Whole30: Day Zero

Here's the thing you may or may not know about me: I've gone back and forth a lot in life trying to do things that I think are healthy for me. In between those spurts, however, I've spent WAY more time doing things that are extremely UNhealthy for me. And when I back up and look at the big picture, I realize that I really don't know what it means to feel good in my own skin.

Let's start with the basics. I eat a lot of crap. Sugar has been my best friend and constant companion for pretty much my whole life. Last weekend, I hoovered a box of mini donuts in less than a day. Oh yeah, and that's not unusual. Like, at all.

Pizza? Yes please. Garlic bread? Yes please. Dessert? Never turned it down. Veggies? Not my favorite.

And I'm tired a lot of the time. I feel bloated way more than one person should. I've only got one body to carry me through this world, and I haven't been giving it the care of the love it deserves. I want to change that, and I'm going to try an experiment for the next 30 days to see if I can figure out what it means to actually feel good in This Body.

You might have heard of it. The Whole30. It's an eating program based on the book It Starts With Food. The idea is pretty simple -- for 30 days, you stop eating foods that are known to cause chronic inflammation, hormonal imbalance, digestive problems, and psychological attachment (hey there, sugar cravings, how you doin'?). And instead, you focus on whole, unprocessed foods like meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats. When you get to the end of 30 days, you slowly reintroduce the foods you've cut out and see how your body responds.

Oh yeah, and you don't weigh yourself the entire time. The focus isn't on weight loss, its on fundamentally changing your relationship with food.

So, in no particular order, that means I won't be eating sugar (sniff), grains, dairy, legumes/soy, or alcohol. And aside from feeling pretty okay about the no alcohol part, the rest is going to be hard.

Here's the thing: I know how to do hard. Hard doesn't scare me anymore. Life has thrown me hard, harder, and hardest this past year, and I've made my way through it every. single. time. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you just go through it.

If anything, what I've found is that the things that are hard-won are the things that are worth it. 
I've spent the past few days cleaning out my cupboards to get rid of things I can't eat, and restocking the shelves and fridge with a crapton of meat, veggies, and fruit. Jasmine and Josie have been epically curious about all the food that will be leaving the house for the next month. (And I'm pretty sure I found some of the recalled Kraft Mac N Cheese in there.) 

I'm not throwing any of this stuff away; it's just going into hiding. Because I honestly don't anticipate turning into Susan Who Never Eats Brownies. That's just never gonna happen. But I really do want to change my relationship with food. To view it as a source of driving This Body through life rather than a source of comfort. I've comforted myself my whole life with food, and I'd like to see if I can change that.

(** By the way, here's my obligatory statement that I really don't care what you personally think about Whole30. Actually, let me rephrase that: any empowering sentiments you'd like to share are most welcome and encouraged. Any "you know you could really accomplish the same thing just by moderating what you eat" or "my brother/cousin/uncle/best friend tried to eat that way and almost DIED" or other self-righteous sentiments can be documented in your own blog.)

My sister is doing it with me. She did the Whole30 a year or two ago and is anxious to do it again, so I've got my partner in crime and my shoulder to lean on. I'm kind of excited to see what the next month holds for me. 

Let's do this.

Chewing Gum Is Really Gross, Chewing Gum I Hate The Most.

Okay folks, I'm just gonna put this out there. I'm probably going to piss a few of you off, and I've decided I'm okay with that, because the truth is that you've probably been irritating ME for years and I've just never said anything. 

Maybe in time you'll forgive me, and if you don't, then we probably weren't meant to be true friends.

Here's the deal: if you chew gum, I hate you. And I want you to stay far, far away from me.

Gum chewers are a special breed of awful. They drive me up a wall. They chomp, they snap, they pop, they chew chew chew, and then they start back over again. Some of them don't realize how much annoying noise they are making. Others realize it and just don't care. A select few -- ones I like to call 'liars' -- will swear that they chew in absolute silence.

