bearing blog

bearing blog


bear – ing n 1  the manner in which one comports oneself;  2  the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~];  4  pl comprehension of one’s position, environment, or situation;   5  the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

  • On giving up things for Lent.

    Do you think maybe it's backwards to try to think "hmm, what can I give up for Lent?  Something that I like, something that's a sacrifice, hmm…"

    Do you think maybe it might be better to think first "What particular virtue do I want to develop, or what bad habit or vice do I want to eliminate?  How could I fulfill my vocation better?" … 

    … and then, having answered that question, to consider what sacrifice would actually serve that goal?  I mean, maybe chocolate is really hard to give up, but maybe it's not a chocolate-free Lent that would best help you grow in holiness.  Unless you have a disordered attachment to sweets in particular, and you think chocolate is actually getting between you and God, and that's what you're hoping to work on.

    Or is that just me being overly analytical?

    My husband gives up chocolate every year (I swear I am not using this post to pick on him).  He says that it's a good thing to give up for him because when it's not Lent he eats chocolate every day, sometimes several times a day, and it is something that daily reminds him that he's choosing to do something different for Lent.  And he says every time he has to think, "mmm chocolate—oh yeah, I can't have any," it reminds him to be thankful for all the good things he has.

    This is not my approach, though I am careful to say I am not saying that his approach is wrong.  I have up till now mostly tried just to think of "a good thing" to give up… but I always have to laugh at myself because there are always things that it occurs to me would be truly sacrificial to give up, and I never do give them up because I'm honestly afraid to do without them!  Which is perhaps a pretty strong sign of a disordered attachment.  Exhibit A:  coffee.   (I could muster the nerve to do it, but only if I started weaning myself off it in December, and who thinks of Lent during Christmas?).  Exhibit B:  hot water in my morning shower.  (This is MINNESOTA, people.)  

    What do you think?  How should people select their Lenten sacrifice?  Should you give up something that's literally bad for you, like tobacco?  Should you pare yourself of a luxury, like chocolate?  Should you give up an "ordinary thing" to cause yourself some suffering (however minor), like the hot showers?   Should the thing be carefully selected to counter some vice you keep falling into?  What's your philosophy?

    —

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  • Motivation: Induced exercise, part 9

    (Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6  7 and 8)

    Before you make a plan (and more on those details later), you need some good reasons to keep you going.  Why make it a priority to get regular exercise at all?

    Obviously, there are lots of reasons (I'll list some in a minute), and different people will have different sets of reasons.  But whoever you are, I would like you to cross one reason off your list.  

    I do not think it is a good idea to exercise "so that you can lose some weight."

    Here is why I think this is a destructive, unhelpful, ultimately un-motivating motivation:  It does not work very well for many people.


    That is, exercising more, harder, or more regularly is far from a sure-fire means to take off pounds.

    Possibility 1:  the plateau.  Increasing exercise might drop some weight, but once a few pounds are lost you might find yourself in a situation where to drop more weight through exercise alone, you need to exercise still more.  Sooner or later you will run out of spare time you can devote to more exercise, and that will be the limit.  This may set you up for feeling that exercise has failed to "deliver."  This in turn may set you up for quitting.

    Possibility 2:  the appetite.  Increasing exercise may make you hungrier, or may make you desire food more, or may make you feel entitled to more food.  In this way your body (which is really good at moderation, i.e., MODERATING your food intake to match your activity)  prompts you to take in more food to "pay" for the energy burnt in the extra exercise.  Perhaps you won't notice and will be befuddled by the unmoving needle on the scale; perhaps you will notice that you're eating more or suffering more from hunger.  In either case, exercise has failed to "deliver" or has even apparently defeated your efforts to be less gluttonous.  Once again, you're set up for quitting.

    Possibility 3:  misunderstanding weight fluctuations.  Adding exercise will probably change your body's daily and weekly weight patterns.  Water might be gained and lost at different times of the day.  Muscle might be added.  You might, as noted before, eat more.  You could easily see wider swings in weight and even weight gain.  If you already know you tend to overanalyze the number on the scale, the different patterns you'll see when you start exercising might mess with your head.  Once again:  you could be setting yourself up for discouragement and quitting.

    So I'm not saying merely "have some other motivation for exercise besides weight loss."  I'm saying, get the weight loss-related motivation completely out of your mind.  Do not exercise to lose weight:  not primarily, not secondarily, not at all.  

    Yes, that's a bit harsh.  The good news?  There are plenty of reasons to arrange your life such that you get regular exercise, reasons that have nothing at all to do with weight loss.   

    I will begin by swearing, Scout's honor, that  I did not start exercising in January '08 because I wanted to lose weight.  I did not expect it to cause me to lose any weight.  By then I was completely convinced that exercise plays little if any role in weight loss through burning more energy.  

