The Value of Virtual Friends

I read a recent blog post by Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketing gurus (He is to marketing as USA Today is to news: short and to the point), titled "Maybe you need new friends." 

Here's the entire blog post (When you have ADD, short and to the point is the best.):

Maybe you need new friends

Real world friends are hard to find and hard to change.

But virtual friends?

If your online friends aren't egging you on...

If your online friends don't spread the word about the work you're doing...

If your online friends aren't respectfully challenging your deeply held beliefs...

If your online friends don't demand the best from you...

Then perhaps you need new online friends.
 (Click here to read Seth's blog)

I think online friends are awesome. I have connected with some great people online, particularly via Twitter in the last couple of years. These are individuals that I may never meet IRL*, but I'm sure if I were to meet them, we would talk for hours, just like old friends.

Online friends can push you and demand the best from you, partly because they don't have any other role in your life - they don't know your baggage or hang-ups - sometimes they are "the push" that you need to take a risk. 

A couple of my twitter buddies immediately come to mind:

• @LizStrand. We've been following each other for over a year and we've had several Twitter conversations about a huge range of topics. I think @LizStrand knows everything about sports while my knowledge is limited to just my favorite sports (and sometimes barely those), but I am continually learning things from her tweets.
• @MeredithGould has been a great resource in a wide variety of ways. She's tweets about healthcare marketing and faith (Very helpful when I started working on a church social media task force). She also wrote a book, "Staying Sober" that was published by my employer, Hazelden. (that's just too cool) Plus she seems to follow some excellent Twitterers.

And now I'm finding friends among my fellow Minnesota bloggers - some real and some virtual.

I know the value of online friends because having online friends is not new to me. Not even close!

In the mid 1990's, during the days when online was basically AOL, I was involved with a regular chat group that would talk about (don't be shocked) the soap opera, Another World. We would meet online once or twice a week chat about plot lines, but also daily issues in real life. After awhile, you got to know the regulars. Eventually, we decided that the chats weren't enough, so we started an email group. We were individuals from all over the country, with different life journeys and a wide range of ages. 

About a year into our bonding, we scheduled a get-together in NYC. I was sharing a hotel room with one of the other group members (whom I had never met) and her daughter. My family was freaked about this. They were sure that something horrible was going to happen. Instead, we had a blast and it was the first of many gatherings including weddings, birthday celebrations, etc. 
(That's a group of us from a 1996 NYC visit with actors Charles Keating and Victoria Wyndham. I'm the disembodied head on the far left.)

Another World went off the air in 1999 and the group is still exchanging emails and getting together when we're traveling near each other. Today, many of us are on Facebook

And thank goodness for Facebook! I have renewed so many friendship on Facebook and I am able to maintain friendships on there.

Social media may have its gawdy, commercial side, but the benefits of its reach are far beyond what some might have imagined. 

* if you're a neophyte, IRL stands for "in real life."

Purging (in a good way)

Spring has arrived - it was 80 degrees on Thursday here in Minnesota and that little factoid can only mean one thing: It's time for "The Changing of The Closets."  

(photo by AmberE http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberwalker/1801788747/)

This bi-annual ritual happens when you're really hating what you have in your closet because you've been seen in every combination at least twice in the past season, and you have this incorrect memory that your other seasonal wardrobe is SO much better than the current one. 

I am very jealous of people with plenty of closet space in their homes that they don't have to pack it up, schlep it to the storage area and then bring in a bin of spring/summer clothes. I don't have that luxury. I have a walk-in closet, but only in the sense that you can stand in there and turn around. It's not one of those that you can wander through.

But this year, "The Changing of the Closets" has even more fun and games. Having lost a size or two since I packed up the spring/summer wardrobe last September, I now have to try everything on and sort them in to three piles: 1) Too big - take to consignment 2) Too small - put these in on the front hall closet and finally 3) Just right. 

A real challenge for me is letting go of some of the too big items. I argue with myself that they're comfortable and roomy and it's not like I would actually wear them where I could be seen - until I run out to the mall looking dumpy in clothing too big for me. I don't believe the people looking at me are thinking, "Wow, I bet she's really comfortable in those - good choice in fashion." 

Purging is a very important part of "The Changing of the Closets."  When you have limited closet space, you HAVE to make the tough choices. Choices like: throw out anything with oversized shoulder pads or has the brand name Zubaz on them - they are not coming back into fashion - EVER!

The most persuasive person I know

I am the most persuasive person I know

...cuz I can talk myself out of anything. (I can also talking myself into anything, but that's another issue for another time...)

I often talk myself out of exercising when I had purposely planned to exercise. There are many days, I will get out of bed early to do a workout, but then tell myself that tonight would be a better time to do this workout. You know after you get home and are exhausted and usually fall asleep on the couch.

Five years ago, when I originally lost this weight, I would get up each day at 5 am and be at the Y by 5:30 and hop on a treadmill. I didn't get there everyday, but at least twice a week and sometimes three times a week. Today, I still get up at 5 am. But I don't have to drive to the Y to do the time on the treadmill because there is one in my living room. (small condo requires odd placement of equipment) Yet, I'm not doing it.

UGH! Why? When I know what the results were five years ago? When I know that morning workouts are the best way to kick up that metabolism?

So, here's my promise to myself: 

• Week 1: I will work out on the treadmill at least two mornings during the work week and at least once on the weekend. 
• Week 2: I will also do a morning workout at the Y one day a week (Tuesday or Thursday for the Morning Spinning Express.)

I have to stop listening to myself when I'm persuading myself out of exercise. Sometimes, we are our own worst enemy.

