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S is for Success

So What is Success? What does it look like? When do you know you have it?

These are all questions that I’ve struggled with (ok still struggling).
Whatever I did, someone was better. Half of my friends went to Ivy League schools and the other half skipped school and became actors, writers, etc. And who was I? A stay at home mom. Big freakin whoop.
I didn’t have a big important 9-5 corporate job. Hilary Rosen would accuse me of “… never having worked a day” in my life.

Well this past year I’ve learned how to look at success a little differently. I even have a whole chapter about it in my book, Finished being Fat: An accidental adventure in losing weight and learning to finish. (coming out in January 2013, 🙂 thank you for asking ) As darn near every woman can tell you, motherhood is the hardest and lowest salaried job on the planet. First you have to grow a human being, which is pretty impressive considering I can’t even get my veggies to grow. You are responsible to teach your kids right from wrong, clean up sick, feed them healthy stuff, feed them crap when they won’t eat the healthy stuff, get them to school in semi clean clothes, make sure when they’re teenagers that they keep going to school, and the list goes on and on. Motherhood is definitely not 9-5, it’s 9-life.

I’ve decided that if my kids are still alive at the end of the day, I’m a success. It doesn’t matter if they’re the cutest dressed kids on the block, or the lead in the school play. As long as they are growing and improving as little people, then I must be doing something right.

Now for the hard part, applying what I’ve learned to writing. At first, my only goal was to finish a book. Once I did that the next logical step was to get it published. Okay, did that. Now I’m told that if I want my book to be a “success” it’s up to me to market the heck out of it. So I’m working my butt off, doing all the things my publisher has asked me to do: work on building an author’s platform, blog, gather facebook friends, tweet stuff, get endorsements.

I’ve started having nightmares. I’m over analyzing everything I do. Do enough people “like” me? Do I have enough followers? How many people are reading my blogs? Once again, whatever I’m doing, it feels like it’s not enough. I feel like a failure compared to everyone else.

Stop. Reboot. Go back to my original question. What is success? Is it being on the New York Times Best-sellers list? Is it have 5000 Facebook friends and hundreds of likes per post? Is it getting on a daytime talk show? If I did all these things then could I finally call myself a “success”?

Those things are all nice and fabulous, but I think success is something a little deeper. Just like in motherhood, I think success is changing one life for the better. Even if it’s your own. If your story, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, has touched someone… congratulations- you are a successful writer. So What if you self publish, or have a small indie publisher. Doesn’t matter.You have made a difference. Something you created has made the world a little brighter.

If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.

Exercise for the Soul: Meditation Primer

Meditation is not the practice of emptying the mind. It is the practice of focusing the mind. Over the next few weeks I am going to be providing some mediation exercises. But first, you have to prepare your body, just like you would any exercise.

Find a quiet spot and sit with a straight back. Make sure the kids are at grandma’s or asleep or in another room. If you need help quieting your mind, try some white noise or the sound of rolling waves. Try to clear your mind of the laundry list of things to do. Focus on your body.

Start with your toes. Connect your mind to them. Become aware of all the muscles in your foot. Flex and relax them. Continue up the rest of your body. Calves, hamstrings, glutes, back and core, hands, forearms, biceps, neck and facial muscles.

The goal is to be aware and in control of every muscle in your body. Making a connection that last long after the meditation is over. With practice you will be able to relax any muscle at will.

This is also a great bedtime exercise. Relax and drift off to sleep.

R is for Recipe

Here’s my favorite recipe for healthy whole wheat pitas.

Recipe for: Whole Wheat Pita Bread

To prepare: Bake in oven on pizza stone at 450° F.

Ingredients

Directions

3 cups whole wheat flour

1½ Tbs sugar

1½ tsp salt

2 pkg (1½ Tbs) active dry yeast

2 Tbs olive oil

1¼ cups warm water

Mix all ingredients and knead for about 10 min.

Let dough raise in an oiled bowl until doubled, 1-1½ hours.

Preheat oven and pizza stone to 450° F.

Punch down dough and divide into 8 equal pieces (divide again into 4 for mini-pitas) and roll into balls.

Roll out balls on lightly floured surface into thin, 8” rounds (2” for mini-pitas).

Place rounds on pizza stone and bake until they puff up, then about 30 seconds more (about 3½ minutes total).

Note: instead of a pizza stone, you can use a baking sheet. Just make sure to preheat it in the oven.

Potpourri: Dark Chocolate

Don’t know if it’s true. I just found this quote and footnote. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Bring on the dark chocolate.

Exercisers can improve their performance by as much as 50 percent if they eat dark chocolate regularly.At least they can if they’re mice. Researchers fed mice the flavonol epicatechin, a key ingredient in dark chocolate, then put them through two weeks of treadmill tests and observed “an integrated response that includes structural and metabolic changes in skeletal and cardiac muscles resulting in greater endurance capacity.”

Leonardo Nogueira et al., “Epicatechin Enhances Fatigue Resistance and Oxidative Capacity in Mouse Muscle.” Journal of Physiology, 2011, doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.20992.

Q is for Quilt

My mom is the quilter, I’m not. I attempt to quilt, but learn very quickly that I can not sew straight. At least that’s what the puncture holes in my thumb tell me.

But I’m ready to try again. I have a goal. I’m going to make a fat quilt.