    And I will swear, Scout's honor, that my weight did not change at all for the first five months of regular exercise.  Not until I altered my diet did I lose even a pound.

    So—If I didn't start exercising to lose weight, why did I do it?   Here are my reasons:

    1. I wanted to see myself as a fit, active person.  I saw my husband as an athlete; I admired that in him; I wanted to be one, too.
    2. In the same vein:   I knew he would appreciate having a fitter, more active spouse.  I wanted to give that to him.
    3. I wanted to develop some self-discipline.  I was tired of being a quitter.
    4. I knew that exercise, independently of overweight, is associated with a longer life that's freer of chronic illness and injury.  Here is a Google sampler about prevention and management of various diseases:  Heart disease  Vision loss  Diabetes  Colon cancer  Endometrial cancer  Breast cancer  Lung cancer  Alzheimer's disease  Osteoporosis  Migraine
    5. I expected that if I got more exercise, I'd feel less winded by everyday activities like climbing the stairs and mopping the floor. 

    Those were my reasons.  That's it.  The top one was really my primary reason.  I wanted to reinvent myself as "a physically active person," rather than "a person who occasionally enjoys doing something physically active."  I mean, I've always enjoyed bicycling, hiking, and downhill skiing.  But I've hardly ever done those things frequently enough to call myself a cyclist, a hiker, or a skier.  I wanted to be the kind of person who gets exercise.  So I imagined a person who was like me in every way—33 years old, homeschooling mother of three, likes to read and cook and try new restaurants — like me in every way except that she was "physically fit and active."  What separates her from me?  I thought.  And then I tried to do the things I imagined her doing.  

    Those were my reasons.  Would you like some more?

    • You'll set a good example for your kids—moms, especially, for your daughters.  Sure, you may start out by placing your children in the gym's child care center while you get a workout in.  But as they grow older, perhaps they will join you!  (In recent months, my 10-year-old friend Meira has been joining me for Saturday morning swims while her mom, another friend of mine, uses the elliptical trainer.)
    • You will likely do your friends a favor.  Sedentary activity and obesity appears to be socially contagious.  Perhaps the reverse is true too:  you may inspire other people around you. 
    •  Talk about a self-esteem boost!  You can learn how to do something you never did before.  That feels really good.
    • You might find a new way to treat yourself to "me time."  When you find an activity that really works for you, you may come to relish that workout as a welcome break in your day.  And then something you love and something that's good for you will be happening at the same time.  It's efficient!
    • You'll get stronger.   It's good for carrying suitcases at the airport, moving furniture, lugging recalcitrant children, all that stuff. 

    In addition to what I've mentioned before:  Courtesy of the Mayo Clinic:

    • Exercise improves your mood.  "Exercise stimulates various brain chemicals, which may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed than you were before you worked out. You'll also look better and feel better when you exercise regularly, which can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem. Exercise even reduces feelings of depression and anxiety."
    • Exercise strengthens your heart and lungs.  
    • Exercise helps you sleep better. 
    • Exercise improves sexual function (particularly in men).  

      And again from Mayo:

    • Exercise increases stamina and reduces fatigue.
    • Exercise helps you ward off viral illnesses.  "Aerobic exercise activates your immune system. This leaves you less susceptible to minor viral illnesses, such as colds and flu." 
    • Whereas I was concerned with preventing chronic illness, exercise also helps manage many chronic illnesses.
    • Exercise helps you maintain mobility as you get older.  

    More tidbits:

    • Women who exercise during the three months before pregnancy report feeling better during the first trimester.
    • Physical inactivity in parents strongly correlates to physical inactivity in children. 

    Maybe you can think of more benefits.  I want to add one more, in the spiritual dimension:

    The experience of getting regular exercise has taught me a great deal about what it means to love myself the way we are supposed to.   Recall that the Great Commandment is to love your neighbor "as yourself" — indicating that there is, indeed, an appropriate and rightly ordered self-love.   Doing what's necessary to give my body the physical activity it needs has required sacrifice, obedience, discipline.  It has required me to be motivated at least in part by love of others:  because I wanted to be fit to strengthen my marriage, because I wanted to share as fully in my children's lives as I can.  It's required me to learn humility, to ask for help.  It's required me to keep promises that I had to make.  And because I've made mistakes along the way, it's helped me learn a little bit how to distinguish "care of the self" from "caring too much for myself."  There are times when I've demanded too much from my family, and other times when I've realized I needed to ask for more.  I have learned a little bit more how best to walk that line.

    So.  Stop exercising "to lose weight."  Forget about that reason.  Do it for any or all of the other reasons.  Because the truth is, even if exercising were to cause you to gain weight—and who knows, it might—you'd reap all the other benefits, and they are totally worth it.

