Happy Sunday morning! Since I know there are new people reading this who weren't around when I first started writing my daily blogs (almost a year ago!), I thought I'd use today's blog to reintroduce myself, tell my story, and also explain why I write a daily blog. If you've heard all this before, feel free to skip today :-)
I'm 57 years old and started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast on June 24, 2007. When I started on the plan, I weighed 260 pounds and was bursting out of my 24W/3X clothes. I was also diabetic and on medication for high cholesterol and gastric reflux. My blood pressure was going up and I knew it wouldn't be long before I was on medication for that as well. I was researching weight loss surgery options when I came across information on this program. Since my insurance didn't cover weight loss surgery (I was toying with taking out a second mortgage on our home to pay for it), I thought it was worth trying Take Shape for Life/Medifast for a month. I was impressed with what I read on line about the program, particularly the connection with Johns Hopkins, and the success photos were inspiring. I ordered a 4-week supply, not really expecting the plan to work, but figured I didn't have anything to lose (except 130 pounds!). To my surprise, I lost nine pounds my first week and my morning glucose reading returned to normal. I told my husband "this just might work," and 10 months and 28 days later, I reached my goal of 140. I now wear size 6 slacks and jeans and size 4 dresses and jackets. It's been over 19 months since I reached my goal and I'm still in my goal range. Best of all, I am healthy - my diabetes is gone and I'm no longer on any medication, except my allergy/asthma meds.
While I was on 5&1, one thing that was particularly helpful was a morning "commitment blog" that someone posted every day. I looked for it every morning and every morning I posted my commitment to staying on plan for that day. With over 100 pounds to lose, it was impossible for me to fathom committing to staying on plan for the better part of a year, and even committing to staying on plan for a month was a stretch. However, I COULD commit to doing this one day at a time, so every morning I posted a comment and reconfirmed my commitment to staying on plan for one more day. Doing that every day helped me to focus for the day and it made the difference.
About mid-January last year, I became aware that a number of people were struggling to stay on plan. I remembered how helpful it was for me to have a daily commitment blog, so I decided to resurrect the daily blog in an effort to help others in the same way. I've been writing a blog almost every day since then.
I changed the title from "commitment blog" to "choice blog" last October because I realized that, for a lot of people, "commitment" and "obligation" are synonymous - and obligations don't feel very good :-). The reality is that we can make the choice every day to stay on plan or not - it's not an obligation, but a choice. When I was on 5&1, I adopted the mindset that I could have anything I wanted, but I chose to stay on plan. That was a lot more positive than telling myself all the time that I "couldn't" have something. In fact, people would point to something and ask, "since you're on a diet, you can't have this, can you?" and I would always respond, "I can have anything that I want, but I'm choosing to not eat that right now."
Every day, each of us has to make the choice once again to continue moving towards what we really want - a thin, healthy body - or not. Each day, including today, my encouragement to you is to choose wisely :-).
Have a great Sunday!
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