Dealing With Deprivation

Mark Twain was known for his wry and witty quotes, and one quote that struck a chord with me was:  "The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not."

Do you ever feel like that?  That the only way to get to a healthy weight is to live in a state of total deprivation, with your day revolving around a bunch of things you don't want to do?  It can be incredibly hard to make radical changes in the way we've already done things, and it's easy to feel like we have entered into a world where all of the fun has been sucked out.  For reasons we don't always understand, we cling tenaciously to habits that are taking us down a path towards disease.

Changing our focus isn't easy, but it begins with a clear understanding of where we are right now.  I've written before about a book that I highly recommend, Dr. A's Habits of Health, which was written by Take Shape for Life's co-founder, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen.  Chapter 5 of his book is entitled, "Where Are You Now?"  The entire chapter is an in-depth assessment of our current state of health, and it is rather sobering to take the assessment because, frankly, many of us aren't as healthy as we think we are.   (If you don't have this book but are interested in taking the assessment, it's available on Dr. Andersen's website: http://drwayneandersen.com - click on the "How Healthy Are You?" link to take the on-line assessment.)

If we aren't where we want to be, and if we take the time to create a vision of where we want to be, then we will begin putting into action the steps necessary to get to our goal.  Sometimes these steps aren't the things we would necessarily choose to do on our own (hence Mark Twain's statement!), but if we view them as steps that bring us closer to what we really want, we will do them anyway.

When I was on 5&1, on any given day I would have preferred pizza and brownies to any Medifast meal - eating five Medifast meals day after day for almost a year wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do.  But I did it, one day after another, because they were a tool that helped me get to something far more important that the immediate gratification I would have received from the pizza and brownies.  Thankfully, I really enjoyed the meals, so I didn't approach each fueling with dread, but they still weren't always my first choice in what I wanted to eat.  There were times when I felt deprived, but those times were few and far between, because I was focused on reaching my goal.  Each Medifast meal brought me a step closer to what I really wanted, and keeping that mindset was key to staying on plan for the almost 11 months it took me to lose the 120 pounds.

How we view the choices we need to make will influence how we feel about this program, and our attitude can also directly impact whether or not we'll be successful over the long term.  If we approach this day after day with a feeling of dread and deprivation, if our focus is on what we're giving up and can't have, this may end up being another short-lived and unsuccessful diet.  If we view each day as another day that bring us closer to our goal and if we embrace the healthy habits this program is designed to teach us, we will eventually not only reach our goal but we'll have the habits and mindset needed to maintain for the rest of our lives.

Each day we get to choose whether or not we're going to stay on plan, and each day we get to choose the attitude we'll have.  Those choices are important . . . choose wisely :-)

Tomorrow is Always . . . Tomorrow

Every now and then when we're traveling and crunched for time, my husband and I will eat at a buffet (NOT my favorite kind of restaurant for a variety of reasons).  When eating at one of those buffets, I overheard a man sitting behind us and who had just refilled his plate comment, "This is it.  I'm going to start eating better tomorrow."  He laughed as he continued, "Oh, wait . . . that's what I said yesterday." 

I smiled when I heard that, because that sounded like something I would have said five years ago.  I had good intentions, really I did.  I certainly understood that I was significantly overweight, although I avoided thinking of myself as being morbidly obese (but with a BMI of 44.6, that's exactly what I was!).  I also was aware of the health risks associated with my obesity and recognized that my own diabetes was probably a result (since my mom and sister are both diabetic, I also wondered if I'd be diabetic regardless of how much I weighed).  In those days, I was always a day away from finally starting on the diet to end all diets - the one that would finally help me lose weight.  I say I was always a day away because the diet was always going to start "tomorrow."  My "tomorrows" usually were a Monday, as that seemed like a good day to start a diet.  I'd reason that I would enjoy "one more weekend" and then really buckle down and just do it.  The problem was that Mondays at work were usually very busy and often stressful, and if things were busy and stressful, well, that wasn't a good day to deprive myself of my favorite food.  Never mind that I'd just had another "last supper", eating all of my favorite foods "one last time" in preparation for my new diet . . . it would just have to wait until "tomorrow."

The fact that the man at the table behind me joked about eating better "tomorrow" told me that, on some level, he recognized the need to do just that, and his size certainly shouted that he needed to do something for his health.  He was just going to wait until "tomorrow."

Tomorrows have a sneaky way of always being just one day away, and those days turn into weeks, which turn into months.  There really is no better day than today to make the choices we need to make to put us on (or keep us on) a path that will lead to a healthier tomorrow. 

