12

Week Twelve
The Lists and Physical Activity


The Lists

My yellow list
Rewrite you yellow list adding any new items that “could” interfere with your journey.
1. ______________________________
2. ______________________________
3. ______________________________
4 _______________________________
5,_______________________________
-Continue cheerleading yourself, you deserve it.






My No Matter What Red List Week Twelve

1. _____________________________ 7. ____________________________
2. _____________________________ 8. ____________________________
3. _____________________________ 9. ____________________________
4. _____________________________ 10. ___________________________
5. _____________________________ 11. ___________________________
6. _____________________________ 12. __________________________

♥If it does not support your abstinence, you “could” give it the boot. It’s time to take a closer look and start thinking about those things you are still doing that don’t support your abstinence. If something does not support my abstinence, out the door it goes. I refuse to entertain any behaviors that make me vulnerable to my addict. Let me share one of the one’s I let go of recently.
Up until a few years ago, even though I had not eaten sweets for many, many years, I was still buying “goodies” for my family. Why, because they needed them. (This is a phrase I have since learned to be skeptical of. Therefore, if you find yourself uttering that phrase, you might want to take a closer look.) When I took a closer look at my “goodie” buying I found I was vicariously getting pleasure from this behavior.
I would spend engrossing hours pouring over the food ads deciding what scrumptious goodies my family “needed“. Then I would buy bags of sweets and store them in a suitcase in the basement and get mad if anyone ate too many. At the time this seemed like rational behavior: now, I can see how truly insane it was. What made me stop was; One day I was berating my husband for eating too many, when he said, “If you don’t want me to eat them, why do you buy them”. For some divine reason, this opened my eyes and I was able to see my addict was controlling me in this manners.
Now if my family wants treats they go and buy them themselves and sometimes even then I throw them out if they start conversing with me. Keep in mind, it’s impossible to bake someone happy or cook someone love.



Your Green List Week Twelve
Your Green List is the same as last week.
1. Continue to get in your eight glasses of water or equivalent each day.
2. Your lunch at home or away will remain, twelve exact ounces again for this week.
3. Your dinner at home or away will be the same as last week exactly sixteen ounces.
4. 4. Breakfast- 4 ounces protein
8 ounces fruit
Optional small serving carb..
Lunch- 5 ounces protein
12 ounces vegetables
1 ounce fat
8 ounces fruit
Optional small serving carb
Dinner- 5 ounces protein
16 ounces vegetables
1.5 ounces fat
8 ounces fruit

5. You need to continue having at least four hours between your meals. .


♥A few more words on “goodies” Do all the people I’m baking “goodies” for really need the “goodies“. Just because I’ve always bake x for this or y for that doesn’t mean it need to continue that way. Your abstaining from your No Matter What Red List food needs to be the number one priority in your life. If baking or fixing those foods for others interferes with accomplishing that, then there is only one real answer! As I look back over my nineteen years, I can visit at least a dozen traditions that I have change or completely let go of.
When you find yourself looking back in longing and feeling you are being deprived, set down and reread the how you felt after the last binge paper or you letter to you addict/disease
.
Recovery means going to any length to stay away from your No Matter What Red List foods. You need to be willing “for today” to give up any and all things that interfere, including cooking, baking, friends, certain meals for my family.
.Activity
List five or more traditions that you “could” think of letting go of




































Physical Activity
You notice I did not say exercise; don’t get me wrong, I’m all for exercising. But I think the easiest way to prime the exercise pump is to start with increased activity, hence that’s where we will start. (If you already have an exercise program going, feel free to skip ahead.)
Since becoming Thin and Serene has primarily been an inside job, that’s how we will approach increasing our activity.. Therefore, the question is how do we get ready to embrace increased activity? It’s as easy as changing your attitude about extra movement.
So the next time you’re in your car and remember you forgot something in the house, don’t groan; just think, as you’re hopping out of the car, I’m priming my exercise pump and run into the house and get what you need. There are many incidences in our daily life when we have to run and get something we need and we usually go and get it begrudgingly. As humans, why are we so against movement, let alone exercise? We are a society of couch potatoes, chair potatoes, bed potatoes; we seem to have a personal vendetta against movement! Thus, that’s where I would encourage you to start.
Some other examples of increased activity are:
Parking and walking
Parking in the back of the lot
Returning the shopping cart to the store. (I still struggle with that one.)
Taking the stairs
Going out and starting the car so it will be warm or cool when you leave. With this one you get, “a two for one“; additional activity and a warm or cool car.
Refilling the bird feeders.
Any type of housework. Another “two for one”.
Washing the car

Activity
Keep a journal for a week of how you’re inviting additional activity into you life. Coaching note; send me your daily activity Journal.
Laughter gives our bodies a good workout too. Laughter can be a great workout for your diaphragm, abdominal, respiratory, facial, leg, and back muscles. It massages abdominal organs, tones intestinal functioning, and strengthens the muscles that hold the abdominal organs in place. Not only does laughter give your midsection a workout, it can benefit digestion and absorption functioning as well. It is estimated that hearty laughter can burn calories equivalent to several minutes on the rowing machine or the exercise bike. So don’t forget to continue the assault on humor you started in Week six.

