flexibility – in thriver words

Can You Flex?

When you have annoying restrictions and finally get a routine down, can you flex? Ever hear a kid yell, “He said I can’t have the red truck, now we can’t play ANYTHING!?” As an adult, you know that’s not true. The child may not be able to play with a particular truck, but they can still play. All the child must do is flex.

Sounds easy when it’s a kid and we’re talking toys. But what if it’s one more flex when you thought you had your meals under control in an already difficult week? Seems totally different, right?

I’ve known numerous adults who seem flexible enough when you’re planning something…until push comes to shove. Then they squirrel things around with multiple phone calls and changes in order to get back to the vision they had in the first place. When you haven’t been privy to their original idea, this can feel quite confusing.

Even if you knew what they were thinking, it can be annoying. Most likely these folks believe themselves to be flexible. They may not recognize the rearranging as an attempt to get what they wanted in the first place. But sometimes, we can find ourselves feeling exactly like that small child.

Each of us has different tolerance levels for certain types of stress, and cumulatively different levels overall. But some of us can handle much more than we believe we can. And we can do it without feeling excess stress.

How? Embracing and practicing flexibility.

I know we’d like everything to be just like we want it. I do too! But life doesn’t work that way. Best laid plans as they say. If you find yourself going back to old habits rather than sticking to your healthy eating plan because you feel like it’s too difficult, here are a few things to get your flex muscles moving:

-Stand firm instead of flexing to please someone else. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but standing firm when you can will leave you more flex energy for other situations.

-Differentiate between wanting and needing. You may WANT burgers and fries, but do you NEED them or do you need food?

-Get more support. If you hit your limit and go back to eating things that are bad for you because you’re too tired and hungry to make a better decision, you need more support. Support can come in many forms. Start with your biggest obstacles. What sort of support will mitigate those?

-Practice problem solving. Take some scenario you’ve seen on TV. Imaging what you’d do instead of what a character did. Think of the reasons it would be more effective. Make this a family game.

-Bad and good often come packaged together. Practice leaning into the good side of a bad equation even if you feel scared because it means change.

-Stop tensing and bracing. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe some more. A yoga practice will make this a more natural response.

-Practice curiosity. Hmmm, wonder what would happen if I XYZ?

-Grant yourself grace but not excuses. It’s easy for a single transgression to morph into a regular habit.

Flexibility increases over time as long as you keep flexing. What seems hard today will seem easier tomorrow.

Trust me. I’m typing this in an RV that’s being repaired instead of on the road to my next nonrefundable stop. I’m flexing like crazy! But it allowed me the time to finish this post. For that I am grateful!

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No Need to Argue Over Dinner

There’s no need to argue over dinner, even if everyone is hungry for something different! Ever decided to start cooking dinner at home only to meet resistance from family members who are used to customized choices in a restaurant? Your husband wants Indian, your son wants Mexican, your daughter doesn’t want either of those, and you just want dinner on the table.

When you’re trying to get in the swing of regular meal prep, resistance can be discouraging. You may be willing to cook so that your family will eat more fresh food, but that doesn’t mean you’re all that excited about the added work you’re taking on. Before frustration grows or food fights begin, it can be helpful to explore some ways you can customize without changing your overall plan.

Using a little creativity can help your family transition to meals at home without feeling like personal preferences are limited. Once everyone realizes there’s some flexibility, they’ll relax. That doesn’t mean you have to be a short order cook. It means that you recognize that years of eating out have conditioned the family’s expectations and some retraining is required.

During the transition, it is important to set some boundaries while keeping the atmosphere positive. How can you accomplish this without laying down the law that you eat what’s put in front of you…period?

Here are some ideas:

Flexible seasoning.

With the family in the mood for Indian and Mexican and something else, you can take a flexible approach to seasoning. In other words, establish that the cook chooses the protein, but each family member can choose how his/her serving is seasoned.

Before you let the idea scare you, here’s what dinner could look like: Four pork chops seasoned as follows: 1)Simple – seasoned with salt, pepper, & garlic powder. 2)Indian – seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, garam masala, and applesauce. 3)Mexican – seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin. 4)Alternative Mexican – seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder and mole sauce.

Place all 4 chops on the same broiling pan and broil. Any of these will be delicious served with rice and a salad, thereby keeping the menu simple while accommodating several flavor preferences.

