Goals For The Next 365 Days

So, what's the plan?!

GOALS:
Lose my excess weight
Get in shape, become stronger and more flexible
Look younger
Improve my skin
Grow my hair longer
Take good care of myself
Organize my house
Be more honest and authentic with myself

Diet:
I could blather on for quite some time of my personal experiences with food over the last 46 years and what I plan to eat now and why, or I could just direct you to Steve Pavlina's Raw Food Blog where the first page will tell you virtually everything I've come to learn and agree with about what to eat and why.

Then you could read Harley Johnstone's interview and get a better feel for why someone would do the 80/10/10 plan, or 811 as it's sometimes called. His interview will help dispel some myths you may hold about things like fruit in your diet. Whatever you think, you get to sit there eating whatever you choose, drawing your own conclusions in the end!

I will be posting what I eat everyday as well as my activity on my Fitday Journal, which is public and tracks all sorts of additional information. Check my "Links in this blog" section to access it anytime.


Exercise:
When I start tomorrow on January 1, 2010 I will be 4 weeks post op from a total hysterectomy. I've done amazingly well; the only glitch was I caused myself 4 full days of unrelenting pain at week 3 due to the clutch in my car, compounded by being stuck in traffic. Who knew? I am pretty much over that as I approach week 4 right now.

I will be walking on my treadmill and lap swimming 3 days a week to start. As I continue to recover from surgery, I'll increase either days or distance or both. I used to walk and swim every single day - 6 miles of walking, 2 miles of swimming. I might settle for 5-6 days a week down the line.

Truth be told, my main goal in all of this really is to have a flat belly again. I can't tell you how much I miss my 20" waist, though I might be willing to settle on a 26" waist at this point in my life. We'll see. I bought a new Hip Hop DVD Abs workout from eBay at a steal of a price. I can't wait to use it. I also have a running book that is something like a 13 week primer on getting back into running. I may convert my treadmill walking to that later down the line.

I will definitely have before and after pictures as well as measurements and other reports of how the year is going. Some of these things will be at Fitday.

Life:
I won't horrify you with the last 12 years, but in the last 6 years a lot has gone on. My father died. I divorced my alcoholic husband. I had a brain tumor and then brain surgery. 5 months later I moved by myself 2000 miles across the country from where I spent the first 40 years of my life to a new home in a strange city. A few months later my very dependent mother followed me to the same city. As a single mom who has been through a lot and hasn't felt all that well for a very long time, my house and life really need a good going over. The clutter depresses me and harms my productivity as well as creativity. I'm am dedicating this year to taking care of me - mind, body and soul - and that includes clearing out the clutter in my life, wherever it may be.

Schedule:
Probably the most important part of this is juggling my needs here with what I must accomplish on any given day for other people. I'm Pisces and I tend to be more 'floaty' than organized. That's compounded by the fact that stuff flies out of left field at me all the time. Being that I am a single mom while also fully running my half-dementia ridden mother's life to boot, I am pretty overwhelmed. One of my goals is to say no more and realize I'm not responsible for a lot of things that have been shoved onto my shoulders by my mother, including being her 24 hour a day freak out system and her sole source of social life. I'm sorry she doesn't want to make friends but I simply cannot fill her days with stimulating conversation or exciting activities, while letting myself completely go. Nor can I resolve her endless myriad of health tiny health issues, from 'perplexing' age spots to random fleeting pains at the age of 81. I make sure all her needs are met. I cannot fulfill her every wish and whim and I don’t have the luxury endless shopping, hours of visiting and movie going. They say parents of school aged children and aging parents face stress greater than combat stress. I've never been in combat so I can't qualify that, but can tell you I would gladly wield an AK47 and risk death over some of the things I've endured being in this position. I'm exhausted.

Speaking of the military, I've struggled with not being very regimented my whole life. I beat myself up over it, decided it was OK not to be, got annoyed at others who couldn't deal with it and now I just want to deal with it. I have never been a 'must do laundry on Monday person' but I think my life would flow a lot easier if I'd adhere to some sort of schedule. Currently everything really does get done (except the proper care, exercise and feeding of myself) but it's in some sort crazed attention disordered way and the main point of this is to change that. I don’t have ADD, I just act like it – LOL! I may create some sort of online schedule thing to maximize my days and get the most out of them.

