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 :-)