20 Ways To Love Your Body….

As I was sorting through papers in the study/nursery/craft room I came across a hand-out from a Relief Society Lesson that was given in our University Ward where we lived when we were in Utah.  The hand-out is titled “20 Ways to Love Your Body!!” and it gives various suggestions of things to do to help you consider your body as a remarkable vehicle for life rather than merely a decorative thing to shun for imperfections.  At the bottom are references for the National Eating Disorders Association where this hand-out apparently originated from.  The girl who gave the lesson was in secretary in the Relief Society Presidency and she was a health and exercise science major who always would bring up the topic of healthy living.  She and I really could go on for quite a length of time in conversation on such things and I sometimes wonder: why didn’t I go into health and exercise science? 

Body issues are so interesting to me.  Perhaps it’s because do to my scoliosis I have had to deal with them at a younger age than some other girls and they still remain with me to this day.  Of all the things in this world, our bodies really are the most important things that we posses because without them we wouldn’t have life.  I remember one day in seminary when the instructor Brother Wilkinson showed us a video that said something about “You are not your own, you are bought with a price”.  The video showed the last days of the Savior’s life and I realized that no matter what I did I was accountable to the Savior for what I did to my body or allowed others to do to it.  That was the day I resolved that even though it might be nice to have a boyfriend and someone who liked me, it was more important that someone love me enough to take me to the temple even if it meant that I had to sacrifice having a boyfriend “just for the fun of it”.

I also came to the realization that the majority of vices are to mock, ridicule, or defile our bodies.  Pornography really is a mockery of bodies.  Eating disorders come from ridiculing and having unrealistic goals for appearance and/or the numbers on the scale or the measuring tape.  Drugs and alcohol can make our bodies have insatiable cravings that will never be met.  It is tragic that the one thing that can teach us control can also be lavished in such a way that we feel we have no control. 

Our bodies really are gifts and we need to treat them as such by taking care of them.  One of the biggest things I deal with as a mother is teaching my children how to taking care of their bodies: getting enough sleep, exercise, nutritious food, water and staying clean.  The cares of the body are of number one importance in taking care of children or anyone.  After that comes food for the mind such as reading, numbers, logic, and creativity.  I thought it was interesting when some missionaries who had served an inner city mission spoke in my parent’s ward when I was visiting and they said that their mission was to first take care of the temporal needs before the spiritual needs.

We came to earth for two reasons.  First, to receive bodies and second, to learn to return to our Father in Heaven.

Because sometimes it can be difficult to love our bodies all of the time…I’ve copied the handout so that you can have some food for thought:

 

20 Ways To Love Your Body!!

 

1.  Think of your body as the vehicle to your dreams.  Honor it.  Respect it.  Fuel it.

2.  Create a list of all the things your body lets you do.  Read it and add to it often.

3.  Become aware of what your body can do each day.  Remember it is the instrument of your life, not just an ornament.

4.  Create a list of people you admire: people who have contributed to your life, your community, or the world.  Consider whether their appearance was important to their success and accomplishments.

5.  Walk with your head held high, supported by pride and confidence in yourself as a person.

6.  Don’t let your weight or shape keep you from activities that you enjoy.

7.  Wear comfortable clothes that you like, that express your personal style, and that feel good to your body.

8.  Count your blessings, not your blemishes.

9.  Think about all the things you could accomplish with the time and energy you currently spend worrying about your body and appearance.  Try one!

10.  Be your body’s friend and supporter, not its enemy.

11. Consider this: your skin replaces itself once a month, your stomach lining every five days, your liver every six weeks, and your skeleton every three months.  Your body is extraordinary—begin to respect and appreciate it.

12.  Every morning when you wake up, than your body for resting and rejuvenating itself so you can enjoy the day.

13. Every evening when you go to bed, tell your body how much you appreciate what it has allowed you to do throughout the day.

14. Find a method of exercise that you enjoy and do it regularly.  Don’t exercise to lose weight or to fight your body.  Do it to make your body healthy and strong and because it makes you feel good.  Exercise for the Three F’s: Fun, Fitness, and Friendship.