    ADDED:  Interesting related thoughts from Waltzing Matilda.

    When I practice "induced exercise" as Erin describes, my whole day
    tends to become more active. When I allow myself to become sedentary, I
    tend to stay that way. When I let myself get sidelined from exercise
    due to illness or a busy schedule, I find it harder to jump back into
    it. When I have become sedentary for a long time, it usually takes a
    big push on my part to get me back into the routine. So, what does this
    all mean? Well, after almost 4 weeks of regular exercise,
    my weight has actually gone up! And I am OK with that. Like Erin said,
    someone who was only exercising for the purpose of hoping that number
    would decrease would be very disappointed. I fight that temptation by
    saying that I am working on getting healthy, not thin. There are plenty
    of thin women who aren't healthy and plenty of women who weigh less
    than I do who aren't half as strong. Thin is an impossible dream for my
    body type.

    Well, I used to think that about my body type too… now, a flat tummy is an impossible dream, but that's because of the pregnancies.

    —

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  • How I learned to prioritize exercise: Induced exercise, Part 8.

    (Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 7)

    How did I learn to put personal exercise — for me — at the top of the priority list, and keep it there, for a year?

    I learned by putting my (generally very fit) husband's personal exercise at the top of the priority list for over two years.

    Mark has a few old injuries from high school pole vaulting:  a spinal compression fracture, a repeatedly-injured thigh muscle, and a repeatedly-injured muscle in the opposite calf.  Every once in a while he will Do Something To one of those old injuries and have to take it easy for a while.  Once it was letting me hang off him while I was in labor, once it was racquetball with T.O.M., once it was running his first 5K about 20 percent faster than he should have.  

    Anyway, a few years ago the sports medicine specialist ordered him to do a specific regimen of strength training and lower-body cardio, three times a week.  For how long?  Well, he could mix it up a bit once he healed, but he was going to have to stay fit and strong to keep the pain at bay, so, indefinitely.  He came home and explained.  Would we make it work?  Of course.

    And we did.  For years.  He's got a gym at work, and we have the family membership to the Y, and he can run or bike 4.5 miles to work.  Generally Mark would work out before coming home in the evenings.  One night a week we declared "Family Gym Night:"  we would all go, Oscar would have a swimming lesson and Milo (then too little) would stay in the child care — or we would take turns staying with him in the child care.  I would get exercise on Family Gym Night.

    Sometimes the schedule conflicted with other stuff we wanted to do.  We would juggle it around, but we never (or hardly ever) skipped Mark's workout; we always made sure to slot it in somewhere else, even if he had to leave us in the evening, even if he had to come home extra late for dinner.

    I got used to getting exercise "once a week, most weeks."  I had to skip, of course, if Mark was out of town (since Milo would often refuse to stay in the child care).  I skipped once in a while and stayed home if I had a lot of other stuff to do.  After a while, at Hannah's urging, I signed up for swimming lessons myself.  I took lessons for a whole year.  That was great, because before that I could only dog paddle, and I was thinking that when I would get pregnant with baby #3 I would swim for exercise during pregnancy.

    That pregnancy came along and knocked me flat on my back where I alternately slept and threw up for five months, so forget that.  I maybe got in the pool three times while pregnant with MJ.  But after MJ was born, we went back to Family Gym Night, taking turns.  Milo got old enough to start swimming lessons.  All that time Mark kept up his workouts, three a week.  He had long since got better.

    When MJ was about a year old, I started to wonder… Maybe now it can be my turn.  I spoke to Mark about it:  Do you think we could make it top priority for me to get regular exercise?  Once a week was nice, but not very much, and I needed to get more serious about it, send myself a message that I was really doing it this time.  How about twice a week?  Three seemed too difficult to fit in.  Let's see if I can exercise twice a week, every week, and then when it becomes a habit… someday far off in the future… then I can add a third.  If I can find the time.

    I felt very tentative and apologetic about asking to put my exercise first.  I don't know why I was so worried:  Mark agreed with great enthusiasm.  I suggested I start swimming, for two reasons:  (1) I hate getting hot and sweaty and (2) it combines strength and cardio, so it seemed a perfect fit for a twice-a-week schedule.   We decided that each week I would swim on Family Gym Night and on whatever other night that week seemed to work best for the schedule.  

    We began in January 2008.  It was the first New Year's resolution I ever kept.  I never missed a single week that whole year, even though for most of the year MJ refused to stay in the child care.  

    Of course there had to be a little bit of flexibility.  When the pool was closed for repairs I drove to another Y twenty minutes away.  When I had a sinus infection, I walked on a treadmill instead of swimming (yuck, I got hot and sweaty).  When Mark was to go out of town for a few days I went to the pool at 5:30 AM the morning of his flight out, and went to the pool again the same evening he came back.  A couple of times, when Mark went out of town for longer, I asked Hannah to watch the children while I went to the pool. 

