Lost 100

The Lessons of the Chopsticks

If you're like me, the thought of going for sushi makes you sweat.  Not the food, the food rocks--it's whole and fresh and good for you and so delicious that if you had the money you'd take out an add in the NYTimes and tell everyone (okay, maybe you'd just post it on your Facebook or Twitter account, but still).  The sweaty pits?...it's the chopsticks.  My little wooden twin adversaries...they taunt me with their perfect posture and hygiencially wrapped attitude.  I hyperventilate at the thought a dinnermate might laugh at my ineptitude. 

It isn't that I haven't tried to use chopsticks.  I've tried using chopsticks in Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Burmese restaurants.  I've had tutorials, I've watched YouTube, I've been humiliated by children and elderly alike.  My most likely to succeed move was the poke.  'You're not suppose to poke the food with a chop stick,' you say.  Ya, well, buzz off-I do!  My husband is mortified.  Waitresses gather behind the curtain to giggle.  Children point.  I ask for a fork.  Friends have stated to me "I feel most comfortable with chopsticks in my hand."  I secretly think, 'I wonder how they would feel up your...'  Whoa!  See, the chop sticks are making me lose it!

However, recently I went on a vacation.  I had some goals:  Relax.  Don't return e-mail.  Don't read small children books at 8PM.  Go dancing.  And use chopsticks for an entire meal.  I didn't want to tempt fate, so I told no one of my grand plan.  We land in San Francisco and after checking into our hotel immediately head to Chinatown.  They bring me a fork.  I see NYC decided to call ahead and warn their West Coast sister city.  Thanks for nothing.

My husband is in a better mood than normal (maybe it's that we aren't paying a babysitter and he can't get called into work or the fact that I've already made an ass of myself at the airport and he figures it's out of the way already)...he begins a new tutorial.  Bend the wrist.  Check.  Loosen your grip.  My plastic (yes- a step up!) have fallen on the table and floor.  The waiter scurries over to bring me a new set and apologize.  Um, I'm the one that dropped them, please stop apologizing.  Oh crap.  He has 10 more sets in his front pocket--what have I gotten myself into?!

Lunch was not as successful as I would have dreamed, but I did manage to have a couple bites of hubbie's chow mein direct from the chop sticks.  Round 2:  Dinner.  We head for sushi.  We share a bottle of wine and we are presented with gorgeous porcelein chop sticks (I look around for the reality TV cameras, and check if they have placed padding around our table).  Must drink more wine.  And then it happens.  I decide to fess up:  "Rod, I am going to eat this entire meal with the chopsticks."  He promises not to try to steal the food I don't grab on the first dozen attempts.  It's fun.  We're laughing.  He sits next to me.  We laugh some more, I eat an entire dragon roll.  We finish all our food, all our wine and we are still laughing and even (ahem) nuzzling each other.  Someone asks if we're on our honeymoon.  I laugh harder, if they only knew!

Husband points out that I have just eaten an entire meal with nothing but chopsticks.  No fingers.  No forks.  And best of all, the 'poke' didn't figure into the equation!  We go on to eat 3 more meals with chopsticks that week.  Today, between meetings I ran into this new wok restaurant in the center of town.  I placed my take out order:  brown rice, shrimp, bok choy & onions.  She asked, do you need a fork or chopsticks.  Chopsticks I say.  Whoa!  Yep, I really want them. 

I proceed to eat the entire meal with chopsticks and can't believe I never 'got it' before.  What's funny is that 3 weeks ago I would have told you I would NEVER learn to eat with chopsticks.  I was a lost cause.  But the thing is, like anything in life, give it some air, some attention and some (positive) attitude and you will likely be successful.  A few platitiudes come to mind here:

Whether you think you can or you think you can't:  you're right!  ~Henry Ford

"Never, never, never, never, never, never give up!"  ~Winston Churchill

 

What can you change your perception of right now?  What do you think you 'can't' do that you can?  You CAN live the life you always dreamed of!  Hey, just look at me, I'm doing it, one chopstick at a time!

