Kim's Fitness and Nutrition

You may have heard by now, the research is conclusive, that eating 5-7 small meals each day is one of the healthiest strategies we can use to provide our bodies with good nutrition. Of course, it goes without saying that those meals need to be balanced and quite small in comparison with the one or two meals many Americans have gotten into the habit of having. It is my observation that many people are tired of counting fat grams or calories and tired in general of watching what they eat, so they have reverted to eating once or twice a day, rationalizing that they are eating so infrequently, that certainly they should be able to eat whatever they want AND as much as they want. I am here to tell you that this is a surefire way of becoming more and more overweight.

Christmas 2007 will certainly go down in my family's history as a Christmas we all wish we could forget. My mother arrived at my brother's ahead of most of the family, and at 79, she is beginning to show some wear. She went through 4-way bypass open heart surgery in March this year and is really not fully recovered as yet. My nephew arrived next with their 18-month old son who is a shining light. He, however, had just gotten over a stomach virus, and his mommy and daddy were now coming down with it. Long story made short, this virus ripped through all of us with a vengeance, hitting my mother very hard. Less then 24 hours after she couldn't tell which end to cover first, she started with a nasty cough that worsened to the point that she could not breathe a breath without violently coughing. Needless to say, we were off to the walk-in medical clinic where we sat patiently for 3 hours, only to be sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and some cough medicine with codeine that did not seem to helping in the least. That night at midnight, after moving mom to a recliner chair in hopes she could breathe better there and get some sleep (alas, no-go), she and I jumped in the car and were off to the hospital emergency room. Although they saw her immediately due to her delicate state ... her heart and all ... we were seen as less than critical among hundreds who were there as well. Five hours later, her breathing became so labored that I went again to the nurses' station to see how much longer before a doctor could see her. They said she was next up ... thank God!

It is my belief that we have only just begun to realize the incredible power that we are all capable of. For centuries most of us have left it up to what we considered to be the geniuses of the world. The mathematicians, scientists, quantum physicists and the great thinkers to do research, experiments and make our conclusions for us. After all they were so much more qualified...or were they? Today it is my understanding that absolutely no one is more qualified to make my personal conclusions regarding me, myself and I, then I am. Think about it. How can anyone really know how I am feeling and thinking about anything. They can speculate and they can imagine what they think might be the very best thing for me but the fact is that they are thinking and imagining from their own personal perspective which has nothing to do with mine...it can?t...it?s impossible for any one of us to think or feel for another...we simply were not designed that way.

Have you ever stopped to think about how you position yourself in relation to the food you choose to eat? I am referring to how we feel about our food. Clearly there are people who don?t give it a second thought, all the way up to those of us who think of nothing but the next bite we are anticipating putting in our mouths. The range is tremendous, but it may be worth a few moments of your time to contemplate. Of late, I have become aware of this range of feelings that surround our sustenance and see some interesting correlations.

The holidays are quickly fading into memories, and 2007 has come to an end. As we all embark on a new year, give yourself permission to shift your perspective a bit and decide to approach your life from a slightly more selfish place. Before you make a judgement regarding being more selfish, please allow me to qualify that. Being selfish is never a bad thing, unless it is at the expense of another, and certainly that is not what I am recommending. The type of selfishness I am referring to is self-love, self-care, self-honoring and self-respect. It sounds simple and even logical that we would all function from this place of worthiness, but in my experience, the vast majority of us do not. We have been trained, programmed and socialized into caring for everyone else but ourselves, and then we wonder why we feel so depleted, drained and worn out.

Our emotions and the way we are feeling have a tremendous impact on the foods we select to eat. This may not be true for everyone, certainly, but for the great majority, I believe it to be the case. Just notice exactly when you find yourself craving those sweets, or just itching for something to crunch on. Stop there for a moment and ask yourself, "What am I feeling in this red- hot minute?" Sometimes we have simply gotten into the habit of using food as a way to wind down at the end of a long, hard day. It has become a way to soothe ourselves, comfort our worries, zen out, or we may simply be eating out of boredom. In any of theses cases, I would encourage you to substitute something a bit more healthy, such as a nice cup of herb tea to sip on. You may, however, as I have, find a correlation between when I am feeling less than good and the food I find myself wanting to eat.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending an Abraham-Hicks "The Science of Deliberate Creation" workshop here in Asheville, NC. I was the very first one in the "hot seat." For those who have not been to one of these gatherings, Ester Hicks begins each workshop by going into a meditative state. As she does she can allow Abraham to flow through her. They spend 15-30 minutes presenting an opening dissertation that is always very clear, uplifting and centering. After that the format is one of questions and answers. Abraham selects people from the audience to come up front, sit in the so-called "hot seat," where they then ask whatever question they have.