Author: Angela Pea

Wife. Mother. Engineer. Cancer Survivor. Knitter of Marvelous Things. Rider of Multiple Bikes. Fabulous Cook. Reader of All the Books. Eternal Optimist. Perpetually Happy.
healthy

PSA#10 – Consistency

Angela Pea2 Comments

consistency [kuhn-sis-tuhn-see]

n. pl. consistencies

1. Agreement or logical coherence among things or parts; correspondence among related aspects; compatibility.
2. Reliability or uniformity of successive results or events
3. Degree of density, firmness or viscosity.

Why is consistency so important in getting healthy and staying there?  Why is it important to ANY challenge you take on? Because it works.

Check out the definition above. Consistency means agreement among parts/compatibility, reliability and firmness. When we’re talking about weight loss and finding your healthy self, consistency is your power tool.

Compatibility – Are you compatible with yourself? I mean, Can you get your head, your heart and your body all going in the same direction at the same time? Yes, it’s a challenge for most of us on any given day, but it can be done. Your body wants to be healthy and strong – that’s how it was formed. Your mind is an amazing motivator. Encourage yourself! Look in the mirror and say “Hot Dang, Girlfriend! You’re BEAUTIFUL!!”

(Aside…your mind can also an incredible destroyer. Stop bashing yourself! Go read this.)

Are you being reliable? I’m not talking about having the exact same loss posted every week and eating exactly 1200 calories per day with a precisely measured 100 oz. cup of water. I mean the kind of reliable that you build by developing habits that will ensure your own weight loss success. Can you rely on yourself to make the right food choice, to drink [water] like there’s no tomorrow, to move your body, to love yourself enough to fight for your life?

Firmness. Not your mattress, your head. Mental Tough. Tough enough to say no to garbage food, tough enough to exercise when you don’t want to. Tough enough to walk away from a donut. I wasn’t simply being flippant when I typed “…love yourself enough to fight for your life;” this is seriously a fight for your life. Don’t buy it? What is obesity doing for you? Nothing but destroying your pancreas and making you insulin resistant. Nothing but putting excessive pressure on your heart and lungs. Nothing but sucking the life right out of you. It’s killing you slowly. Me? I’m not ready to die.

It’s time to FIGHT, my friends! Time to put on the armor of Consistency, get out there and fight for our health. It’s time to make a plan and track what you eat. It’s time to get off your behind and move, Move, MOVE!! Get that heart pumping, sweat until your panties are dripping and build up some strength.

You’ve got to get stronger because this is a long, uphill climb, and it will take its toll on you, both mentally and physically. You’ve got to get stronger because time is not on your side, and Life will jump up and throw hurdle after hurdle after hurdle in your path. You’ve got to get stronger because me and everyone else that follows your story aren’t going to be satisfied until you reach your goals. ~ Jack Sh*t

(Ahem. I’m sort of liking the Xena Viking Warrior look. Do you think it’s available in pink?)

Be a Warrior. Keep the Faith.

EMail Anglea Pea

healthy

Minutes – June 3

Angela Pea4 Comments

::faithful

Praying for

  • more young friends as they graduate from high school – they are all so excited about going off to college!
  • the mothers of these young friends as they look to their [grown] babies with wistful eyes, remembering their chubby baby legs and toothless smiles.

Grateful for

Mr. Pea!!  Thursday was our twenty-sixth wedding anniversary!

And This!

Yes, this is completely worldly, but by golly, I am over the moon with our new dishwasher.  Our old one broke, about ten months ago. We were investigating remodeling the entire kitchen, as it’s twenty years old now and could use some serious structural face lifting. However, life became more complicated, funds were needed elsewhere and the renovations were put on hold.  But I still didn’t have a dishwasher.  I have many children who have been washing dishes by hand, but it becomes tiresome to keep after them, and on school nights I usually excused them from kitchen patrol so they could finish their homework and study.

Memorial Day Sales, a coupon and a tax-free pass, along with reminding Mr. Pea that when we do remodel in the future we can simply KEEP THE DISHWASHER, brought this lovely to my kitchen.  So sweet.  So silent.  So efficient.

::healthy

Exercise was great this week, too, up until Friday.  Still learing to use the clipless pedals, I took another fall.  This time, though, the chainring bit the back of my leg.  It looks like a swirly tattoo with a string of holes at the end of it. Totally freaked out the guy in the Botanic Garden, as blood was dripping down my leg and leaving marks on the walkway. I thought he was going to faint.