I'm here to tell you you're not silent. You are making disgusting noises with your mouth, and I really wish you'd knock it the hell off.

Okay, here's the part where I confess to my own stake in the matter. I read a book a few months ago called The Highly Sensitive Person, and it's like I was reading a novel about myself. In a nutshell, HSPs (as we are called) have biological differences in their nervous system that causes us to hit a saturation point with external stimuli much faster than everyone else. So things such as lights, noises, and crowds can overwhelm a HSP whereas someone else might not even notice them. As I read through this book, I kept saying to myself "oh my god, that's me! That's me!" Weird quirks about me that I never strung together before now seemed to make more sense. Things like:

• I get extremely anxious when I have to go to a crowded mall at Christmas time. I've been known to evacuate and leave family members inside because I just can't do it.
• I have to turn the car radio off when I'm driving in an unfamiliar area because my brain can't concentrate on navigation and music at the same time.
• I can't have the light in the kitchen on when I'm physically in another room. I will notice it and it will bother me until I go turn it off.
• I've asked co-workers to stop eating sunflower seeds at their desk or to take their jangly bracelets off because the sound was so disturbing.
• If I'm in a movie theatre or other large audience, I have to get up and move if I have a spit sucker near me (apologies to any old people who take offense, but it's usually an oldster whose dentures don't fit correctly and who constantly sucks spit between their teeth to correct it. Ew.). And I can hear spit suckers rows and rows away from me.

I could go on and on with other examples, but hopefully you get the idea. Apparently 20% of the population is classified as Highly Sensitive, so it ain't just me (and I know more than a few of you out there reading this are in the same boat, because I've sat through movies and concerts with you and we've both rolled our eyes at the person behind us rustling their candy wrapper.)

So I can say with all honestly that the noise from gum chewers is probably way ickier to me than it is to the other 80% of the population.  And yet, I still thing gum chewing is one of the oogiest things out there, and I wish you all would stop it.

I just learned that Singapore has banned chewing gum. I'd like to meet the man who wrote that law and shake his hand.

Here's the two things that bother me the most:

1. The Holstein Effect. You know you look like a cow chewing its cud, right? Right? You don't see it? Sadly, you are probably like a smoker who no longer realizes their car and clothing and house all smell like cigarettes. You're too far gone to have an objective view. So let me share with you: you look like a cow. And it's gross.
2. Remember trash cans? No, I don't think you do. Because otherwise you'd be using them to dispose of your gum. Instead, it's on the bottom of my shoe or on my knee. I can't tell you how many times I've stepped in gum, sat in gum, or stuck my pant leg to a table because a wad of gum was stuck up under there. Are there no trash cans in your world, gum chewers?

 You gum chewers might think this is overgeneralizing, but I'm going to tell you something: you're wrong. Sorry, but it's true. Think you're the quietest gum chewer in the world? You're not. Trust me.

Chewing gum is really gross. Chewing gum I hate the most.

A writer writes -- always

Some of my favorite movies are about writing. Imagine that -- two of the things I love most in this world, film and the written word, coming together so successfully. And one of my favorite movies about writers is Throw Momma From the Train. (As a side note, if you haven't seen this movie, I'm going to de-friend you until you take care of this. I'm looking at you, people born in the 80s.) 

If you've ever sat down to start on a writing project, large or small, and get stuck on the first sentence, then you're not alone. It happens to the best of us and it happens to all of us. Which is one reason why, when I start writing, my main goal is just to get words down on paper and then go back later and tweak them, massage them, turn them from okay into good, and then from good into great.

They say that perfect is the enemy of good, and in writing this can be a stumbling block that a lot of people can't get past. If it's not perfect the first time, or even the tenth time, then why bother? 

Why? Because good writing is rarely perfect. Good writing takes guts. It's messy. It's uncomfortable. Good writing can lay you bare. Who wants to be perfect? Not me. I'd rather be real, flaws and all, and let you see me through my writing without aiming for perfection.

That can be hard sometimes. I have to decide how much to share, what is private, what is public, and what falls in between.