15.  Think back to a time in your life when you felt good about your body.  Tell yourself you can feel like that again, even in this body at this age.

16. Keep a list of 10 positive things about yourself—without mentioning your appearance.  Add to it!

17.  Put a sign on each of your mirrors saying, “I’m beautiful inside and out.”

18. Choose to find the beauty in the world and in yourself.

19. Start saying to yourself, “Life is too short to waste my time hating my body this way."

20.  Eat when you are hungry.  Rest when you are tired.  Surround yourself with people that remind you of your inner strength and beauty.

 

For more information, contact the National Eating Disorders Association at 603 Stewart St., Suite 803, Seattle, WA 98101

Information and Referral Helpline: 800-931-2237 or www.nationaleatingdisorders.org

copyright 2002 National Eating Disorders Association

Permission granted for duplication and reprinting for educational purposes given the Nation Eating Disorders Association is credited.

Looking Back on My Back Surgery

I can hardly believe it that this week marks the sixth anniversary of my two spinal fusion surgeries. (It's also the fifth anniversary of getting my surgeon's approval to get pregnant). It's amazing to me that time has flown by so quickly. Good grief I've had rods in my back longer than I was Jr High or High School aged! Incredible!
Of course I miss having the range of motion that I once had (especially at times like today when Christian wanted me to do a handstand). But overall, I am so thankful that I was able to have the procedure done and with such success so that I could not only breathe in the shower (big plus) but I could be pregnant without adverse effects on my lung capacity (which before surgery was 50%).
I had a check-up this past week and it turns out that I may have a piece of broken rod in the lower portion of my back but so far it's not causing pain so I just need to keep a close eye on it.
I am more astounded now than ever before at the trust that Jared and I put into Heavenly Father's hands that everything would turn out according to His will.... Of course I didn't rule out the possibility of death or peralisis and spent the months waiting for surgery putting together Jared's mission scrapbook together so that he would have evidence of my affection and desires for his happiness whatever happened. Thankfully all went well!
I am incredibly grateful that Heavenly Father led me to my surgeon and guided his hands to better my future!

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

Maybe a little exclusive…?

Warning:  Personal venting session

So I got this invitation from some girls that are in the mom’s group in my ward.  It’s for an Easter Egg hunt.  It instructs each parent to bring their favorite treat to fill eggs with.  At first I thought.  “Oh how fun for the kids” until I read what was written on the bottom of the invitation which reads:

This hunt is for Children ages 0-2.  Older siblings may help younger siblings hunt but they will not be allowed to do so for the first 10 minutes.

Do you see any problems with this?  First of all, Christian is the only, and I mean the one and only child above the age of two that comes to the mom’s group so this means that they are basically saying that this hunt is really for everyone but him. Secondly, what about children (who are really babies) ages 0-1 having eggs filled with candy anyway??

I totally understand giving younger kids a head-start but honestly, it seems a little rude to put it that way especially on an invitation that is supposed to invite people to come to an event.  I really wish they hadn’t sent it to me at all because now I just feel excluded, annoyed and a little bitter.  This is yet another example of why I don’t feel that I fit into my the mom’s group in my ward…I am the only girl with two kids and my oldest is the only one over 2.  I feel like they like to make such a big deal out of Christian’s age when he plays great with the little kids and is really good at helping them and the other moms so it just makes me irritated.

Maybe I’m being over-sensitive but I really do feel excluded for reasons that would never even come up in any Utah ward I’ve ever been in.

Exercise, Over-Analysis and Hypnosis…

When I started my personal campaign to lose weight after Vivian was born I was stoked at first to begin ‘moving’.  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me (which in fact it had) and I finally could move with a lot less effort.  It felt nice to not have a belly to hit every time I did any large movements.

Sadly the euphoric effects of having delivered a healthy baby with my own amazing body started wearing thin and I had a more difficult time staying motivated.  I started “over-analysis” of every workout I did.  I would be moving along with my video (since that’s what I find is easiest to use with two kids at home), and wonder why I was doing this or that and what was the difference anyway?!

