Now What?

After spending the last two days talking about some of the reasons some people go off plan, the question is, now what?

Regardless of the reason is for going off plan, hopefully there comes a time (and I hope it's today!) when you're ready to get moving in the right direction again and then keep going.  How do you refocus?

It starts with taking an honest assessment of where you are right now.  What is your current reality?  What is your current weight, what size are you in, are you on any medications?  How do you feel about where you are?  What limitations do you have (physically or emotionally) because of your weight? (If you want to do a comprehensive assessment of your current health status, I encourage you to get a copy of Dr. A's Habits of Health and work through Chapter 5.  The health assessment is very sobering, but the first step to permanent change is understanding how our daily choices have affected the reality of our health and our lives.)

Once you have a clear understanding of where you are today, the next step is to get a clear vision of where you want to go.  Don't rush past this - let your imagination run with this.  If you could be at your ideal weight and in your ideal size, what would that look like?  Write it down!  What would you be able to do?  How would you feel?  Where would you go?  In Dr. Andersen's book, he urges us to imagine how our lives will look once we've created optimal health for ourselves.  He defines "optimal" as "the most desirable or favorable possible, the highest possibility there is."  For each of us, optimal health will be defined a little differently.  What does optimal health look like for you?

Once we have a clear picture of where we're at and we know where want to go, we are in a much better position to structure our environment for success.  Knowing where we're vulnerable enables us to develop strategies for those areas; once those strategies are in place, we'll be better positioned to make the choices that will keep us moving in the direction we want to go.

Be honest about where you are now, envision where you want to be and focus on what you want, then choose wisely :-)