Tricks and No Treats

When it comes to "magic" weight loss, the news is filled with tricks and definitely NO treats.  I remember reading a couple of news articles several months ago that caught my attention and neither was good news for anyone looking for an easy answer to losing weight. The first article was alarming, actually.  Apparently there are a number of patients of a California plastic surgeon who elected to have a patch surgically applied to their tongue.  The purpose, according to the physician, was to "make chewing solid foods very difficult and painful, limiting the patient to a liquid diet."  I read that and thought, "you have GOT to be kidding me" . . . except I knew it wasn't a joke.  The article included concerns from other physicians about the risk of infection and other potential complications from this procedure.  Apparently the tongue patch was intended to be kept in place for only 30 days before being removed, but this is certainly not a wise approach, even on a short-term basis. The other article announced that federal health regulators had decided not to approve yet another experimental diet pill which had been touted by some experts as the most promising weight-loss drug in over a decade.  The FDA has asked for more study results and additional information on the drug's possible health risks, including major cardiovascular events and risks for women of childbearing age.  The article went on to say that research continues in an effort to find an answer to America's obesity crisis. In my humble opinion, the answer to America's obesity crisis will never be found in a surgical procedure, any surgical procedure, and it won't be found in a pill, either.  These are all attempts to treat the symptoms and don't address the cause. I'm not a psychologist and I'm not trying to paint everyone with the same brush, but I know that I didn't double my weight between my early 30's and my early/mid 50's because I was (am) a good cook and enjoy food.  I spent a lot of time in denial to be sure, but even in my denial I understood that I was doing a lot of emotional eating.  No surgery and no drug could fix that . . . It wasn't until I started on this program that I finally began the work of addressing my emotional eating issues.  What prompted me to do that were two things:  first of all, I couldn't justify the cost of doing this program unless I was actually DOING the program.  I knew it would only be cost-neutral if I was staying on plan.  Secondly, when the weight started coming off, I was afraid to mess up what was finally clearly working and working well, so I was motivated to stay on plan.  Both of these compelling reasons to stay on plan forced me to begin to deal with the stuff of life without running to food to stuff my feelings.  At the time I made the decision to stay on plan, I certainly didn't think about the emotional ramifications of that decision, but learning how to deal with stress, boredom, etc. without running to chocolate (my drug of choice) made all of the difference for me. As I've shared before, part of my story is that I learned that food couldn't fix the issues and I learned to turn in a deeper way to the true Source of my comfort - my Heavenly Father.  He was and is faithful in meeting my every need! Take Shape for Life/Medifast isn't a bag of tricks - it's a solid, proven program that works.  If you make the choice to work the program, you will not only lose weight, but you just might experience personal growth in the process.  How's that for an added treat? It all begins with the choices you make.  Choose wisely :-)

Changing or Choosing?

Here's a quote to ponder a while:  "Whatever you are not changing . . . you are choosing."  What do you think? I had to think about that for a bit, but it makes sense.  There are certainly some things in our lives that we CAN'T change, but we have the ability to change a lot more than we often think we can . . . IF we choose.  When there are things in our lives that we wish were different and we have the ability to change them, inaction really boils down to our decision to choose the status quo. That certainly is true when it comes to our weight - the issue that brought all of us here :-).  It doesn't matter what we think our genetics are, it doesn't matter if we've never been at a healthy weight in our lives, it doesn't matter how old we are or anything else.  We can change our weight and begin or continue on a path to a healthy weight if we choose.  If we aren't making progress and losing weight, if we aren't taking control of our weight, then it's because we're choosing to stay at an unhealthy weight. Nobody can do this program for us.  Conversely, nobody can make us go off plan.  The only exception to the last sentence would be if someone tied us to a chair, pried our mouth open and force-fed us.  I doubt that's happened to anybody lately!  I'm not saying that staying on plan is easy, because it's not.  I also fully understand the struggle with emotional eating as I was a long-time emotional eater.  However, it's still our choice - every time.  The reality is that if we decide to change, really decide, we will make the choices we need to make that change happen.  We may not do this perfectly, but over time our choices will more and more align with our decision to implement change. So what are you choosing today?  Are you choosing to change, or are you making the choice to stay where you are?  The secondary choices you make today will support what it is that you really want.  Choose wisely :-)

