On Sunday, Brian and I will celebrate seven years of marriage.  We're celebrating by driving to LAX so I can get on a plane and go to Italy without him for a week to see friends whom I haven't seen in years.  I am appreciative of how love looks and feels now that we've been together for some time.  It is not so much about grand romantic gestures as it is about selfless acts. 

We met in early September 1993, when I was a freshman in college and Brian was a sophomore.  We lived in the same dorm.  He was walking the halls meeting people.  He said my room had nice windows.  Later that night, I went up to his room to say hello again.  He had a huge map of the world on his wall.   He had grown up overseas.  I thought that this was a guy who could take me places.

We had our first kiss on the Quad balcony on September 22, 1993.  And dated for the next year.  I was miserable at school as it was the wrong fit, and we broke up in the middle of 1995.  I dropped out of college.  It was a tumultuous break-up, the kind that leads you to believe you will never see that person again.

I moved to Washington, DC, took almost three years off from college, and got a corporate job.  I eventually finished college.  I had no idea what happened to Brian.

In May 2004, Brian found me on my birthday using Google and some nonexistent privacy policy of my college which allowed him to access my working email address.  We corresponded over the summer.  On September 17, 2004, he drove six hours round-trip to have dinner with me in Cincinnati, where I was on a business trip.  The spark was still there, and I didn't want dinner to end, but I had a plane to catch. 

Less than a month later, he flew to DC to see me.  In November, I flew to Chicago to see him.  He told me he wanted to be with me (he has such good taste!).  I told him I was moving to Italy.  He told me he didn't care.  I did move to Italy.  He emailed every day, called every few days, and sent lots of old fashioned correspondence.  He also came to Italy on a grad student's budget to see me . . . twice.

My sojourn in Italy ended in December 2005.  In June 2006 we moved to New York's Hudson Valley.  We got engaged in December 2007, and we married in September 2008, 15 years after our first kiss.

We are like other married couples.  We have had highs and lows: we have faced major illness, the death of a parent, buying a house, selling a house, declaring we will never buy a house again, adopting a rescue dog who rescued us, and on and on.  Love to me used to only look like big sweeping romantic gestures (like visiting your girlfriend in Italy when you don't have the money to do so).   Now, though, it is so much more.  Now, it looks like this: a pile of folded laundry.

Last Christmas, we hosted my mother for the holidays and held a nicely sized Christmas Eve feast with my cousin and her kids.  It was a lot of fun.  After, I was wiped out, and being tired usually depletes my immune system to the point where I get sick.  I went and laid down to recharge, falling asleep immediately.  Brian took care of me by folding my laundry, not because I asked him to, but just because.  To me, these are the aspects of love in our marriage I appreciate most: the selfless gesture.

I am open and curious about what comes next for us, how we and our marriage grow and evolve, and the adventures that lie ahead.   One thing I know for sure is it will all be done with love.  

Yesterday, I flew to Denver to help my mother celebrate her 70th birthday.  I wasn't sure she'd make it to 70, something I've already told her.  Thirteen years ago she had an emergency triple bypass surgery.  Last year, she had a small stroke.  On the surface, she does not fit into anyone's definition of healthy.   And yet, my mother is healthy in a number of ways that really count and are so often overlooked in our diet obsessed society. 

She is connected.  Despite losing her husband, my stepfather, over four years ago, my mother is not a lonely soul sitting at home on the couch.  She has a rich social life that includes going to the movies, to lunch, and on road trips with friends.  Most of the time when I ask her how she's doing, she says she needs a nap to recover from socializing.  Connection is keeping my my mother alive and happy. 

She feeds her brain.  My mother is constantly enrolled in classes for seniors through a local university.  She takes a variety of subjects from art history to memoir writing.   Her brain does not lack for stimulation.  Beyond that, it has been a great way to make new friends.

She has a dog to walk.  Over 70% of elderly people who fall due to a stroke or for other reasons become fearful of falling again and lessen their mobility as a consequence.  This is not my mother.  After her stroke last summer, she underwent physical therapy to get her walking again.   She continues to walk daily with her dog, Miss Ollie.  Staying active is helping my mother manage her arthritis in the sense of use it or lose it.  Beyond the many benefits of walking, just having a dog is good for your health.  Studies show that petting a dog motivates our bodies to release oxytocin, the love hormone, which makes us feel good. 

Her MO in the face of challenge is to have fun.  For much of my childhood, my mother was a single mother.  One particularly cold Denver winter, while living in a rental home, the furnace went out.  My mother did not panic.  She simply said that it was time go to the movies (on a school night!) where it would be warm.  When we came out of the movies, she went to a pay phone and called the landlord to see if the furnace had been fixed.  It had not so she took us to Chili's for fajitas, even though money was tight.  Other childhood memories include spontaneous dance parties in our living room, something that still brings me joy to recreate to this day.

In honor of my mother and her 70th birthday, I am sharing with you her taco recipe, which I've adapted over the years, and now most often serve in salad form.  Given her open hostility to green vegetables, you could truly honor my mother by serving the tacos on your tortilla of choice. 