This could also be accomplished using steak seasoned multiple ways or grilled with basic seasoning, then sliced and finished with various sauces — salsa verde, chimichurri, teriyaki, and blue cheese for example. Steamed spinach, sautéed mushrooms, and mashed potatoes will round out this steak menu.

Grilled or broiled chicken is easy to season independently, but cook simultaneously. Baked chicken can be shredded and served over salad or added to sour cream and green chile peppers then served over black beans and lime cilantro rice. It can be tossed in barbecue sauce and served as a sandwich. It can be added to enchiladas or used in chicken spaghetti.

In short, independent seasoning doesn’t have to take additional time or add another trip to the store. All you need is a little flexibility and creativity.

Choose a pot.

If weekends are when you have the most time to cook, make several one pot meals at the beginning of the week, then let the family help themselves to their preference each day. Include vegetables in the pots or steam a few separately to serve as sides. In addition, stock the kitchen with fresh fruit and salad components to compliment your prepared items.

Consider one pot meals like chicken & rice with broccoli; ground turkey with sour cream, Parmesan, and English peas; tuna with pasta, cheese, and spinach or kale; ground beef with taco seasoning, black beans, and cheese; beef stew; or chicken pot pie.

Beat the heat.

In the summer, you may want to offer salad samplers — chicken salad, tuna salad, and egg salad paired with 5 bean salad, broccoli salad, black bean & corn salad, caprese salad, or a build-your-own green salad. There are so many options with salad!

If your kids like to help in the kitchen, creating salad recipes can be a great introduction to experimenting with flavor combinations. The more involved they are the more likely they are to consume the end product.

Warm your insides.

Soups can give you nutritious variety in the winter. There’s something about soup that’s extremely satisfying — especially in cold weather. Prepare two or three types for the week and let the family choose a preference at meal time. Chicken vegetable, chicken with rice, chicken noodle; tomato, cream of tomato; chili; clam or corn chowder; potato; minestrone; white bean; matzo ball; and split pea are all good options. This list could go on and on and your family is sure to have some favorites. Most soups freeze well, so your prep could be as simple as taking something out of the freezer.

Soup can be supplemented with bread, cornbread, or crackers; raw vegetables with a favorite veggie dip; sandwiches; or salads.

Make breakfast a wild card.

Obviously, it’s important to establish that meal choices when you’re cooking are not a free-for-all. If you don’t, you’ll have chaos and a full time job on your hands. On the other hand, there’s no reason for anyone to go hungry because they simply can’t stomach steak when that’s what you are serving.

Preparing for this possibility in advance can prevent a power struggle later. One way to do this is to make breakfast a wild card. If your daughter can’t stand steak, she can play a wild card and cook her own breakfast for dinner. As long as she uses ingredients already on hand, cooks it herself, and cleans up her dishes, you agree to refrain from comment on her choice.

Of course, you can set age limits and weekly limits for use of the established wild card. (No wild cards until you are in first grade and only 1 wild card per week.) The wild card doesn’t have to be breakfast. It could be sandwiches, loaded baked potatoes, salad, pasta, or something out of the freezer.

Keep track on a calendar or dole out printed monthly coupons to be redeemed. The rules are yours. Just make them clear, concise, and consistently enforced. For the best chance of success with this plan, all negotiating should take place prior to a rule’s instatement. Review dates can be established in advance to insure that the system can be improved without diminishing its enforcement.

Inspiration may be a side effect.

Cooking at home has many health advantages. The key to making it a habit is removing the obstacles that prevent you from cooking on a regular basis. Families that are used to custom ordering in restaurants may resist a sudden change to one-size-fits-all meals. That doesn’t mean you need to argue over dinner.

Using the techniques listed here to create an easier transition from restaurant ordering to uniform meals can help you avoid complaints and resistance and the resulting emotional fatigue that may make you feel like implementing a healthier lifestyle is too much trouble.

As an added bonus, providing variety in a way that only requires a tiny bit of additional thinking and no additional work could actually turn out to be fun! I love the process of visualizing new menus, unexpected combinations, and solutions. It’s the kind of mental activity that inspires me.

Try these ideas and who knows, you may get inspired along the way too!

Can You Pivot?

