One of the reasons I post a blog almost every day is because I know how wonderful and freeing it is to reach goal and I want to help others experience that same joy. By sharing from my own experience and what I learned along the way, my hope is to smooth the path for those who are still on their own journey.
Although I'm not a sailor, I have many friends who enjoy sailing and boating and I'm always appreciative for the opportunities to spend time on the water with them. I'm always fascinated by the way they are able to navigate over open water, knowing where they are and - important to me! - how to get back to where we launched.
I was intrigued to read about navigation during the era of great sea explorations in the 15th and 16th centuries, when sailing ships traveled over hazardous oceans and navigated dangerous coastlines. According to the article I read, "pilots used various navigation techniques - including a book called a "rutter" (not the "rudder," the ship's steering device). This was a log of events kept by earlier voyagers who chronicled their encounters with previously unknown and difficult waters. By reading the sailing details in a rutter, captains could avoid hazards and make it through difficult waters."
A rutter . . . in a way, I guess that's what I am. Having navigated the waters of 5&1, Transition and Maintenance, I do my best to point out the danger zones so that you can have smooth sailing. One of the things I continue to do is urge people to stay on plan and not cheat. I know this often isn't what people want to hear, but I repeat that encouragement over and over again because, base on my own experience and what I've observed, I know that staying on plan is the only 100% guaranteed way to avoid shipwreck on this program. Staying on plan will keep you in the deep waters and away from the rocks and other things that could potentially sink your weight loss ship.
I have talked to far too many people who have gone off plan for one reason or another and ended up struggling mightily to get back on and stay on. The decision to go off plan has resulted in far too many people taking two or three times longer to reach their goal, and sadly some never reach their goal.
With Memorial Day weekend over and summer officially kicked off, some of you will find this time of year easy to stay on plan and others will be continually challenged due to cookouts, vacations, graduation open houses, weddings . . . Every time of year brings its own set of challenges and every season holds a myriad of reasons to go off plan, if that's what you decide to do. What will ultimately make the difference between reaching your goal and potentially not doing so are the choices you will make.
Choose wisely :-)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tomorrow is Always . . . Tomorrow
Every now and then when we're traveling and crunched for time, my husband and I will eat at a buffet (NOT my favorite kind of restaurant for a variety of reasons). When eating at one of those buffets, I overheard a man sitting behind us and who had just refilled his plate comment, "This is it. I'm going to start eating better tomorrow." He laughed as he continued, "Oh, wait . . . that's what I said yesterday."
I smiled when I heard that, because that sounded like something I would have said four years ago. I had good intentions, really I did. I certainly understood that I was significantly overweight, although I avoided thinking of myself as being morbidly obese (but with a BMI of 44.6, that's exactly what I was!). I also was aware of the health risks associated with my obesity and recognized that my own diabetes was probably a result (since my mom and sister are both diabetic, I also wondered if I'd be diabetic regardless of how much I weighed). In those days, I was always a day away from finally starting on the diet to end all diets - the one that would finally help me lose weight. I say I was always a day away because the diet was always going to start "tomorrow." My "tomorrows" usually were a Monday, as that seemed like a good day to start a diet. I'd reason that I would enjoy "one more weekend" and then really buckle down and just do it. The problem was that Mondays at work were usually very busy and often stressful, and if things were busy and stressful, well, that wasn't a good day to deprive myself of my favorite food. Never mind that I'd just had another "last supper", eating all of my favorite foods "one last time" in preparation for my new diet . . . it would just have to wait until "tomorrow."
The fact that the man at the table behind me joked about eating better "tomorrow" told me that, on some level, he recognized the need to do just that, and his size certainly shouted that he needed to do something for his health. He was just going to wait until "tomorrow."
Tomorrows have a sneaky way of always being just one day away, and those days turn into weeks, which turn into months. There really is no better day than today to make the choices we need to make to put us on (or keep us on) a path that will lead to a healthier tomorrow.
I know this is the start of a holiday weekend and I understand that some of you may be thinking that your "tomorrow" is next Tuesday, after you get through a weekend of holiday activities. I would encourage you to not put off until tomorrow the healthy choices you can make today. With a little planning, it IS possible to have a great holiday weekend and still stay on plan. The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)
I smiled when I heard that, because that sounded like something I would have said four years ago. I had good intentions, really I did. I certainly understood that I was significantly overweight, although I avoided thinking of myself as being morbidly obese (but with a BMI of 44.6, that's exactly what I was!). I also was aware of the health risks associated with my obesity and recognized that my own diabetes was probably a result (since my mom and sister are both diabetic, I also wondered if I'd be diabetic regardless of how much I weighed). In those days, I was always a day away from finally starting on the diet to end all diets - the one that would finally help me lose weight. I say I was always a day away because the diet was always going to start "tomorrow." My "tomorrows" usually were a Monday, as that seemed like a good day to start a diet. I'd reason that I would enjoy "one more weekend" and then really buckle down and just do it. The problem was that Mondays at work were usually very busy and often stressful, and if things were busy and stressful, well, that wasn't a good day to deprive myself of my favorite food. Never mind that I'd just had another "last supper", eating all of my favorite foods "one last time" in preparation for my new diet . . . it would just have to wait until "tomorrow."
The fact that the man at the table behind me joked about eating better "tomorrow" told me that, on some level, he recognized the need to do just that, and his size certainly shouted that he needed to do something for his health. He was just going to wait until "tomorrow."
Tomorrows have a sneaky way of always being just one day away, and those days turn into weeks, which turn into months. There really is no better day than today to make the choices we need to make to put us on (or keep us on) a path that will lead to a healthier tomorrow.
I know this is the start of a holiday weekend and I understand that some of you may be thinking that your "tomorrow" is next Tuesday, after you get through a weekend of holiday activities. I would encourage you to not put off until tomorrow the healthy choices you can make today. With a little planning, it IS possible to have a great holiday weekend and still stay on plan. The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)
Thursday, May 26, 2011
A Different Kind of Gift
Sometimes all I can do is shake my head at the things I read. I don't know if that's because I'm a bit older than I used to be (as opposed to being old, of course!) or if I just view life through a different filter these days.
I read a short article about an upscale London department store that launched a new gift card with the slogan, "The Gift of Self-Indulgence." Signs, slogans and name tags were posted throughout the store to call attention to the campaign. Sales of the gift cards far exceeded the store's expectations.
I shook my head when I read this because, in my humble estimation, we tend to spend a lot more time on self-indulgence than we do on self-control and perfecting the art of delayed gratification. I may just be talking to myself here, but part of the reason I ended up weighing 268 pounds was because I bought into the idea of instant gratification/self-indulgence. Hard day at work? Well, I DESERVED to eat something sweet. Kids making me crazy? Get them in bed and then reward myself that I didn't strangle the darlings - I DESERVED it!
It was always about living in the moment, "rewarding" myself on the spot for surviving another day, and the reward was usually food. Self-indulgence was something I mastered.
The problem was that it didn't make me happy, and the resulting obesity damaged my health and threatened my longevity. The self-indulgence was always, always quickly replaced with self-loathing and self-recrimination. I was so focused on the immediate "reward" that I never stopped to think about a greater reward - a thin, healthy body. I wanted it, of course, but I was so busy "rewarding" myself day after day that being thin and healthy was an elusive dream. We view self-indulgence as a gift we give ourselves, but often it's quite the opposite.
It wasn't until after I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast that I began to really view self-control and delayed gratification as an entirely different kind of gift that I could give to myself. It didn't have the immediate gratification I had become accustomed to, but that instant buzz was replaced by something far more powerful - the satisfaction of knowing I was doing something good for my body. The instant gratification I'd experienced before paled in comparison to the joy of anticipation of knowing that I would finally reach my goal. Reaching my goal on May 22, 2008 was worth everything - and more.
So today I am encouraging you to give yourself a gift that will keep on giving, not only to you, but to everyone who cares about you - the gift of a healthy body. Getting there will require you to step away from the cultural pull towards self-indulgence, but the rewards will be more than worth it. You will unwrap this gift one day, one meal, and one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)
I read a short article about an upscale London department store that launched a new gift card with the slogan, "The Gift of Self-Indulgence." Signs, slogans and name tags were posted throughout the store to call attention to the campaign. Sales of the gift cards far exceeded the store's expectations.
I shook my head when I read this because, in my humble estimation, we tend to spend a lot more time on self-indulgence than we do on self-control and perfecting the art of delayed gratification. I may just be talking to myself here, but part of the reason I ended up weighing 268 pounds was because I bought into the idea of instant gratification/self-indulgence. Hard day at work? Well, I DESERVED to eat something sweet. Kids making me crazy? Get them in bed and then reward myself that I didn't strangle the darlings - I DESERVED it!
It was always about living in the moment, "rewarding" myself on the spot for surviving another day, and the reward was usually food. Self-indulgence was something I mastered.
The problem was that it didn't make me happy, and the resulting obesity damaged my health and threatened my longevity. The self-indulgence was always, always quickly replaced with self-loathing and self-recrimination. I was so focused on the immediate "reward" that I never stopped to think about a greater reward - a thin, healthy body. I wanted it, of course, but I was so busy "rewarding" myself day after day that being thin and healthy was an elusive dream. We view self-indulgence as a gift we give ourselves, but often it's quite the opposite.
It wasn't until after I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast that I began to really view self-control and delayed gratification as an entirely different kind of gift that I could give to myself. It didn't have the immediate gratification I had become accustomed to, but that instant buzz was replaced by something far more powerful - the satisfaction of knowing I was doing something good for my body. The instant gratification I'd experienced before paled in comparison to the joy of anticipation of knowing that I would finally reach my goal. Reaching my goal on May 22, 2008 was worth everything - and more.
So today I am encouraging you to give yourself a gift that will keep on giving, not only to you, but to everyone who cares about you - the gift of a healthy body. Getting there will require you to step away from the cultural pull towards self-indulgence, but the rewards will be more than worth it. You will unwrap this gift one day, one meal, and one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Pull the Stake, Walk Away
Happy Wednesday! We're halfway through another work week and coming up on a holiday weekend, so there are lots of reasons to be thankful today :-).
As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Beth Moore. I've gone through several of her Bible studies and enjoy her insights and practical applications. One of Beth's quotes from her "Breaking Free" study continues to challenge me: "To the the degree that I'm in captivity, I'm believing lies. To the degree that I'm walking in liberty, I am believing the truth."
That statement causes me to reflect on my journey from 260 pounds to goal, a time when I was finally able to walk away from over two decades of emotional eating. For years, I was caught in what was truly captivity, unable to break free from a miserable cycle of emotional eating and yo-yo dieting. I believed for a long time that I couldn't get out of it, that this was my "lot in life", and that led to feeling pretty hopeless. There were times when I was in the midst of binge eating and realized how sad and destructive it was, but dismissed it as "well, I have an eating disorder," dismissing my actions because I believed I couldn't help it. I tried over and over again to lose weight and my repeated failures led me to believe that I couldn't lose weight. I was over 50 and believed that women my age couldn't lose weight. I believed a lot of things that weren't true and, as a result, those lies kept me captive.
As I've shared before, I didn't believe that Take Shape for Life/Medifast would work, but decided it was worth giving it a try. The first untruth that was exposed was my belief that I couldn't lose weight, that women my age couldn't lose weight. I saw 9 pounds come off the first week and my long-held belief about my ability to lose weight began to crack in light of the truth. Because of the cost of the program, I made a commitment to stay on plan for one month (I couldn't justify the cost unless I was actually doing the program). When the stuff of life bubbled up that would have plunged me into an emotional eating binge, I found that, with God's help, I WAS able to stay on plan and deal with the emotions instead of stuffing them. As that happened time and time again, I realized that although I was certainly an emotional eater, I had the ability to walk away from it - I was not a helpless victim. I finally began to embrace the truth that I was only held captive as long as I chose to be held captive.
I've shared this story before, but since it fits so well here, I'm going to share it again:
The lies we believe are the puny stakes in the ground that hold us captive. We have the ability to walk away the minute we choose to believe the truth, and the truth is that we CAN walk away. It's not easy, but it's possible. The choice is ours today . . . choose wisely :-)
As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Beth Moore. I've gone through several of her Bible studies and enjoy her insights and practical applications. One of Beth's quotes from her "Breaking Free" study continues to challenge me: "To the the degree that I'm in captivity, I'm believing lies. To the degree that I'm walking in liberty, I am believing the truth."
That statement causes me to reflect on my journey from 260 pounds to goal, a time when I was finally able to walk away from over two decades of emotional eating. For years, I was caught in what was truly captivity, unable to break free from a miserable cycle of emotional eating and yo-yo dieting. I believed for a long time that I couldn't get out of it, that this was my "lot in life", and that led to feeling pretty hopeless. There were times when I was in the midst of binge eating and realized how sad and destructive it was, but dismissed it as "well, I have an eating disorder," dismissing my actions because I believed I couldn't help it. I tried over and over again to lose weight and my repeated failures led me to believe that I couldn't lose weight. I was over 50 and believed that women my age couldn't lose weight. I believed a lot of things that weren't true and, as a result, those lies kept me captive.
As I've shared before, I didn't believe that Take Shape for Life/Medifast would work, but decided it was worth giving it a try. The first untruth that was exposed was my belief that I couldn't lose weight, that women my age couldn't lose weight. I saw 9 pounds come off the first week and my long-held belief about my ability to lose weight began to crack in light of the truth. Because of the cost of the program, I made a commitment to stay on plan for one month (I couldn't justify the cost unless I was actually doing the program). When the stuff of life bubbled up that would have plunged me into an emotional eating binge, I found that, with God's help, I WAS able to stay on plan and deal with the emotions instead of stuffing them. As that happened time and time again, I realized that although I was certainly an emotional eater, I had the ability to walk away from it - I was not a helpless victim. I finally began to embrace the truth that I was only held captive as long as I chose to be held captive.
