Losing It - Lightening the Load with Tilden Edwards

 The load of parenting changes in our home has been weighty.  I spent three months just in daily reading, creating, and adjusting the way we parent in order to help meet the needs of our recently diagnosed ADHD/ODD daughter.  The number of tasks we try to do in a day far outweighs the number of hours she is awake and a good bit of it gets skipped so she can enjoy a busy schedule of school, dance, martial arts, and scouts.  The skipped tasks add to my load because I feel guilty as if I'm failing.  I feel like I'm failing when I can't bring it all together in our reality to match how I picture it.

The load of chaplaincy changes at work has been weighty.  It has been a year since the shock of no visitors, the ICU units being full, the new requirements for masking, and working from home for some.  The lack of meaningful interaction has taken its toll on my spirit and ability to give in service.  The toll on my spirit also adds to my load because I feel angry and alone.  

The load of living away from my mom and brother has been weighty.  We left a little over two years ago not long after my dad passed.  The thought being we could have a place for my mom to stay in the winter with us in Texas, help me cope with the winter blues by lessening the winter, and Houston is a great place for the kids' lives to launch.  Honestly, I believe I take after my dad so much that mom would likely prefer Bart as she ages anyway.  That's all well and good when there is no conflict.  Conflict is constant in my family of origin and it is heavy and leaves me feeling weary from repeat issues that never get solved. 

The load of self-care has been weighty.  It has been nearly a year since my gastric sleeve surgery.  I no longer lose weight but I also no longer take the time for the self-care the doctor requested.  The guilt and feelings of ineptitude add to my load. 

The load has been unbearable.  Todd and I spoke earlier in the month and I shared how I feel like most of the days are drudgery for me right now.  I cannot find joy but continue to look.  In prayer, I have felt a leading to look back at the concepts of voluntary simplicity I learned in Quaker seminary.  So, when this week Todd says he is going to go to the office on Tuesday this week because he has tons of calls, and that way he can do all of his work talking in an office and give me some peace I said hurray!  He is now fully vaccinated hurray!  Tuesday the kids were in school, Todd was at work, and the house was empty enough to run the Roomba twice hurray!  

I pulled out Richard Foster's Freedom of Simplicity 

and Tilden Edwards Living Simply Through the Day, 

ready to settle in and reacquaint myself with the wisdom of voluntary simplicity to see how it might help some of the overwhelming load.  In Freedom of Simplicity, I turned to The Practice section as I'm already educated enough on what simplicity actually is. The beginning words pull at my heartstrings "We dash here and there, desperately trying to fulfill the many obligations that press in upon us." I settle into my chair thinking "perfect this is going to help." No less than one page later I put it aside angrily. He says he is now going to take Fridays for family time. Really? Fridays. Actually, I was so frustrated I flung it across the room. It must be nice for this man in ministry to say he is going to take Friday for the family. It really irritated me because of the patriarchal bullshit that is rampant in professional ministry. I longed for a feminist book written by a mom. I do not have a feminist simplicity book and recognize that if I started searching online for one I would spend all day doing searches instead of reading.

I turned to Tilden Edwards, even though he is also a man, with the hopes of something. Luckily I was quickly reminded how much I loved his writing. Foster can be rather tedious in the couple of his books I have read. Edwards is artful and seemingly soft in a sense and at least I didn't want to throw it across the room. When I got to chapter six: Relating, I began to see some connections. He discusses ways of relating (to others) as fluid and compares it to seeing a flower:

Five Responses on Seeing a Flower

• Ah! (Presence, Agape, Caring Presence, Acceptance)
• Oh, beautiful - I want it, but I will let it be! (Minding, Free Choice, Letting Be, Light Touch)
• Oh, beautiful - I want it; I will take it!
• Oh, beautiful - I can sell it!
• So?

