We Have Found Meditation As A Great Start and End To Our Day

We Have Found Meditation As A Great Start and End To Our Day with Roy and Terry

Meditation has been an interesting journey. We have started meditating most days for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night. The morning session is great to think about what you have to be grateful for and start the day out grounded. The evening session is great for being grateful for the day and clearing the mind in order to sleep better. It's not always easy, but worth trying.

After years of weight, health and fitness challenges, Roy Barker and Terry Mallozzi made a commitment to changing their eating habits and implementing realistic fitness goals for them. They chronicle their journey for health on the Feeding Fatty Podcast speaking to experts about related aspects of health challenges (type 2 diabetes, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism) losing weight (need to) and staying positive (easier said than done). Little did they know it’s not just counting calories and cutting out sweets.

Listen to more great episodes of the Feeding Fatty podcast here

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Full Transcript Below

We Have Found Meditation As A Great Start and End To Our Day...

Sat, 5/15 7:29PM • 13:22

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

meditation, deep breaths, breathing, talk, breathe, breath, reiki, mind, work, feel, concentrate, started, journal, roy, professional, quiet, reframes, gratitude, mantra, internet

SPEAKERS

Terry, Roy Barker

Roy Barker  00:15

Hello, and welcome to another episode of feeding fatty. This is Roy, Terry. So we are the podcast of course we're chronicling our journey into wellness. And that includes many things, you know, trying to clean up our eating habits, better exercise, better mental space, just just a little bit of everything. And, you know, as we spoke last time, we are having some internet difficulties that we will apologize first, for that if the video is a little bit jumpy. We are working on getting that fixed. And, you know, we have actually had to push out some of our guest interviews until we get a little bit more stable internet. So hopefully we'll get some cable buried around here sooner rather than later and be back to it. But we're also trying to beef up these Thursday, shorter posts kind of about what's going on with us. And today, I think we will talk about meditation just a little bit. Yeah,

Terry  01:11

we have been incorporating meditation daily, you know, at least twice a day, in the morning, first thing in the morning, and then in the evening, and all the different aspects that go along with it, you know, keeping everything quiet, everything and every dog quiet. And playing music that helps helps us focus and gratitude and journaling and all the things that go along with it.

Roy Barker  01:42

Yeah, it's been a it's been a different I mean, I guess I've just always been on the run fast paced. And so it's kind of been different, it's a good thing, I think it's, you know, it has a very calming effect, we actually like the incense, we have the, the Asian meditator, it's, I think this is a Reiki track, but it's you know, it's got the, the Asian feel to it. It's just awesome. I mean, we try to do 10 minutes in the morning, 10 at night. And, you know, some days are better than than others, I'm not gonna lie to you, I wish, I wish I was better at it. But, you know, some days the mind is just running and scrambled. And, you know, you just have to kind of deal with it and do the best you can, I think the other thing, you know, I try to follow up with journaling, either a little bit before a little bit after just in case things, you know, come because, you know, every now and then you just kind of have a feeling or some words, maybe it's just, you know, reinforcement of words that you need to hear, you know, we talked about that a little bit last week, and the one about the Reiki, that, you know, the like in that when not strength wisdom patients came, but you know, I've in meditation, other words kind of seem to come up to the top that feels like I really need to focus on that for that day.

Terry  03:06

Yeah, and I didn't, you know, I've just kind of stayed away from it. It's kind of like the in the Reiki and the energy and all of that meditation all I've just kind of stayed away from it, because I didn't know how to do it, I want to do I want to be a professional as soon as I start doing something. So I, you know, I looked, I looked into meditating, and I did a couple of sets of self guided meditation, you know, Google Apps or sites? And no, it was everybody has a different what, what works for them different? Yeah. You know, just practicing gratitude saying, a Mont repeating a mantra. And then, you know, reflecting on the day and the week and I, once I started getting into the habit, you know, just trying to try and, you know, doing the mantra and then being quiet. Yeah, for the rest of the time. That that helps me, but I kind of feel like we need to do it more than 10 minutes. Yeah.

Roy Barker  04:15

I need to expand that out. Yeah. And, you know, I just, I guess it like I said, Well, first off, we're not we are not doctors, and we're not professionals that really anything. But, you know, we are just on a journey to you know, I don't know if he can say find ourselves or find our better self and, you know, trying to get our mind right about different things and, and we feel like that the, that healthier aspect of our, you know, our eating and exercise will kind of follow in that as well trying to, you know, round it all up. But anyway, you know, what I what I do is I just start with like three deep breaths and just you know, and I'm, I'm a Christian, so speak to God or talk to God and I That's something that everybody, you know, if ever, if you have a higher power, then that's a good time to talk to it. If not, it's not necessarily you can focus on your breathing, there's a lot of ways to do it. So, you know, don't feel like it has to be associated with religion. But it is a good time if you if you do have that conviction, but anyway, you can, you can go on the internet and find a lot of information. But I usually just start with three deep breaths and just, you know, ask for an open mind to be receptive, to give me strength, you know, for either for the day, or, you know, if there's things I know I need to work on, that are top of mind, you know, sometimes it's patience, empathy, those kinds of things, you know, I just really ask, and it's funny, because when we started this, I did, you know, the picture of the people sitting cross legged with their, you know, hands like that. didn't really start that, and I can't I don't sit cross legged, I couldn't do that anyway, but I have started doing my hands that way, because I feel like it's an opening, it's like in a receiving position, to receive the message to receive that energy that you get from it. So it's interesting, but, you know, again, everybody has to find their own way and do what really works for them. But, you know, I had tried meditation years ago. And, you know, back then the, I think I was using some kind of an app, but it was basically just talking about, you know, just concentrate on your breathing, try to clear your mind of everything that you can't totally do that stuff always creeps by, but you just have to reset and say, you know, take those really deep breaths and let it go all the way down, and then breathe out and just kind of focus on that.

