Avoiding Ditches

Here's an interesting fact:  for every mile of road, there are two miles of ditches.  That's not necessarily a comforting thought, to be honest.  Because I have repeatedly referred to my own weight loss experience and beyond as a journey, any metaphor that relates to a journey - like a road - catches my attention.  Being aware that there are twice as many miles of ditches as there is road, the question is, how do we stay on the road and not end up in the ditch?

Some roads are broad and smooth and we can easily put ourselves on cruise control and travel a good distance without giving it much thought.  When traveling down these roads, we're almost oblivious to the ditches because there's a good margin on both sides and we never veer near the edge.  There are times when staying on plan is easy - you feel great, the scale is moving nicely, and you may feel like you're on cruise control because you're making great progress and don't have to think about what you're doing.  You just aren't tempted to stray and you feel like you could do 5&1 indefinitely.  It's a good place to be!

It's those other roads that are scary to navigate - narrow, bumpy roads that keep us gripping the steering wheel and fighting to stay away from the ditches that loom on either side.  Those bumpy roads often show up unexpectedly and can stretch on for what seems like endless miles.  Perhaps it's a busy schedule or stress that makes the road bumpy, or maybe it's something else.  Maybe the scale gets stuck at the same time that life throws us a curve or two.  Regardless of what finds us on a bumpy, narrow road, our challenge is to keep moving forward.

How do we do that?  Simply, it's by keeping our focus straight ahead and gripping the steering wheel.  (I said it's simple, not easy!)  When things are difficult, that's when it's most difficult to keep focused on where we're going and not allow other things to distract us.  That's also when we're most prone to veer straight for a ditch.  Knowing where we want to go and keeping our eyes fixed on our destination is key to staying out of ditches.  Gripping both hands on the steering wheel is also critical, and this requires full attention and determination.  Sometimes it's just plain hard and the effort required to stay focused is exhausting.  What I know is that as exhausting as it is to keep going when it's hard, that is far easier than trying to get ourselves out of a ditch.  It is ALWAYS easier to stay on plan than it is to restart again - and again - after spending time in a ditch.

Staying on course when the road is bumpy comes down to the choices we make.  It's not easy, but it's worth it.  Keep your eyes on the road, keep gripping the steering wheel, and choose wisely :-).

Today's Forecast

One of the first things I do every morning is check the weather forecast. Especially this time of year, when temperatures can wildly fluctuate from the 70's one day to below freezing, I don't know what to wear until I know what the forecast is.  Today is starting out in the low 40's, but temps are predicted to get into the mid 60's by later today, so I'll dress in layers and be ready for whatever the day holds.

I have another forecast for you this morning, and it doesn't matter if you live in Alaska or Florida, California or New York.  It's the same forecast.  It's the forecast for your chance of success on this program.

Regardless of where you live, regardless of how long you've been on the program or how much you currently weigh, no matter how much weight you have to lose or how long you've been overweight, I have the forecast for your success on this program.  Ready?

Your chance of success on this program is 100% . . . if you decide to be successful.  I know your chance of success is 100% because Take Shape for Life/Medifast works.  It's been around for over 30 years and Medifast's products and programs have been recommended by more than 20,000 doctors since 1980.  People who follow the protocols of this program lose weight and reach their goal.  You are on a program that has been proven safe and effective and the are innumerable success stories from people who never thought they could lose weight, including myself.  You can have full confidence that as long as you follow the program, you will reach your goal.

The caveat for this forecast, of course, is that you have to decide. Ultimately, the success of this program depends on whether or not you've made the fundamental choice to be successful.  Once we've made the fundamental choice to be successful and get to a healthy weight, we figure out what we need to do to make it happen.  I'm not saying that it's always easy, because it's not, but it's possible.  If we haven't made the fundamental choice to get to a healthy weight, we will allow circumstances to determine whether or not we're going to stay on plan. Traveling, stress, celebrations and social events - there are always events that can and will get us off plan if we haven't made the fundamental choice to get healthy.  If we haven't made that choice, then the forecast for success is 50/50 at best, because life is always happening and there are always things that threaten to interfere with our program.