When things don’t turn out as planned, can you pivot? Today, I thought I was going to make enchilada sauce. Over an hour into the process, I realized there was no way my combination of ancho and pasilla chiles, charred vegetables, marjoram and Mexican oregano was going to turn out like any enchilada sauce I’ve ever tasted or hoped to make. The flavors had potential, but not as the end product I’d planned.
pivot
I face similar situations regularly. No matter how meticulously I plan, things change. I can either let that throw me, or I can pivot. At those moments, I usually remember my grandmother saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Hearing that over and over let me know that it was not unusual to have to look for another solution.

Changing course is not always easy. Sometimes it requires significant physical, mental, or emotional effort. But with life throwing challenges my way, the ability to pivot has made me less wasteful, more efficient, more creative, more knowledgeable, more confident, and infinitely more resilient. This is true when I’m developing recipes, but it is also true throughout all areas of my life.

Pivoting requires engagement, flexibility and decision making. If I had been determined to end up with enchilada sauce, my efforts would have been wasted. An hour of wasted time with my current schedule can mean I must say no to lunch with a friend or rearrange anticipated down time. That would feel discouraging.

Being able to see potential in the work I’d done allowed me to make a subtle shift that turned the effort into an acceptable mole sauce that can be easily tweaked into perfection. Visualizing a different outcome is one component of a graceful pivot.

Recognizing I’m in a moment that could benefit from a shift comes even before visualization. That was pretty clear to me when adding salt didn’t head the sauce in the right direction. My taste buds called for sweet and something to mellow the bitter overtones. Honey, anise, and chocolate all fit that bill.

Connecting my taste instincts with my food knowledge led to an immediate association of the sauce on my stove and mole sauce. Exploring that thought excited me because most of the jarred mole sauce I’ve found in stores contains crackers or bread. I added a few ingredients to see if my visualized flavor profile would work as I anticipated. It did!

I recorded the changes in the recipe plus a few that I think will improve it next time. Of course, I also had to revise the dish I had planned for dinner. My enchilada pie turned into enmolada pie. It wasn’t that much of a shift and didn’t require a trip to the store.

The pivot, which included recognition of my dilemma, connection to a possible change, exploration of that change, visualization of a new end product, and implementation of the new plan, allowed me to turn a kitchen failure into a successful recipe albeit not the anticipated one.

Imagine what that did for my mood, energy level, and motivation! Instead of feeling defeated or discouraged, I felt excited about all the dishes I can make with mole. Woohoo, my mind is now moving full speed ahead!

The ability to absorb, process, and turn unfortunate events into positive momentum is what allowed a pharmacist I know to purchase and grow his pharmacy into the largest in the county seat, marry and have two beautiful children, and become a pillar of the community in spite of having had polio as a child that rendered him minimal use of his legs.

Instead of viewing his disability as something to hide, he chose to showcase his amazing upper body strength — a pivot that clearly fed positive momentum into the rest of his life. I think of his example each time I walk into his pharmacy.

A willingness to pivot is important for businesses too. If Anheuser-Busch had not reimagined its end product during Prohibition, there would most likely be no Bud Light, Franziskaner, Natty Daddy, or Rolling Rock today. Someone at Molex had to envision a future beyond flower pots and salt tablet dispensers for the company to begin to manufacture electrical appliances. We don’t always notice when a business innovates, but we certainly notice when it doesn’t. We soon become dissatisfied and move on.

It’s common to resist change. But things change whether or not we’re resistant. Hurricanes, floods, fire, and tornadoes reshape communities. Acute or chronic health problems arrive. Spouses leave. Jobs are lost. Violence touches our families. Any of these things can happen at a moment’s notice when we have done nothing wrong. It is at those moments that pivoting becomes a critical skill.

We all want to emerge from shock, trauma, loss, and grief feeling optimistic, energetic, positive, and poised for joy. We all can, but some of us don’t know that we can or don’t know how to get from A to B. That path starts with a simple pivot away from the devastation and toward the possibilities created by that devastation.

I feel fortunate that I can pivot both in and out of the kitchen, but the ability was hard earned. Some tough circumstances early in my life led me to hone this skill. While I’m not all that grateful for some of those circumstances, I am grateful for the resulting resilience. Enough so that I would encourage you to develop this skill even if you don’t see its merits right now.

Sometimes the stakes are much higher than enchilada sauce vs mole.

Yoga is a Perfect Home Workout

namaste If the gym isn’t your cup of tea, yoga is a perfect home workout. We’re all aware that regular exercise is important to overall health so it’s important to find a workout that works for you. A couple of years ago, I was swimming laps 3 – 4 times a week. Swimming is a great low-impact workout which I needed because of a knee injury. Then came the day that I jumped into the pool to get started, landed on that leg, and re-injured my knee. On top of the damage the chlorine was doing to my hair and the constant lane sharing, I’d had enough. I needed a new workout routine.