Sara's Turkey Tacos
Serves 3-4

1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 T olive oil
1 to 1 1/4 pounds ground turkey
1 4-oz. can diced green chiles (I prefer the Hatch brand)
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce (with no additives)
1 t. cumin (I like cumin so I put in 1 T.)
1/4 t. cayenne pepper (or more based on spiciness preference)
salt and pepper to taste

Augmentations - optional:
tortillas and/or taco shells (gluten-free, if needed)
chopped tomatoes
shredded lettuce
hot sauce
cheddar cheese, grated (if you eat dairy)

Heat a 10 to 12-inch saute pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl around the pan. Add the onions and garlic, and saute just until translucent. Add the meat and break it apart with a fork or spoon. Once the meat is broken up and fully mixed into the onions, add the green chiles, tomato sauce, spices, and salt and pepper. Let the mixture simmer down, which should take approximately ten minutes. Remember, you want very little extra liquid in the pan, otherwise you'll have taco meat dripping all over your hand.

While the taco meat mixture reduces, preheat the oven to 190 F. Warm up the taco shells and/or tortillas in the oven. When the meat is ready, put it in your vessel of choice, and augment with lettuce, tomatoes and/or hot sauce.

Taco Salad:  Skip the taco shells and top your cleaned lettuce of choice with turkey taco meat and any augmentations that float your boat. 

Did you know I never guarantee weight loss to clients?  Weight loss is such a complicated issue and requires stamina, perseverance, and most of all, a willingness to be curious and explore.  I co-create a plan for clients to address the lifestyle and other issues that are keeping them stuck, but it is up to the client to implement the plan.  I call it co-create because it really has to be action steps the client proposes and is motivated to implement.  In doing this work, I see the same roadblocks pop up again and again in the desire to achieve a happier, healthier you. 

So here they are, in countdown order, the top 5 ways people sabotage their weight loss efforts:

5.  Thinking that weight loss is the magic pill to solve all their problems.  I see this one over and over again with clients.  They want to lose weight because they think they'll be happier.  They want to weigh what they did in high school.  They'll date more if they lose weight.   They put off living until the weight is gone.  They don't buy the new dress.  They don't try new things because they haven't reached their goal weight.  The paradox is that they are causing themselves stress by putting so much pressure on weight loss to be their magic pill.  Stress causes the body to produce cortisol which hinders metabolism and weight loss.  If you want to lose weight, stop thinking about losing weight and start living and doing all the things you say you'll do when the weight comes off.  Seek ways to have fun that excite you!  Celebrate all the ways you are an awesome human being, just as you are right now!  Love yourself as much as you love your children (and/or your pets) so your body will feel cherished and safe.  A safe body is a relaxed body creating one of the ideal conditions for losing weight.

4.  Believing that weight loss can and should be done as quickly as possible.  I blame this one on the marketing of 21-day cleanses and 10-day detox programs that guarantee weight loss.  It's not sustainable and does not address the underlying emotional and lifestyle factors that contributed to the weight gain in the first place.   It is why after so many diets that promise fast results people gain back the weight they lost plus additional weight.  It took a long time to create the health challenges and weight loss challenges you may be currently facing so why do you think they can be solved in 30 days or less?  Achieving a healthy self that feels good, no matter what weight you are, is a marathon, not a sprint.

3.  Keeping temptation in the house.   "The gummy worms are for the kids."  "My husband likes ice cream."  Ok, so then why are you eating the majority of the ice cream, sweets, and other tempting goodies in the house?  When I realized that one of the easiest ways to curb my sugar addiction was to remove temptation from my home, I was overjoyed!  One key to weight loss is to figure out if you are an abstainer or a moderator.  A moderator can walk by a bowl of candy, have a piece, and leave it alone.  An abstainer, the all-or-nothing person, either will eat the whole bowl of candy, albeit sometimes over the course of many hours, or will leave it alone entirely.  Figuring out which one you are, can you help you determine whether temptation can stay in the house or has to go.  Plus, no need to justify keeping sugar in the house for the sake of your kids.  Studies show that kids who regularly consume large amounts of sugar as a child are more prone to aggressive behavior as a kid and violent behavior as an adult. 

2.  Deeming sleep unimportant to reaching your weight loss goals.   I'm going to go out on a limb and say that sleep is more important to weight loss than what is on your plate.   When you don't consistently get 7-8 hours of sleep each night, at around the same time, you become sleep deprived.  When you are sleep deprived during the day, your body will seek any source of energy to make it feel more awake, and usually the easiest source is sugar.  It's also the start of a horribly unhealthy cycle: 

Sleep deprivation --> feeling tired --> seeking quick hit of energy --> sugar consumption -->
temporary energy boost --> sugar coma --> feeling hungry and tired --> seeking quick hit of energy -->
more sugar consumption -- > overeating --> trouble sleeping at night and more sleep deprivation. 

If you want to lose weight, make sleep a priority and help end the cycle of sugar addiction and overeating. 

1.  Ignoring the emotional reasons underlying the need for weight loss in the first place.  In other words, successful, sustainable weight loss is achievable when you are willing to address the emotional factors that led to the weight gain in the first place.  A recent poll of psychologists said the biggest hindrance to weight loss was emotions.  Even if your weight gain was due to a medical condition, as mine was, there are always emotional factors contributing to it.  This is why, if after creating a plan for a client to achieve the change they desire, the client then self-sabotages, it becomes clear the underlying emotional reasons are hindering their progress.   It also is why it can be helpful for clients to see a psychotherapist while also working with a health coach. 

Are you trying to lose weight?  Did any of these weight loss sabotages resonate?  What's one thing you can do now to stop sabotaging yourself?