Betsy we cross posted. Why do you feel you are struggling? I'm trying to figure it out with myself. I think it is part boredom, part emotional ghosts, part not giving a darn.
Silent I need a little social life. What have you been up to?
Melissa please do let us know how things are in Tiffany world.

Well, my weigh-in on the 22nd was boring: 272 again. Same as last month. But I don't mind boring. Looking at my graph on the fridge, I see that I'm still on track, following a steady downward line in my weight. Last month's 10-pound loss was unusual. This month's 0-pound loss is unusual. But when you look at them on the graph, they balance each other—if that makes sense. That's why I like weighing just once a month, and also having a graph.

Today I had to return to doing the BERP, which was hard. The only way I can make myself do it is that after I have my breakfast (2-3 cups of coffee w/ cream), I lie down on the green futon and do that slow-breathing exercise. Sometimes I count the breaths, sometimes not, but I do it for about 10 minutes, which is approximately 40-50 breaths. While I make those slooooooow inhales and sloooooooow exhales I picture myself doing whatever is the next step in the BERP—what I plan to start the day's work with. After those 10 minutes, I'm calm, focused, and magically in action—doing exactly what I visualized.

Tomorrow will be easier because it will be the second day of BERP-ing this week. No days off until Saturday, though. I'm working on a tough area: the dining room, which used to be my studio until I filled it up with crap such that I couldn't work in there anymore. Now my collage studio is upstairs in what used to be my writing office, so the dining room needs to become very tidy so either Bob or I can use it as an auxiliary work area. (We have no need for a formal dining room.) At least I got all the unwanted books out of it already, so I have a bunch of empty book boxes where I can stow stuff like my stationery collection. But first I have to get all the loose rubber stamps off the table and find accessible places for them to live—easier said than done!

I'm sorry I'm not writing personal comments. I'm just too overwhelmed by the BERP these days. =sigh= I think I'm going to have to do some more slow breathing, because right now I have no desire to wrestle with those rubber stamps.

Fi no worries, you are doing fab.

Ubee so you want me to get a little creative with the truth? The truth is I am a very dull girl.

Tonight I went out to the cabin with one of my friends, had a little fire, sawed a little wood to make fire in the future. (Old school hand sawing ont power sawing).

The weekend was spent doing my best to help a friend move, the physical labour helped do a body good.

On Friday I did go out, have afew too many drinks. But ultimately did nothing of major interest.

Oh gosh, I'm worried. The reason why I haven't gotten new photos of the kittens is that they're sick. They have "a respiratory infection," Julie tells me. I hope it's just a cold and not something worse. =furrowed brow=

Fi - I hope they're fine for you.



So I'm a little miffed at myself I have been eating like crap the past few days and it needs to stop. My scale at home is broken, I weighed in on my friends scale at work and it says I'm 11lbs heavier than the one at home and my clothes don't weigh THAT much ( and I've had nothing to eat or drink between the weigh ins) . So that's dissapointing. I still don't have weight-loss-mojo though. I guess I'm just lucky I'm not regaining EVERYTHING. Holding in here at 298 boo.

Good Morning!
Silent I just sent you some mojo. Grab it and hold on tight! I hope you know I think you are only giving me half the story of your social life. That is OK it gives you an air of mystery.
Fi sending healing thoughts to your kittens.

I am feeling much more positive today. I'm finding I feel more often like I will lose this weight then I won't.

Thanks for the hope, silent, and the healing thoughts, Ubee: I'll see what I can do about combining that energy with some "get well quick" vibrations of my own and beaming the whole package northward to New Jersey. Poor Julie, my breeder, has been trying for so long to get her cattery to produce a pair of kittens for me, she's very emotionally invested in this litter. Maybe the fact that the mother's milk dried up earlier than usual means that the kittens didn't get a full complement of disease-fighting antibodies. But they're nine weeks old now, and should be able to handle this passing virus. Mother Nature is wise, and we should let her make the decisions, come what may.

Silent ~ Sorry Im just now replying to you, I just read your message, Thanks for your comments on my walking and house work.

Ubee ~ Your welcome, Im glad I was able to answer your question to why I asked my sweating question but I agree moving is good even if your not sweating.

Betsy ~ Yeah I like to walk outside when its cool out, Not when its humid or hot. Its storming right now so I wont be able to walk tonight but I power walked at walmart this morning while holding on to the cart so I could make sure I didnt fall but I did end up sweating, I noticed I was sweating when I slowed down my power walking.

I'm posting because I can't get to sleep. I had a rough day in BERP-land: I discovered yet another banker's box in which I dumped a bunch of random papers some time around 2008. I thought I'd finished with all the boxes like that, but this one was lying in wait for me, deep in the dining room mess. It was hard to go through because it contained evidence of my initial fumbling attempts to save material for use in collage—a bunch of envelopes, for example, in which I stashed some stuff I cut out of catalogs. I don't know what I was thinking back then: I really didn't have a clue as to what was worth clipping. I found it mortifying to look at those pathetic scraps of paper I saved.