I want to lean toward sharing as much as possible. But that can make some people uncomfortable. Either because other people are more private, or they consider some things none of other people's business.

I don't want to censor myself, though, if I don't have to. And frankly, sometimes I just forget to until someone comments and I realize they might have a different expectation or set of rules than I do.

After all, I truly believe the best writing comes from the gut, and that's where all the real emotion is. Good, bad, public, private, messy, shameful, proud, lovely, all of it. And sometimes it takes slipping around in the guts of everything you want to write in order to find the right words.

The night was sultry. But Larry didn't know the night was sultry until he met Owen and Owen's momma. Until then, he just thought the night was hot and wet. It took real life, complications, anger, love, laughter, and great adventure before Larry knew it.

The night was sultry.

The Importance of Routine

When you're unemployed, it's important to have a routine. It's probably no surprise to most of you who know me, but I'm a person who loves routine. I crave it. When my schedule or my body gets thrown out of its routine, I get kind of crabby. I get a bit discombobulated. (Side note: the only thing I may enjoy more than my routines are opportunities to use words like discombobulated.)

The thing about routines is that we don't always notice them -- or the importance they play in our lives -- until they are taken away. For example, there's something very powerful about the simple routine of waking up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and driving to the office. It's so powerful, in fact, that most of the people I know who work from home still follow a similar routine - get up, eat, shower, dress, and then physically move from the bedroom or kitchen into their home office. They shut the door, fire up the laptop, and are at work.  It's just not the same when you prop open a laptop on the coffee table in front of the television. It feels like cheating.

When you lose your job, you lose a big piece of your daily routine, and all of the small but important perks of daily life that come with it. You don't have co-workers to chat with over coffee in the morning. You don't have friends dropping by and asking if you have lunch plans. You don't sneak glances at your smart phone and feel devious when you check Facebook in the middle of the day. There's no monthly birthday cake, no emails about team outings, no company-wide meeting to break up the monotony of the day.

When you lose your job, you lose a lot. 

So I force myself to have a daily routine, because otherwise my cat is going to get sick of me and I'll find myself memorizing the daily time schedule for Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and The Doctors.

Tuesdays and Thursdays start early. I have to be at the gym at 6:00 in the morning, so my day starts several hours before the sun comes up. My routine is coffee and breakfast and a workout, then home to shower and dress before I pick up my laptop and walk out the front door.

I find that I work best when I get out of the house. So everyday, the laptop is packed up and I walk five minutes to the clubhouse of my condo. It's a great little place to work - free wifi, comfy couches, tables and chairs with outlets, even a kitchen if I get hungry. I sit down, I open my laptop, and I write. I'm currently switching back and forth between applying for jobs, and doing some freelance work where I write resumes and cover letters for clients. But I write. Every day.

I feel like I need more routine. Maybe not forever, but at least for the next few months. Job searching in the dead of winter in dreary Sacramento is not fun, and it takes a toll on the psyche. It's very easy to get down on yourself, and when you're down, it's even easier to fall out of good habits and say "fuck it all." I find that having routines makes a big difference in my life, so I might need more of them.

That might sound dull to some people. I don't mind. There's something calming, something soothing, about routine. I always know I'll have a good book to read in bed at night. I know I'll have a pot of coffee ready about ten minutes after I wake up. I know there will always be an episode of Jeopardy in my DVR queue. I know the same smiling faces will greet me at the gym every Tuesday and Thursday, and that Coach Nick will ask how I've been eating and what my potholes are. 

What are your favorite routines?

My ideal job

You know how a lot of people tell you that you have to "put it out there" in order for good things to happen to you? They tell you to say what you want, say it out loud, let other people know you want it, and it will come to you. So I'm going to do just that.

I want a job. But not just any job. I want my ideal job. 

A good friend once told me that your ideal job should consist of the things you can't seem to stop doing, even though nobody is paying you to do them. And so after thinking about it carefully for a few weeks, here's what my ideal job would look like. These are the things I love, and it's about time somebody started paying me to do them.

