It's Hard Being a Crockpot in a Microwave Society

Happy Wednesday! For everyone who has a Monday-Friday work schedule, today is hump day - by the end of the day, you'll be closing in on the weekend!

It's hard to wait for things we want, whether it's a weekend off work or saving for something we want to buy or reaching our weight loss goal. This past Sunday, my pastor talked about our "real time" society. If it takes five seconds for a window to pop up on our computer screen, we feel frustrated. We don't like waiting in lines but expect instant service. We throw something in the microwave and it's ready in 3 minutes and we come to expect everything to be instantly ready for us when we want it.

The problem is that some things just can't be hurried . . . and learning new, healthy habits that will bring us to our weight loss goal fits this category. In our microwave society, some things are just not microwave material. These "crockpot" things require time, and there just isn't any way to speed them up and still get the results we want.

Learning new habits happens one day at a time, and each day that we're practicing these healthy habits not only brings us one day closer to our weight loss goal, but it's also another day of imprinting those habits in our lives. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: this is not a diet, it's a new, healthy way of living. The first step is getting to your goal weight, but that's not the end - it's the beginning of your new, healthy life. It doesn't come in a microwave instant, but it DOES come, and it's worth waiting for.

There were some long days for me when I was on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1, and it certainly wasn't always fun. However, I look back on those 11 months of staying on plan and reaching my weight loss goal and it seems like it went by in a second. Eleven months is a snap of a finger over the course of a lifetime, just a second out of my life that changed my life forever.

That will happen for you, too - one day and one meal at a time. It may take you a couple of months to reach your goal, or it may take a year. What difference does it make in the long run how long it takes, if you end up at your goal weight, in your goal size, feeling better than you have in years (maybe better than you've felt for your entire adult life), and knowing you're healthy? Keep your eyes on your goal and don't worry about how far away that goal is. One day and one step at a time will get you there, and you'll get there faster than you think!

Who's committed to an on-plan day today?