I've shared this story before, but since it fits so well here, I'm going to share it again:
Have you ever seen an elephant at the circus? I don't know if they still do this, but years ago circus elephants could be seen standing next to a small wooden stake in the ground with a chain around one ankle. In the story I read, the writer became rather curious as to how one small wooden stake could hold a large elephant captive, so he did some investigating. As it turns out, the trainer begins using the chain and stake when the elephant is just a baby. The baby elephant is unable to pull free and, over time, gradually accepts the chain and the restriction it provides. What the elephant never realizes is that as it grows stronger, it could easily pull the stake out of the ground and be free. You see, the elephant adapts itself so completely to the chain that it loses sight of the fact that it could free itself in a moment, if it only realized that the chain no longer had any power over it.
The lies we believe are the puny stakes in the ground that hold us captive. We have the ability to walk away the minute we choose to believe the truth, and the truth is that we CAN walk away. It's not easy, but it's possible. The choice is ours today . . . choose wisely :-)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Frog in the Water
I've been reminded again of how often we can become so accustomed to the way things are that we're willing to settle for what we've got. As I shared a couple of weeks ago, I am dealing with the continued deterioration of my right knee. This knee has been a bad knee since my mid-20's, when I was young and thin. I've had two surgeries on it, one at age 30 and a second when I was almost 34, and it's never been great. Over the years things have gradually deteriorated and I've adjusted my activity in response.
An MRI and x-ray reveal severe arthritis, bone spurs, a meniscus tear and an area that's bone on bone. Like I said, it's a bad knee :-). In talking to my orthopedic surgeon, he has been careful to not push surgery (total knee replacement), always emphasizing that it was my life and my body and at whatever point the pain and/or restricted activity was unacceptable, he would replace the knee.
Up until recently, my thinking has been that as long as I take a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory drug, the pain is pretty tolerable most of the time. Of course, I can't run, can't ride a bike, can't rollerblade, can't sit cross-legged (due to limited range of motion), am finding it difficult to take stairs or walk long distances . . .
As I started reviewing the things I could no longer do because of my knee, it dawned on me that my activity really has become pretty restricted. I hadn't realized it because it happened over time, but slowly but surely I've modified my life and my activity level and accepted these modifications as normal.
This reminds me of the story of the frog in the pot of water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out, but if you put it in a pot of cold water and gradually heat it, the frog will cook and not even realize it because its body will continue to adjust to the changing temperature until it's too late.
For many of us, our weight came on gradually and we adjusted as we went along, accepting this as the new normal. We stopped doing some of the things we used to do and made all kinds of mental excuses, perhaps even telling ourselves that we didn't want to do those things anymore anyway. We eventually settled into life as an overweight or, in my case, morbidly obese person.
For others, perhaps you've been overweight your entire life and assume that this is just how it is and it's hard to imagine living a life different than what it is.
It's exciting to see how much this program changes us! As we begin to lose weight, normal begins to be defined in an entirely new - and wonderful - way. Things we thought impossible become possible. Individuals who avoid flying because they could barely fit into an airline seat are now free to travel; people who had trouble walking to the end of their driveway are participating in 5K races; women who only shopped for their clothes online because they needed such large sizes are now going on shopping weekends with friends - the list goes on and on.
Those changes happen as we make the choice to redefine normal in our lives. We can't do that until we take an honest look at our current reality and determine that it's not acceptable. That's the first step. The second step is to allow ourselves to dream and believe that our normal really CAN be redefined in a new and wonderful way. Once we get a vision of how different a new normal can be, all we have to do is make the choices we need to make to bridge the gap from our current reality to what we want.
Those choices include the choices we'll make today. Choose wisely :-)
An MRI and x-ray reveal severe arthritis, bone spurs, a meniscus tear and an area that's bone on bone. Like I said, it's a bad knee :-). In talking to my orthopedic surgeon, he has been careful to not push surgery (total knee replacement), always emphasizing that it was my life and my body and at whatever point the pain and/or restricted activity was unacceptable, he would replace the knee.
Up until recently, my thinking has been that as long as I take a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory drug, the pain is pretty tolerable most of the time. Of course, I can't run, can't ride a bike, can't rollerblade, can't sit cross-legged (due to limited range of motion), am finding it difficult to take stairs or walk long distances . . .
As I started reviewing the things I could no longer do because of my knee, it dawned on me that my activity really has become pretty restricted. I hadn't realized it because it happened over time, but slowly but surely I've modified my life and my activity level and accepted these modifications as normal.
This reminds me of the story of the frog in the pot of water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out, but if you put it in a pot of cold water and gradually heat it, the frog will cook and not even realize it because its body will continue to adjust to the changing temperature until it's too late.
For many of us, our weight came on gradually and we adjusted as we went along, accepting this as the new normal. We stopped doing some of the things we used to do and made all kinds of mental excuses, perhaps even telling ourselves that we didn't want to do those things anymore anyway. We eventually settled into life as an overweight or, in my case, morbidly obese person.
For others, perhaps you've been overweight your entire life and assume that this is just how it is and it's hard to imagine living a life different than what it is.
It's exciting to see how much this program changes us! As we begin to lose weight, normal begins to be defined in an entirely new - and wonderful - way. Things we thought impossible become possible. Individuals who avoid flying because they could barely fit into an airline seat are now free to travel; people who had trouble walking to the end of their driveway are participating in 5K races; women who only shopped for their clothes online because they needed such large sizes are now going on shopping weekends with friends - the list goes on and on.
Those changes happen as we make the choice to redefine normal in our lives. We can't do that until we take an honest look at our current reality and determine that it's not acceptable. That's the first step. The second step is to allow ourselves to dream and believe that our normal really CAN be redefined in a new and wonderful way. Once we get a vision of how different a new normal can be, all we have to do is make the choices we need to make to bridge the gap from our current reality to what we want.
Those choices include the choices we'll make today. Choose wisely :-)
Monday, May 23, 2011
Shortened Days
My dad is a constant source of inspiration to me. He faithfully reads my blogs and often sends me articles that he thinks I can use. A conversation with a family friend triggered some pondering for my dad and he shared his thoughts in an e-mail that he sent out to our family. When I read it, I told him that he had just inspired another blog :-). Here's part of what he wrote:
There have been too many studies that directly link obesity to a host of diseases, diseases that may well shorten our lives and most certainly will diminish the quality of our lives. It can be hard to think about the distant future when we're faced with the immediate temptation of our favorite off-plan food, especially when we have the choice between immediate gratification or something that will not be fully realized for decades. It's hard to think long term, but it's a good idea to think about how we want our lives to be years from now. If we keep doing what we're doing, where will be in five years? What about ten years? How will the habits we're developing and refining now play out in our lives ten or twenty years from now?
The choices we make today matter - they really do. Choose wisely :-)
Last week, when we were in Illinois, [our friend] asked us what we thought about Ecclesiastes 7:17 “why die before your time.” She thinks her husband (a life time smoker) died prematurely because he smoked. I had never considered this verse before, but this morning I started studying and I think [she] made a good point!
I have always held strong to the thought that God has ordained my number of days: Psalm 139:16 (NIV) “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Does that mean that no matter how I live, my time to die is set in stone? I don’t think so!
Like my dad, I believe that God has ordained our days (you may or may not believe that). The question is, do you believe that your life can be shortened by unhealthy habits? I don't know about you, but I want to live as long as possible, and I want those days to be healthy and active. I want to watch my four grandchildren grow up - I want to celebrate their high school and college graduations and I want to dance at their weddings and hold their babies. Lord willing, there is a lot of joy in the future and I don't want to miss out on any of it due to choices that I make (or don't make) today.Take a look at Ecclesiastes 7:17-18 (NIV). “Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?...the man who fears God will avoid all extremes.”Can our “extremes” shorten our time on earth? Job 14:5 states: “Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” We can’t exceed our time; but, can we shorten our life time by excessive eating, drinking, drugs, etc?
There have been too many studies that directly link obesity to a host of diseases, diseases that may well shorten our lives and most certainly will diminish the quality of our lives. It can be hard to think about the distant future when we're faced with the immediate temptation of our favorite off-plan food, especially when we have the choice between immediate gratification or something that will not be fully realized for decades. It's hard to think long term, but it's a good idea to think about how we want our lives to be years from now. If we keep doing what we're doing, where will be in five years? What about ten years? How will the habits we're developing and refining now play out in our lives ten or twenty years from now?
The choices we make today matter - they really do. Choose wisely :-)
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Goal 3 Years Later . . . the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Three years ago today I reached my weight loss goal, losing 120 pounds in two days short of 11 months. I am celebrating this milestone today and am especially thankful because, with God's help, I've beaten the odds! Statistics show that 85% of people who lose weight gain it all back, plus additional weight, within two years. I have never been so happy to be outside the norm in my life!
When I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast in June of 2007, I had very low expectations. Every attempt I'd ever made to lose weight had met with only minimal weight loss (the most I ever lost was 36 pounds and that took me 9 months to lose). Every attempt at losing weight resulted in rapid rebound weight gain as soon as I stopped counting the carbs, calories, fat grams or points for the program I was on. I was so incredibly desperate when I placed my first order that I had actually been contemplating weight loss surgery, but I didn't believe this program would work. I honestly thought it would fail and that I could move forward with surgery knowing in my heart that I'd truly tried everything.
One of the things that attracted me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast was the Transition & Maintenance program. I liked the thought that if I could somehow lose some weight, this program might actually help me to keep it off. After losing 36 pounds on another program, giving away all of my largest size clothes (24W/3X) and then regaining the weight and having to repurchase a wardrobe in that largest size, I knew I couldn't continue to yo-yo any more.
This program was truly an answer to my very desperate prayers for help! If someone would have told me four years ago that I would be celebrating three full years at a healthy weight and in a size 6, I wouldn't have believed them. If someone would have told me four years ago that I would be working full-time helping others lose weight and get healthy, that many of my family members would be at a healthy weight (including my husband), I wouldn't have believed them. If someone would have told me that I would be able to do all of the things I am now able to do, including traveling all over the country, I wouldn't have believed them. I had no idea when I ordered that 4-week variety pack that that decision would alter the course of my life. I am so incredibly humbled and thankful for all that has happened.
There were many days when staying on plan was difficult. There were many days when I honest to goodness did NOT want to eat another Medifast meal for the rest of my life. There were times when I felt deprived as I turned down off-plan food, and there were times when I was angry at myself for what I had done to my body that cause me to be on such a restrictive program to begin with. What was different this time was that I made the decision that, regardless of how I felt or what was happening in my life, I would stay on plan. Taking it one day at a time, and often one meal at a time - and choosing to draw on God's strength for the many times my own was failing or non-existent - I finally reached that long-elusive goal three years ago today.
Maintenance has been harder than I had anticipated. As I've shared before, I still have a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds - almost everything still sounds and tastes as good as it ever did and I am often challenged to stay mindful of portion sizes. Because I did 5&1 just about perfectly (never cheated and kicked myself out of fat-burning the entire time I was on program and had only the occasional ONE bite of something off plan), I somehow unrealistically thought I'd do Maintenance perfectly, too. What I've come to realize - finally - is that Maintenance is the rest of my life. Since there isn't anything I'm going to do perfectly for the rest of my life, that includes Maintenance.
On occasion my weight has blipped up several pounds higher than I want it to be, including beyond my self-imposed upper limit. I'm not happy with the scale or with myself when that happens, but I've learned to do a couple of things. First of all, I've learned to grant myself grace and not waste time berating myself when I haven't followed my own admonition to choose wisely :-). I've also make the choice to get refocused on what's really important to me and have chosen on occasion to go back on 5&1 for a couple of weeks or a month to bring my weight back in line.
My long-term goal is to so fully embrace the principles in Dr. A's Habits of Health that I never need to jump back on 5&1 again. Until that time, a Medifast blitz is the tool I keep in my back pocket and I don't apologize for pulling it out on occasion when needed. I hope someday consistently making the best choices is my automatic response . . . for now, I strive to make good choices and I keep a very clean kitchen so that my environment is structured for success. None of my trigger foods (and they are legion . . . ) are allowed in the house because I've learned that I can't eat them in moderation.
The choices I made that led to me reaching goal three years ago weren't always easy, but as I look back today, they sure were worth it! The choices I continue to have to make aren't always easy, either, but staying at a healthy weight is absolutely worth it! You're facing your own set of choices today - how I hope and pray that you will choose wisely :-)
When I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast in June of 2007, I had very low expectations. Every attempt I'd ever made to lose weight had met with only minimal weight loss (the most I ever lost was 36 pounds and that took me 9 months to lose). Every attempt at losing weight resulted in rapid rebound weight gain as soon as I stopped counting the carbs, calories, fat grams or points for the program I was on. I was so incredibly desperate when I placed my first order that I had actually been contemplating weight loss surgery, but I didn't believe this program would work. I honestly thought it would fail and that I could move forward with surgery knowing in my heart that I'd truly tried everything.
One of the things that attracted me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast was the Transition & Maintenance program. I liked the thought that if I could somehow lose some weight, this program might actually help me to keep it off. After losing 36 pounds on another program, giving away all of my largest size clothes (24W/3X) and then regaining the weight and having to repurchase a wardrobe in that largest size, I knew I couldn't continue to yo-yo any more.
This program was truly an answer to my very desperate prayers for help! If someone would have told me four years ago that I would be celebrating three full years at a healthy weight and in a size 6, I wouldn't have believed them. If someone would have told me four years ago that I would be working full-time helping others lose weight and get healthy, that many of my family members would be at a healthy weight (including my husband), I wouldn't have believed them. If someone would have told me that I would be able to do all of the things I am now able to do, including traveling all over the country, I wouldn't have believed them. I had no idea when I ordered that 4-week variety pack that that decision would alter the course of my life. I am so incredibly humbled and thankful for all that has happened.
There were many days when staying on plan was difficult. There were many days when I honest to goodness did NOT want to eat another Medifast meal for the rest of my life. There were times when I felt deprived as I turned down off-plan food, and there were times when I was angry at myself for what I had done to my body that cause me to be on such a restrictive program to begin with. What was different this time was that I made the decision that, regardless of how I felt or what was happening in my life, I would stay on plan. Taking it one day at a time, and often one meal at a time - and choosing to draw on God's strength for the many times my own was failing or non-existent - I finally reached that long-elusive goal three years ago today.
