Archive for the The Journey Category

It seems that many of my friends are currently fighting their way through dark times. Tragedy, trauma and heartbreak are rampant and I am not exempt. We attended a wake last night and a funeral today. Some lives are lived so filled with joy that when the final page of their story is read, everyone rejoices, while others resound with a painful echo that induces only great sorrow. A handful of relatives gather in a room to say a final goodbye without a single flower or even an obituary. There, grief swallows every other emotion.

I noticed a curiosity in the funeral parlor, dishes overflowing with candy. If there was ever any doubt in my mind that sugar soothes the psyche, that notion was eradicated by a man with a large bag of spearmint lifesavers. It was all I could do to restrain my diabetic son from inhaling all of it. We celebrate birth and death with food, and everything in between.

While some people are born with a natural capacity for moderation, I was not. What I lack in that area is easily multiplied by my desire for sweets, thereby creating the monster of all food addictions. And since it only takes one bowl of ice cream to send me into relapse, I find myself clawing through the darkness once again. Sugar does something very bad to my brain that induces the deepest and darkest depression. Once in the throes of it, I find it difficult, if not impossible to escape because when I feel bad, I want more food to make me feel better which in turn makes me feel worse. I feel like I’m chained to the worst kind of treadmill and no matter how tired I am, I can’t get off.

“Margaret’s whining about food again.” You say. “Can’t she just get over it already?” It reminds me of my attitude toward alcohol and drugs addicts when I was younger. I didn’t understand how difficult it was to quit, not always because of the physical addiction, but even more so because of the emotional facet. Most smokers I know wish like crazy they could quit. They will have success for a period of time but usually revisit their old habit when life begins to stress them out. They derive a certain amount of comfort from the ritual, even more so than the nicotine. So I apologize if this entry sounds like whining. I only wanted to be honest about my struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle while my body screams constantly for comfort in the form of food.

I looked in the mirror the other day and saw the old Margaret. She was helpless and lost. She didn’t know how to control her impulse to binge eat and wanted to give up. I saw the capacity for great harm in her eyes, like a big yellow warning beacon. I didn’t have a smart way to re-teach her to restrain the beast that has taken control of her life again, so I turned and walked away. Not a very fruitful decision, I might add.

So today I asked my friends for help. I asked them to pray for me and encourage me. Because more often than not, pretending everything is okay just makes it worse. So thank you, my friends. You know who you are. It’s good to know when I don’t have the electricity to shine, you bring the extension cord.

I was in a very good mood today. I have been working on a presentation at work and have it nearly finished. It is completely my creation and while I received guidance on how to create some of the graphics, I created the whole shebang! I am happy. And proud. So when I walked into my favorite grocery store tonight on my way home and began to pick out my Serrano peppers(so I can make fresh guacamole) I smiled at everyone I saw, even when they didn’t smile back. And I proved to myself yet again that smiles are contagious.

I was standing in line to check out when I witnessed the very sour woman in front of me scowling.

The cashier spoke kindly to her, “Good evening, Ma’am. How are you today?”

But the woman ignored her and continued to scowl. Cassandra, the very sweet cashier looked disheartened and therefore so was I. So I tried, “Hello there. I love your earrings.” Then I smiled really big.

She turned and looked at me. Then she felt around her ears and said, “Oh, I forgot about these.”

And I said, “They really are lovely. They even match your outfit.” Then I smiled again.

Then, with a bit of hesitation, she began to smile. “Thank you.” She said, “I’ve had a pretty rough day and I’m really tired.”

I said, “I hope you are able to get some rest tonight. That will make you feel better.”

Then she took her receipt from the cashier and said,(to the cashier) “Thank you for your excellent customer service. You have a nice evening.” And she walked away.

By this time the crabby customer was smiling, the cashier was smiling, the customer behind us was smiling and I was still smiling. I multiplied my smile by 4. Isn’t that awesome?

Today, if you are downhearted and discouraged, if life has got your goat, I encourage you to smile. Smile so big your ears hurt. Then go into a public place and start smiling at people and see what happens. I bet it’ll brighten your day(and someone else’s too).

Happy Smiling!

I’ve been writing a lot lately about eating too much, but that does not mean I have given up my healthy lifestyle. The truth is, as much as I love to eat, I also love to exercise. I’ve been quite busy strength training to build muscle, riding my elliptical, doing step aerobics and I’m even back to running twice a week. I love the energy I get when I exercise. I also love the freedom of going into a zone where no obnoxious children can follow. One of my basic problems is I don’t often know the meaning of moderation. Much the same way I think, “If one ice cream cone is good, two must be better!” I tend to think “If running 3 miles is good, running 6 miles is much better!”. The truth of the matter is that I love to run. I would run every day if my body allowed it. This is also why even though I am overeating, I have only gained 10 pounds and not 50.

Exercise is a fundamental human experience. We were made to move. When I watch the olympics and see the wonderful things a trained human body can do, I am truly amazed. When I see men and women gymnasts flying through the air with their steel muscles flexed, when they land perfectly, I want to shout and clap. Hard work and determination are the building blocks of such success.

Vigorous exercise also breeds injury, and I am the Injury Queen! I like to push myself so hard that ribs pop out, hip ligaments tear and toenails turn pretty colors(Hey, purple is pretty no matter what my kids think!). I was at my favorite chiropractor recently(John Smith in Ellisville if you’re wondering) and I was telling his staff that 2014 is the year I start taking it easy. “I’m going to be really careful and not injure myself.” They were still laughing when I left the office. So today when Dr. Smith was popping my kneecap back into place(I popped that out running six miles on Saturday) we had a nice chuckle. He told me my body is weird. And when I said, “I know it’s weird. Everything about me is weird.” He smiled and nodded. “I meant to say unique.” But that’s how it is with me. There’s nothing run-of-the-mill about Margaret. For me, normal is a bad word!

People who are chronically inactive cannot possibly understand the importance of exercise. All they know is that moving too fast makes their lungs ache. I remembering running around as a kid and really enjoying it. Tag, hide-and-seek, Red Rover….it was fun to get outside and move. What happens to us as adults that we become so enamored of our couches that we forget our youthful exuberance? I am nearly 40 years old and there is nothing I enjoy more than exploring nature. Last weekend our family went out to our favorite place, Cuivre River State Park, and hiked down to the spring. We sat in a creek bed and found fossils and threw rocks into the water. There was a moment where I lay back on the rocks and stared up at the sky. The sycamore trees were swaying as a turkey vulture circled overhead. The gentle breeze reminded me how lucky I am to be alive. I can’t possibly experience that sitting inside my house.

Exercise is like a savings account for your body. You start saving by moving 20 minutes a day, and pretty soon, you have a whole bank account of good health to draw from. So on that day you feel like hiking up and down the St. Louis riverfront, you actually have the energy to do it. Saving takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. But the one thing about saving that you must know is that you have to start somewhere. Believe me, I work for an investment firm and their entire philosophy revolves around planning for your future.

What do you see in your future? Is exercise a bad word to you? If you are content with the rut between the couch and the refrigerator, great! Thank goodness we have the freedom in this country to live the way we choose. But if you feel a growing discontent with your energy-deprived existence, consider some kind of physical activity. Life is too precious and too short to spend it wishing you could live another way. As I said to a friend at work today, “When I was 300+ pounds I used to dream at night that I could run and not get tired. Now, I run for the sheer bliss of it. It is my dream come true.”

What is your dream?