The Script Ended

Paris dieting

Well I am sick of the Calorie Count website. I should design a better one because one of the problems with it is that if you eat lots of the same things every day like I do, there is no easy way to just add them quickly. You have to go through the whole keystroke sequence each time. Geez........did you read what I just wrote? I am complaining about too many KEYSTROKES, like I am some kind of tech-ster or something!

In any case, I haven't recorded my every bite in about one week but I am still well aware of what is going into my mouth and could probably tell you exactly how many calories it equates to after diligently using the counter website for over a month. There is something to the writing/recording thing though - I tend to allow myself a bit more of a cheat knowing that I won't have to face the facts on the daily spreadsheet!

I have changed lots of habits though and that really is the point and it only took less than two months to cement (hopefully) these good habits. I am exercising again 5-6 days per week like the good old days in San Diego. I go to bed with sore muscles again and feel and see the toning happening (I hope that it is not psychosomatic!). I have pretty successfully curtailed the bread, wine, cheese, dessert consumption down to a more than acceptable level - so acceptable in fact that I have been accused of party pooper-ness! Oh the shame! But honestly, I feel so much better it is worth it. I did sneak a dessert today while out withfriends and it frankly wasn't worth it so I will remember that when next faced with temptation. Which will probably be tomorrow........that's the thing about living in Paris. I am surrounded by amazing food and accompanied by amazing friends to eat it all with!

Poor me, doesn't your heart just bleed?  I know, I know...NOT.

Grammar 101

I've never thought so much about grammar in my whole life. I am surrounded by it here. I listen to either French in which I am constantly on the look out for what tense was just used in the hope that I catch a clue as to what was being said or poor English spoken by French people, many of whom I am obliged to correct because that is what they are paying me for. I'm not however paid to correct My French Man, who by the way, is endlessly patient with my French, so more often than not, I just let his mistakes go by.

However, I hear so many grammatical mistakes in English that I am beginning to forget what is correct, all the mistakes sound so normal.

   

I will make the dishes while you make the table. (Forget even TRYING to explain the difference between DO and MAKE)

   

I made the cooking and the ironing, and he just didn't make nothing (French teenage boys are not good at housework!)

    Can you just jump the milk back in the frig? (Don't ask me where JUMP came from??)

   

I can't do nothing about that! (Gotta love those double negatives)

    Sometimes I feel like Lucy - 'Splaining you something to Ricki Ricardo!

I won't even begin to think about how I sound in French!

   

   

Better without choice

Today was one of those incredible Paris days. For most of the month of February the City of Light lived up to its grey reputation. The skies were heavy and we lived underneath a low ceiling almost all month. March has been more of the same except for a few exceptions and today was one of them. We had the added bonus of pouring rain yesterday so today's sun and air was extra fresh and sparkly.

Since I am from San Diego, a sunny day equates to a hot day so it is an added pleasure to be able to take brisk walk on a sunny day and not sweat through my clothes. I was even wearing my coat! I had an errand to do on the other side of Paris and since I had time, I decided to walk. Remember, I'm on that diet where I record calories in and calories out - walking all the way to the right bank where the cookware store I needed to visit is in the 2nd arrondissement represented over 5 miles. I also had a bit of cheating to make up for ( a brownie and red wine at a girl friend's last night - bad girl that I am).

I plugged myself into my ipod and took off. I set the ipod on random and found myself enjoying the surprise as each song began. It was refreshing not to know what was coming next, even though of course I had chosen everything on the thing. Remember back when we did not choose our own music? It used to be so exciting when a song you really liked came on the radio - somehow it sounded even better than off the album (remember those??) playing on your record player (and those??). I even recall calling my best friend and telling her to turn on the radio when a really good set happened to be playing. It was practically something to celebrate.

Now most of the world, particularly kids, listen to only stuff they have chosen themselves, at least most of the time. Where is the surprise? Remember the fun of tuning into your favorite DJ to see what new stuff he would mix up with the favorites. As far as I know, there are not DJ's choosing the music on the millions of ipods out there.

Think back to those good old days, driving along in your car, radio blaring and suddenly a song you love comes on, you never would have downloaded it onto your ipod because you had forgotten it existed but there it is, familiar and unexpected. A treat in the middle of the day. You crank up the volume to celebrate the moment.

