They lead to you



I love how my cheeks look after walking in the cold (for an hour!)

I am day 4 into a 7 day protein based diet.

I am trying to jumpstart my weight loss which has stalled a little.

So, since I am avoiding food and trying to reflect on the progress I've made, I figured I'd share what I've come to love over the last year as I've worked on my health

1. I love the feeling you get when you come inside after walking out in the cold. The numb, tingly feeling, the red cheeks, the strong desire for a mug of hot chocolate- it reminds me of my childhood. I haven't made myself go out in the cold in years really and walking/running has forced me to. And reminded me how much I love it.

2. I love the feeling of when you put on some piece of clothing and you can feel that it is even just the tiniest bit looser. It's such a better feeling than the feeling of shoving yourself into jeans that once fit just fine.

3. I love just being able to take pictures and put them on facebook or this blog without trying to get the perfect angle to hide my chubby cheeks or make me look thinner. I still have the chubby cheeks and a long way to go but I'm more confident now. I don't care if people judge me:) 

4. I love the feeling of sore muscles. My shins are burning right now because I went up ten lbs in my leg curls this morning. But the burn always makes me think that it's my muscles waking up. (after a long, long sleep)

Anyway, I hope this post doesn't come across as sanctimonious. 

My point in writing is that I always thought changing my life would be so torturous and dreadful. 

And; don't get me wrong, there are parts that are SO HARD they make me want to cry.

But there is some awesome stuff I've discovered along the way:) 

Lori Ann

p.s.- Tomorrow's topic- what my therapist told me today..it was eye opening! 

Told a few thousand stories

Here are a few stories that I don't want to forget (therefore they must be written in this blog and live in infamy forever!)

* The other night I stopped by my sister's house to steal umm...borrow Halloween candy from the children. Of course I was in my pajamas and of course I yelled as soon as I walked in the door "I'm here for the candy!" and....of course, the missionaries were there. BUT, that is not even the best part of the story. So, I was sitting around the table with my nieces and nephews and I said "I want to talk about my clients and how my day went today" and without missing a single beat Jack-Jack says "I want to talk about explosives" and then James says "I want to talk about League of Legends (a video game), and Elly says "I want to talk about sports" and Katy closes with "I want to talk about cats". It was HILARIOUS.

* James, upon learning that he had to go to school on Veteran's Day, apparently had a meltdown of epic proportions, yelling "what? They won't even give us the day off to honor our Veterans?" (This from the same child who; when I asked him the day before what a Veteran was, stated "they come and take care of your animals")

* Elly scored 3 (almost 4- she keeps reminding us) goals at her last soccer game on Saturday. On Sunday, she was sitting in the row ahead of me. Every couple of minutes she kept turning around and holding up 3 fingers and nodding solemnly. That girl is crazy.

* Apparently Katy keeps going to visit Uncle Dave's apartment (in my sister's basement). Danielle was asking Dave what Katy wanted down there. Without hesitation he replied "chips". It doesn't sound that funny but it was- there was no "oh, she comes down to play or watch movies" it was just a clear, firm "chips".  Later, when I picked him up from work, he described feeling intense pressure to give her the chips or there were going to be negative consequences for him :)

Ok, so I am going back to therapy tomorrow. Brace yourselves. I cannot even imagine what will happen.

Lori Ann

Run, run, run

A strange, up close selfie. I have no memory of taking this picture.

Ignore the fact that I apparently can't spell marathon

November's Training schedule (W/O stands for workout)


You guys..I am officially registering this Friday.

For THIS  half marathon

My personal goal is to half run/ half walk. Alternating back and forth. 7 miles run and 6 walked.

WISH ME LUCK!!!

136 days to go!

Lori Ann

Of stopping

Do not let the fact that I am up at 6 am taking pictures of the snow fool you into thinking I am back in my manic phase.

Or the fact that I'm about to go out and walk a few miles in it before going to the gym. 

Or the fact that these are just 2 items on my 23 item to do list for today.

Not manic. (I feel the urge to write that like 19 times in a row) 

Ok, so a little manic.

Anyway,

Let it snow!

Lori Ann

Who doesn't know what I'm talking about

You guys, 

You know how I always plan to start these weekly features and then kind of forget about them after a week or two?