    But most of the time it was Mondays and Thursdays.  Sometimes Mark had to miss his workout, not very often, just here and there, because now mine came first.  Sometimes I didn't get the housework done.  Sometimes we had a quick dinner, or Mark made dinner, because I had to get to the gym.  Not very often, but sometimes. 

    I began to really enjoy my workouts.  A
    fter a few months, I didn't just endure them—I looked forward to them.  I realized that this was time that was truly my own, and time that is my own is something I have always cherished.   

     In late summer Mark suggested I take up something else, like running.  "It'd be more flexible," he pointed out.  "It takes less time, because you don't have to shower and change.  And if the pool's closed or if the lap lanes are all full, you'll still be able to get a workout the same place, same time.  We won't have to put it somewhere else in the week.  And if you learn to run outside, you can get a workout anywhere—you won't need to go to the Y."

    I started to twitch just thinking about changing my routine.   "No.  I can't do that yet.  It's too soon."  I couldn't explain why, but I was not yet ready to alter the routine.  The routine had turned me around.  By now I was losing weight.  Everything was falling into place.  I couldn't change yet.  "No," I said.  "Please don't make me change anything yet."  He backed off, but I could tell he was kind of irritated.  I knew he had made sacrifices for months so that I could sustain this roll I was on, so that I could have everything exactly the way I wanted it.  "I'm sorry," I said, "I will be able to be more flexible eventually, but not yet.  Give me a few more months."

    He did.  And I started looking for a plan to make my routine more flexible.   I was afraid of replacing a swimming workout with something else until I got good enough (at the something else) to have it be pretty intense.  So I announced that I would try to fit another workout into my week, and the third workout would be for trying out other kinds of exercise.  I put it on Saturday mornings, my errand-running, writing, out-to-breakfast-by-myself, occasionally-go-to-Adoration morning.  I could spare some time in there.  And it was time I already had "to myself," so I wouldn't take any more away from Mark.

    I tried a yoga class, and I tried running.  I liked both.  I think I would have preferred to take up yoga, but in the end running won, because I wasn't beholden to anybody's class schedules.  And after a while, I got good enough at running on the treadmill that a running workout was about as intense as a swimming workout.  And so today, if I have to skip one of my three weekly workouts, it doesn't really matter whether I skip a swim or a run; I still feel that I've exercised.

    "Getting my workouts in" is no longer the top priority of the family.  There are several reasons why not:

    •   I have so much experience finding different ways to get my exercise, it's easy for me to figure out how to get them in most of the time–so I don't need them to be top-priority to fit them into the schedule.    
    • I look forward to them, I genuinely want to do them, I itch if I have to miss one–so I don't need them to be top-priority to be motivated.
    • I've been doing it long enough that I'm confident a missed workout will not turn into missing two, then three, then weeks of workouts–so I don't need them to be top-priority to be consistent.

    It's a habit now.  Habits do not have to be prioritized.  So… I don't have to prioritize exercise anymore.  

    I just do it.  Like the slogan.  Only it took me a year to get there.

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  • Speaking of mindlessly eating stuff that isn’t so good…

    ...funny post on that topic at In the Pipeline.

    Short version:  office break room, chocolate-flavored hamster chow.

    Be sure to read the comments, which include the line "I decided that my free food limit is around pH=9.5."  Also:  cheesecake for rats.

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  • Obsessed with the numbers. (updated a bit)

    I finally put my finger on something that's been going wrong with my maintenance lately.

    When I was losing weight, I had developed this really fantastic long-term outlook.  I was not in a hurry to get to my goal weight.  I was trying to find the best way to live and to eat  for the rest of my life.  I did countless experiments, it seemed, testing behaviors one at a time and watching the numbers on the scale to see if the behavior was a successful one that promoted weight loss, or if it was not.  For a couple weeks I would try, for example, having a cup of coffee after dinner to signal that I was done.  Then I might try having a piece of dark chocolate.  Which worked better?  I felt that I had plenty of time — my whole life — to try these things out, to learn.  

    Why was I able to take such a long-term approach?  Maybe because I never actually believed I would really reach goal.

    Anyway, I realized just the other day that I have lost my long-term view.  I have been reacting to the numbers on the scale each morning:  panicked if more than 109.5, relieved if less than 108.0.  It's as if I feel I can't afford to take a long-term approach.  Something about trying to stay the same feels fundamentally different than trying to lose.    I can't wait six weeks to see if this small change makes a difference!  If I'm wrong, then… in six weeks I might gain six pounds!  

