It's the Little Things

Happy Halloween! I'm getting together with my daughters and their families late this afternoon for a light dinner before all four children head out to Trick or Treat. I'm hoping the rain stops so the little ones won't end up soaked. Rain or shine, it will be a fun time!

Yesterday I had coffee with a friend of mine who's lost 90 pounds on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and reached her goal. She was glowing as she shared with me that she and her husband had spent the morning at her granddaughter's school for Grandparent's Day and told me that she and her husband (he lost 40 pounds on the plan) were the only grandparents who sat on the floor with the children. She said that they were offered chairs, but they declined, as they loved the fact that they were able to sit on the floor! She said that this would have been difficult a year ago, as she would have had a hard time getting up off the floor.

When we're on 5&1, it's hard to envision how much will change for us when we finally reach our goal. We try to imagine how we'll look and we may hazard a guess at what size we'll wear, but there are so many little things that will change that we can't even imagine. Many of those little things, like being able to sit on the floor and easily get up, are things that we don't think about while we're on our weight loss journey, but they bring a lot of joy to us post-goal. What I've discovered is that life post-goal is filled with little, unexpected joys - easily sitting on the floor, chasing grandchildren, walking between tables in a crowded room, fastening an airline seat belt - the list goes on and on. I really didn't think about these kind of things while I was losing weight, but every time I run across another unexpected joy, it's another reminder of how far I've come. I hope I never tire of the thrill of being able to do such little, normal things!

When my friend and I were on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, there were a lot of things we temporarily gave up. But reaching our goal weight was absolutely worth it, and we're both celebrating the big and the small joys every day.

Reaching goal happens as we make the choice every day to stay on plan. What choice are you making today?

Bored With Maintenance

I've said for a long time now that maintenance isn't for sissies. It's one level of challenge to lose the weight to begin with, and it's a whole 'nother level of challenge to KEEP it off! Seventeen months into the second phase of this program - maintenance - I'm still doing well.

However, I now realizing that "maintaining" really isn't sufficient. The problem with "maintaining" is that it sort of sounds like treading water or marching in place - a lot of energy expended without really getting anywhere :-). Maybe I'm just tripping over semantics, but I've grown restless over thinking of myself as being "in maintenance."

My restlessness grows out of my belief that nothing can really stay in one place very long - there is a natural inclination to move in one direction or another. I know I don't want to move in the wrong direction, that's for sure! Also, I'm a person who likes to see things happening, and "maintaining" is starting to sound boring to me. I'm not knocking maintaining my weight loss at all, let me make that clear. I'm THRILLED that I'm maintaining my weight loss, as that was a big concern of mine when I was in the weight loss phase.

I have shifted my thinking from maintenance to really continuing my journey towards optimal health. I want to increase my strength, further reduce my percentage of body fat, and live as vibrantly as a 57-year old woman possibly can. That sounds a lot more fun than maintaining to me :-).

I'm setting some goals for myself and using my just-purchased bodybugg to help keep me on track. Ongoing, real-time feedback is very motivating for me and my new toy will help me balance my calories in with my calories out. I've started uploading the nutritional information for my Medifast foods because including 2-3 Medifast meals per day is part of my daily meal plan. I think it's going to be fun and I love the challenge of meeting daily goals, and I'm viewing this tool as an investment in my health.

Getting healthy starts with getting to a healthy weight. I hope you're choosing health today!

Listening to Our Bodies

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening with my almost-3 year old grandchildren (twins). It's always fun spending time with Olivia and Zachary, and they are two busy little people!

Zachary has a broken right clavicle due to an older boy who jumped on him in a mall play area last week, and it was fascinating to watch him. He is always on the go and refuses to wear a sling, but he is managing pretty well. He almost instinctively guards his arm, and he has altered some of his activities to favor his injury. I watched him roll down a hill (he's an almost-3 year old boy, after all!) and instead of rolling down in the normal way, he sort of rolled from hip to hip while keeping his upper body upright. He walks and runs with his arm held close to his body, and he chose to throw a frisbee with his other arm, so his aim was a little off.

Interesting to me was that nobody had to teach him to be careful with his arm - what he was doing was in direct response to what his body told him (through pain) that he needed to do. He is listening to his body and making accommodations as required, then he just keeps on doing what 3-year old little boys do.

Watching Zachary made me wonder what happens to us as we age that makes us stop listening to our bodies? What happens to move us from being protective of our body, from almost instinctively responding to our body's cues, to being self-destructive and seemingly oblivious to what we're doing due to bad habits? I don't have an answer to that question - wish I did! I think the answer is probably incredibly complex and undoubtedly a bit different for each of us.

I do know that shortly after starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, I started listening to my body again - really listening. I once again became aware of when I was hungry and when I wasn't, and I was able to distinguish between physical and emotional hunger. As I began providing proper nourishment to my body and I rediscovered energy I thought was gone forever, I once again marveled at my body's ability to recover, even after years of abuse. Getting into an exercise routine after years of inactivity made my body talk rather sternly to me for a few days :-), but soon I started to see muscles firming up and enjoyed the rush of a good workout.

Our bodies were created with a wonderful ability to heal. If you doubt that, pay attention the next time you cut yourself :-). When we begin to do the right things for our bodies, when we begin to listen to our bodies, it's amazing to see how fast things change. I've known several people who have seen dramatic improvement in lab work - cholesterol and blood sugar - within a few weeks of starting on the plan, blood pressures often return to normal, and people are often able to reduce or get off of a variety of medications. All of this happens to people who may have been overweight and on medications for years, and it happens quickly.

To begin a return to a healthier life, all we have to do is choose to stay on plan - open 5 packets and eat a lean and green. How simple, and how amazing!

Are you listening to your body today? If you listen carefully, I think you'll hear it say "stay on plan" :-)

Guess What's Just Around the Corner?

Happy Wednesday! We're half-way through this week and are coming up fast on the weekend, which includes Halloween. In my past, Halloween was the beginning of an all-out food fest that didn't end until I was in a sugar-induced stupor on January 2. Between Halloween and New Year's, it wasn't unusual for me to pick up at least 10 pounds - yikes!

I have a terrible sweet tooth that I inherited from my dad (he's the only person I know who will put PB&J on his grilled cheese sandwiches, and I've seen him put it on hamburgers once or twice). When my children were young, I would sort through their trick-or-treat bags and take out all of the "yucky" candy bars (I know, I'm bad . . . the kids eventually figured out what I was doing and I was busted).

Going on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 and staying on plan meant keeping my hands out of my grandchildren's trick or treat bags (a sugar-holic is shameless . . . ), but it wasn't easy. Halloween was the first big test of my commitment to stay on plan, so I approached the day with a bit of trepidation. When the moment finally arrived and I stared down all that candy, I realized that once I started eating it I probably wouldn't be able to stop, and I knew that once I DID stop, I'd feel awful - physically and mentally. That was one of the first times on plan that I can remember sensing a serious threat to my weight loss journey looming, and my response was to think ahead and not get caught up in the moment.

I'm writing about this now because I'm guessing that some of you will be facing down a lot of candy and chocolate this weekend. I'm encouraging you to think about it now and decide now what you're going to do and how you're going to respond.

Planning ahead is critical on this plan. So many of us are impulsive eaters, and I know that there were many times when I found myself eating almost before I realized it. That was always followed by regret, but it was too late to undo what had been done. When we take the time to anticipate temptation and plan how we're going to respond, we're more likely to be successful.

Eating my MF meals on time was key to keeping me on plan, even when faced with some of my favorite sweets. Because I was eating my meals at regular intervals, my blood sugar stayed stable and my cravings didn't get out of hand. Because I wasn't hungry, it was much easier to walk away. Keeping a crunch bar handy can also be helpful if the craving continues - they really satisfy my sweet tooth!