Maintenance has been harder than I had anticipated. As I've shared before, I still have a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds - almost everything still sounds and tastes as good as it ever did and I am often challenged to stay mindful of portion sizes. Because I did 5&1 just about perfectly (never cheated and kicked myself out of fat-burning the entire time I was on program and had only the occasional ONE bite of something off plan), I somehow unrealistically thought I'd do Maintenance perfectly, too. What I've come to realize - finally - is that Maintenance is the rest of my life. Since there isn't anything I'm going to do perfectly for the rest of my life, that includes Maintenance.
On occasion my weight has blipped up several pounds higher than I want it to be, including beyond my self-imposed upper limit. I'm not happy with the scale or with myself when that happens, but I've learned to do a couple of things. First of all, I've learned to grant myself grace and not waste time berating myself when I haven't followed my own admonition to choose wisely :-). I've also make the choice to get refocused on what's really important to me and have chosen on occasion to go back on 5&1 for a couple of weeks or a month to bring my weight back in line.
My long-term goal is to so fully embrace the principles in Dr. A's Habits of Health that I never need to jump back on 5&1 again. Until that time, a Medifast blitz is the tool I keep in my back pocket and I don't apologize for pulling it out on occasion when needed. I hope someday consistently making the best choices is my automatic response . . . for now, I strive to make good choices and I keep a very clean kitchen so that my environment is structured for success. None of my trigger foods (and they are legion . . . ) are allowed in the house because I've learned that I can't eat them in moderation.
The choices I made that led to me reaching goal three years ago weren't always easy, but as I look back today, they sure were worth it! The choices I continue to have to make aren't always easy, either, but staying at a healthy weight is absolutely worth it! You're facing your own set of choices today - how I hope and pray that you will choose wisely :-)
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Feeding Our Bodies, Feeding Our Souls
Today's blog is a reprint of something I first wrote almost two years ago. Since I know there are a lot of individuals reading my blog now who weren't around then, I thought I'd share this again.
***
"The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on." ~ Josiah Gilbert Holland
I read that quote yesterday as part of my morning devotions and it rattled around in my thoughts all day. I think it's a great quote and worth writing about :-)
First of all, this quote is certainly true when it comes to our bodies and how we're feeding them. Most, if not all, of us started on this program because we hadn't been properly feeding our bodies in years (for me, that would be a couple of decades . . . ) and our bodies were showing the effects of our neglect. Obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, gastric reflux were all physical evidences of two decades of my own neglect. There were other consequences of my neglect that were hidden to others - things like low self-esteem, embarrassment, frustration at not being able to find clothes to fit, worry about not fitting into spaces, etc.
As I began to properly nourish my body using the Take Shape for Life/Medifast program, it was amazing how quickly my body began to respond. I not only saw the weight begin to come off, but my blood sugar returned to normal in the first week, and my gastric reflux disappeared almost immediately. Within a short time, my cholesterol also returned to normal without medication. Over and over again, people are amazed at how quickly things turn around with their lab work, because this program is about getting people healthy, not just thin. It's as if our bodies are just waiting for us to make better choices :-).
Our souls also live on what we feed them, so it's worth asking ourselves what we're feeding our souls. Are we feeding our souls negativity? When we've had nothing but years of failure, it's easy to tell ourselves that we can't lose weight and believe that, in the end, this program is bound to fail, too. If are looking in the mirror every morning and telling ourselves that we're weak and not able to do this, I can promise you that eventually this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whether it's the food we're putting into our bodies or the things we're putting into our heads and our hearts, it's definitely garbage in/garbage out.
This program is about so much more than just losing weight, it's about getting healthy - physically, emotionally, and for many of us, spiritually. Moving from obesity to a healthy weight, moving from being defeated to experiencing victory, and learning how to relate to food in a positive, healthy way are all part of getting healthy. As you are learning to put healthy things into your body, I would also encourage you to put healthy things into your mind and your heart. Find ways to nourish your soul!
***
What we put into our bodies - and our hearts, minds and souls - makes a difference not only today, but tomorrow. The choices are ours . . . choose wisely :-)
***
"The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on." ~ Josiah Gilbert Holland
I read that quote yesterday as part of my morning devotions and it rattled around in my thoughts all day. I think it's a great quote and worth writing about :-)
First of all, this quote is certainly true when it comes to our bodies and how we're feeding them. Most, if not all, of us started on this program because we hadn't been properly feeding our bodies in years (for me, that would be a couple of decades . . . ) and our bodies were showing the effects of our neglect. Obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, gastric reflux were all physical evidences of two decades of my own neglect. There were other consequences of my neglect that were hidden to others - things like low self-esteem, embarrassment, frustration at not being able to find clothes to fit, worry about not fitting into spaces, etc.
As I began to properly nourish my body using the Take Shape for Life/Medifast program, it was amazing how quickly my body began to respond. I not only saw the weight begin to come off, but my blood sugar returned to normal in the first week, and my gastric reflux disappeared almost immediately. Within a short time, my cholesterol also returned to normal without medication. Over and over again, people are amazed at how quickly things turn around with their lab work, because this program is about getting people healthy, not just thin. It's as if our bodies are just waiting for us to make better choices :-).
Our souls also live on what we feed them, so it's worth asking ourselves what we're feeding our souls. Are we feeding our souls negativity? When we've had nothing but years of failure, it's easy to tell ourselves that we can't lose weight and believe that, in the end, this program is bound to fail, too. If are looking in the mirror every morning and telling ourselves that we're weak and not able to do this, I can promise you that eventually this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whether it's the food we're putting into our bodies or the things we're putting into our heads and our hearts, it's definitely garbage in/garbage out.
This program is about so much more than just losing weight, it's about getting healthy - physically, emotionally, and for many of us, spiritually. Moving from obesity to a healthy weight, moving from being defeated to experiencing victory, and learning how to relate to food in a positive, healthy way are all part of getting healthy. As you are learning to put healthy things into your body, I would also encourage you to put healthy things into your mind and your heart. Find ways to nourish your soul!
***
What we put into our bodies - and our hearts, minds and souls - makes a difference not only today, but tomorrow. The choices are ours . . . choose wisely :-)
Friday, May 20, 2011
A Long-Term Perspective
Yesterday I saw my orthopedic surgeon for a consult on my right knee. It's been a bad knee since my mid-20's (I've had two arthroscopic surgeries on it, one at age 30 and a second at age 33 - both when I was at a healthy weight). Carrying around an extra 120+ pounds for over two decades certainly didn't help, and losing 126 pounds didn't cure the long-standing issues. We're trying a series of three injections (Euflexxa) to see if they will help, but if they don't, I'll be scheduling a total knee replacement for the first week in August.
It's hard to know what kind of shape my knee would be in today had I maintained a healthy weight over the years. I know that the massive amount of extra weight that I carried contributed to the deterioration of the joint as the doctor told me that with every step we take, the pressure on our knees is four times our body weight. Yikes! While walking around at 260+ pounds, I never factored in the toll that weight was taking on my joints.
That was the problem . . . I didn't receive regular updates from my body letting me know what was happening inside. It would be nice to have a series of gauges we could check to see what's happening, wouldn't it? Our cars have gauges that tell us how much gas we have, what our tire pressure is, if the oil level is down - we watch those gauges and respond as needed because we don't want to wait until a red light starts flashing on our dash.
The only monitors we have about our health are the lab reports we get periodically, but even our blood work and other lab tests only tell part of the story. We are fairly clueless about anything else unless we have symptoms - but those symptoms are the flashing red lights on our body's dashboard. By the time symptoms appear, things have already gone wrong.
What's wonderful is that losing weight can shut down many of these flashing lights - cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels often return to normal, diabetes can be managed (sometimes even reversed). The list of health benefits goes on and on!
Unfortunately, sometimes the accumulative damage from years of obesity cannot be reversed, and that is certainly true when it comes to my knee. That poor knee was forced to support a lot more weight than it was ever intended to carry for far too many years and the damage has been done.
The good news is that losing 126 pounds and getting healthy ended up buying me time with my knee. For most of the past 3-1/2 years, the knee has been tolerable (with the help of periodic cortisone injections). Losing weight and staying active has helped and I'm thankful for that! The other good news is that I AM healthy, so if I end up needing surgery in August, I'll go into surgery in good shape. I shudder to think about the possibility of undergoing surgery weighing 260! In fact, I know that if I hadn't lost weight, I would have probably already been forced to have a knee replacement and I would have had it as a morbidly obese diabetic - a very scary thought! I'm so thankful I made the decision to get healthy and then made daily choices needed to not only reach my goal but maintain a healthy weight!
Making the choice to stay on plan today is about far more than just how we will look and feel a few months from now. Today's choices will impact our body in ways we may not realize for years to come. Choose wisely :-)
It's hard to know what kind of shape my knee would be in today had I maintained a healthy weight over the years. I know that the massive amount of extra weight that I carried contributed to the deterioration of the joint as the doctor told me that with every step we take, the pressure on our knees is four times our body weight. Yikes! While walking around at 260+ pounds, I never factored in the toll that weight was taking on my joints.
That was the problem . . . I didn't receive regular updates from my body letting me know what was happening inside. It would be nice to have a series of gauges we could check to see what's happening, wouldn't it? Our cars have gauges that tell us how much gas we have, what our tire pressure is, if the oil level is down - we watch those gauges and respond as needed because we don't want to wait until a red light starts flashing on our dash.
The only monitors we have about our health are the lab reports we get periodically, but even our blood work and other lab tests only tell part of the story. We are fairly clueless about anything else unless we have symptoms - but those symptoms are the flashing red lights on our body's dashboard. By the time symptoms appear, things have already gone wrong.
What's wonderful is that losing weight can shut down many of these flashing lights - cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels often return to normal, diabetes can be managed (sometimes even reversed). The list of health benefits goes on and on!
Unfortunately, sometimes the accumulative damage from years of obesity cannot be reversed, and that is certainly true when it comes to my knee. That poor knee was forced to support a lot more weight than it was ever intended to carry for far too many years and the damage has been done.
The good news is that losing 126 pounds and getting healthy ended up buying me time with my knee. For most of the past 3-1/2 years, the knee has been tolerable (with the help of periodic cortisone injections). Losing weight and staying active has helped and I'm thankful for that! The other good news is that I AM healthy, so if I end up needing surgery in August, I'll go into surgery in good shape. I shudder to think about the possibility of undergoing surgery weighing 260! In fact, I know that if I hadn't lost weight, I would have probably already been forced to have a knee replacement and I would have had it as a morbidly obese diabetic - a very scary thought! I'm so thankful I made the decision to get healthy and then made daily choices needed to not only reach my goal but maintain a healthy weight!
Making the choice to stay on plan today is about far more than just how we will look and feel a few months from now. Today's choices will impact our body in ways we may not realize for years to come. Choose wisely :-)
Backwards Thinking
Why do we always feel deprived when we decide to start eating healthy and cut out the junk? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't we feel we are depriving ourselves because we AREN'T eating healthy?
We've really gotten our thinking backwards, haven't we? So often we find ourselves longing for food that may taste good but is nutritionally deficient, high calorie/carbs/fat - food that hasn't served us well. Other than enjoying the flavor for a moment while it's in our mouth, the food we crave really hasn't done a thing for us except contribute to us being overweight and in an unhealthy state.
I look back to where I was four years ago, just before starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Sure I was eating all of my favorite foods in whatever quantities I wanted - there was no deprivation going on in the food department at my house! But I was miserable in my own skin and I was unhealthy and headed down a path of even worse health.
I remember looking in the mirror and hating my reflection. I remember struggling to find clothes that would fit and even the clothes that fit were often not my style or a good color for me, but I had to settle for what I could find. I remember wearing pantyhose with skirts in the summer because my thighs rubbing together would chafe - the nylons were hot, but it was more uncomfortable dealing with chafed thighs. I remember skipping invitations to pool parties because I was too embarrassed to be in public in a swimsuit, and I didn't take my children to a nearby water park for the same reason. I remember struggling to get the seatbelt fastened on an airplane and being worried that I'd have to ask for an extender. I remember sitting at a round table in a crowded room and not getting up to use the bathroom because I knew I couldn't squeeze between the tables to leave the room. I remember checking my blood sugar in the morning and seeing numbers that confirmed I was diabetic. I remember feeling guilty and out of control with my eating. I remember feeling hopeless.
Yes, I was eating whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted - no deprivation in the eating department for sure. But deprivation permeated every other area of my life!
Then I made the decision to try Take Shape for Life/Medifast for four weeks, a desperate last attempt at weight loss before I pursued weight loss surgery and paid for it out of pocket since it wasn't covered by my insurance.
There was a lot of food deprivation during the almost-11 months it took me to lose 120 pounds and reach my goal - I won't deny that for a minute! But as I stayed on plan, the rest of my life became rich and full. My blood sugar returned to normal, I found energy I didn't know I could have, I began to like what I saw in the mirror, shopping began to be fun, and I regained hope.
Sunday will mark my third-year anniversary of reaching my goal weight. Those few months of temporary deprivation have resulted in me being in a place I couldn't have imagined - truly beyond what I dreamed. I am healthy and I no longer shrink back from life because of my weight. I've chosen to not incorporate most of those former "favorite" foods back into my life because I realize that they didn't serve me well before and they certainly won't serve me well now. I don't feel the least bit deprived because this or that isn't part of my eating plan because I now know the difference between real and perceived deprivation. Real deprivation is cheating ourselves out of optimal health - being as healthy as we can be for as long as possible. Real deprivation is being limited, physically and emotionally, by our weight.
