Not a Game

Happy Sunday! This is going to be a busy day for me. My oldest granddaughter (age 6) and her first grade class will be singing at a church in Grand Rapids this morning, so I'm going to hear her sing and then take them out for brunch. Following brunch, we're heading to Meijer Gardens (a wonderful botanical garden) for their fall color tour. We'll board a small tram for the tour, which will be led by a friend of mine. After our time at the garden, I'll head home and get ready for our small group Bible study, which will be at our house tonight.

My husband worked last night, so I decided to catch up on a couple of TV shows that I missed while we were in Pennsylvania. One of the programs I watched on line was "The Biggest Loser." I've missed the last two weeks, so I was happy to have a chance to watch the episodes. Week 3 focused on several choices that the contestants had to make during the week. One of the contestants seemed more focused on playing the game than focused on the real reason she was there - to lose weight and get healthy. What interested me was the comment that one of the trainers, Bob, made. He said that "people who play this as a game gain the weight back."

That made me wonder about this program. Are we approaching this as a game, or are we really serious about making permanent changes in our lives? After two years on this program, first on the weight loss phase and now in maintenance, I've watched a lot of people on this program. Some have embraced the program in its entirety and have been successful beyond their wildest dreams. Others have vacillated between working the program and going off plan. Still others appear to have approached this plan as a game that can be manipulated and outsmarted, and have talked about skipping Medifast meals so they can have a drink or other off-plan item.

I understand the temptation to try and outsmart the program, because that's exactly what I did with every other weight loss plan I was ever on. I'd read all about the plan, understand what I was supposed to do, then almost immediately I'd begin to make my own substitutions. For some reason, I always thought that I could outsmart the program and that it would still work. Of course, it never did.

By the time I placed my first Take Shape for Life/Medifast order, I was ready to follow the program exactly as written. I actually told myself that for once in my life I would NOT try to outsmart the program :-). The funny thing was that as I actually did what the program told me to do, I lost weight!

This wasn't a game for me, because my life and my health were on the line. I hope this isn't a game for you, either! The program is well-thought out and has almost 30 years of clinical studies supporting it. All the thinking has been done for us, so all we need to do is follow the protocols. How simple!

Don't waste your time trying to figure out what off-plan food can be included right now, because the simple answer is that it can't. The good news is that this program isn't forever - you just need to be on 5&1 long enough to get to a healthy weight. So stay on plan - follow it to the letter and don't deviate - and you'll get there in the shortest amount of time.

Play with your spouse, play with your kids, play with your dog - but please don't play with this program. Your health and your life are too important to play with!