As he breaks down the analogy, I feel a sense of lightness coming over me. In the section on Light Touch, he says that when "we are most at peace in ourselves when our confidence, acceptance, and commitment to simplicity as a way are at their height, then we are free for such a light touch." Going on to explain that when the Ah! (love) is carried through our interaction with the other person (our thoughts, judgments, awarenesses) it can create a space of being with that person that is lighter. Now, I read Living Simply Through the Day with the intention of finding simplicity in our daily living tasks but found this golden nugget and ran with it.

At first, the lesson connected with a conversation I had with my brother a bit over a year ago. I was sharing with him my sadness about feeling lonely for female friendships. I don't know why I shared this with him but we must have been having a rare deep moment that wasn't full of our normal sibling silliness. Anyway, he said to me that he wonders if maybe people might like more of the person I was when I was younger. Back when I enjoyed dancing, sports, going out, etc. "Well, maybe," I thought with some snark "but that isn't who I am. Who has time for sports except you?" Right back to sibling silliness for me - sorry Bart.

As I churned on this little golden nugget I remembered a conversation I had with my dad many years ago. I remember he had left his job in Dayton because his employer wanted him to move and my parents had decided they wanted to stay in Dayton in order to be there for their own parents, my maternal grandma and paternal grandpa, as they were aging. Dad must have been about my age now at least mid-late forties. He got pretty low emotionally as a new job didn't surface quickly. He was a very extroverted person and took much of his value in his professional life (Richard Foster would have been perfect for him). During this time I noticed he was grumpy and snippy, keeping to himself a lot and just not his easy-going self. I remember bringing to light my concerns for him because I was missing his usual way and worried about his wellbeing. Anyway, I believe my talk with him did some good because he started to turn a corner and seemed to return to his more normal self. I like taking credit for that!

A lightbulb moment came when I was observing the officers directing traffic stationed at the school this morning. How many of my fellow service professionals in the hospital do I meet that seem to be heavy and weighed down just like my dad was? How light and airy the traffic duty at school might seem to these officers. How light and airy having the kids at school feels to me. How light and airy having a home to myself to be able to do yoga in peace, run a Roomba while hiding from the noise outside or in my room, and reading spiritual books feels to me. The weighty things I write about above are on top of the weighty things I have chosen to throw myself into. Advocacy work in my volunteer time on gun violence and social injustices, restrictive diet and nutrition in my food creativity, leaving supportive relationships behind as I move on to new places, and parenting with the end-game constantly in mind that my kids are competent well-rounded functioning adults. Wow, where is the light in my life? No wonder the kids think I am no fun.

India Arie's I Am Light

is a part of my morning grounding routine. This song in particular helps me remember my personal goal is to reflect the light of God in my interactions. I hope Edward's Ah! will help me also reflect on the light-heartedness of God's love too. In prayer with patients, I am frequently offering the weighty burdens shared with me up for God to carry. I know I can't carry all of their burdens with me. I think maybe I'm not doing for myself what I do for others. God needs to carry more of the load and I vow to give it over her.

I hope this golden nugget has the effect on me that my conversation with my dad had on him. I have wished I had another conversation with him in the few years before he died when he was feeling low again. He was taking it out on me a lot in a way that made it a lot harder to be soft with him but I wonder how it would have affected his cancer to be his lighthearted self. What would have been his seventieth birthday is coming on May 19th. When he was alive I would ask him what he wanted for his birthday and his answer was always the same for my entire life "for you to be a good girl." Each year since he died we have celebrated his birthday by watching The Wizard of Oz with buttery popcorn, peach pie, and other foods he loved. This year, we will celebrate the same but my gift to him is to be a good girl with the lightheartedness of his legacy. I am committing to work toward letting the weighty load go and lightening my load in order to be a better reflection of God's and my daddy's love.

