One Day at a Time

Goodness gracious! I didn't think it had been so long since I last posted. A new (school) year is always so busy for me... and I don't even have little ones at home anymore! My first classes started last week, and tonight I go into full swing. That means three days in a row of packing breakfast, lunch and dinner - but the bright side is, that as long as I stay away from vending machines, I can't eat what I don't pack! I'm hoping to take Qi Gong on Thursday nights and if that materializes I'll be packing four days. Of course I have to be on guard that I don't go bonkers Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but with my new philosophy "ODAAT" I will deal with those days when I get to them. One Day at a Time of course is not a new way of approaching problems (of any sort), but I've never actually put it into practice before. It goes hand in hand with "It's the Journey not the Destination that will get you where you need to go."

Actually - to digress (but not that much) I heard something very funny about the journey/destination comment. I do believe that I heard it while listening to one of my Wayne Dyer CDs (if I find out otherwise I'll let you know). He said that if the destination were more important than the journey, we would all pile into the concert hall with the finest symphony orchestra on the stage, with Beethoven's 9th symphony on the program. The orchestra would only play the last note, then get up and leave. I thought it was such a colorful and thoughtful example to illustrate the point!

But back to my new ODAAT outlook. I had been struggling somewhat this past week with sweets - normally not my downfall, mostly because I don't have them around the house. Labor Day weekend we had made a trip to Montreal to visit relatives and while there made our pilgrimage to our favorite Lebanese bakery in St. Laurent, Andalos Bakery. OMG we came home with pounds of pastries, dozens of bags of pita bread, meat pies, candy, nuts, cookies, etc. The cookies that I had intended to eat one by one with tea every night were finished in four days. The pastries that I vowed not to touch were almost finished in as long. I finally got ahold of myself and the last few are still sitting in the fridge, hardening as we speak. The bread I can ignore. Sigh... Oh well - not a total derailment, just a short detour around the block.

So Saturday I said to myself - no more sugar and no more processed foods. The thought of doing this for the rest of my life not only is totally unrealistic, it's not necessary. I woke up Sunday morning and said to myself: Just for today I will not eat sugar and I will not eat any other (highly) processed foods (I am having FF dairy and once a day some organic low-processed half and half or cream in my one coffee). JUST FOR TODAY. Each time I thought of having something (and I'm not just talking about the goodies from Montreal - I have all sorts of lunch "goodies" for my son's lunch, and my husband keeps his own stash of candy and cookies) I said to myself: "I can have it tomorrow if I still want it, but not today." The other ODAAT goal was not to eat after dinner. Again, when I wanted to eat after dinner I said to myself, "I can eat after dinner tomorrow night if I want, but not tonight." I don't have to worry about the rest of my life, I just have to meet my commitment to the current 24-hour goal(s).

Just to let you know what I ate/packed today: As I walked out the door at 6:45am to take my son to work I had a hard boiled egg, and a small square of core blueberry cake (the recipe is on dwlz website). When I got to work I had kasha that I had made yesterday with onions and peppers, and topped it with one slice of WW american cheese, and my coffee. For lunch I had a beautiful salad with grilled salmon, cantaloupe and popcorn. For a snack I had FF Greek yogurt with cinnamon (which I have figured out is just like the Lebanese labne, just a little looser). For dinner I have packed my lentil salad and will have that with the rest of my lunch salad, and a peach. I'm not going to worry now whether or not I will be hungry when I get home around 10. If I am I will chop up an apple and sprinkle it with chopped walnuts and raisins. One must be flexible -- not eating after dinner is a good rule if I'm home; not such a good rule if I have eaten early, then been teaching for two hours, arriving home bona-fide hungry! Remember in one of my posts I mentioned "being Core-like" - this is an example of one of those days. I sort of had fun with the journey last night in packing all my food for today and getting it ready for tomorrow. It's not even a challenge - that would be a fight not a journey! It's - how can I make this fun and interesting, and enjoy what I eat and what combinations I put together?

The other "journey-odaat" thing I wanted to share is that I had been to my orthopedist a couple of weeks ago. He said that if I want to do the Princess Half-Marathon in Disney in 2011 I might as well schedule a knee replacement for when I get back. He doesn't think my knees could take the torture of a half-marathon. However, and with a sense of humor, he said I can certainly follow the route - just make sure I stop every couple of miles to sit and enjoy the view, but the pounding of trying to make time would just about destroy what's left of my knee. And since I don't plan to give up dancing any time soon I am certainly not considering surgery. I thought about that for a long while - of course feeling sorry for myself, yet somewhat relieved because now I have permission not to train - which I translated as permission not to exercise!

However, I got to thinking about applying the "journey-odaat" mindset to this. I may never get to the destination of the 1/2 marathon in the manner I want to do it, but that doesn't mean that I can't thoroughly enjoy the journey. So, this morning I strapped on my pedometer and went for a beautiful walk along the Charles River (in Boston) before sitting at my desk to start my day. I got in 5,000 steps. My goal is to make the walk every morning, then, as often as possible, repeat it later in the day. I have to say I loved every step of it (although with just that short walk my knees ached and the tendinitis in my foot flared something awful). However, even with that, I'm thinking that maybe the doctor is NOT correct... A lot can change in 18 months, one step at a time, one day at a time.

What you think about expands. I am going to think about healthy knees, healthy weight, completing 1/2 marathons (without stopping every 2 miles!), and maybe some extra money in my pocket!

Wishing you all a great journey - ONE DAY AT A TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!