Greeting! I'm celebrating this morning because yesterday was Day# 7! That is a milestone because I kept my commitment to TishTrek - my 51/51 Challenge for one full week! I logged 15,214 steps on my Virgin Healthmiles monitor and enhanced my Team's score which is terrific news because my month of January is about increased activity and exercise!
I was chained to my desk in Jersey City all day yesterday, so I didn't have time to take my mid-afternoon multi-mile trek in the Newport Mall or along the Hudson River. Out of respect for my knees and bladder, I'm walking this journey. And yes -I used the word "respect." If I don't respect my body or listen to the noise it makes when it doesn't like some action I'm taking, who's going to?
Today's blog is dedicated to my Kate and the awesome young women who are following my journey at The Ohio State University. When I started out last week, I made a mistake by emphasizing losing 51 pounds in my 51st year. Today, I want to take the focus off of those numbers. Oh no - I'm not throwing in the sweat towel! What I know is that if I find time for activity, make good choices about what I put into my body, and work hard everyday on changing my reaction to stress, the pounds will leave as a result of my choices and these efforts.
My doctor believes that 51 pounds would be within my reach if I keep up this commitment, so that's where that number came from. As a result of rethinking this important issue, I'm going to weigh in at the doctor's office once a week. I will quietly update that score under my signature without fanfare to accentuate the point that TishTrek is focused on a life change to health and wellness.
I learned from age twelve onward that if you place a DAILY focus on that scale in the bathroom - which is only one small tool in this process - there's a very good chance you will derail your mission to feeling better. What I also know - for a fact - is that focusing DAILY on pounds "gained-or-lost" actually plays mind-games with you and sets you up to potentially harm to your body.
Think about this: We're finally working out at a gym and our bodies demand hydration (lots of it!) and healthy food choices to feed this fantastic effort, but that scale that stares back at us is screaming that we haven't lost a pound in a week despite all the hard work and amazing effort. Admit it - You already know what too many wonderful and intelligent people end up doing. My gosh - they stop eating and/or stop drinking altogether(sometimes all fluids including water!) because they are so determined to make that stupid needle on that **%@* scale move.
When you mess with fluids, you are messing with all vital organs and the electrical system that supports the functioning of your heart. If that system doesn't work, the upper and lower chambers of the heart that keep you alive cannot function in-sync with each other, (think electrolytes!). If your liver or other organs have to go hunting-for-hydration, they will start robbing some from your brain, and this "thigh bone-connected-to-the-hip bone" domino-effect biological thievery goes on-and-on... The end-result can alter the quality of life today or at some later date; and/or it can kill you.
My prayer today for all my beautiful girls in Columbus, Ohio is that they can find the RIGHT METERS TO MEASURE their daily and weekly SUCCESSES! Introducing the Virgin Healthmiles meter into my life at age 51 has been very inspiring... if the monitor on my waist reads 14,500 steps and my goal for that day is 15,000 steps, I'm in control. I can walk an additional 500 steps and go to bed feeling great about myself and invigorated to start again tomorrow. If I step on that scale and weigh-in at 150 pounds, there is NOTHING HEALTHY I can do to change that number today.
I'm so glad we're on this topic because I love my boys too and I've been waiting to say this for 35 years: I wish all the wrestlers who do "crazy & dangerous" things to their bodies to stay in their Weight Classes could read this blog today! Let's face it, none of us would wish sweating pounds off under mats; laxative management; purging or starvation on our worst enemy; so how come these tactics are acceptable and okay for high school champions?!
Best regards,
Everybody's Cousin Tish
Quote of the Day: "Choose meters and scales that measure something meaningful."
-Kate's Mom
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