The forecast for success is 100% dependent on the choices we make.  Choose wisely :-)

Moving Beyond Survival Mode

With three new grandbabies (bringing us to eight grandchildren), plus being self-employed, the past couple of months have been beyond busy for me.  All three of our adult children and their families live close by, which is a huge blessing for both myself and them, allowing me to be available to help.  At times, the juggling needed to make sure that everything that needs to be done is taken care of has left me a bit stressed and more than a little tired.  I'm so thankful that healthy habits have become part of my lifestyle, because in my obese past, a busy schedule would be a lost day/week/month for me in terms of doing anything healthy.  In my obese past, a busy week (or even a busy day!) would be one where I went into what I called my "survival mode," which meant "don't even think about trying to make any changes, just get through it" mindset.   "Survival mode" for me meant eating whatever I wanted, because so-called comfort food was an integral part of my survival.  Any week that included a lot of extra activity automatically triggered my "survival mode" mentality.

The funny thing is that I spent an awful lot of my time in a "survival mode", but I was barely surviving - and actually THRIVING was not even on my radar.  What was happening was that I kept gaining weight and getting into a less and less healthy state, ending up diabetic and on medication for several different things.  I kept thinking that when things slowed down, I'd try to make some lifestyle changes.  When things weren't so busy, I just knew that I'd finally have time to focus on losing weight and getting healthy.  The problem was, of course, that things never really slowed down and every week was filled with things that, in my thinking, mandated yet another "survival mode" week.

What a difference Take Shape for Life has made in my life!  I have not only gone from surviving to really, truly thriving, but this healthy lifestyle now fits perfectly into even the busiest of days or weeks.  In fact, when I'm really busy I tend to eat more Medifast meals just because they are SO convenient and inexpensive.  I just grab and go and don't have to worry about what I'm going to eat or when - I don't even think about it.  Instead of going into a "survival mode" and eating a lot of high-sugar, high-fat empty carbs that used to drain me of all energy, I now have high-nutrition mini-meals that provide the energy I need to keep going.

One of the things I've learned is that there will always be 101 excuses to not make healthy choices.  Life is busy and life has a lot of built-in stresses, so if we are looking for excuses, we don't have to look far.  However, if we really WANT to get healthy, if our eyes are fixed on what we really want, it's amazing how quickly those excuses evaporate. 

Once we're focused on what we really want, we figure out how to make it happen.  I heard someone recently say that if your dream is big enough, the facts don't matter.  If your dream is to get to a healthy weight and live a life that truly exemplifies optimal health, then the "facts" don't matter:  the fact that things are stressful, the fact that life is incredibly busy, the fact that you have twenty social events this month and all of them will involve food, the fact that your kids are making you crazy and your dog threw up and your boss makes Mr. Scrooge look like boss of the year, etc. etc. 

I'm really not trying to sound insensitive to all of the issues that many of you are facing, and I really do understand that life can be incredibly difficult.  What I have come to understand is that NOT taking care of ourselves won't make any of those things better or easier, and eating the wrong kind of food won't help, either.  There may be a lot of things in your life that you can't control right now- but whether or not you stay on plan is something that you CAN control. 

I hope that today is a wonderful, stress-free day and that you are having a wonderful, stress-free week, but even if it's going to be a crazy day and it's been a crazy week, the choice is yours as to how you will respond.  Choose wisely :-)

Another Perspective

One of things I really, REALLY hate is feeling deprived.  I enjoy life and want to savor things, and feeling deprived just doesn't fit in with my joie de vivre :-).  That could have easily been a problem for me when I was on Take Shape for Life's 5&1 program  if I had chosen to dwell on all of the things that I couldn't eat, so I adopted a different mindset. 

I told myself repeatedly that I could have WHATEVER I wanted, but I was CHOOSING to eat a Medifast meal or a lean & green.  While I was on 5&1, people would say things like, "Oh, you probably can't eat this or that" and I would always respond, "I can eat anything I want, but I'm choosing to eat something healthy instead."

