TJ Hirst

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

Today is the day to report progress and results for the June Reading Challenge and the other Try It With Me Tuesday Challenges for the month. They included:

Read food labels this month to be more aware of servings size and nutritional value.

Write down everything you eat for one week.

Eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables per day for one week.

Did you try them with me? If so, leave a comment below about the one(s) you tried and tell me how it changed your eating habits. If you would like to write a post on your own website about what you did, you can include your link in the comments or send it to me, and I will publish it for you.

Read food labels this month to be more aware of serving size and nutritional value.

This part of the challenge educated me. I was in denial about how much and what I actually eat. My awareness prompted me to seek out new foods and foods I used to eat but gave up to accommodate family eating plans. Keeping an eye on nutrition facts also changed what I ate when eating out. During the week that I was on vacation I discovered smaller a la carte items like wraps with veggies to replace “the meal” or “basket” options on the menu. Ironically, reading toward better eating showed me that the foods I need most are those that are not pre-packaged with easy labels but whole foods that don’t come in a box.

Write down everything I eat for one week.

Keeping a food journal for one week and then recording my servings of fruits and vegetables the following week steered me toward proper serving sizes and amounts. Recording held me accountable to myself. I also identified the patterns of why I eat. For instance, the weekend days of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday needed a whole note page to themselves, rather than just the half pages for Monday-Thursday.

I must be a social eater. Peer influence, especially in a family, to change what you eat is tough. However, my children decided to modify our butter usage and change to Smart Balance. And I let everyone know that I am eating for me, now, and not for them. Consequently the important change I have made is to eat when I am hungry.

Eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables per day for one week.

I needed this “requirement” on myself to eat better foods, not just cut out junk foods, as the last challenge of the month. It was the one that most changed what I eat. It was easier because my children used the worksheets I printed from Dole’s website and tried this challenge with me.

We drastically changed what we ate, especially by choosing fruits and vegetables for our snacks over crackers or packaged snacks.

Thanks to a comment from my friend Alison about V8 Fusion, I started drinking V8 juice again, which I love, but stopped buying because no one drank it but me. My current afternoon snack is now a serving of V8 juice, which is an easy way to get 2 servings of vegetables.

Well, my goals this month have been mostly to receive a healthy education and motivation to eat better than ever. In the past I have reduced my food intake but never started with a shift in lifestyle thinking. That’s what I needed after fifteen years of shopping and cooking for the needs of a family. This has been about changing my meal-planning and shopping and cooking habits as much as anything. Fortunately, I do feel the support of my children and my husband and that’s going to make the biggest difference for me in long-term success.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

Michelle’s feet swelled overnight on the first day of the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. In the morning she could barely fit into her second pair of shoes, New Balance cross trainers. If only she had thought to bring extra shoes to wear to the showers for some relief. She walked another 20 miles that day with her toes squeezed together in those too-tight shoes. A long toenail cut into another toe. And somewhere along the route through the city streets of Minneapolis, blood seeped through the mesh and covered the top of her shoes.

Years earlier Michelle made a goal for herself in a women’s health class at college. The instructor asked each student to set a 3-month goal, a 1-year goal, and a 5-year goal. At the same time, she sought to know her mother who had died from breast cancer when Michelle was 10 and learn more about herself in the process.

She kept asking herself, “My mom died so long ago. Why does it still affect me now?” Her answer, “Because she had been gone so long, I needed to find her. In finding her, I was finding myself.”

Her 3-month goal was to train for and run in the 5k Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in her community. “I wanted to make a connection with this disease that took her life and do something physically constructive,” she said. She also ran the 5k the next year and then discovered the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk.

Her mom became sick at a young age and died at 36. Michelle was approaching that age, herself, when she committed to participate in the 3-Day. Even though she struggled to raise the $2000 to participate and find someone to walk with her, she persevered—in the fund raising and in her heartfelt desire to connect with her mom.

Michelle worried she wouldn’t have the right equipment. She had a good pair of New Balance shoes that fit comfortably. But she needed two pairs. At a local department store, she bought a second pair—cross-training shoes by Rykä. In hindsight, she wished she had purchased shoes a ½ size bigger than she needed.

The organizers made sure the walk was as comfortable as possible, providing encouragement and nourishment at stations along the way and in the tent camps at night. The food satisfied. And the volunteers served it with humor and positive comments that kept her going. Survivors shared their stories to motivate walkers.

The walk itself was not the challenge. The challenge came for Michelle in walking through the pain in her feet, aggravated by her shoes. Organizers had encouraged walkers to bring Vaseline, apparently to use between their toes. Michelle thought her Chapstick was what she needed, and she developed blisters underneath her toenails. “My feet hurt so bad. If I stopped, I wondered if I would be able to start again.”

