I believe. Yet hauntingly it is untrue again. No cure for an addiction, only a commitment to sobriety continues the journey past the finale of my twelve-week challenge.

Knowing which triggers activate failure is beneficial, as to thwart the nasty beast from our backs as it is attacking. Through the journey, which emotions do I attempt to numb? What aspect of self-worth am I not feeling? Can I re-frame the metaphors surrounding me to understand more? What ingredient crept into my system that physically affects my decision making process? What tools honed under my belt exist ready for active-duty in my arsenal?

To embrace imperfection, acknowledge and mend the kinks in armor, and persevere in the face of adversity, are desirable results. Transitioning from one program into the next begins. Change requires strengthened resilience, and empowers with acceptance rather than resistance. Lean into the tension and release the emotions in order to excel with clarity and purpose. To reframe the ending as a new beginning, energizes and enables setting new goals while receptive to feeling the fear and courageously moving forward.

This is still my time; nothing stands in my way when I maintain self-worth, self-respect, and self-love to empower self-care. Tools of journaling, community support for recipes and emotional upheaval, and books, research, and experts guiding with nutritional information are critical. Teaching others strengthens my resolve and reinforces learning. Gratitude naturally occurs from an inner circle of support.

Sugar infiltrating my body is temporary and will release its hold within 72 hours when its energy depletes and sugar blood levels balance again. Its withdrawal will contain a short-lived hold that tempts, weakens, and tricks me into negative thoughts, low energy, and resistance from what is healthy. Sugar’s trickery cannot last on its own; it needs a weakened, unmotivated mind to shovel additional sweet edibles into the station, encouraging addictive survivability.

Though my vulnerability affected my last few days, I continue to strive towards my goals, reminded of my tools and social support, inner strength, and resilience. I return protein-filled and happy. Watching out for the craving, the suppressed emotions, the physical and mental addiction to the big C’s as cookies, cake and candy, and know they are simply a mask of trickery lurking, attempting to lure me back to addiction. I am worthy of sobriety. Thought I was cured. I know better, and now I will do better.

Success has never felt so sweet, high fives fill the air; the smell of victory enhances the flavor I can taste, and my smile screams, “Eureka!” Thinking I found the Holy Grail, discovered the secret to weight loss and fitness, my elation feels boundless. With the commitment to boot-camp classes and eating clean, I crossed a 17.4-pound, 5% body fat loss finish line.

Riding high, feeling invincible in a place of extraordinary comfort, I hope this good feeling is not fleeting. My belief in its sustainability, continuation, and successful march to the next leg of the weight loss journey seems like a road well traveled. People have my back, support me, and my words echo within, “This is my time; nothing is getting in my way.” My inner cheerleader believes in my strength to outweigh my weaknesses. Yet the scale tips upward when I have let my guard down in the past, the addiction pounces when the fort lays unprotected.

Strangely, I neglect to weigh in at the finale of this twelve-week program I joined, as most brave souls did. The truth is I am full of shit. Without a bowel movement, I know the scale inches upward, causing my elation to drown in the scale’s declaration. Weighing in the prior eleven weeks and needing to feel the success without the power of the scale overshadowing my numbers seems a smart action.

Feeling fixed after twelve, powerful weeks, I deceive myself. Congratulating cronies and accepting compliments for the journey we ventured together, I feel fraudulent. A “Now what” feeling plagues me as I drive from the final weigh-in event. Instantly catapulted into another five-week gig with them to keep me losing the excess appendages from my thighs, I am an onion, layers peeling off revealing my inner recesses beneath the pounds shed. Numbness envelopes me as I drive home. “What next” troubles me.

During this body challenge program, workout acquaintances empower themselves with a lifestyle plan of clean eating and intense boot camp classes to lose unwanted weight. Soul searching and deep discovery fidgets with broken, damaged, and inner, emotional pieces as the weight releases and the heart attempts mending. Belief that anything is possible energizes, inspires, and motivates jumping back on the wagon for continued success.

For some, their resiliency springs them back aboard, while others remain dangling from the side, clawing to climb up a divot-less wall, a slippery slope simply too challenging to grab hold. Hands extend from those above, attempting to reach participants below for support and shoulder them upward. Sometimes help is not enough to catapult those struggling to safety, whereas others receive the exact inspiration and motivation needed to return to a successful journey aboard.

Admiring those able to rejoin the clan, I wonder if climbing along the slippery wall while seduced by sugar addiction, old habits, and emotional baggage characterizes me as a survivor or one of the defeated. Now faced with fear, I allow a small amount of sugary poison into my system, enough to cause the cravings to grab hold. With sugar in my body, I surrender willingly, guiltily, sliding down the wagon wheel towards the ground. I am sliding, gliding, and escaping into an abyss.