The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)

Backwards Thinking

Why do we always feel deprived when we decide to start eating healthy and cut out the junk?  Shouldn't it be the other way around?  Shouldn't we feel we are depriving ourselves because we AREN'T eating healthy?"

We've really gotten our thinking backwards, haven't we?  So often we find ourselves longing for food that may taste good but is nutritionally deficient, high calorie/carbs/fat - food that hasn't served us well.  Other than enjoying the flavor for a moment while it's in our mouth, the food we crave really hasn't done a thing for us except contribute to us being overweight and in an unhealthy state.

I look back to where I was five years ago, just before starting on Take Shape for Life.  Sure I was eating all of my favorite foods in whatever quantities I wanted - there was no deprivation going on in the food department at my house!  But I was miserable in my own skin and I was unhealthy and headed down a path of even worse health.

I remember looking in the mirror and hating my reflection.  I remember struggling to find clothes that would fit and even the clothes that fit were often not my style or a good color for me, but I had to settle for what I could find.  I remember wearing pantyhose with skirts in the summer because my thighs rubbing together would chafe - the nylons were hot, but it was more uncomfortable dealing with chafed thighs.  I remember skipping invitations to pool parties because I was too embarrassed to be in public in a swimsuit, and I didn't take my children to a nearby water park for the same reason.  I remember struggling to get the seatbelt fastened on an airplane and being worried that I'd have to ask for an extender.  I remember sitting at a round table in a crowded room and not getting up to use the bathroom because I knew I couldn't squeeze between the tables to leave the room.  I remember checking my blood sugar in the morning and seeing numbers that confirmed I was diabetic.  I remember feeling guilty and out of control with my eating.  I remember feeling hopeless.

Yes, I was eating whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I wanted - no deprivation in the eating department for sure.  But deprivation permeated every other area of my life!

Then I made the decision to try Take Shape for Life for four weeks, a desperate last attempt at weight loss before I pursued weight loss surgery and paid for it out of pocket since it wasn't covered by my insurance.

There was a lot of food deprivation during the almost-11 months it took me to lose 120 pounds and reach my goal - I won't deny that for a minute!  But as I stayed on plan, the rest of my life became rich and full.  My blood sugar returned to normal, I found energy I didn't know I could have, I began to like what I saw in the mirror, shopping began to be fun, and I regained hope.

This past Tuesday marked my four-year anniversary of reaching my goal weight.  Those few months of temporary deprivation have resulted in me being in a place I couldn't have imagined - truly beyond what I dreamed.  I am healthy and I no longer shrink back from life because of my weight.  I've chosen to not incorporate most of those former "favorite" foods back into my life because I realize that they didn't serve me well before and they certainly won't serve me well now.  I don't feel the least bit deprived because this or that isn't part of my eating plan because I now know the difference between real and perceived deprivation.  Real deprivation is cheating ourselves out of optimal health - being as healthy as we can be for as long as possible.  Real deprivation is being limited, physically and emotionally, by our weight.

So which deprivation are you choosing today?  The choice is yours, so choose wisely :-)

Breaking the Cycle

Because the convenience of our program makes it easy to eat 5 Medifast meals and one lean & green meal a day, the decision to go off plan usually revolves around emotional eating.  No matter how well we're doing on plan, no matter how much weight we've lost or how good we're feeling, if we are an emotional eater (and that's exactly what I was!), we will come to a time sooner or later when something happens to make us seriously considering eating off plan.

It may be a celebration, but my observation is that the thing that usually trips a person up is something negative - stress, anger, etc. - and the decision is made to reach for comfort in the form of food in an attempt to ease the pain.

What's so frustrating, however, is that instead of solving the problem, eating off-plan food really doubles your pain, rather than make it go away. You're still in pain about what you were in pain about before you ate, but now you've added a whole level of more discomfort which is: 'Oh, I can't believe I ate this. What's wrong with me? Am I ever going to get my life together? Is it ever going to get better?' Then you're feeling like a failure on top of the discomfort you were feeling before.

As I've shared before, part of my own journey was finally realizing that food didn't fix anything.  Turning to food to deal with my stress, anger, boredom, etc. only left me feeling worse, and the stress, etc. was still there.  I feel bad, so I'd eat, which would make me feel worse, so I'd eat some more.  It was a miserable cycle!