The most important thing you can do ahead of time is to spend some time thinking about what you really want. When you're not facing a temptation, it's much easier to focus on what you really want (and what you REALLY want isn't the Halloween candy . . . ). Get a clear picture in your mind now of what you want - think about how you'll look and feel at your goal. If you get that picture in your mind, you'll be in a better position to make choices that will support your goal.

I'll talk more about the holidays in upcoming posts (ideas are already running around in my head!), but I'm encouraging you to start thinking and planning now for this weekend. Getting through this sugar-infused day will position you for success as we move closer to those OTHER holidays!

It's all about making choices to support what we really want. Are you with me? I sure hope so!

Fighting a Lion

I'm reading an interesting book right now entitled "In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson. This book was recommended by a friend so I decided to read it (I got it from Amazon.com). The book is based on a rather obscure story in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 23:20-21) about a man named Benaiah who chased a lion down into a pit and, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it. I've read through the book of 2 Samuel many times and this particular story never stood out to me - it was something that I guess I just read without ever giving thought to it. However, the writer of the "In a Pit . . . " took the time to really think about what kind of person would chase a lion, then go down into a snowy, slippery pit and kill it.

The writer talks about seven skills to help individuals climb out of their own slippery pits and become lion chasers - seizing life by the mane. His chapters, including "Locking Eyes with Your Lion," "Unlearning Your Fears," and "Guaranteed Uncertainty", expand on each of these seven skills.

I can't help but think back to locking eyes with my own lion - my obesity - and feeling completely overwhelmed. I felt like my chances of emerging victorious from this battle were on a par with chasing a lion into a pit on a snowy day and living to tell the story. Twenty years of failure after failure had led me to believe that victory wasn't possible. Yet, against all odds, I made the decision to try one more time. I locked eyes on my lion and felt scared. I didn't want to tame the lion - I wanted to leave its carcass on the floor of the pit, and I wanted to emerge from the pit victorious.

I had reached the point where I knew I couldn't do this on my own - the lion was way too big and had kept me cowering for years. Every time I would make a little progress, one snarl would have me right back where I started. When I made the decision to try one more time, I readily acknowledged my inability to do this on my own and sincerely and desperately asked God to give me the strength I needed.

What I've learned is that God likes to give victories that defy the odds. The Bible is full of stories of impossible situations, where God shows up and gives a victory that nobody expects. When He does that, it's clear who gave the victory and who gets the glory.

That's certainly true for me! I had the right program to help me reach my goal, but without the Lord's strength and grace on a daily basis, I know I wouldn't have gotten there. People have often commented to me about how strong I must have been to have stayed on plan for 11 straight months, but I am quick to let them know that the strength wasn't my own. Each day I had to make the choice to stay on plan, and each day I drew on God's strength to do it. I still do!

We all have lions in our lives, whether it's our weight or something else. I want to encourage you today to lock eyes with your lion and imagine emerging victorious from the fight. It IS possible, and the choice is yours. Go for it!

Creating

I am happy to be home today after a busy time on the road. The last eleven days were a great mix of work and play and I enjoyed time with family members and friends - such a blessing!

I spent some time last night reviewing my notes from the conference I attended in Utah. One of the speakers made an interesting comment: "Change motivated by conflict will always be temporary; changed motivated by desired outcomes can lead to permanent change." His point was that to make change permanent, we need to move from solving a problem to creating something in our lives.

I've written about this before, but he really brought the point home for me. When I started Take Shape for Life/Medifast, I was trying to solve a couple of problems - my obesity and my diabetes. My blood sugar returned to normal within one week of starting the program, so that "problem" began to improve almost immediately. Week by week, as I saw the pounds melt off and I dropped size after size, the pain of obesity began to ease. Had my focus remained on solving my problems, I'm not sure I would have ever reached my goal. By the time I'd lost 60 pounds and was 200 pounds, I looked and felt a LOT better. I was out of women's sizes and my blood sugar remained normal. I was pretty tired of being on plan and I remember toying with the idea of quitting. I remember walking through the grocery store, loading my cart with lean protein and my greens while smelling great things from the bakery. I took note of all of the people pushing carts loaded with very Medifast-unfriendly food, and many of these people were quite a bit heavier than I was. I remember being mad that I was still on such a restrictive plan while other people were eating all of the "fun stuff," and I began to rationalize. I was 55, I had 4 grandchildren, I was wearing size 16, and I momentarily thought that where I was at was good enough.

Thankfully, I came out of that thinking pretty quickly, before I allowed it to take me down a road I didn't want to take. What brought me back and kept me moving forward was a vision I had in my mind of being at a healthy weight and wearing a small size. I imagined the joy at finally reaching my goal, and I knew if I stopped short of my goal I would feel like I had settled for less than what I really wanted.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I had done exactly what our speaker talked about - I moved from solving a problem to creating something in my life. My focus was on moving forward towards something I wanted rather than moving away from something I didn't want. Ultimately, that made all of the difference for me.

It still makes a difference. My focus now is on continuing on the path to optimal health. Optimal health looks different for each of us, but I have a clear vision in my mind of what optimal health is for me. As long as I stay focused on what I want to create in my life, I am motivated to make the choices necessary to continue moving forward.

Today we each have to choose if we're going to look back at what brought us to this program, or if we're going to look forward at what we want to create in our lives. I'd rather create than problem solve - how about you?

Stop - Challenge - Choose

After 11 days on the road, I'm flying home today. It's been a fun and busy time, with a good mix of work and relaxation, and I learned a lot at the two conferences I attended. One of the things I learned is a great 3-step strategy to use when faced with a temptation: Stop, Challenge, Choose.

Often when people go off plan, it's an impulsive decision. They intend to stay on plan, but almost before they realize it, their hand is bringing off-plan food to their mouth. It can be in response to stress or a variety of other triggers, including social situations, and almost always the off-plan eating is followed by regret, frustration, and a feeling of failure. This 3-step strategy can be helpful in changing how we respond to those triggers.

The first step is to Stop. When we find ourselves reaching for off-plan food, take a minute and just Stop. Take a breath and clear your head.

Secondly, Challenge. Challenge what you're feeling - ask yourself why you're reaching for something off-plan. Are you really hungry, or are you reaching for food because you're stressed, tired, etc.? It's important to identify the "why." This is also the time to ask yourself what it is that you REALLY want.

Lastly, Choose. If you've taken a moment to Stop and Challenge, you will now be able to make an informed choice. You may choose to go ahead and eat off-plan (I hope not, but you may), but at least it won't be a mindless choice. If you take a moment to Stop, Challenge and Choose, it's more likely that you'll decide to stay on plan.

Have a great, on-plan Sunday, and choose wisely :-)

Mood or Mind-set?

I've got a question for you on this Saturday morning: are your responses based on your mind-set or on your mood?

This year I'm doing a Beth Moore Bible study based on the book of Esther. In the lesson I was just working on, Beth talked about several Bible characters who stood firm even under difficult (and sometimes life-threatening) circumstances. She made the statement that "each responded out of his mind-set rather than his mood." That statement made me wonder how often I respond to things based on my mood rather than a mindset.

Up until I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, my weight loss efforts were pretty much dictated by my mood. When I was feeling motivated, I tried to lose weight. When I didn't feel like it, I'd tell myself that it wasn't going to be a "good diet day" and I gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted. Needless to say, a mood-driven weight loss program got me absolutely no where!

It wasn't until I embraced a mind-set of getting healthy that I finally began my final weight loss journey. Having the right tools - this program! - certainly made the difference, but what was also different this time was that I had a different mind-set.

When I started on this program, I wasn't trying to lose weight for a specific event, and I didn't set a date to reach my goal. This time, my goal was to get healthy and stay healthy, and I didn't care how long it took (but naturally I hoped it would be fast!). Once I embraced a mind-set of getting healthy, it was amazing to see the difference in my resolve.

If you're in the habit of responding out of your mood, this journey is going to be a long and rocky one, because there will be times when I can guarantee that you won't be in the mood to stay on plan. There are days when this isn't fun at all, and unless you have a mind-set that is fixed on getting to a healthy weight and continuing your pursuit of health, you're likely to succumb to the myriad of temptations that surround you.

Part of moving from mood to mind-set is taking the time to identify what it is that you really want. If you want to be at a healthy weight, write it down. Picture in your mind what your life will look like when you reach your goal - what kind of clothes will you wear? How will you feel? What will you be able to do? If you can get a picture in your mind of what you want, that can help you keep moving forward on those days when this isn't fun. Instead of moving away from what you don't want (being overweight, on medication, etc.), think about what you want to create in your life. That's much more fun and will be a big step forward in giving you the mind-set you need to get to your goal.

The choice is yours - mood or mind-set?

The View from the Top

Happy Friday! I spent all day yesterday with one of my Take Shape for Life friends and fellow health coach, riding around in her red jeep and seeing the beauty of the California desert with her. We ended the day by sitting outside watching the stars and talking about our respective weight loss journeys. Our journeys are different (each one of us has our own unique story), but we both marvel at how far we've come because of this program - and the grace of God.

It's easy for us to compare stories and get discouraged if someone else's story is more exciting than our own. We hear about someone who dropped 50 pounds in three months and we can become discouraged if we've taken five months to lose the same amount of weight. Or we're happy with our two pound weight loss this week until we hear about someone else who lost four pounds, making our two pounds seem insignificant.

One of the things I learned on my own journey was that I couldn't compare my own progress and my own journey to anyone else's. I could always find someone who was losing faster than I was, and that's who I would have compared myself to (I never compared myself to anyone who was losing more slowly than I - funny how that works!). When I would compare myself to someone else and inevitably come up short, it created frustration and dissatisfaction - definitely NOT a good thing! I had to come to terms with the fact that this was MY journey, and ultimately it didn't matter how long it would take me to reach my goal, the important thing was that I got there.

I heard someone remark recently that it doesn't matter how long it takes to get to the top, because the view is the same once you're there, regardless of how long it takes you to get there. I think that is a great statement and provides a wonderful perspective for us to embrace.

We are on a journey towards improving our health and permanently changing our lifestyle so that we stay at a healthy weight for the rest of our lives. We can't control how fast our bodies choose to release the weight, but we can choose whether or not we're going to stay on plan. As long as we're doing what we know we need to do, we are going to reach our goal. Ultimately, that's what really matters. Don't allow yourself to get discouraged by comparing your progress to someone else's. This is your journey, and when you reach the top, the view is magnificent!

Have a great Friday!

17 Months and Counting!

Today marks 17 months since I reached my goal. It's exciting for me to see another month go by that finds me in my goal range and still in my goal size!

One of the concerns I had as I approached my goal was whether or not I'd be able to maintain, so marking another month off on the calendar is such a relief to me! That's not to say this has been easy, because it's not, and I haven't done this perfectly. I am learning how to fine-tune this process, and it will definitely be an ongoing process for the rest of my life - but that's OK! In fact, that's what it's SUPPOSED to be - a lifelong process of continual learning and improvement.

This past week of travel and meetings has once again tested my maintenance strategy. I won't know for sure how well I've done until I get home and step on the scale next Monday, but I think I've done pretty well. I brought a ton of Take Shape for Life/Medifast products with me and have averaged 3-4 MF meals per day, and I've done a lot of walking and hiking. The Medifast meals and walking/hiking have hopefully offset the few off-plan meals I've eaten. My jeans still fit comfortably, so I think I've done fine.

The good news is that if the scale is up more than a couple of pounds (and I don't think it will be . . . ), I know exactly what to do. There will be no sense of panic, and that is SO nice. I may need to add in another Medifast meal or two per day, but if so it's no big deal to me and the extra pounds will be off in no time. I try hard to not go on and off Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 because that feels like yo-yo dieting to me, but I'm not opposed to doing a "Medifast blitz" if needed. At this point in my journey, I very much have the mindset of being willing to do whatever it takes to maintain my weight loss and my health for the rest of my life.

Because I'm a daily weigher (I don't recommend this, but that is what I do), it's been hard for me to be operating in the dark for the past week without my scale. I won't weigh on anybody else's because I have no idea how it compares to mine, so I'm clueless right now as to where I'm at. Although that feels a bit scary, it's forcing me to really pay attention to what I'm eating, how much I'm eating, and try to balance this with my activity level. I don't have the scale right now to tell me each morning how I did the day before, so I'm finding myself being a bit more mindful - and that's a good thing :-).

So 17 months later, the challenge of making good choices continues. On days when I don't feel like making good choices, I have to stop and ask myself what's really important to me. Once I establish what's important (staying healthy and in my goal range), those other choices are a lot easier to make.

Are you ready to make the choices you need to make today to get you where you want to go? I sure hope so!

Don't Blame Mom

Happy Wednesday!

I'm in Southern California visiting my aunt, and it's wonderful having time to catch up with her! She is my mom's younger sister and it's amazing how much we have in common - such fun!

One thing we definitely have in common is a long-standing struggle with weight. She and I spent a lot of time talking last night about our respective struggles and our perspectives on our struggles. We both developed our unhealthy mindsets about food in childhood (as did most everyone else reading this!). Food was often used as a reward, especially if we cleaned our plate, and it was used to comfort us (have a cookie . . . ). Food occasionally was also used as punishment (if you don't do this, you won't get dessert tonight). For my aunt and I, and for most of you, our unhealthy relationship with food goes back to the earliest years of our lives. It's not that we're blaming our mothers - please understand that (and this has nothing to do with the fact that my mom reads my blogs!), but it does mean that it takes a lot of work to undo a lifetime of food association.

The good news is that it IS possible to reprogram our hearts and minds. It's not easy, and I readily admit that I don't do this perfectly, but it IS possible. As we choose to make different choices, and as we begin to enjoy the benefits of those choices, it makes it a bit easier to make other positive choices, which in turn makes the next choices easier still. One choice at a time, we can change how we think and feel about food. Undoing a lifetime of faulty thinking doesn't happen overnight, but today can be one day closer to making that change permanent.

Are you willing to make choices today that will better support getting you to a healthy weight?

Engaging in the Process

After a fun and busy day in Park City, Utah with friends, I'm flying to Los Angeles today and my husband is flying back to Chicago. I'm excited to spend time with an aunt I haven't seen in 8 years, and I'll also spend time with a cousin and his wife whom I haven't seen since July of 1990.

My aunt has battled weight her entire life. She had her stomach stapled over 20 years ago in an effort to lose weight, and when a lot of the weight came back on, she had an esophageal ring placed to restrict the circumference of her esophagus. The intent was to force her to carefully chew and swallow her food and eat slowly, but what really happened was that the restricted circumference of her esophagus causes her to choke. As a result, she opts for a lot of food that goes down easy - like ice cream, etc. She has tried just about every weight loss plan you can think of and has even been on and off Take Shape for Life/Medifast.

My aunt, more than anyone else, taught me by example that unless you change how you fundamentally think and feel about food, it's impossible to take weight off and keep it off. She relied on two different surgical procedures to "fix" the problem, but they didn't. She is now 71 years old and still struggling with weight. She told me that the epitaph on her tombstone will read "The battle is finally over;" and the battle she's referring to is her life-long struggle with food. She is incredibly happy for me with my weight loss, but doesn't think she'll ever be free from her own food addition until she's dead and buried. I'm hoping to change her mind - wish me luck!

