MOTIVATION CRAVINGS/IF YOU CAN DREAM IT YOU CAN DO IT

One day I got a smack recharging me. While shopping in a local drug store, a motivational sign leaped out at me. "IF YOU CAN DREAM IT. YOU CAN DO IT"

I had been dealt some challenges and was feeling sorry for myself. I wallowed in self pity and did not work out and ate crap. Ten days into it, I felt ill, my chronic pain returned, I had new pains and I was very depressed. My daughter (who before we got together recently couldn't really understand my fixation on my health and fitness goals) was trying to push me out of it and back to my workouts. She felt that if all I preached was abandoned and I became unfit, fat and unhealthy again - that it would just not be a good thing for others I had tried to influence to better health. She loves me no matter what my size, so again, it is not about appearance as much as health. Although I know she is quite proud of my appearance at sixty.

Between her concern and feeling so sh--ty, as well as Heidi's (my new body building friend) email encouragement along with the lack of desire to go on antidepressants, which I had taken most of my life until a few years ago - I forced myself back. After only a few days, my exercise endorphins kicked in, and I was feeling better from both a pain and depression perspective. My mind put me in a funk and my mind got me back out.Which brings me to the 'mind' and how invasive, pervasive destructive or awesome it can be.

I had dabbled in ESP in my younger years meditating a lot to find my existential experience. I scared the heck out of myself and quit doing it. I had also taken some nursing 'healing touch' seminars and was amazed at how when in the 'zone' of meditation and concentration you can 'feel' through temperature changes over someone's body the area where an illness problem is situated. I plan on doing more in that field in the remote future. Would not be able to focus right now.

When I took up belly dancing I was getting impatient waiting for my body to do what I was trying to tell it to do. My instructor, kept telling me to enjoy the journey and one day it just would happen - the mind body connection. She teaches yoga as well and is very spiritual.

I was too impatient and tripled my classes. One of the younger students with years of background in dance told me it took her 8 months before her body 'got it.' I was able to do the moves but it was mechanical. My PT gave me some stretches to move me along which helped. At work I spoke to our neuropsychologist and said there has got to be something I can do. She said pretty much the same thing but suggested that visualization, that is picturing myself doing it, may be just as valuable as overpracticing (similar to weights - overtraining is not a good thing). Everything I have read about weight training is much the same. To get the most out of it, instead of mindlessly watching tv and going through the paces, listen to motivating music and concentrate on the muscle you are working, feel the strength and energy and the feeling of being spent after a truly hard work out effort. What a sense of accomplishment. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the time to yourself.

I started using visualization at the very beginning in my fitness and nutrition goals and it apparently has worked. Picture yourself on vacation one year from now. You are walking on the beach toned and sculpted and wearing a bikini. Picture yourself already there. Is that frivilous? to imagine the perfect body? I don't think so. We were given a wonderful instrument that can be as beautiful as it is as powerful. Why abuse the body with food and inactivity? We weren't meant to be flabby and weak and short of breath. But we no longer have to hunt for days or toil in the fields for months to eat. We don't have to wash the clothes on rocks and beat rugs by hand. Everything is automated, relieving us of physical labour causing us to lose our tone and strength. But we also don't have to fatten up for the coming famine :). At least most of us don't in this country.

The line from the song everyone's gone to the moon says it all "arms that can only, lift a spoon" although it refers to a gravity-less situation - the picture is the same. IF YOU DON'T USE IT YOU LOSE IT. So true. Good grief a common tendon injury these days is to the thumbs from blackberries! Is that what it has come to? So I started using visualization for everything which brings me to cravings. Sure smoking, alcohol and caffiene are addictions but food? No. A lot of research supports that obesity is caused by psychological factors. Somewhere along the line someone (maybe even ourselves) fed us when we were down and rewarded us with food when we were up. We have tried to overcome adversity by eating to try to get pleasure - something which becomes a psychological craving. "Comfort food." It isn't the same for everyone. Some people will crave chocolate cake and ice cream; some mashed potatoes and gravy. But before you undergo years of psychoanalysis trying to figure out what caused it, just simply unlearn the conditioning and recondition yourself to get pleasure from healthier foods.

I never liked any of those things when I was a kid but somewhere along the line they became my downfall. And to top it off - I did not enjoy exercise activity particularly any which involved sweating. I hated team sports and still do. So instead of avoiding mirrors, I first had a good look at my cellulite and flab and how ugly it actually is from an esthetic and health perspective. I pictured all the known offending foods in association with the cellulite. I also visualized the inside of my arteries and organs clogged with cholesterol, fatty plaque and all that other crap from bad eating. I visualized all the good foods with the desireable shaped body, lean muscle, with organs and vessels clean as a whistle. Everytime I was exposed to those kinds of bad foods - I conjured up the pictures. At night before sleep I visualized the good stuff - the goal body and health status I was aiming for. I pictured myself participating in exercise activity and smiling and enjoying it.I like the advice that if you are feeling sad smile. If you are out in public, often people will smile back and soon you are actually feeling less sad.

So it goes with exercise - believe it or not - I have gone from a dread of exercise to really really looking forward to it. I get ornery and very restless if I miss a workout. There is no high as great as that from exercise. It really is preventative for depression and a release for stress.It is great watching how much I have increased my weights, and monitoring changes in muscle shape and size. I remember once when I was having laser hair removal done on my legs, my esthetician remarked on how toned my hams and quads had become. Seeing muscles emerg from hiding is quite an exciting experience. My PT was right - age is not a barrier to getting toned and fit - that is just a myth or an excuse. It is never too late.

If you visualize it enough soon you actually start to not enjoy those foods and prefer the foods that really do make you feel good. And once you haven't had heavily salted and sugary foods - and then try them - they are quite overwhelming and actually sickening. At least that is what happened to me.

When I see someone gorging on bad food, I can't help but picture their heart attack or stroke in progress. Buffets in restaurants are horrible. Most people eat so much trying to get their money's worth. It doesn't seem fair to pay $16 or more for salad and veggies - so I avoid those situations.Now I get excited about experimenting with recipes to reproduce healthy versions of favourite foods. Recently in Toronto I went to the St Lawrence Market - wow - it was a harmony of smells and sights and sounds. There were fish markets, deli s , awesome produce sections with unusual fruits and veggies. It was a farmer's market to die for. I still get excited about food but "good for me food" and I never overeat.

Getting ready for the Tina Turner concert I was panicking as we traversed through the Air Canada Centre with kiosk after kiosk of junk food. We found Longo's market (likely the family of one of my old boarding school mates -the drummer for our short lived "girl band") wow - I found everything I needed and more for a healthy supper. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. So, you see you can actually look forward to healthy foods and seek them out, particularly when you associate them with feeling good.

Give it a chance. Give it a try. That is the missing component in your tries at fitness and health so far. You did not unlearn bad habits. You did not understand the connection of bad food and feeling bad. Once you have eaten clean for awhile, like me, you will find out the foods that make you sick and the ones that make you well and your unlearning and relearning will be complete.

Incorporate the changes into your life. Don't make it a diet or short term goal. Make it a permanent nutritional habit, you won't regret it.Motivate yourself - no one else can - enjoy the journey - picture yourself loving it, picture how you are going to look and feel and be patient.Take pictures - keep the first ones to yourself until you reach your goal. Shed the person you have become and find the real you hiding underneath the disguise you have created. Ask yourself why you want to remain unfit, sick and unhealthy. What is in it for you?Lots of people do great things in spite of adversity. My situation is a little bump in the road compared to what others have faced. I am on the road back. It won't be an easy one but only I can make it harder than it has to be. So I will dream it and I will do it.