Trees

I'm still on vacation, so this is just a short & sweet note about trees.  We went for a hike in the Redwoods yesterday and I must say that trees are amazing!  The redwoods, we learned, grow in these little clusters or families.  Even when one part dies, the rest of the tree goes right on living.  You can see spots of fire damage and catastrophic falls from other trees, but the tree goes right on living.  Sure, life might be different, but life remains.  Reminds me of the beautiful scenes from the movie Avatar.  Nature always wants to return to homestasis, to a place of wellness.  We can learn a lot from nature and trees...

Fun Updates from a very hilly city

Ricearoni.  The Maltese Falcon.  Hills.  Austentatious mansions.  The Palace of Fine Arts.  The Giants & 49'ers.  Chinatown.  Fisherman's Wharf.  Cablecars.  The Slow Food Movement.  Sonoma.  Muir Woods.  Redwoods.  Yoga.  Tantra.  Alcatraz.  Sweatshirt weather year round.  Golden Gate Bridge.

Where am I?  I'm sure you guessed it after Ricearoni, which for the record I haven't seen ANY ricearoni here in SanFran!  But I have eaten at Burma Superstar, an authentic Burmese restaurant that was to-die-for AND raises money for a good cause-the liberation of Burma!  The food was amazing--the salads are mixed tableside (like guacamole in an authentic or pseudo-authentic Mexican restaurant) and have amazing raw ingredients like tea leaves and a host of seeds and nuts.  Curries, coconut rice, refresing teas, melt-off-the-bone chicken and lots of veggies.

We also ate at a slow-food urban farmers market.  The slow food movement is all about local, organic, fresh, etc.- check out www.slowfoodusa.org for more info.  I met someone from a dried kale company that literally was the yummiest new thing I've had in awhile.  I could have eaten an entire tub of dried kale in about 5 minutes.  Fresh, local and amazing.  I'm going to do my best to beg, plead, cajole them to send some to NYC (which I realize makes no sense since they are working on the local aspect--but hey, it's all about me sometimes-haha)!  If you want to check them out, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mighty-Mouth-Foods/149157505118102  or @driednotfried on Twitter.

Besides all the amazing and healthy food we've been eating we have been getting in several miles of walking/day- and we can feel it!  These hills are unlike anything I've ever seen!  Today we are setting out on bikes to check out parts of the city that are too far to walk to in a day, to bike the Golden Gate Bridge, bike around Salsalito and other areas.  Looking forward to it!

Tomorrow we head to Santa Cruz for a surfing lesson.  Yes.  I'm going surfing.  You know why?  Because I'm done letting things hold me back in life.  I am fit and and I'm going to live my life.  Sure, I'd love to have a great bikini body before I go surfing, but I want to say to any women (or men for that matter) out there, to stop letting things hold you back from LIVING.  Live out loud.  When you EMBRACE LIFE, when you love your life and yourself you'll start making changes to support that.  So go out and do something today that you never thought possible- you'll honor yourself through that action!

Yesterday I participating in an art project at the Museum of Modern Art here in San Francisco.  'You're an artist, Jennifer?'  Yes, I am.  It dawned on me as I looked at the pictures they had posted of these amazing artists who were guests of MOMSF just like me.  I am an artist.  And this is what I wrote:  My art is my words, my art is my embracing of life, my art is helping women, empowering women to love themselves, their body, their life!  Every woman is beautiful in her particular way!  And I really believe that!  When we step back and look at something through a different lense, through new eyes we can see it!  Sure, I'm no Picasso, no Matisse.  But I'm Jennifer Griola.  I matter, I have worth.  AND SO DO YOU!!!!!!

Cheers!

1/2 Marathon Training is in Full Swing!

A quick update to let you know that the 1/2 Marathon training is at full tilt!  I'm 1 month out.  I've been sidelined recently by some unexpected illnesses with my kids and myself (nothing heavy duty, just your run of the mill stomach bugs/ colds--but they can do a number on you when you're training!).  The plan right now is to run 3 days during the week and do a long run on the weekends (with cross-training/yoga/swimming on 2 other days of the week).  This past weekend was 6 miles, but I'm upping it to 8 next weekend.  9 on the 13th, 10 on the 20th, 8 on the 27th and the race is on the 3rd.  I'm also considering a 2nd Half Marathon mid-May just to keep the training going.  One of the biggest barriers I had last year was my training trailed off quickly after my 1/2...I'd like to keep it going through the spring and summer this year. 