So which deprivation are you choosing today? The choice is yours, so choose wisely :-)
We've really gotten our thinking backwards, haven't we? So often we find ourselves longing for food that may taste good but is nutritionally deficient, high calorie/carbs/fat - food that hasn't served us well. Other than enjoying the flavor for a moment while it's in our mouth, the food we crave really hasn't done a thing for us except contribute to us being overweight and in an unhealthy state.
I look back to where I was four years ago, just before starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Sure I was eating all of my favorite foods in whatever quantities I wanted - there was no deprivation going on in the food department at my house! But I was miserable in my own skin and I was unhealthy and headed down a path of even worse health.
I remember looking in the mirror and hating my reflection. I remember struggling to find clothes that would fit and even the clothes that fit were often not my style or a good color for me, but I had to settle for what I could find. I remember wearing pantyhose with skirts in the summer because my thighs rubbing together would chafe - the nylons were hot, but it was more uncomfortable dealing with chafed thighs. I remember skipping invitations to pool parties because I was too embarrassed to be in public in a swimsuit, and I didn't take my children to a nearby water park for the same reason. I remember struggling to get the seatbelt fastened on an airplane and being worried that I'd have to ask for an extender. I remember sitting at a round table in a crowded room and not getting up to use the bathroom because I knew I couldn't squeeze between the tables to leave the room. I remember checking my blood sugar in the morning and seeing numbers that confirmed I was diabetic. I remember feeling guilty and out of control with my eating. I remember feeling hopeless.
Yes, I was eating whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted - no deprivation in the eating department for sure. But deprivation permeated every other area of my life!
Then I made the decision to try Take Shape for Life/Medifast for four weeks, a desperate last attempt at weight loss before I pursued weight loss surgery and paid for it out of pocket since it wasn't covered by my insurance.
There was a lot of food deprivation during the almost-11 months it took me to lose 120 pounds and reach my goal - I won't deny that for a minute! But as I stayed on plan, the rest of my life became rich and full. My blood sugar returned to normal, I found energy I didn't know I could have, I began to like what I saw in the mirror, shopping began to be fun, and I regained hope.
Sunday will mark my third-year anniversary of reaching my goal weight. Those few months of temporary deprivation have resulted in me being in a place I couldn't have imagined - truly beyond what I dreamed. I am healthy and I no longer shrink back from life because of my weight. I've chosen to not incorporate most of those former "favorite" foods back into my life because I realize that they didn't serve me well before and they certainly won't serve me well now. I don't feel the least bit deprived because this or that isn't part of my eating plan because I now know the difference between real and perceived deprivation. Real deprivation is cheating ourselves out of optimal health - being as healthy as we can be for as long as possible. Real deprivation is being limited, physically and emotionally, by our weight.
So which deprivation are you choosing today? The choice is yours, so choose wisely :-)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
The Bad News
I've got bad news, my friends. It's not genetics. Never has been, never will be. How do I know this? I just reviewed the 2010 America's Health RankingsTM that lists the states in order of health. America`s Health RankingsTM has tracked the health of the nation for over 20 years, providing a unique, comprehensive perspective on how the nation - and each state - measures up.
According to the latest report, "the average obesity rate for the United States is 26.9 percent of the adult population, up from 26.6 percent of the population in the 2009 Edition, 23.2 percent in the 2005 Edition, 19.6 percent in the 2000 Edition and substantially more than double the rate of 11.6 percent of the population in the 1990 Edition. In the United States, this means that more than one-in-four are obese - that is about 60 million adults with a body mass index of 30.0 or higher. If the population of the United States could return to the weight status of 1990, there would be 26 million fewer obese individuals - more than the entire population of the second most populous U.S. state, Texas."
In my own state, Michigan, the obesity rate grew from 14.1% in 1990 to 29.5% in 2009 and to 30.3% in 2010. In Mississippi, which ranked 50th, from 1990 to 2009 the obesity rate grew from 15.0% to 33.3% and increased to 35.3% in 2010. The fact that obesity more than doubled in twenty years in not only these two states, but many others as well, has ZERO to do with genetics and everything to do with lifestyle. There simply could not be enough change in the genetic makeup of the U.S. population in a short twenty years to account for this growing - and I do mean growing - epidemic.
I'm saying this fully aware that obesity often seems to "run" in families, but unless there is an underlying endocrine problem, which is rare, familial obesity is all about lifestyle. That's good news - really it is! This means that even if every other person in your family is obese, you are NOT destined to be obese, too. Our obesity is tied directly to our lifestyle and the choices we make.
It's easy to find other reasons for our struggle with weight, and blaming our genes is an often-used excuse. We may have learned bad habits from our family of origin, but those bad habits aren't hard-wired into our genes. If we are willing to make some fundamental changes, we can not only rewrite our own health future, but we can also help our children and grandchildren to rewrite theirs. We can start a new family pattern, beginning with the choices we make today. Choose wisely :-)
According to the latest report, "the average obesity rate for the United States is 26.9 percent of the adult population, up from 26.6 percent of the population in the 2009 Edition, 23.2 percent in the 2005 Edition, 19.6 percent in the 2000 Edition and substantially more than double the rate of 11.6 percent of the population in the 1990 Edition. In the United States, this means that more than one-in-four are obese - that is about 60 million adults with a body mass index of 30.0 or higher. If the population of the United States could return to the weight status of 1990, there would be 26 million fewer obese individuals - more than the entire population of the second most populous U.S. state, Texas."
In my own state, Michigan, the obesity rate grew from 14.1% in 1990 to 29.5% in 2009 and to 30.3% in 2010. In Mississippi, which ranked 50th, from 1990 to 2009 the obesity rate grew from 15.0% to 33.3% and increased to 35.3% in 2010. The fact that obesity more than doubled in twenty years in not only these two states, but many others as well, has ZERO to do with genetics and everything to do with lifestyle. There simply could not be enough change in the genetic makeup of the U.S. population in a short twenty years to account for this growing - and I do mean growing - epidemic.
I'm saying this fully aware that obesity often seems to "run" in families, but unless there is an underlying endocrine problem, which is rare, familial obesity is all about lifestyle. That's good news - really it is! This means that even if every other person in your family is obese, you are NOT destined to be obese, too. Our obesity is tied directly to our lifestyle and the choices we make.
It's easy to find other reasons for our struggle with weight, and blaming our genes is an often-used excuse. We may have learned bad habits from our family of origin, but those bad habits aren't hard-wired into our genes. If we are willing to make some fundamental changes, we can not only rewrite our own health future, but we can also help our children and grandchildren to rewrite theirs. We can start a new family pattern, beginning with the choices we make today. Choose wisely :-)
Monday, May 16, 2011
Dealing with Deprivation
Mark Twain was known for his wry and witty quotes, and one that struck a chord with me was this one: "The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not."
Do you ever feel like that? That the only way to get to a healthy weight is to live in a state of total deprivation, with your day revolving around a bunch of things you don't want to do? It can be incredibly hard to make radical changes in the way we've already done things, and it's easy to feel like we have entered into a world where all of the fun has been sucked out. For reasons we don't always understand, we cling tenaciously to habits that are taking us down a path towards disease.
Changing our focus isn't easy, but it begins with a clear understanding of where we are right now. I've written before about a book that I highly recommend, Dr. A's Habits of Health, which was written by Take Shape for Life's co-founder and medical director, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen. Chapter 5 of his book is entitled, "Where Are You Now?" The entire chapter is an in-depth assessment of our current state of health, and it is rather sobering to take the assessment because, frankly, many of us aren't as healthy as we think we are. (If you don't have this book but are interested in taking the assessment, it's available on Dr. Andersen's website: http://drwayneandersen.com - click on the "How Healthy Are You?" link to take the on-line assessment.)
If we aren't where we want to be, and if we take the time to create a vision of where we want to be, then we will begin putting into action the steps necessary to get to our goal. Sometimes these steps aren't the things we would necessarily choose to do on our own (hence Mark Twain's statement!), but if we view them as steps that bring us closer to what we really want, we will do them anyway.
When I was on 5&1, on any given day I would have preferred pizza and brownies to any Medifast meal - eating five Medifast meals day after day for almost a year wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. But I did it, one day after another, because they were a tool that helped me get to something far more important that the immediate gratification I would have received from the pizza and brownies. Thankfully, I really enjoyed the meals, so I didn't approach each fueling with dread, but they still weren't always my first choice in what I wanted to eat. There were times when I felt deprived, but those times were few and far between, because I was focused on reaching my goal. Each Medifast meal brought me a step closer to what I really wanted, and keeping that mindset was key to staying on plan for the almost 11 months it took me to lose the 120 pounds.
How we view the choices we need to make will influence how we feel about this program, and our attitude can also directly impact whether or not we'll be successful over the long term. If we approach this day after day with a feeling of dread and deprivation, if our focus is on what we're giving up and can't have, this may end up being another short-lived and unsuccessful diet. If we view each day as another day that bring us closer to our goal and if we embrace the healthy habits this program is designed to teach us, we will eventually not only reach our goal but we'll have the habits and mindset needed to maintain for the rest of our lives.
Each day we get to choose whether or not we're going to stay on plan, and each day we get to choose the attitude we'll have. Those choices are important . . . choose wisely :-)
***
My husband and I are getting away for a couple of days (having an early anniversary get-away), so I'll post my next blog on Thursday.
Do you ever feel like that? That the only way to get to a healthy weight is to live in a state of total deprivation, with your day revolving around a bunch of things you don't want to do? It can be incredibly hard to make radical changes in the way we've already done things, and it's easy to feel like we have entered into a world where all of the fun has been sucked out. For reasons we don't always understand, we cling tenaciously to habits that are taking us down a path towards disease.
Changing our focus isn't easy, but it begins with a clear understanding of where we are right now. I've written before about a book that I highly recommend, Dr. A's Habits of Health, which was written by Take Shape for Life's co-founder and medical director, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen. Chapter 5 of his book is entitled, "Where Are You Now?" The entire chapter is an in-depth assessment of our current state of health, and it is rather sobering to take the assessment because, frankly, many of us aren't as healthy as we think we are. (If you don't have this book but are interested in taking the assessment, it's available on Dr. Andersen's website: http://drwayneandersen.com - click on the "How Healthy Are You?" link to take the on-line assessment.)
If we aren't where we want to be, and if we take the time to create a vision of where we want to be, then we will begin putting into action the steps necessary to get to our goal. Sometimes these steps aren't the things we would necessarily choose to do on our own (hence Mark Twain's statement!), but if we view them as steps that bring us closer to what we really want, we will do them anyway.
When I was on 5&1, on any given day I would have preferred pizza and brownies to any Medifast meal - eating five Medifast meals day after day for almost a year wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. But I did it, one day after another, because they were a tool that helped me get to something far more important that the immediate gratification I would have received from the pizza and brownies. Thankfully, I really enjoyed the meals, so I didn't approach each fueling with dread, but they still weren't always my first choice in what I wanted to eat. There were times when I felt deprived, but those times were few and far between, because I was focused on reaching my goal. Each Medifast meal brought me a step closer to what I really wanted, and keeping that mindset was key to staying on plan for the almost 11 months it took me to lose the 120 pounds.
How we view the choices we need to make will influence how we feel about this program, and our attitude can also directly impact whether or not we'll be successful over the long term. If we approach this day after day with a feeling of dread and deprivation, if our focus is on what we're giving up and can't have, this may end up being another short-lived and unsuccessful diet. If we view each day as another day that bring us closer to our goal and if we embrace the healthy habits this program is designed to teach us, we will eventually not only reach our goal but we'll have the habits and mindset needed to maintain for the rest of our lives.
Each day we get to choose whether or not we're going to stay on plan, and each day we get to choose the attitude we'll have. Those choices are important . . . choose wisely :-)
***
My husband and I are getting away for a couple of days (having an early anniversary get-away), so I'll post my next blog on Thursday.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Breaking the Cycle
Because the convenience of our Take Shape for Life program makes it easy to eat 5 Medifast meals and one lean & green meal a day, the decision to go off plan usually revolves around emotional eating. No matter how well we're doing on plan, no matter how much weight we've lost or how good we're feeling, if we are an emotional eater (and that's exactly what I was!), we will come to a time sooner or later when something happens to make us seriously considering eating off plan.
It may be a celebration, but my observation is that the thing that usually trips a person up is something negative - stress, anger, etc. - and the decision is made to reach for comfort in the form of food in an attempt to ease the pain.
What's so frustrating, however, is that instead of solving the problem, eating off-plan food really doubles your pain, rather than make it go away. You're still in pain about what you were in pain about before you ate, but now you've added a whole level of more discomfort which is: 'Oh, I can't believe I ate this. What's wrong with me? Am I ever going to get my life together? Is it ever going to get better?' Then you're feeling like a failure on top of the discomfort you were feeling before.
As I've shared before, part of my own journey was finally realizing that food didn't fix anything. Turning to food to deal with my stress, anger, boredom, etc. only left me feeling worse, and the stress, etc. was still there. I feel bad, so I'd eat, which would make me feel worse, so I'd eat some more. It was a miserable cycle!
Amazingly, what started the process of ending this cycle was the cost of this program. When I placed my first order, it was a definite financial stretch for me. I knew I could only justify the expense if I was actually following the program, so I made a commitment to stay on plan and not cheat. I reasoned that if I wanted to cheat on a diet, I had an entire bookshelf full of different diet books and could just pull one of my books off the shelf and cheat away. Because I had invested almost $300 in a four week order, I decided to just follow the program for four weeks. Since it takes a minimum of three days to get into the fat-burning state, I also understood that if I ate off plan and kicked myself out of the fat-burning state, it would take another three days to get back in. Doing the math and figuring that each meal costs about $2, I figured that a cheat would cost me about $30 ($2/meal x 5 meals x 3 days).
When I committed to staying on plan for four weeks in order to justify the cost of the program, I really hadn't factored in the amount of emotional eating I did - I had never connected the dots. When negative emotions cropped up early in my program, I had a choice to make. I recognized that I wasn't physically hungry (thanks to the fat-burning state!), and I recognized that it was a different kind of hunger that had me longing for something - anything - off plan. Because I didn't want to mess up what was finally working for me, it was then that I finally did what I wish I would have done years ago. I turned to the true Source of the comfort I needed - my Heavenly Father. I brought my need to Him and look to Him to meet those needs - and He did :-).