Don’t forget the importance of stretching in becoming a Thin and Serene You.
Stretching is just as essential as exercise. For we baby boomers especially, some days stretching is more imperative than exercise. Some of the benefits of stretching are:
© Increased flexibility and better range of motion. The 'use it or lose it' concept.
© Improved circulation, which can shorten your recovery time if you should happen to hurt yourself.
© Better posture. Good posture can minimize discomfort and keep aches and pains at bay…another thing we baby boomers need to be mindful of)
© Relieves stress. Stretching relaxes tight, tense muscles that often accompany stress.
© Makes us better coordinated, thus keeping us less prone to falls.

Basic stretches improve your flexibility and focus on your body's major muscle groups: calf, thigh, hip, lower back, neck and shoulder.
-It’s important to warm up first. Hence I usually do my stretching during my exercise. I even consider it as part of my exercise; about every five minutes I do some stretching.
♥Warm up first. Stretching muscles when they're cold increases your risk of pulled muscles. Warm up by doing a favorite exercise at low intensity for five minutes.
♥Hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds, up to 60 seconds for a really tight muscle or problem area. That can seem like a long time, so wear a watch or keep an eye on the clock to make sure you're holding your stretches long enough. For most of your muscle groups, if you hold the stretches for at least 30 seconds, you'll need to do each stretch only once.
♥Don't bounce. Just hold the stretch.
♥If you feel pain as you stretch, you've gone too far. Back off to the point where you don't feel any pain, then hold the stretch.
♥Don't hold your breath while you're stretching.
Stretching is something you can do easily anytime, anywhere — in your home, your office, or even when you're traveling. Aim to stretch at least three times a week. If you can't get a full workout in, you can still benefit from stretching at least that often.
Next come the first steps in starting an exercise program. Whatever you choose to do as your exercise, the most important thing is to start out slowly. Don’t overdo it. Many people are so gung ho in the beginning that they burn themselves out before they really get going. Keep in mind that any exercise is better than none
One of the tricks I used to make sure I exercised is that when I get up in the morning, if I plan on exercising but don't feel like it yet, I put on my exercise clothes to remind myself that I will be exercising soon. It seems to mentally get me ready to exercise. In fact, I’m sitting here typing this in my exercise clothes because it’s too early to do the run I'm planning on, but I want to remind myself that we are going for a run soon. It’s more difficult for my addict to talk me out of running if I’m ready to go when the time to run arrives.
Another way I trick myself into exercising when I don’t feel like it is to say,” Let’s at least go down and lie on the exercise floor just in case you feel like it, and in a few minutes, you’ll be there ready to go." By getting myself into my exercise room there’s an eighty percent change I will get at the minimum a short workout, and on the mornings I fall back to sleep on the exercise floor, I figure I must have needed sleep more than exercise

An easy routine I do that can be adapted to any cardio exercise (jogging, swimming, in-line skating, biking, aerobic dance etc.) is:
1. Warm up at an easy pace for five minutes. (1-5 minutes)
2. Stretch for three minutes (6-8 minutes)
3.. Do whatever cardio activity you’re doing as fast as you can for forty-five
seconds to a minute. (9 minutes)
4. For the next four minutes do your activity at a medium pace. (10-13 minutes)
4. Return to doing your activity as fast as you can for forty-five seconds
to a minute. (14 minutes)
5. Stretch for two minutes. (15-16 minutes)
5. Go back to the medium pace for four more minutes. (17-20 minutes)
6. Return to the fast as you can for forty-five seconds to a minute. (21 minutes)
7. Go back to the medium pace for two more minutes. (22-23 minutes)
8. Return to the fast as you can pace for forty-five seconds to a minute.
(24 minutes)
9. Cool down at an easy pace for at least three minutes. (25-28 minutes)
10. Stretch at least two minutes (29-30 minutes)
Initially, I don’t suggest that you invest too much money on fitness. Save your investment until you have some type of exercise regimen already in place and have persisted with it for six weeks or so.
It’s suggested that a person do three cardio workouts and two resistance/weight workouts a week. These sessions “could” be 20 to 30 minutes in length. I work out five days a week. Most of those days I do so for about an hour. Keep in mind that I do a great deal of stretching before, during and after my workouts; hence, the hour length.
The trick to getting an exercise program going is consistency. In the beginning, focus on consistency as opposed to the length of your sessions. Even if you exercise for only five minutes it counts as a session. It’s better to have four or five short sessions a week than two hour-long sessions a week. Even if you only have ten minutes, go for it. Remember your addict/disease will try to get you not to exercise by helping you conjure up excuses. The excuse my addict likes the best is that we don’t have enough time. But all I need is ten minutes.
Activity
Put an extra star on your calendar for the days you exercise, even if it's only for five minutes.






If it does not
support my
abstinence,
out the door it goes.







Any Kind of Movement is good!
And The more Movement the better.