What You've Been Waiting For.................Radical Health Makeover

So, I said a month or so back that I was going to write about the health aspects of living like vacation and specifically, diet.

When you're starting out on the Live Like Vacation challenge, mind-set, goals, whatever you want to call it, you have to get a handle on sleep and diet.

I haven't added anything yet in the steps about diet, but now it is probably time.  If you get steps 1-5 under your belt and feel good about your progress, diet can be approached with a not-too-scary anticipation.

Time needs to be rearranged in the schedule, (you've worked on this already) in order to avoid excessive eating out and changing to eating more meals made in the home.  The time rearrangement will help you be better prepared for this.

I know when it's the end of the day and I'm tired by the time I am home, I am not in my best frame of mind to think about nutrition.  This part of the day my will is pretty weak, so I will crave chocolate and anything I can eat quickly.  Not a good idea.  That's why you want to feel organized and efficient throughout the day, so the evening is not a crash and burn session lying on the couch zoned out as if your brain left the planet.

Lunches are difficult, too.  When you don't have something packed it's time for the mad dash to some fast food place that will give you a flour and water concoction wrapped up in wax paper that will make you sleepy for the rest of the afternoon.

Breakfast is also a perilous time of the day because I am about to tell you that all the traditional favorites have to be given up.........

Oh Boo!  I've ruined all your taste bud fun!

Let's get right to the crux of the matter.  There are foods you will have to give up.  Yep, it's going to be sad.  It's like sending that big bowl of pasta on a space ship to Mars.  Farewell, old buddy.  Hope you make it, because you're never seeing earth again.

Terrified?   No, you're not.  You already made a commitment to the Live Like Vacation mind-set, so this is a piece of cake.   Oh, Sorry.

Let's take the baby steps here.  Can you give up the junk food, soda, and  reduce the coffee and eat more at home?  You will feel a difference in energy level.

Once you do that we can talk more about diet.

There is one issue here that needs discussing.  Eating better foods is not enough.  The body has to heal from the trauma induced by years of damaging foods.  If this damage is not healed, the body can't absorb the good stuff, so poor health will continue due to malabsorption.

Once folks experience some small benefits, the radical health transformation is not impossible.    Keep looking forward.

What Does It Mean to Live Like Vacation?

What is it to live like vacation?

Well, I'm not one to rule anyone's life, but it is a choice to live like vacation.

If you want to face each moment of your day with enjoyment and peace, even if parts of that day includes work and chores, you are living like vacation.

Living like vacation means you maintain the vacation feel during your regular life.  You find meaning in everything you do.  You work efficiently with forward moving goals to prevent stagnation, and yet you find enough downtime to give yourself  more energy to jump back into your goals.

I Don't Want Change to Disrupt My Life

Yep, you've heard people say this in a few other creative ways.  You have said it.  I have said it.  A load of people in my practice say it.

I will only make changes that don't disrupt my life too much.

I just changed the radio station in my car from talk and news to classical music.  Whoa!  That's big!  Sure, I like classical music and I liked hearing it again realizing I missed listening to it.  Will it do anything else in my life?  I don't know, let's wait a long time and see.

So, I don't want to drag people down.  We should inspire each other.

But, nothing gets accomplished until you have a real commitment.  This is Step #1.  None of the other steps matter.  Without a sincere promise to yourself, there will be no change.

Change is annoyingly difficult.  We have to fight our comfort zone inertia.  Real change is crummy on the psyche until it is habit, then it is a "new normal" or the new sense of self expression.  It is the Live Like Vacation feeling!

Hey, Lisa, you said baby steps.  Now you're contradicting yourself.  It may sound like I am contradicting myself, however, let's take a baby step and then take a bigger baby set for each next step.

Do you need to renew your sense of commitment, this promise to yourself?
Let's do it.    (Part of the commitment problem may have to do with Step #4.  The unproductive may cloud your true self assessment.)

Who Gets Your Leftovers?

Thought of the day.  Who gets the leftover you?  You know, the exhausted, grumpy, I don't have another giving bone in my body you.

Don't give your family the leftover you.

Live-Like-Vacation!

Keep plugging away at it.  Take small steps.

Fight or Flight and Fizzle

How often do you feel the fight or flight reaction?  

Fight or flight describes the the response of an animal that perceives danger.  An animal has one of two choices to make to preserve its life.  It can fight or it can flee.  

Human living today doesn't have the same dangers as animals in the wild, although there are times when we are truly in peril such as a car accident, a weather disaster, medical emergency, etc.  

The body has its own defenses in place to give your  body more oxygen, more strength, and speed when the flight or fight response kicks in.  

The stressors of modern day life still incite the fight or flight response, but it does so too often and the reaction lasts too long.  This response should only be a few minutes and then the body soon relaxes.  

Too much flight or flight will impair the immune system and burn out the endocrine system, not to mention rewire the nervous system to overreact in a very hyperresponsive manner.  Sounds so fatiguing.  

So, a mechanism that is designed for survival becomes so overused, it eventully fizzles and  no longer provides protection.  

Remember the boy who cried wolf so often that no one came to his aid when he was in trouble.  They were so fed up with his false alarms that they ignored him.

We don't want our body's survival system ignoring us and ignoring our needs.  That's why we need to  take control of out plate and get rid of the unproductive.  

One tip I can share here is to look back at the second paragraph about an animal perceiving a danger.  We are not animals.  We have much more to keep track of in our lives besides food, safety, and reproduction.  So, the kicker here is how we perceive things that tend to upset us into a faulty flight or fight reaction.  

We can perceive things differently, that's a given.  

Also, in an extended fight or flight reaction, we tend to do things that hinder our health even more such as overeating, drinking, and getting poor sleep.  And, the cycle continues as the body gets more fatigued.  

Richard O'Connor, PhD, has written a number of very good books on the topic of perpetual stress. 

James L. Wilson, DC, also writes about adrenal fatigue.  

Check out these useful references.  

Control the World or Inspire the World

This is Holy Week and I'm getting some good pearls of wisdom listening to the radio.  I am listening to Relevant Radio.  I just heard a profound message from Dr. Ray Benedetto.

His entire segment was profound because this is the first time I heard of him.  He promotes character based capitalism, which is something the public probably has a hard time believing can exist.

He talked about "trying to control the world," which we know deep down is a rotten idea, yet we still try to do it.  In our own "I can do it better" selves we insist we can control part of something.

We are control freaks.  How do you know?  When you have a melt down.  The melt down is a sure sign of your controlling self.

If we want to live like vacation, we do need to pare down our lives and follow step #4: Knock out the unproductive.

We also need to use the principle of wiggle room.

Also there is one "control factor" that helps you return your life back to you, when we tend to pile our lives full with what other people want.  This is the principle of taking control of your plate.

So, this sounds as if I am contradicting myself, but there is a part of control that is actually a self discipline.  The principle of taking control of your plate is about not overloading your schedule.  It is about prioritizing and not taking on things that are going to be harmful to you and your family because over scheduling is unhealthy.

So, let's get back to the question of the day. Living like vacation means we are not escaping life but enriching our daily lives.

While you are involved in the world, are you trying to control the world or inspire the world?