That might sound like a silly thing, but it made a huge difference for me in how I viewed the time I spent losing weight.  Instead of feeling deprived and sorry for myself, and instead of having a "poor me, diet victim" mindset, I found it very empowering to view this as a positive choice I was making.  I didn't allow myself to think in terms of "I can't have this or that," because human nature ALWAYS wants what it can't have.  There is something rebellious in this human nature of ours that rears it's ugly head the moment someone says we can't have something.  So I told myself all the time that I could have anything I wanted, and that it was my choice to eat the things I did.  Saying that not only felt very positive and empowering for me, but it kept me from having people feel sorry for me, which I did NOT want.  It left me feeling in charge of the choices I was making, and it was a reminder to me that it really WAS my choice.

It was my choice to go on this plan.  Nobody made me do it.  I didn't HAVE to go on - I could have chosen to remain 260 pounds (or more) and diabetic.  It was my choice to STAY on plan - nobody made me do that, either.  Every day, every meal, it was my choice to do it or not.

For me, I knew it would be deadly to continually focus on what I couldn't have; I did NOT want to spend the better part of a year looking longingly at plate after plate of "forbidden" food.  Instead I focused on what I was gaining and celebrated each and every good choice that I made.  Sometimes it was a real struggle, I promise you, and sometimes I came perilously close to caving in - but I didn't.  Once each decision was made to stay on plan, I knew it was because I chose to do the right thing and it felt SO good to know I'd walked away from a potential slip.

Today I want to encourage you to focus on staying positive, even in the way you think about off-plan food.  You already know that that food really isn't your friend (it probably helped you get where you are, and no real friend would do that!), so I'm encouraging you to think positively today.  Embrace the choice that you've made to get healthy, because it really is, and always will be, your choice.  Choose wisely :-)

Building a Strong Infrastructure

About four hours north of where I live in Michigan, the Mackinac Bridge links the upper and lower peninsula of our state.  The Discovery Channel's program, "Dirty Jobs," did a story a while back about a man who is an industrial painter on the Mackinac Bridge.  He paints the inside of the bridge, a job that nobody sees - a job that doesn't at first glance appear to be very important.

However, this man understands the importance of what he does because the paint he carefully applies to the inside of the bridge ensures that the steel of this wonderful suspended bridge won't rust from the inside out, which would compromise the integrity and safety of the structure.

It's hard to do something, day after day, when the results may not always be visible.  The scale doesn't always move as fast or as often as we'd like.  People may not notice that we've lost weight.  It can get discouraging!  There were weeks when I only lost a pound, and I had several weeks when I didn't lose anything, even though I stayed on plan.  It wasn't until I'd lost 30 pounds that a co-worker finally commented that my face looked a little thinner; after losing 60 pounds, a couple of people wanted to know if I'd changed my hairstyle.  Finally, after losing close to 100 pounds, everybody finally starting commenting that it looked like I'd lost some weight :-).  Feedback, either from the scale or others, just wasn't always there for me, and it may not always be there for you, either.

Moral of story?  Hang in there!  Stay on plan and do it, even if the scale is temporarily stuck (I say "temporarily stuck" because it WILL move, I promise).  Stay on plan and do it, even if nobody notices.  Eventually they will (I promise). As you're waiting for the affirmation you want (from the scale and others), you're building a strong infrastructure that won't rust out on you! 

And while you're waiting, choose wisely :-)

Outside In or Inside Out?

I have a question for you today.  Are you losing weight from the outside in or from the inside out?  How you answer this question may ultimately be the determining factor in whether this is just another diet or the program that will permanently put you on a healthy path. 

If we only lose weight on the outside and don't deal with our internal weight, we're likely to stay in an oscillating pattern of gain-lose-gain.  I don't know about you, but that's not what I want to do for the rest of my life!

I talk about internal weight because I'm guessing that many of us showed up on our first day of this program with a fair amount of emotional baggage.  I was an emotional eater and became an expert in burying my feelings under plates of food.  I did a pretty good job hiding the emotional pain I experienced due to my morbid obesity; in fact, my closest friends and even some of my family members were flabbergasted when I finally began to share how awful I felt for so many years.  I guess I should have been nominated for an Academy Award, because I gave a pretty good performance, acting like my weight was no big deal and didn't impede me in the slightest.  Of course, inside I was miserable and spent over two decades feeling pretty disgusted with myself and so very defeated.