Falling off the wagon is not my low point. Twelve weeks, a minuscule half percent of my entire life risks becoming obsolete, erased, and derailed from the tracks. The excuses I spew and negotiate how I can “get clean” at any point, as if climbing back on the wagon is a simple avenue I will eventually choose, are lies. Instead, an hour off the wagon turns into a day, a day into two, and then a week. Addiction calls my name and has me running its protocol; rock bottom is nearby.

Gathering strength to fight the endless tide of sugar addiction, the good fight feels futile. Demonic cookies, evil candy, decadent, seductive chocolate, and a continuing stream of sugary carbohydrates drench my system with its luring euphoria. Wanting to “get clean,” the cravings continue relentlessly.

Searching my social, inner circle for support for “Falling off the wagon,” I discover numerous victims of devastating self-destructive behavior. Gathering inspiration from their plight, mentors also kindly respond with compassion, motivation, and empathy to bait me upward. Addiction silences them temporarily, yet I know their words, thoughts, and deep-felt caring beckons deeper within where the heart feels healing.

Lifted by their words of wisdom, resilience is knocking. When knocked over the side of the wagon, what we do matters. Dusting myself off, beginning again, using effective tools, and moving forward with supportive arms reaching for me when I falter, fear dissipates gradually. Climbing back on the wagon holds the key to freedom, peace, and elation. Although the poisonous spew of sugar remains in my system, the future appears promising. “This is my time! Nothing is getting in my way!” and the commitment to change commences.

What if GMO, artificial sweetener, pesticide-covered vegetables, hydrogenated oil, high fructose corn syrup, dairy from a hormone-filled cow, and all other foods from nutrient-depleted soil, produce lack of clarity, a muted heart, your essence from being heard, and a chatter-filled mind? What if the intuitive, all-knowing whisper within, is only heard with a clear mind, a rested body, and an open heart? I argue that the world’s authentic guidance system has been silenced by artificial interferences, statically covering up inner truth. Yet, this realization enables hope and possibility for its reversal.

It is hard to know one’s truth, one’s ultimate purpose when the body is depleted of the nourishment it requires. However, uncover the music, undo the damage, remove the poison that rages within, and the energy you have been lacking comes alive, as if reborn, now engaged in life for the first time. In essence, arrive back to a place from which we have come. This renewal changes all you know to be true; all that you have sensed becomes your potential. The revelation that food matters for all that you are is a truth worth knowing, information worth spreading.

There is a reason that people who go on juice fasts have abundant energy after a couple of days. It seems counterintuitive. Yet our lives have been spent, literally, on digestion. The body breaks down ingested, consumed food, and mechanically sends your whole being energy with which to grow and function. Send nutrient-dense, vegetable juice and like an injection, the body functions optimally without utilizing energy for digestion. Therefore, the surplus of energy is used elsewhere. Want energy? Juice it. “Got Energy?” is an excellent slogan for eliminating the treadmill, upon which most of us have been running.

When the body, designed for digestion is overworked, underpaid, and depleted of nutritional needs, the body’s restless, weakened, and decreased spirit, craves excess food to meet its needs, many filled with toxins. These foreign entities within the body destabilize the cells, causing illness ultimately like a formation of armies causing a coupe-like reaction against the body. Within this Trojan horse of an exterior shell, they wreak havoc silently, dormantly, eventually causing symptoms until disease is diagnosed. They ravage cities and towns, the bodily mechanics and systems with capital buildings known as organs, until surrendering into disease. Soon the physical vessel you have called home, which you have been entrusted with in this lifetime, is six-feet under.

We have a choice whether to surrender or even to allow the armies to congregate. Take hold of these militants by sending them peaceful, energetic, organic nutrients to fill themselves with life force versus a death option. By sending a living food throughout the system, this physical vessel begins to work in harmony. Soon one feels renewed, invigorated, younger, and more like one’s authentic self than ever before. (“….more me than I’ve ever been”) The true self shines through, one’s essence returns, and like birthing the heart, renews the spirit.

Every decision we make is a choice. When using a toxic-filled mind fueled by foods that prevent clear thinking, change is challenging. Knowing this truth may be the knowledge necessary to transform past actions. The coupe for change must overhaul, take charge, and adopt a leadership role. Within, nutrient-based fuel utilizes enzymatic pieces of the outside world to harmonize with the inner workings of the body. They exhume your being, cleanse, and release your essence from captivity that it experienced since the first unrecognizable entity (“edible food-like substances”) entered the vessel.

