Live and let die.

My mind may very well be imploding. I've been dealing with inner turmoil for days, weeks, months, the last year damn near, and to that I've been silenced not only on paper but also in daily verbal communication with those I love and trust.  I've become somewhat of an inner hermit.   Not allowing myself to express my emotions, feelings and other such repercussions of inner turmoil has left me hanging in the balances of searching for somewhat normalcy.  It’s time I get back to do doing what makes me happy, I’ll begin with a new devotion to writing and reading. 

Do you ever find that you have so much on your mind that it’s hard to focus on daily tasks?  You’re left pondering life’s daily questions more often rather than just allowing things to happen organically?  This is my every day dilemma.  It consumes me.  Suffering from daily anxiety has caused me to become a prisoner in my own life. I, alongside other uncontrolled variables, are robbing me of happiness and it’s time to take a stand.

I’m quickly learning that it’s important in life to let go.  It’s impossible to be in control of everything that unfolds in life. It’s not until you learn to accept this, that you can truly begin living. I used to be much more forgiving of myself in the past than now in the present. The older I get, the more worrisome I've become.  It’s challenging to say the least.  That’s why I’m no longer going to play victim to myself and to those close in my inner circle. Holding onto the past and not having faith in the future is a recipe for disaster and I refuse to play the role of chef.  With help of others and primarily by having more confidence in myself, I vow to practice mindfulness, gratitude and an overall understanding that things always work themselves out in one way or another.  Pessimism is for the birds and moving forward in life requires a fair amount of optimism to proceed and to succeed.  I used to hold many regrets in life and now I want to move forward, forgive and just know that the Foo Fighters will go back on tour one day. ; ) 

Smiles, love and gratitude -  Lisa 

Learning to walk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
Learning to talk again
I believe I've waited long enough
Where do I begin?
- Grohl

Make Better Diet Decisions

“Dieting,” or what I like to refer to as, mindful and healthy eating, is something I’ve always struggled with. I’m the type that will work my ass off for a hour in the gym, just to go home and eat pizza and drink beer.  I’m simply maintaining my weight, with a little wavering up and down depending on the season.  With that said, I want to discuss with you some of my healthier options I’ve been inserting into my diet for some time now, that I think not only taste great, but they’re also very easy to maintain, relatively inexpensive and easily accessible.  While no food is great in excessive amounts, these foods below are great in moderation and all have fantastic nutritional values in their own right.

Eggs! I. Love. Eggs. Scrambled, hard-boiled, over-medium, etc.. whatever the case, eggs are awesome.  Their versatility is perhaps the best attribute of the egg.  It’s not uncommon for me to have breakfast for dinner at least 1-2 times per week.  No-nonsense (unless maybe you’re poaching an egg), eggs are simple to prepare and there’s nothing better in life then the time you finally perfect scrambled eggs.  I’m not going to lie; perhaps the secret to a lot of great scrambled eggs, like a lot of food, is butter.  While you could ruin this healthy meal with butter and cheese, I’ve learned to cut these items out and in lieu use light butter cooking spray and light salt and pepper for taste.  If you’re like me, I’ll even throw in peppers and onions for a western twist every now and again.

Avocados! Just a handful of years ago I decided to push my own negative stigmas surrounding guacamole to the side and dive in.  Best decision ever. While I’ve definitely had some bunk guacamole from time to time, when you eventually stumble across the good stuff, you’ll be hooked.  With the advice of a friend, It didn’t take long for me begin my experimentation with sole avocados.  Avocados are a great substitute for mayonnaise, salad dressing and sour cream.  My new obsession is eating avocados right from the shell with a little salt and crushed-red pepper seeds on top, it’s divine.  This healthy fat is the perfect accompany to not only any Cinco De Mayo, but any day!

Spices & herbs! While it doesn’t hurt that I work for a dry spice company, I can’t advocate enough for the use of dry spices and herbs over fat infused condiments, rubs or salad dressings.  Skip fatty dressings like ranch for some zesty, spicy herbs and a little bit of olive oil and/or vinegar.  Accompany this with some avocadoes for some of that creamy texture and you’ll forget you ever used to abuse salad dressings at all.

Some other small victories/hints I practice:

-Skim milk, or at least 0.5 or 1% is just as good as whole milk.

-Eat before 7pm as much as you can.

-Avoid all pop, diet included, there’s just too much bad research out there for both ends.

-Drink tons of water.

-Watch out for sodium/preservatives in some items you think are healthy.

-You don’t necessarily have to track every single calorie, but have a good idea of what each meal would consist of.  If you’re eating out, a lot of places have begun to either put calories on the menu or you can look up nutritional info online.

-Livestrong.com is a great tool to use for daily tracking of both diet and exercise.  I highly recommend this for anyone starting out, they even have a user-friendly ap for smartphones.

-Everything in proportions. It may sound a bit cliché by now, but small portions more frequently is the way to go.  If you’re going to have one larger meal daily, make it your lunch. Studies have shown that putting off eating all day to eat one big meal for dinner is not the best idea and it can actually both slow metabolism and increase your odds of over-indulging at dinner/before bed.