Don't Get Spooked!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's all about making choices to support what we really want. Choose wisely :-)

Feeling Deprived

In my early days of being on Take Shape for Life's 5&1 plan, I had days when I really struggled  with feeling deprived and looking at all of the things that I "couldn't have."  I hate feeling deprived (honestly, does anybody really like feeling that way??) and had I stayed in that mindset, I never would have gotten to my goal. 

Thankfully, over time I began to embrace the reality that I COULD have those things - if I wanted to and chose to have them.  I was a grown-up and free to make those choices.  I also understood that there was something I wanted more than the food - I wanted to get to my goal and have a thin, healthy body.  Because I wanted that, and I really did want that, I made the choice to not eat certain things.  I've written a lot about the need to make secondary choices to support our primary choice, and I keep going back to this because it is SO important!

If you have a mindset that thinks of this program as being all about deprivation - can't have that and can't have this - your journey will be a lot more of a struggle.  None of us likes to feel deprived.  We are hardwired to take care of ourselves and feeling deprived for very long often leads to resentment and anger.  Those feelings are hard to carry with us for weeks or months at a time and staying in a deprivation mindset often leads to eventually going off plan because we feel almost driven to "be good to ourselves."

However, if we've made the primary choice to get healthy, then we will view the secondary choices we make - including staying on program - from a different perspective.  We will understand that these choices are steps on a ladder, with each choice bringing us that much closer to what we really want.  We will embrace these choices are just that - the choices we are choosing to make.  When I was on 5&1, I adopted the mindset of "I can have anything I want any time I want, but I am choosing to eat 5&1 instead of that because 5&1 will get me where I want to go and that won't."  That thinking kept me out of feeling deprived all the time and it was one of the things that helped keep me focused and relatively cheerful all the way to my goal (I said relatively . . . !).

You don't have to stay on plan and you don't have to reach your goal.  You really don't!  The choice is yours, and if you've made the choice to stay on plan and get to your goal (and I hope you have!), then embrace this as your choice, then continue to choose wisely :-)

Interested or Committed?

"There is a difference between interest and commitment.  When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permits.  When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results."

I've written before about the difference between being interested in doing something (like losing weight) and committing to doing it, but I like the way this quote sums it up.  It's really true, when you stop and think about it.

To be honest, quotes like this one used to make me mad, especially as it related to weight loss.  I really thought I was committed to losing weight - goodness, I tried every new diet that came out!  Didn't that prove how committed I was to losing weight?  I sure thought so!

What I understand now is that up until I finally started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, I was just interested in losing weight, not committed to doing so.  I was interested and as long as nothing came up in my life, I was fairly compliant with whatever plan I was on and dutifully counted the obligatory calories, carbs, fat grams or points.  I was really pretty good, at least until something came up.  The problem, of course, was that something ALWAYS came up!  It was almost impossible to get through an entire week without SOMETHING coming up.  We'd go out to dinner with friends or our Bible study group would meet and there would be a homemade dessert or the kids would want to come over for pizza or . . . you get the idea.  Throw in a fair amount of stress (after all, I couldn't be expected to stay on a program when I was stressed, could I?) and a busy schedule that sometimes had me grabbing a meal at a fast-food drive-through and I was almost always more "off" than I was "on" any program I'd ever tried.  I was interested in losing weight all right, but I was only interested in doing something as long as it was easy and there were no obstacles of any kind in my way.

How frustrating that life is always throwing obstacles in our way!  If we're only interested in losing weight, those obstacles will trip us up over and over again.