Her son is in his mid-40's, over 300 pounds and diabetic, so I also plan to talk to him about Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Because he's seen his mom struggle her entire life with weight, I don't think he believes it's possible to ever have victory. I plan to show him some of the success photos posted here and am hopeful that he will be as inspired as I was when I found this program (I'm still incredibly inspired by all of the success photos, as each one represents a changed life!).

Permanent change begins with making the choice to change. People talk all the time about wanting to change, but so often they only want change if the change doesn't cost them anything. If they can lose the weight they need to lose and still eat and drink the same things they've always had, they're all for change. We want the result but refuse to engage in the process, but without engaging in the process, we'll never get the result we want.

On this program, the process is far more than just eating 5&1. These are important and effective tools, but if that's all we do, then we're treating this like a diet and diets don't work. We have to choose to be healthy. We have to choose to change how we relate to food. This isn't easy, and it doesn't happen overnight, but one day and one choice at a time, the change WILL happen!

I hope that you are choosing to stay on plan today, and that you are also choosing to work this program and fully engage in the process. You won't ever regret it!

400 Pounds Later . . .

Happy Monday! I'm spending today in Park City, Utah with my husband and some friends of ours. Following our weekend conference, it's going to be great to relax today.

Since all of us have lost weight (my girlfriend lost 135 pounds, her husband lost 90, my husband lost 50 and I lost 126), relaxing looks a bit different for us than it used to :-). Instead of sitting around in the hot tub all day (not that this doesn't sound tempting!), we're going to do a ton of walking as we explore the town and then visit the Olympic village. I've been told that there is a zipline we can ride, and I'm thinking about it! Whether I do or don't do the zipline, the important thing is that if I want to do it, I CAN. That's not a choice I would have had prior to losing my weight, so I'm going to keep all of my options open :-).

It's amazing to realize that between the four of us, we've lost 400 pounds and our lives have totally changed. The fact that we will spend the day together, walking and being active, is something we couldn't have imagined doing 2-1/2 year ago. We've reached our goals and are maintaining our weight loss, but our journey towards optimal health continues. We each define optimal health in a different way, as it means something slightly different to each of us, but for the four of us today, it means being able to do the things we want to do with the energy we need to do them.

The ability to spend today doing the things we want to do is because each of the four of us made a choice to get to a healthy weight. We all had a lot of weight to lose, but we reached a point where we were ready to change our lives. Once we made that choice, Take Shape for Life/Medifast provided the tools we needed and, to our amazement, the program worked! The little choices we made every day, one meal at a time, really added up.

Today you have the opportunity to choose whether or not you'll be on plan today. Don't focus on what you're moving away from (being overweight or your desire to get off of medications), focus on where you want to go. Dream big, then make the choices you need today to make those dreams come true.

It's All About Choice

Happy Sunday everyone! It's been a whirlwind few days for me at the Take Shape for Life leadership retreat at Sundance with lots of great training, wonderful people, and gorgeous surroundings. It will definitely take some time for me to process everything!

One of our speakers, Robert Fritz, talked about the power of choice, and he talked about how choice is different than commitment. I often talk about (and encourage everyone, including myself) to commit to staying on plan, but Robert said that commitment can often end up feeling like obligation - and nobody likes to feel obligated :-).

The reality is that we have the freedom to choose whether or not we're going to be healthy, and once we make the fundamental choice to be healthy, other choices become much easier. Sometimes we feel very conflicted as things threaten to pull us in two different directions. We want to get to a healthy weight, but we also want to go out with our friends and enjoy eating the same food they do. Robert urged us to create a hierarchy of values between competing values. What that really means is that we may value both getting to a healthy weight and value time with our friends, and it's up to us to decide which is most important. (Of course, we always have the choice of going out with friends AND still staying on plan - the two are not mutually exclusive!)

We all started on this program because we wanted to lose weight and get healthy. When things threaten to become obstacles to us reaching our goal, it's time to reassess what it is that we really want. The choice is ultimately ours, and we will bear the consequences - good or bad - of the choice that we make.

I hope you're choosing to make this an on-plan day today!

The Land of Denial

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Yesterday I caught a segment on one of the morning news programs about a southern state that is raising insurance rates for obese individuals. What interested me was one of the individuals interviewed for this segment. The man was morbidly obese and absolutely furious that his state would soon be charging him more for insurance. I'm not here to debate the pros and cons of this state's decision - as a formerly morbidly obese person myself, I know it would have been upsetting if I would have had higher insurance premiums. What caught my attention was that while this man ranted and raved against his state, he was eating a donut and smoking a fat cigar. It was amazing to watch and I couldn't help but think that while this individual was obviously engaging in "in your face" behavior, there was also a certain amount of denial going on. While he munched on his donut and smoked his cigar, he contended that he was perfectly healthy and didn't believe his obesity would ever cost his state a penny. He obviously believed he could continue his behavior indefinitely without consequence. For his sake, I hope he can, but the odds are definitely not on his side.

Denial is such a dangerous thing. I've been there, and I'm guessing that most everyone reading this has been there, too. Sometimes denial kicks in because the prospect of getting to a healthy weight seems overwhelming, perhaps even impossible. The problem is that while we may be in denial, our body is keeping track of what we're doing to it. We may be able to fool our mind, but we can't fool our body. For me, my denial came to a crashing stop when I was diagnosed with diabetes. At that point, I came face to face with over twenty years of morbid obesity and unhealthy habits. It was a pretty depressing time as reality hit me like ice water in the face. But the reality of my situation finally began the journey that brought me to this program and, ultimately, to my goal.

I hope your days of denial are over and that you're finally ready to finish your journey towards a healthy weight. It's not always easy, and the temptation is always there to stick our heads back in the sand. Dealing with the reality of our weight and, perhaps, the food issues we may have, is hard work. But when we address those issues honestly, it's amazing how much progress we make!

*****

My husband and I are leaving for Chicago in a little while. We're spending the night at a hotel near the airport because we have a 6:40 AM flight tomorrow morning to Salt Lake City. We're going to be attending a Take Shape for Life leadership retreat at Sundance Thursday-Sunday, then we'll spend a couple of days in Park City, Utah with some friends of ours. My husband will fly home on Tuesday and I'll fly to Los Angeles to spend a couple of days with my aunt. I'm meeting up with a friend and fellow health coach next Thursday (she lives about an hour from my aunt) and then going with her to a weekend conference in L.A. October 23-24. I'm flying home October 25, and I think I'll be ready to be home for a while :-).

While I'm gone, my access to the internet will be intermittent. As a result, I will not be posting a daily commitment blog. I'll write and post as I can, but in the meantime, you all know the drill: stay on plan :-).

Blessings!

A Not So Obvious Question

Do you want to get to a healthy weight? Do you want to stay at a healthy weight for the rest of your life?

This seems like an obvious question, doesn't it? And I hate it when people ask obvious questions (makes me wonder if they think I'm stupid or something . . . ). But I'm asking this question today because I think it's an important question to ask.

What got me thinking about this was something I read yesterday from the one-year devotional, "At His Feet." The devotional was based on the story of Jesus healing a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus approached the man, He asked the man, "Do you want to get well?" Interestingly, the man didn't respond, "Well, of course!" Instead, he offered an excuse (the entire story can be found in John 5:1-15 if you want to read the entire account).

The writer of the devotion noted that as much as we think we want to change, we're comfortable with the status quo. The man may have been tired of being an invalid, but he also may have feared the changes in his life that being healed would bring. So Jesus asked what seems to be an obvious question, "Do you want to get well?"