If you have been reading this blog as well as my Finished Being Fat blog, you would know that I recently lost 75 pounds. I have an entire wardrobe of ZZL clothes that I will never need again. And to prove it to myself, I need to get rid of them.

I debated for a long time what to do. Some of my ordinary clothes I gave away. Some of the more hideous ones I burned. Passing that blue floral muumuu on to another victim would be inexcusable. Some of the rest have special memories attached. The dress I wore for my tenth anniversay. My Winnie the Pooh overalls always made me happy- even though they looked horrible.

So I have been cutting my favorite fat clothes into 6×6 squares so I can piece them and sew them together. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be fancy. But it should make me smile and keep my newly skinny butt warm on cold winter nights.

Dress for Success: Bra Fit

Sorry boys, this post is ladies only.

An ill fitting bra can ruin any size woman’s figure. We’ve all seen the signs. Saggy boobs. Or worse… back boobs. Then there are the falling straps, or the ones that cut off circulation. Heaven forbid, you can even fall out.

Every woman should have regular bra fittings. I like the Nordstrom ladies personally. I know its scary and a embarrassing. If you absolutely can’t bring yourself to do it, then use these tips to find the right size. And remember to Try on, try on , try on. Just because you have the right size, doesn’t mean every brand bra will be cut or fit right for your shape.

Step 1. Make sure the bra band is comfortable but snug. You should be able to fit 2 fingers underneath by stretching a little. A regular bra should not be trying to make you smaller. That would be a corset. An entirely different undergarment.

Step 2. Make sure the band is parallel and horizontal all the way around. The back should be part should be as low as the front. No riding up. Cuz if the back goes up, the front goes down.This makes for saggy boobs.

Step 3. Underwires are your friend. And friends don’t pinch or poke. Make sure the under wire contours your body snug to the ribcage without sticking out.

Step 4. Use the Goldilocks test on the cups. Not too small, not too big, just right. There shouldn’t be extra space in the cup. On the other hand there shouldn’t be spillage either. If it doesn’t fit in the cup, move up a cup. Play with different styles until you find the cup shape that fits your breast. Some cups are very narrow, and this causes side spillage if you have a wider breast area.

Step 5. Give it the jiggle test. Raise your arms ups and down. Are the girls safe locked and loaded? Or do they pop up or the cup wrinkles?

If at first you don’t succeed, keep trying different brands. A good bra is the foundation for your frame. Crappy bra, crappy contours. Good luck and happy hunting.

P is for Potty Party

It’s time to be proactive. I’m go to do the same thing I did for my first kiddo. She was ready, but we just couldn’t make a clean break from the pull ups. So we did a potty party. Potty training in one day.

I’ve about had it with my 2 and a half year old. She uses the potty about half the time. The other half, she changes her own diaper – and then hides the evidence.

In the case of the dreaded poopy diapers, all I can say is eewwww. For whatever reason potty training my second child has been much more difficult than training my first. But I’m busier now. Perhaps if I just spent more time. Well you know what they say about ifs and buts. But my problem is specifically about the butt.

The idea is to make it fun, almost like a birthday party. We invited a few friends over, there was a special cake, little presents, and lots of fun potty games. The whole day was spent playing with the potty and saying goodbye to the diaper. She was a big girl that could wear underwears.

This made a connection in my first daughter’s brain. Of course we had a few accidents afterwards, but just like a birthday party to celebrate getting older, she had celebrated growing up and getting rid of the diapers.

So I think in the next month I am really going to push the little one to lose the diapers. Let the party planning begin.

What worked for you and little poopers?

Snack Smart: Arctic Zero Ice Cream

Sometimes life demands ice cream. There is just no way around it. If you’re anything like me, sometimes life demands the entire pint. Ben and Jerrys used to be my choice for death by calories. Now, I find it difficult to justify at least 1000 calories, no matter how great pumpkin cheesecake tastes.

This is a solution that works for me when my day has sucked bad enough that they only remedy is a spoon and a pint. It’s called Arctic Zone ice cream. I had the Mint Chocolate Chip. I warn you, it’s spendy around 4 bucks a pint. And it’s no Ben and Jerrys. But it is 150 calories. For the whole pint.

It’s gluten free, lactose free, organic and natural, and low sugar. So it probably tastes like crap right? It’s actually not bad. Don’t expect it to be creamy fattening ice cream, because you will be disappointed. But if you need the cold, frozen, dig your spoon into something, fix- then give it a try. Think of it more like a minty chocalatey slushy.

O is for Octopus

This is what I wish I was. For obvious reasons, the 8 hands.

It would be so nice to get laundry folded, while typing my WIP, playing with my kids, and burning dinner.

Just a side note on my favoritism of the octopus. When I was a kid, my mom would send me to school with a brown bag lunch. But they weren’t ordinary brown bags, my mother would decorate them with fanciful creatures. My favorite was a bag she made in 3rd grade. It had an octopus drawn on it, arms stretched wide. It said, “I love you THIS much”. Kids would try to trade their cookies for my bags, but I would never part with them. My mom was an artist, and each bag was proof that she loved me THIS much.

Fitness Tips: Abs Part 2

Here’s the second ab video with Jessica to Mambo #5. Remember to alternate this and video number 1 every other day. And that’s how you strengthen your core and get a great ab workout for under 5 minutes a day