My friend, Katie (age 10) and I are learning some of the same lessons this week.  Katie and her sisters have recently upped their activity level, taking on both evening swimming and club volleyball.  However, they’ve never been big eaters and are very thin — low on energy reserves for the major exercise they’re getting.  Abby, Kate’s sister, has started eating more to fuel her energy, and Katie is…working on it.  As it turns out, Katie and I are both learning that its not just about eating — its also about eating the right kinds of foods.

A few days this week, my caloric intake was pretty low (under 1000 calories) but I was feeling good and in general considered it a gift that I wasn’t feeling hungry all the time.  Then Monday came along.  After work, I worked out intensely for over an hour.  And when I was finished, I headed home, weighted down with a large box of stuff — probably only 7 or 8 pounds — but the walk was icy and the temps were just above zero so it took me a lot longer than I anticipated.  When I got home I was freezing, pooped and my shoulders hurt — but I had a list of things which needed to be accomplished that night.  I fell into bed around one a.m. completely tuckered out.

Tuesday was awful.  Every joint in my body ached, I was tired, I was cranky.  I could not get warm.  The women at work had our annual ornament exchange luncheon and I had a difficult time getting into the festive spirit of the occasion.  Then, the soup I ordered for lunch came to the table — pumpkin-squash curry soup.  It was warming, filling, flavorful and delicious.  And I suddenly realized that all of my irritability and achy-ness was actually hunger. 

After work, I went to Katie’s house to work out.  But first, her mom insisted on feeding me a salad and fresh fruit (while Katie made herself eat her green beans).  My workout felt great.  When I got home I had a serving of shepherd’s pie — a recipe I love from Clean Eating magazine — only 160 calories a serving (check out the recipe on the recipe page, right column of this blog) and a treat of peanut butter on crackers for a bedtime snack. 

Strength comes in so many forms — mental toughness, emotional werewithal, physical power, etc.  The sources of strength in our lives are also varied.  A child who shares her struggles and triumphs, friends who nourish us (literally and figuratively), the knowledge that we are thought of and prayed for.  And this week, my hard-to-learn lesson that food isn’t just for pleasure or comfort.  It is the fuel that strengthens us to face each day’s challenges. 

In honor of Katie, this week’s hunger organization is “Share Our Strength (No Kid Hungry)”.  Their website can be found at strength.org.  Just as Meals on Wheels focuses their efforts on senior hunger, Share our Strength is focused on the millions of children who are living with hunger on a daily basis.  In addition to working with food pantries and developing educational programs on nutrition, they have formed creative partnerships with states and with business.  For example, they work with the culinary industry and have enlisted chefs, restaurants, and food companies (such as Tasefully Simple) to creat innovative programs for awareness and fundraising.  It took me a while to get past the fundraising page of their website, but once I did, there is a wealth of information.

Here’s hoping we all find the strength to accomplish today’s goals!

Let’s face it, sometimes we’re inspired and other times…not so much.  Right now, as I sit in my cozy dining room listening to the howling wind and thawing out from the amazing hour of snow shoveling I’ve just completed (freezing and sweating at the same time just shouldn’t be possible) I am feeling good with a hint of virtuousness.  I’ve eaten carefully today, and I’ve gotten a lot of exercise.  Ah, life is good, I’m good, and all’s right with the world.

But earlier in the week, I was really struggling with a bad attitude.  I felt like all I was doing was calculating calories — eaten and expended. I told people that getting up to exercise reminded me of the old Dunkin’ Donuts commercial guy who starts out jumping from bed exclaiming “Its time to make the donuts!” but after several mornings barely drags himself out of bed grumbling, “its time to make the donuts.” As those who know me are aware, I can crab and crank in a unending stream of verbal vitriol when I am feeling negative.  The energy can be so dark I have (I am ashamed to say) actually frightened people. 

And that’s where I was emotionally a couple of days ago when I heard a speaker talking about Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy.  She said, “Look at the extraordinary things that have been accomplished in this world because of one ordinary Irish woman.”  I love being reminded that being part of a Mercy institution gives me the opportunity to be a small link in that world-wide chain of the extraordinary.  That thought inspires me, makes me want to be more than I am. More active, more caring, more merciful. I want to be a shiny link, not a dark one.

Inspiration doesn’t just come from admired heroes I’ll never meet or know.  I have been inspired by people I see every day to stay on track with this journey.  By a friend celebrating his birthday by challenging others to spend a morning doing flood recovery work. By my parents whose example has taught me that we can change the world by changing our community. By a faculty member who invariably makes you feel like the most important person in her world. By the many friends and family who speak encouragement when I’m low or celebrate when I succeed.  And tonight, by the neighbor whose name I don’t know who helped me finish shoveling my endless driveway!

Every day, I am inspired by the example of others to strive to be a better person.  As I once heard and now often repeat, inspiration means, literally, “the breath of God”.  Inspiration is a both a humbling force and great motivator.  So tomorrow morning, and the next, I plan to get out of bed cheerfully telling myself, “Its time to make the donuts.” 

(The post above was written on ‘Thursday, December 9)

I apologize for the delay in sharing this week’s organization:  Feeding America, feedingamerica.org.  Many of you may be familiar with this organization under its old name, America’s Second Harvest.  Feeding America supports over 200 foodbanks throughout the US, and every dollar donated to them buys over 9 pounds of groceries. 