Amazingly, what started the process of ending this cycle was the cost of this program.  When I placed my first order, it was a definite financial stretch for me.  I knew I could only justify the expense if I was actually following the program, so I made a commitment to stay on plan and not cheat.  I reasoned that if I wanted to cheat on a diet, I had an entire bookshelf full of different diet books and could just pull one of my books off the shelf and cheat away.  Because I had invested almost $300 in a four week order, I decided to just follow the program for four weeks.  Since it takes a minimum of three days to get into the fat-burning state, I also understood that if I ate off plan and kicked myself out of the fat-burning state, it would take another three days to get back in.  Doing the math and figuring that each meal costs about $2, I figured that a cheat would cost me about $30 ($2/meal x 5 meals x 3 days).

When I committed to staying on plan for four weeks in order to justify the cost of the program, I really hadn't factored in the amount of emotional eating I did - I had never connected the dots.  When negative emotions cropped up early in my program, I had a choice to make.  I recognized that I wasn't physically hungry (thanks to the fat-burning state!), and I recognized that it was a different kind of hunger that had me longing for something - anything - off plan.  Because I didn't want to mess up what was finally working for me, it was then that I finally did what I wish I would have done years ago.  I turned to the true Source of the comfort I needed - my Heavenly Father.  I brought my need to Him and look to Him to meet those needs - and He did :-). 

Two things happened:  first, I recognized that the hunger wasn't physical, but emotional and I acknowledged the feeling instead of burying it.  Second, instead of turning to food, I turned to the Lord.  As I did that over and over again, I began to realize that food had never solved anything for me and never would.  I realized that every time I turned to the Lord instead of reaching for chocolate, there was always a huge sense of relief when the temptation passed and I had once again resisted the pull.  Over time, the temptation to turn to food lessened and my ability to discern physical hunger from emotional hunger sharpened.  Eventually, the emotional bondage to food was severed.  I cannot describe the joy and the freedom that comes from knowing that it's gone for good. 

The food part of this program is the easy part.  Understanding what drives our emotional eating and then addressing those issues is the hard part, but it is SO worth the effort!  Addressing those issues means different things to each of us, and sometimes it involves working with a professional counselor (I've spent time in counseling, too). 

Work this program - both the food part and the head/heart part.  It's not always easy, but it's worth it!  The choice is yours . . . choose wisely :-)

"Those Kind of Days"

I woke up today to birds singing, sun shining, and a cool breeze blowing through the house - the kind of morning that makes me jump out of bed, eager to start my day.  On days like today, it's easy to be optimistic and full of energy - and I am!

On days like today, it's easy to feel motivated to make good choices.  When the weather is lovely, stress is low, and we have that "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world" kind of feeling, we almost instinctively want to be in harmony with that.  On these kinds of days, we can feel like we have an unlimited supply of energy and resolve and all we have to do is tap into it.  I love days like this and just wish EVERY day could start on such a positive note.

But they don't.  You and I both have days when we wake up with a headache and an almost overwhelming sense of pressure and stress due to the tasks or situations we know we'll face that day.  We have many mornings when the sun isn't shining, the birds aren't singing, and all we really want to do is pull the covers over our head and NOT get up at all. 

On days like that, it can be extremely difficult to make the choices we need to make to stay on plan.  If you are an emotional eater like I was for so many years, "those kind of days" can be filled with multiple triggers that leave us wanting to run to the nearest vat of chocolate (or whatever our food drug of choice is). 

So what do we do on "those kind of days?"  How do we navigate our way through days when we don't even want to get up, let alone function?  Days when it's hard to find a speck of motivation anywhere?

Those are the days when it's imperative that we know what it is that we really want and why we want it so that we can shift our focus from what's swirling around us at the moment.  If we aren't clear on what we want, then the stuff of life on "those kind of days" will threaten to trip us up over and over again.

I think it's really important to have a list of all of the reasons why you want to reach your goal.  What will life be like when you are at your goal weight?  How will you look?  How will you feel?  What will you be able to do?  Write a paragraph that describes your life at goal and write in present tense, as if you are already there.  How do you feel as you read what you've written?  Does this description resonate deep within you?  If so, then you've identified your "whys."  Your why has to be far more than just moving away from what you don't want - your compelling why has to be about what you want to create in your life.

If you are moving towards something you really want, then on "those kind of days" pull out your description and keep it handy as a reminder of where you are heading.  Even if "those kind of days" cause you to temporarily doubt your ability to get there, remind yourself of what it is that you really want.  The good news is that even if you don't believe it will happen, if you just continue to make the choices you need to make, one day and one meal at a time, you WILL reach your goal and realize the dreams you have - and far more!