Dealing with that pain, and then going even deeper and dealing with the things that happened in my life that caused me to escape into food initially caused more pain.  I'd made the decision to stay on plan, so turning to food to numb myself emotionally was no longer an option.  But as I allowed God to gently begin to peel back the pain, one layer at a time, healing finally began to happen.  That healing has made all the difference in not only enabling me to get to my goal, but to continue to maintain in my goal range for over 4 years.

So, are you losing weight from the inside out today?  It's not an easy process, but it happens one day and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

Confident Hope

One of the things that I love doing is spending time with people who are on Take Shape for Life's 5&1 plan.  It's amazing to watch the transformation, not just physically as they lose weight, but emotionally and mentally as they begin to realize that they really WILL reach their goal.  They move into the zone that I call "confident hope."

I blogged about "confident hope" back in November of 2007.  I had been on plan for five months, had lost sixty pounds (and just gotten through Thanksgiving on plan!), and was just a day away from leaving the 200's behind forever.  Here's what I wrote on that November day almost five years ago:

One of the things I have gained over these past five months on Take Shape for Life is a confident hope.  I say "confident hope" because we all hope for things, some of which are unlikely to ever actually happen.  I usually send in my Publisher's Clearing House entry and I always hope that I'll win the grand prize, but I'm realistic enough to know that it probably won't happen.  I hope that I can travel to Europe sometime before I die, and that may or may not happen. 

But then there is confident hope, and that's an entirely different kind of hope.  In terms of my weight loss, I have replaced the long-held "I hope I can someday get down to a normal weight again" kind of hope with a new, confident hope because I know that it is finally within my reach.  I am almost half-way there!  This isn't the "probably won't happen, but wouldn't it be nice?" hope.  This is hope that is firmly planted in reality - it is tangible.  And as I wait for the scale to drop that all-important pound that will put me below 200 for the first time in over 18 years, I wait in hope because I know it will happen, and I know that I will see the scale continue to drop.

So, the cost of a month of Medifast food is approximately $300.  But the added benefit of confident hope?  Priceless!!

There is something powerful about the moment when the reality washes over someone that they really WILL reach their goal.  So many of us have struggled for years and had all but lost hope of ever reaching a healthy weight.  Then we found this program, decided to give it a try, and wonderful things began to happen.  As the scale begins to move down and we start to drop sizes, our skepticism finally gives way, first to a tentative hope, and then to confident hope. 

Are you there yet?  If not, just keep doing what you're doing and stay on plan, because it WILL come.  One of the powerful things that comes along with that confident hope is that once you know you're going to reach goal, once that is clearly fixed in your sight, you won't let anything stand in your way.  Once I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I WOULD reach my goal, I wanted to get there as fast as I safely could.  At that point, I viewed off-plan food as obstacles that would only get in the way of where I wanted to go, and eating off plan no longer even tempted me.

It's all about focusing on where you're going and knowing exactly what you want.  You may not yet believe that the program will really work, but keep working it anyway :-).  There WILL be a morning when you wake up and it will hit you that this really is "it", and it's a moment to savor and celebrate. 

You'll reach that moment, just like you'll reach your goal, one on-plan day and one choice at a time!  Choose wisely :-)

Dreaming Big

So often we think that what makes someone successful is determination or commitment or self-discipline.  If we think that we just don't have that same level of commitment or self-discipline, we may end up deciding that we just can't be successful.  But what if the key to success is something entirely different?

One of the things I've heard over and over again is "the most powerful force that drives people to success is the quality of their dream."   What do you think about that?  Do you agree with this statement?  Is it possible that whether or not we're successful has less to do with our level of self-discipline and more to do with the quality of our dreams?

We often talk about reaching our goal, but do we really envision what that is going to look like?  When you think about your goal, is it a fuzzy, nebulous thing out there, or have you fleshed it out in your dreams?  If it's fuzzy, it's not very compelling and you may be more vulnerable to the lure of immediate gratification.  On the other hand, if you are focused on a clear goal, it's much easier to stay on track because you know exactly where you're going.

