MEETING MINUTES
Friday, April 3, 2009
Volume 16; Issue 13

Acknowledgements & Announcements

Carole Weishaar has been with MABE 11 years!

Dan Sleezer has resigned from the group.  He has nothing but he needs to devote more time to his family and growing business.

Jana Greene Leads a topic on "How do you take care of yourself?"

As Keith Miller pointed out in an email to Jana, this topic is very important given the recent losses MABE has faced.

How do you take care of yourself physically? Exercise, diet, meditation...what else???

• I have been taking vitamins for 63 years.  There is no way you can get all the vitamins you need with what you eat on a daily basis.  I have always been extremely healthy and have a positive attitude.  I reward myself with just living by traveling.  I read a lot and I am a research queen.
• A couple of years ago I joined Pure Fitness.  I try to get there 3-5 times a week and feel much healthier.  I also take vitamins.
• Because of stress in my job, I suffered what I thought was a heart attack several years ago.  I made the time to take care of myself before doing anything else in the day.  I started walking every morning.  In the beginning I had to remind myself to do it. 
• I make sure I keep contact with a good medical person and making my mandatory visits.
• I take individual vitamins...14!  A lot of vitamin Ds for bone health.
• I have specific needs for vitamins so I take a lot of calcium and vitamins I don't get as a vegetarian. 
• Water is magic so I drink a lot. 
• The way we treat ourselves hinges largely on what we think of ourselves.  At one point in my life I decided to start acting instead of talking about what I would like to do.  I started training which helped me change my opinion of myself.  Once I got in momentum it changed the course of my life and introduced me to new friends and rich new experiences.
• It depends on where you are in life, your experiences, etc.  I started going to a gym but it only helped so much.  I had to make more changes.  I started a new diet and lost 60 pounds in four month.  I keep it off because I now exercise regularly with 18 year old girls.  I am a routine person.  "If it ain't in my routine, it ain't going to happen."  I saw the way my father treated his body and what it did to him and I didn't want to do that.
• We need to treat our bodies like a well maintained car.  But there are no guarantees.  We can only do the best we can.  There is no magic pill.  We take vitamins and natural herbs.  Find the things that work for you.  I personally enjoy exercise but go through peaks and valleys like most do.  I do see a tie-in to my emotional well being to my exercise routine.
• There is a magic pill....stay married.  That is one of the things I do.  As you can tell I am the image of fitness.  I walk the dog and it picks the spirit up.  I always thought I was physically fit although on the heavy side.  But 2 years ago I came up with high blood pressure.
• I take the Costco pack of vitamins, which is quite a few.  I exercise 3 days a week.  I park further out in parking lots run up stairs.  But there is nothing like exercise and get out in the daylight.  I see the doctor regularly.  I went to the heart institute after my dad died and got the whole complete deal.  My brother had a heart attack the day I went.  There are no sudden heart attacks.  There are warnings.  Heed those warnings.
• I used to way 366 pounds.  I had gastric bypass surgery and lost 180.  I go to the gym 3 times a week with a personal trainer.  I don't have enough self discipline.  I need someone to push me.  I still don't enjoy exercise but it does make me feel better.  I am trying meditation but still need to work on it.  2009 will hopefully be the year of balance for me. 
• I've been taking green algae for about 30 years.  It gives me a lot of energy.  I get very sluggish when I don't take it.

How do you take care of yourself emotionally? Therapy, venting to friends, banging your head against the wall????

• I never used to be a person that believed in therapy.  My message was "get over it!"  After my husband died, a number of my friends recommended I talk to one.  I started to go to a grief counselor.  I went 9 months feeling like it was a waste of time and money.  But then I started having these epiphanies about myself and my relationships.  I am now a firm believer in therapy if you get the right counselor.  Therapy is important but more important is a good circle of friends that you can vent to.
• Yoga helps me relax a lot and I have trained myself to talk positively.  Also exercise and reading positive books.
• Everybody has a story.  There was a plane crash 20 years ago in Detroit with only one survivor.  One was a friend.  I went to the funeral for this family of 5.  It really affected me.  I ended up going to a spiritualist center and had a reading.  It put me at peace with all the friends I had lost.  It lead me to my faith.  I don't need to go to anyone else to talk about my problems.  I pray everyday.  I now have incredible peace in my life.
• Unfortunately for me, I don't have a direct phone line to my God.  I need a translator.  I struggled with this.  I grew up Catholic and went through all that ritual and never really got it.  But through a series of events I was lead into different circumstances that helped me explore that.  I have a real strong belief that you need to have strong relationships.  There is a huge difference between loneliness and solitude.  The physical and the exercise is obviously important.  But for me the most devastating thing is loneliness.  It kills people.
• Loneliness is something to think about.  I see so many lonely people come into my store.  There are so many divorces.  Loneliness is a cancer.

Thank you to everybody that commented.  Since Bob Busch can't speak next week.  We will cover the second half of this discussion next week.