However, when we're committed to losing weight, it's amazing how our attitude changes.  We see the excuses for what they are - excuses - and we're focused on results.  Once we know what we want, we figure it out.  I've seen this happen over and over again.

Are you interested in getting to a healthy weight or are you committed to reaching your goal?  If you're committed - if you've made the fundamental choice to get there - then the choices you face become much easier because you will make the choices necessary to get you where you want to be.  What do you want?  Be honest with yourself as you answer that question, then choose wisely :-)

Motivation for Permanent Change

In Dr. A's Habits of Health (a fabulous book written by Take Shape for Life/Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen), Dr. Andersen writes "Change motivated by conflict will always be temporary; change motivated by desired outcomes can lead to permanent change."  His point is that to make change permanent, we need to move from solving a problem to creating something in our lives.

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

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

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

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

Today we each have to choose if we're going to look back at what brought us to this program, or if we're going to look forward at what we want to create in our lives.  I'd rather create than problem solve - how about you?  Creating something new and wonderful in your life will happen one day, one meal and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

Making Those Secondary Choices

This morning my husband and I are off to the health club to work out after a L-O-N-G hiatus.  From early October of 2007 (about 3-1/2 months after starting on 5&1) until May of 2010, I worked out fairly regularly at a health club near our house.  My husband has successfully kept off the 50 pounds he lost on 5&1, but exercise has never been his strong suit, if you know what I mean.  He started working out with me in May of 2010, but once I was injured late that month when I slipped and fell off the treadmill, breaking a bone in my right knee, he never went back.  The injury kept me fairly immobilized for several weeks and even after the break healed, my knee was never the same and this injury was most likely the final straw that led to my total knee replacement this past August.

Anyway . . . it's been close to 18 months since either one of us have worked out regularly or gotten much exercise besides a walk.  We'd canceled our health club membership and tried to work out at home on some equipment we have, but it was definitely hit and miss, with more "miss" than "hit."  We recently received an offer to join another health club (membership fee waived and very reasonable monthly rate).  I've finished physical therapy for my knee and know that working out will help to further strengthen my knee as well as provide the overall conditioning and health benefits we need, so we decided it was time to get going again.

To my surprise and delight, the trainer we're working with was one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser (TBL has an entire team of trainers, not just the ones seen on camera).  This guy knows his stuff and my husband and I are really impressed with how thorough he has been in doing an assessment of where we are and what we need.  I'm excited to see what happens over the next months as we get back into a good workout routine under the guidance of this trainer!

One thing we know for sure:  maintenance is about more than just maintaining at a healthy weight.  That's important, to be sure, but getting to our goal weight isn't the end of the road, just an important milestone on the journey to being optimally healthy.  One of my friends who has lost 30 pounds and maintained a healthy weight for several years said that it's important for her to continue to set health goals for herself.  By doing so, she continues to move forward on her own optimal health journey and she continues to experience the satisfaction of reaching new goals. 

Consistency in exercise has been an ongoing challenge for me and this is the next hurdle to overcome on my own journey.  Certainly the issues with my knee complicated my ability to exercise, but the truth is that I really don't like to do it!  However, I DO like to be healthy and I DO want to live a healthy, active lifestyle for as long as I can.  Because those things are important to me, I'm heading to the health club today!

Exercise is a secondary choice I am making because it supports what I
REALLY want.  The important thing to note about secondary choices is that they are often things we don't want to do . . . but we do them anyway because they support what it is that we DO want.  Just as a concert pianist will practice for hours, not for the love of practice but because practicing supports their desire to be a concert pianist, those of us who want to be healthy make secondary choices that support our goal. 

Staying on plan is a secondary choice, drinking water instead of something else may be a secondary choice, and working out instead of relaxing at home is definitely a secondary choice.  We may not particularly want to do any of those things for the pure joy of doing them, but choosing to do those things will allow us to live a long and healthy life.  If that's your goal, choose wisely :-)