Beginnings

I love September even more than January September is a new beginning for me.  This year even more so because Logan started school today.  My big boy is growing up and I am just so thrilled with how it's going. He is funny and sweet and quirky and I just love him to bits.

My personal new beginning is I am starting P90X2 again.  My goal is to stick to their schedule this time.  Last time it took me 7 months to do the workout last time.  Still I can't complain I am in great shape and have lost 60lbs.

There have been many changes to my diet but I think we are going to stick to the current version for a while and see how it goes.  I am currently eating 2500 calories, basically the 2400 calorie diet from P90X2 plus one more protein.  I am committing to not eating beef or pork and eating a lot more fish then previously.  I am reducing my grains but not eliminating them completely and really staying away from wheat but again not completely.

I started of well today doing the first workout.  I need to go back and look at my notes from when I started in January and see how my abilities have improved.

Weight and Self Esteem

The other day I was watching TV and there was an ad for one of the weight loss company's.  On it the guy says since I lost all this weight I can make presentations, another person says it improved her ability to speak to people.

Really if you couldn't make the presentations just because you where overweight you really have to look at what gives you self esteem.  I guess I am very lucky that in my brain I am a skinny person.  When I am speaking to a room of people, which I do regularly I am not thinking I am fat I am really not thinking how I look just about what I have to say.  Every now and then I am amazed that people listen to a person my size, and remember I am pretty overweight, but then the thought passes and it's more like a wow than a O my god.

The other day I was asking my sister what she thought of what I was wearing.  I really have very little sense of fashion or style, comfort has always been important and ease of use.  Maybe because I have been overweight my entire adult life I really wear clothes because I need to more than because it is part of my being.  Anyway she said I should change because what I was wearing was too big and I would look skinnier in something smaller.

All this got me thinking of the reasons I want to lose weight.

1.  Pain.  I have a lot of muscle joint pain I hope goes with the weight.
2.  Health, I want to live a long moving life which probably won't happen at 300lb+.  A doctor once told a friend of mine you can't expect volkswagon bug tires to hold up with a pick up on top of them.
3.  Running, I want to run and play with my son and in agility.  I want to be agile and have realistic expectations of performance from my body.
4.  Chairs/Seats - I want to not be worried to sit down on some furniture and be able to fit in seats; planes, roller coasters, etc.
5.  I want to be able to buy clothes anywhere not just the fat people stores.
6.  Appearance.  I want to look good. (yes it's there but not first and not a priority more of a goal)  I want a belly without rolls, I don't even know if that can happen without surgery but it's a goal :))

Lazer like focus

I read somewhere that whatever you concentrate on you will see.  Lately I have been concentrating on goal setting.  It seems after a lot of reading what I keep getting over and over is that unless you focus on a maximum of three goals and push aside everything else you will be ineffective.  Everywhere I look I seem to be being reinforced that this is the path I should choose.  I was even flipping through books at Costco and opened a goal setting book and it landing on a table saying if you had 2-3 goals you will accomplish 2-3 goals.  If you have 10-20 goals you will accomplish 0 goals.

I can define my main life goals down to 2.  Putting this into practice in every day life is daunting.  I sit down and I try to write my goals for the day but often I come up blank.  How do you follow your life goals and deal with everyday life and the normal stuff that comes up, this is where I am still struggling.  It works for a day or two then I fall of the wagon and it takes me a week to get back on.

I truly believe this is what I have to do.  Like dieting I have to have the faith that eventually I will find a system that will work.  I was listening to something the other day and she said you can look at my schedule but it will never work for you because it is mine.  Schedules are personal, how you schedule is personal.  I have to continue to take in information until I find the right arrangement for me.

Today I am grateful for an absolutely wonderful weekend with my family, even an evening alone with just my husband.

Pet Peeves

Today's post is on public toilets.

Nobody likes public toilets.  Even the most pristine public toilet totally grosses me out, though the more expensive the establishment somehow the less gross.  So I get people who don't want to touch anything.  But just don't make it worse.

I hate, hate, hate when you have to use a public toilet and there is pee drips on the seat.  I get you don't want to sit your ass down where everybody else has but if that is the case then either aim better or make sure that you didn't leave anything behind for the poor person behind you.

I have always considered my aversion to public toilets to be a little extreme.  With most anything else I am pretty hard to disgust but something about public toilets just does me in.  Porta potties take it one step further.  When I presented with the option of a porta pottie my bladder gains an amazing ability to hold it.  An ability that exists in no other situation.

With any of these odd reactions to something I have never had a real bad experience to I wonder was there a past life experience that I am working with.  Things that make you go hmmmmm.

Getting On In The Fast Lane

I am so thankful to be feeling better.

It's been a really long time since I have thought about my
first few cars and it brings a smile to my face.  Mine first
was an ugly khaki green.  I loved it.

I lived in Mississauga when I was younger.  I remember driving home from Toronto, there was an entrance onto the QEW I think it's Lakeshore but I am guessing.  Anyway you would come up a hill and have to merge into traffic in the fast lane.  I was young and had crappy, not fast cars such as a K Car and a Ford Fairmont and getting that car up to speed on a hill was always a little nerve wracking.  Eventually I just hit the gas and went and prayed the person behind me would slow down and not hit me, it was Toronto so you could never be sure.  I never got hit.

I was on fire before I got hit but now I am just flying. My goal is to get organized and focus to get more accomplished.  I have been listening to Brian Tracy and some things have really resonated.  If you are scattered in your goals you will accomplish much less than if you focus.

