Building Up By Listening Deeply

In Training

When you are in training for something, you are building up. It requires a balance between deeply respecting the place that you begin from and creating a bridge to get to the place where your goal is.

If you don't deeply respect the place that you begin from, you will not get to your goal, or, if you do, you will, by working against your body, get there without the balance and grace of working with your body.

When you are working with a grace and awareness of where your body is -now- the journey is different in really healthy and nourishing ways. You are loving yourself along the way, not just at the end after traumatizing the body into it.

Image: Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-19650-0017 / CC-BY-SA Courtesy of WikiMedia.org /http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-19650-0017,_Leipzig,_DHfK,_Stabhochsprung.jpg


Remember The Power of 12 Minutes.

When I listen to my body, sometimes 12 minutes is all it is up for. Sometimes it is where I begin. But also sometimes that happens in 5 minute increments. Also, some days, what I can do, no matter what I've built up to, can still be 12 minutes,  or 20 minute, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Wow. That may seem like a lot of possibilities. Good. A lot of possibilities helps me to pay attention to respecting what my body needs, as a minimum, or for what it is willing to stretch into today, and also for where is enough for today.

When I listen to my body, sometimes I need to take two or even three days off during the week. I usually aim for looking at Sundays and Wednesdays as my days off. If I need them, I take them. If I need a lighter day, I take a lighter day. If I am feeling strong and my body wants to move, I go for it. For me, Wednesdays and Sundays are days when I especially listen to the body for its needs for rest or restoration or breath.

(Also, if I've had a very busy day with already too much on my plate or a physically intense day, such as a house cleaning day, or a social day where I am going out river rafting or dancing, etc. that may be enough. If I check in with myself, and hear that I've done enough, I don't add my exercise routine in on top of that. I've done enough. I just did it differently.)

The beauty in this is that, when I listen to my body, when it needs to rest up or lighten up, (or trade off on other activities) and respect that, it gets stronger! I find that by respecting those signals, that I can soon be going further than I ever thought, sooner than I ever thought.

Now I know, establishing a routine IS important. But I believe deeply that a routine is best established slowly in a way that doesn't threaten the body.

I remember, years ago, landing in New York state in the middle of January and deciding to start jogging. I didn't warm up or prepare myself. I went out in sub-zero weather, ran for six miles, tore all my muscles and couldn't move for a week. That was the end of my brilliant new jogging routine. Fini! I burned out before I even got out of the gate.

I've done the same at the gym in the past: signed up, signed on, dragged myself to seven aerobic classes a week and then done nothing but come home and need extra calories and to sleep to recover. I'd simply depleted myself, used up all my calories until I was starved for fuel and too exhausted to do anything else but sleep.

We can add five minutes and establish that for two to four weeks and then, when it is easy and part of our daily routine to do that much, ask the body if it's ready to add five more minutes. I know five minutes at a time seems soooo slow. But it is a perfect way to begin. And it is a perfect way to add on and deepen. And it is respectful to the body.

Listening to the body, letting it guide you as to when it needs to lighten up or when it is ready to go further, higher, longer, stronger is the way to build that bridge so that the body is cooperating with your desire to get there too.

-bbffair

Here Comes The Sun

Spring Cleaning-Inside and Outside

Making Way For New and Renewed Life

 February, this year, seemed like a long, hard winter month to walk.  I often think of January like that, but not so much February.

Some of this was me and some of this just seemed to be going around. I finished radiation at the end of 2011 in December and I was whipped by it. But January wasn't as darn mean and cold as it usually is, so there was this sense of getting through the winter lightly. That is, until February snagged a bunch of us.


Spring, photo courtesy of: http://commons.wikimedia.or/wiki/File:Spring_2005.jpg

For the past ten months, in spite of cancer, I've been getting consistently lighter and healthier. I've been in my zone and fine tuning things and keeping the lightening going even through cancer. 

But in February???  I tipped up the scales six pounds! I'm still in my zone, but still!  How could that happen??? Time to regroup and rethink and get real.

(And yes I know, in my zone, that's not a big deal -to anyone else but me- but to me, it's a wake-up call before I get into anything more like really bigger trouble!)

I also have a theory. I think that the seasons are important to us, biologically, spiritually, physically, mentally. They affect us and are supposed to. So, for one thing it is natural when it gets cold and snowy and ye old winter winds are beating down your door, that you are supposed to get cozy by the fire with a little bit more you on your bones and take a few more zzzzz's in (even if you didn't have radiation treatments) and sup on root vegetables and hearty stew. But when winter doesn't walk you through it, you will still feel the season, and, even eventually, it may still catch up to you later and demand its due.

Anyway, this year, every single still-exercising, still eating mostly right and healthy, still working-it woman I know told me she tipped it up a few pounds in February and/or the scale just got stuck all month.

Tsk. Tsk.

But I wonder, thinking back on my contemplations of the plateau, if there really is some innate logic to this?  Perhaps it is the last step necessary to moving into the light of spring? Sort of like stepping back to boost your new, next upcoming leap forward.