Michelle put on her Rykä shoes on the third morning of the walk. They widened at the top around the toes, giving her the extra space she needed to complete the final day of the 60-mile walk. Having never found someone to join her in the walk, she walked on her own. She met interesting women along the way. Some with a connection to places she had lived. Others with stories of their own. All there for the same cause.

“It’s a strange thing; that disease had already taken her life,” Michelle said about her mom. “In walking, I wasn’t going to fund medicine to help her get better. But I felt a physical need to work some of that emotion out, to let out some of those hard and sad feelings.”

The last 20 miles wound through the old avenues of St. Paul, past neighborhoods of large, beautiful older homes and through parks with ponds or lakes. She completed her 3-Day 60-mile walk at the Minnesota State Capital building. “Physically, I could have kept walking, if my feet would have allowed it.”

Even at the end, the pain continued. Michelle’s feet burned and tingled. All the participants waited for every last person to finish walking. Waiting for the others prolonged it. She later lost several toenails, which she even considered selling on eBay to raise more money to benefit breast cancer research.

Healing came. The walk was a stepping stone to later experiences when she felt her mom close. “I felt that I was growing more whole as a person, which is how I see her.”

She still owns and wears the Rykä shoes that she wore to the finish line, even though she has worn a hole through the bottom. “If I could ever find another pair of shoes like those ones, I’d buy a bunch of them.”

This post is an entry in the Scribbit May Write-Away Contest.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

My bottle of choice for the challenge to drink more water is a Peach Propel bottle. We buy and drink Propel regularly, but I refill with my real daily drink—filtered WATER from the fridge. My goal was to drink at least three bottles per day. At 23.7 oz each that is just over 70 oz (excluding additional water for exercise). I met that goal every day except one. The supportive connections from readers, friends and family helped me to succeed. Thank you.

The day that I did not reach my goal provided some insight about lifestyle changes for health. That day was during spring break from school. Although my children took a “break” from their normal routines, I had tried to keep mine, especially my morning routine, close to the same. But on Friday I took a “break.” I slept late and did not exercise. And it wasn’t until 11:15 in the morning that I filled up my bottle.

This makes me think there is a correlation that when I participate in good health habits I am more likely to participate in others. In other words, either I am doing them or I am taking a “break”. Have you found this?

Despite this lapse, I saw health improvements (like clearer sinuses) that cause me to believe that simple changes like an increase of water and other daily lifestyle choices are an important contributor to good health.

What experiences have you had with drinking more water? I would love your feedback. Leave a comment below.

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One more week for the March Reading Challenge. My self-imposed challenge to read a biography by Tuesday, April 1, is pressing upon me and maybe on those of you who are trying it with me.

If you are participating, whether you are finished or not, plan to connect with me here next Tuesday and share what you gleaned from this experience. Leave me a comment on Tuesday, April 1, telling me what biography you read, a few facts about the person in the biography, and something that person did or said that inspires you.

→ If you would rather publish your thoughts on your own website, I will publish your link on April 1. Here’s what to do:

1. Write a post on your website.
2. Include a link to my website or the March Reading Challenge in the body of that post.
3. Send me your link by Monday, March 31, 6 p.m. (CDT)

I am suffering from a chronic condition, sinusitis. The pressure in my head for more than two months has been intense. I just finished my third round of antibiotics. Both the sickness and the cure are wearing me out with fatigue. The effect on my mood has been obvious.

Yesterday we visited a young girl, a friend of my eight-year-old daughter, who is also suffering. She has kidney stones, rare for someone so young, and has undergone surgery and anticipates another one. The effect on her mood was indistinguishable from the normal happy child she is.

Her expressions in the midst of her pain and discomfort were the opposite of what I would anticipate. She grinned the whole time we visited. Not only that, her smile was contagious.

We were all grinning with her—seeing the upbeat prospects for her recovery and feeling relief that we have modern technology to help her.

Our visit left me with a desire to smile more often.

Check out my challenge tomorrow with my first “Try-It-With-Me Tuesday.”

“Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?”

My family just participated in the monthly day of fasting in our church. To fast is go without food and drink voluntarily for a certain period of time, usually 24 hours. Fasting combined with sincere prayer can help us receive God’s blessings. A study presented to the American Heart Association in December suggests that regular fasting may have cardiovascular benefits. While I have experienced some health benefits to fasting, more often I fast for spiritual answers to my prayers, increased faith in Jesus Christ and to help others.

This time, as I prepared to fast, I considered the main struggles I am facing. Each seemed to have a connection to my overall emotional health and needs. Then, I opened my scriptures to Matthew 5:6 to prepare a church lesson for young children about choosing what is right. I received a renewed understanding that daily choices do matter. More importantly, I knew for myself that how I eat affects my emotional and mental state. I also learned that making some specific food choices would allow me to have an alert and clear mind to work through the other challenges I am facing.

And now, the most important part of receiving that inspiration will come today (and tomorrow and next week and next month) in actively using it.