    Deep breath.  

    Now that I've realized what's going on, I can make a correction.  What I did that was fundamentally right, while I was losing weight, was to focus on behavior.  The algorithm is this:

    • Plan my behavior.
    • Stick to the plan. 
    • See what the numbers on the scale tell me. 
    • If the numbers do what I want, and I like the behavior, adopt the behavior permanently. 
    • If the numbers do what I don't want, change the plan.  

    The direction of change of the number on the scale was and is useful:  it tells me whether my actual behavior is "working," and that in turn tells me whether it's a good plan.  If I can't stick to the plan, that means it's not a good plan, because a good plan is a plan I can stick to.  

    I need to get back to that.  Lately my behavior has been:

    • Step on the scale.
    • If weight < 109, don't worry too much about what I eat. 
    • If weight > 109 for a few days in a row, eat sparingly until I get a reading below 108. 

      This is not very sustainable.  I feel like a toggle switch.   It's time for me to make a list of candidate behaviors for maintenance, and begin working through them methodically.  I know, I said I was going to do this at least twice before.  I really mean it this time.  I started the list in pencil yesterday, just off the top of my head in no particular order.  Here is what I wrote (note that many of the behaviors are mutually contradictory):

    • 8-1/2" plate
    • Measure servings of 1/2 cup grain, 1 cup soups and stews, 1 oz bread 
    • No sweets 
    • Two-thumb-sized portions of sweet pastries
    • Only really good sweets that I really want
    • Keep almonds in the car 
    • One-egg breakfasts 
    • Two-egg breakfasts 
    • Tomato juice with breakfast 
    • No-toast, no-fruit breakfasts 
    • "Vegetables for two people, entree for half a person" restaurant strategy 
    • Eat sitting down, slowly, without distraction 
    • No bedtime snack 95% of the time 
    • Only one plateful at meals (no seconds)  
    • Wait 20 minutes before seconds 
    • Start the coffee when we sit down to dinner
    • No alcohol 
    • Limit to one glass of alcohol 95% of the time 
    • Eat only on schedule (snacks at 10:30 and at 3:30) 
    • No tasting while cooking 
    • No tasting while cleaning up 
    • Make dinners that don't have any leftovers 
    • No casseroles bigger than 9×9 — freeze extra ingredients or make a second casserole and use later, freeze, or give it away
    • Replace bread with Wasa crackers whenever feasible 
    • Default snack of cut fruit, tiny cubes of cheese, and nuts
    • Any snack, but never more than one ounce  
    • Always eat with cutlery, even pizza, sandwiches, bananas, etc. 
    • One-half to three-quarters of the plate is always vegetables

    Added later: 

    • Chew gum while cleaning up after meals to prevent mindless nibbling 
    • Don't snack if not hungry, even if the time for snack has arrived
    • Choose a quite-small snack (e.g. four almonds) if not hungry when snack time arrives
    • Buffet strategy:  Half a plate of veg, and only one plateful total 
    • Hardly ever drink fruit juice or soda
    • Weigh every day and watch for long-term, not short-term, change
    • Reflect daily on my motivations for maintaining my weight  
    • Plan what I'm going to eat each day — qualitative only
    • Plan what I'm going to eat  each day — quantitative
    • Plan what I'm going to eat and restrict calorie counts 
    • Measure added high-calorie condiments such as salad dressing, butter, jam 

    There are two habits that helped me lose weight that I would like to kick, if I can do it without gaining weight.  One of them is to stop thinking, talking, and writing quite so much about the subject.  I am afraid I am becoming quite a bore (a better-looking one, but that can only last so long.)  The other is constant gum-chewing.  It's a habit I always deplored in other people (especially people sitting behind me in class!) and now what do you know, I have become one of them.

    At least I didn't take up smoking. 

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  • Before and after.

    So how did I do?  How did my first-ever post-glutton, post-eating-disorder fast day go? 

    Purely on the level of… coping with the fast?  Setting the spiritual aside for a moment?  On the same level as if I'd had to fast for, say, a blood test or something?

    Well.  Let me tell you.  I still have… issues.  That fear-of-getting-hungry thing?  It's still there a bit, hiding beneath the surface.

    Case in point:  where I was at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday night.  Care to guess?

    Dingalingaling!  "Standing in front of the refrigerator, panicked, eating food at random!"  Boy, I haven't done that in a while.  Months, at least.  It was notable, if only because… I haven't done that in a while.  Months, at least.   


    Also because I was uncomfortably aware of the sensation of an overfull stomach.  It began to seem like a really good idea not to have breakfast the next morning, fast day or not.


    So.   Wednesday I fasted on vegetable broth (ok… and black coffee) till 3 pm, ate a balanced meal with my kids (meatless lasagna, leeks, fruit salad, and bread), and then returned to the vegetable broth.