How would you rate the quality of your dreams when it comes to reaching a healthy weight?  Are you clear on where you're going?  I'm not just talking about what the scale will say - I'm also talking about where you're headed in terms of how you will feel.  What will it feel like physically to be at your goal?  What will you be able to do and enjoy?  What will it feel like mentally to have the struggle to lose weight finally over?  How will you feel emotionally when you are no longer defined by your weight?  

If your dream is powerful, it will become a driving force that will keep you moving toward your goal.  If your dream is powerful enough, your choices will be clear because you will make the choices necessary to support that dream.  So dream big, then choose wisely :-)

Training for a Marathon

I read a story that I thought had great application for all of us (myself included!) who are committed to making changes in our lives.  So often we have great intentions but get sidetracked - and sidelined - because we're so worried about what others might think of what we're doing.  Here's the story:

Recently, when my wife and I wanted to meet our sons and their families for a quick bite to eat, we decided that, with everyone’s busy schedules, it would be easiest to meet at a nearby fast-food joint. When I called my son Joe to suggest the plan, his response was, “Well, I can meet you there, but I can’t eat that stuff. I’m training for a marathon.” 

. . . Joe had a goal in mind—the successful completion of the marathon. He knew that reaching the goal was going to require months of disciplined choices, like waking up early to run longer and longer distances. And it meant that he would need to carefully guard and consider everything that he took into his body. Each meal—in fact, each snack—became an opportunity to choose to nourish and energize his body toward a successful marathon run.

One of the things that impressed me about this story was how matter of fact and unapologetic Joe was, and how accepting his family was of his statement that he would join them at the fast-food restaurant but not eat the food.

It's funny, but if a marathoner turns down food because they're training for a race, absolutely everybody understands and supports the decision, and most people won't try to undermine the decision.  It's universally understood that you don't mess with an athlete in training, and people training for a marathon (or other athletic activity) are amazingly disciplined because they are focused on the ultimate reward.

Why are we so often reluctant to make the same declaration?  We are in training, too, only this isn't just a race, this is our lives and our health.  Yet we find ourselves apologetic when we're in social situations if we don't eat what everyone else is eating, or we cave in because we don't want to offend anyone.

Today my challenge to you is to think and act like a marathoner - be focused on the ultimate outcome and be bold!  This is the marathon of your life, and you are in training - learning new healthy habits that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Ready . . . set . . . go! There are choices to be made today, so choose wisely :-)

Heroes

Eleven years ago today, in the wake of the terrorists attacks on our country, so many ordinary Americans became heroes.  They didn't wake up that morning intending to become a hero, but these individuals risked their lives, and some gave their lives, to save others.

A speaker I heard a while back talked about some of the heroes in our country.  Whether it was one of our founding fathers, the brave pioneers who explored space, the brave men and women who serve our country, or ordinary citizens who responded on 9/11, the speaker pointed out that all were and are ordinary people just like us.  The difference with heroes is that the difficulties never deter them - they define them.  Most of them certainly didn't set out to be a hero, but when faced with challenges they didn't flinch but chose instead to keep moving forward.

We can learn a lot from heroes.  So many of us (and I certainly include myself in the "us") somehow expect things to be easy, and when things aren't easy we're tempted to bolt.  As I think about some of the true heroes in our country, it's almost embarrassing me to even compare the challenges of staying on plan to the kind of challenges these individuals faced.  Staying the course when it's hard is only possible when we have our eyes on the greater good.  If we're only focused on the here and now and being comfortable in the moment, we'll never do it because it's always easier in the short-term to focus on immediate gratification.

But there is a greater good that comes from staying on plan:  getting healthy by getting to a healthy weight.  I can't begin to describe how much this changes your life, but those who've lost weight and reached their goal can testify to the difference it's made.  Staying on plan, even when it's hard, and eventually reaching your goal just might make you a hero to your family members and friends, as they are watching and some of them may end up getting healthy as a result.  In my own family, I not only lost 126 pounds, but my husband ended up losing 50 pounds, my son 60, my mom 40 (and she got off her insulin), my dad lost 30, my son-in-law lost 65, one of my best friends lost 70, and the list goes on and on from there . . . and as these individuals lost weight, other people in their circle of influence were inspired to lose weight and get healthy, too. 