This negative thinking started making my workouts feel more like drudgery than anything that could possibly be rewarding and my motivation lasted two days….then I realized something….I have been through this cycle before when I was in high school and an early morning “morning-side” speaker had the topic of “Enduring to the End”.  Not that enduring to the end is a bad thing, quite the contrary…but it was my attitude about enduring; that because I was merely enduring it was drudgery!

For example, when I was in P.E. in high school, the whole time I ran around the track I literally said “Endure to the End” in my mind to the rhythm of my slow jog.  Then I would look down at my feet and think “Gosh, I wonder how many of these measly steps until the end!”  “I wonder how I’ll ever get my pace up…maybe I’ll never get my pace up!”  I would get slower and slower with all of this over-analysis of what I was doing.

Then I read something about a runner who doesn’t run because she wants to lose weight or because she wants to win.  She ran for the sole purpose of “Feeling the strength of her body in movement”.  She wasn’t enduring to the end of each run…she was enduring well because she was enjoying just the simple act of “being in the moment” and not worrying about the future per se. 

It reminds me of a quote by Joseph B. Wirthlin that I have on a plaque in my Living room that reads “Come what may and love it.”

Some things do not seem possible to find the good things about them… such as I have rods in my back which make it so I can feel every storm system that passes by and I have limited movement which sometimes makes things a little tricky.  On the positive side, I can have children without dying of suffocation, and I can breath well in the shower (which I wasn’t able to do because of the steam being too thick before my surgery).  As a side note, breathing is good!

My point is that you can convince yourself of anything.  Either you can choose to be negative and paralyzed because of your mindset or you can choose to be positive and motivated because of your mindset.  My favorite high school teacher Mr. Wendel used to say “Never say Don’t because then you Can’t”.

The mind is such a powerful thing.  I really have learned this with my hypnobabies studying that your perceptions of the way things are has a direct link between how things will be played out.  I absolutely loved the affirmations C.D. that came with the hypnobabies course because it helped me think positive thoughts about childbirth and pregnancy.  This isn’t to say that your mind is so powerful that it can make things turn out perfectly for you—I still don’t make enough breast milk but I can rejoice that I have other healthy options for my babies.  Undesirable things happen to positive people too.   The point is that both positive and negative thinking are powerful markers for capability.

I know that people think aerobic videos are really really cheesy but I have news about them.  That cheesy positive attitude is motivating if you just let it be and don’t waste your energy feeling silly about it.  Confession:  I have this cheesy aerobic workout video that really boosts my motivation to work out and continue working out.  It’s the Denise Austin Fat Burning Blast.  During the video she says some lines that when I first got the video I was rolling my eyes about, such as: “Put a smile on your face, because we’re going to burn fat naturally by exercising!”  “If you rest you’ll rust” “Think strength”  “Think graceful” “Now have a little fun”.  They seem pretty corny at first but they actually are phrases that I think when I do other workouts as well which is good.

For one, when you smile during an activity, even a difficult one, your brain signals catch that and send out endorphins which make you feel happy about what you’re doing so you want to continue doing it more.

Secondly it helps you focus on the positives of what you are doing with your body and according to a Cleveland Clinic Foundation study that “for 15 minutes a day, five days a week, volunteers imagined exercising certain muscles as vigorously as they could.  After 12 weeks, the muscles had strengthened by as much as 15 percent… Visualization may send signals from the brain to the neurons controlling movement; the stronger the signal the stronger the muscles.” [Parenting, March 2010, p.22]

Besides all of the positive things that are said in workout videos I am of the opinion that when we exercise we are training ourselves to be under a certain level of hypnosis.  When I used to run three miles a day I realized that thinking about other things while running made my run feel so much easier than actually thinking about running.  It’s just like when you’ve driven to the same place everyday for a month and then one day you get there and realize that you don’t even remember driving there.

If I just do what I need to do (i.e. exercise) consistently and with acceptance and ideally excitement, (“I get to work out!  This is time for me that no one can take away”) that it needs to be done, it becomes a lot less of a drudgery.  Hooray for positive thinking!  I am virtually what I think about….whether it is negative, positive, cruel or benevolent.  It’s all in choices that I make whether consciously or not.