🕊🕊Peace🕊🕊

Losing it - Feminist Mom & Princess Loving Daughter

 I remember the first time I was aware that I was being feminist shamed.  I was in seminary and a fellow seminarian would often make snarky comments to classmates when their theology wasn't in-line with  her thinking, especially if she deemed it "cupcakes and rainbows in the sky."  Once her eye-roll in my direction triggered my people-pleasing mind.  What could she possibly be upset about with my point of view?  What am I doing wrong?   All these years later my guess is she may have grown up around someone who did the same to her when they didn't like her opinion.  I'm guilty of these eye-rolls and I am sure most of us do it at least once in a while.  Today, at least, I'm not as wrapped up in appearing to be an error-free feminist as I was in seminary.  

It has remained important to be an error-free feminist when it comes to parenting our daughter.  When I learned I was having a daughter I started to dream of my little creation's contributions to the world.  My parenting dreams revolved around helping her grow in an environment where she knew she was as capable as anyone and her value lies in her presence, brains, and contributions to the world.  I had dreams of her being a mini-me not in appearances but in values.

Our daughter (MM) was born in March 2014.  From the moment she came out of the womb people made comments about her beauty.  Literally, several people in the delivery-room took an audible inhale followed by oohs and aahs when they delivered her, c-section style, from my womb.  I was alarmed and asked what was wrong but they said "oh wait until you see her hair!"  Her hair became her claim to fame in the first year.  Strangers would comment and ask to touch her hair in public so frequently I made sure she was wearing a hat when we went out just to avoid all the stranger germs.  Eventually, people took notice of her beauty entirely saying she is like a "doll" you can buy in a store.  

Additionally, culture all around me was showering her with princess gifts, comments on her beauty, and media aggrandized low-hanging-fruit as values.  I knew it would be a fight but I always believed I could win by keeping most of it away from our lives.  I fought as much as I could for six years.  Now, my New Year's Resolution for 2021 is to let my daughter "be a princess."  This long post is an explanation of how and why I now support my daughter's dreams of being a princess.  I will not feminist shame my daughter, nor myself for embracing her royal dreams, no matter how much my brain tries to frighten me with worries about the long-term consequence.

In addition to the princess fight, we also had some unique personality traits that we weren't quite prepared to handle.  She had significant stranger danger and I was called back to daycare more than once to help calm her.  By eight months old MM was routinely screeching loudly for some strange reason.  I know lots of kids squeal but this was different, imagine squeaky breaks.  Luckily around 17 months she started speaking words which helped to change the screeching to expressing her needs more coherently.  She could better express her big emotions/thoughts and did so with gusto!  She remained(s) very loud.  I think she is gifted to be on stage because she could easily project to the back of the room.  The poor kid has been told to quiet down multiple times per day every-day for years.  I recently read an article about a woman who is naturally loud.  I really empathized with her, and in-turn, MM.  After reading that article, I think I'm ready to let go of hoping MM will learn how to use an inside-voice.

MM was a typical toddler in my eyes.  She enjoyed growling at me, tackling us (we eventually nicknamed her Brutella), and clinging to both daddy and me.  She loved to hold hands and gave the best hugs.  The way she wrapped her arms around the neck radiated love.  By twenty months she loved sparkles, hats, and shoes.  At twenty-four months she loved fragranced lotions, tutus, and Minnie Mouse.  She began to perform songs and dances in her sparkles.  At two and a half, she loved to fake cry, moan dramatically, and began insisting everything in her world be pink.  I now think her love of putting on a big show caused me to be a bit dismissive of her displays of anger and aggression.  "Brutella" continued well into her fifth year and escalated in various ways.  At three she would scream at us when she was angry, disregard authority, and push-buttons to be mean.   I was very happy to kiss two and three goodbye knowing I would never have another toddler to raise.  Four was very different because I was wrapped up in grief.  She remained committed to being a princess and talked about growing her hair like Rapunzel, wanting costumes, and worked to improve her posture.  Honestly, that year is kind of a blur to me between my dad's care, death, and then planning a move to Houston, Texas.