Terry  06:49

And blowing it all out, too. That's a huge part of breathing out. Some people they use some people just don't think about it that that specifically as far as breathing goes, but you know, breathing in through your nose, and then blowing it all the way out through your mouth, all the way. I mean, everything, every last bit of it until you take another breath, that that's part of the cause. She's She's young that I can't say, when we talked to joy and Yachty when they were on about Eastern medicine, that, that I think is really important as far as

Roy Barker  07:30

meditating. And yeah, yeah, and that's something that you know, I've picked up from yoga before is that how important breathing is to a lot of things to you know, our temperament. And our physical health. I mean, when we, when you start feeling yourself getting agitated, if you'll just take that deep breath, sometimes you can kind of Ward it off. And, you know, make yourself have time to think, you know, we were, this is a little off topic, but we're talking about something somewhere the other day, it was like, you know, don't, don't react, but respond, which is it kind of resonated with me, because sometimes now, if you take that deep breath, you can put up a delineation line between that initial reaction versus response, where you can kind of gather yourself and think about it. So it's, uh, you know, it's something to think about. It's a good practice, you know, when you're in a stressful situation, I

Terry  08:25

think, I think that that makes the whole difference between responding and reacting. Yeah, I mean, for me, and and, you know, something else that I do that I didn't realize was sort of meditation? I don't know if it's, I don't know, breathing wise, is sigh I sigh Yeah, a lot. But it doesn't necessarily mean anything, it just means that, to me, it just means I'm kind of clearing out all the clutter from my head, so I can concentrate on the work at hand, you know?

Roy Barker  08:53

Yeah, not do that. Like, you know, if I'm in the middle of a difficult spreadsheet or something, you know, tough formula, or trying to figure it out. You know, I noticed that with me, I'll be like, you know, just let it out. And but part of my problem is holding that in to that, you know, I tend timber, yeah, I tend to hold my breath when I get not necessarily in a, you know, not stress, it doesn't have to just be stress. I mean, it could just be something where you're thinking and concentrating really hard. So, just remembering to take those breaths along the way I used to, I've said this before, but I used to have a sign over my desk that said, to breathe, and you know, people would kind of snicker and say, Well, you know, you have to tell yourself to breathe. And it's like, well, no, not not in certain situations. And I've been called out on this from you know, when I used to do some martial arts, my Sensei, he'd walked by and you know, he didn't pat me on the shoulder and say, it's okay to take a breath. And so that's when I first became kind of self realization about that and then the other time was a one of those painting parties, you know, where the ladies up at the front painting and you're kind of following her. And, you know, she walked by and said, It's alright, you can breathe while you do this because I was like, so intent on getting it and I was all you know, just holding my breath.

Terry  10:15

Did you turn into Michelangelo? After she told you to breathe? I want to send say,

Roy Barker  10:24

yeah, another cool air cool.

Terry  10:27

We are looking for a sensor.

Roy Barker  10:30

But yeah, anyway, I think it's a, it's been interesting, you know, and we've we've been doing it a couple weeks now. So we're still new at it. But I think we're growing, I feel like we're growing it's come become more second nature. And it's just something we start our day out with. And it's something we and that's what I was gonna say is the end of the day. I like the beginning of the day, because it starts out on the wrap step. But I like the end of the day too, because it's a chance to just clear your mind of all the stuff that has happened during the day and basically just prepare yourself for sleep. And sometimes, you know, for me anyway, if I just go straight from doing something to go try to lay down, everything is still swirling in my head still thinking about this and that. Whereas if I take that 10 minutes to do this meditation, it really puts me in a much more relaxed space to go lay down.

Terry  11:26

Well, another thing that we do, I think we've already mentioned this, but we journal also and we've been journaling afterward. You know, I've been I've read a couple of articles that say to journal beforehand, so you can meditate on it. And then I and then do it afterwards, too. I don't know.

Roy Barker  11:45

Yeah, I think a little bit time before that. We do the meditation and I journal some I don't necessarily look at it. But it kind of reframes me of some stuff that I really want to give a lot deeper thought to. Okay, anyway. All right. Well, unless you've got anything else that was it, just want to talk a little bit about meditation,

Terry  12:06

just that we try to do at the same time every day and in the evenings as well and just kind of trying to keep a schedule schedule about it, you know.

Roy Barker  12:16

Alright, well, thanks a lot for listening. Of course, you can find us at www.feedingfatty.com we're on all the major social media networks, go over to the Facebook group, we'd love to start some discussions over there. Also on Instagram, and this will go up the video of this will go up on YouTube once we release the episode so he can find a scene where you can always reach out like said we will be glad to answer any questions that we possibly can

Terry  12:45

return now Well, fine.

Roy Barker  12:46

Yeah. And we're not professional. So you know, sometimes we have to just refer people out and say, you know, you need to seek a medical doctor or dietitian or you know, get some advice from a professional for sure. But we can answer any simple questions for you. So anyway, until next time, that's gonna do it for Roy.

Terry  13:05

I'm Terry. Goodbye.

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