I hope you are having a fabulous day and that the choices you make today will be easy.  But if you are having one of "those kind of days" when the choices are hard, they are still your choices to make.  Choose wisely :-)

Goal Four Years Later . . . The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Four years ago today I reached my weight loss goal, losing 120 pounds in two days short of 11 months.  I am celebrating this milestone today and am especially thankful because, with God's help, I've beaten the odds!  Statistics show that 85% of people who lose weight gain it all back, plus additional weight, within two years.  I have never been so happy to be outside the norm in my life!

When I started on Take Shape for Life in June of 2007, I had very low expectations.  Every attempt I'd ever made to lose weight had met with only minimal weight loss (the most I ever lost was 36 pounds and that took me 9 months to lose).  Every attempt at losing weight resulted in rapid rebound weight gain as soon as I stopped counting the carbs, calories, fat grams or points for the program I was on.  I was so incredibly desperate when I placed my first order that I had actually been contemplating weight loss surgery, but I didn't believe this program would work.  I honestly thought it would fail and that I could move forward with surgery knowing in my heart that I'd truly tried everything.

One of the things that attracted me to Take Shape for Life was the Transition & Maintenance program.  I liked the thought that if I could somehow lose some weight, this program might actually help me to keep it off.  After losing 36 pounds on another program, giving away all of my largest size clothes (24W/3X) and then regaining the weight and having to repurchase a wardrobe in that largest size, I knew I couldn't continue to yo-yo any more.

This program was truly an answer to my very desperate prayers for help!  If someone would have told me five years ago that I would be celebrating four full years at a healthy weight, I wouldn't have believed them.  If someone would have told me five years ago that I would be working full-time helping others lose weight and get healthy, that many of my family members would be at a healthy weight (including my husband), I wouldn't have believed them.  If someone would have told me that I would be able to do all of the things I am now able to do, including traveling all over the country, I wouldn't have believed them.  I had no idea when I ordered that 4-week variety pack that that decision would alter the course of my life.  I am so incredibly humbled and thankful for all that has happened.

There were many days when staying on plan was difficult.  There were many days when I honest to goodness did NOT want to eat another Medifast meal for the rest of my life.  There were times when I felt deprived as I turned down off-plan food, and there were times when I was angry at myself for what I had done to my body that cause me to be on such a restrictive program to begin with.  What was different this time was that I made the decision that, regardless of how I felt or what was happening in my life, I would stay on plan.  Taking it one day at a time, and often one meal at a time - and choosing to draw on God's strength for the many times my own was failing or non-existent - I finally reached that long-elusive goal four years ago today.

Maintenance has been harder than I had anticipated.  As I've shared before, I still have a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds - almost everything still sounds and tastes as good as it ever did and I am often challenged to stay mindful of portion sizes.  Because I did 5&1 just about perfectly (never cheated and kicked myself out of fat-burning the entire time I was on program and had only the occasional ONE bite of something off plan), I somehow unrealistically thought I'd do Maintenance perfectly, too.  What I've come to realize - finally - is that Maintenance is the rest of my life.  Since there isn't anything I'm going to do perfectly for the rest of my life, that includes Maintenance.

On occasion my weight has blipped up several pounds higher than I want it to be, including beyond my self-imposed upper limit.  I'm not happy with the scale or with myself when that happens, but I've learned to do a couple of things.  First of all, I've learned to grant myself grace and not waste time berating myself when I haven't followed my own admonition to choose wisely :-).  I've also make the choice to get refocused on what's really important to me and have chosen on occasion to go back on 5&1 for a couple of weeks or a month to bring my weight back in line. 

My long-term goal is to so fully embrace the principles in Dr. A's Habits of Health that I never need to jump back on 5&1 again.  Until that time, a 5&1 blitz is the tool I keep in my back pocket and I don't apologize for pulling it out on occasion when needed.  I hope someday consistently making the best choices is my automatic response . . . for now, I strive to make good choices and I keep a very clean kitchen so that my environment is structured for success.  None of my trigger foods (and they are legion . . . ) are allowed in the house because I've learned that I can't eat them in moderation.

The choices I made that led to me reaching goal four years ago weren't always easy, but as I look back today, they sure were worth it!  The choices I continue to have to make aren't always easy, either, but staying at a healthy weight is absolutely worth it!  You're facing your own set of choices today - how I hope and pray that you will choose wisely :-)

Stressed or Blessed?