We moved to Houston in January 2019 and have remained.  During her fifth and sixth years the princess goal has become even more serious.  She even asked me to make her a "princess manual" with guidance on what she has to do in order to be a princess someday.  I begrudgingly created a binder but made sure the princess printouts focused on character values.  

https://www.wikihow.com/Behave-Like-a-Princess

I've tried to guide her away from Disney Princess and more toward the concept of a modern princess in general.

 

Weaving together her desires to be a princess and my observations of her behavior has been a long story and I appreciate you hanging in there with me while I set up this moment for New Year 2021.  In the last six months, MM's behavior has escalated to a level that has caused us as parents to fear for her health, safety, and future adulthood.

• throwing things in anger
• picking and knawing mindlessly to the point of self-harm and destruction of property
• yelling hateful comments in such rage she has no idea what she said when she calms down
• lying and sneaking
• playing rough and rowdy willing to hurt others
• intentionally disrupting others to get attention
• refusal of any and all direction and guidance for responsibilities within the family
• back and forth between whining and wanting to be a baby cared for by mommy and yelling at us that she is a big girl and should have more rights

I remember a recent Sunday praying for some help for my little family.  That same day I stumbled upon a website that provided a quiz for Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD).  

https://www.additudemag.com/test-for-oppositional-defiant-disorder-in-children-odd/

The four of us sat down together, MM in my lap, and took the quiz.  MM came up about mid-range on the scale and we all were excited at the possibility of some guidance to help her find more peace and happiness.  It was a light and self-deprecating time that could have been shame-filled.  I am so thankful that we have tried our best to be shame free in our parenting that we can have moments like this and our relationship is strong.  The results of this quiz tied with the above behaviors led me on a search to start with a counselor in the new year.  By early January we found someone and began working with her.  At first, this counselor scared me because on our introductory phone call she was already talking about a diagnosis of ADHD, getting help at school, and even how to help her succeed at college.  I asked an online parenting ODD community for their opinion and they suggested I grab her up and get started.  As I read a bit about ADHD I started to see things in a new light.  I was able to reframe our experiences at home in a way that tied directly to the descriptions of ADHD behaviors at school.  We never imagined there was any chance of a diagnosis like this because MM is an angel at school.  Teachers from preschool forward are downright shocked when I share bits and pieces of our experience at home.  I think we just figured it was our inept parenting.  I began to see the connections to everything:

• inability to clean-up after herself
• outbursts and frustration
• clinginess to me (because I am a grounding presence because I'm so calm and organized)  
• dancing at church

My eyes are opening.  She and I recently talked about me being a grounding presence.   She affirmed that when we are together and I'm losing my mind from having to refocus her she LOVED the time together.   I leave exhausted, and she can't wait for more.  My expectations and hopes for our daughter are shifting and reframing.  The positive behaviors we hope to see from her are dressed up in a crown and princess pink image to help her know that princess show: 

• kindness and respect
• honesty
• graceful in speaking
• being responsible and a team player for "Team Mills"  

I'm 100% fine for her to see cupcakes and rainbows all around her.  My expectations are to try and help her focus on the beauty inside as well as the beauty outside.  I doubt I'll be able to let go completely of my dream of an outspoken feminist protege but I'm no longer tying it to a parenting failure on my part if she is a beauty queen.

🕊Peace🕊

How I chose bariatric surgery and HAES

In 2007 I began a wellness journey to improve my health.  Our son was born the year before and the strain on my body to carry a baby took a toll on my immune system.  Hashimoto's Thyroiditis is the auto-immune diagnosis I was given at about twenty back in 1995.  Hashi's has destroyed my metabolism, wreaks havoc on my mental health, and caused infertility challenges among other smaller daily intrusions.  For more than twenty-five years I have been learning about my body and health trying to live the best life I can.  Admittedly though the first fifteen were a rebellion filled with mindless and foolish choices.  My interest in living more healthy through food didn't start until my mid/late-thirties.