Anyway, I'm counting on this AND I am recommitting  to my spring this year starting right here and now. I cleaned my house top to bottom, part one, last week, and will finish part two, the dogs, this week. I have cleaned out winter, cobwebs, cancer, worry, and all things that get bottled up and start to grow weird in those bottles. And I am recommitting to a strong five days a week forward in moving in my exercises, not so much more, but with more joie di vivre and light! I want that light in my body too!

And so the next six weeks, I'm channeling my light into my Light Body with new life. I'm going to re-lose that six pounds and aim for four more!

Anybody want to get into the sweet spring dance with me too? Time to Lighten Up!

-bbffair


Here Comes The Sun 

Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
It's all right

-The Beatles

The Beauty of Plateaus

The Beauty of Plateaus

In the beginning of an adventure in getting your body beautiful or back to beautiful, weight wise, there can be all these amazing BIG results. They are impressive and ever so sweet.

But then comes the times when you hit plateaus. The going is slower, more precise, more streamlined.

Once you are "in your zone" this is more apt to happen. But this is a VERY GOOD THING.

Many of us are conditioned to believe this is where we are stuck or not making progress. (And, where that might be the case, it might be something much, much better than that. Though if we are stuck on our progress, we might need to make an adjustment, add or subtract something, have a few earlier, lighter dinners, something.)

But today I am not thinking about the kind of plateaus associated with being stuck. Instead, I am thinking about the ones where your body is deeply adjusting and  becoming one with its newer lighter being. It is memorizing and learning to live there. And that is a sign that this is a very nice place for the body to be in. Let it find its feet, stop upon the journey, and look out at (and from) the beautiful landscape and take some time to truly drink it in.

The definition of a plateau is: an elevated, fairly stable and level ground, something one might have climbed high or long, or with great effort to arrive at.

In the zone, your body may want to stay at or close to its new weight for awhile. My body likes to go up and down about 4 pounds for about four weeks each month as it adjusts and relaxes into the lighter weight. Then it lets go of the upper level and moves gently and naturally lighter the next month another 2-4 pounds.  Now I know that is not as drastic and freaky-thrilling as losing a ton in the beginning. (And, by the way, if you boot camp your way ALL the way up, you are much more likely to crash and end up at the bottom again and all defeated. So don't do that!)
But this is the part of the path that's perfect for gentle, natural, beautiful, healthful deepening momentum. The marathon part is over and the dance is poetic and sweet and totally to be enjoyed. It will release what may be left to release in its own perfect time. Your job is to fall into harmony with your body and believe again in the beautiful creature that you are.

By the way, isn't the picture above breathtaking! It's Castle Rock in Sedona, Arizona, a place of beautiful energy and healing. I've been there and been awed.

The photograph is kindly offered for sharing by the photographer named Grombo and is shared here by courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.  Info to look at his portfolio is below.

-bbffair

<By Grombo (Own work) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_rocks_Sedona_Arizona.JPG /
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grombo  /
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page >

Being In The Zone!

Being In The Zone 
and
Knowing What Your Zone Is

This  wonderful thing happened to me around late July. I felt good about my body shape. I wasn't model perfect. But I was in my zone and I could feel it and see it. I could go out shopping and try on new clothes. I was stepping out more and more and then I got on a scale. (Well, I had to. I was beginning cancer treatment and they make you weigh in a lot.) So I got not just a sense of how it feels, but a sense of what it translates to actually.

Now, for me –I'm 5' 6-1/2"– I have a pretty large zone, about twenty-five pounds in which (so long as I am exercising and keeping up my muscle tone) I look and feel pretty good about myself.

At the top of my zone, I look good in and out of clothes. Above the top of it, I feel unable to get on a scale (i.e. fat).

At the lower end of the scale, I'm model thin or what I weighed when I was fourteen, only I'm more shapely in good ways. Below that, I feel and look anorexic and sickly.

However, for the most part, anywhere in my zone is a good place to be because none of it is *bad.* And even gradually moving towards hanging out in the middle of my zone is even more rewarding. It's healthy, alive, vibrant, and attractive.

Arriving in one's *zone* is a really cool thing if you've ever been out there in outer-zone space. It means you can relax. It's also motivating. You're not "on a diet" so much as you're in a LIFEstyle!

It is also helpful at the entrance of your zone for you to also get on the scale a LOT so you know what's going on within your zone. It's kind of like a doable reality check and check-in to keep you on track. For example, I go up and down by 2-4 pounds depending on what I've eaten. And *in the zone* a girl is more apt to lose any remaining weight slower and that's okay now, 'cause you're in the zone.

So right now, I'm in the middle of my zone, which is exactly where I want to be right now as I am also just starting radiation therapy and I might lose the rest of my lower zone with that, so I need my buffer. But I am also in a very good place too: my muscles like to move and I'm eating healthy, delicious foods.

Folks, I am doing the zone dance.

Here's to all of you getting to and being in your own zones!

-bbffair

 <p><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2365">Image: Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></p>