Two things happened: first, I recognized that the hunger wasn't physical, but emotional and I acknowledged the feeling instead of burying it. Second, instead of turning to food, I turned to the Lord. As I did that over and over again, I began to realize that food had never solved anything for me and never would. I realized that every time I turned to the Lord instead of reaching for chocolate, there was always a huge sense of relief when the temptation passed and I had once again resisted the pull. Over time, the temptation to turn to food lessened and my ability to discern physical hunger from emotional hunger sharpened. Eventually, the emotional bondage to food was severed. I cannot describe the joy and the freedom that comes from knowing that it's gone for good.
The food part of this program is the easy part. Understanding what drives our emotional eating and then addressing those issues is the hard part, but it is SO worth the effort! Addressing those issues means different things to each of us, and sometimes it involves working with a professional counselor (I've spent time in counseling, too).
Work this program - both the food part and the head/heart part. It's not always easy, but it's worth it! The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)
It may be a celebration, but my observation is that the thing that usually trips a person up is something negative - stress, anger, etc. - and the decision is made to reach for comfort in the form of food in an attempt to ease the pain.
What's so frustrating, however, is that instead of solving the problem, eating off-plan food really doubles your pain, rather than make it go away. You're still in pain about what you were in pain about before you ate, but now you've added a whole level of more discomfort which is: 'Oh, I can't believe I ate this. What's wrong with me? Am I ever going to get my life together? Is it ever going to get better?' Then you're feeling like a failure on top of the discomfort you were feeling before.
As I've shared before, part of my own journey was finally realizing that food didn't fix anything. Turning to food to deal with my stress, anger, boredom, etc. only left me feeling worse, and the stress, etc. was still there. I feel bad, so I'd eat, which would make me feel worse, so I'd eat some more. It was a miserable cycle!
Amazingly, what started the process of ending this cycle was the cost of this program. When I placed my first order, it was a definite financial stretch for me. I knew I could only justify the expense if I was actually following the program, so I made a commitment to stay on plan and not cheat. I reasoned that if I wanted to cheat on a diet, I had an entire bookshelf full of different diet books and could just pull one of my books off the shelf and cheat away. Because I had invested almost $300 in a four week order, I decided to just follow the program for four weeks. Since it takes a minimum of three days to get into the fat-burning state, I also understood that if I ate off plan and kicked myself out of the fat-burning state, it would take another three days to get back in. Doing the math and figuring that each meal costs about $2, I figured that a cheat would cost me about $30 ($2/meal x 5 meals x 3 days).
When I committed to staying on plan for four weeks in order to justify the cost of the program, I really hadn't factored in the amount of emotional eating I did - I had never connected the dots. When negative emotions cropped up early in my program, I had a choice to make. I recognized that I wasn't physically hungry (thanks to the fat-burning state!), and I recognized that it was a different kind of hunger that had me longing for something - anything - off plan. Because I didn't want to mess up what was finally working for me, it was then that I finally did what I wish I would have done years ago. I turned to the true Source of the comfort I needed - my Heavenly Father. I brought my need to Him and look to Him to meet those needs - and He did :-).
Two things happened: first, I recognized that the hunger wasn't physical, but emotional and I acknowledged the feeling instead of burying it. Second, instead of turning to food, I turned to the Lord. As I did that over and over again, I began to realize that food had never solved anything for me and never would. I realized that every time I turned to the Lord instead of reaching for chocolate, there was always a huge sense of relief when the temptation passed and I had once again resisted the pull. Over time, the temptation to turn to food lessened and my ability to discern physical hunger from emotional hunger sharpened. Eventually, the emotional bondage to food was severed. I cannot describe the joy and the freedom that comes from knowing that it's gone for good.
The food part of this program is the easy part. Understanding what drives our emotional eating and then addressing those issues is the hard part, but it is SO worth the effort! Addressing those issues means different things to each of us, and sometimes it involves working with a professional counselor (I've spent time in counseling, too).
Work this program - both the food part and the head/heart part. It's not always easy, but it's worth it! The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)
Friday, May 13, 2011
"Those Kind of Days"
I woke up today to birds singing, sun shining, and a cool breeze blowing through the house - the kind of morning that makes me jump out of bed, eager to start my day. On days like today, it's easy to be optimistic and full of energy - and I am!
On days like today, it's easy to feel motivated to make good choices. When the weather is lovely, stress is low, and we have that "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world" kind of feeling, we almost instinctively want to be in harmony with that. On these kinds of days, we can feel like we have an unlimited supply of energy and resolve and all we have to do is tap into it. I love days like this and just wish EVERY day could start on such a positive note.
But they don't. You and I both have days when we wake up with a headache and an almost overwhelming sense of pressure and stress due to the tasks or situations we know we'll face that day. We have many morning when the sun isn't shining, the birds aren't singing, and all we really want to do is pull the covers over our head and NOT get up at all.
On days like that, it can be extremely difficult to make the choices we need to make to stay on plan. If you are an emotional eater like I was for so many years, "those kind of days" can be filled with multiple triggers that leave us wanting to run to the nearest vat of chocolate (or whatever our food drug of choice is).
So what do we do on "those kind of days?" How do we navigate our way through days when we don't even want to get up, let alone function? Days when it's hard to find a speck of motivation anywhere?
Those are the days when it's imperative that we know what it is that we really want and why we want it so that we can shift our focus from what's swirling around us at the moment. If we aren't clear on what we want, then the stuff of life on "those kind of days" will threaten to trip us up over and over again.
I think it's really important to have a list of all of the reasons why you want to reach your goal. What will life be like when you are at your goal weight? How will you look? How will you feel? What will you be able to do? Write a paragraph that describes your life at goal and write in present tense, as if you are already there. How do you feel as you read what you've written? Does this description resonate deep within you? If so, then you've identified your "whys." Your why has to be far more than just moving away from what you don't want - your compelling why has to be about what you want to create in your life.
If you are moving towards something you really want, then on "those kind of days" pull out your description and keep it handy as a reminder of where you are heading. Even if "those kind of days" cause you to temporarily doubt your ability to get there, remind yourself of what it is that you really want. The good news is that even if you don't believe it will happen, if you just continue to make the choices you need to make, one day and one meal at a time, you WILL reach your goal and realize the dreams you have - and far more!
I hope you are having a fabulous day and that the choices you make today will be easy. But if you are having one of "those kind of days" when the choices are hard, they are still your choices to make. Choose wisely :-)
On days like today, it's easy to feel motivated to make good choices. When the weather is lovely, stress is low, and we have that "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world" kind of feeling, we almost instinctively want to be in harmony with that. On these kinds of days, we can feel like we have an unlimited supply of energy and resolve and all we have to do is tap into it. I love days like this and just wish EVERY day could start on such a positive note.
But they don't. You and I both have days when we wake up with a headache and an almost overwhelming sense of pressure and stress due to the tasks or situations we know we'll face that day. We have many morning when the sun isn't shining, the birds aren't singing, and all we really want to do is pull the covers over our head and NOT get up at all.
On days like that, it can be extremely difficult to make the choices we need to make to stay on plan. If you are an emotional eater like I was for so many years, "those kind of days" can be filled with multiple triggers that leave us wanting to run to the nearest vat of chocolate (or whatever our food drug of choice is).
So what do we do on "those kind of days?" How do we navigate our way through days when we don't even want to get up, let alone function? Days when it's hard to find a speck of motivation anywhere?
Those are the days when it's imperative that we know what it is that we really want and why we want it so that we can shift our focus from what's swirling around us at the moment. If we aren't clear on what we want, then the stuff of life on "those kind of days" will threaten to trip us up over and over again.
I think it's really important to have a list of all of the reasons why you want to reach your goal. What will life be like when you are at your goal weight? How will you look? How will you feel? What will you be able to do? Write a paragraph that describes your life at goal and write in present tense, as if you are already there. How do you feel as you read what you've written? Does this description resonate deep within you? If so, then you've identified your "whys." Your why has to be far more than just moving away from what you don't want - your compelling why has to be about what you want to create in your life.
If you are moving towards something you really want, then on "those kind of days" pull out your description and keep it handy as a reminder of where you are heading. Even if "those kind of days" cause you to temporarily doubt your ability to get there, remind yourself of what it is that you really want. The good news is that even if you don't believe it will happen, if you just continue to make the choices you need to make, one day and one meal at a time, you WILL reach your goal and realize the dreams you have - and far more!
I hope you are having a fabulous day and that the choices you make today will be easy. But if you are having one of "those kind of days" when the choices are hard, they are still your choices to make. Choose wisely :-)
A Long-Term Perspective
On Wednesday I saw my orthopedic surgeon for a consult on my right knee. It's been a bad knee since my mid-20's (I've had two arthroscopic surgeries on it, one at age 30 and a second at age 33 - both when I was at a healthy weight). Carrying around an extra 120+ pounds for over two decades certainly didn't help, and losing 126 pounds didn't cure the long-standing issues. We're trying a series of three injections (Euflexxa) to see if they will help, but if they don't, I'll be scheduling a total knee replacement for the first week in August.
It's hard to know what kind of shape my knee would be in today had I maintained a healthy weight over the years. I know that the massive amount of extra weight that I carried contributed to the deterioration of the joint as the doctor told me that with every step we take, the pressure on our knees is four times our body weight. Yikes! While walking around at 260+ pounds, I never factored in the toll that weight was taking on my joints.
That was the problem . . . I didn't receive regular updates from my body letting me know what was happening inside. It would be nice to have a series of gauges we could check to see what's happening, wouldn't it? Our cars have gauges that tell us how much gas we have, what our tire pressure is, if the oil level is down - we watch those gauges and respond as needed because we don't want to wait until a red light starts flashing on our dash.
The only monitors we have about our health are the lab reports we get periodically, but even our blood work and other lab tests only tell part of the story. We are fairly clueless about anything else unless we have symptoms - but those symptoms are the flashing red lights on our body's dashboard. By the time symptoms appear, things have already gone wrong.
What's wonderful is that losing weight can shut down many of these flashing lights - cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels often return to normal, diabetes can be managed (sometimes even reversed). The list of health benefits goes on and on!
Unfortunately, sometimes the accumulative damage from years of obesity cannot be reversed, and that is certainly true when it comes to my knee. That poor knee was forced to support a lot more weight than it was ever intended to carry for far too many years and the damage has been done.
The good news is that losing 126 pounds and getting healthy ended up buying me time with my knee. For most of the past 3-1/2 years, the knee has been tolerable (with the help of periodic cortisone injections). Losing weight and staying active has helped and I'm thankful for that! The other good news is that I AM healthy, so if I end up needing surgery in August, I'll go into surgery in good shape. I shudder to think about the possibility of undergoing surgery weighing 260! In fact, I know that if I hadn't lost weight, I would have probably already been forced to have a knee replacement and I would have had it as a morbidly obese diabetic - a very scary thought! I'm so thankful I made the decision to get healthy and then made daily choices needed to not only reach my goal but maintain a healthy weight!
Making the choice to stay on plan today is about far more than just how we will look and feel a few months from now. Today's choices will impact our body in ways we may not realize for years to come. Choose wisely :-)
It's hard to know what kind of shape my knee would be in today had I maintained a healthy weight over the years. I know that the massive amount of extra weight that I carried contributed to the deterioration of the joint as the doctor told me that with every step we take, the pressure on our knees is four times our body weight. Yikes! While walking around at 260+ pounds, I never factored in the toll that weight was taking on my joints.
That was the problem . . . I didn't receive regular updates from my body letting me know what was happening inside. It would be nice to have a series of gauges we could check to see what's happening, wouldn't it? Our cars have gauges that tell us how much gas we have, what our tire pressure is, if the oil level is down - we watch those gauges and respond as needed because we don't want to wait until a red light starts flashing on our dash.
The only monitors we have about our health are the lab reports we get periodically, but even our blood work and other lab tests only tell part of the story. We are fairly clueless about anything else unless we have symptoms - but those symptoms are the flashing red lights on our body's dashboard. By the time symptoms appear, things have already gone wrong.
What's wonderful is that losing weight can shut down many of these flashing lights - cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels often return to normal, diabetes can be managed (sometimes even reversed). The list of health benefits goes on and on!
Unfortunately, sometimes the accumulative damage from years of obesity cannot be reversed, and that is certainly true when it comes to my knee. That poor knee was forced to support a lot more weight than it was ever intended to carry for far too many years and the damage has been done.
The good news is that losing 126 pounds and getting healthy ended up buying me time with my knee. For most of the past 3-1/2 years, the knee has been tolerable (with the help of periodic cortisone injections). Losing weight and staying active has helped and I'm thankful for that! The other good news is that I AM healthy, so if I end up needing surgery in August, I'll go into surgery in good shape. I shudder to think about the possibility of undergoing surgery weighing 260! In fact, I know that if I hadn't lost weight, I would have probably already been forced to have a knee replacement and I would have had it as a morbidly obese diabetic - a very scary thought! I'm so thankful I made the decision to get healthy and then made daily choices needed to not only reach my goal but maintain a healthy weight!
Making the choice to stay on plan today is about far more than just how we will look and feel a few months from now. Today's choices will impact our body in ways we may not realize for years to come. Choose wisely :-)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Blessed or Stressed?
A while back I received one of those infamous e-mail forwards from one of my friends. I have to be honest and confess that I usually delete any forwards without reading them, partly because I don't have time to read everything I receive and partly because if there are multiple forwards, there's a good chance I've read it before. However, I decided to open this one, which was an embedded PowerPoint file. Each slide had a positive message and the music was nice, so I let it play.
One slide in particular caught my attention. It said "Too blessed to be stressed." That sounds pretty simplistic, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that profound thoughts are often wrapped in simple phrases. As I thought about this phrase, I realized that it's all about our perspective and what we choose to focus on.