The ripple effect is amazing, and it starts with you and the hard choices you make today.  Choose wisely :-)

The Choices We Make

Every blog I write addresses, in one way or another, the opportunity we have every day to make choices that move us in one direction or another.  I emphasize choices because I don't want any of us to ever lose sight of the fact that we don't have to be victims of our circumstances, and to also encourage you to be an active participant in making your future what you want it to be.  We always have a choice.

So many of us have felt stuck for a long time, maybe trapped is even a better description.  For me, I felt trapped inside a body that I hated.  I hated how I looked and I hated how I felt.  I hated the size I was in and resented the fact that designers seemed to think that plus-size women liked to dress in awful colors and patterns.  For a long time I felt helpless to change my situation, but I kept trying - and failing.  This seemingly endless cycle of trying and failing further fueled my despair and my belief that I couldn't change.  It was a difficult situation to be in - hating where I was yet feeling powerless to change.  I blamed my failure on being weak and undisciplined and I beat myself up mentally and emotionally on a regular basis.

When I was seriously considering weight loss surgery, and contemplating taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, I realized that I had somehow turned a corner in my thinking.  I had reached a level of desperation with my weight that I hadn't experienced before, and that's when I was finally ready - finally - to change.  Finally ready to admit that I couldn't do this on my own.  Before mortgaging our home and our future, I decided to give Take Shape for Life a try. 

So my first choice on my journey was to order a month's worth of product.  That first month was amazing for me because I not only saw weight beginning to melt and saw my blood sugar return to normal, but I also did something I'd never done before - I followed the plan as written and didn't cheat.  Every day that I was on plan empowered me and propelled me forward to the next day.  I'd heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit or break an old habit, so I made the choice to stay on plan for 21 days to see if it really would be possible to break old habits and begin to establish new ones.

I had no idea that those choices would set in motion a series of other choices that would finally bring me to my goal, and that the new habits that grew from those choices would keep me in my goal range more than two years later.  The choices we get not only have their own set of consequences, but they beget other choices.

Do you want your future to include a healthier you?  Choose to be an active participant in creating that future, because it's there if you want it.  As always, choose wisely :-)

Choosing a New Direction

As little children, many of us were encouraged to believe we could do anything we wanted to do.  Once I became a parent, I tried hard to instill in my children the belief and confidence that, with God's help, they could become whatever they wanted to be.  I read my children a fair number of Dr. Seuss books, where they not only learned that they just might like green eggs and ham, but they also learned other things like:  "You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  You're on your own.  And you know what you know.  And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go."

But what happens to us when we become adults?  We may have brains in our head and (most of the time!) we have feet in our shoes, but we often shift from believing that we can decide where to go to thinking that we're trapped where we are.  The disappointments many of us gather along the way to becoming adults, and the failures we experience as adults slowly drain away that "can do" attitude we had as children and we allow other things, people and circumstances, to decide where we'll go and who we will be.

But the reality is that we still have brains in our head and feet in our shoes and we can still steer ourselves in any direction we choose.  We just have to choose.

We may have to shake off those concepts we've accumulated over the years, and that's not always easy to do, but we are never really trapped.  We can begin to move in a different direction the moment we decide to do so.

For many or most of us here, we may have felt trapped for year inside of a body we didn't want and some of you, like me, may have felt pretty hopeless at one point.  Repeated failure as losing weight had worn me down and reinforced my concept that I couldn't do this.  Part of me just wanted to throw in the towel and stop trying because every attempt ended in failure and a deeper sense of frustration and despair. 

I'm so thankful that there was another part of me that kept trying, that refused to accept that I would live out my life in a 260+ pound body.  As health issues related to my obesity began to emerge, I finally realized that my obesity threatened to shorten my life.  That reality gave me the focus I needed to make the choices necessary to go in a new, healthy direction.

