Happy Birthday to My Husband!

Today is my husband's 62st birthday and I am taking this opportunity to wish him a VERY happy birthday!  John and I met my freshman year in college - I was 18 and he was 19 - started dating a year later and married two years after that.  It is hard for me to believe that he is celebrating his 62nd birthday . . . I am shaking my head in disbelief.  I told him that while our commitment was to grow old together, I just didn't expect to get here so fast :-).

Even though he is in his 60's and will get his first Social Security check in March (more disbelief here!), my husband is healthier than he's been for most of his adult life.  When we got married in 1973, he was overweight - pudgy probably best described him at that time.  I cooked up a storm that first year of marriage and managed to pack another 20 pounds on him (and a few pounds on myself, too).  We did a couple of crazy diets together and while I dropped the weight and was fairly successful in keeping it off until my mid-30's, other than a brief period of time when he adopted a rigid diet and took up running to lose weight, John was overweight his entire adult life.

That all changed five years ago.  He watched me lose weight beginning in June of 2007 and by January of 2008, he was ready to try Take Shape for Life for himself.  In three months' time he lost 50 pounds and has maintained his weight loss.  By losing weight, he was also able to get off his blood pressure medication.  Heart disease runs in his family and both his father and his older brother had heart attacks in their early 60's.  Had John not gotten healthy, he may well have been facing heart disease himself by this point in his life.

Five years ago he made the choice to get healthy, and I'm so thankful he did.  Because of that choice and all of the choices he's made since that time, Lord willing, I look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with him!

Have a great Wednesday, and remember to choose wisely :-)

Raise Your Hand If This Isn't Fun Anymore

I've received several positive comments from individuals who enjoy reading some of the blogs I wrote five years ago while I was on 5&1.  Since it's good for me to remember and since it's helpful to at least a few of you, today I'm posting a blog I wrote five years ago, in January of 2008.

*****

I'm still 100% on plan and have been since starting Take Shape for Life/Medifast last June 24, but wow, am I getting a bit weary of the whole thing!  I'm two pounds away from my BMI dropping below 30 (I will officially be "overweight" - woo hoo!!) and I'm looking pretty darn good for a grandmother of 4 closing in on my 56th birthday.  However, I recognize this as VERY dangerous thinking for me.  I don't want to settle for "good enough" or certainly for "good enough for someone MY age."  I want (and need) the satisfaction of seeing this through all the way to my goal.  And since my doctor agreed with my goal of 130, I can't exactly rationalize quitting early.  I know myself well enough to know that if I stop now, even though I've come a long way and am wearing sizes I haven't been able to wear in over 20 years, I will feel, in my heart of hearts, that I failed.  I'm afraid that thinking could be the first step towards regaining all of the weight that I've lost so far, and I can't go there.

Because I'm one pound away from having lost 80 pounds, I had my husband take a couple pictures of me so I could get them ready for my (hopefully soon!) "80 Pounds Gone Progress Photos" post (I figure I won't look any different one pound from now).  I put the progress photos together with a few "before" photos and Photoshopped all of them into a single photo.  I did this as much for me as for anyone else, because I really need to SEE where I was and how far I've come.  That helps to keep me motivated, even on days when I'm sick of being on MF, sick of skipping over all of the really YUMMY food selections on the restaurant's menu and deciding between which kind of grilled meat I'm going to order THIS time.  I'm tired of skipping the sauces, holding the butter, passing on the bread, and saying no to the desserts.  BUT then I look at my "before" pictures and realize all over again how worth it all of this is, and I know that's exactly how I'll feel when I reach my final goal.

I also have to remind myself that in the past six months I have gone from being on the brink of diabetes to NORMAL (even my doctor said so!), from needing meds to keep my cholesterol down to having normal cholesterol WITHOUT meds, from having blood pressure that was on the rise to NORMAL, HEALTHY blood pressure, and from having so much pain in my knee that I could hardly walk to literally running up and down stairs.  All of that is worth it - wow, is it EVER!

So my thinking today is something like this:  Is this still fun for me?  Not particularly, but so what?  Am I getting a bit bored with the whole thing?  Yes, but so what?  Was it fun being 260 pounds????  Was it fun shopping for the very largest sizes my local woman's store carried?  Was it fun worrying about being diabetic?  Was it fun paying the copay every month for my cholesterol meds?  Was it fun having pain with every step, taking stairs one at a time, and not being able to wear some fun high heels?

This is my reality check on a very cold January in Michigan.  Yes, I'm bored and a bit tired of the whole thing, but boredom won't kill me and obesity might.  And I'm worth reaching my goal, and my family is worth me reaching my goal.  For once in my life, it's about doing what I KNOW I need to do, not what I feel like doing. 