Each one of us has things in our lives that could stress us out if we focused on them. The economy is difficult, our investments and 401k accounts have tanked; perhaps our kids are making us crazy or we are overworked and underpaid at our jobs; the house needs cleaning, there are weeds to be pulled, the car needs a tune-up. And oh yes - we're working to lose weight (that's enough to stress anybody, right?)!
If we allow ourselves to focus on the challenges, we will live stressed-out lives. That does NOT mean that we should just pretend that everything is wonderful and ignore the challenges - denial isn't the answer :-). But what we can do is take a look at the bigger picture and look for the blessings that are wrapped in those challenges. We can also look at all of the blessings in our lives - and we are all blessed people, when we stop and think about it.
Again, I don't want to minimize the situations that many of you find yourselves in today, because I know that some of you are going through very deep waters right now. My concern is that if we become focused on the stress and not the blessings, it becomes that much more difficult to maintain the positive outlook and positive energy we need to get through the day. If we're focused on the stress, we're less likely to take care of ourselves, and we're less likely to think it's important to take care of ourselves. If we're focused on the stress, it's a lot easier to rationalize that we "deserve" to eat off-plan, or that it will be easier to focus on losing weight when we're not under so much pressure.
I want to encourage you today to keep on keeping on! Look for the blessings in your life and take time to give thanks for them - it will change your perspective.
And just in case you need a gentle reminder, one of your blessings is the opportunity you have to be on Take Shape for Life/Medifast's 5&1 program :-). You have the privilege of being on a plan that is proven to safely and quickly get you to a healthy weight, and it's providing all of the nutrition you need as you get there. Each day that you're on plan is another day closer to your goal - another blessing!
Choosing to count our blessings . . . just another opportunity today to choose wisely :-)
One slide in particular caught my attention. It said "Too blessed to be stressed." That sounds pretty simplistic, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that profound thoughts are often wrapped in simple phrases. As I thought about this phrase, I realized that it's all about our perspective and what we choose to focus on.
Each one of us has things in our lives that could stress us out if we focused on them. The economy is difficult, our investments and 401k accounts have tanked; perhaps our kids are making us crazy or we are overworked and underpaid at our jobs; the house needs cleaning, there are weeds to be pulled, the car needs a tune-up. And oh yes - we're working to lose weight (that's enough to stress anybody, right?)!
If we allow ourselves to focus on the challenges, we will live stressed-out lives. That does NOT mean that we should just pretend that everything is wonderful and ignore the challenges - denial isn't the answer :-). But what we can do is take a look at the bigger picture and look for the blessings that are wrapped in those challenges. We can also look at all of the blessings in our lives - and we are all blessed people, when we stop and think about it.
Again, I don't want to minimize the situations that many of you find yourselves in today, because I know that some of you are going through very deep waters right now. My concern is that if we become focused on the stress and not the blessings, it becomes that much more difficult to maintain the positive outlook and positive energy we need to get through the day. If we're focused on the stress, we're less likely to take care of ourselves, and we're less likely to think it's important to take care of ourselves. If we're focused on the stress, it's a lot easier to rationalize that we "deserve" to eat off-plan, or that it will be easier to focus on losing weight when we're not under so much pressure.
I want to encourage you today to keep on keeping on! Look for the blessings in your life and take time to give thanks for them - it will change your perspective.
And just in case you need a gentle reminder, one of your blessings is the opportunity you have to be on Take Shape for Life/Medifast's 5&1 program :-). You have the privilege of being on a plan that is proven to safely and quickly get you to a healthy weight, and it's providing all of the nutrition you need as you get there. Each day that you're on plan is another day closer to your goal - another blessing!
Choosing to count our blessings . . . just another opportunity today to choose wisely :-)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
What To Do?
So what do you do when you are doing all the right things and you don't see the results you want, or the results aren't coming as fast as you'd like? That's a dilemma we all face in different areas of our lives, and probably on a regular basis. That's also the situation people find themselves in on a regular basis while they're on 5&1.
We are a results-oriented society and we want - and expect - that if we do this or that we will automatically get the expected results at the expected time. The older I get (and I'll be 59 in July, so "older" is taking on new meaning . . . ), the more I realize that actions don't always immediately bring results. The operative word here is "immediately."
Waiting is hard, and doing the right thing while we're waiting is extremely hard, especially when "the right thing" involves sacrifice or temporary deprivation. When we make the necessary hard choices, such as the ones we make to stay on plan, we want constant positive feedback to confirm that the sacrifice we're making really is worth it.
When the scale gets stuck - and it will, it's easy to get discouraged. We're working hard and doing the right things and it can feel like our efforts are all for nothing. If we allow ourselves to focus on what's temporarily not happening, we will lose momentum and can even inadvertently slip into a mindset that says, "What's the use? I might as well have this or that off-plan thing because the scale isn't moving anyway."
When things aren't moving as fast as we'd like, or when they're at a complete standstill, we have a choice to make. We can either focus on the moment and on what isn't happening, or we can shift our focus. First we can look back and reflect on how far we've come. Even if the scale isn't moving right now, even if you've been at a standstill for two or three weeks, are you better off now than where you were when you started? It can be easy to forget why we started on plan in the first place, so take a minute to think back on how you felt, physically and emotionally, before you started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Regardless of where you are right now, I'm guessing you are in a much better place at this point, right?
Next focus on where you want to be - what do you want? What will it be like for you when you reach your goal? How will you look and feel? What will you be able to do?
Looking back at the progress you've already made confirms that this program works. It's worked up until now for you and it will continue to work and you WILL reach your goal - I promise! Even when the scale isn't rewarding you with the numbers you want to see, good things ARE happening. You may notice that your clothes are fitting better or even getting loose as you lose inches. What you can't see is the improvement in your health - there is no way for us to track the internal fat that is disappearing, no way to see the other changes going on inside.
Even when the going gets slow and discouraging, choosing to do the right thing anyway and take the next step is the only way to keep moving forward. We may need to adjust what we're doing (plateaus are a good opportunity to fine-tune things and see if we've allowed one too many condiments or bites/licks/tastes, double-check our water consumption or carefully measure our lean and green portions). Once we've re-evaluated what we've done to ensure that we're still 100% on plan, then all we can do is keep doing the right thing and know that eventually we WILL be rewarded with the results we want.
We can't always choose the timing of the results, we can only choose our actions and our attitude. Choose wisely :-)
We are a results-oriented society and we want - and expect - that if we do this or that we will automatically get the expected results at the expected time. The older I get (and I'll be 59 in July, so "older" is taking on new meaning . . . ), the more I realize that actions don't always immediately bring results. The operative word here is "immediately."
Waiting is hard, and doing the right thing while we're waiting is extremely hard, especially when "the right thing" involves sacrifice or temporary deprivation. When we make the necessary hard choices, such as the ones we make to stay on plan, we want constant positive feedback to confirm that the sacrifice we're making really is worth it.
When the scale gets stuck - and it will, it's easy to get discouraged. We're working hard and doing the right things and it can feel like our efforts are all for nothing. If we allow ourselves to focus on what's temporarily not happening, we will lose momentum and can even inadvertently slip into a mindset that says, "What's the use? I might as well have this or that off-plan thing because the scale isn't moving anyway."
When things aren't moving as fast as we'd like, or when they're at a complete standstill, we have a choice to make. We can either focus on the moment and on what isn't happening, or we can shift our focus. First we can look back and reflect on how far we've come. Even if the scale isn't moving right now, even if you've been at a standstill for two or three weeks, are you better off now than where you were when you started? It can be easy to forget why we started on plan in the first place, so take a minute to think back on how you felt, physically and emotionally, before you started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Regardless of where you are right now, I'm guessing you are in a much better place at this point, right?
Next focus on where you want to be - what do you want? What will it be like for you when you reach your goal? How will you look and feel? What will you be able to do?
Looking back at the progress you've already made confirms that this program works. It's worked up until now for you and it will continue to work and you WILL reach your goal - I promise! Even when the scale isn't rewarding you with the numbers you want to see, good things ARE happening. You may notice that your clothes are fitting better or even getting loose as you lose inches. What you can't see is the improvement in your health - there is no way for us to track the internal fat that is disappearing, no way to see the other changes going on inside.
Even when the going gets slow and discouraging, choosing to do the right thing anyway and take the next step is the only way to keep moving forward. We may need to adjust what we're doing (plateaus are a good opportunity to fine-tune things and see if we've allowed one too many condiments or bites/licks/tastes, double-check our water consumption or carefully measure our lean and green portions). Once we've re-evaluated what we've done to ensure that we're still 100% on plan, then all we can do is keep doing the right thing and know that eventually we WILL be rewarded with the results we want.
We can't always choose the timing of the results, we can only choose our actions and our attitude. Choose wisely :-)
Monday, May 9, 2011
Building a Bridge
A friend of mine posted a quote on my Facebook page that I thought was good enough to share: "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." I like that! I'd like to make one slight edit, however, and reword this to say, "Choices are the bridge between goals and accomplishment."
Goals without actions steps are nothing more than wishes, and wishes seldom materialize. I can wish all day, but if all I ever do is wish something would happen, that wish will stay a fanciful dream in my mind - the likelihood that it will become a reality is very low. When we have a goal - when we have a clear picture in our mind and know what we want - then put into place the steps we need to get there, those action steps become the bridge that leads us over the chasm to accomplishment.
When it comes to reaching our weight loss goal, we can't get there in a single step, and we can't get there in one big leap, either. I stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time, looking longingly at a healthy weight in the foggy distance, but I wanted to get there in a step or two. I kept looking for shortcuts or some new, "secret" way to lose weight. I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep four or five years ago who talked excitedly about a new drug that his company was producing that showed promising weight loss results in early clinical trials. He predicted that this new drug, which was already being used in Europe, would revolutionize the weight loss industry. I wrote the name down and did an internet search on it, then printed off several articles. I read those articles several times and anxiously waited for this new drug to be approved by the FDA, hoping that this would finally be THE answer I was looking for. I wasn't looking to change my behavior or lifestyle - I was looking for a pill that would somehow enable me to lose weight in a single step. The drug was never approved because adverse and life-threatening side-effects began to emerge, and my hopes were once again dashed.
I began building the bridge from my goal to accomplishment when I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and committed to doing this one day at a time. It was definitely a "one foot in front of the other" journey, one day and one meal at a time. With God's help, that bridge was finally completed and I crossed the chasm and reached my goal.
I revised my friend's quote because discipline is fleshed out in the choices we make. Some of us are more disciplined by nature than others, but our success isn't dependent on whether or not we view ourselves as disciplined. Our success is dependent on the choices we make on a daily basis, one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
Goals without actions steps are nothing more than wishes, and wishes seldom materialize. I can wish all day, but if all I ever do is wish something would happen, that wish will stay a fanciful dream in my mind - the likelihood that it will become a reality is very low. When we have a goal - when we have a clear picture in our mind and know what we want - then put into place the steps we need to get there, those action steps become the bridge that leads us over the chasm to accomplishment.
When it comes to reaching our weight loss goal, we can't get there in a single step, and we can't get there in one big leap, either. I stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time, looking longingly at a healthy weight in the foggy distance, but I wanted to get there in a step or two. I kept looking for shortcuts or some new, "secret" way to lose weight. I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep four or five years ago who talked excitedly about a new drug that his company was producing that showed promising weight loss results in early clinical trials. He predicted that this new drug, which was already being used in Europe, would revolutionize the weight loss industry. I wrote the name down and did an internet search on it, then printed off several articles. I read those articles several times and anxiously waited for this new drug to be approved by the FDA, hoping that this would finally be THE answer I was looking for. I wasn't looking to change my behavior or lifestyle - I was looking for a pill that would somehow enable me to lose weight in a single step. The drug was never approved because adverse and life-threatening side-effects began to emerge, and my hopes were once again dashed.
I began building the bridge from my goal to accomplishment when I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and committed to doing this one day at a time. It was definitely a "one foot in front of the other" journey, one day and one meal at a time. With God's help, that bridge was finally completed and I crossed the chasm and reached my goal.
I revised my friend's quote because discipline is fleshed out in the choices we make. Some of us are more disciplined by nature than others, but our success isn't dependent on whether or not we view ourselves as disciplined. Our success is dependent on the choices we make on a daily basis, one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Happy Mother's Day!
Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there! I am incredibly blessed to be able to spend today with my mom, who will be 82 in a couple of weeks, and with my children and grandchildren - three generations of mothers!
I am not so sure my mom would be here today if she hadn't gone on Take Shape for Life/Medifast three years ago, at age 79, to not only lose weight but better manage her diabetes. Prior to starting on this program, her diabetes was getting more and more out of control despite being on insulin. Her blood sugar highs were getting higher and had done damage to her eyes and kidneys and she had a couple of low blood sugar episodes that necessitated calling 911 as she was seizing and unresponsive. We felt like we were watching her deteriorate before our eyes and the decline seemed inevitable.
Mom and Dad watched me lose weight and reverse my own diabetes on this program and finally decided it was worth a try. I don't think my mom really expected to see much difference because she'd been a diabetic for over two decades and on insulin for about 15 years, but at my dad's urging she agreed to start. My dad went on the program, too, mostly to support my mom. To her great surprise, my mom's blood sugar began to come down and even out within a week or so, and in less than a month she had eliminated her daytime doses of insulin, taking only her overnight, long-acting insulin. She had been taking 4-7 units of insulin after every meal for years, so it was amazing to see how quickly her blood sugar responded when she began eating six small meals a day. In the process of supporting my mom, my dad lost 30 pounds and was able to reduce his own blood pressure medication - another surprise!
Had I not made the decision to get healthy myself, and had I not made the daily choices I needed to make to reach my goal, my mom would never have gone on this program. Knowing how bad she was three years ago, I don't even want to think about where her diabetes would be now without Take Shape for Life/Medifast, or if she would even still be here.
So on this Mother's Day, I am incredibly blessed to be able to give my mom a hug and a kiss today and wish her a wonderful Mother's Day. I am also incredibly thankful to the Lord for leading me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast because it not only allowed me to get healthy, but it's given me another Mother's Day with my mom.
