Be Motivated

Day #2/90

I awoke early at 6:00am. Feeling groggy. My night of sleep was restless. I was tossing and turning as both my hips hurt and my cat Griffen kept yelping into the night. Then he proceeded to sleep on my head. I love that quirky cat.

When a rose I looked in the mirror, I looked a little thinner then yesterday. Then I weighed myself, I was little depressed because I only lost 1/2 pound. Then when I moved the scale to another location it showed that I lost nothing.Yesterday, from my focused attention on the program and my low count/amazing meals, I idealized that I would lose 5 pounds that first day. Nada.

Take it in stride. If I lose nothing in the first week I will reevaluate what the heck I am doing.

Day # 2 The tarot card I pulled today was The Prince of Swords. Below is Angel Paths interpretation.  Maybe this card is sign I must master and befriend my inner critic? As he will be on fire if I do not lose weight and obtain m goals. I can lose 55 pounds in an integrative artzy way.

On a day ruled by the Prince of Swords it will be our inner world we need to direct our attention towards. We need to study our thoughts, and allow them the time to extend. Too often a thought crosses our mind and we are unable to give that thought the room to grow and develop until it achieves its maximum potential - and because this happens very often we fail to live up to ourselves too.
So try to set time aside for quiet inner contemplation when the Prince of Swords is having an influence. Think about your own opinions on given topics, not necessarily personal ones..but more general issues as well. You know, often we fail to converse with ourselves even to the extent that we converse with our acquaintances. We take for granted what we think and what we know, even though our opinions may not have been revised in years.
As constantly growing individuals, our opinions certainly will change on some subjects..and if we don't give ourselves the time to check them out every now and again, we can become alienated from our own development. This can lead to all kinds of problems - see the 8,9 and 10 of Swords for examples of this.
Ask yourself questions like..what's your favourite food? When did you last eat it? Which was your happiest holiday so far? Why? What's your current favourite garment in your wardrobe? Why? What happy memories do you have of the last week? What's the best thing that happened this year so far?
In having this conversation with yourself, you will almost certainly come across things that you had not placed much importance on before..and these things will have slid into your subconscious mind...from where they could later surface unexpectedly.
Get to know yourself.and then stay in close contact..you're the very best friend you could ever have.make friends with yourself!!

Affirmation: I look within, and grow to understand myself. 

Onward to plan my food for the day. Eggs for breakfast or oatmeal? Today I will have the bulk of my points for lunch.  
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's are my Yoga days. 

 
Tasty breakfast for day two and only four points. 1 cup of oatmeal, blackberries, 1/2 banana, cinnamon, and two teaspoons of honey. 

Roasting Vegetables is the Bomb With Salmon

Ar is Life Meal #2 for day one
Lunch and Dinner Combined.
Only 10 points on the Weight Watchers Scale.
16 points left something sweet and some Sake.

Roast Brussels Sprouts, Carrots, Onions, and Pepper
Wild Salmon Boiled in Mustard Sauce ( Horseradish mustard, onions, and garlic blending a food processor)


Cut veggies, marinate in balsamic vinegary, olive oil, smoked salt, and spice for 15 minutes or more. Bake in oven for 40 minutes.


Salmon Boiled in Mustard Sauce ( Horseradish mustard, onions, and garlic blending a food processor) Boil for 7 minutes. This time my salmon was little over done, but still delicious.

After dinner I took a nice walk around the Santa Monica Bluffs with Don around three miles. Came home and relaxed with some Sake.

 

To finish my day, I had some Maya Spice Tea and square of yummy dark chocolate. On my first day I used 31/34 points and 6 points for activity.

Rising: Daily Ritual, Coffee, and Breakfast

Day #1 Sunday, May 31st, 2015

Upon rising everyday I will pull a Tarot Card from Thoth deck to create a affirmation for the day.
This morning I pulled the 3 of Cups, Abundance. What a beautiful way to begin.