Here’s one of my favorite little mantras that hangs in my home given me by a friend who’s a life coach.

I choose

to live by choice

not by chance

to make changes

not excuses

to be internally motivated

not manipulated

to be useful, not used

to excel, not compete

I choose self-esteem

not self pity

I choose to listen

to the inner voice

not the random

opinion of others

--Anonymous

Hopefully I will keep reminding myself of positive things as I work towards my goals and never quit.  Because…

“Winners never quit and quitters never win”.

--unknown

Sizing Myself

So, I’ve been thinking ( a lot) lately that I would really  LOVE to be into my regular pre-pregnancy clothes.  I keep watching “What Not To Wear” (yes, this is how I spend my Friday nights) and I think… “Well, I could pull of that look with such and such that I have in a bin under my bed”….  I hate it that I have been so many sizes in my life. 

I actually have worn more sizes than I’ve actually been because I was so embarrassed by my body from about age eleven to seventeen that I would wear pants from the men’s section and incredibly large T-shirts for my frame in order to hide every single curve I might have had.  I am so glad that in my junior year of high school I started realizing that I should wear clothes I want to wear even if I might not have a perfect body.  I started wearing clothes that were actually my size, and started looking instantly smaller. 

Someone had mentioned that I had somewhat of a tummy when I was eleven (when I really just needed better posture) and I did all kinds of exercise programs to “get skinny” which never happened but I was in actually in pretty good shape. I just didn’t happen to have a pretty shape (due to scoliosis that never was diagnosed until my junior year).    Anyway, I would run around the track at the school, I’d run down the canal road behind my house, I would run everywhere that I could to get in shape.  I also weight trained and did kick-boxing.  By the time I was 20, I would run 3-5 miles 4 times a week, and alternate kick-boxing, yoga and weights on the off days.  I was pretty much a maniac.  The frustrating thing was during that whole time from sophomore year to the summer I turned 20 I never even changed sizes.  It was insane literally.  I could not get down past a size 12.

Around the time I met Jared, something magical happened I limited my self to one treat once a week (so anything sugary) and I started only working out 3 times a week.  I was having too much fun playing tennis with Jared and my running began to be substituted for tennis 2-3 times a week and I dropped all of my other workouts to be with him.  Starting at that time I started losing weight with almost no effort at all.  I was down to a size 10 by mid-July and an 8 by early September when he asked me to marry him.  I stopped working out at about that time because of the difficulty of mixing school with exercise and I miraculously fit into a size 6 wedding dress by October!

I pretty much tapered off on weight loss after that but I was incredibly comfortable with myself.  I think it’s because I could see myself as a worthwhile person who someone loved.  I wasn’t worried about what anyone really thought because I was so happy with my life and I had found a true best friend.  I was really in seventh heaven.

Fast forward a year and a half.  It turned out that I needed a spinal fusion from my sacrum to the bottom of my neck.  I was so sick after surgery that I lost about 20 lbs just from a lack of nutrition.  That was nice (in a way) but the doctor had messed with my hips to make them not have to move too much during childbirth and so I became permanently a 10 or an 8 in regular pants no matter how little weight I carried because that was my lowest weight in 20 years.

Fast forward two more years.  I gave birth to a beautiful little boy and my hips spread so much in one day that I went from a size 11 to a 16!  I got stretch marks on the side of my hips they spread so fast.

After having Christian, I slowly (and I mean slowly) went back to a comfortable size for me which was 20 lbs heavier than I started out pregnant with him.  Then we decided it was time for number two.  I steadily gained weight at an okay rate and then I had my appendectomy and couldn’t lift anything and so I gained 10 lbs in two weeks.  After that my weight gain was steady again but all-in-all I weighed 54 lbs more than I did before I ever got pregnant with Christian in the first place.   

Here I am just having had baby number two.  I watched an episode of “Martha” where her trainer mentioned that if you don’t lose the “baby-weight” within the first year after being pregnant, it will become doubly hard to get rid of the weight.  I started with the “’Special K’ Challenge”  and started working out the next day after seeing that.  I have actually lost 24 lbs since giving birth and I only need to go down another 10 to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight (from this time). 

