Closing the Gap

Today is Day 3 back on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 and it's amazing how much better I feel already :-).  Note to self:  do NOT eat sludge . . . it's not worth it on SO many levels!

I had a bit of a nagging headache yesterday, but I wasn't quite sure if the headache was related to the "wonderful" 3-5 day "getting into fat-burning" phase of this program or if it was due to lingering jet lag.  Thankfully the headache wasn't bad enough to need even aspirin, so I'm not complaining.

Last night it was past 10:30 when I realized that I still needed one more meal.  Medifast parmesan cheese puffs to the rescue!  I love the fact that the hunger begins to dissipate so quickly.  At the risk of giving you WAY too much information, I have also been shedding excess water via extra trips to the bathroom.  Getting rid of the puffiness I've experienced for the past few days (some of it due to flying) is another great benefit of being back on 5&1.

I attended a networking happy hour last night and found it easy to sip a Diet Coke with lime while I munched on Meal #4, Cinnamon Pretzels.  Others were eating and drinking other things, but I wasn't even tempted.  I'm focused on getting back to where I want to be and I knew those other things would only get between me and what I want.

Right now there is a gap between my current reality - weight up and jeans snug - and where I want to be - my "happy weight" and comfy-fitting jeans.  The gap between where I am at the moment and where I want to be creates tension that demands resolution.  As long as I stay focused on what I want and in touch with my current reality, the tension remains.  By taking definite action steps (including being back on 5&1), I will move from where I am to where I want to be.  Those action steps are my secondary choices, and while I may or may not feel like doing them, they will help me reach my primary choice - my "happy weight."

It's so important to stay focused on what's most important to you - and you have to be honest about it.  If you don't really want it - if you just think you SHOULD want it - you won't make the secondary choices needed to get there.

Once thing I know for sure:  I don't HAVE to take off these few pounds.  If I chose, I could easily go out and buy new jeans in a bigger size.  Nobody is making me go on 5&1 right now - it's strictly my choice.

I have to be honest and admit that there is a temptation to just say forget it and buy the bigger size.  For me, the bigger size would be a size 8.  Since I wore a 24W/3X when I started on Medifast a little over 3 years ago, size 8 still sounds pretty good to me.  I've thought about it and reasoned that as a 58 year old grandmother of 4, size 8 is really pretty good!  When I think like that, it's tempting to settle and haul the snug 6's to a resale shop.  But I won't.

For me, it was never about getting into a certain size.  All I ever wanted was to be at a healthy weight.  It was a huge shock for me to reach that healthy weight and find out that that weight had me in size 6 slacks and size 4 dresses!  Underneath my morbid obesity was a pretty small woman - who knew?  Settling for a size 8 now would be settling for something less than what I know is best.  It would also be starting down a very slippery slope, and before long the 8's might become 10's, and then the 10's would become 12's.  I know myself and I know that the only way to keep moving forward and striving to be as healthy as I can means I can't give up ground now.

As I shared yesterday, I wish this was easier, but it's not.  However, the struggle is worth it because I can never, ever go back to weighing 268 pounds, diabetic and bursting out of size 24W/3X.  Never.  I may not be jumping up and down for joy right now at being back on 5&1, but it is a secondary choice that I'm willing to make to get me back to where I want to be.  And I WILL get there, and so will you, one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

Back At It!

After two weeks of traveling from the beauty of the Utah mountains at Sundance to the Mojave Desert to the palm trees of Southern California, it was great waking up in my own bed yesterday morning!  We had a wonderful trip - a good balance of work and fun (but since we love our work, it was really ALL fun!).

What wasn't so much fun was stepping on the scale when I got home.  I could tell by the way my jeans were fitting towards the end of our trip that I was bringing home more than I left with, and I'm not just talking about souvenirs.  A combination of lots of traveling and being very off-schedule, many restaurant meals and frankly not always making wise choices showed up on the scale.  It's not awful and my size 6 jeans still fit, but my weight is definitely not where I want it to be and my 6's are mighty snug right now. 

In retrospect, I honestly do wish I'd made more wise choices along the way.  By the time we got home, I was feeling pretty sluggish.  Not eating right really makes a difference in my energy level!That's the bad news.