*****
I had many days after I wrote this blog when I wasn't having fun staying on plan, when I was bored to death with my food choices (there are a lot more Medifast food options now than there were five years ago).  However, I stayed on plan regardless of how I felt.  When I reached my goal, I had NO regrets for having made the choices I did!  Five years later, I still have to choose every day whether or not I'm going to do what I need to do or what I want to do (still waiting for the "want" and "need" to consistently be one and the same!).  You face the same choice every day, too.  Let's choose wisely :-)

"Shoulds" and "Musts"

Is losing weight and getting healthy on your "should" list or is it on your "must" list?  How you answer that just might make the difference between reaching your goal and maintaining your weight loss and falling short of where you want to be.

Peak performance coach and human behavior expert Tony Robbins says that when people aren't achieving their goals, it is often because they haven't made it a "must." 

“People give up on achiev­ing their goals because they are ‘shoulds’ and not ‘musts,’” says Robbins.  “ But when something becomes an absolute must for you, when you cut off any other possibility in your mind, then you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goal.”

Do you retain the option of not losing weight?  Have you left yourself open to the possibility of staying overweight?  If you can honestly answer "yes" to either of these questions, you are possibly approaching this program as a "should" rather than a "must."  As long as we're approaching weight loss as a "should," we're allowing ourselves the possibility of failure.

However, if we've made this a "must" in our lives, if there is no other allowable option other than getting to our goal, we will find a way - or make a way - to overcome the obstacles that we face.  That doesn't mean that we might not slip, because a "must" doesn't necessarily ensure 100% compliance 100% of the time (thought that is highly recommended!).  "Must" means that if we do slip, we pick ourselves up and keep on going.

When I placed my first Take Shape for Life order, I had finally reached the point that losing weight was no longer a "should", it was a "must."  I told my husband that night that I couldn't continue in the body I was trapped in anymore.  I had finally reached the point when I was ready, and that made all of the difference.

One more thought:  the "must" has to be YOUR "must", not someone else's.  If you are thinking that you "must" lose weight because your doctor told you to, or because your husband or someone else is urging you to lose weight, then your "must" is still a "should."  "Must" comes from deep inside of you, it is not the product of external pressure.  Regardless of how intense that pressure might be, if it's coming from someplace else, it's a "should."  YOU have to want this, and YOU have to make the decision that there is simply no other alternative.

Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, calls this point "making the fundamental choice to get healthy."  In his wonderful book, Dr.A's Habits of Health (which I highly recommend!), he writes at length about choices, starting with the fundamental choice to get to a healthy weight.  Once we've made that choice, we will made the secondary choices necessary to support our fundamental choice because we've left ourselves no other options.

So is this a "should" or a "must" for you?  If getting to a healthy weight is a "must", then carefully consider the choices you'll have to make today, then choose wisely :-)

Hanging On and Letting Go

What are you holding on to today?  I'm asking this question because I've realized that sometimes we desperately hold on to things that are no longer serving our best interest - sometimes they never did.  

When it comes to losing weight and getting healthy, many of us struggle to release old patterns of eating.  We struggle and want to hold on to our favorite foods, even when those foods and our relationship to them landed us in an unhealthy BMI range, perhaps even contributing to illness and disease.  When we struggle to let go of what is no longer working for us, we may end up going off plan repeatedly.  We hang on to those old things and look at them as forbidden fruit; we feel deprived because we can't have the very things that got us here in the first place.

In Beth Moore's Bible study, "Breaking Free," one of the things she said that really resonated with me is that "whatever we give up is only to free our hands so we can receive all God has for us."  We can't receive something new if our hands are full of old stuff.

I have a picture in mind right now of hands that are tightly gripped around something old and rotting, fingertips white because the grip is so tight.  Within reach is something new and beautiful, but to take that new thing into the hand, the old will first have to be released.  The problem is that the old, while rotting, is familiar - it fits in the hand and the hand is warm from holding it for so long.  Letting go of the old thing means that, for a split second, the hand will be empty and cold.  It's uncertain how the new thing will fit and feel in the hand, so even though it looks beautiful and most desirable, the idea of actually having that in hand is pretty scary.

Some of us have struggled with being overweight or obese for a long time.  We hate how we look and feel, and part of us really wants to reach out and claim the healthy body and new life that is within our reach.  Before we can do that, we have to let go of the old, rotting habits.  Letting go of them isn't deprivation - it's freedom.  It doesn't feel like that at first because those habits have become so comfortable and warm in our hands.  But once we're willing to recognize them for what they are, things that are keeping us in a place we don't want to be, and once we're willing to loosen our grip and let them go, we are able to receive something far better.