It is one of those time when not having a choice is so much better.

Diet Secret

In my last post I told you that I was considering writing a revolutionary new diet book based on my real life, mid life, french life, former american life, diet for life, life. Do you think it would sell? Do you think that anyone would believe that I have come up with something revolutionary?

You're right - probably not. Mostly because I haven't come up with anything revolutionary, but hey - that's never stopped any of those other diet gurus before.

So what I did do was come up with a plan of sorts to get rid of my recently accumulated post menopausal spread. To the naked eye I looked fine (I DID NOT say that I looked fine naked) but a growing number of clothes in my closet represented a day sucking in my stomach if I chose to fight my way into them and having been a formerly always effortlessly thin person, my new aversion to anything that did not include stretch was just not working with my self image. For the last 6 months or so I traveled through the various stages of denial, rarely daring to step on the scale and figuring that after the next weekend/birthday party/house guest/holiday/fill in the blank event, I would get serious and start to lose some weight.

Well the New Year came and went and after celebrating fun visits with daughters, friends and my sister-in-law, it was time. Now what do I do? For the last 2 weeks in January I exercised a bit more, watched what I ate, felt like I was being good and........gained a few pounds.

Enough was enough. Here is what I started to do and have been at it faithfully (a whole 5 1/2 weeks!) and I am making progress and feel more in control of my life beyond just my eating plan (I hesitate to call it a diet) and my jeans are even getting looser. I have friends who are currently on the popular and strict variation of the Atkins/protein diet and they are losing weight rapidly, I know it works but the elimination of so many foods that I really enjoy (like fruit) just is not for me and beside, there is no way that that diet is sustainable for me in the long run. What I am doing hopefully is.

So what's the secret? Eating less and exercising more. Now that's a come down isn't it? But what has helped me is a website where I opened a free account that allows me to record everything that I eat in a day and what exercise activity I have done. It counts the calories for you (both ways - those you took in and those you exercised away). You set goals for yourself and record your progress. That's it. But what is weird is that as soon as I started using this, I have found it harder to cheat on my daily calorie intake goal because I then have to record it and I have barely skipped a day of exercise because if feels so good to get to put it down. For me it also somehow gives me structure to my exercise, like I am getting somewhere instead of wandering around jogging this day, waiting a week and lifting some weights, waiting another week until a get around to it again.....etc. The act of recording makes me motivated to exercise again.

Is this the most boring post ever? I just realized that talking about my diet plan was probably akin to sitting through endless tales of ski adventures when you are the only one in the group who doesn't ski. (Was that run a black diamond or a red?? There was so much powder that we couldn't get to that station around the back of the slopes, what's its name again and on and on.............god those were boring conversations!)

sorry if I have just written the diet version of bore those around you with endless prattle. I'll do better next time, I promise.

Diet Miracle!!

Lose 10 pounds in one month! Better your Bikini Bod!! Drop a Jean Size in a Week!

As smart and skeptical as I usually am, I can be a sucker when I read the above diet promises that land in my email in box. Maybe diet nirvana is just a click away.

No matter how much I know about diets, eating right, exercise, I still hope there exists a magic bullet - just in case. A whole industry exists to tell us the same shit about how to lose weight over and over again - variations on the same theme. And we buy it - that's the really insane thing.

I think that instead of paying for the next secret diet gig, I should be on the other end and publish my own miracle sure fire plan. Because I believe I may have found it! Are you ready? Get your checkbooks out ladies........I may just write and publish what you all have been waiting for:

Diet Secrets of a Middle Aged American Turned Parisian

This actually is not a total joke. I am on a diet (so to speak) and though it includes nothing really new (do they ever?), it is actually working, sort of fun, not difficult and pretty sustainable in the face of danger (ie: living in the capital of bread, cheese, wine, pastries) at least so far. Since February 9th I have lost about 4 pounds and though nothing to write home about, it is a start. I have in fact devised a method. A combination of things actually. Honestly, this is what every diet you read about out there does - hasn't anyone noticed that the South Beach Diet looks strangely like the Atkins Diet which looks like a cousin to the Zone Diet all of who stole from the No Carb diet.................etc

If anyone is interested I may begin to chronicle my path here along with my other ramblings. What do you think? Middle aged, jobless, newly single American suffering from among other things, post menopausal redistribution of previously camouflaged fat, embarks on several missions impossible all at once.