    Did I get hungry?  You betcha.  Did I notice I was hungry?  Oh yes. 

    I went to bed around 10, wondering if I was going to wake after midnight and head downstairs for another binge.

    About 2:30 in the morning I woke up with a growling stomach.  I considered staying in bed, but then went downstairs.  And amazed myself.

    Because I didn't want to binge.  I had a light meal of leftover leeks, about a half cup of pasta, and some sauce.  And went back to bed.

    I think I've learned a few things.  And I think I'm… well.  At least, more well than I have ever been before. The last year has changed me, really healed me.  I bet I can manage Holy Thursday with no binges at all.  

    —

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  • Priority: What is it? Induced exercise, part 7.

    (Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6)

    At the very top of every family's priority list are a whole slew of completely non-negotiable things that must happen every day.

    • Keep the children alive.  
    • Make sure everybody who works for a living keeps his job.
    • Go to the bathroom regularly enough to keep from getting a UTI.
    • Make sure people get medication they need. 
    • Things like that. 

    You know what's on that list, the list of things that really truly can't be changed.  Everyone's is different.

    But sooner or later as you move down you come to the beginning of the things that are optional on any one day.  They may be very important, but really, there are usually some alternatives to each one.  

    • Housework.  Keeping a clean home is not unimportant, but on any given day you could completely skip it.  You could get behind for weeks if necessary.  No one would die.
    • Getting the schoolwork done (if you're a homeschooler).  There's always Saturday, or next week.  There's always "doing the light schedule" when lots of other stuff is going on, or the first really warm week of spring, or when Grandma comes to town.  I don't recommend getting way behind, of course, but I think we've all had stretches of weeks where we didn't get everything done.  Show me a homeschooling family who's never blown off a single day in the whole history of homeschooling, and…. I'm willing to bet they have exactly one school-age kid and he's still in kindergarten. 
    • Cooking meals for your family.  Sure, they've got to eat something, but no one will die or get scurvy if it's peanut butter sandwiches for a few days in a row.  Unless somebody's allergic to peanuts I guess.

    Putting induced exercise at the top of your priority list — giving it its turn for a time — means giving it higher billing than housework, schoolwork, meal preparation… and everything else, like recreation, getting the kids to their lessons,  blogging, next year's school planning, going out to dinner with friends, movie night, projects around the house, whatever else you do with your time.  

    It doesn't mean that exercising definitely pre-empts any of these.  It just means that you make a choice in advance that if your plan to exercise conflicts with any of these responsibilities, and if you can't find a way to juggle them around to make it fit, then exercise wins.  

    It should be obvious that to make this work, the rest of your family needs to be on board.  Your spouse certainly has to be.  Any other people who depend on you on a regular basis.  And your inner circle, the people you lean on for help and support?  Especially the ones you trust to watch your kids from time to time?  It helps if they're on board too.

    A couple things to remember as you get ready to give your own induced exercise its turn at the top of the list:

    (1) It won't be for forever.  But it should be for long enough to turn regular exercise into something that feels normal to get and unusual to miss, rather than the other way around.  I recommend NOT setting a time limit, because who knows how long it'll take?  You'll know when it happens. Need a ballpark figure?  We're talking several months at least.  For me it was about a year.

    (2)  It will take some thought and planning.  Allow some planning and research hours before you jump in.  More on how to do this in a later post.

    (3)  You'll need to build some flexibility into your plan — you want a way to get your exercise in even if the weather is bad, or your babysitting falls through.  But at first, allow only as much flexibility as is necessary to get around likely obstacles. Firm consistency builds habit, especially if you have a history of trying to exercise regularly and petering out.

    Next post:  the story of how we got my induced exercise to the top of my family's priority list and kept it there until it didn't need to be there anymore.  After that:  Some guidelines for making your plan.

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  • Ash Wednesday.

    So, in an attempt to make things easier for my brain, I decided to ditch the "guideline" of two small meals plus one normal meal — you do know it's just a guideline, right?  — and we are having one moderate meal (meatless lasagna) around 3 pm.

    The rest of the day I'm fasting on liquids, mostly some vegetable broth I made this morning.

    It's just simpler. 

    The kids are all too young to really fast, so they're having their normal meatless stuff — oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for dinner after Mass, and probably a snack before the evening Mass.  

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  • Tea and coffee cut your stroke risk!

    According to an "evidence-based review of human observational studies" at UCLA.  Tea's better than coffee, unless you are a nonsmoking woman, in which case coffee is just about as good as tea.  The more you drink it, the more it cuts your risk of stroke.  Four or more cups of coffee a day gives a nonsmoking woman a 43% reduction in risk of stroke.