I've always been this way, where I look down on the person I was in the recent past. That's why it's so hard for me to maintain my stuff in good order: I hate to go through my papers and weed out what I don't want anymore. After several hours of that today, my self-respect was completely gone. And still is. Gack.

Good Morning!
Fi when I start thinking those kinds of thoughts I just think of what I would say to my friend if she was feeling that way. Be as kind to yourself as you would to a friend.
Terra that is so awesome that you power walked at Wally World. Good job making it a positive situation!
Betsy what are you up to?
Hi Silent!
Sam I think you made a committment to post everyday. I hope you are doing OK.
Busy day today. Almost everyone is coming home. Is it a holiday? Maybe they are all tired of cooking.
Take care and be kind to yourselves today!

Good morning all. I got side tracked yesterday and completely forgot to post. I'm trying to get an early jump on things this morning, so I may only ramble for about half a page today!

Ubee Why am I struggling? Who knows? I think some of it is that I've put myself under deadlines to get the yard and house "perfect" (or what passes for close enough ) in anticipation of company coming. Since I basically hate the type of yard work and house work I'm doing now, I am struggling with turning to my old solution for everything -- eating, eating, and more eating. No excuse, just really struggling to eat well instead of eating junk. Got any big plans for having everyone home.....other than to cook?
Time4Me Those notes from students are what make teaching so worthwhile ('cause it's sure not the pay!). And a stop at Tiffany's -- Wowza.
Silent Ignore the friend's scale. Regardless of what other scales say, I personally feel that the only one that counts is the one we weigh ourselves on regularly. While you may be having junk lately, you're probably working some of it off with all the stuff you're doing. Hang in there.
Fi More good vibes going to the cat lady so that your kittens are on the mend. And change of thinking for you is in order. When you come across boxes that make you mortified over where you were back then, flip that thinking to how far you've come in terms of mastering your craft. This is a positive. Take great pleasure in how far you've come. No one starts off as a master at anything. Don't know if this will help with the rubber stamps (how big are they), but I had a friend who was a scrapbooker and she had LOTS of stamps. She kept them in egg cartons, would paste white paper on the top of the carton, stamp what was inside, and then stack them on a shelf. And I think not gaining any during the month is great. Far too often once I've had a good loss, I end up gaining some back. Good for you!
Terra Sounds like you got your walking in despite the bad weather.

Since sticking to plan seems to have become the Impossible Dream (Don Quixote has nothing on me!), I'm going to literally break the day down into segments and make it a goal to stay on plan during that segment. Kind of like putting a baby on schedule, but then my maturity level on doing this is at about the 2 month stage. Think I'll go for 2 hours at a time. OK. Got to get the laundry started, go to the gym, work on the yard, and start figuring out how I'm going to groom Toby myself. Have a great day!

betsy your sweet, my scale now agrees with friends scale. I think I didn't have it on a properly level part of the floor (oh the joys of a shifting house :-| ) The past two days have been lazy. I mean at the cabin on monday i did saw some wood (old school manual labour ) but mostly just ate and hung out. Yesterday I did NOTHING physical not even walking, drove everywhere, craziness. Today I did walk in the AM but drove this afternoon, hoping to head out and enjoy the weather again. If it weren't for the mosquito factor I would be going for long walks but I find it hard to tolerate them they are fiesty suckers... (pun intented) even doucet in deet they hover around me. It doesn't deter them nearly as much as it should!

Ubee - your too sweet, I'll try to try? If it makes a difference I didn't give in and have the iced cap (tim hortons sugary, creamy yummy icy drink... think kind of like a Frappacino from starbucks is the best comparison if you don't have a Tim's in your area... i know they have them in some states... so...) and bought fruit salada and yoghurt at the store instead. That was my brunch...

I have a decandent dinner though enroute back to work from my course I bumped into a friend of my dads and she had some beet buns that I went and got at lunch, and bonus, she also gave me holopchi (cabbage rolls) . I am the luckiest girl alive. Also ran into one of my friends on the way home and she is going to join me in whatever "adventures" i get up to (now knows ubee is going to envision some epic quest when really I'll probably just drive "up the road" after work, swat afew mosquitos and drive back... haha).


Fi I'm sorry your having a tough time with it. I am somewhat like that too I just TRY and remember that my past is part of what brought me to where I am. Except it doesn't work as well with me not actually liking my present self that much either. So I can relate... try not to be too hard on yourself though.