Our problem is that all too often we want change, but we don't want to change. At least that's true for me :-). I want to keep doing what I've always done, but get better results! Unfortunately, that happens to be the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results . . . ).

We know we SHOULD lose weight, and perhaps we even want to lose weight, sort of. But things come up that are more important to us that getting to a healthy weight and we cheat. Or perhaps losing weight makes people begin to notice us, and that makes us uncomfortable, so we start sabotaging ourselves. Status quo can be a pretty comfortable and safe place to be sometimes, even if we know it's not healthy in the long run.

So the question needs to be asked, and I ask it respectfully: Do you want to get to a healthy weight and stay there? If you do, you are on the right program to get you there. You have a lot of wonderful tools to help you each step of the way and there is an amazing amount of support available, including support from a health coach. Take Shape for Life/Medifast is a proven program - the only variable is you. If you work the program, it works! If you don't work the program, it doesn't work.

As I've shared before, for me the food part of this program was the easy part. The really, really hard part was the head and the heart part, because I had to change in pretty fundamental ways how I thought and felt about food. I had to end a long relationship with food, and that was not an easy task. What made this time different than all of the other bazillion times I'd tried in the past was that this time I finally, really wanted to change.

I hope your answer to my question today is a resounding "YES!!!" But be honest with yourself, and if it's not, spend some time figuring out why. If you figure out what's holding you back and then take steps to deal with it, you'll eventually be able to answer "YES!", too. And when you do, you'll reach your goal and stay there!

Last question for today: who's committed to an on-plan day today?

A Great System

Happy Columbus Day! For those of you fortunate enough to work for a governmental agency, you probably have the day off - enjoy!

I came across a quote that I thought has GREAT application to the Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 plan: "A good system shortens the road to the goal."

There are times when taking a leisurely, scenic route makes sense. When I have lots of time and am not in a hurry, I love getting off the expressway and taking a more scenic drive. If I see something that interests me, I enjoy stopping the car and grabbing my camera to snap a few pictures.

I don't know about you, but once I finally decided (REALLY decided) to lose weight, I wanted to reach my goal as quickly as possible. I wasn't interested in taking the scenic route - I wanted the autobahn. I'd done the "count points" program three different times, none of them particularly successfully, and the thought of doing a lot of work and getting maybe a half-pound loss per week for the effort didn't appeal to me at all.

I didn't want a "make it up as I go along" plan, either - I'd done that a zillion times. You know - the "I'll just eat less, watch my portions and make better choices" plan, completely unstructured and for me, completely unsuccessful.

This last and final time (thank the Lord, it really WAS the last time!) that I decided to lose weight, I wanted a proven system. I wanted something that was fast AND safe, and I wanted something that would not just get me thinner, but also healthier. Take Shape for Life/Medifast totally met the criteria and then some!

A good system shortens the road to the goal, but that is only true if we actually USE the system :-). The beauty of the Take Shape for Life/Medifast program is that all of the thinking and the figuring out has been done for us. As long as we follow the system, it really is goof-proof, and it the shortest way to goal.

If we were going on a trip and time was of the essence, we'd study a map and find the shortest route from Point A to Point B, or we'd plug the destination into our GPS and select the "shortest route" option. Once we had our route in place, we'd stick to the route and ignore the signs that advertised attractions ten miles off an exit en route. It's not that the attractions aren't interesting, but we have a destination to get to and we're focused on getting there as soon as we can.

Those off-plan foods are the attractions ten miles off the exit . . . if we veer off course and take the side-trip, we're going to waste a lot of time and delay getting to our destination. When it comes to getting to a healthy weight, we need to stay in the express lane with no exits between the time we get on and our goal.

Who's committed to staying the course today?

Not a Game

Happy Sunday! This is going to be a busy day for me. My oldest granddaughter (age 6) and her first grade class will be singing at a church in Grand Rapids this morning, so I'm going to hear her sing and then take them out for brunch. Following brunch, we're heading to Meijer Gardens (a wonderful botanical garden) for their fall color tour. We'll board a small tram for the tour, which will be led by a friend of mine. After our time at the garden, I'll head home and get ready for our small group Bible study, which will be at our house tonight.

My husband worked last night, so I decided to catch up on a couple of TV shows that I missed while we were in Pennsylvania. One of the programs I watched on line was "The Biggest Loser." I've missed the last two weeks, so I was happy to have a chance to watch the episodes. Week 3 focused on several choices that the contestants had to make during the week. One of the contestants seemed more focused on playing the game than focused on the real reason she was there - to lose weight and get healthy. What interested me was the comment that one of the trainers, Bob, made. He said that "people who play this as a game gain the weight back."

That made me wonder about this program. Are we approaching this as a game, or are we really serious about making permanent changes in our lives? After two years on this program, first on the weight loss phase and now in maintenance, I've watched a lot of people on this program. Some have embraced the program in its entirety and have been successful beyond their wildest dreams. Others have vacillated between working the program and going off plan. Still others appear to have approached this plan as a game that can be manipulated and outsmarted, and have talked about skipping Medifast meals so they can have a drink or other off-plan item.

I understand the temptation to try and outsmart the program, because that's exactly what I did with every other weight loss plan I was ever on. I'd read all about the plan, understand what I was supposed to do, then almost immediately I'd begin to make my own substitutions. For some reason, I always thought that I could outsmart the program and that it would still work. Of course, it never did.

By the time I placed my first Take Shape for Life/Medifast order, I was ready to follow the program exactly as written. I actually told myself that for once in my life I would NOT try to outsmart the program :-). The funny thing was that as I actually did what the program told me to do, I lost weight!

This wasn't a game for me, because my life and my health were on the line. I hope this isn't a game for you, either! The program is well-thought out and has almost 30 years of clinical studies supporting it. All the thinking has been done for us, so all we need to do is follow the protocols. How simple!

Don't waste your time trying to figure out what off-plan food can be included right now, because the simple answer is that it can't. The good news is that this program isn't forever - you just need to be on 5&1 long enough to get to a healthy weight. So stay on plan - follow it to the letter and don't deviate - and you'll get there in the shortest amount of time.

Play with your spouse, play with your kids, play with your dog - but please don't play with this program. Your health and your life are too important to play with!

Running a Marathon

I read a post yesterday that got me thinking. The writer talked about this weight loss/wellness journey being a marathon and not a sprint, and I absolutely agree!

We really have to prepare ourselves to stay consistent over the long haul, because no matter how long it will take for us to reach our goal, reaching our goal is only the first phase of this program. Maintaining at a healthy weight is the rest of the program - one marathon after another.

I'm not a runner (I have a bad knee), but I've watched bits and pieces of a few marathons over the years. As I think back to the marathons, one thing I remember is that most of the runners aren't smiling while they're running. Some of them look like they're concentrating, and others are actually grimacing. The exhilaration of taking off at the starting line eventually fades and the marathoner is faced with the task of just putting one foot in front of the other. At some point along the way, it's not particularly fun any more. But running a marathon isn't necessarily about having fun along the way (although some runners really do enjoy the journey). Running in a marathon is about finishing it and having the satisfaction of knowing that the runner accomplished something difficult. There might not be a lot of smiling going on during the marathon, but there are lots of smiles and lots of celebrations at the finish line.

Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations about the weight loss marathon we're on and we expect it to be fun and exciting the entire time. That might be true if it was a 50 yard dash, but it's not a dash - this is the marathon of our lives. The reality is that we will alternate between exhilaration and exhaustion, between feeling like this is the best thing we've ever done to hating the thought of doing this one more day. In the end, we will experience a full spectrum of emotions on this journey, but as long as we keep putting one foot in front of another, we will cross the finish line. And when we cross the finish line and reach goal, there will be smiles and lots of celebration.

And after the celebration we'll begin the next marathon - maintenance :-).

So, are your running shoes laced up this morning? It's another marathon day - are you committed to staying the course today?

Back To Normal . . . Sigh!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you've had a good week and that today will launch you into a great weekend.

Yesterday was an interesting mix for me emotionally. On the one hand, I was really happy to be home after a week of whirlwind travel and sightseeing, and it felt good to be on my own turf with a more normal schedule. On the other hand, I felt kind of blah and let-down all day. After a week of something different every day, seeing and experiencing new things, I was back home with laundry to do, dust to contend with, and a pile of things waiting on my desk. I am a hopeless adrenaline junkie, so my mini-crash today was to be expected.

The same is true for our weight loss journey. When things are happening - the scale is moving, sizes are shrinking, people are noticing - it's pretty exciting! When things are happening, it's not too hard to stay motivated. The challenge comes when things aren't happening anymore.

Just as I experienced a mini let-down today, I experienced a mini let-down after I reached my goal and went through Transition. After almost a year of watching the scale move, after almost a year of watching sizes shrink and eventually getting constant comments about how great I was looking, I reached Maintenance. The scale didn't move any more, I wasn't going to drop any more sizes, and people began to adjust to my new, small size and comments stopped. This was my new normal, and while I was happy to finally be here, the adrenaline rush was gone. There was no excitement as I stepped on the scale each morning, and I found that I missed it.

The easy part of this program is the food part. The hard part is the head part. I worked on a lot of my food-related issues while I was on the Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 plan, but I hadn't really anticipated feeling any let-down post goal. I realized that part of what kept me going for almost a year was the excitement of something happening all of the time, and I also realized that I needed to dig deeper to stay motivated for the long haul of Maintenance.

Much like returning to my normal routine that includes laundry and dusty furniture, Maintenance isn't glamorous. Some days are more fun than others, but the adrenaline rush has slowly been replaced by something that is ultimately more satisfying - a healthy life and lifestyle. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the lack of excitement is a GOOD thing, because it means that all of this has truly become an integral part of my life.

For those of you who are on 5&1, I hope this is an exciting phase for you! I hope you're seeing consistent weight loss, that you are shrinking out of your clothes on a regular basis, and that you're starting to receive encouraging and complimentary comments from others. This is a great time in your life and it's truly life-changing! By staying on plan day by day, you are not only moving ever closer to your goal, you are also establishing new habits that will serve you well in Maintenance. And even though Maintenance isn't always exciting, it is great place to be - come join me!

Time for Confession

I have always tried to be honest here, so I need to confess something to all of you today. I am a recovering gambler, still working to kick a long-term gambling addiction.

Some people gamble by purchasing lottery tickets, some play slot machines, and others put money on horses. Those are amateur gamblers - I gambled for much, much bigger stakes than that!

Yep, the stakes couldn't have been much bigger, because I gambled on my health and my life.

I knew I had a strong family history of diabetes, yet I played the odds for over twenty years, eating what I wanted, as much as I wanted, when I wanted, gambling that I could do so indefinitely and beat the odds of my family genetics. I also knew all the statistics about all of the other health risks of obesity (working in health care for twenty years, I was NOT lacking in knowledge about the link between obesity and disease), but I continued to play the odds. When I'd go in for a physical and lab work and all of my lab work came back fine, I'd let out a sigh of relief that I'd beat the odds once again. Sure, I was overweight (OK, obese), but I was HEALTHY, and I had the lab work to prove it.

Like almost all gamblers, the odds finally caught up with me just over four years ago when a routine wellness blood draw at the hospital where I worked came back. All of my numbers were bad - cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL/LDL, and glucose. My luck had finally run out and it was time to pay up. I was a diabetic, and I knew I was in trouble.

I can't even express how mad I was at myself that day, because I knew I had been gambling with my health for years. As I looked at a printout of my lab work, it was an indictment of two decades of denial and bad choices. That day began my journey to wellness, although it would be almost two more years before I found Medifast and finally had the tools to reverse my diabetes and high cholesterol and reach a healthy weight.

I call myself a recovering gambler, because I know those old habits will come roaring back if I stop being diligent. My family genetics haven't changed, and the fact that I was diabetic means that this disease will return if I return to my old, gambling ways. I hear some people talk about how they've completely lost their taste for certain foods since losing weight, but I don't identify with that at all. I still have "fat girl" taste buds - everything tastes as good as it ever did, and it would be all-too-easy to go back to my old eating habits. I wish I HAD lost my taste for some of my old favorites, because it would be a lot easier now.

But it's not easy. Some days are easier than others, and I have structured my life to keep those old favorites at a distance (I keep them out of my house, for instance). But there are other days when I am honestly tempted to throw caution to the wind and fill my shopping cart with stuff that is devoid of nutrition and full of calories, sugar, fat and carbs. Of course, I don't :-). Having gambled and lost once, I am thankful that God gave me another chance to have a healthy life, and I'm committed to maintaining my health.

How about you? Are you finished playing your own high-stakes game? If you've been able to avoid obesity-related health issues thus far, that's wonderful. Are you willing to gamble that you'll avoid health issues indefinitely? If you're ready to stop gambling, it can end today. All you have to do is commit to staying on plan - just for today. Then if you do the same thing tomorrow, and then again the day after that, you'll soon find that your gambling days are over.

Who's committed to an on-plan day today?

Heading Home

It's Wednesday, which means we're half-way through the work week! It also means that my visit with my sister has come to an end - we're going home today and getting back to our regular routine tomorrow.

We spent yesterday afternoon in Harrisburg, touring the state capitol and visiting the National Civil War Museum. Both were well worth the time, and we wished we'd had more time at the National Civil War Museum as there was a lot to see. It was another afternoon with a lot of walking and standing!

I wish I'd worn a pedometer on this trip, because it would have been interesting to know exactly how many steps I took and how many miles I walked over the past few days. All I know for sure is that it was a lot!

In the past, going on vacation and getting out of our regular routine meant all bets were off in terms of my food consumption. I used to pretty much eat my way through a vacation - snacking while we drove, then using the lack of routine as an excuse to eat whatever I wanted. No wonder I never had a lot of energy by the end of each vacation day, and no wonder I always returned from vacation up a few pounds.

This time, we watched what we ate pretty carefully (with a couple of pre-planned exceptions), and both my husband and I had more than enough energy to be active all day and still enjoy the evening. For me, this was a MUCH better way to vacation! We ate small meals about every 3 hours, and several of the meals each day were Take Shape for Life/Medifast meals. SO easy!

Is healthy eating part of your every day routine? How about when you're out of your routine? The best way to prepare for those "out of routine" days is to hone your on-plan skills today :-). Committing to staying on plan today will not only move you one day closer to your goal, but it will help you navigate those "other" days.

What a Difference 2-1/2 Years & 126 Pounds Makes!

Today is our last day in Pennsylvania, as we head home early tomorrow morning. It's been wonderful spending time with my sister and her husband and we've managed to do a lot of fun things. Yesterday was a very full day, as we spent the day in Philadelphia (a 2-1/2 hour drive from my sister's house). We parked downtown and then spent the better part of 8 hours walking (or standing) as we went from one historical site to another. This was my first time in Philadelphia and it was amazing to stand where so much of our history took place.

What was also amazing to me was that I was able to be on my feet for almost 8 hours, and much of that walking. That is something that would have been almost impossible to do just 2-1/2 years ago. There were several times during the day when the realization washed over me that I probably wouldn't have been able to experience everything I did had I not lost weight. Even if I had somehow managed to keep going with 126 extra pounds on me, I would have been exhausted beyond belief at the end, and my feet and knee would have been throbbing. Instead, I felt energized by everything I saw and was able to do. I'll be honest and admit that the day caught up with me by the time I got back to my sister's house, but I had energy to spare for the day, and that's what mattered to me.