When I was making those hard choices while on 5&1, I had no idea that my choices would end up making a difference in the lives of so many others, including my mom. The choices you make today will not only impact your own life, but they will also impact the lives of those you love. Choose wisely :-)
I am not so sure my mom would be here today if she hadn't gone on Take Shape for Life/Medifast three years ago, at age 79, to not only lose weight but better manage her diabetes. Prior to starting on this program, her diabetes was getting more and more out of control despite being on insulin. Her blood sugar highs were getting higher and had done damage to her eyes and kidneys and she had a couple of low blood sugar episodes that necessitated calling 911 as she was seizing and unresponsive. We felt like we were watching her deteriorate before our eyes and the decline seemed inevitable.
Mom and Dad watched me lose weight and reverse my own diabetes on this program and finally decided it was worth a try. I don't think my mom really expected to see much difference because she'd been a diabetic for over two decades and on insulin for about 15 years, but at my dad's urging she agreed to start. My dad went on the program, too, mostly to support my mom. To her great surprise, my mom's blood sugar began to come down and even out within a week or so, and in less than a month she had eliminated her daytime doses of insulin, taking only her overnight, long-acting insulin. She had been taking 4-7 units of insulin after every meal for years, so it was amazing to see how quickly her blood sugar responded when she began eating six small meals a day. In the process of supporting my mom, my dad lost 30 pounds and was able to reduce his own blood pressure medication - another surprise!
Had I not made the decision to get healthy myself, and had I not made the daily choices I needed to make to reach my goal, my mom would never have gone on this program. Knowing how bad she was three years ago, I don't even want to think about where her diabetes would be now without Take Shape for Life/Medifast, or if she would even still be here.
So on this Mother's Day, I am incredibly blessed to be able to give my mom a hug and a kiss today and wish her a wonderful Mother's Day. I am also incredibly thankful to the Lord for leading me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast because it not only allowed me to get healthy, but it's given me another Mother's Day with my mom.
When I was making those hard choices while on 5&1, I had no idea that my choices would end up making a difference in the lives of so many others, including my mom. The choices you make today will not only impact your own life, but they will also impact the lives of those you love. Choose wisely :-)
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Real Deal
It's amazing what passes as a "meal" these day. One of the local fast food restaurants near my house has been advertising "complete meals" for only $4. What a deal - or is it?
First of all, the "complete meal" is a hamburger, fries and soda. Once upon a time, I would have considered that a "complete meal", figuring I was getting protein, carbs, and veggies (fries). To be sure, even in those days I knew it wasn't a balanced meal, but I'd hate to tell you how many times French fries were as close as my children and I would get to a vegetable on one of our busy, on-the-go days. I might enhance the nutrition incrementally with some lettuce and a slice of tomato on the burger, but I certainly missed the nutritional mark by a wide margin. I tried to find the nutritional information for one of the complete meal options, the triple steakburger and fries, but it wasn't available on the company's website. I can only guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if the calorie, fat, and sodium count for that meal exceeded the recommended daily guidelines. Sadly, while a meal like this would be way over the recommended guidelines for calories, fat and sodium, it would be severely lacking in nutrition.
When I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, some people questioned the safety of consuming less than 1,000 calories a day, certain that going this low wasn't safe. The irony was that even though my calories were drastically reduced, I was probably getting better nutrition than I had in a very long time - perhaps ever. Many of the calories I consumed to sustain my weight at 260 were empty calories - sweets, chips, etc. Yes, I ate fruit and vegetables and I tried to eat organic and preservative-free as much as possible, but I also consumed a lot of empty calories. On 5&1, every calorie is nutrient dense.
It's been a journey to go from viewing a burger, fries and soda combo as a complete meal to considering a single Medifast crunch bar a complete meal (which it is, in every sense of the word "complete"). By making that change in my thinking, I was able to finally reach a healthy weight and went from surviving to truly thriving. On my busy, on-the-go days, I make sure that I have plenty of water and a few Medifast meals with me so that I am never tempted to drive up to a fast food window. In addition to being MUCH healthier, I'm also saving money because for the price of the "complete meal" offered by the fast food restaurant, I can have two REAL meals - Medifast meals - now that's a true deal!
Today we'll face choices as to how we're going to spend our calories and our money. Choose wisely :-)
First of all, the "complete meal" is a hamburger, fries and soda. Once upon a time, I would have considered that a "complete meal", figuring I was getting protein, carbs, and veggies (fries). To be sure, even in those days I knew it wasn't a balanced meal, but I'd hate to tell you how many times French fries were as close as my children and I would get to a vegetable on one of our busy, on-the-go days. I might enhance the nutrition incrementally with some lettuce and a slice of tomato on the burger, but I certainly missed the nutritional mark by a wide margin. I tried to find the nutritional information for one of the complete meal options, the triple steakburger and fries, but it wasn't available on the company's website. I can only guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if the calorie, fat, and sodium count for that meal exceeded the recommended daily guidelines. Sadly, while a meal like this would be way over the recommended guidelines for calories, fat and sodium, it would be severely lacking in nutrition.
When I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, some people questioned the safety of consuming less than 1,000 calories a day, certain that going this low wasn't safe. The irony was that even though my calories were drastically reduced, I was probably getting better nutrition than I had in a very long time - perhaps ever. Many of the calories I consumed to sustain my weight at 260 were empty calories - sweets, chips, etc. Yes, I ate fruit and vegetables and I tried to eat organic and preservative-free as much as possible, but I also consumed a lot of empty calories. On 5&1, every calorie is nutrient dense.
It's been a journey to go from viewing a burger, fries and soda combo as a complete meal to considering a single Medifast crunch bar a complete meal (which it is, in every sense of the word "complete"). By making that change in my thinking, I was able to finally reach a healthy weight and went from surviving to truly thriving. On my busy, on-the-go days, I make sure that I have plenty of water and a few Medifast meals with me so that I am never tempted to drive up to a fast food window. In addition to being MUCH healthier, I'm also saving money because for the price of the "complete meal" offered by the fast food restaurant, I can have two REAL meals - Medifast meals - now that's a true deal!
Today we'll face choices as to how we're going to spend our calories and our money. Choose wisely :-)
Friday, May 6, 2011
A Great Investment
Getting to a healthy weight is a journey of weeks for some and of months for others, but even if you have a lot of weight to lose, it's a relatively short journey. I say that as someone who spent 10 months and 28 days on Take Shape for Life/Medifast's 5&1, just under a year of my life invested in getting to a healthy weight and, more importantly, getting healthy.
To be sure, there were some long days - days when I didn't know how I'd make it through the day on plan (but I did, one meal at a time!). The months went by very quickly, however, and it was exciting to see the progress as each month passed.
Those months went by fast and the three years since reaching goal have flown by, too. I look back on those few months invested in getting healthy and realize those months were one of the best investments I've ever made. In the grand scheme of things, those months were just a blip on the calendar, but what a difference those few months made!
Take Shape for Life medical director and co-founder Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen says "You can spend a little time now getting healthy, or spend ALL of your time later being sick."
Because my health was already on the downturn (diabetes, high cholesterol, gastric reflux and borderline high blood pressure), I realized almost four years ago that I was heading to a place I didn't want to go. I saw where my mom's health was as a result of her diabetes (which was a result of her weight) and I knew that she was a mirror of my future if nothing changed. Her weekly calendar was often filled with doctor appointments: internal medicine specialist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, renal specialist. There was a list of doctors who had the challenge of addressing the complications of her diabetes, and going from appointment to appointment took a lot of time (and money).
That's not how I wanted to spend my time and my money as I continued to age, so I made the choice to invest a few short months and took a different, healthier path. It meant saying "no" to some of the foods I enjoyed, but I was really saying "yes" to a healthy future!
My question for you today is: Are you willing to invest a short period of time to get healthy? Your investment is made one day, one meal, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
To be sure, there were some long days - days when I didn't know how I'd make it through the day on plan (but I did, one meal at a time!). The months went by very quickly, however, and it was exciting to see the progress as each month passed.
Those months went by fast and the three years since reaching goal have flown by, too. I look back on those few months invested in getting healthy and realize those months were one of the best investments I've ever made. In the grand scheme of things, those months were just a blip on the calendar, but what a difference those few months made!
Take Shape for Life medical director and co-founder Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen says "You can spend a little time now getting healthy, or spend ALL of your time later being sick."
Because my health was already on the downturn (diabetes, high cholesterol, gastric reflux and borderline high blood pressure), I realized almost four years ago that I was heading to a place I didn't want to go. I saw where my mom's health was as a result of her diabetes (which was a result of her weight) and I knew that she was a mirror of my future if nothing changed. Her weekly calendar was often filled with doctor appointments: internal medicine specialist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, renal specialist. There was a list of doctors who had the challenge of addressing the complications of her diabetes, and going from appointment to appointment took a lot of time (and money).
That's not how I wanted to spend my time and my money as I continued to age, so I made the choice to invest a few short months and took a different, healthier path. It meant saying "no" to some of the foods I enjoyed, but I was really saying "yes" to a healthy future!
My question for you today is: Are you willing to invest a short period of time to get healthy? Your investment is made one day, one meal, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Definitely Worth It!
Sometimes it's good for me to go back and re-read some of my earliest blogs, just to remind me of where I was less than four years ago. When I started this program and wrote my very first blog, I had NO idea that so much would change in the course of a few short months. Looking back, I'm thankful that I decided to start a blog to record my thoughts and my progress.
I came across this blog, first written on September 24, 2007 - three months to the day after starting the program. I hope that what I wrote then will be an encouragement to you today!
Losing the weight and maintaining requires the same thing: staying focused on what we want and then, one meal and one day at a time, making the decision to choose wisely :-)
I came across this blog, first written on September 24, 2007 - three months to the day after starting the program. I hope that what I wrote then will be an encouragement to you today!
Yesterday started my 14th week on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and I have lost 40 pounds so far! I'm also down 3 pant sizes (and my current size is getting mighty loose) AND my formerly elevated blood glucose level has returned to normal. That is so much WONDERFUL progress in such a few short weeks! I am getting not just thinner but HEALTHIER, one day and one meal at a time.
Last night was our bi-weekly small group Bible study and, as always, there was dessert - last night it was hot apple crisp with ice cream. And no, I didn't have any - not a bite! The amazing thing is that I really didn't even WANT it. What??? That is the honest truth. I had a Medifast meal just before we left, so I wasn't hungry (that helped!), but more than that, I took a look at the dessert and knew that it would not help me reach my goal. It was easy to say no. Who would have thought such a thing of me a few months ago?
What's changed? Seriously considering weight loss surgery made me realize that I had turned desperate, and I found information on Take Shape for Life/Medifast while researching weight loss surgery options. It seemed, and I firmly believe, that God led me to this program when He did to show me there was another, better way for me. I was looking for what I thought was an "easy" solution (as if permanently rearranging my insides was the easy solution!), but what I found instead was a plan to truly change my life. I also knew that I had spent the last 20 years of my life battling weight, and I didn't want this to be one of the defining factors of the rest of my life. Having four precious grandchildren (4, 2, and 10 month old twins) makes me want to be healthy so that I can be a truly FUN grandma. I want to be around and healthy so I can dance at their weddings and eventually rock THEIR babies :-).
Committing to this journey has resulted in a different mindset for me. It didn't happen all at once, but as I have made deliberate decisions each day to make wise and healthy choices, it's become easier and easier, and now it's second nature. I am finally learning the joy of self-discipline (even 55 year old grandmas aren't too old to learn new habits!!), the satisfaction of delayed gratification, and the sheer pleasure that comes from knowing, deep down, that I'm doing the right thing for my body and my health.
I have a LONG way to go until I reach my goal, so I have not in any way, shape or form "arrived" - physically or mentally - but I'm getting there, one meal and one good decision at a time.Those new habits that were beginning to form 14 weeks into this program took root and not only brought me to my goal, but have enabled me to maintain my weight loss for almost three years :-). The choices I had to make certainly weren't always easy, but I have no regrets! The grandchildren I referenced in this blog are now 8, 6, and 4-1/2 and they have no memory of me being obese. All they know is that they have a healthy grandma who loves chasing them around and having fun with them - and I really DO look forward to dancing at their weddings and rocking their babies someday!
Losing the weight and maintaining requires the same thing: staying focused on what we want and then, one meal and one day at a time, making the decision to choose wisely :-)
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Shame Eating
Before starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, I often engaged in what I would call "shame eating." I would see some food item at work that I'd feel almost compelled to eat, even though I wasn't hungry, then take it when no one was looking and sneak away to consume it as fast as I could. It could be a muffin left over from a morning meeting at work, pizza left over from a lunch meeting - it didn't matter. There was something about seeing the food just sitting there . . . I'd be afraid that someone would throw it away and "waste" it. So even though I wasn't hungry, I'd palm the food (I certainly didn't want anyone to SEE me with it) and either take it to my office or the bathroom, where I would shove it in my mouth as quickly as I could to make sure it was gone before anyone caught me. I rarely enjoyed it, and I was usually embarrassed that I felt such a compulsion to not waste it (you know, there are all those starving children in India . . . ). Never mind the fact that the food was STILL being wasted - inside me, no less. Looking back, I realize that my co-workers undoubtedly figured out that I was the cause of the last piece of whatever disappearing (there were only 4 of us in the office, and I was the only overweight person, so it didn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to solve the crime).
When I remember back to those pre-Take Shape for Life/Medifast days, it saddens me to realize how much control food had over me. What a difference this program has made in my life! While I was on 5&1, by God's grace, I was able to resist the temptations of off-plan food, and I found real freedom as I was set free from being a slave to food.
In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul talks about the struggle he had in not being able to do what he knew he should do. Verse 15 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." A few verses later (verse 24), he cries out "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I have always identified with these verses, feeling such anguish that I seemed to be incapable of doing what I knew I should do when it came to losing weight (among other things . . . ).