A while back I received one of those infamous e-mail forwards from one of my friends.  I have to be honest and confess that I usually delete any forwards without reading them, partly because I don't have time to read everything I receive and partly because if there are multiple forwards, there's a good chance I've read it before.  However, I decided to open this one, which was an embedded PowerPoint file.  Each slide had a positive message and the music was nice, so I let it play.

One slide in particular caught my attention.  It said "Too blessed to be stressed."  That sounds pretty simplistic, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that profound thoughts are often wrapped in simple phrases.  As I thought about this phrase, I realized that it's all about our perspective and what we choose to focus on.

Each one of us has things in our lives that could stress us out if we focused on them.  The economy is difficult, our investments and 401k accounts have taken a beating over the past few years; perhaps our kids are making us crazy or we are overworked and underpaid at our jobs; the house needs cleaning, there are weeds to be pulled, the car needs a tune-up.  And oh yes - we're working to lose weight, get healthy and create new, healthy habits!

If we allow ourselves to focus on the challenges, we will live stressed-out lives.  That does NOT mean that we should just pretend that everything is wonderful and ignore the challenges - denial isn't the answer :-).  But what we can do is take a look at the bigger picture and look for the blessings that are wrapped in those challenges.  We can also look at all of the blessings in our lives - and we are all blessed people, when we stop and think about it.

Again, I don't want to minimize the situations that many of you find yourselves in today, because I know that some of you are going through very deep waters right now.  My concern is that if we become focused on the stress and not the blessings, it becomes that much more difficult to maintain the positive outlook and positive energy we need to get through the day.  If we're focused on the stress, we're less likely to take care of ourselves, and we're less likely to think it's important to take care of ourselves.  If we're focused on the stress, it's a lot easier to rationalize that we "deserve" to eat off-plan, or that it will be easier to focus on losing weight when we're not under so much pressure.

I want to encourage you today to keep on keeping on!  Look for the blessings in your life and take time to give thanks for them - it will change your perspective.

And just in case you need a gentle reminder, one of your blessings is the opportunity you have to be on Take Shape for Life/s 5&1 plan :-).  You have the privilege of being on a plan that is proven to safely and quickly get you to a healthy weight, and it's providing all of the nutrition you need as you get there.  Each day that you're on plan is another day closer to your goal - another blessing!

Choosing to count our blessings . . . just another opportunity today to choose wisely :-)

What To Do?

So what do you do when you are doing all the right things and you don't see the results you want, or the results aren't coming as fast as you'd like?  That's a dilemma we all face in different areas of our lives, and probably on a regular basis.  That's also the situation people find themselves in on a regular basis while they're on 5&1.

We are a results-oriented society and we want - and expect - that if we do this or that we will automatically get the expected results at the expected time.  The older I get (and I'll be 60 in July, so "older" is taking on new meaning . . . ), the more I realize that actions don't always immediately bring results.  The operative word here is "immediately."

Waiting is hard, and doing the right thing while we're waiting is extremely hard, especially when "the right thing" involves sacrifice or temporary deprivation.  When we make the necessary hard choices, such as the ones we make to stay on plan, we want constant positive feedback to confirm that the sacrifice we're making really is worth it. 

When the scale gets stuck - and it will, it's easy to get discouraged.  We're working hard and doing the right things and it can feel like our efforts are all for nothing.  If we allow ourselves to focus on what's temporarily not happening, we will lose momentum and can even inadvertently slip into a mindset that says, "What's the use?  I might as well have this or that off-plan thing because the scale isn't moving anyway."

When things aren't moving as fast as we'd like, or when they're at a complete standstill, we have a choice to make.  We can either focus on the moment and on what isn't happening, or we can shift our focus.  First we can look back and reflect on how far we've come.  Even if the scale isn't moving right now, even if you've been at a standstill for two or three weeks, are you better off now than where you were when you started?  It can be easy to forget why we started on plan in the first place, so take a minute to think back on how you felt, physically and emotionally, before you started on Take Shpe for Life.  Regardless of where you are right now, I'm guessing you are in a much better place at this point, right?

Next focus on where you want to be - what do you want?  What will it be like for you when you reach your goal?  How will you look and feel?  What will you be able to do?