The good news is that I know exactly what to do :-).  As of yesterday morning, I'm back on 5&1 for a couple of weeks or so.  I don't have a pair of size 8 jeans to grab, so I have two alternatives right now:  I can either nip the gain in the bud or go out and buy a bigger size.  Since I just told you that I'm back on 5&1, you already know what I've chosen to do.  And that is a wise choice :-)

Maintenance definitely isn't for sissies, and as much as I wish this was easy, it's not.  I wish I always made wise choices, but I don't.  Getting back into my routine definitely helps, and I've also recognized the need to get refocused on what I want long term, and what I want long term is a fit and healthy body.  I've learned again that when I don't focus on what I really want, I naturally gravitate towards immediate gratification.

So getting refocused is part of me getting back on track.  Knowing that I don't have anything other than fitted clothes is also motivation.  There are no elastic-waist, "eat and grow" slacks in my closet - nothing to slip into that would allow me to continue down a wrong path.  My clothes and the scale keep me honest, and they keep me accountable.

Part of maintaining is monitoring - weighing on a regular basis and paying attention to how clothes fit.  That has helped me repeatedly over the past 2-1/2 years since I reached goal and has helped me stay in my goal range and my goal size.  Right now I'm on the upper end of that range for sure, but not for long!  I'll go through the "fun" of getting back into fat-burning and will probably have a headache before I'm there, but I know that doing it now will get be back where I want to be.

Part of keeping me focused is my daily blogging, too, because I can't encourage others to choose wisely if I'm not doing that myself!  No matter where you are on your journey - just getting started, making good progress, or perhaps starting over, we're all in this together.  What we ALL want is a thin, healthy body as well as the healthy habits that will help us maintain that healthy body.  We will all get there one meal, one day and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

It's Magic!

I am the weight loss fairy and I am waving my magic wand, sprinkling fairy dust all around.  If you are blessed enough to catch the breeze of my wand or have a few bits of dust land on you - poof!  You will be at your goal!  Anybody interested?

Wouldn't it be GREAT if it was that simple?  How I wish I could wave a magic wand or sprinkle dust around and know that everyone touched would immediately be at their goal. 

Of course, it's not that easy, is it?  It's almost that simple, however.  Eat 5 Medifast meals a day and fix a lean and green (or order one at a restaurant).  Not much thinking required, and the program really DOES work like magic . . . it's just that the magic on this program takes a bit longer :-)

So are you ready to change your life today?  Even in the absence of a weight loss fairy, you CAN make all of your dreams come true, if you decide that's what you want to do.  Best of all, unlike magic that has an annoying way of disappearing, the changes you'll make on this program can last a lifetime.

The changes begin with the choices you'll make today, so choose wisely :-)

****
I am leaving today for Chicago and will be flying to Salt Lake City tomorrow morning for a leadership retreat at Sundance, Utah.  Following the retreat, we'll be flying to Los Angeles (my husband is going with me!) for a week that will combine family time with a bit of business.  I'll be back on October 19 and will get to blogging when I get home.  In the meantime, you know what to do . . . keep making those wise choices!

Getting What We Expect

"Sooner or later we get just what we expect."  I read that sentence last night in John Maxwell's book, "Failing Forward."  Interestingly, Maxwell follows that statement by wondering if the reader views this statement as optimistic or pessimistic, stating that our attitude determines our outlook.   If we're an optimist, we expect things to turn out OK and they usually do.  If we're a pessimist, we expect things to fall apart and assume that if anything bad can happen, it will. 

So what does this have to do with losing weight and getting healthy?  Simply this:  do we expect to be successful or do we expect to ultimately fail?  That may sound like a foolish question, but I think it's worth asking.  In your heart of hearts, being totally honest with yourself, do you expect to reach your goal?  Do you envision yourself at a healthy weight, looking and feeling wonderful?  Or are you convinced, deep down, that this program will work for everyone BUT you?

Now the good news is that you don't have to believe the program works, because it works whether you believe it or not :-).  If you stay on plan and make the daily choice to follow the protocols of this program, you WILL lose weight and you WILL reach your goal.  That's a fact.