Along this journey, I found Health at Every Size and it deeply connected to what I already knew in my heart.  I had let go of the messages of my youth about appearances, body image, and shame for no longer being thin.  My family of origin has deeply held beliefs about public appearances.  Happiness, perfect behavior, beauty, and wealth were important images to project.  In many ways, these images still are thread through my family life today.  It has been hard for me to grow beyond these original values to a focus on the truth in my heart which includes the values of vulnerability, simplicity, and being of service through advocacy.   These values are very much in-line with HAES.  

• HAES promotes size diversity and in both my ministerial and personal life I have found a love of supporting all diversity, so this particular HAES value fits me well.  
• Trusting my body to know what it needs is something I wish I was taught in my early days.  My body speaks to me consistently and like my intuition, is usually spot-on.  HAES teaches people to listen to their inner voice and body signals to understand that they will tell you what you need.  
• Health is such an important motivator and appearances are a mirage.  I remember telling a dear friend earlier in my life that I could totally get into promoting food from the earth and connecting our eating habits to our animalistic nature.  HAES emphasizes healthy choices for our bodies.
• Movement and its benefits have become evident to me as I work in hospitals with older and ill communities.  While there are certainly some who are very fit and very healthy that I meet in the hospital, the majority of people need simple movement and use of their bodies in old age.  Connecting fitness to this seems so much more logical to me than the projected images of total strength and zero fat that seem important in our younger years.  I have long hated exercise and it is genuine torture to force myself.  I am doing it but finding the ways that are a bit more fun has been very important.  
• Fighting weight stigma is so in tune with who I am at my core.  Those who know me will tell you I've been calling out stereotyping, racism, ageism, and upholding feminist values since I was a little kid (when I was being true to my inner nature).  I think I came out of the womb arguing with my parents about how racism is outlandishly ridiculous.  As my awareness has grown with age my fight and advocacy have grown as well.  HAES helps to bring information to the world to help fight stereotypes applied to fat people. 

On to Bariatric Surgery and how I can possibly have done this while still holding up HAES values.  Many people within the HAES movement have taken a seemingly all-or-nothing approach.  This is an approach that runs rampant in our culture.  You're either liberal or conservative, fat or thin, celebrate big bodies or shame big bodies, and of course, you're either very healthy or are a junk eating couch potato.  In reading and participating in HAES groups on social medial over the last few years, I have seen alarming negativity applied to those who have chosen to diet or resort to bariatric surgery.  I find in my circles it reminds me of people who advocate for inclusivity but offer put-downs and anger toward those who are still learning.  All are welcome unless you "just don't get it."  Having boundaries to protect yourself is great but when those boundaries become exclusion, you have gone too far in my opinion.  

In my journey, I first looked at lap-band surgery in 2010 after my mother had the surgery and my parents were encouraging me to also make a change.  My mom has been very happy with the outcome of her surgery and is still doing well many years later.  I had a consult and my husband and I decided we were not interested, mostly for safety reasons.  There were other reasons like cost and my inner-voice telling me that I had not really even tried to lose weight yet.  So it all began with diet and exercise like it does for most people.  Never worked, like it never works for most people in the long run.  Then I became pregnant and my world became about being a mom.  

As I mentioned above, our first child in 2011 took a huge toll on my body.  I had kidney damage as a baby and had always worried about the toll of carrying a baby would have on my kidneys.  I had no idea about pre-eclampsia, its effects on immune systems, nor what general fatigue could do to my overall health.  I also didn't really see how bad it was until I enrolled in a clinical residency to pursue my ministry in chaplaincy.  About four months into my residency I was sick so frequently that I really was afraid I would get kicked out of the program.  It was shortly after that when I dug in on how to improve my overall health.  I found a doctor that was not primarily concerned with obesity as the primary target of my ailing health.  I shared with this physician my health journey and he helped me get on the road to overall wellbeing through food choices, supplements, better thyroid management, and mental health.  

