Removing Obstacles

Yesterday marked 16 months since I reached my goal. I continue to be amazed that I not only reached my goal, but that I'm continuing to maintain in my goal range and in my goal size. It took just under 11 months to reach my goal and I've now been at my goal for 16 months, making those 11 months seem like a small blip on the screen.

My dad reads my daily blogs and told me yesterday (after reading yesterday's post) that he had never before thought of off-plan foods as obstacles to reaching goal, then he said he liked my perspective :-). I have a question for you: how do YOU view off-plan foods?

So often we look longingly at those off-plan foods, somehow thinking that they're our friends. When we're thinking in those terms, staying on the Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 plan feels very restrictive and we can feel penned in. I don't know about you, but that's NOT how I want to feel! We so easily forget that the very foods we're longing for are the same foods that probably got us into the shape that led us to Take Shape for Life/Medifast to begin with . . . at least that was the disconnect I lived with for years. I'd go on one diet or another and almost immediately begin to pine after all of the high calorie, high carb, high fat foods I was trying to avoid. I felt deprived and I kept looking for a magic pill that would allow me to eat the foods I wanted to eat and still lose weight. When I was on a diet that involved counting points, I would actually figure out how many points my favorite candy bar took and I'd sometimes factor those points into my daily allotment. No surprise, I was never very successful on this plan :-).

By the time I started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast, I was finally sick of playing games. My weight had spun out of control and I was ready to be done with the diet game I'd been playing for so many years. When I saw the scale start to move down and I dropped a size my very first month on plan, something clicked in my brain. It began to dawn on me that this plan was the vehicle that would bring me to my goal, and I wanted to get there as quickly as possible.

All of those foods that used to lure me off other weight loss plan suddenly looked different to me. It's not that I wasn't tempted, because I was, but I really did view them as potential obstacles to getting what I REALLY wanted. When I was tempted by an off-plan food, I would sometime literally say out loud, "THAT will not get me where I want to go!" I also said, on occasion, "If that will keep me fat one more day, it's not worth it."

I didn't understand at the time that I had embraced a principle that I now talk about a lot - making secondary choices to support our primary choice. What I experienced was a shift in thinking where I made a firm primary choice, to get to a healthy weight, then made secondary choices to support that primary choice. One of the hallmarks of a secondary choice is that they aren't necessarily what you want to do, but you make those choices because they support your primary choice.

We make a primary choice to be gainfully employed because we need to support ourselves and pay our bills, so we make secondary choices (getting up early, going to work when we don't feel like it, etc.) because they support our primary choice. Musicians make a primary choice to become proficient on their instrument (primary choice), so they practice for hours on end (secondary choice). The same is true for athletes who want to excel; the examples go on and on. For all of our primary choices, we have to eliminate obstacles, even if they're good things, because they stand between us and what we really, truly want.

Right now, while you're on your weight loss journey, those off-plan foods - even the healthy ones like fruit - are obstacles that can keep you from reaching your goal. Right now, these are not your friends :-). The weight loss portion of this plan isn't forever; it's just a short season in your life. Keep this season as short as possible by committing to staying on plan and clearing out any and all obstacles that stand in your way. You won't regret it!