The challenge is that if we don't believe deep down that the program will work, if we don't believe that we'll ever really reach goal, the expectation of eventual failure can wreak havoc with our determination to stay on plan.  If the vision of ourselves reaching goal is clouded or perhaps missing entirely, we will be more vulnerable to the temptations that surround us.

Our attitude can not only impact our outcome in the long run, but it also affects our outlook in the the mean time.  If we're optimistic that we will reach out goal, then we are much more likely to take in stride the maddening fluctuations that we see on the scale.  We know we're in this for the long haul and we're optimistic that we'll eventually get there.  If we're pessimistic, those scale fluctuations may rattle us and we will allow them to reinforce our belief that we won't reach our goal.

But what happens if we're not optimistic by nature?  Whether it's through nature or nurture, some of us just naturally see the glass as half-empty.  Maxwell says that we can cultivate optimism in our lives by learning the secret of contentment.  Contentment doesn't mean that we've settled for where we're at, but Maxwell says it comes from choosing a positive attitude that:
   - expects the best in everything, not the worst
   - remains upbeat, even when we get beat up
   -  sees solutions in every problem, not problems in every solution
   - believes we can do it, even when others think we've failed
   - holds on to hope

Hmmm . . . it sounds like we can choose our attitude, perhaps even choose to be optimistic.  If that's true (and I believe it is, as does John Maxwell in his book), and if our attitude really does impact the outcome - if sooner or later we really do get just what we expect - then we have some choices to make today.  These choices go far beyond which Medifast meals we're going to eat or what we're going to have for our lean and green.  We also get to choose the attitude we're going to carry with us through this day. 

Have a great day, and choose wisely :-)

Holding - and Releasing - Rocks

Do you have a rock in your hand?   It may be a small rock that is easily held in one hand, or it may be a boulder that requires both hands and all the strength you have.

In the book, Dr. A's Habits of Health (written by Take Shape for Life/Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, MD) there is a cartoon of a man treading water with his nose barely above the surface of a lake and holding a large, heavy rock in his hands.  On the shoreline is a trail that leads up a mountain.  At the top of the mountain are the words, “everything you’ve ever wanted”.  On the rock are the words “what’s holding me back.” 

We are all carrying around these big rocks in life which represent our concepts.  For example: “I can’t attain my ideal goal weight because ________”.  What you fill in the blank is your rock.  You are just barely treading water and could have whatever you want if you’d just let go of your rock.  What is your rock? 

It can be scary to let go of our rock, especially if we've held on to it for a long time.  Some of us have held on to our rocks so long that we can hardly remember life without it; we're no longer aware of its weight because it's become part of us.  But what would happen if you just . . . let . . . go?

Sometimes it's just a matter of making the decision and releasing our grip.  Other times letting go of our rock may require the assistance of a professional counselor - it all depends on the size of our rock and how long we've clung to it.  My own weight loss journey was a time of letting go of my own rock, which I did with God's help.  Releasing that boulder resulted in wonderful freedom for me.  The song, "Finally Free" by Nichole Nordeman still causes me to tear up when I listen to it because it has such deep meaning for me (you can find it on YouTube, if you're interested).

Letting go of our rock may not be easy, but the choice to release it is in our grasp.  Choose wisely :-).

Unexpected Things

So many things happen as we lose weight.  Most of the things that happen are quite wonderful and exciting, but I was surprised to encounter other things that were frankly uncomfortable and unwelcome.

During the many years I was morbidly obese, one thing I never had to worry about was that people would talk to me about my weight.  Perhaps I put out vibes that said "don't even go there," or perhaps people just didn't want to offend me, but I never got comments about my weight.  No one felt compelled (or had enough nerve) to pull me aside and express concern about my weight.  I honestly don't know how I would have reacted, so the lack of comment was probably a good thing.