Looking back at the progress you've already made confirms that this program works.  It's worked up until now for you and it will continue to work and you WILL reach your goal - I promise!  Even when the scale isn't rewarding you with the numbers you want to see, good things ARE happening.  You may notice that your clothes are fitting better or even getting loose as you lose inches.  What you can't see is the improvement in your health - there is no way for us to track the internal fat that is disappearing, no way to see the other changes going on inside.

Even when the going gets slow and discouraging, choosing to do the right thing anyway and take the next step is the only way to keep moving forward.  We may need to adjust what we're doing (plateaus are a good opportunity to fine-tune things and see if we've allowed one too many condiments or bites/licks/tastes, double-check our water consumption or carefully measure our lean and green portions).  Once we've re-evaluated what we've done to ensure that we're still 100% on plan, then all we can do is keep doing the right thing and know that eventually we WILL be rewarded with the results we want.

We can't always choose the timing of the results, we can only choose our actions and our attitude.  Choose wisely :-)

Building a Bridge

A friend of mine posted a quote on my Facebook page that I thought was good enough to share:  "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."  I like that!  I'd like to make one slight edit, however, and reword this to say, "Choices are the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

Goals without actions steps are nothing more than wishes, and wishes seldom materialize.  I can wish all day, but if all I ever do is wish something would happen, that wish will stay a fanciful dream in my mind - the likelihood that it will become a reality is very low. When we have a goal - when we have a clear picture in our mind and know what we want - then put into place the steps we need to get there, those action steps become the bridge that leads us over the chasm to accomplishment. 

When it comes to reaching our weight loss goal, we can't get there in a single step, and we can't get there in one big leap, either.  I stood at the edge of the cliff for a long time, looking longingly at a healthy weight in the foggy distance, but I wanted to get there in a step or two.  I kept looking for shortcuts or some new, "secret" way to lose weight.  I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep four or five years ago who talked excitedly about a new drug that his company was producing that showed promising weight loss results in early clinical trials.  He predicted that this new drug, which was already being used in Europe, would revolutionize the weight loss industry.  I wrote the name down and did an internet search on it, then printed off several articles.  I read those articles several times and anxiously waited for this new drug to be approved by the FDA, hoping that this would finally be THE answer I was looking for.  I wasn't looking to change my behavior or lifestyle - I was looking for a pill that would somehow enable me to lose weight in a single step.  The drug was never approved because adverse and life-threatening side-effects began to emerge, and my hopes were once again dashed.

I began building the bridge from my goal to accomplishment when I started on Take Shape for Life and committed to doing this one day at a time.  It was definitely a "one foot in front of the other" journey, one day and one meal at a time.  With God's help, that bridge was finally completed and I crossed the chasm and reached my goal.

I revised my friend's quote because discipline is fleshed out in the choices we make.  Some of us are more disciplined by nature than others, but our success isn't dependent on whether or not we view ourselves as disciplined.  Our success is dependent on the choices we make on a daily basis, one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

A Great Investment

Getting to a healthy weight is a journey of weeks for some and of months for others, but even if you have a lot of weight to lose, it's a relatively short journey.  I say that as someone who spent 10 months and 28 days on 5&1, just under a year of my life invested in getting to a healthy weight and, more importantly, getting healthy. 

To be sure, there were some long days - days when I didn't know how I'd make it through the day on plan (but I did, one meal at a time!).  The months went by very quickly, however, and it was exciting to see the progress as each month passed.

Those months went by fast and the four years since reaching goal have flown by, too.  I look back on those few months invested in getting healthy and realize those months were one of the best investments I've ever made.  In the grand scheme of things, those months were just a blip on the calendar, but what a difference those few months made! 

Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen says "You can spend a little time now getting healthy, or spend ALL of your time later being sick."

Because my health was already on the downturn (diabetes, high cholesterol, gastric reflux and borderline high blood pressure), I realized almost five years ago that I was heading to a place I didn't want to go.  I saw where my mom's health was as a result of her diabetes (which was a result of her weight and eating habits) and I knew that she was a mirror of my future if nothing changed.  Her weekly calendar was often filled with doctor appointments: internal medicine specialist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, renal specialist.  There was a list of doctors who had the challenge of addressing the complications of her diabetes, and going from appointment to appointment took a lot of time (and money).

That's not how I wanted to spend my time and my money as I continued to age, so I made the choice to invest a few short months and took a different, healthier path.  It meant saying "no" to some of the foods I enjoyed, but I was really saying "yes" to a healthy future!

