FULL

I am dedicating this blog to Kimber Simpkins' first book, Full: How I Learned to Satisfy My Insatiable Hunger and Feed My Soul. This is the second edition of the book and is currently available for pre-order. It will hit the shelves on April 2, 2015. As soon as I have posted this blog I am going to Amazon to order my copy.

From here, I will let Kimber speak for herself. Please forgive the little bit of "adult" language. I did not feel I had the right to edit her videos.

Happy eating!
Lora

New start

Well, my first walk was the last one, so far. The next day I drove to Minden, NV to visit my mother. I got home late the following Saturday night...and then I never got back on the horse.

However! I found out that my dose of antidepressant has been too low and my doc ramped me up to twice the dose. Wowza! I hadn't realized how not "like myself" I'd been feeling. Like the commercials say: Depression hurts. I was also diagnosed with bursitis in my left shoulder and received a cortisone shot there last week. I wasn't supposed to lift anything with that arm for a few days. It's working GREAT today, though. Yippee!

The last two days I've had energy to burn! Yesterday I cleaned my kitchen for the first time in a month. Today, I cleaned my GARAGE! It was a gorgeous day here in Flagstaff, by the way. I'm sorry for those in the more eastern parts of the country who are freezing but it's been really fantastic weather here. We WILL pay for this, though, if we don't get some more precipitation of some kind. We will literally burn over the summer. It's way too dry.

I'm looking forward to finding out what else I can accomplish tomorrow! I can't describe to you what a huge difference I'm feeling. It's like being 20 years younger again. I hope I'm not so stiff I can't move tomorrow. Of course, I'm told that the remedy for stiff muscles is to do more of what made them stiff in the first place.

I'll be moving stuff that I sorted from the garage into the storage building and into the house tomorrow, and intend to get my home gym -- the one I picked up from my mom's house --
set up in the garage. At least I'd like to get it out of my vehicle. Who knows? I may get up and take my dog for a long walk in the morning. Tee hee! :-)

I get to pick up my new bike on Thursday or Friday, thus the need to get the home gym out of my SUV.

Oh, and I have COOKED my own dinner three nights in a row, too. Tonight I had homemade spaghetti sauce over spaghetti squash instead of pasta. It was a-MAZ-ing! That was in the middle of cleaning out the garage! I am truly amazed at my energy.

I am thanking Heavenly Father for this strong, sturdy body and for the energy and motivation to do what I've done today. Without Him I would not have life and I would certainly not have joy in it, either. I am terrifically grateful today for today and the many blessings the day has manifested to me.

This picture is the "present" me. (2/15) Okay, it was taken last August when I received my endowments at the Snowflake Temple. I'm actually about 20 pounds heavier at this moment.

Keep the faith!

An Auspicious Beginning

Just finished my first 1/2 mile trail walk with Beasley. Beasley is my 2 year old Chiweenie. I currently weigh 148.5 kilos. That's 327.4 pounds. I'm only 5'1", so you can imagine the burden on my frame.

When I woke this morning, I realized that I have been thinking of going for this sort of walk as something I would ALLOW myself to do IF I finished my chores, or my homework, or whathaveyou. Because of this perspective, I rarely did any exercise, which really didn't bother me because exercising has always been something that felt to me like a punishment of sorts. How in the world I thought I was going to exercise if I thought of it as something I "earned" by doing other things I don't like doing is a mystery to me. It shows how much I dislike exercise; I'd rather do a week's worth of dishes first!

However, getting out and walking, or riding a bike (which I don't yet have but it's on layaway) or lifting weights (I'll be picking up my old weight set from my mother's house in the next month or so, but that is a 12 hour drive one way) cannot be a "treat" that I give myself IF I'm a good girl. It's something I NEED to do in order to be MY best. So, it has to become a priority, in at least the top three of my list of things I absolutely MUST do today. It can't be an option. It has to be imperative, just like eating and breathing.

So, Beasley and I put on our walking shoes and went to Buffalo Park to walk the Flagstaff urban trail this morning. I took a walking stick. I did not stretch, I just took off walking. This was fine because Beasley took many opportunities to stop and sniff. She really wanted to be off-leash exploring but fortunately this is not allowed. She would end up being a coyote snack in a few short minutes. The sun was just showing through the trees. It was a beautiful February morning with clear skies and about 35 degrees F. 

I could not walk very many steps, at first, without stopping to pant. I was glad that Beasley wanted to stop so often. I noticed that my "sitting" muscles were pretty tight, too; gluteus medius and maximus, more the medius, though. We made our way to the 1/4 mile mark and I decided that if I walked a 1/2 mile today (1/4 mile there and back) that would be a really good starting place. So, we turned around and headed back. My lumbar region and hips were still pretty stiff and I didn't feel that I was going to be able to loosen up and walk freely this morning. However, by the time we had just about reached the parking lot again, those muscles began to loosen and the pain began to subside. So, tomorrow I'm going to stretch out my back muscles first, THEN go for the walk.

I think if I just focus on walking a 1/2 mile each day this week, that will be sufficient. Right now, I'm going to commit to walking another 1/2 mile tomorrow. I don't need to look too far into the future. I think today I got my heart rate up and I got the blood flowing through muscles that haven't been used much in quite some time. It was an auspicious beginning.