-Drink smoothies/Juice as often as possible.  No, I don’t have a fancy juicer, but I have something called a blender that seems to suffice just as well.  I’m not one to sit down and eat whole fruits/veggies, so throwing a combination of them into my blender with a little protein juice, milk, V8 or whatever I have handy, is the perfect way to pack in as much nutrition as possible, in a little amount of time.

-Have a cheat day or even two, under two circumstances.  Don’t go crazy and also only as long as those days are accompanied with a vigorous workout.  While they still may not cancel each other out to a T, this will make your emotional/mental health feel better about your less than ideal diet choices for that day or two.  Knowing at least you worked hard for it and rewarding yourself from time to time for your discipline over the other days, you’re likely not to feel as guilty for indulging every once in a while.

-My last tip, don’t obsess over “dieting.” Life’s too short to become a robot that’s constantly worried over what they’re putting into their mouth or what they should be eating.  Eat a cookie every once in a while and enjoy.  

Terrible MTV!

I'm going to keep this short. The MTV Movie Awards are a joke. Even MTV no longer takes them serious, clearly. Perhaps MTV should stick to what it knows, music. Wait a second, scratch music, we all know that too is looooong gone. MTV should stick to 16 year old pregnant girls; that - is what they're good at. Thanks.

Profitable Holidays?

It was just brought to my attention that a mall in greater Detroit (Great Lakes Crossing Outlets) will be open on Easter Sunday. That's right; as if opening retail outlets on Thanksgiving last year wasn't enough, stores are now open Easter Sunday.  What is going on? Let me guess, Christmas will be next for mall shopping crusades. I don't get it.  Let Holidays be Holidays.  Holidays, to me and almost everyone else, means: family, food, reminiscing, more food and laughter for days.  Perhaps the last thing on my mind is to go shopping for non-necessities. If I had the itch to buy new shoes, online shopping is plenty sufficient and is a win-win for the consumer and the retailer.  Kudos to retail outlets like Menards who last year publicly advertised their decisions not top open on Thanksgiving so that their employees could enjoy the Holiday with family.  I wish other retailers would stand that same ground, instead of constantly thinking about profit.  I truly wish we didn't live in such a money hungry society, it's really unfortunate.  One thing is for sure, you won't catch me in a mall on any major Holiday and I hope other consumers follow suite.

Learning Beyond the No Child Left Behind Act

This morning while watching the Today show, the topic came up about a teacher who taught kindergarten/first grade at an elementary here in the U.S. The teacher wrote a letter of resignation and sent it to the Huffington Post in effort to highlight her dismay in society surrounding the disconnect between teaching, learning and standardize testing, in short the No Child Left Behind Act.  The teacher explained in detail that she was leaving her position as a teacher because she felt that she taught primarily to appease the “Test” scores and often felt she was doing a disservice to several children who could have used attention in different areas and in the end, many students do not test well.  With pressure on both students and teachers to preform, the teacher came to the conclusion that her job was no longer a fit for her and to paraphrase her statement, “I didn’t leave my job, my job left me.”

The No Child Left Behind Act was instated back in 2002 under President Bush and congress in an effort to “close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.”  The bill was praised by republicans and democrats alike and held a pretty consistent and overwhelming belief among the public that it was indeed the right choice for youth advancement and bridging the gap between standard students and those of disadvantage.  I was certainly one of those individuals on the bandwagon.  I thought that there were several areas in the early education that could be better off.  Besides, a little pressure to set higher standards should positively affect both students, teachers and ultimately society in the long run.  However, I’m not sure if I, or others truly understood the magnitude of the new qualifications and other certain aspects like funding and curriculum, and how those factors would be impacted so drastically in attempt to withhold these new standards.   Hence, standardize testing.

Standardize testing has been debated for centuries. While I hold a pretty strong belief against standardized testing, I’m also a firm believer that there has to be some sort of a happy median between standardized testing and the alternative; a more creative, effortless form of teaching that varies from one to teacher to the next and has no barriers in their style or teaching outcome.  There’s one idea that standardize testing is absolutely an unfair assessment of one’s knowledge or curriculum, yet there’s another idea that some teachers need better structuring and guidance as to what’s important to these young learning brains, so no child is left behind. I’ve had the disservice of having both ends of the spectrum.  There’s the teacher who clocks in and out, who does the bare minimum to get by and could care less if students were more interested in napping than mathematics; then there’s the counterpart individual who was so focused on testing, it was not only extremely frustrating and difficult, it for me was more of an insult to demean me down to a silly test and hold me accountable on strictly those test scores alone. 

