Show you care

Thanks to Denise for the reminder of where to buy heart-shaped balloons! They make the PERFECT Valentine’s Day gift. 

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Make it special! 

You look marva-what?

What was for dinner last night?

When was the last time you worked out - REALLY hard?

When was the last time you walked into work with confidence about yourself and your ability to exceed all expectations?

The way we look usually translates into how we feel about ourselves - and how we feel about ourselves usually translates into how we perform at work.

I’m a sucker for watching shows such as “You Are What You Eat” on BBC America or NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” Even I’m surprised that the common storyline for these TV shows - people treat their bodies badly and ‘the road to recovery and rediscovering who they are’ - continues to interest me.

For BBC America’s “You Are What You Eat”, the nutritionist will display on a large table literally what their obese subject will have eaten for a week, prior to her arrival. The food and beverage always appears disgusting with no redeeming health qualities, whatsoever. Her typical comment has to do with the smell of the room. She goes pretty far into explaining to them what that poor nutrition is doing to their health and then she gives them an entirely new diet plan and exercise plan to follow at home, in their typical daily schedule. When they stick to it, they are shocked at just how amazing they look and feel. It’s pretty cut and dry - she doesn’t get very emotional about why the subjects gained the weight in the first place. It’s basically a case (each episode) of, “you eat terrible, never work out, and if you use my diet and exercise plan, it will fix you.”

You may be more familiar with NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” which includes a group of obese contestants who work out their bodies, and work on their nutrition and emotions on The Biggest Loser Ranch, away from their home and families. The show’s trainers have become celebrities because they seem to care more about the emotional state of the contestants (which always plays nice in TV land). The understanding is that these contestants spend most of their waking hours in the gym working out - while eating a healthy diet - and we’re always happy to see how that much effort transforms their bloated, distorted bodies into healthy, happy people with each week’s very dramatic “weigh in.” 

These shows demonstrate with every season that the healthier we are, the happier and emotionally stable we are. When a person is overweight, they feel less confident about themselves and confidence is a key element to performance.

So, think about how you’re treating yourself. If that nutritionist were to come show you literally everything that you’ve eaten this week, how embarrassed or how proud would you feel? If “The Biggest Loser” celebrity trainers were to show up and give you an amazing free “Last Chance Workout,” how impressed would they be with your ability to perform?

How good do you look and feel when you walk into work each day and how confident are you in your performance? The mind and body are connected - so the best way to improve your confidence and feel better about your performance each day on the job is to take really good care of your health. 

It’s Friday!

• skip the free donuts that someone will bring in to the office to celebrate the end of
  the work week
• think about what you’re putting in your mouth (keeping a food journal would help)
• work in a work out to your schedule, makes you feel SO GOOD just to MOVE!

Look good. Feel good. DO good and BE CONFIDENT!

Mornin' routine

When my awesome husband is out of town - the typical routine looks completely different:

Let’s start from when I get home from work (and he’s gone):

• Home around 7:15 (much earlier than usual, so I can relieve our afternoon tutor for B&B)
• Grocery store run (because someone needs something for some class)
• Make my dinner (yep - usually the hubby makes me yummy food, but not tonight)
• Eat dinner and watch some TV with kiddos
• Put kiddos to bed
• Evening call to out of town hubby, to catch him up on the evening
• Make lunches for tomorrow (while catching up on TIVO’d TV - so it takes at LEAST two times longer)
• I go to bed, but I don’t really because I turn on the TV in the bedroom (STAY UP TOO LATE WATCHING THINGS I GENERALLY HAVE NO TIME FOR, such as Project Runway All Stars)
• 5:25am: alarm goes off for the morning workout, but I snooze because I’m stiff tired from being up too late the night before
• 6:15: actual up & shower, etc
• 6:40: wake kiddos up
• 6:50: kiddos actually get up
• 6:50 - 7:15: morning blog time for Paperclip
• 7:12: kiddos come down for breakfast, while I finish getting ready for work
• 7:25: start telling kiddos to get in the car to leave for school
• 7:33: actual time we leave for school drop off
• 8:20: arrive at the office (about 20 minutes earlier than when my husband is here)

No complaints - this is just how it goes when he’s out of town.

MUCH different from when he’s here and does a LOT of the typical routine tasks (like making lunches and taking kiddos to school).

Much respect to the single parents out there - who ALWAYS have all of the responsibility of making everything run smoothly.