My question for you today is:  Are you willing to invest a short period of time to get healthy?  Your investment is made one day, one meal, and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

It's Not Fair

More than once I've felt like it's just not fair that I can't eat "normally" like everyone else.  Anytime I've even ventured into the neighborhood of my old eating habits, the scale and the way my clothes fit quickly remind me that I can never go back there.  I wish I could honestly say that none of that food ever tempts me, but that's not the truth.  The brutal reality is that I still have a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds and most of the old stuff still tastes pretty good to me.  I choose to eat healthy the vast majority of the time, but my natural inclination would take me back to that old, high fat, high carb/high sugar neighborhood.  Were I to settle back into that neighborhood, some unwanted things like high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes would most likely take up residence with me as well.

When I'm tempted to throw a private "it's not fair" pity party, I am also reminded that when we eat like "normal Americans" we get "normal American" results - 66% of us are overweight or obese!

I think that a lot of us would like to figure out a way to eat "normally" and still get to and maintain a healthy weight, but that's not possible, at least if we define "eat normally" to mean "like we used to eat."

My new reality is that I AM eating normally for someone with my goals. My goal include staying at a healthy weight, BEING and STAYING healthy, wearing fun clothes in small sizes, having the energy I need to do the things I want to do and keep up with my grandchildren (soon to be 8 of them!). And while it may not be fair I can’t eat in the same way as (some) other people, it would be so much more unfair if I couldn’t reach my goals.

It always comes back to the fact that I've made the decision to be healthy.  That is my primary choice when it comes to my health.  To support that primary choice, I will, for the rest of my life, have to make the secondary choices necessary to support my decision to be healthy.  Much like the concert pianist who makes the secondary choice to practice for hours whether he feels like it or not because he wants to be a concert pianist, those secondary choices aren't always what we WANT to do.  But they support what we REALLY want.

If we take our eyes off of what's most important to us, it may not "feel" fair to make those secondary choices, but when we keep our eyes on the prize, we'll find it's much easier to choose wisely :-).

Lace Up Those Running Shoes!

My daughter is a runner and is preparing to run a 25K on Saturday (the largest 25K in the country).  Because she is preparing for this race (at 16 miles, this is slightly longer than a half-marathon) she is focused on endurance and knows she needs to pace herself so she can go the distance.  Preparing for a marathon is very different from preparing for a 100-yard sprint, and running a marathon is very different from running a sprint, too.

The difference between preparing for and running a marathon versus a sprint certainly applies to the journey we're on, because we've embarked on a marathon.  We really have to prepare ourselves to stay consistent over the long haul, because no matter how long it will take for us to reach our goal, reaching our goal is only the first phase of this program.  Maintaining at a healthy weight is the rest of the program - one marathon after another.

I'm not a runner, but I've watched bits and pieces of a few marathons over the years.  As I think back to the marathons, one thing I remember is that most of the runners aren't smiling while they're running.  Some of them look like they're concentrating, and others are actually grimacing.  The exhilaration of taking off at the starting line eventually fades and the marathoner is faced with the task of just putting one foot in front of the other.  At some point along the way, it's not particularly fun any more.  But running a marathon isn't necessarily about having fun along the way (although some runners really do enjoy the journey).  Running in a marathon is about finishing it and having the satisfaction of knowing that the runner accomplished something difficult.  There might not be a lot of smiling going on during the marathon, but there are lots of smiles and lots of celebrations at the finish line.

Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations about the weight loss marathon we're on and we expect it to be fun and exciting the entire time.  That might be true if it was a 50 yard dash, but it's not a dash - this is the marathon of our lives.  The reality is that we will alternate between exhilaration and exhaustion, between feeling like this is the best thing we've ever done to hating the thought of doing this one more day.  In the end, we will experience a full spectrum of emotions on this journey, but as long as we keep putting one foot in front of another, we will cross the finish line.  And when we cross the finish line and reach goal, there will be smiles and lots of celebration.  

And after the celebration we'll begin the next marathon - maintenance :-).

So, are your running shoes laced up this morning?  It's another marathon day - are you committed to staying the course today?  Your commitment will be reflected in the choices you make . . . choose wisely :-)

What I've Learned . . . Again . . .

As I shared yesterday, a lot of "life happens" is happening in my life right now and my response hasn't supported my long-term goal to live a longer, healthier life.  Without even realizing it, I somehow found myself firmly back in a survival mode and mindset, solely focused on the here and now rather than keeping one eye fixed on my long-term goals.

I've been reminded again of a couple of key, and very basic, principles.  When these are forgotten or set aside, the outcome is seldom what we truly want.