The only thing is, I really would like to get back to the weight I was before I had Christian.  Will I get there?  I don’t know… It depends on how much motivation I can muster.  So, I’m continuing my efforts to lose 30 lbs but I’m going to post periodically about what I’m doing to lose that extra weight and maybe any fun healthy recipes that I may being using as well.

So far, I’m on the South Beach Diet and I’m doing some kind of aerobic exercise 3 times a week and some kind of strength exercise 2 days a week.  Hopefully I’ll stay motivated and get  to a place where I feel more comfortable in my skin (and most especially, my old clothes) as soon as I can (Maybe by Summer?!).

Feeling a little Lonely

I feel really guilty for the way I've been feeling. Lately, I feel really lonely. I have been blessed with resonable places to live but as of right now, I feel misplaced and I feel guilty because I know I should just be greatful.
I live 700 miles or so from where I've lived my whole life and all of my old friends and my entire family. It's not to say I haven't made any friends, but the girls I've met really aren't on the same page as me. I have the oldest child of all the girls (the next oldest is 18 months old compared to my 4-year-old), I'm younger than all but one of them, I'm the only one with two kids, and I like to craft and sew while non of them seem interested in such things. Most importantly, I don't feel like any of them are interested to invest time in building a friendship, at least with me. I know, whine, whine. I just feel like I don't belong.
I was so blessed at the University housing, there were so many girls who where interested in being moms rather than careers, and ready and willing to chat. All I had to do was walk outside to find someone to talk to. Where we're living anyone outside is outside to smoke which bothers me, so I spend my days pretty much hiding out indoors.
I am so lonely for female companionship I feel dumb about it. I understand that people are busy but I need to find a friend. I guess the real problem is the I've been so blessed with good friends in my life that when I don't I'm at a loss.

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Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

The Painful Truth…

(Be warned, this is pretty lengthy)

Last weekend we went to the funeral services for my Aunt Susan.  It was actually quite healing in more ways than one.  I was really thankful for the opportunity to spend talking to my aunt Annette who helped me, whether she knows it or not, deal with something that has be incredibly painful to talk about since I had Christian.

When I had Christian I was all gong-ho to be the best mom I could possibly be for him.  I had read tons of parenting books and articles about everything related to parenting (not to mention all of the education and education psychology classes I’ve taken in my school carrier).  I was going to do everything right.

Things started out alright with my little boy, I gave birth they way I wanted to, and began nursing as soon as they placed him in my arms.  I had some of the usual problems with breastfeeding as we learned the how-to of latching and such, but really I felt like we were doing well.  The first few days went well.

Then Jared came down with the stomach flu.

The next day I came down with it.

Now, this was one of the worse cases of stomach flu I’d ever had but I kept nursing because that’s what every book you read says to do to protect the baby…and it must have worked because he never got it…but my milk took 6 days to come in.

I didn’t worry too much because he still had wet diapers and an explosive poop every couple days.  On his two week appointment I was freaked out to find out that he went from his birth-weight of 7 lbs 7 oz to be 6 lbs 2 oz. !!!

I felt like the most horrible mother in the world!  I had no idea I was starving my child and I felt terrible.

The doctor had me supplement with formula and come in two days later.  He was shocked that Christian had  put on a whole pound of catch-up weight, and I realized that there was really something wrong that I could nurse him for 30 minutes on the hour and he still needed formula to gain weight.  So after reading everything I had been given from the hospital about breastfeeding that promised that every woman can breastfeed. I went to a lactation consultant and rented a heavy duty pump.

This started my “pumping my life away” sessions where I would pump as often as possible after nursing Christian only to have maybe half an ounce fill the little bottle.  I read more and more and then decided that I just needed more pumping practice.  Poor Jared.  He was so patient with me.  I decided every spare minute was time for a pumping session.  I did it for probably six weeks.  We were watching “The Dark Crystal” on one of Jared’s days off when I was pumping and I realized that I was treating this like “the life essence” and it was draining the life out of me. 