It's happening again. Yes!

My new weekly feature (inspired by Meliss) will be...

FREE THERAPY!!

What good is it to read the blog of a therapist if you aren't getting some free therapy out of it?

So, every Sunday my blog shall be dedicated to providing you with some amazing therapeutic tool or insight.

Let the healing begin!!

Today's FREE THERAPY....

"it is a psychological fact that we treat ourselves the way we were treated as children"

I often share that quote with my clients who were children of addicts or who come from abusive homes. 

What starts out as our parents voices in our heads eventually becomes the same words, but in our own voice.

Sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it is bad. 

In my life it has been both.

I never doubt my intelligence- I can still hear my parents voices telling me that I am smart. It's my voice telling me that now and I have always been very confident in my intelligence. 

I struggle with feeling like I am a deep down lazy person. That's something my dad would say alot (because he was probably frustrated by the never ending mess!). I constantly worry that other people are going to judge me as lazy and if I leave something, it's my voice now saying "stop being so lazy. You are such a slob" etc. 

The thing is that those kind of self castigating thoughts neither motivate nor inspire real change. Guilt and shame are not long term motivating emotions. 

So... I guess the first step in changing the negative thoughts is to be able to recognize them. Then challenge them. Then replace them.

Easier said than done. 

Yikes..I feel like this feature could get pretty boring, pretty quickly. 

Hang in there. We'll get to the more festive therapy stuff soon!

The therapy where I make you look in a mirror and say "You are a sexy creature" over and over.  That's coming, trust me. 

Lori Ann

It goes like this

A concept that I teach a lot of my clients is what I call "filling your bucket".  Which means doing things that are rejuvenating for you, that fill you with joy, that make you deep down happy- so that they will serve as a sort of emotional reserve to get you through tough times. 

A few things lately that have filled my bucket:

Moving a piano with my dad and siblings. As a family we did a lot of things together growing up-delivering newspapers, helping my mom close down the pizza hut at night, bagging groceries for everyone in front of us in line, plus a million more things. Doing things with my siblings with my dad barking out orders brings me back to a happy place from my childhood. All that was missing today was Eri:(

Then later, Danielle and I played Heart and Soul on the piano. It was so fun and it made us hope that Elly and Katy will be doing the same kind of thing 30 years from now. 

Watching Elly play soccer. She scored 3 goals today! You can see how happy it makes her and that makes me so happy. Sitting on the side of that field, with my nieces and nephews, on a chilly Pennsylvania fall day is pretty close to my idea of heaven.

one of my favorite fall pictures from last year

I had a 'bucket list' lunch with some of my coworkers this past week. I brought subway and we all met for an hour and talked about our life goals. It was me, our medical secretary, our office manager, a nurse practitioner and the psychiatrists kept popping in and out. It makes me happy to work in a place where I feel supported and where I can support others.

Dave and I took the kids to see "Free birds" last night at this weird little cheap theater in the town next to us. Kind of a boring movie (for me) but seeing the kids squabbling over seats and trading candy and laughing through the movie made me deep down happy. 

Working out. I still dread it, I'm not going to lie. But leaving the gym, feeling my muscles burning, knowing that I'm going to be sore the next day- it's rejuvenating and makes me feel like I can do anything in the world.

Tomorrow I am going to make the whole family Sunday dinner and do my visiting teaching and go walking and go to church and I think it will fill my bucket enough to get me through the long week ahead:) 

Anyway, I hope you; dear readers, are doing things that fill your bucket. 

Lori Ann

You worry too much

You guys,

My coworkers know about this blog now. 

Yikes.

I'm probably going to jail.

Maybe I will be fired. 

They will know that I am crazy

They are going to be so jealous of my insanely awesome life:) 

Lori Ann

p.s.- The packages OFFICIALLY went out today. I've got tracking numbers and everything. I bet all of Australia is finding it hard to sleep tonight:!!  (or this morning..or whatever time it is there)

p.p.s.- I told my father that I was going to punch him in the face today. Should I be insulted that he laughed? 

p.p.s.- When I told my mom I had diagnosed myself with anxiety she was like "I don't know, honey. You seem kind of manic to me." That's right. She called me bipolar. Wait until I tell my therapist... :)