From 2012 until 2019 I pushed through and worked the steps to be healthier and better able to function as a chaplain, mom, wife, and even daughter during my dad's terminal cancer.  My mental health always would cause troubles here and there and when I had bouts of depression I would gain weight.  Over the years I gained about 40 lbs.  I don't know why but when I go over 300 lbs is where my body starts to have bigger issues with blood pressure, reflux, pain in my feet, and pre-diabetes.  I would try to keep my weight under 300 with diet and could lose a few pounds here and there, however as depression would come back, the original weight plus a few more pounds would come as well.  Near the end of 2019, I was in so much pain when I would work a shift that I would avoid seeing patients just to avoid the pain and non-stop sweating.  I was constantly drenched.  I have always been a heavy sweater but now it was unbearable. 

It is at 300 lbs that my journey stops being about non-dieting but rather, health for me knowing I need to be under 300 lbs.  300lbs is way off the charts BMI according to doctors.  300 lbs is a size 24 on my tall frame and is an unreasonable size in society.  However, at 300 lbs I can move easily and even exercise, I do not need blood pressure meds nor reflux meds.   In February 2020 I was 345 lbs and needed to do something for my health.  

I found a physician through the hospital system where I work that does bariatric surgery and insists it is considered metabolic surgery.  He insists on focusing on nutrient-dense plant-based diets.  He insists on a lifetime of health coaching and guidance that can be assisted by bariatric surgery.  I will say he is more willing to do the riskier bypass surgery which I am not comfortable with.  The statistics show I would not lose as much as my surgeon thinks I could but I still chose gastric sleeve.  

I am not worried about getting "skinny" again.  I am quite content at 299 lbs.  I chose to go with the VSG surgery with a goal weight of 250 knowing that over time it would creep back up.   Hopefully, I will only have mobility issues again when I'm ready to sit down more permanently.  Right now, in my career and parenting stage, I need the freedom that comes with lots of movement.  I need to be 250 lbs for my health and my personal goals.  

I am now about to reach my 6-month surgiversary and am happily at 275.  My goal is within reach.  I am free from pain.  I am still focused on fighting weight stigma and promoting how healthy and happy I am at a size 20/22 and BMI well into the upper 20s.  I still listen to my body and know what I need.  I still could care less about my appearance being thin.  I don't hold my tongue when people comment on how good I look and I do my best to re-route the conversation to health and how I feel.  I am able to move with an actual intention to exercise my body.  I am building strength and muscles because I know it's what my body wants and needs.  I know I will be fat, beautiful, strong and my body will not hold me back from my personal goals.

🕊Peace🕊

Overnight Oats Base Recipe

 One of my favorite things about post-VSG life is the ability to have more carbs in my day but not experience immediate weight gain.  I have a recipe for high protein & fiber overnight oats I love as a base breakfast.  I make one batch on Sunday night and it is there for me to eat from the entire week and I can change it up as my mood and tastebuds swing.

Some of my favorite add-ins:

Swap vanilla stevia for the maple syrup

Peanut butter & dark chocolate chips

Berries & almond butter

nuts, apple & cinnamon

https://chasingvibrance.com/overnight-oat-greek-yogurt/

🕊Peace🕊

JOYN Dance Crush #1

Dance Crush #1 is a 31 minute Dance Video lead by Heather Stockton.  Unfortunately, she is another instructor that does not have a bio on the Joyn site.  Heather is as cute as the giant button earrings she is wearing.  She is bubbly and my guess is she is a dancer as evidenced by her fluidity and ease in movement.  She is enviable for someone like me who has a hard time being coordinated.  She mentions she is in Oakland so I'm guessing California and her studio-space is hippie-licious.  My guess is she is filming in a home environment and it may be during COVID.  The comments are less than a month old and this is November of 2020.  She says "let your personality really shine" at moments during the video and I have to say her personality does shine.  

According to the website: Dance Crush is a three part series that ranges from beginning, intermediate, and advanced. Each level will include 8 classes that explore rhythmic movements, flow, and expression in ways that are accessible for the level & progress with each class. You will groove, sweat, and joyfully dance your way into a big crush on yourself.