25% of the time, I will review and revise your resume. I will make you stand out to employers and help you put your best face forward. Not sure how to brag about yourself? I can help. Not sure if you need an objective statement? (Here's a hint: you don't) I can help. Not sure if it should be one page or three? I can help.

50% of the time, I will edit your Facebook posts. I will work with a brainiac programmer (thankfully, I know many of those) to create an app called You, Only Better. I will round up clients to use this app and I will charge them based on how many posts I have to fix so that you don’t get dumped or fired. Any time you write a Facebook post, before it goes live to friends and family, it will run through the app and be filtered by a professional writer (aka me) for things like:

• Typos
• So many typos that you might be drunk
• Photos of you while drunk
• Religious or political statements that you’ll regret tomorrow

I will re-write your post until it shines. So, for example, when you write “Oute havinn good tim at Senterfolds” at 3:00 AM Sunday morning, your professionally filtered post will instead say “What a great morning for a walk with Mom. Stopped to pet a puppy. Now off to brunch at Dennys.”

10% of the time, I will offer proofreading and editing services to large corporations, billboards, and sign generators that have no understanding of basic spelling or grammar. (I'm looking at you, Trader Joe's.) I can't tell you how many times I cringe in shame when I see a misspelled word on a banner or billboard. It happens more often than you realize and I'd like to rid the world of such blight.

10% of the time, I will monitor your customer service and tell you how to improve it. Are your phone operators professional and polite? Do your cashiers know how to count change back to the customer? When a customer has a legitimate complaint, do you treat them with respect or do you give them the runaround? When you open a new checkout line, do you pull from the other lines in order or is it a free-for-all that allows the people in the back to run up and be first in line? I have a lot of opinions about customer service and I want somebody to pay me to share them with the rest of the world.

5% of the time, I will be a professional cat photographer for those of you who need more photos of your feline friends on Facebook.

Bring it on, world!

The conversations we hold in our heads

I hold conversations with other people in my head. I'm pretty certain that other people do this too. Do you? But here's the thing: I do it a lot. And I really only do it when I'm feeling angry or upset or hurt. I don't rehearse impending conversations about good things, but I find myself repeatedly holding full conversations about bad things up in this brain of mine.

 I need to stop and think about why I do this, and I need to come up with a mechanism to catch myself in the act and let it go. 

Oh yeah, and for those of you who are wondering, today's post is inspired by Brene Brown, an amazingly intuitive woman who puts a lot of things into words that I wish I had the eloquence to say myself. 

 Here's what she said this morning:
 
I know I'm putting on my vulnerability armor when I start rehearsing the really mean things I'd like to say to someone. Those pretend conversations are my red flag.

Brene wrote an eye-opening book called "The Gifts of Imperfection" which I'm about halfway through.  I read a ton of books each year but only a handful fall into the self-help genre. When I find an author who blows me away, however, I'll gladly pick up one or two of their books and see what sorts of insights are ready to speak to me.  

"The Gifts of Imperfection" is all about allowing yourself to be authentic, and knowing that that's good enough and indeed, is the only thing that is good enough. I personally don't struggle with the pefectionism aspect of finding your authentic self (I instead practice good-enoughism), but there are other places in my life where I struggle to show my authentic self and understand that it's enough, it's powerful, and it's the only thing that will really help me to connect with other people.

But I digress.

So these conversations I hold in my head, I can rule out a lot of reasons for holding them. 

• I don't think its social anxiety. It's not like I'm scared to talk to people and practicing puts me at ease.
• I don't think its Monday morning quarterbacking. I'm not replaying conversations from the past and trying to make them come out better.
• It's not even my biggest suspect - rehearsing an awkward or difficult conversation that I want to have with a friend or loved one. That would at least make sense -- the need to practice something I intend to say. "Hey friend, we've been drifting apart and I don't like it. What can we do to fix it? I miss you."  

So what is it, then? Have any of you out there thought of WHY we do this?