The good news is that my experience isn't unique - I've seen countless others make the fundamental decision to get healthy and then turn around years, even decades, of unhealthy habits.  The same can be true for everyone here.  You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  Choose wisely :-)

Good Intentions

I am the queen of good intentions - really I am.  Over the years I've found that my follow-through often falls apart, but wow, my intentions are SO good and so sincere! 

A while back I finally tackled a long-ignored pile of papers that was in the bottom drawer of my desk.  This pile accumulated over several months as I would throw papers in there (usually just before somebody came over in an attempt to quickly straighten up my office), always promising myself that I would get to the paper pile "soon."  Then things would get busy and soon more papers would be added to the growing pile.

As I finally got through that pile of papers, interestingly, one of the things buried in my paper pile was a book entitled (and I'm not kidding!), "100 Ways to Simplify Your Life."  When I bought the book, I obviously had good intentions at the time about getting more organized and simplifying things!

The problem is that good intentions or even the right tools (like my book) aren't enough.  Without follow through, good intentions pile up like the papers in my desk drawer.  Tools that remain used are useless, or worse, add to our guilt because they remind us of what we intended to do but never quite got around to doing.

Everyone who started on this program began with good intentions - the BEST intentions.  This was IT - it was time to lose weight and get healthy once and for all.  This program comes with a variety of tools for us to use, and with the tools available and the ease of the meal replacements, there really isn't any reason why everyone doesn't reach goal, right?  Or ???

The missing ingredient to success for many is the follow through.  We get off plan for one reason or another (the reasons don't matter), and we mean to get back on, really we do.  We have good intentions . . . but our follow through is lacking.  Sometimes we sabotage ourselves for a variety of reasons, and sometimes we're too quick to settle for less than what we really want because we're distracted by the lure of immediate gratification. 

We have the right program, we have the right tools, and we have good intentions.  The only thing we need to be successful is follow through.  That is the choice facing us today . . . choose wisely :-)

Two New "Whys"

One of the things that Dr. Andersen (Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder) talks about a lot is finding our "why."  It's never enough to know what we DON'T want, because that won't sustain us over time.  Our sustainable motivation comes from knowing what we want and why we want it.

I have two more "whys" as of last Wednesday  :-).  Our newest twin granddaughters, Madelyn and Evelyn, were born late last Wednesday night, weighing in at 4 lb. 15 oz. and 4 lb. 13 oz., each 17.5 inches long. They were born 4 weeks early and are doing GREAT - mom and babies came home Friday evening.

Almost six years ago (November of 2006) my daughter gave birth to her first set of twins.  The attached picture shows my husband and I holding them shortly after birth, along with a picture taken of us last Wednesday night holding her newest (and last!) set of twins.  One of the reasons I made the decision to get healthy in June of 2007 was because I wanted to be around for my grandchildren.  Having just turned 60 in July, it is sobering to realize that by the time my new grandbabies turn 20, I will be 80.  That takes my breath away!  More than ever, the choices I make today will determine the quality of life I have at 80.  Do I want to be as active and vibrant at 80 as possible?  My answer is an obvious "yes!"  I know I can only be that vibrant, active 80-year old IF, and it is a big IF, I continue to make healthy choices.

That's not as easy as it sounds, nor is it as easy as I wish it was.  Even more than four years after reaching my goal, consistently doing what I need to do is a challenge.  The operative word here is "consistently."  As I have shared in the past, my "fat girl tastebuds" are still alive and kicking and I find myself often challenged to stay the course with what I know is best.  An occasional "not stellar choice" meal is certainly OK, but sometimes a few of those get strung a bit too close together and the scale and my clothes remind me of that.

Dr. Andersen says, both in person and in his book, "Dr. A's Habits of Health," that eating a cheeseburger today doesn't make any difference today, but over time it makes all the difference between being on an unhealthy path and being optimally healthy.

Looking into the face of my newest grandbabies, I know I want to see these girls grow up and I would like to be their fun, vibrant grandmother out on the dance floor at his wedding.  Another reason for me to choose wisely :-)