Dance Crush #1 is not one of the free videos.  I only found this one Dance Crush video so far, but hopefully, the other videos in the series are coming soon.  The intent of the video is a warm-up, two-song dance routines, and a cool down.  Her introduction is about a minute, the warm-up is about 5 minutes and the cool-down is about 3 minutes.  I like that she recommends you have water and a towel for the program in the introduction.  No other equipment is needed.  You may like to make your own playlist for this video because I couldn't hear her music very well.  I can hear the instructor clearly but not much music.  It could be fun to do it to your own music anyway!

As a beginner I was surprised to not really break a sweat in this video, nor did I get my heart pumping.  This could be on me because my first time through I was really focused on the dance moves rather than doing them quickly.  I tried but by the time I got faster she would slow down.  I think this will get better with time if I do the video again, know what is coming, and I can just push myself.  The moves are fairly hip-hop with things like air-guitar, arm poses, and hip action.  It was fun.  One commenter stated that the instructor overestimated what a beginner is and that the moves are hard to follow for someone who is not a great dancer.  Luckily we can be bad dancers and still have fun!

The downside is that about 18 1/2 minutes into the video Heather thinks they take a pause in the filming and is patiently waiting for the camera person (Marky?).  This is evident by her hair fluffing and talking to the camera person.  She even swears at one point (not with malice but laughter) which doesn't bother me a bit but I'm sure could turn some people off.  At approx. 20 minutes she starts to put the routine together.  Unfortunately at 21 min 45 seconds it becomes clear she meant for this section to be cut because she makes a misstep in the dance, tells the camera person she missteps and they are going to start again.  She starts again with the same verbiage as she thinks she got a "cut" and "retake."  There are over 3 minutes of standing around on the part of the person trying to get a workout.  A couple comments make note of this as well.  JOYN could use to step it up on this one with editing and again, including their instructor in the bios.  

I would probably check back on this one to see if they clean up the editing and then give it a go.

🕊Peace🕊

Lumowell Prime Video Workout

 Today, Maryella and I checked out a video that is included in our Amazon Prime membership: Lose Weight Tone Your Body Beginners by Lumowell.  It is about 30 minutes and includes a warm-up and cool-down.  

We were surprised to find that it is a computer-generated image of a woman that is used to guide the exercises.  Maryella took a little longer but she did at one point ask why she isn't blinking her eyes! 😂😁

There is a woman's voice who guides your exercises and I found it to be fairly pleasant or at least didn't annoy me.  The computer image could use to be a bit more real body-friendly as she is busty, lanky, and leggy.  Otherwise, the image worked well.  They provide a modifier to the exercises which I used about 30% of the time.  They also have an image that pops up off and on that shows the muscle groups being used for that particular exercise.  Overall, it was a good program and we enjoyed it as much as a person who doesn't enjoy exercise can enjoy it.  I was able to complete the whole 30-minute video and can tell I got good exercise in my legs especially.  In my opinion, it's a winner and will definitely be a part of my rotation.  Tomorrow, I'm going to my favorite yoga studio to enjoy some Zen Yoga and easy stretches.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B01M012H9J/ref=atv_wl_hom_c_unkc_1_3

🕊 Peace 🕊

Losing It - Kegels

I can tell you of one of the ways I lose-it but hate to admit is incontinence.  Kids, age, weight, all sorts of reasons have led to leaking.  If advertisements are an indication of truth so are a lot of women.  So, I'll share with you my recent find that is helping and it fits my fast-moving, working-mom lifestyle.  It is an app called Kegel Exercises made by Amila.  It is a progressively harder (although it's not hard at all) app for strengthening your pelvic floor.  You have to dedicate about 2 minutes of your day to this simple app and you have done some good self-care.  I use android and found it on Google Apps.  I'm not sure about Apple but I imagine there is something similar.  Check it out. 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amila.kegel

🕊Peace🕊