Allowing the healing to take place in the form of life force energy via real, “Clean” food, brings the body to optimum health again. This freedom is the destination we strive toward, to enable us to live and breathe our best lives. With this energy and clarity, we can live an openhearted existence. Our life purpose naturally will be lived, while the music of all that we are is played and heard by the world. Living one’s authentic life is about retrieving the gifts given, and utilizing them with intention. What if raw, organic, and “clean” food were the simple answer, the edible truth?

Cleansing, sweeping, and ridding the clothes from my closet was an exceptional proactive experience, healingly therapeutic, and energetically freeing. Multiple sizes from different stages of weight loss and gain, clothes representing various careers had hung like memories awaiting resurrection. Removed from my closet, the “old”, folded garments adorning my bedroom floor patiently awaited bagging and boxing for donation. Two months later, those clothes have not reached their destination. You read that correctly. My closet’s contents were removed from their historical location ten feet away, and have laid upon my bedroom floor for the past two months.

Whether subconscious or not, my lack of action to mobilize my clothes from home to trashbags to donation site is significant. Reminded daily of their existence as I pass by has weighed heavily upon me. Daily I see these piles, ignore my heart urging me to act, and sweep over that “to do.” Clearly I have held tightly to the clothes, as if a lifeline was attached. What protection I must be holding to maintain this ruse might interest others fearful of detaching from the old to embrace the new. Although I have walked into my closet extensively finding little to wear, I have not grabbed anything from the floor that lays just beyond the door. Therefore, any need for any retired garment is nonexistent.

What seemed therapeutic, healing, and worthwhile, has been waylaid into a holding pattern, stationed for its next adventure, and glued to the floor until I take further action. Although it prevents me from moving forward, and weighs heavily upon my subconscious, underneath the stressful surface is a feeling connected to saying goodbye to the past, fearful of letting go. The garments sit as reminders like tombstones waiting for a peaceful burial. Daily I walk by, noticing but not actually acknowledging their presence, as if I cannot face their demise, their graduation from my life. My heart says, “let it go,” but my mind or ego holds tightly.

Without this completion, I sense my weight remains stagnant. Like the clothes upon my bedroom floor, I sit in purgatory like a stalemate between my past and future. Both holding on with grit, the tug-a-war continues. I must push the weight of the past away in order to lighten and brighten my future. My success and well being depend upon this action step. Perhaps a few tears must be shed as I bag the clothes, mourn the past for closure sake, carry the weight of the past to my car, and exit them forever from my life, relieving the beast of burden that lives within me. Cleansing the closet was a timely first step, while removal from my presence is another.

Healing emanates when the past is put to rest, no longer triggered within the present. My weight loss stalled after emptying the closet, perhaps a final plea to hold onto the past. Today is all about completions, forcing my mind to get on board with my heart. I am letting go, breaking free, moving on. Healing is just a trash bag away from freeing my soul of the past’s limitations. Once I take action momentum follows, a push past the mind’s dubious tricks to keep me stuck and in handcuffs. When I remove the metaphoric weight, the healing deepens and pounds release. Ready, Set, Go! Trash Bags, take them away!

I awaken to address the podium of steel again, seeking a number to represent my accomplishment. Yet the feelings of familiar disappointment darken the day. Although experienced before, my efforts escape visibility. I step upon cold metal expecting change, yet nothing to gain except a vision of inaccuracy, my efforts not equating with results. Though one tool beckoning beneath me, an inexact science, I give it credence to show me my worth when my value hangs in the balance elsewhere. Fool-me-once, shame on you, fool-me-twice causing torment again, shame on me. I explore life’s details searching for answers, an explanation of the number representing me today until another layer of liquid, fat, or food assembles or disappears.

My mind retorts, altering the path from peace to darkness, and a fiery hell stands before me. Yet visible results in bodily measurements, clothing sizes decreasing, and waves of energy pouring from my pores sound a different alarm. A number cannot define my unit of measure, the core that beholds my self worth. It only disempowers me if I offer it an allowance for which to spend torturing its victims. Embrace the decision to no longer visit the gates of hell that shellshock its visitors with visions of darkness, heated anger, and depression in droves during the morning occupancy. Quickly release yourself from any engagement with the devil that stands guard to ruin your day. Throw the temptress in the garbage; its use is futile at best. You need not be fooled when the outcome is dishonest, inaccurate, and foolhardy.

Should you hang onto it a tad longer, rearrange your feet, balance on one foot, and lean to one side, until the number falls in your favor. Justify the handicap you give it while awaiting the correct number to appear. The angels sing and life calls you forward for recognition of your accomplishments. Suddenly illuminated by the presence of joy, congratulatory praise, and a lightness of being, you spring off the metal contraption to the breakfast table boosted by a celebratory meal. Food rewards earned, release any need to alter edibles to healthy options. By morning after, we tender our resignation, know the devil warrants accurate results today when yesterday was mere discrepancy by the hell of a scale.