The blurry camera phone snapshot is my leg today.  Note the ripped (as in buff, not actually torn open, though it could be interpreted as such given the rad abrasion below it) calf muscle.    Said “holes” are to the right. Mr. Pea says if I don’t stop falling soon, he’s going to take my bike away.

Weight Maintenance – down a few pounds again.  Must have been the blood loss. 🙂

::delicious

On tap for this week – Grilled Chicken and massaged kale salad; italian roast sandwiches and summer squash; hamburgers with cucumber and tomato salad; turkey paninis.  Oh Glory Be!!  Cherries are coming into season!!  Peaches, too!

::creative

On the needles – a pair of slippers that I made as a pattern tester. I need to felt them, then I’ll post a picture.  A pistachio green cotton baby blanket.  That second mitten has taken a back seat.

::fun

I’m reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with DirtBike.  It’s his summer reading assignment.   I just finished Ape House by Sara Gruen.  Eh.  I liked Water for Elephants better.

::looking ahead

Dirt Bike starts summer school for math this week.  He’s going to do GREAT!!  We’ll also be starting a Spanish course at home – we’re all going to learn a little bit this summer.  Long day trip to visit a client up near Oklahoma, which means several hours of solitude in the car. I can listen to music and sing out loud, and play my favorite podcasts, like Catholic in a Small Town and Under the Hood!

 Record the Minutes.  Keep the Faith.

EMail Anglea Pea

fun

Midweek – May 30 – Hail and Indulgence

Angela Pea4 Comments

Summer is upon us.

We rolled out of bed this morning to the sound of distant thunder.  Within ten minutes it was extremely loud and by minute, oh, twelve, the winds picked up and the sky exploded.  Buckets of rain and another pummeling with marble size hail. It was coming down so fast and furious that the hail piled up in the corners of the patio.  It sounded like buffalo stampeding across the roof.  Thank goodness for the invention of 50-Year Hail Resistant Roof Shingles.

Some of you may know that I’m into mountain biking.  I picked it up when The Architect first started riding off-road.  He was only 13 at the time, so an adult had to go with him.  Mr. Pea and I have been road bikers since we were dating, so we figured, “Hey!  How hard can it be to ride in the dirt?”  It’s hard.  Mr. Pea hated it, I loved it.  I got voted as the official chaperone for off-road biking and I’ve been tagging along with The Architect and Cherry Ames ever since. (Mr. Pea sticks to the road with Princess Pea and DirtBike.)  I don’t ride with The Architect anymore because I can’t keep up and I don’t care for jumping over things.  I go ride the green and blue loops while he crashes through the rest of the woods with his team.

Up until just a few weeks ago, I’ve been riding on a borrowed mountain bike. Friends of ours were rebuilding their garage/guest house, and we kept their bicycles and other outdoor stuff in our storage for the 18 month duration.  I used my friend’s mountain bike that entire time.  It’s a fabulous Specialized model, light and strong.  Their remodel was now complete, and after cleaning up her bike, replacing the saddle and grips and buying her a new set of tires, I had to give it back.  Lady Penelope, my cruiser bike, just isn’t suitable for dirt single track or climbing.  I was about to lose my ride, as a new bike of a similar caliber to the Specialized cost more than I was willing to pay on a bike for myself.   Seriously.  A new bike?  Or a month’s worth of groceries?  Yeah. you get the picture.  So I started stalking Craig’s List.  Every day there were dozens of bikes listed, but they were either too expensive, too broken or (mostly) too big.  I’m short. VERY short. But not short enough for a kid size bike.

The Architect and a friend of mine were helping in the search. The Architect hit pay dirt. he emailed me at work.  “MOM!!!  You HAVE to see this! It’s the right size!! It’s in the price range!!”  I clicked and pulled up the link, and just about screamed out loud.  I was on the phone immediately, bargaining the price down then begging them to hold the bike because I was on my way.  I took an early lunch and drove to the complete other side of the Metroplex to check it out.  It’s an older model, hardly ridden and in pristine condition.  I handed over the cash to snag this sweetness:

Yes.  It’s PINK!!!!  A grown-up’s mountain bike that’s just my size with awesome shocks and hydraulic disc brakes and it’s PINK!!  And the Pea Family still gets to eat this month. Which is good, because this one:

keeps growing.

Splurge on something ridiculous.  Keep the Faith.

EMail Anglea Pea