At my age, I’m aware it’s important to have some sort of resistance training as well as with aerobic exercise. I began searching for a good mix of the two. After months of experimentation, I now have two weight lifting routines and three or four yoga routines I rotate on a regular basis. I chose these workouts because I can do them at home and because they make me feel good. If your workout makes you feel good, obviously, you’re less likely to skip it. I now work out 5 – 6 days per week.

About 4 years ago, I attended a yoga class for seniors once a week for a few months. At that point, I didn’t even own a yoga mat. I just went to the class, threw $5 in a basket and borrowed a mat. I felt weak and shaky sometimes, but the routine wasn’t all that difficult and I enjoyed it when the instructor rubbed our foreheads during Savasana at the end. I wasn’t really hooked, but this low-key introduction helped me get past the fear that I wouldn’t be able to do the poses.

When I decided to seriously explore yoga as a primary workout, I started with two DVDs featuring Bethenny Frankel. I jumped right into the 40 minute session instructed by Kristin McGee. Occasionally, I’d switch over to the DVD led by Mike McArdle. As I became more proficient with the routines, I also became more aware of the pace and the tone of each workout. I noticed that I preferred Mike’s instruction. I also got curious about other instructors. Once I realized how many yoga options were available on Amazon Video, I was like a kid in a candy store.

There are almost 3000 yoga videos available from Amazon Video. Almost 400 of those are included free with Amazon Prime and you can watch them as many times as you want. Even if you watched nothing on Amazon Prime, but a single workout, that workout ends up costing you about 25¢ per year. I don’t know of any club you can join for 25¢ per year.

The only equipment required for these yoga routines is comfortable clothing, a yoga mat, and a way to access video. A blanket, block, or strap is sometimes helpful as well. It’s not hard to find a yoga mat for under $20 or a beginner’s kit with a mat, block, and strap for $35 – $40. And if you’re not leaving the house, there’s no clothing or gas budget required. You’re bound to have something comfortable to wear stuffed away in a drawer.

I’ve previewed quite a number of yoga workouts. If I don’t immediately feel both relaxed and challenged, I move on to a different option. I prefer those that move at a slower pace with an instructor who fully demonstrates proper alignment and form. My current favorite is, Yoga for Beginners: Poses for Freedom and Renewal with Kanta Barrios which I can watch free with Amazon Prime. It’s 30 minutes designed to tone the muscles and strengthen the core. Full of plank to Chaturanga to cobra to downward-facing dog sequences, the poses may be for beginners, but I don’t feel like I’m slacking. In fact, the reviews of this video sometimes complain that it’s too hard for beginners.

When I want a longer workout, I choose Yoga for All. Also available free with Amazon Prime, these sessions are each about an hour in length and feature 3 instructors simultaneously demonstrating beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of each pose. Season 1 contains 4 episodes: Basic, Core, Strength, and Vinyasa. I follow the intermediate instructor and modify to the beginner level when working on an area in which I’m weak.

Obviously, your preferences may differ from mine, but with so many choices you’re bound to find something that will suit your personality, goals, and fitness level. And if your preferences change as you become stronger and more flexible, video content providers offer a never ending stream of prospective selections.

Once you land on a possible workout, be sure to watch the whole session before practicing it. This will get you attuned to the rhythm and manner in which you’ll be instructed. While you still may be a bit behind the instructor at first, a full viewing reduces frustration and allows you to more fully concentrate on form from the beginning.

Yoga makes it easy to target any part of your body that needs improvement. Have back problems – there’s a yoga workout for that. Need to relax your hips – there’s a yoga workout for that. Have digestive trouble – there’s a yoga workout to improve it. And no matter where you practice, yoga can help you gain strength, flexibility, and balance.

If you wake up stiff and sore; if you have plantar fasciitis pain; if you are losing flexibility; if you want to improve balance or breath control, yoga is a great workout to explore. You can workout when you want. Target any part of your body. Gain strength, tone, flexibility, balance, and breath control. Avoid prying eyes. Learn to be mindful. Save money. Feel amazing.

All of this is possible when you practice at home. Yoga really is the perfect home workout.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

http://www.kantabarriosyoga.com/