Last, but not least I want to become more responsible and stop putting things off, stop huddling in my office chair trying to shut out the world. I know I do it because I have had too much to handle as one small person but pretending it doesn't exist doesn’t really work, either. I want to be more honest and authentic with myself and deal with things head on. Now, my behavior may be more out of self preservation than cowardice so I'll have to see how this is going – but I do know the feeling I want to bring forth and that's what I need to focus on.

Friday is the 1st is almost here. I half ate correctly and I ate some stuff I wanted to in the last few weeks and realized those soon to be off limit things weren't as fulfilling as I'd hoped. I had my last cup of coffee this morning. It's been good spending the last weeks of the year setting this up and getting me ready to embark on hopefully a much improved life.

40 is the new 20, just not on TV

Despite the fact I don't have television, I recently wanted to watch a reality show that doesn't exist. I wanted to see them take women who were in their forties and make them, "Hollywood Hot". Not just made over but made amazing. 'A list' amazing. I talked to a girl friend of mine who's husband is 'in the business' in Hollywood and it seems the problem is that, apparently, 40 year old women don't appeal to anyone. We're not the right demographic. You have to be between 20-something and 30-something to rate in 'television demographics'. If you didn't already know this, if you're 40 you no longer exist. Of course, this flies in the face of, "40 is the new 20" that we hear being bandied about lately. Really? Then where is my show?! If 40 is the new 20, why aren't we able to see a show that brings that forth?! Aaarrrggggh!!!

You know, since we don't appeal to anyone (tried dating lately?) and we're not (allowed) in night clubs and we don't appear on magazine covers, much less TV, exactly what are 40 year old women doing in the evenings, anyway? Do we not watch TV? Do the Neilsen ratings not even count us after 40? "Oh wait! Susan Smith just turned 40. We have to turn off her ratings-cabob thing on her TV. She no longer counts!"

So let me get this straight. We're so unappealing they can't even make television shows for us and this '40 is the new 20' thing is one of those stupid things made up to make us feel better, like when we tell men size doesn't matter. We're the baby boomer generation they all speak about in such large numbers, yet there aren't enough of us to watch TV? I don't get it.

I still want to see the show but since I can't do that, maybe I'll just have to live it. My impetus was a recent photo I saw of Demi Moore who had just turned 47. I am 4 months younger and I don't look like that. Oh, I used to. I had a 20" waist, beautiful skin, long flowing blonde hair and perfect proportions. I missed the 'petite modeling' phase by just a few years. Eileen Ford rejected my inquiry into petite modeling, saying there was no place for us. Later the Lilliput sprang forth in magazines everywhere. Great. I'd like to think I'm always on the cutting edge but it doesn't really help me. Or maybe it's that I just can't seem to help myself: A Playboy agent approached me at an event I was attending in L.A. when I was 19. I was shocked and all I could think about was what would my family think? At 46 I think I was an idiot. Even I want to see those pictures now. Damn it all anyway.

So, yeah, Demi looks like that because she has gobs of money to devote to her self-maintenance. I'm a single mom. I can't even afford a gym membership much less a personal trainer and frankly, even food and electricity is an issue, heck this is why I don't have TV. But, I do have some things on my side, like perseverance, and I've decided starting January 1st to spend the next 365 days changing my life. We'll probably never see that reality show but maybe I can live it instead, and who knows, maybe I'll find that card from the Playboy guy while I de-clutter myself and my house over the next year.

Bio

I write and counsel on a variety of health and nutrition topics. I founded a non-profit a decade ago where I donate my time to help women all over the world through breast surgery.

I'm a voracious heath and nutrition reader and long time nutrition guinea pig. I am the author of, "The Healing Diet". The diet is posted on our website, BreastHealthOnline.org, and has helped tens of thousands of women, myself included, heal and recover from surgery.

I live alone with my little girl, 2 cats, 2 dogs, 5 finches and a new hamster that sleeps 24 hours a day. There is much laughter and light in our warm, fuzzy little home.

Various life circumstances have left me not quite in the shape I'd hope for at the age of 46, going on 47 in 2010. I decided that there were probably quite a lot of us out there who could continue to look good into our 50's with a little effort. Despite the fact it is going to take some work, I want to be one of them!