Then I decided to get an SNS system which is a bottle that hangs around your neck like a necklace with little tubes that you tape to your breasts and the baby can nurse at the same time as they are getting their formula.  What a mess!  It was wonderful to bond with Christian but the whole formula dripping down my front when he’d let go was disgusting!  I actually kept this up for about four months and then decided I’d just nurse him and give him a bottle.

It was the best choice I’d made so far.

The funny thing was that Christian really loved to nurse.  I have no idea what my output was but he did swallow something and must have got something because he was the hardest little thing to wean.

So fast forward a few years to now.  After I had Vivian I put her to the breast right away.  She nursed like a champion with a great latch and everything.  Then she happily slept for two or so hours after she nursed.  Everything seemed perfect...  Until her three-day appointment when she’d lost more than 10% of her body weight.

The next few days were peppered with weight checks and supplemental formula feedings.  She never acted “bored” with breast feeding like the doctor expected her to with the added formula.  But she really did need the formula.

I asked my doctor to put me on this drug I knew caused lactation.  I started pumping like crazy.  I went to a La Leche League meeting…and then I realized…I was doing all of this stuff to make milk and if it wasn’t working the way everyone said it should there must be something going on.

The Reglan was making me apathetic to everything while just giving me a strong letdown and then nothing…and all I wanted to do was watch “What Not To Wear” when I couldn’t even put on my own clothes.  The pumping was making me irritated anytime one of the kids needed anything because I needed to pump for Vivian.  The La Leche League women made me feel like women who gave their children formula where comparable to the evil queen in Snow White, offering the poison apple.

I hated what was happening and the way I felt.  So I decided to ask Jared for a blessing.

It was the sweetest blessing I’ve ever received as a mother.  It said that Heavenly Father was proud of me and that he knew what my body was capable of doing and that what I could do and have already done was enough.

Honestly, it may sound silly, but I have shed more tears over this breastfeeding problem of mine more than anything else since I became a mother.  It has been so painful to me to hear women bash other women who don’t breastfeed their children or read pro-breastfeeding articles that talk about how ‘rare’ it is not to be able to breastfeed.  I would love more than anything to not have to worry about bottles to be washed and formula to buy and mix.  It sounds like a blissful dream to not have to worry about how much I need to prepare for the next feeding.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I have hypoplastic breasts which I stumbled across the definition by the baby center one day when I’d been nursing Christian for quite some time. Supposedly only 3% of women have this problem.  The thing that really bothers me though is 3% is 3 in 100.  That’s not that rare is it?  It’s not like 1 in 60,000 or something like some of the diseases that they do the heel prick test for in infants.

Anyway, last weekend I talked to my aunt about my problem as I pulled out a bottle after I finished nursing Vivian and she was totally sweet about it.  I had to laugh when she talked about the “breastfeeding brigade” of women who act like giving your baby formula is close to sin.  It was also really comforting to hear that my grandma gave her children bottles soon after 6 weeks because she just couldn’t make enough.  I think my aunts and uncles are some of the most intelligent people I know so maybe women who don’t breast fed don’t have idiots for children like some things I’ve read would like you to believe.  She also mentioned that she’d actually read an article about women who didn’t make enough milk but didn’t want to ‘taint’ their children with formula and their children actually starved to death.

I am so glad I talked to her. My older sister has been telling me for the past month that it’s really okay that I can’t breastfeed exclusively and it’s really nice to have someone else say the same thing too.  It’s very painful that many times when I see women in my ward  they ask me how breastfeeding is going.  Honestly, isn’t that a little personal?  Most of the time I give them the truth but honestly, I feel hot tears pushing at the back of my eyelids every time I say it.  I know they mean well, but it’s a painful topic for me.

Really, I’m relieved that I have some idea of what’s going on with me.  I have decided that I just need to do my best and my best is not everyone’s best so I’ll just breastfeed and supplement until the day when either I dry completely or Vivian no longer has an interest.

It’s really the only thing I can do.  I wish things were different, but they’re not and there really is nothing I can do about it.  So, I’ll have my cry and move on and enjoy my babies by getting to know them for who they are not for what a perfect mom I can be to them.  Besides, the most important thing about being a mom is my children and doing the best I can for them.