Terra - Walmart-walking, I like it, kind of like mall-walking except sounds more intense!. Hope the weather clears up soon for you.

Ubee— Thanks for the tip about thinking what a friend would say to me. Excellent!

And thank you, Betsy, for the words about how far I'm come in my craft. You're absolutely right: no one starts out as a master at anything. Not only that, but all of us are on a journey of progress, and sometimes regress, and more progress, on whatever we're trying to do well. Even if we achieve mastery—and I don't think there is such a thing in so nebulous a field as art—that's no reason not to expect improving skills on the morrow.

Speaking of which—improving one's skills—I think I've hit on a better way to nudge you guys into using that slow breathing technique to improve your willpower.

First off, let me tell you the logic behind it. Study after study has shown that people with a lot of variability in their heart rate have increased activity in the so-called "prefrontal" section of their brains—the part that's right behind your forehead bone. That section is responsible for higher-level decision making. Higher-level decision making is what you do when you choose an action, or choose to refrain from an action, because it's in your best longterm interests. The cool thing about this heartrate variability finding is that all you have to do to juice up your higher-level decision making is to make your heart rate, your pulse, more variable.

Now some people with a lot of biofeedback experience can make their heart rate variable, swinging it from fast to slow back to fast again, just by concentrating on doing so. But for those of us who don't have that ability, there's an easy shortcut: slow down your breath rate. With every breath you take, your heart rate naturally varies a bit: that's because when you inflate your lungs, you compress your heart and change how fast it pumps. If you've ever seen an EKG printout, you may have noticed that natural slow-fast-slow-fast rhythm. If you take long slow inhales up to fully expanded lungs, and long slow exhales down to fully deflated lungs, you can make that natural rhythm more pronounced.

Are you with me so far? Slow breathing rate —> More pronounced variation in heart rate —> Increased activity in prefrontal part of brain —> Improvement in "I will" and "I won't" power

So it's not just about relaxing and belly breathing. Think about it this way: as you start your inhale, imagine that the air is a very slowly trickling stream going up through your nose, down into your windpipe, and out into the balloons of your lungs. Let that stream trickle slowly, as sloooowly as you can make it go, until your belly is pooched all the way out and the sides of your chest, too, are lifting up like wings. When you get your lung-balloons as full as they can possibly get, hold it there. Wait for a count of 1...2...3...then let that stream of air start to trickle out, very slowly. Keep that stream steadily trickling out until your lung-balloons are all the way deflated, as flat as you can make them. Then wait for a count of 1, if you can. Then reverse the process and start another slowly trickling inhale. If you feel like you need to start inhaling right away after your lungs are as deflated as they'll get, that's fine, too. Just keep the whole cycle—whether you're inhaling, holding at full, exhaling, and then inhaling again—moving very slowly.

Your aim is to get your breath rate down to 4-6 breaths per minute, which means 10-15 seconds for that whole cycle. So if you can imagine the sound of a clock ticking, hear it tick around 5 times as you inhale, 3 times as you hold your lungs full, and 5 times as you exhale. Don't worry about getting short of breath: your lungs will be putting oxygen into your blood throughout the whole cycle. It's not in the least bit unnatural to slow down your breath rate like this.

How long do you need to keep doing the slow breathing, to get a noticeable change in your willpower? About 10 minutes—or about 50 breaths, if you feel like counting them. Pay attention, after each time you do it, and see how long you need to do the slow breaths, to notice an improvement in your willpower. The improvement will last quite a while—a few hours, in my experience. 10 minutes is not very long of a break, even in a really busy day, for such a big benefit. And you can do it as many times in the day as you want.

There's even a quick way to test whether it's working for you. You don't have to wait until the next time you're tempted to eat junk food or overeat, to notice the change. Give yourself a small job to do, right after you do your slow breathing—some job you don't often feel like doing. Like picking up a room, or balancing your checkbook, or taking a walk, or running an errand....the possibilities are endless. Notice how much easier it is to set yourself in motion on doing that job.

Trust me: I've been using slow breathing to get myself working on the BERP, day after day after day. I have no innate desire to de-clutter my house, believe me. It takes "I will" power, and I'm getting that power from slow breathing.

Ubee ~ Yes Im glad I was able to hopefully burn some calories in Walmart since I didnt have time to go on my morning walk yesterday morning.

Betsy ~ Yup, I dont let bad weather stop me from working out

Silent ~ Yeah LOL, I hope the weather clears up too, I dont know if we're suppose to get another storm tonight or what, Yeah I just looked up the weather and there's a 40% chance of storms tonight Oh well, I cant wait until my boyfriend gets his t.v so I can try my Walk Away The Pounds DVD.

Got to run to get my hair cut. More tomorrow. Going to try to give Toby a haircut today. ASPCA may be contacting me if he comes out looking too weird!