Finally, my other big, personal news is that I have officially quit drinking coffee!  It's been 2 weeks.  I feel great and have SO much energy (I will say the withdrawal was hard on me, I was laid up on the couch for nearly 2 days with no energy--but once I got over the hump it's been a well received change).

What are you up to? 

Little Epiphanies: What if we viewed weight like a garden?

I was talking with my friend Rita the other day, Rita is a spiritual life coach who rocks, and I said to her: 'I have no idea what skinny, rich women do all day or what they think about'. And in a very real way I was being serious. I put on a few pounds since my half marathon, and while I haven't had to buy new clothes things are tight & I sometimes feel obsessed about weight gain/ not losing/ cheating. What I would give to not feel consumed by the scale...

Then it hit me. Smack in the middle of my not-so-sculpted tummy. What if we treated weight (and for that matter money too) a little like we do our garden. I like my hydrangeas- they are purple and blue and pink and just luscious: I don't spend a lot of time thinking about them- they are just there. They are part of my life, part of my world, but my whole world does not revolve around them. I trust they will look beautiful. Sometimes I do some weeding, sometimes I say: 'oops- weeds, need to pay a bit more attention!'. But most of the time they aren't on the radar and my mind is free. What if we needed to think LESS about it, instead of more? What if our choices were based in self love and because they support us living in the way we want, and not because if we choose the opposite we are afraid of the consequence... What if?  I like that world...

1/2 marathon expo!

My 1/2 marathon is tommorrow! So excited! And SO ready! I look great, I feel great! I can't believe I'm 'here'!

Here's a pic from the health & wellness expo that Fitness & More put on. Lots of great people & super cool products. I must admit I enjoyed the shwag & endulged my shopping diva spirit at many a booth!

Plus who doesn't want to hang at the roseland ballroom in NYC?!

Lots of unsolicited product reviews to follow in the weeks to come :-)

Am I a FAIR WEATHER FRIEND?

So, as you know, I have been training for a 1/2 Marathon at the end of the month--yeah!  Here's something I've noticed in my training...I can pretty much think up any excuse to not run if it's too rainy, too hot, too anything...

Am I, gasp, a 'fair weather friend' to running?  Can one call themselves an honest-to-God runner if they are only running when the conditions are good?  I mean, what if I wake up the morning of Sunday, April 25th & there's a torrential downpour?  Would I still run the race?  If I didn't run the race, am I a complete douchebag? 

This is the nonsense that goes through my mind as I contemplate the lessons and answers my running is bringing me.

How about you?  Do you run in all conditions? 

I did it! 15k/ 9.3 miles!!!

I really enjoyed the run today- for the first timei felt like I understood that there wasn't any competition- it was about the journey, my experience, and it was literally 'my race'.

I also realized if I could run 9.3 miles the 1/2 marathon in 4 weeks is definitely achievable!

I feel great- never got winded, rather my legs, hips & glutes are sore- nothing some yoga & pilates this week won't stretch out.

I am really happy- I remember less than 4 years ago I couldn't even run 1/4 of a mile.

If I can do it- so can you!!!!!

Inspiration from Bill

I'm acquaintances with Bill Germanakos (season 4 winner of the biggest loser). He recently said this:

People are always asking me for the answer as to how to motivate themselves to get off the couch. How's this? Get rid of the f...ing couch.

What are some of the things you would like to 'get rid of'? No excuses! Do you need to cancel cable? Do you need to stop buying chocolate? What do you NEED to do to stop making excuses?

Part of Loving Each Other is Exercising Together!

I just want to comment that because of my dear mother-in-law my hubby & I were able to sneak away to a hotel for the night on Valentines Day.  A night without the 2 year old and 3 year old was divine.  But you know what was even better?  The fact that once we checked into the hotel we both desired to go for a 5-mile run together in Central Park.  It's no secret, running together has set our marriage on fire.  No kidding.  Moreover, it feels really good to know that what helps mark a great date together isn't just some delicious meal, drink or dessert; but an activity that renews us physically, spiritually, individually, yet celebrated together.  A wonderful feeling to know our physical health is important to us both! 

Do you exercise with your significant other, sibling, BFF?  What benefits have you found?