Because of that, I was quite unprepared for all of the comments when I started losing weight, especially the questions asking me how much I'd lost or inquiries into how much weight I wanted to lose.  My weight and my struggle with my weight had been my deep, dark and very personal secret for over two decades and I was unprepared for this to become a topic of conversation.  That changed over time, of course (and today, as a health coach, I share my struggle with weight and my story all the time), but at first it was very uncomfortable.  For a long time, I tried to pass off the comments, especially if I was asked how much weight I wanted to lose.  Telling anybody that I wanted to lose 120 pounds would have given them enough information to figure out approximately how much my starting weight was, and the thought of anyone knowing was horrifying to me.

I was also unprepared to see that some people began to treat me differently, as though I'd grown brain cells at the same rate I dropped pounds.  That made me angry, and it also made me realize that some people made assumptions about my intelligence or ambition based on my size.

Most of all, I was completely, totally, 100% unprepared for the number of people who felt compelled to tell me that I needed to stop losing weight, that I'd gotten too thin, or who expressed concern that I was somehow becoming anorexic.  These comments started coming about the time I got into a size 12 and, at 5' 5" tall, weighed about 180 pounds.  I was clearly not even close to being at a healthy BMI, yet I had people expressing concern, even alarm, that I was getting too thin.  I couldn't help but wonder where all of these people were when I was 268 pounds and diabetic.  I wondered why my reaching a certain weight suddenly made it open season and made me fair game. 

I'm sharing this because some of you are experiencing some of these things now, and others may face some of this in the near future.  Perhaps you won't be bothered by these comments as much as I was (I hope not!!).  But if you DO find yourself struggling with unexpected comments, how are you going to react?

Some people are so uncomfortable with having people comment and ask questions about their weight loss that they actually begin to sabotage themselves.  They may retreat back into layers of fat, preferring the invisibility of obesity to feeling exposed in a smaller body.  I've seen this happen and it breaks my heart.

What I had to realize was that this was MY journey and I had to stay focused on what I wanted.  In the same way that I had to ignore off-plan foods, I had to ignore comments.  I deflected concerns about how much weight I was losing by telling people that my physician was supportive of my weight loss goal.  When asked how much I wanted to lose, I simply said that I just wanted to get to a healthy BMI.  I learned to appreciate - and even enjoy - the compliments that came my way.  They made me uncomfortable at first, but I understood that they were well intended.

All of this became an important part of my growth on this journey, because I had to choose to stay the course for ME.  I had to be clear on what I wanted and why I wanted it, and I needed to be firm enough about that vision to withstand the comments and questions. 

There are a lot of choices we have to make on this journey.  Some of the choices have to do with what we eat, while other choices may include how we respond to others who question what we're doing.    If we know what we want and we're focused on our goal, the choices we need to make will be clear and we'll choose wisely :-).

Avoiding Sand Traps

I'm not a golfer, but yesterday I read a story about golf that captured my imagination. 

"A famous golfer, Lee Trevino, when playing casual games of golf would "mess with the minds" of his competition. He would be certain to emphasize the hazards of the course as his competitors were about to hit the ball. As a player was lining up for their tee shot he would be certain to remind them of the water hazard to the left or the sand trap to the right or the trees that may line the fairway. This would inevitably take the focus of the golfer from where he wanted to hit the ball to where he did NOT want to hit the ball. He would be focusing on what to avoid, not where he knew he should and could hit the ball. When he teed off where did he hit it? Many times to the exact spot he was trying to avoid. Why? Because he was focusing on that spot."

I write a lot about changing our focus from fixing a problem (number on the scale, size we don't like, or a concerning report from the doctor) to fixing our eyes on what we want to create in our lives.  In addition to the choice to fix a problem or create something we want in our lives, we also have to choose whether we're going to focus on the hazards along the way, and there are many, or keep our eyes on what we want. 

It's Friday, and your personal hazards may include the restaurant you like to visit after work, or potential hazards may be lurking in your weekend activities.  The holidays will be here before we know it and some of you may already be worried about how you're going to get through them.  All of these hazards, and others, can divert your attention and land you in a sand trap.

I'm not saying to ignore the hazards, because you have to know what and where they are.  You have to know what your strategy will be to avoid them (that's where planning is key).  But once you've identified what the hazards are and know how you're going to handle them when they arise, determine to keep your focus on what you want - look straight ahead and swing!

Where we choose to focus ultimately determines how successful we are.  Choose wisely :-)