It's Not Just About The Jeans

Seriously, it's not a fluke. I put on my sweat pants today and I could have sworn they were baggier than normal. I'm thinking it's probably my imagination. They're sweat pants. They're supposed to be baggy. But even my sweater was drooping off my shoulder a little. That's odd. Whatever. So my clothes are a little baggy. So later on this evening, I wondered "what if... what if I'm releasing more weight... getting a little smaller in size... let's put this to the test." I walked into my closet and moved to the left of the rack, where my smaller sizes are kept. That's what I do. I keep the smaller sizes on the left and the larger sizes on the right. And the jeans are also categorized by color, as are my t-shirts. Call me crazy, or obsessed, if you want. I call that organized. I never have to wonder where a particular item of clothing is! But if truth be known, you should see my sock drawer. Not so tidy!

So anyway, I quickly found my size eight jeans that have been patiently awaiting my attention for, oh, months and months! You see, a couple years ago I carefully folded and tucked those jeans away in a box - not to be discarded or forgotten, but rather contained and preserved, like a mistress in waiting, dutifully biding her time until her suitor returned for her once again. But when I had finally reached my goal of size 12, for continued inspiration, I took out my size ten jeans and hung them up - by style and color. Left to right. And for giggles and grins, I released my size eights from the confines of seclusion in their turret. After all, that's where mistresses and ladies in waiting... wait. Or in the case of my jeans, in a box. But now they are on the rack in my closet, free!

With just a speck of ambivalence, I slipped on the size eights. Yes. I slipped them on. And zipped them. And buttoned them. And I examined myself in the mirror and thought "WOW!" And I did a little dance and sang a little song, and was just a little bit thrilled. But that's just one pair of jeans. What about the other two pairs. Let's just cut to the chase and let me tell you, they all fit beautifully! It's not a fluke!

You must understand something. In my 30’s and 40’s, my health took a nose dive, and my waistline expanded because of this. And then I became more and more unhealthy, and bigger, and more exhausted… until I reached a point of realization. I might very well die young if I don’t take control of my health now. So having been in deep depression for much of my adult life, feeling sick all the time, experiencing headaches nearly on a daily basis, and unable to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time every night, and then not being able to fall back to sleep, among many other things… you can see now why I’m so overjoyed to be sharing this little victory with you. Maybe you can see now that I’m not just on a diet, and I’m not just losing weight. I’ve made a choice about how I feed my body. I am realizing my goals that I used to be too afraid to set for myself. I am living my dreams of having a healthy body that moves smoothly and glides through life with ease. It’s not just about the jeans. Every day I get to look at myself in the mirror and say “There you are! Where have you been for the last twenty years? I’ve missed you!”

Journey Of A Lifetime - Part 2

As you know, one purpose of my blog is to share some of my personal perspectives on things that are important to me at the moment du jour – thoughts that come from my heart and soul that move me. One of those things is my previously declining health and increasing weight. But these days, my weight has been drastically decreased, and my health is better than it’s ever been! I had my regular blood work done in early February, and when I went back two weeks later for the results, the nurse practitioner I see for all of my visits was completely shocked at my results. She asked what I had been doing, and I enlightened her. The reason she was shocked was that since my previous blood work, my HDL cholesterol increased 13 points, and my LDL decreased by 11 points! She told me “that’s unheard of!” When I reminded her that I am not using any cholesterol lowering drugs, she leaned forward and said, more emphatically, “I know! That’s unheard of!” And this is sort of funny, because just a few years ago, when I was experiencing a little bit of chest pain, my doctor sent me to a cardiologist for a “full work-up” which included a thallium treadmill test, some fancy heart scan, and an echocardiogram. One funny thing about that experience was that they could not find any plaque buildup in my arteries, my heart was pumping perfectly, and I passed the treadmill test with flying colors. The other funny thing about that visit was that despite all those perfectly glowing test results, my cardiologist still felt the need to prescribe a cholesterol-lowering drug for me because, as he so bluntly put it, “you’ll never be able to lower your cholesterol on your own.” I said “watch me.” And just so you know, I never took the drug. The samples he gave me ended up in the trash.



I had previously been using a nutritional cleansing system but had stopped for reasons I won’t go into just yet (those things will be reserved for my book, and frankly, they are too sad to bring up now). I knew how powerfully beneficial those products were, and how they had transformed my health. I lost a whole bunch of weight and five pant sizes! After I restarted those products in March 2009, my health became transformed yet again! One of the nurse practitioners I see actually said to me “I want to be as healthy as you are!” Seriously, I have had no flu, no cough, no cold, no sinus infection, no sore throat, no headaches, no muscle or joint aches, no sleeplessness or tiredness, no mood swings, no getting up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat! None of that anymore! All of these problems which I previously endured for 15 years or more of my life – stopped dead in their tracks! My blood pressure was even starting to creep up into the 130’s/80’s. And now, my blood pressure is right back in a nice, normal healthy range of 110/60’s! And let’s just say, the results of my blood work have pleased my doctors and nurse practitioners! I have no plans to go back to that cardiologist in the future! (if you’d like more information about the system I am using, feel free to send me an e-mail: beth@TheHealthySpirit.com).

Pescetarian - NOT Presbyterian

I thought I was a vegetarian. Did you know that vegetarians do not eat fish? I did not know that! I was of the belief that if one did not consume bipeds or quadripeds, then one would refer to oneself as a vegetarian. Someone told me recently that I'm a pescetarian. I decided to do a little research, so I consulted Wikipedia. What a wonderful resource that is! According to Wikipedia, vegetarians consume a plant based diet which includes grains. I do not consume milk, eggs or honey either, so does this make me a vegan? However, although I do not drink milk, I do eat some forms of dairy, and there is a very high-quality dairy product in my protein shakes. So does this make me a lacto-vegetarian? Apparently not.

Who am I, then? I suppose I am a pescetarian, which falls into the category of semi-vegetarian, one who consumes fish and sometimes other seafood, but not bipeds or quadripeds. So technically, although this term is not listed in Wikipedia, I may be referred to as a lacto-pescetarian, one who consumes a largely plant-based and grain-based diet with fish and other seafood delicacies to be enjoyed ad libitum, in addition to some forms of dairy, but not milk.

So that settles it! From here forward, I will refer to myself as a lacto-vege-pescetarian... that's pescetarian, not Presbyterian! And I'll have a glass of your best chardonnay to go with that, please!

Journey of a Lifetime

I've been shaking my life up lately. Over the past five years I've been on a journey of spirit and health. Not so much a quest - an intention to seek, although I do consider myself a seeker of truth. The journey started in late 2004 when I literally had to squeeze myself into my oversized office chair that sat in the office in my spare bedroom. I was working from home as a legal nurse consultant. Something just wasn't jiving in my life. The job didn't fit, I didn't fit. Not only did I not fit into my chair, I didn't fit into my life. Let there be no misunderstanding here – the only thing that did fit was my relationship with my amazing, loving, peaceful husband. He was and always will be my rock.

At the end of 2004 I weighed 220 pounds (I'm only five feet and a quarter inch tall). I was 41 years old. OLD. Not only did I not recognize myself in the mirror, I no longer recognized my spirit. In fact, it felt as though my spirit had up and left my body, leaving me in a shell of despair and certain that I would never again live, in the truest sense of the word. How I arrived at this destination of misery and discontent is unimportant now, because in January 2005 I took the first step on the journey of a lifetime, a trek in the mysterious jungle of insecurity and fear, and I forged forward.

Little did I know where that journey would lead me…