Here's what I think: I use these conversations as a mechanism to feel my anger, work through it, get it out, and at the same time, not take it out on the other person.  

Note that this really only works when you recognize you're upset about something that's within your power to address and solve yourself. So it's usually something I've blown out of proportion (shocking!) and, in holding the conversation with the other person in my head, I can work through some things I'd like to say and .... after saying them, then saying other things, then running through various scenarios in my head  ... come to realize the real-life conversation probably doesn't need to take place. Instead, my perspective needs to shift. 

And that's a good thing.

So maybe these conversations are just another mechanism for working on my own issues. It still doesn't mean that I like them -- I don't really. Because the conversations in my head make me feel bad, defensive, accusatory, and that's just not the type of person I want to be. I want to be the person who gives the benefit of the doubt, who sees the best in others, who others see as a giving person, who is slow to anger and quick to laugh.

This may sound like a silly or trite analogy, but I want to treat everyone the way I treat the oldest members of my family.  Both my grandparents passed a few years ago, but I have memories I'll take with me to my own dying day. And I gave them the love, the patience, and the acceptance that was in me to give. And giving it was SO easy. There was no judgment, no scoffing, no I'm-right-you're-wrong. It was just pure pleasure, pure love, and no expectations.

I want to be that way with everyone in my life.   



 

 

The (red) pen is mightier than the sword

Last night, I was talking on the phone with my sister, catching up on the news of the day and filling each other in what's been going on in our worlds. We do this pretty regularly, since both of us have a lot going on these days. She's been apartment hunting while I've been job hunting, and we've come to find the two hunts are surprisingly similar in their ups and downs and in how we approach things.

The conversation falls to the side project I've been working on, which is editing a novel. My mom has been retired for a few years now and one of her passions has always been writing. She wrote a lot of children's stories when we were small, but didn't have a lot of time to write longer stories during her career as a teacher. Since retiring, she's taken up writing again and has finished her first full-length novel. She passed it over to me to edit it and get it ready for publication, so I've been working on that on and off for the past few months.

I was explaining the process I've been following while editing, and my sister asked "so how did you come up with that process in the first place?" And it seems like such a simple question, but it really made me stop and think. 

Because in a nutshell, what she was really asking was "how did you learn to do what you are doing?" And I don't have a good answer for that. Not all writers are editors, not all editors are writers, but some of us really like both. Writing is fun because it's creative and it's a great outlet for an introvert like me. Editing is fun because you get to slash and burn the works of others. (Sorry Mom, but it's true.)

If I had to tell you how I learned to edit or if there are finite steps involved, however, I'd be at a loss.

So my general answer is, "it depends."

In a business environment I'm mostly tasked with editing small articles and documents. Because of that, I can edit for content and for grammar at the same time.

Novels throw most of those rules out the window. I've never edited a novel before, so I had to figure out the best way to do it on my own.

So here's what I did: it may seem simple, but the first thing I did was read it cover to cover. No red pen in hand, no desire to wordsmith, no nothing but an avid reader picking up a book and reading it.

The first step is to know what you're dealing with.

The second step is the high-level edit. I'm not going to spend time adding commas or removing apostrophes if there are plot points that need work or entire chapters that need to be moved around. So step two left the red pen at home as well, and involved writing up a few pages of "here's where your book needs work."  I handed these pages back to Mom, who got to work on a new draft.

Step three is to get the novel back and read it again, this time with an eye toward the changes I suggested and how the overall story flows. I'm not surprised to find the story has a wonderful feel to it and is almost there.

Step four, where I'm at now, is nuts-and-bolts editing of this draft into a final draft. Which means, huzzah, red pen time!

Most of the stuff I know how to do is because somebody taught me how to do it. A few things I know how to do are because I just had to get it done and didn't have a model to follow. Business writing and editing don't really equate to works of fiction, but in the end it's a good thing because it's a new skill I'm developing and I'm having fun learning along the way.

And, I love red pens.