Status - Day Two Excavating My Authentic Self

I couldn’t help toying with everyone yesterday. The result - 1.4 lbs

My feelings on this event? Incredulous! Disbelief! Did I read something incorrectly yesterday? Happy though. Knowing it’s do-able with just a little effort.

Riding into town on the bus yesterday I found “self-talk” going around and around in my head and most of it was extremely negative. My girlfriend’s email to me did shake some sense into me, at least for the rest of that day. But here it is, first thing in the morning and I am ready to go into the negative talk about a negative body image. Yes, I must lose weight, for health reasons, not because I want to be knock ‘em dead gorgeous (well, maybe just a little). As I said a while back, I’ve had my day in the sun. But the truth is that I want to live to a ripe old age and carrying around extra weight is not the road to old age.

So here it is. Oprah is not the role model we want to emulate in this arena. The person we should be applauding is Richard Simmons. Does that surprise you? But it’s true. He is a true success story on how to keep weight off. How long has he been doing this – gosh, it must be decades now. I remember him when I was a young woman. I was going to write a ton about him but as my server is super slow, suffice to say he is only 5 years older than I and has kept his weight off for over 30 years. Talk about a success story. Can we do it, can I do it? I must, I will, I will self-talk my way to healthy habits . Richard Simmons Official Site and Clubhouse: Weight Loss and Fitness Tools and Motivation

Lest you think I am some humungous slug. I am not. I am about 30 pounds over my ideal weight, for my age. But every year I seem to put on an additional 3 or 4 pounds and it is harder and harder to get those 3 or 4 pounds off, hence we are now up to 30 pounds. Ten years of 3 pounds. Ladies crossing the threshold of 40 – beware. Those under 40, start healthy habits NOW. It only gets harder.

This is not about self loathing. It is not about being a model. It is simply trying to meet the challenge of staying health and reaching my goal of longevity. (to be discussed at a later time).

I will be happy whilst doing this – not to alarm anyone into going over the top.

Let’s still enjoy our holiday season!

And a tip from Richard today:

To do leg-lifts, you simply stand up and lift your leg parallel to the ground. And when you lift your leg, remember, you're lifting the largest muscle in your body. When you add hand movements to your leg-lifts, your body is working even harder because you're using your upper and lower body at the same time. So now you're burning more calories.