My brother sent me an e-mail with some physician suggestions that he thought I might find interesting. As I read the questions posed to the physician and his response, I realized two things. First, this was obviously a joke e-mail - here are a couple of the questions and answers:
Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take water out of fruity bit so you get even more of
goodness that way. Beer is also made of grain. Bottoms up!
Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: I can't think of single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No pain...good!
You get the point :-).
Second, I think there is a part of most of us that wishes this kind of advice was really true. A lot of us wish there was a credible doctor who would tell us exactly what we wanted to hear. I spent a long time hoping for a pharmaceutical breakthrough that would magically allow me to eat whatever I wanted, remain a couch potato, and still lose weight. I remember asking more than one person how they lost weight, only to be disappointed when they said, "Cut calories/changed how I eat and started exercising." I was wanting to hear about something EASY, and the people who actually lost weight were always telling me the same old thing. That only changed when weight loss surgery became an option for a lot of people, and I actually toyed with pursuing that, erroneously believing that that would be the ultimate "easy way" to lose weight.
I wanted the end result, but was unwilling for years to make the changes that would get me the results I longed for. I was always interested in losing weight, but never committed to actually doing it. Almost every time a new diet book came out, I bought it and made another half-hearted attempt. I kept looking for something easy, goof-proof, fast and effective.
Imagine my surprise when I finally found it! You guessed it - it was Medifast. As we all know, this isn't an "eat anything you want and lose weight" kind of a program, but it IS easy, goof-proof, fast and effective. I tell people all the time that I would never tell anyone that this is the ONLY way to lose weight, but my passion for this program comes out of the reality that it is the only one that ever WORKED. It worked fast for me, even though I lost the weight at age 55, an age when women aren't supposed to be able to lose weight. Better than even losing the weight in less than 11 months is that I am still in my goal range 18 months later - and counting.
If you read yesterday's blog, you know that I don't always find maintenance easy - or fun. But I do find it sustainable over time, and that's what's important to me. I know that there is no program out there that will allow me, or anyone else, to eat whatever they want whenever they want, be a couch slug, and be healthy. There is no magic pill that will do it all for me, and the pharmaceutical companies aren't going to find one, either.
But by making a series of small choices every day, this program enabled me to lose my weight and the maintenance phase of this program is allowing me to maintain. It always comes back to choices. We face a series of them every day, and if we know what we really want and make the choices we need to make, we'll go further than we ever dreamed - all the way to our goal.
My encouragement to you today is to face those choices one at a time, then choose wisely :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment