Posted by Michelle Butler Mar 4 2012, 10:55 pm in Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, progress
One of the concepts I’ve read a lot about in the last several years is mindfulness. It comes up in books about losing weight, emotional eating, other self-help topics, Buddhism, meditation, psychology and writing. It can sometimes be referred to as awareness. Wikipedia has good definitions of mindfulness in terms of psychology and in terms of Buddhism, but I see it as being conscious of the present moment, what you are doing in that moment, and the reality of your life.
As anyone who reads this blog regularly may know, I think the reality of my life is pretty darn good, and I work to keep it that way. Yes, there are things I might change if they were completely in my power to change, but I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what I can and can’t change. I know that what I can always control is my reaction. That helps me enjoy and appreciate what is more. Another way I help recognize the (good) reality of my life is to pay attention to anniversaries and big events.
I have been dating the fabulous boyfriend for 14 months now, and he’s been a subject in my diary longer than that. As you can imagine, we have been going through a lot of anniversaries this winter. There are the obvious ones such as our first date, our first Valentine’s Day and our first kiss. There are smaller ones such as when he first spoke to me (the second Tuesday of 2010), when I first noticed him in 2009, and when he first noticed me in the fall of 2008. It’s fun to remember or reread what I thought during the first event and compare it to how I feel during the anniversary. We’re so schmoopy that we often will remark upon these anniversaries with each other and mark them in fun ways.
It’s not just romantic anniversaries that I pay attention to so I can appreciate the now more and recognize how my life has changed. At the first Weight Watchers meeting of the year, I’ll always remember the first one in 2009 when I promised to go for that whole year no matter what. I’ll remember big events like when I bought my condo, graduated from school (high school, college, grad school), moved to new cities, changed jobs, etc. I’ll remember bad times as well as good times. I don’t do this to dwell or wallow but to recognize how things change and remind myself to appreciate the journey.
What do you think of mindfulness? How do you try to appreciate the journey?
Posted by Michelle Butler Feb 26 2012, 9:44 pm in eating healthy, food, Holidays, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays
When I lived in Texas, I got spoiled because I had access to amazing produce every day of the year. I missed that so much when I moved to the DC area that I actually had dreams of driving to the grocery store down the street, and it had changed magically to my favorite one [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Feb 12 2012, 9:29 pm in cooking, Expectations, food, Holidays, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, positive thinking, recipes
Yes, I know Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, but I have become a big fan of the holiday recently. When I was a kid, it was a great excuse to eat candy. That was always better than counting how many Valentine’s you received in your class as I never won that contest in elementary school. As [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Feb 5 2012, 10:39 pm in cooking, Holidays, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, recipes
As a New England girl, I am sad about the results of last night’s Super Bowl Game. I’m not sad though about the fun party I went to and the yummy, snacky food served. I did put a lot of thought into the food I was going to bring. When I think favorite snack foods [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 29 2012, 9:25 pm in eating healthy, Emotional Eating, exercise, fitness, food diary, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, stress, weight loss
I’m hoping that last week’s post about my struggles with motivation, and the responses to it, are the start of a turn around in my health and fitness efforts. I have tried to do better this week. It wasn’t always pretty. I skipped Weight Watchers because I just could not face a bad weigh in. [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 22 2012, 10:00 pm in bad habits, eating healthy, exercise, fitness, food diary, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation
I can’t seem to find my motivation. I know what I should be doing to pursue my health and fitness goals, but I just can’t seem to do them. To make things worse, baked goods (half the time baked by me!) and other not-wise-food choices keep calling my name, and I answer their cry. I [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 16 2012, 1:13 am in cooking, eating healthy, food, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, recipes
A new trend in the healthy eating and living world is Meatless Mondays. It’s fairly self-explanatory, but the idea is that you don’t eat any meat on Mondays for the good of your health and/or the environment. I haven’t gotten on the Meatless Mondays bandwagon, but I will do meatless meals. I typically don’t eat [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 8 2012, 9:34 pm in 10 Healthy Guidelines, cooking, eating healthy, food, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, portion control, process, recipes, weight loss
One of the secrets to succeeding with your New Year’s Resolutions, or goals as I like to think of them, is planning. Planning and preparing for success help me continue my journey to become and stay a healthy writer. In order to lose weight or maintain my weight loss, I need to be careful with [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jan 1 2012, 2:06 pm in goals, Holidays, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, process
Happy New Year! There is something about the new year that makes you think about how the past year went and start dreaming about what will happen in the next 365 days. Several years ago I started to make this a more formal process when I evaluate my past year and set goals for the [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Dec 18 2011, 9:35 pm in Holidays, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, recipes
Sunday afternoon I had a holiday open house to celebrate the season with my nearest and dearest friends in the DC area. While I did serve some healthy dishes such as clementine oranges, veggies and hummus and a couple of Weight Watchers baked goods, the majority of what I served was yummy party food and [...]
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