Happy Valentine's Day (and Chinese New Year)!

Happy Valentine's Day!  And Happy Chinese New Year!  Both of these holidays are celebrated by giving gifts as a way of showing love for others.  For Valentine's Day, people give cards, flowers, and often chocolates or other sweets, and Chinese New Year is celebrated by giving hong bao (red packets with money) to family members and friends.

In yesterday's blog I wrote about how to graciously deal with gifts that could potentially throw you off course.  Today I want to shift our focus to the gift we can give. 

I'm guessing that most of us started on Take Shape for Life/Medifast because we reached a point where we decided we wanted something different for our lives.  We were tired of weighing what we did, tired of being in the size we were in, and perhaps we had health concerns that were our wake-up call.  Whatever our reasons, our motivation was ourselves - looking and feeling better.  I'm not suggesting for a minute that doing this for us is the wrong motivation - quite the contrary.  We HAVE to do this because WE want it; it's important to get focused and stay focused on what we really want.

But since this is a day for giving gifts to those we love, how about making today's choice to stay on plan your Valentine to others?  The cards that are given today will soon be thrown away (or tucked away to be all but forgotten), the flowers will fade and be tossed, and the chocolate . . . we won't go there :-).  These traditional expressions of love have a pretty short shelf life, and while they are nice sentiments (and I'm looking forward to giving and receiving a Valentine card), they don't have lasting value.

Choosing to stay on plan today, and ultimately getting to and staying at a health weight, is a Valentine that will keep on giving.  I have a friend who was very resistant to starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast until her sister, who had gone on the program and lost weight, asked her "Why are you willing to cut your time short with us?"  My friend is a nurse and was fully aware of the health risks of her obesity, but it was her sister's question that finally got her to agree to give the program a try.  Long story short, she lost 135 pounds and has maintained her loss for over two years.  I believe her family will enjoy time with her for many, many years to come!

Yesterday I shared some suggestions from Dr. Phil on how to graciously turn down off-plan food gifts.  Here's another possible response you can use today:  "Thank you so much for caring enough about me to give this to me/make this for me.  My gift to you is to get healthy so that we can enjoy many more years together."  What do you think?

When we give gifts, we always try to give our very best.  Giving our loved ones the gift of our own health may be the very best gift we give today.  As I think about giving our best to show our love for others, I am reminded that God loved us enough to give HIS very best gift, Jesus Christ.  That's His Valentine to us!

Have a great Sunday!  Choose wisely :-)