Which one will she succeed at first?......or more depressingly put.......will she succeed at any of them?

Watch out Brigit Jones!

Middle Age "Piles"

I realize as I continue to study the psychology of leaders, who after all are just people, I also learn a great deal about myself. The psychological hurdles that leaders of organizations attempt to jump are pretty much the same as the rest of us. One of them is the simple, yet oftentimes extraordinarily difficult, task of just getting something done.

I remember when I was a little girl I often heard my mom complain that she never got anything done. I would look around the house and I saw plenty that she had done, laundry, dinner, etc, but these things apparently didn't count to her. I recall deciding that when I was big, whatever it was that I wished to accomplish I would just do it. None of the sighing and complaining that I heard from my poor mom would be for me.

That was then and this is now. I'm no longer quite so confident. Not getting things done seems to creep up on you. Getting to be 50 years old has helped me notice the piles accumulating around me. And I am not talking about literal piles. There is that book I dream of writing, that brilliant career that hasn't quite evolved yet among other things.

I think that inertia strikes me where I feel most vulnerable. Fear of failure or lack of confidence are killers. I also get this creeping sense of impotence when faced with some of my "piles".

I think that Middle Age is the time to attack. It really is now or almost never (never say never).

Let's Go

Okay, I know, I know, I have been negligent about posting the last month or two. I ask myself again why? Lazy, busy, distracted, avoiding something, procrastinator......the list is almost endless and all those reasons are a little bit right. Today I was reading a post on a favorite blog of mine, Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist (if I ever figure out how to link I will do it here), and while she was expounding on the virtues of blogging and the benefits it can bring for your career, etc, she included saying that you need to develop a topic and a specialty in your blog so that eventually you become thought of as an expert in your field. That is one important way that blogging helps you in your career. That got me thinking for a lot of reasons. One being that I went on a job interview this week and I immediately went into my pleas-er, I'll do anything mode and have my hopes all up about getting this job. My Frenchman took a much more objective and skeptical view, starting with, why do you want this job anyway?

Uhhh.....because I need the money and crave security. This answer was inadequate for him. But I digress actually because the point of this post is not about that job. I Will get to that later if it applies. The point is that I think that I need to narrow and redirect the reason for this blog a bit to keep me interested and interesting and MAYBE to help me in my search for that nebulous career out there that I can be passionate and successful with.

So first problem - actually there are two - what is my topic (this includes who I think that my audience is) and secondly - what is my expertise that I am going to promote?

Here are my answers, I would really like your feedback if anyone is reading/listening out there.

    1. My topic is not much different than now, just more focused: Success and Happiness in Mid-Life

The first half of My Life sort of ended (that "Script" thing) so now how to proceed? Life after a mid life crisis, reinvention after a hard tumble......these are all ways to further describe what I want to talk about. I think that there is an audience for such a topic out there, I can't be the only one going through this or interested in talking about it, can I?

    2. Expertise: See #1 above. How does one become an expert? Experience. You know that old saying (I paraphrase) You can't learn how to do anything from a book.I get the most pleasure when others share their experiences with me, and listening to them (or reading them) links to my own experiences. I recognize feelings that I too have felt; I understand myself better because sometimes someone else can articulate better than can my own muddled mind so stuff becomes clearer. I have lots of "Ah Ha!" moments when this happens. It helps. A lot.

I began this blog thinking that I would talk a lot about Paris. I plopped myself here during my crisis and I thought that just being here was such a cool thing that I could fill a blog with just that, after all many others already have and written tons of books about their experiences too. I was going to do my own. Well I still think that being in Paris is a very cool thing but for me, I can't fill a whole blog about it.

So class, we are going to explore what it means to be in this stage of life that I am, what the good things and the bad things about it are. What is exciting, what is depressing, and where it all can lead.

After all, I have been studying how to be a coach/clinical organizational psychological guru for almost a year now. Best, I get on with it and start to flex my new muscles and develop an expertise in something sort of related.

As we say in French "On y va"..........(Let's go)