    SO   HA   HA   HA.
    (No, I didn't read the original article. Yes, I acknowledge that I can't get enough information from what's reported in the news media to distinguish crappy studies from well-designed ones.  I just wanted to say HA HA HA.)

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  • I hope you are still reading Charlotte Was Both.

    My heart leaps into my throat every time that blog comes up highlighted in my feed reader.  I think:  Oh Amy, how are you doing?


    And what have you got to tell us?

    She is writing about how things knit together, and I am experiencing a certain knit-togetherness too.  Her Michael died suddenly, on the tenth day after my Mark had his own narrow escape from an avalanche in the Utah mountains.   I was still reeling from the sense of the narrowness of that escape, still horrified by the details he described to me, still grateful that he had survived and come back to us, still finding it all too easy to imagine how my life would be different if he had not come back.  

    And then came Amy's news to her readers.

    Almost immediately after his near miss, Mark began a series of long-planned, days-long business trips that will keep him more away than home for several weeks.  I have been living without him a lot.  I have had ample time to be grateful and to keep Amy and all others who have lost husbands, fathers, in my constant prayers.  

    Each of her rare posts since her husband's death has contained a pure gift to me.  A teaching that I needed.  Gratitude, but other things too.

     *  *  *

    I received a certain consolation in prayer, the night that Mark explained to me the details of his narrow miss.  The children were asleep and I was alone in our living room.  I wondered aloud why, why so many good things?  Why so many gifts in our lives?  Why this one?  We sometimes laugh darkly at each other and say, "'From him to whom much is given, much will be expected'… We must be in for it."  That night I was almost angry, accusing.  Why so many good things?  Why so many blessings?  What have you got in store for me?  When will I have to pay for all this?

    And then the consolation came, quite clear, and it was:  If it had happened, if Mark had been gone and left only me to raise the children, if if if…. then all the good things that came before would have been enough to sustain me and strengthen me.  And that is what they would have been for.  If it had happened.  They would have been given  to me not as something I had to pay back, but a free gift to give me what I need.  And with it came a quiet confidence that sorrow, however it may come, will not be able to keep me from doing what I have to do.  Because my weaknesses, the holes and faults and missing pieces in me, have been filled, are being filled.  With an abundance of blessings.

    What a strange sort of revelation, but a peaceful one.  To him from whom much will be asked… much will be given.  The corollary.

    And so Amy's posts have struck me with a peculiar odd resonance.  I don't say that Mark and his avalanche happened because she was going to lose Michael, or that she lost Michael because of something to do with Mark and the avalanche.  That is way too simplistic, and narcissistic too.  I feel only caught up by a thread or two in the knitting-together.  What Amy is writing, because she needs to write it, is reaching my ears and finding a place where it needs to be heard.

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  • Either or: a small victory. Plus, Easy Morning Bran Muffins.

    A common thought pattern that helped keep me stuck in gluttony was always:  You don’t just want to eat this food, you need to eat this food.  You haven’t had enough [some nutrient] today, or at this meal.  You need more of [that nutrient].  This food will give it to you.

     

    I have learned to challenge that thought.

    + + +

    [Editing note.  Years and years later, I wish I’d done a better job distinguishing gluttony from other problems with food, like clinical eating disorders and other kinds of compulsiveness. 

    I want to emphasize that, whereas I identified some behaviors in myself that probably qualified as self-centered gluttony in the technical sense, I am not and never have been qualified to make that distinction for anyone else.

    I hope to add some commentary to all the posts that have this problem as I find the time to review them.  Here’s a more recent post where I acknowledge some of the problematic material I wrote and set new ground rules for myself going forward.]

    + + +

    Today I baked bran muffins with dried cherries for breakfast.  (Muffins are easier than I ever realized as a breakfast food, by the way; recipe at the end of the post.)  I am still working on dropping a pound that I gained, so I thought I’d have my signal breakfast of 1 boiled egg and 4 oz. tomato juice, and perhaps save a muffin for my midmorning snack right before my swim.

     

    And then while the muffins were baking and the egg was boiling, I thought:  Muffins are best when they are warm out of the oven.  I don’t want to eat the muffin cold in the car on the way to the gym.  I am also working on sitting down and truly enjoying my food.  I will enjoy a muffin for breakfast and have the boiled egg for my snack instead.

     

    Tomato juice and muffin sounded gross, so I poured four ounces of milk instead.  I sat down and slowly enjoyed a hot buttered muffin and sipped my milk.  I used a fork and concentrated on the crumbly texture of the muffin, the flavor of cherries plump from the moist heat, the silkiness of the melting butter.  The milk was rich, cool, and creamy.  It was good.  I felt satisfied.