We packed lots of water and an assortment of Take Shape for Life/Medifast cheese puffs, pretzels and crunch bars, so once again I had the nutrition I needed to keep going all day long. When we finally stopped to eat at the end of our day, we chose to have one of the sandwiches Philadelphia is famous for. I did an internet search to find the best place to have the sandwich, and it was worth the search. Because I'd stuck with Medifast meals all day and walked several miles, and because I'm in maintenance, I knew I could afford the calories and carbs this time :-).

It was also great to pose with my husband for pictures along the way, including one of us in front of the Liberty Bell, and not have to cringe at the thought of having a camera pointed at me. It was also nice knowing that after both my husband and I losing weight, the camera was able to get both us AND the Liberty Bell in the same photo without needing a wide-angle lens!

One of the things that finally motivated me to get serious about losing weight was my trip 2-1/2 years ago to the Grand Canyon. I was very close to my top weight of 268, my size 24W jeans were so tight I could barely lift my legs high enough to get in and out of our rental SUV, and I was so out of shape that I had to stop twice going up the stairs to get to the rim of the canyon. I was out of breath and exhausted walking around that day, and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do the traveling I wanted to do unless I could figure out how to stop eating and lose weight. That trip was the turning point for me, and after trying for three months to lose weight on my own when I returned home, I finally decided to give Take Shape for Life/Medifast a try.

I thought about that trip yesterday, and couldn't help but think about how much has changed in my life. I spent almost 11 months losing weight I had carried around for over 20 years, and in losing the weight I truly got my life back. In many ways, I actually got a new life, one I couldn't have imagined just a couple of years ago. I am SO thankful, and I never want to take it for granted.

Losing the weight and getting my life back happened by committing to the plan one day at a time. Are you committed to an on-plan day today? This is a short-term sacrifice, but the long-term benefits are amazing, perhaps even better than you can imagine. Go for it!

The Power of Community

Happy Monday! Our Pennsylvania trip is fast coming to an end, with only two more days here. Yesterday started with church, then we went to Chocolate World in Hershey yesterday afternoon before joining my sister and her husband at their small group Bible study last night.

Today we're spending the day in Philadelphia - my first time there! We'll pack as much into the day as we can, and for two American history junkies like my husband and me, this is definitely a day to relish.

Last night, the small group discussed the value of being in a community. Although they were talking specifically about the need for community in a church setting, there is a much broader application, and one that certainly applies to those of us who are on our wellness journey.

One of the things that made a huge difference to me on my own weight loss journey was the support of others who were also on this journey. Getting involved with an on-line community was a critical part of the success I ultimately experienced, and I stay involved with the on-line community (although to a lesser degree than I used to) as a way to pay it forward and hopefully help someone else.

Being involved with my on-line community enabled me to honestly and openly discuss my own struggle with weight. As I did that, I found encouragement and support, and it was a safe place for me to finally be able to heal. Had I not been able to share my journey with others, I don't think I would be where I am today - not only with my weight, but in being able to share with others about my own journey. The healing that happened here has now allowed me to be part of encouraging others as a full-time health coach.

There were days when I was tempted to quit, but as I blogged about how I was feeling, someone would always be there to remind me of how far I'd come and encourage me to keep going. That encouragement was just what I needed, and it made all the difference.

As you continue on your own journey, stay connected to others! Seek out those who can support you - your health coach, your family members and friends, or even an on-line community, then make sure that you're providing a little support back. Together we can all arrive where we want to be - at a healthy weight - then we can help still others do the same thing. Community is a wonderful thing!

Consequences

Happy Sunday everyone! I'm still at my sister's house in Pennsylvania, and we are packing as much into each day as we can :-). This morning we're going to church with them (her husband is the children's pastor at a large church in Mechanicsburg), then we're heading to Hershey for the afternoon.

Yesterday we spent the day in Lancaster, where we visited a life-size replica of the Tabernacle, toured an Amish house and farm, and spent time at a farmer's market in Bird-in-Hand (I love the name!). The hands-down highlight of our day was attending the Sight & Sound Millennium Theater's production of "In the Beginning." After doing their creative best to depict the beauty of the Garden of Eden and life in a world untouched by sin, watching Eve's temptation and the fall was hard. It was all I could do to keep from shouting out "Don't do it!" as Eve struggled with whether or not to taste the forbidden fruit. Of course, she did, and it was sobering to watch how the joy they experienced in Eden was quickly replaced by despair as Adam and Eve began to deal with the consequence of the choice they made. And the world, and life, has never been the same. It was striking to watch Adam and Eve deal with the death of their son, Abel, and realize that their actions had resulted in his death - and their own profound pain.

That's the problem with consequences - we usually never see them coming. We get caught up in the moment and go after the immediate gratification without taking time to consider what the long-term effects might be. Certainly no decision we make, good or bad, will ever have the long-reaching consequences that resulted from the Fall (thank God for that!), but that doesn't mean that our decisions happen in a vacuum.

We are faced with choices every day on a variety of issues, and sometimes we don't even realize we're making choices because we determined a long time ago what our values would be. If a store clerk accidentally gives me too much change, I don't waste a second deciding whether or not to point it out, because I made a decision a long time ago to be honest. Those decisions are easy, and they're pretty clear-cut.

The decisions that are more challenging are the ones where there is no right and wrong, where it's more a matter of choosing the better of two options. How to spend our money or our leisure time, or, for those of us focused on getting to or maintaining a healthy weight, what we're going to eat.

Choosing to stay on plan or not certainly isn't a moral issue, but there ARE consequences to our choice. We may not experience the consequences, good or bad, right away, but we most certainly will.

As I think back to the funeral of my mom's cousin last month, I know this cousin had no idea that years of obesity and the resulting complications of diabetes would result in her passing away one week before her first grandchild was born. This was an unforeseen consequence, and I can't help but wonder if knowing years ago how things would end would have motivated her to make different choices.

Choosing to do what's hard now and get to a healthy weight will result in consequences (the good kind!) that you may not be able to imagine right now, but they WILL come. Staying on plan today certainly doesn't provide the immediate gratification that eating off plan might, but there's no comparison when we look the long-term consequences. Bottom line: you'll never regret staying on plan today, and you'll reap the long-term rewards of doing so. So go for it!

Sacrifices Big and Small

Happy Saturday! I hope your weekend is off to a great start!

We spent all day yesterday in Gettysburg. This was my first time there and it was incredibly moving. We spent some time at the newly-opened museum there, then took an almost 3-hour driving tour (with audio guide) of the battlefields. I had no idea the battle of Gettysburg covered so many miles! Seeing the monuments on the battlefields and reading about the personal stories at the museum was very moving, and I was struck with the sacrifice that so many made to preserve the union and eliminate slavery.

Sacrificing for the good of our country, or sacrificing to help or even save another person's life is something we embrace as representing the highest of ideals. My admiration and appreciation for those who have sacrificed so much, even up to their own lives, to secure and preserve our freedom cannot be adequately expressed in words.

I'm almost hesitant to write any more, because I don't in any way whatsoever want to diminish the tremendous sacrifice that these brave individuals made. However, I do find it interesting that while we admire (as we should) the sacrifice of others, and while most of us wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice our own lives for someone we love, we often struggle when it comes to making sacrifices for our own good.

Going on 5&1 requires sacrifice, but it's a small sacrifice and a short-lived one. In order to get to a healthy weight, we are asked to sacrifice eating some of the food we like for a short period of time. In terms of sacrifice, this is really a pretty small one :-). The question is, do we think we're worth the sacrifice? Is getting to a healthy weight, maybe even getting off of medications and reversing disease, worth a small, short-term sacrifice?