When I was younger my goals where much more focused.  Buy a car, buy a house, buy a dog.  Now I am all over the place, business, home life, son, dog ...

Writing stuff down is also supposed to make an incredible difference in whether or not the goal gets accomplished.  Last night Bill and I sat down and made a list of house stuff that needs to be accomplished.  Honestly once it was on paper it was a lot less intimidating than it was in my head.

Here is my list

1.  Spend time every day interacting with Logan
2.  Spend time every day with Bill.  Every day I want to go to spend at least 10 minutes talking to each other.  No TV, no computer.
3.  Increase my business gross profit by 30%.
4.  Train Iggy's contacts by the end of the summer.

Guilty Pleasures

I was listening to Brian Tracy yesterday and he said something that totally affected me.  I know the concept but I have never applied it to myself.  Reward yourself for good behaviour.  My whole life revolves around rewarding good behaviour between raising a 3 year old and dog training.  I know I had heard it before listening to Tony Roberts he said he would play a song he loved after doing something he didn't want to.

Right now my guilty pleasure is playing a computer game.  Usually I use it as a procrastination tool which really is rewarding bad behaviour, instead I will do something I don't want to and then let myself play a game.  So much better.

As I have gotten older I have stopped trying to change myself to someone else's ideal and accepted some of the things I enjoy.  Of course there are things your really should change liking eating poorly or smoking but I really like to watch TV.  I always feel guilty when I watch TV it is such a useless way to spend time but you know it's not really useless if I enjoy it.  Rewarding yourself is a great way to use all those guilty pleasures that I enjoy in a very productive way.

I have been really working on this with my son.  It is so easy to battle all the time to get you want from a child and my child being just like me will battle back.  Rewarding good behaviour just leaves us both so much happier and I still get what I want.

Goals and Goal Settings

It always makes me laugh that everything I learn in dog training serves me so well in the rest of my life.

Goals are the word of the day.  At least in my world it seems that everywhere I look I am seeing that I have to set goals.  I have tried especially in dog training but also in my own life and I become overwhelmed and discouraged and walk away.

When I was younger I was better at setting goals.  There are a couple of times in my life that I totally focused on something and had complete confidence that it would happen.  Of course it did but maybe me being so focused was a large reason why.

Today I started Brian Tracy's The Ultimate Goals Program.  I love listening to stuff like this.  It inspires me, so far not enough to actually do it but maybe this time :).

Wish me luck.

Appreciating it before it's gone

It's so easy to become bogged down with life's little constant irritations and miss all the wonderful things in your life.  I know I am not the first to have this important realization but when life kinds sucks I need to remind myself every day.

A while ago I read a book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor.  I have always been into self help and improvement books but the very cool thing about this one is he is a scientist and all his work is based on scientific study.  He graduated and taught at Harvard so this isn't just talk this is real.  I have always been a bit embarrassed because so many of the people around me just don't get why I am into this so having a book with credentials kinda gives me a "in your face" type of attitude to the unbelievers :).

Of course I need to read this book at least three times more and then take notes to remember all the wonderful suggestions to make me a happier person but the one thing that stuck in my head was to practice being grateful every day.  The instructions where to put a reminder in your schedule to write 3 things you were grateful for every day.  This started training your brain to look for positive things in your life instead of negatives.  I know myself I can am very good at spotting errors.  In my work I am a dog trainer I am always looking at what is wrong so I can fix it.  At first finding things to be grateful for every day (you can't repeat) was hard but lately I find I am seeing things during every day life and thinking yes I can add that to the list, so I guess it is working.

My grateful things for today are
1.  Logan was extremely well behaved today.  You never know how a 3 year old is going to act and we had a busy day with a dentist appointment (him), stopped at two pet stores to drop off flyers, a doctors appointment (me) and waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy.
2.  The doctor (who is just the nicest friendliest person) gave me some steroids for my cough that has been with me for 2.5 weeks.  I hate taking steroids but I hate being sick more :).
3.  Started rewarding Logan for getting dressed quicker and wow he has been great instead of the fighting.

I love photographing sunsets, I am always grateful for them.

Today was the day I decided to start a blog.  Life is full of todo lists and grateful lists and being good and being happy, bla, bla, bla.  Today to make myself a better person a happier more satisfied better person I decided to start a blog.

I almost quit before I started but that really doesn't give you a sense of accomplishment, just failure and discontent.  So I persevered and did it :).

The big stumbling block, I can't believe this, was finding a name.  It seems everyone has put starting a blog on their todo list and all the great names I could think of, I don't consider myself a very creative person so this was not easy, where all taken.  I tried to come up with something that had stuck in my head and this was it.  Anyone who was a Cheers fan will remember this quote I think said by Kirstie Allen who I always have loved as an actress because she makes the best crazy people.

Let me introduce myself.  My name is Paola (yes that's the spelling but I pronounce it the regular way because otherwise leaving messages is a pain in the butt) I am 41 years old, married for 16 years and have a 3 year old son.  I make my living as a dog trainer and currently own three dogs.  I fought weight my entire life and currently tip the scales at 277lbs.  Losing weight has been a lifelong goal and the good bad and ugly side of it will come up often as I write.  I started a new diet on January 14, 2012 and have currently lost 36 lbs, which is very satisfying.

My goal is to ramble and hopefully find other people who answer back.   I will write something I am grateful for in every post.  I will write something I have accomplished in every post.  Other than that let's just see where I end up.