Toxic Perfectionism

It's been said that that "perfection is the enemy of excellence."  We can get so focused on wanting to do things perfectly that we become paralyzed, not willing to take the first step out of fear of failure.  Excellence is often born out of failure and the things we learn from failing, then trying again.  Generally I am an "all or nothing" kind of person.  If I can't give something 100%, I don't even want to try, and if I try to give 100% and fall short, I focus on where I slipped up rather than celebrating the success I had.  Can anybody identify with this?

This is really a toxic form of perfectionism and it can absolutely paralyze us and keep us from even starting.  We look at all of the potential obstacles and unless we know ahead of time exactly how we're going to overcome each one, we give up because the fear of failure overwhelms us.

While I stayed on plan and stayed in the fat-burning state the entire 11 months it took me to lose 120 pounds, my path thus far in maintenance has been less straightforward.  To quote a friend of mine, "maintenance isn't for sissies." :-)  For a recovering perfectionist like myself, doing maintenance less than 100% "right" could trigger a serious backslide - you know, the old "if I'm not going to be good then I might as well be really, really bad" mentality.  However, please note that I am now a RECOVERING perfectionist!

What this means is that I am learning that the most important thing is to keep moving forward.  When I fall down (notice I didn't say "if"), I no longer waste time beating myself up.  I try to figure out what happened, because I want to learn from my mistake, but then I just refocus on what I want and keep on going.    

For those of you who are still on your weight loss journey, I want to encourage you to do two things.  First of all, I really encourage you to stay on plan, because that is by far the fastest and surest way to reach your goal.  Secondly, if you do find that you've gotten off plan, don't waste any time beating yourself up - just pick yourself up and keep moving forward!  Do spend some time (but not TOO much!) and try to determine what happened and why, but then move on.  Even if you don't do this perfectly, as long as you don't allow missteps to keep you from moving forward, you'll reach your goal - one day, one meal, and one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)

Waving My Magic Wand

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 have a magical day and choose wisely :-)

Mood or Mindset?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The choice is yours - mood or mind-set?  Choose wisely :-)

Dispelling Another Myth

There is a common misconception that somehow the individuals who stay on plan and reach their goal are stronger or more self-disciplined than everybody else.  Every time I hear that, I just have to smile, because I know how much I struggled, and still struggle, to have discipline in my life.  When individuals decide that they just don't have the discipline that others have and attribute the lack of discipline to the reason they aren't staying on plan, they've really set themselves up for failure.  

If you're telling yourself that you just aren't disciplined, that you aren't as strong as someone else, you've given yourself permission to fail, and you probably will.  If you are waiting for some day in the future when you will somehow get the discipline you need to stay on program, you'll be waiting a long, long time. 

A quote I really like says, "Discipline is making the choice between what you want now and what you want most!"  Discipline isn't a matter of being stronger, it's a matter of deciding what it is that you want.

There are always things competing for our attention and if we aren't focused on what we want, we will grab whatever is closest, opting for immediate gratification.  The problem with that strategy is that there is often a difference between what we want now, in this instant, and what we want most.  If we are choosing what we want in this instant, that choice may be pushing us farther away from what we want most.

So what DO you want most today?  Fix your eyes on it, then choose wisely :-)

How to Finish Strong

How is your weight loss journey progressing?  Are you making steady progress?  Perhaps you're struggling to get on plan and stay on plan, questioning whether this is the right program for you and wondering if the success that others have had will somehow elude you.  If this last sentence describes where you are right now, take heart.

It doesn't matter where you are or how the program has gone thus far.  What does matter is how you finish.  One quote I like says "The measure of a person is not how well they start, but how well they finish."  You haven't finished yet, unless you've decided to quit.

Struggling isn't any fun and in the midst of the struggle we can sometimes wonder if the end result will be worth the effort.  We are geared to want and expect fast results, immediate gratification, so when the positive feedback we're looking for isn't immediately forthcoming, it's tempting to throw in the towel.  

I'm encouraging you today to keep going.  You don't have to believe that this program works, but if you continue to work the program, you WILL reach your goal.  If you embrace this as a lifestyle change, you WILL be able to maintain a healthy weight.  Even if you're struggling, even if you are getting back on plan for the umpteenth time, you aren't finished yet!

When we're struggling, it's easy to believe that the outcome will ultimately be failure, but that's not true.  I've seen too many people who've had several "practice" attempts on this program before things finally clicked for them and they made it to goal.

Success on this program is directly tied to the daily choices we make.  Even if we don't feel like making those choices, and even if we don't believe those choices will ultimately make any difference, if we make them anyway, we will finish well.  You may have gotten off to a rocky start, or you may have started strong and now find yourself struggling, but where you are or have been doesn't determine the finish.  The choices you make today will.  Choose wisely :-)

Getting What We Expect

According to author John Maxwell, "sooner or later we get just what we expect."  In his book, "Failing Forward," 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 :-)

Avoiding Ditches

Here's an interesting fact:  for every mile of road, there are two miles of ditches.  That's not necessarily a comforting thought, to be honest.  Because I have repeatedly referred to my own weight loss experience and beyond as a journey, any metaphor that relates to a journey - like a road - catches my attention.  Being aware that there are twice as many miles of ditches as there is road, the question is, how do we stay on the road and not end up in the ditch?

Some roads are broad and smooth and we can easily put ourselves on cruise control and travel a good distance without giving it much thought.  When traveling down these roads, we're almost oblivious to the ditches because there's a good margin on both sides and we never veer near the edge.  There are times when staying on plan is easy - you feel great, the scale is moving nicely, and you may feel like you're on cruise control because you're making great progress and don't have to think about what you're doing.  You just aren't tempted to stray and you feel like you could do 5&1 indefinitely.  It's a good place to be!

It's those other roads that are scary to navigate - narrow, bumpy roads that keep us gripping the steering wheel and fighting to stay away from the ditches that loom on either side.  Those bumpy roads often show up unexpectedly and can stretch on for what seems like endless miles.  Perhaps it's a busy schedule or stress that makes the road bumpy, or maybe it's something else.  Maybe the scale gets stuck at the same time that life throws us a curve or two.  Regardless of what finds us on a bumpy, narrow road, our challenge is to keep moving forward.

How do we do that?  Simply, it's by keeping our focus straight ahead and gripping the steering wheel.  (I said it's simple, not easy!)  When things are difficult, that's when it's most difficult to keep focused on where we're going and not allow other things to distract us.  That's also when we're most prone to veer straight for a ditch.  Knowing where we want to go and keeping our eyes fixed on our destination is key to staying out of ditches.  Gripping both hands on the steering wheel is also critical, and this requires full attention and determination.  Sometimes it's just plain hard and the effort required to stay focused is exhausting.  What I know is that as exhausting as it is to keep going when it's hard, that is far easier than trying to get ourselves out of a ditch.  It is ALWAYS easier to stay on plan than it is to restart again - and again - after spending time in a ditch.

Staying on course when the road is bumpy comes down to the choices we make.  It's not easy, but it's worth it.  Keep your eyes on the road, keep gripping the steering wheel, and choose wisely :-).