     

    Then the voice in my head started:  No way is that enough protein.  You should eat the boiled egg too.  And you didn’t get any vegetables!  You should have a glass of tomato juice.  You know you are working on getting lots of vegetables.  There weren’t any vegetables in that muffin, now, were there?

     

    So basically, the voice in my head was telling me to eat both breakfasts.  The one I had just eaten, and the one I should have had.

     

    This is ridiculous.  I really try to concentrate on how ridiculous it is.

     

    (You see why I have had so much trouble keeping fast days?  That voice in my head is convincing me all day that I am special, I shouldn’t fast because I am hypoglycemic or whatever, if I don’t eat I will be mean to people and that will be uncharitable and that is worse than not fasting, yadda yadda.  Ridiculous, I’m telling you.)

     

    Anyway, I said to myself, Self:

     

    (a) There is, in fact, protein here.  (I counted later:  Four grams in the muffin and four in the milk.  There are only six in the boiled egg.)

     

    (b) True, no vegetables, but there was some dried fruit, and a nice hit of fiber.  I don’t have to get every single nutrient at every single meal.

     

    (c) I HAVE ALREADY EATEN BREAKFAST.  And, what with the whole milk and all, a higher-calorie-than-usual breakfast.  I do not need a second one.

     

    So I set the egg aside to eat it for my midmorning snack instead of the usual handful of nuts, and got a cup of coffee.

     

    I have encountered this sort of internal dialogue before.  Another way I have solved it in the past, when the breakfast I planned is warring in my head with the breakfast I suddenly decided I really wanted to enjoy, is to split the difference and have half of each breakfast. That can be a little dangerous, though, if there is no one around to eat up the other halves.

    Easy morning bran muffins

     

    THE NIGHT BEFORE….

     

    mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl:

     

    • 1 cup whole wheat flour
    • 1 cup oat bran
    • 1 tablespoon baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt

    In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, place the wet ingredients:

     

    • 2 eggs
    • 3 tablespoons (or less) maple syrup or honey plus milk to make 1 cup*
    • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil**

    Poke the eggs with a fork and scramble it all together a bit, then cap it and put it in the fridge,

     

    Measure 1/2 cup of raisins or dried fruit pieces and leave them on the counter next to the bowl of dry ingredients.  Put out a rubber spatula.  Grease a 12-cup muffin tin and leave that on the counter too.

     

    IN THE MORNING

     

    Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and start your coffee or unload the dishwasher or whatever while you’re waiting.  When the oven comes nearly to temperature, take the jar out of the fridge and shake it to blend, then stir it quickly into the dry ingredients in a few swift strokes.  Fold the fruit in.  Divide among the 12 muffin cups and bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out nearly clean.  Let cool 5 minutes in the tin before removing.  Eat ’em hot.  125 calories, 18 g carb, 5 g fat, 4 g protein, 2 g fiber per muffin.  (calculated with whole milk, coconut oil, 3 T maple syrup, and dried cherries.)

     

    ——————–

    * You can use sugar instead, up to 4 Tbsp.  Add it to the dry ingredients and use a whole cup of milk.

    ** If you use a solid fat like butter or (my choice) coconut oil, you will have to melt it in the morning and add it to the jar of wet ingredients right before shaking.

     

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    1 comment on Either or: a small victory. Plus, Easy Morning Bran Muffins.

  • Diversity.

    Our parish started up a lay Carmelite group this past year.  I haven't joined up, but it got me thinking about the lay associates with the various orders.  What's the difference between a lay Carmelite and a lay Dominican?  What are the requirements of becoming one?  Things like that.  

    I stumbled across this informative article about lay Dominican spirituality not too long ago.  I'd like to read more about what is unique to other Orders and Societies and especially to their lay associates.

    There are so many different ways of spirituality and even of worship within Church Tradition.  Truly mindboggling. 

    Sometimes you hear people, even Catholics, trying to be all positive and ecumenical and referring warmly to the great diversity of people's paths to Christ, as if it's actually a good thing that we have Baptists and Methodists and Lutherans and what-have-you all doing something different, all believing something different, all contradicting each other in so many places.  True, much that is good has come of the work of fine people who live and worship and believe in various traditions outside the Church.  But it's a false dilemma, to think that we must disagree to have diversity, that somehow the Protestant Reformation has freed us from stifling uniformity.  It has occurred to me that in a world without heresy, all that energy and vitality that has gone into building the various denominations would have found its expression in an outblooming of wholly unique, wholly individual, wholly Catholic spiritualities and devotions.   

    Maybe in some alternate, Reformation-free universe we'd see the mirror-images of wholesome practices that are today associated only with certain denominations, bearing fruit and finding their full expression in full unity of faith and belief with the Apostles.  Who knows, those vines may be grafted back on someday.

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