Again, writing about sacrificing while on 5&1 seems almost sacrilegious after a day at Gettysburg . . .

I'll end today's blog by asking what you're willing to give up temporarily to get to a healthy weight? Who's committed to an on-plan day today?

More About the Hard Part :-)

Happy Thursday! I am writing this from Pennsylvania, where I’m visiting my sister. My husband, my parents and I left yesterday morning for the 600+ mile drive. It was a long day of driving, but with lots of sunshine and the start of fall colors, it was quite lovely. We stopped for a salad for lunch, but other than that, all four of us munched on Medifast crunch bars, cheese puffs and pretzels and drank lots of water (and yes, we had several bathroom stops along the way!).

Yesterday I wrote about the need to change how we relate to food if we’re going to be successful in not only losing weight, but in keeping the weight off, and I talked about emotional eating. I know that emotional eating isn’t the only thing that can trip us up, however. For many of us, we are challenged to figure out how to stay on plan or maintain our weight when much of our social life revolves around food. That is an ongoing challenge for me. Almost every time I’m with a group of people, there is sure to be food – mostly baked sweets, my personal downfall. Every week, someone brings baked goods of some kind to our adult Sunday School class; every Tuesday morning’s Bible study has “treats” and our small group fellowship always starts with coffee and dessert. Getting together with friends almost always means going out for a meal or meeting for coffee (and often dessert).

As I’ve talked with others, I know this is a huge challenge. How on earth do we be part of the social scene and stay on plan?

When I was on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, I continued to attend all of my regular activities, but I brought along the foods I needed. If someone was serving dessert, I would make sure I ate before I got there and then simply say I had just eaten and wasn’t hungry. If we were going to a potluck, I’d bring a large tossed salad (and sometimes some cut-up chicken for my “lean”). I realized that life wasn’t going to be put on hold while I lost weight, so I had to choose to make the best of it. There were times when I privately pouted and felt sorry for myself because I wasn’t eating what everyone else was eating, but most of the time it felt good to know that I was making hard but healthy choices. There is something very satisfying about facing a temptation and making the right choice . I worried about what others would think if I wasn’t eating what they were eating, but soon learned that most people didn’t pay any attention to what I was eating, and if they did pay attention, they really didn’t care! I’ve heard people talk about being afraid of offending this person or that person if they don’t eat something, but my best advice is to just get over it because most people really don’t care. A simple explanation that I was trying to be careful with what I ate, or trying to eat healthier, or even that I was trying to lose weight sufficed for almost everyone. I realized that I needed to do what I needed to do for my health and that I couldn’t compromise what I needed to do for fear of offending someone. I reasoned that anyone who really cared about me would want me to get healthy.

In maintenance, it’s gotten a bit more tricky. First of all, I’m often one of the smaller individuals at any given gathering, so when I’m not diving in to the food, it can feel a bit weird. However, I have to keep reminding myself that what I’m doing is about making healthy choices for myself, so I can’t compare what I’m doing to anyone else. Because I know that if I eat sweets on an empty stomach I’ll end up feeling not so great an hour or so later, I bring a crunch bar to Bible study and to our adult Sunday
School class. While others are loading up on baked sweets, I have a bar. As much as I enjoy most of those things, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not willing to spend calories on them. I know I’ll spend a lot of calories and get little to no nutrition in return, and I know there’s a good chance I’ll feel lousy once the inevitable blood sugar drop kicks in. It’s simply not worth it.

I have to remind myself a lot about my primary choice – staying at a healthy weight – because it is all too easy to want to settle for immediate gratification. I’m not saying I never do that, because I do, but I’m far less likely to do that now than I was even a year ago.

A year ago, fresh from Transition and finally into Maintenance, I reveled in knowing that I could finally eat anything I wanted. Even though I was fairly careful, I found myself returning to some of my old favorites a bit too often, and when I started eating those things, I often ignored portion size and just “went for it.” By the time I got through the holidays last year, I had picked up about ten pounds and my 6’s were as snug as they could be and still be worn in public. That was a real wake-up call for me and I realized that I could NOT return with abandon to my former way of eating or I would risk regaining my weight. This past year has been one of fine-tuning Maintenance and continually evaluating and re-evaluating what I’m eating and why. It’s been more of a challenge than I anticipated, but staying in my goal range, staying in my goal size, and remaining free of diabetes are all worth the effort.

While we’re in Pennsylvania, I am planning on a couple of meals that I know will be outside of my regular Maintenance plan, plus we may make a trip to Hershey :-). The good news is that I have the freedom to do that now, and as long as I don’t make it a habit, I’ll be just fine.

Have a great, on-plan day!

It's Easy . . . and It's Hard!

Welcome to October! We are officially into the last quarter of 2009, so it's time to ask the question: how's it going for you?

Some of you started the Take Shape for Life/Medifast program last January and promised yourself that THIS was your year; I hope you're on track to realizing all of your January dreams, and I hope that some of you have reached your goal by now and are enjoying maintenance. Others of you are you in the middle of your journey, and some are just beginning.

Sooner or later, one things becomes crystal clear: the weight loss part of this program is simple (not always easy, to be sure, but it's simple!). What's NOT so simple is the maintenance part. Most of you reading this probably aren't in maintenance yet, but this is where all of you are heading (you ARE heading towards your goal and maintenance, right??).

I've had conversations with a couple of people over the last two days who reached their goal, did transition "sort of", then found themselves back into old habits. No surprise, both individuals are now dealing with the reality of regained weight. Thankfully, neither of them regained all of their weight back, but gained back enough weight to realize that it was time to rethink what they were doing.

No matter how well you do on the weight loss portion of this program, you will probably gain back your weight if you don't change how you think about and relate to food. That is the bad news, and there's no way to soften it. If you don't fundamentally change your head and your heart when it comes to food, this will ultimately be nothing more than another diet. To be sure, it's a very effective diet and there is no safer way to lose weight quickly. If you work the program, you can't help but lose weight.

But I don't think that anybody here wants to lose the weight and then gain it back. We've all "been there, done that" and it's a miserable way to live. That kind of oscillating behavior leads to terrible frustration and a feeling of failure. I'm guessing that everybody here wants to lose weight, reach your goal, then stay there for the rest of your life. The GOOD news is that you CAN do that! However, it will require some hard work to change your relationship with food.

I tell people all of the time that when I started on this program, I just hoped that I'd lose a little bit of weight - I had no idea that there would be so much emotional and spiritual growth in the process. Learning to NOT turn to food for comfort was a major turning point for me, and it has made all of the difference. Identifying what I REALLY wanted - reaching and staying at a healthy weight - has helped me to make the secondary choices I need to make to maintain my weight.

There are times when I'm tempted to dive fork-first into a platter of my old favorites, and there are certainly times when I DO have small portions of some of those foods, but I'm careful about what I eat. I refuse to waste my calories on less than wonderful food, and when I find myself suddenly craving something, I take a moment to figure out WHY I suddenly want it. More often than not, for me a sudden craving means that I'm stressed or frustrated or something, and the old "reach for comfort food impulse" has once again reared its ugly head. I keep hoping that it will eventually disappear forever, but so far that's not the case. What HAS changed is that I know that food doesn't fix anything except for real, physical hunger. When I recognize that old impulse, that's my cue to address the real issue and not bury it with food. As I've shared in the past, addressing the real issue for me begins with turning to the Lord in prayer.

I hope you're having a fantastic, on-plan Thursday! Keep up the great work on the food part of this plan, and don't forget about the "other part" of the plan. It's not the easy part of the plan, but it's the part that will make all of the difference for the rest of your thin and healthy life.