The apostle knew that ultimately his Rescuer was Jesus Christ (verse 25). I have the same Rescuer, and I know God led me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast almost four years ago. He used this plan as the tool to unlock the chains that bound me for a very long time. I am so thankful!
When I remember back to those pre-Take Shape for Life/Medifast days, it saddens me to realize how much control food had over me. What a difference this program has made in my life! While I was on 5&1, by God's grace, I was able to resist the temptations of off-plan food, and I found real freedom as I was set free from being a slave to food.
In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul talks about the struggle he had in not being able to do what he knew he should do. Verse 15 says, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do." A few verses later (verse 24), he cries out "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" I have always identified with these verses, feeling such anguish that I seemed to be incapable of doing what I knew I should do when it came to losing weight (among other things . . . ).
The apostle knew that ultimately his Rescuer was Jesus Christ (verse 25). I have the same Rescuer, and I know God led me to Take Shape for Life/Medifast almost four years ago. He used this plan as the tool to unlock the chains that bound me for a very long time. I am so thankful!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Waiting Too Long
I was going to write about something else this morning, but a friend's Facebook post led me in a different direction. She asked for prayer for the family of a friend who just passed away following a massive heart attack. What makes his death especially sad was that it might have been prevented.
This friend was quite overweight and about a year ago my friend gave him some information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast. She and her husband have both a lot of weight on this program and several of her friends and family members have also been very successful. Because she cared about her friend, she gently approached him with information that she knew could make a difference in his life and his health. He took the information and looked it over, then returned it the next day and told her that he wasn't interested. That was a year ago, a year that could have ended up saving his life. He was the sole caregiver for some medically-fragile relatives.
This is at least the third story I've heard of someone who was given information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast but decided, for whatever reason, that they weren't ready to lose weight and get healthy (and didn't choose another program, either), then died suddenly of heart attack or a diabetic coma. While I can't say for certain that this wouldn't have happened anyway, I can't help but wonder if different choices made even a few months earlier would have resulted in a different outcome.
One of my friends lost a friend of hers just about a year ago when he lapsed into a diabetic coma. He had a full order of Medifast products in one of his cabinets - it had been there for months - and he kept telling her that he knew he needed to get started. In one of his last conversations with her, he told her that he was thinking about it, but he never moved beyond thinking about it to actually doing it and it cost him his life.
It's so easy to put things off, especially things that will require change. Even when we know that we SHOULD do something different, making the fundamental choice to move in a new direction is difficult. It's easy to think that we'll wait until tomorrow, or until things slow down, or . . .
Maybe you don't have any health concerns right now and just want to lose some weight so you'll look good in shorts and a swimsuit this summer, so it's easy to shrug off these stories right now. Health issues are not one of your concerns right now. What about tomorrow?
Others of you already have health concerns and these concerns motivated you to get started on this program. Is getting healthy keeping you focused to stay on plan? Is your desire to get to a healthy weight - and get healthy - compelling enough to make the choices needed to reach your goal?
I didn't write today's blog as a scare tactic because negative motivation isn't sustainable over time. My purpose in sharing today is to encourage you to focus on a long-term goal of getting and staying healthy and not put it off until tomorrow or next week or next month. You have the tools you need to change your life - all that's needed is to make the choices to actually do it. Choose wisely :-)
This friend was quite overweight and about a year ago my friend gave him some information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast. She and her husband have both a lot of weight on this program and several of her friends and family members have also been very successful. Because she cared about her friend, she gently approached him with information that she knew could make a difference in his life and his health. He took the information and looked it over, then returned it the next day and told her that he wasn't interested. That was a year ago, a year that could have ended up saving his life. He was the sole caregiver for some medically-fragile relatives.
This is at least the third story I've heard of someone who was given information about Take Shape for Life/Medifast but decided, for whatever reason, that they weren't ready to lose weight and get healthy (and didn't choose another program, either), then died suddenly of heart attack or a diabetic coma. While I can't say for certain that this wouldn't have happened anyway, I can't help but wonder if different choices made even a few months earlier would have resulted in a different outcome.
One of my friends lost a friend of hers just about a year ago when he lapsed into a diabetic coma. He had a full order of Medifast products in one of his cabinets - it had been there for months - and he kept telling her that he knew he needed to get started. In one of his last conversations with her, he told her that he was thinking about it, but he never moved beyond thinking about it to actually doing it and it cost him his life.
It's so easy to put things off, especially things that will require change. Even when we know that we SHOULD do something different, making the fundamental choice to move in a new direction is difficult. It's easy to think that we'll wait until tomorrow, or until things slow down, or . . .
Maybe you don't have any health concerns right now and just want to lose some weight so you'll look good in shorts and a swimsuit this summer, so it's easy to shrug off these stories right now. Health issues are not one of your concerns right now. What about tomorrow?
Others of you already have health concerns and these concerns motivated you to get started on this program. Is getting healthy keeping you focused to stay on plan? Is your desire to get to a healthy weight - and get healthy - compelling enough to make the choices needed to reach your goal?
I didn't write today's blog as a scare tactic because negative motivation isn't sustainable over time. My purpose in sharing today is to encourage you to focus on a long-term goal of getting and staying healthy and not put it off until tomorrow or next week or next month. You have the tools you need to change your life - all that's needed is to make the choices to actually do it. Choose wisely :-)
Monday, May 2, 2011
Run Like a Rhino
Here's an interesting piece of trivia: a rhinoceros can run 30 miles an hour! Given it's size, 30 mph is an amazing speed (a squirrel can run 27 mph). Do you know what's even more amazing than how fast a rhinoceros can run? Rhinos can only see 30 feet ahead. Think about it! The animal can only see 30 feet in front of him and he's running 30 mph. The person who enlightened me noted that rhinos run full speed ahead, even though they can only see 30 feet in front of them, figuring that what ever is at 31 feet better be afraid of what's coming!
Now what does this have to do with losing weight and getting healthy?
So often we're afraid to move full-speed ahead with getting to our goal because we can't see what's ahead. We want to see the entire path laid out before us before we're ready to just go for it. We think we need to know exactly how transition will look and we especially want to be able to envision life in maintenance. When some of those things are a bit fuzzy, we can find ourselves putting on the brakes because venturing into the unknown can be scary.
This can be particularly true for those of you who have struggled with weight your entire life. If you've always been overweight, heading towards a healthy weight really CAN feel like you're the near-sighted rhino running full speed towards who-knows-what, because you're heading to a place you've never been before. You may not like what's in your near view, but it's familiar, and that can be enough to keep you in a cycle of self-sabotage.
If this sounds like you, here's my best suggestion: run as fast as you can towards your goal, even if you don't have a clue what it will look like when you get there! This requires a certain amount of courage, to be sure, and it requires some trust. However, with each step you take, you'll see one more step ahead, so don't worry about the steps you can't yet see - they will become clear when you get there.
And the destination - a healthy, thin body - is worth every step of the journey. And YOU'RE worth it! And you'll get there one meal, one day, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
Now what does this have to do with losing weight and getting healthy?
So often we're afraid to move full-speed ahead with getting to our goal because we can't see what's ahead. We want to see the entire path laid out before us before we're ready to just go for it. We think we need to know exactly how transition will look and we especially want to be able to envision life in maintenance. When some of those things are a bit fuzzy, we can find ourselves putting on the brakes because venturing into the unknown can be scary.
This can be particularly true for those of you who have struggled with weight your entire life. If you've always been overweight, heading towards a healthy weight really CAN feel like you're the near-sighted rhino running full speed towards who-knows-what, because you're heading to a place you've never been before. You may not like what's in your near view, but it's familiar, and that can be enough to keep you in a cycle of self-sabotage.
If this sounds like you, here's my best suggestion: run as fast as you can towards your goal, even if you don't have a clue what it will look like when you get there! This requires a certain amount of courage, to be sure, and it requires some trust. However, with each step you take, you'll see one more step ahead, so don't worry about the steps you can't yet see - they will become clear when you get there.
And the destination - a healthy, thin body - is worth every step of the journey. And YOU'RE worth it! And you'll get there one meal, one day, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Time to Dream
One of the things that I've heard over and over again at the Take Shape for Life conferences I've attended is "dreams give us the power to change to become the person we need to be to achieve the dream." What I have learned is that even more important than achieving our dream are the changes that take place in us along the way.
As children, most of us dreamed a lot - that is the nature of children. Children dream of what they will be when they grow up, they dream about their next birthday or the next vacation. And when they dream, they dream BIG - most children put no limits on their dreams, and for a while it seems that anything is possible. You can see it shining in their eyes!
Then children turn into adults - us! Sadly, many if not most of us stop dreaming, assigning dreams to the stuff of childhood, or perhaps our mind's escape on a rare night of good sleep. When we are awake, we are immersed in the reality of the here and now, and we don't have time for dreams. Maybe we don't even believe in dreaming any more.
One of the things that happens on Take Shape for Life/Medifast's 5&1 program is that grownups start to dream again! I've seen it happen over and over again, and I experienced it myself. As we watch the pounds begin to melt off, we dare to dream of a different kind of life - a life that is not encumbered by extra weight, a life where we are finally comfortable in our own skin and able to do the things we want to do.
Making those kind of dreams a reality takes hard work, and we will definitely change in the process - change is inevitable! When we dream big - and my dream of losing 126 pounds was a BIG dream! - we begin to put into action the steps needed to achieve the dream. The dream becomes our WHY, and when our dream and our why is big enough, we're motivated to make the secondary choices necessary to achieve that dream.
What's amazing is that as we move towards that dream and see it becoming a reality, we find an inner strength that we didn't know we had. We develop discipline and resolve, and we learn to delay immediate gratification because our eyes are fixed on a greater goal and we aren't going to let anything get in our way.
Some of you know exactly what I'm saying, while others of you may be afraid to allow yourselves to dream. Go for it! Spend some time dreaming about how you want to feel and what you want to look like when you reach your goal. Dream about what will be different in your life. What will you be able to do?
As I allowed myself to finally dream about reaching my goal, and as I moved towards making that dream a reality, a lot changed in my life. I had to learn (even at the ripe old age of 55!) to delay gratification, to say "no" to something I wanted (food) because there was something I wanted even more - being healthy. I learned it was OK to ask for what I wanted and needed in a restaurant and not be apologetic for making a special request. I learned that I could have a wonderful time at a party just talking to people, that I didn't need to have a plate of food in my hand to have a good time. I also learned to depend on my Lord in an entirely new way, and to look to Him for the comfort and solace I needed instead of turning to food. For me, that was the most transforming thing of all!
I dreamed about being at a healthy weight, but I could not have possibly dreamed about all of the wonderful things that have happened since then. Seeing my family members and friends lose weight and get healthy, having my story and pictures run in the newspaper and in ads in national magazines, leaving my job to work full time helping others lose weight and get healthy - none of this was even on my radar! God has blessed beyond my wildest dreams, and I'm learning to dream bigger dreams these days!
How about you? Do you have some dreams that you're pursuing right now? If not, can you dare to start dreaming again? If you're dreaming about losing weight and reaching your goal, the good news is that your dream can and will become a reality - one meal, one day, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
As children, most of us dreamed a lot - that is the nature of children. Children dream of what they will be when they grow up, they dream about their next birthday or the next vacation. And when they dream, they dream BIG - most children put no limits on their dreams, and for a while it seems that anything is possible. You can see it shining in their eyes!
Then children turn into adults - us! Sadly, many if not most of us stop dreaming, assigning dreams to the stuff of childhood, or perhaps our mind's escape on a rare night of good sleep. When we are awake, we are immersed in the reality of the here and now, and we don't have time for dreams. Maybe we don't even believe in dreaming any more.
One of the things that happens on Take Shape for Life/Medifast's 5&1 program is that grownups start to dream again! I've seen it happen over and over again, and I experienced it myself. As we watch the pounds begin to melt off, we dare to dream of a different kind of life - a life that is not encumbered by extra weight, a life where we are finally comfortable in our own skin and able to do the things we want to do.
Making those kind of dreams a reality takes hard work, and we will definitely change in the process - change is inevitable! When we dream big - and my dream of losing 126 pounds was a BIG dream! - we begin to put into action the steps needed to achieve the dream. The dream becomes our WHY, and when our dream and our why is big enough, we're motivated to make the secondary choices necessary to achieve that dream.
What's amazing is that as we move towards that dream and see it becoming a reality, we find an inner strength that we didn't know we had. We develop discipline and resolve, and we learn to delay immediate gratification because our eyes are fixed on a greater goal and we aren't going to let anything get in our way.
Some of you know exactly what I'm saying, while others of you may be afraid to allow yourselves to dream. Go for it! Spend some time dreaming about how you want to feel and what you want to look like when you reach your goal. Dream about what will be different in your life. What will you be able to do?
As I allowed myself to finally dream about reaching my goal, and as I moved towards making that dream a reality, a lot changed in my life. I had to learn (even at the ripe old age of 55!) to delay gratification, to say "no" to something I wanted (food) because there was something I wanted even more - being healthy. I learned it was OK to ask for what I wanted and needed in a restaurant and not be apologetic for making a special request. I learned that I could have a wonderful time at a party just talking to people, that I didn't need to have a plate of food in my hand to have a good time. I also learned to depend on my Lord in an entirely new way, and to look to Him for the comfort and solace I needed instead of turning to food. For me, that was the most transforming thing of all!
I dreamed about being at a healthy weight, but I could not have possibly dreamed about all of the wonderful things that have happened since then. Seeing my family members and friends lose weight and get healthy, having my story and pictures run in the newspaper and in ads in national magazines, leaving my job to work full time helping others lose weight and get healthy - none of this was even on my radar! God has blessed beyond my wildest dreams, and I'm learning to dream bigger dreams these days!
How about you? Do you have some dreams that you're pursuing right now? If not, can you dare to start dreaming again? If you're dreaming about losing weight and reaching your goal, the good news is that your dream can and will become a reality - one meal, one day, and one choice at a time. Choose wisely :-)
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