Lynnette Knapp

Hello, my Flamazing friends, I want to just rant about some of my thoughts, just my two cents. Grab some coffee, tea, wine, or whatever drink of your choice, and let’s have a bit of a talk.

Lately, I find myself reading so many comments across social media about people not losing weight or not matching steps, etc. Others are worried about calories. Some believe the world is doomed. Sometimes I think that I must be weird.

After all, I wake up every day worried that today might be the day my heart quits.

Perhaps this month I will go to the docs and they will tell me I need surgery because my heart ejection fraction is lower than 35%. Every heartburn instance or cough has me worried that this might be an early warning sign of a heart attack!

I wake up full of joy that I have made it to a new day.

I try to stay active to help my heart. I weigh myself every day. I need to take my blood pressure every day. I’m even supposed to monitor blood pressure after a workout and mark how fast it takes to get to normal. I take a blood pressure cuff with me to family gatherings and picnics. I can't drive for more than an hour without having to stop and move around!

So, please don’t worry if the scales aren't moving…

They will. Please don’t stress yourself about food and calories. Just maintaining a heart-healthy active lifestyle and balanced nutrition is so important. If I want to "cut calories," I simply increase my activity level. If my wrist counter doesn't track my workout steps, then I walk around the house and march in place until they do. No big deal.

Please enjoy your day! Don't let the scale, food, or lack of steps get you down. Tomorrow is not promised to us. Being a cancer survivor living with heart failure has taught me to enjoy being alive today. It's one more day to hug your children. It's one more day to enjoy the song of birds, feel the wind on your face, smell flowers, enjoy a cup of coffee, or that smoothie, and marvel at the flavors and the textures. It's one more day to enjoy the little celebrations. You got up this morning. You have today to fill with positive thoughts. YOU are all amazing because you decided HERE right now is where you know you needed to be. Get your heart healthy, everything else will fall into place.

As my Drill Sgt. said in basic training, "here you will train harder than you've ever trained before. You will be more active and push yourself to the limits. If you need to lose weight you will lose weight, if you need to gain weight you will gain weight. Push yourself one goal, one step at a time. Every day you are not the same person you were yesterday. Go forward. Nothing for you in the past."Time has taught me that we may not always be the pretty young person we once were. And, just maybe we waste too many hours worrying that we aren’t pretty enough. Here’s one little thing I’ve learned: I might not look like Cindy Crawford, but that’s ok because I wasn’t created to be Cindy Crawford. I was created to be ME. The world puts so much emphasis on outward beauty that we worry we do not fit in. Social Media doesn’t help! We worry about not having the right body, or that someone will call us fat, old, or whatever.

I see teen girls at younger and younger ages more depressed simply because they do not fit an image they think they have to conform to.

Remember those old Barbie dolls? Twenty years ago they changed the style of Barbie’s body type in order to help girls have a more positive body image. But, then along came Social Media. Between Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and so on now there are more images and more broken ideals. People love attention and the desire to fit into a false image of what they think they should look like, be, or even think. Young people are told “Gen___ acts like this or thinks like that” and even if the person doesn’t fit the stereotype, the fear of missing out means they must act like some imaginary status quo.

There are people who sit around and spell out doom and gloom, or they speak with prejudice against others using destructive stereotypes that make people hate another simply because of false assumptions based on race, gender, religion, or political affiliations. Some people only have negative things to say and they say it with no concern for others.

It’s true that in America we enjoy free speech. But, just because someone can say something, doesn’t mean one should.

It really comes down to the old proverb about the glass of water. Some people will always look at a glass as half empty. They see their own misery so much they cannot see the beauty around them, the opportunities available. Then there are others that see the glass as half full, but that often means ignoring the suffering or struggle of others. How about finding a happy medium?

First, be glad you have a glass!

Yes, there is suffering in the world, but there is also good in the world. Think about it! You may in fact be the “good” in your area of effect. I once heard a story about a woman who was concerned about someone who had a premie baby. In short, she wanted to make a gift basket for them. There are small, random acts of kindness out there that go seldom seen and rarely heard.

I think we worry too much and we laugh less. We’re more easily offended and quicker still to judge. We live with preconceived notions that someone told us must be true and I think we age ourselves too much in spirit and in the body. Look at the good things you’ve got! There are things in the world you cannot change and complaining about them won’t fix it. Calling people names won’t solve it. But maybe if we examine the glass, and we add a bit of kindness, compassion, and understanding then maybe the glass will be just right?

I don’t know, but every morning I am awake is a day I can set an example and be a curse or a blessing for my daughters, my granddaughters, and my future great-granddaughters.

Maybe I can leave a legacy of being thankful for my life and have been blessed to live another day. Perhaps, instead of thinking of a glass half full, or half empty, be thankful you have a glass and you can fill it and empty it with whatever things you want to fill in that glass.

If I imagine negativity as the dirt in the glass, how about emptying that and filtering it with solutions so that your glass can be filled with positivity. Be Flamazing, and seek the good. Be the benefit to your pool, not a destroyer of your pool.