The first basic principle is that we HAVE to stay focused on what we really want long term.  Life happens to all of us and there is an overwhelming tendency to set aside our real goals because we're caught up in surviving the moment.  That may be our natural tendency (at least it's MY natural tendency . . . ), but doing that doesn't serve our long-term, best interests.  Choosing to lift our eyes from the here and now to focus on our real goals will help us regain perspective and will also remind us of the wise choices needed to reach those goals.  I temporarily forgot about what I really, truly wanted.  Now that I've reminded myself again and have focused on that, my head and my heart are in a different - and better - place.

Second principle, and this may be the most important one of all (at least it is to me):  Food won't fix it.  No matter what the situation is, no matter how stressful a situation may be, food doesn't fix it.  My "go to" food lately has been sweets.  My normally "clean" kitchen has been infiltrated by things that are normally banned . . . and I did the infiltration myself :-(.  "Treating" myself to these things left me feeling sluggish and less able to deal with the stress, to say nothing of the fact that some clothes are fitting a bit more snug right now which generates a myriad of not-so-happy feelings.  Making poor choices not only fails to fix the original issue, but doing so creates more stress and more negative feelings.  NOT a good cycle to find ourselves in!

One of the things I learned on my 5&1 journey in 2007-2008 was that I needed to look to the TRUE Source of any comfort I needed - my Heavenly Father.  Although I've done a lot of praying lately about some of the situations we're facing, I haven't continued to ask God for the strength I needed to make healthy choices. I realized in 2007-2008 that I couldn't lose the weight without His help, but somehow I slipped into thinking that I could maintain and continue to make healthy choices on my own.  I've been reminded - again - of my ongoing need to depend on the Lord ALL the time.  That's a good thing :-)

So that's where I am today, and I'm committed today, with God's help, to choose wisely :-).

Dropped My Oxygen Mask

Crazy-busy doesn't even come close to describing the last three weeks of my life.  Our son got married two weeks ago in a small, family ceremony (we are now empty-nesters!!), we spent a week in Arizona attending a conference, we helped our son and his wife move into a new apartment and we are helping our oldest daughter and her family get ready to move into a new house in two weeks.  Our son and his wife also just took temporary custody of her nephew (3) and niece (10 months), so I've spent some time helping them with the children (his wife also has a 3 year old son).  Like I said, crazy-busy!

What happened in the process of being crazy-busy is that I didn't make the time to really take care of myself.  Sleep got short-changed, exercise went out the window and - true confessions - I wasn't particularly mindful about what I was eating, either.  I still gravitated towards healthier food for the most part, but I wasn't mindful of portion sizes.  My stress level went up - way up - and I stopped taking care of myself, slipping into an old "survival" mode.

So what was the end result of this?  Scale went up, energy level plummeted, and I found myself dealing with all of the busyness feeling less than optimal - sluggish and a bit out-of-sorts.

I took stock this morning and realized that enough is enough!  Things are going to be crazy-busy for a while . . . I'm not sure how long my son and his wife will have these two children plus they are having a baby in July so things will be busy there, our oldest daughter is not only moving to a house closer to us, but she is expecting her second set of twins late this summer and one of the twins will be born with a fairly significant disability - I will be very busy helping her, I'm sure.  To juggle the needs of my family and have the energy I need to help with THREE new grandbabies (!!!!!), I need to be at the top of my game. 

This means that I have to take care of myself, too!  Eating right, getting in regular exercise and getting adequate sleep is essential so that I can give my best to my family.  It's so easy to set aside taking care of ourselves when things get busy and we are busy taking care of everybody else.  For moms with young children in the home, this is an ongoing challenge - I remember those days very well!

Every time we fly, the pre-flight instructions include the flight attendants telling us that in the event of a change in cabin pressure that results in oxygen masks dropping down, it's important that we put on our own oxygen mask first before we attempt to help someone else.

It's a bit scary for me to see how quickly I can drop healthy habits and revert to things that aren't serving my best interest.  It's been almost four years since I reached my weight loss goal and I keep thinking that eventually maintaining is going to get easy, but I'm realizing that it never will be easy.  Constant vigilance and daily wise choices are needed and always will be.

So today I'm recommitting to making those wise choices.  I'm too busy to NOT take care of myself!  No matter how busy we are or what's going on in our lives, if we want to feel good and have the energy to deal with the stuff, even the craziness, we have to make the decision to choose wisely :-).