The amazing site Angel Paths, says that
The Lord of Abundance is a warm and joyous card, which indicates a rare and precious type of love - a love which, once experienced, reminds us of the richness of shared emotion and commitment.
It is also a card which refers to the wellspring of fertility, whether spiritual or material. Here we see the first seeds sown of a bright and bountiful harvest. Accordingly, the card will sometimes come up to indicate high days of celebration - like weddings or other intimate celebrations of love. 

So here's a little exercise to open yourself out and let the love flow in. This works at any time at all...whenever you try it. And remember this always....the most important time to try this exercise is when you feel lost, wounded, sad and alone.Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Give your shoulders a roll around to rid them of tension and open out your chest area. Now steady your breathing....make it easy and calm. This will encourage you to relax just a little more.
When your body feels as comfortable as you can get it to, concentrate your attention on the area right in the middle of your chest. Breathe in, keeping your attention on that centre spot. Then as you breathe out, imagine that you see a flower opening its petals, right there, in that spot. Draw in breath again, and allow it to flow into the unfurling flower. If you want to, as you breathe in you can repeat the affirmation.... 

Please try this little exercise...even if you are sceptical! I can guarantee you the results will startle you!!! 

Affirmation: The Universe welcomes and embraces me.

This is a wonderful daily ritual and really starts ones day out right.  The synchronise thing is that yesterday we had a power Creation box workshop for abundance at the Art 4 All People studios. How cool is that.

Creation Box all the intentions are sealed in the box and will manifest.

Onward with abundance to breakfast. 

Part of the process of working with the Weight Watchers plan you get a value of 34 points of food to have for your days meals. The cool thing is most veggies and fruits have a zero value. So you can eat an abundance of those.

Here is my first art is life meal. Arugula, tomatoes, roasted portobello mushrooms, and two soft boiled eggs. The total value of this meal is 8 points.

The eggs are four points and the mushroom is four points as I added a bit of oil olive and balsamic vinegar.

Yummastic Breakfast

 

Recipe 

One giant handful of Arugula

One plum tomato 

Two eggs soft boiled 

• Place eggs in pan covered with  water 
• When the water starts boiling, let eggs boil for 1 1/2 minutes. Take out of water and lets sit for a couple minutes. These ones were a little over done. Need to work on that.

Roasted Portobello mushroom . 

• Slice mushroom marinate in sauce of with smoked paprika, salt, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar
• Broil in oven for 5 -7 minutes 

Place with love on your plate and Bon Appetit!
I would rate this breakfast a five out five.  Totally low on points and totally high on flavor and nutrition. Also, for my morning ritual I will take the supplements Turmeric, Milk Thistle, and Glucosamine to heal my knees.

Onward to Target to get pedometer. So I can track my physical exercise and activity.

So the Journey Begins

  It is amazing how weight sneaks up on you. Over the past tens years or so I have gained around 55 pounds. It was kind of easy to ignore. Although, most of my clothes stopped fitting and I began to hate shopping for clothes.  And I refused to step on a scale, because it would bring me so down. Denial is an easy state to be in. Do you not agree?

I am a really healthy eater. Mostly, vegetarian. I eat tons of vegetables, eggs, and lean meats. My only downfall is I like to relax and drink sake nightly. Honestly, I am not sure were the weight came from but it is here.  I guess my metabolism has really slowed down over the years. Currently, I am 60 pounds over my ideal weight.

Day #!

In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Anyways, it is time to take action. Today I did something with my sister, Tara that I never thought I would I signed up for Weight Watchers. I thought to make it more interesting for me, I would create a blog to document it all, because I am all about Art. I am professional artist, transformative art teacher, and I co-founded to amazing Art organizations (Art 4 All People LLC and Art is Moving 501c3) both whose mission is to make Art part of every one's life.

So this blog will be my 90 day Art project. I will document the integration of Art into my life. Through making amazing arty and healthy food, making art, yoga, my weight loss, walking to Mama Ocean,and much more.

Basically I will document the integration of Art into all aspects of my life. Intending by the end of the 90 days, I will be at least 30 pounds lighter and looking radiant. As well I have developed some amazing Art and publish my first Kitty Bliss book.

Lets see what transpires and let the Art of Life journey begin.