Their website is easy to navigate.  I really liked their statement of values, which includes: respect, stewardship and accountability, collaboration, service, integrity, diversity.  It also lists urgency as a value, which I found surprising and for which, honestly, I needed an explanation.  Luckily, they obliged, stating “We operate with an accute sense of urgency that reflects the needs of people struggling with hunger. We challenge our employees, volunteers and partners to embrace the same sense of urgency to accomplish our shared vision.” 

One feature I hope you’ll check out is that they tell stories of real people whose lives are being touched by the food banks and programs supported by Feeding America.  The stories are listed by state, and clicking on Iowa will take you to a story which is all too real for many families along the Cedar River.

I hope you’ll take a minute to check out the work being done by each of the organizations on our list.  While this project is not one that feels particularly urgent (more like “slow and steady wins the race”), the work our donations will support truly is!

photo, originally uploaded by jhnsn728.

Clearly, I have not perfected my photography skills, however, after numerous attempts, here’s the shot from 6:45 a.m. this morning! For my brother Matt, that’s 277.6, not 2776!

I was wide awake from 3-4 a.m. this morning.  I’m not sure what woke me, but once I was awake I was very conscious of my stomach growling.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how hungry I was.  I was H-U-N-G-R-Y!  The more I told myself to stop thinking about it and go to sleep, the less sleepy I felt.  My brain was in overdrive, thinking about food, then thinking about the fact that I will be weighing in tomorrow morning, worrying about what the scale would say.   After a while, I told myself that I could choose to get up, take a handful of steps to the kitchen, and eat something to stop the stomach pangs.  And that thought is what brought home to me the whole point of this challenge — I CAN choose.  And what a gift that is — to have abundance when others do not.  To be able to choose whether I eat now or eat later or eat at all.  These thoughts are what allowed me to relax into the moment and, finally, drift back to sleep.  Gratitude, the new sleep aid!

It is now just before 11 p.m.  In about seven hours I will be getting out of bed, stepping onto the scale, and uploading a photo of the digital screen so everyone who checks this blog will know how the first week of this challenge has gone.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little freaked.  I don’t have unrealistic expectations, but I’d like the scale to read less than it did on Thanksgiving.  I haven’t been weighing myself in between, just to keep from obsession.

I have been excercising daily and tracking my food intake — calories, fat, fiber.  I’ve been very healthy, so no one need worry that I’m eating too little.  I feel good about week one: and I will try to hold on to that feeling no matter what the scale reads in the morning.  Good night, sleep well.

On Tuesday the Cedar Rapdis Meals on Wheels were packed and delivered by staff and students from the college.  I originally offered to take one of the shifts packing meals, but switched to meal delivery when the organizers indicated that they needed additional people in that role.  It was not my best morning — I could not get outside my own head to focus on the moment I was in.  I did not have a delivery partner, I didn’t know the area into which my delivery route took me, I killed the college car’s battery at my first delivery stop (it was a Prius and I forgot to put it into park AND left the headlights on so it couldn’t recharge), I felt rushed by my agenda later in the day.  It was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella.

After the first couple of stops, that all receded and it finally sunk in that most of my delivery recipients were elderly single women.  I started to wonder about their lives — not only what their days are now, but also their pasts.  Had they been married?  Had they gone to college? Did they have children?  What were they like at 18 or at my age, 48?  I could not escape the conclusion that, like me, they had lived lives holding both tears and laughter.  Nor that I, like them, might someday find myself relying on strangers for my daily bread.     

Should that happen, I would count myself lucky to be living in a community with a Meals on Wheels program.  Meals on Wheels is the most well-known organization dedicated to preventing elder hunger.  Check out their website at http://www.mowaa.org/Page.aspx?pid=183.  They have pledged to end senior hunger by 2020, an ambitious goal.

I’d like to thank the college staff communciation committee, particularly my friends Colette and Sarah, who planned our service day with Meals on Wheels.  Thanks to that opportunity, I am happy to make Meals on Wheels the first organization on our donation “ballot”.

Here we are, officially Day 1 of the Hunger Challenge.  My lack of technical expertise served me well this morning in that I was so focused on figuring out HOW to upload the weigh-in photo that I wasn’t able to spare thought for the fact that I was about to PUBLISH my actual weight!

After sending the email explaining my plan, I spent the week hearing from people and receiving offers of support.  Our current pledges stand at $15 per pound I lose, and I thank everyone who has pledged their financial support for this challenge!  I want, also, to thank all of you for the emotional support you’ve offered.  I have been truly touched by your willingness, whether pledging or not, to help make this a successful venture.  Because I have been asked by a couple of people, I want to reiterate that you are all welcome to share this with anyone you think may be interested in either contributing to the pledge or following our progress. 

Please note that in the sidebar of this blog page are additional pages titled: Hunger Challenge and, beneath that Weight Log.  If you click on either of these, you will navigate to other pages (Hunger Challenge is a brief explanation for anyone who doesn’t wish to read the entire blog to find out what we’re doing; Weight Log will list the weekly weights).  I plan to add both a page listing sponsors and one listing organizations which will be included in the final vote to receive our donation at the end of the Challenge. 

Because this update is more about informational details than anything else, I haven’t included much personal reflection, nor have I profiled an organization.  I will be adding a post sometime later this weekend to avoid making this post unbearably long!  In the meantime, enjoy your Thanksgiving Holiday — and know that my heart is full of gratitude for the many gifts I have received — especially for each of you and your loving support.

SNC00018.jpg, originally uploaded by jhnsn728.

Thanksgiving Day, 2009 weigh-in for the hunger challenge!