It's nice to know it's not just me

Last Sunday while relaxing around the estate and mindlessly channel surfing, I stopped on Channel 2 (our local PBS station) and found a program called "Change Your Brain - Change Your Body." Naturally the words brain and body sucked me in.

The gentleman speaking was Dr. Daniel Amen from the Amen Clinics and he said that his clinic had conducted over 55,000 SPECT scans of individuals' brains. He talked about how you have to know your brain type to be successful at losing weight. Since my ADD diagnosis, I had wondered how different my brain was and more importantly, how it worked. 

He sucked me even further because he started talking about the "Inattentive and Impulsive Brain Type."  He explained that the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) at the front of the brain is responsible for attention span, judgment, impulse control, organization, self-supervision, short-term memory, ability to learn from experience, critical thinking and problem solving. If the PFC is not functioning properly, those skills are at risk.  When he started to referring to this as the ADD brain, I was hooked. Tell me more!

He showed a scan of an ADD brain at rest and the PFC was active when it shouldn't have been. Then he showed the ADD brain when the individual was trying to focus/concentrate and the PFC goes dark with little activity. This means that just when the brain needs to be used for something, the activity decreases and the individual is screwed because the harder they try, the worse it gets.

So, how does this apply to weight loss? Dr. Amen explained that an individual with untreated ADD would have problems staying with a diet for very long. He gave a great example of an ADD person on a diet walking by donut shops - at the first donut shop, he is able to stay focused and walks on by. The second donor shop starts to weaken him and by the third one, he's given up and goes in for the binge, completely forgetting why he was avoiding the donut shops.

I wrote in a early post that I sincerely believe that my ADD diagnosis is the reason I was able to lose weight after so many unsuccessful attempts. While I've been on medications for almost eight years, there are still many of the issues mentioned above that I still struggle with such as short-term memory. 

Some days are good and some are bad. But having the list of skill sets that are impacted by my ADD has been enlightening. It's not just about lack of attention - there's so much more to it. 

I bought two of Dr. Amen's books, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" and "Change Your Brain, Change Your Body." (I actually bought them while still watching the show using my iPhone and downloading the books to my Kindle app on the phone. - I am a tech goddess!)  I have this feeling that I may be talking more about this in future posts. 

It's just great to know, it's not just me!!

The Next 50 Years

Most birthdays feel like any other day. Some years you may go to work and ignore it or celebrate in a low-key way, if at all.  But then there are the milestone birthdays: 16, 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, etc. 

Today is my birthday and I'm 50. And it doesn't feel like any other birthday. It feels like the start of a new day, a new year, a new direction...
 

I'm feeling like turning 50 is new beginning. I want to be healthier and take time each day to workout. I procrastinate better than most, but I'm beginning to realize how wasteful that is. Do it today because tomorrow isn't guaranteed. Yesterday, I was reminded of that when I heard the news that a friend of the family who is only a year or so older than me, died very suddenly Saturday. Do it today.
 

I will appreciate my friends and family and all their craziness because they love me regardless of all my craziness. 

I will be grateful for all I have and also grateful for the things I don't have. 

I will make a better effort to stay in touch with my friends who I don't always see - they came into my life for reason and while I may not know what that reason is, they have changed who I am today - for better or for worse. (Song in my head: For Good from Wicked.)

I don't know what the next 50 years will bring or even if there will be another 50.  I know I've mostly enjoyed the first 50 - so whatever it is or will be - I'm ready. Bring it on!

How ADD helped me discover my inner skinny

I have struggled with my weight since I was 9 years old. I could be petty and blame it on a very nasty third-grade teacher who beat up my self-esteem, but my self-esteem recovered awhile ago.

I have done nearly every diet and exercise program you could name. While I didn't succeed at many of those, I won't call them failures. Those attempts were just practice for finally getting it right. If I could pinpoint one event for pushing me to success, it would be my Attention Deficient Disorder diagnosis. (I know, it is strange to give credit to something that I'm usually blaming for causing problems in my life, but I gotta be honest.)

**That's me with Lucy at Camp Snoopy comparing waistlines.**

How can ADD be credited for pushing me in the right direction? Two things - one was physical and second was mental. First, the physical: The first thing my doctor did after the diagnosis was to get me a prescription to handle the depression (that was the main symptom for the ADD). I won't say what the medication was, but the drug's side effect was loss of appetite due to nausea. I lost 25 pounds in four months without even trying.

When I realized that I was starting to gain it back, I joined Weight Watchers in January 2004 and started to lose again. In April 2004, I joined the YWCA and started to work out at 5:30 a.m. most weekdays. That was the second gift I received from the diagnosis, my mental attitude. I never had a doubt that I wouldn't lose weight and I didn't second guess myself.  When all was said and done in January 2005, I was down nearly seventy pounds (from my pre-diagnosis high in 2001)


I kept the weight off for awhile, but in 2006, I was losing focus because I had multiple demands on my time - work, school (working on a master's thesis) and chairing the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships local organizing committee. By the end of January 2008 (and the end of Nationals), I had gained fifty pounds back. I called it my "Oh-8 Weight."

I got back on the weight loss band wagon at the end of 2008 and lost almost 30 pounds in 2009. In the past three months, I've been losing the same five pounds over and over again and it drove me crazy. I finally rejoined WW and the YWCA last month and have been reminding myself what I have to do to make it work: Be active and be accountable (and drink water!!)

Part of my activity plans is doing the "Couch to 5K" program. I started it yesterday (3/13/10) and hope to run my first 5K in early June. Also learned that a friend of mine started it this past week, too, so I've challenged her to join me in running the Burnsville Heart of the City 5K. I can't believe that I'm really looking at running a race. Stay tuned...