To be fair, I’ve had the privilege of having a healthy contrast between both ideas in some early education, but mainly during my undergrads at UM-Flint.  Regardless, at the end of the day I think the government on both a federal and state levels need to take a look at what’s being asked of, and in turn what’s suffering because of these implications and standards.   I think more often than not, particularly in the relationship among government and the academic world, that there’s this all or nothing attitude, when really compromises are crucial to succeed.  On one hand we have congress who, by all means have good intentions, yet seem a little out of sorts as to where attention should be focused, so they blanket the academic world in an effort to cover all the nooks and crannies. On the other hand, we have the academia who perhaps gets stuck in old habits and become complacent to structure and day to day activities, which can ultimately lead down a path of overwhelming disservice to students.  The disconnect is apparent and I think it’s worthy of some attention, focusing on these insights and moving towards how to remedy such situations, for the betterment of all society.  
I'm no longer really involved in the academic realm, I'm not an expert on the topic by any means, nor have any involvement in instruction, however I did spend nearly the last 20 something odd years as a student and I thought it was all insightful food for thought at the very least.  

Patiently Evolving

We’re quickly approaching the third the month of 2014, how’s that New Year’s Resolution going?   Sick of winter yet?  Are you still doubting climate change is a real problem?  If you’re like many, your answers look something like this; not good, yes and maybe - why do they call it global warming if it’s not warm (one of my personal favorites). Nonetheless, I’m hoping this New Year is treating you right and you’re strolling down that bright path of life.  I can’t necessarily say it’s been a cake walk here on my end, but rather a work in progress.  It’s fascinating to me when you have this ‘can do’ attitude, you think you have everything figured out, you believe you’re indeed superwoman, then everything comes to a screeching halt and before you know it, you’re left wondering what happened?  Without getting too detailed in what’s been occurring, I wanted to put something on paper and discuss change.  Evolving as a person is a must.  I know far too many men and women who never quite evolve into full adulthood, but rather do what they deem as necessary, continue with childish antics and become a part of society’s herd. It’s an all too familiar tale.  That’s the last person I want to be.  I can appreciate getting stuck in ruts, not rocking the boat and doing what’s needed to get by, but at the end of the day, are you really living?  Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and making choices to benefit you and your loved ones are essential to lead a fulfilled life.  One thing I never want to do, is look back 10-20 years ago and ask, what if?  The choices may not always be clear cut or easy to make, but at the end of the day, you only have one go at life and it would be a shame not to explore any and all opportunities presented.  Things don't necessarily happen overnight,  remain patient and have faith that things will eventually work themselves out. Just know, you’ll be a better person for saying you tried, regardless of the outcome. 

"Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature's inexorable imperative." H.G.  Wells

Body Image Issues / The Biggest Loser = Rachel

I have a confession, I watch The Biggest Loser on a fairly regular basis.  For those of you who live under a rock, The Biggest Loser is a “game show,” that gives extremely overweight individuals a chance to shed the pounds with extreme measures of dieting and exercising, all with the hopes of not only losing lbs but also winning a hefty cash prize for the biggest loser.  By placing the contestants on a “ranch” with little to no communication with the outside world, the contestants are left in the hands of trainers and nutritionists who push their physical and mental capabilities to the brink.  While there are several positive outcomes from a show like this, it’s fair to say “The Biggest Loser” has also been scrutinized for its extreme measures and its nearly impossible to stick to regimen.  Case in point, last night’s finale episode.  During the finale, we learn the winner, Rachel, went from a size 20, 260 lbs to a size 0/2, a mere 105 lbs.  Rachel lost 60% of her body mass.  Let me repeat that, Rachel lost 60% of herself while on The Biggest Loser.  A transformation as extreme as Rachel’s case, is something that would be more appropriate for The Swan, a controversial tv show that used plastic surgery to transformed people from their ugly duckling selves into beautiful swans.  Rachel looked bone thin.  The before and after picture didn't give me a sense of ‘wow you did it, you look great,’ but rather I thought to myself ‘you not only look like a different person, you look like you suffer from an eating disorder.’  And don’t just take my word for it, trainers Bob and Jillian’s faces said 1,000 words when Rachel walked across the stage. They too had a look on their face that was of disbelief and shock.  Whether Rachel took her exercise regimen to an extreme, cut too many calories, or stopped eating in general, the possibilities are endless and regardless, Rachel may need to take step back from the spotlight, remove her contestant name badge and reevaluate her new found weight loss and how to move forward in life with a healthy balance.   As the extreme body image scrutinizing society we are, I hope this made other people stop and think that we’re taking things too far.  It’s one thing to be healthy and a completely different thing to be obsessively healthy by setting unrealistic diet and exercise regimens to measures to live by.  I commend The Biggest Loser for the countless positive, feel good stories, however Rachel and last night’s finale presented an enormous red flag that surely got my attention and the attention of countless others on social media. 

PS-

Let’s also not forget, earlier this week Gwen Stefani, lead singer of No Doubt, was scrutinized for tweeting a throwback picture of her “chubby self.”  While her body image may have been “chubby” by her standards, the rest of the world saw someone that was maybe a size 6 who looked completely healthy and by all means “a normal and healthy weight.”  I couldn’t agree more.  What I saw, was a ridiculous 80s outfit that you were wearing that would make anyone look large.  You were probably a size 4-6 and for that, shame on you and your name calling.  You can have your own expectations for yourself, but when it comes to using shameful words like “chubby,” I’d advise to choose your words more carefully and perhaps don’t add fuel to a society where people are taking their own lives daily because they’re “chubby.” #Accountability