It's not easy!  I wish it was, but it's not.  But it's worth it.  Shift your eyes from what you're hanging on to and really focus on what is is that you want.  Shift your focus, then choose wisely :-)

Wrestling With a Grizzly Bear

We got hammered with snow over the past couple of days - winter has settled in for a nice, long stay here in Michigan.  Several inches of snow cover the ground and more snow is on it's way.  I joke that those of us who experience this type of weather (I resisted the urge to write "endure"!) have a deeper appreciation for spring, summer and fall than those who are surrounded by green grass and flowers twelve months of the year, but the truth is that this kind of weather has a tendency to drag me down.  Because we live very near Lake Michigan, we typically get a lot of cloud cover most of the winter and going for days without sunshine probably contributes to that dragged-down feeling.

Truth is, this time of year brings out the grizzly bear in me - all I want to do is put on a nice layer of fat via lots of carbs and sugar and then sleep until spring :-).  For years, that's pretty much how I coped with our Michigan winters.  Even in my 20's and early 30's when I was at a healthy weight, I'd pick up around 10 pounds every winter then take it off in the spring and summer and just accepted the fact that my winter slacks were a size larger than my summer ones.  I didn't understand at that time that I was really yo-yo dieting and that each gain/lose/gain cycle was actually increasing my percentage of body fat, so I succumbed to the inclination to carb load and curl up under a blanket with a book.

To be honest, that is STILL my inclination . . . but that's not what I do anymore.  As tempting as it is to reach for those carbs and vegetate under a blanket, I'm making different choices these days.  That grizzly bear tendency is still there and it still growls at me, but I'm growling back :-).  I know that what I really want is to be thin and healthy, and grizzly bear living is NOT the way to have what I really want.  So, whether I feel like it or not, I make healthy choices and I move my body.

I think that my seasonal battle with the grizzly bear can most likely be attributed to my self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but I've found that eating right and staying active actually helps to calm the grizzly bear.  I also take extra Vitamin D to make up for the sunshine that we miss - the extra D helps minimize some of the winter blahs, too, and I have a light therapy box that I can use as well.

Sometimes it's just plain hard to make the choices we know we should be making when we frankly feel like doing something else.  If we are taking a short view of life, we'll go for the immediate gratification and follow our instincts almost every time.  The challenge is to shift our focus and look at where we want to be in 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months from now.  If we stay focused on where we want to be, and if that's what we REALLY want, we will then be able to make choices that will support what we want.

So it really doesn't matter how we feel today - what matters is what we want tomorrow and the day after that.  Focus on what you want, then choose wisely :-)

Excuses

Before I started on 5:1, I had a million and one excuses (known as "reasons" in those days) as to why I was obese, why I couldn't stay on a program, why I couldn't lose weight.  I won't bore you by listing some of those excuses, although I'm guessing that some of my excuses were your excuses, too :-).

For all of us who have excuses why we can't do one thing or another, whether it's losing weight or something else, please take a few minutes and watch this video from a recent episode of Oprah . . . it blew me away, and it blew Oprah away, too!

Choose wisely :-)

Pressing On

In this new year, just about everyone I knows has a new enthusiasm and determination to get back on track and get their weight off.  You have to love New Year's resolutions!  The challenge for most of us when it comes to those resolutions is that all too often we quickly lose our focus.  

In Beth Moore’s “Believing God Day by Day” devotional book, she writes:

The middle of any challenging journey can be the most critical point.  Many of us may not be where we were, but we’re not yet where we want to go.  Perhaps the terrible bondage of Egypt is behind us, but the land of promise seems remote.The longer we wander in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land, the greater the chance that we’ll return to captivity.  The pull of familiar comforts and habits can feel overpowering, particularly against the uncertainty of Canaan’s unknowns.  But as we persevere, God is faithful to continually give us the extra push of motivation to press on.

Once we've been on plan for a while and lost some weight, and once we've dropped a size or two, the pressing need to lose weight can start to feel a bit, well, less pressing.  We've entered that state in our weight loss journey where the pain of where we were (Egypt) has lessened, but we aren't quite yet to the Promised Land (our goal weight).  That in-between time can be challenging, and it's easy to lose motivation and begin to slip into old habits.  We may begin to think, "I've done really well - look how far I've come.  I deserve a "treat" today."  Or we think, "I'll take a mini break from being on plan and view it as a test to see how I'll do in maintenance."  

I'm here to encourage you to keep pressing on - don't stop now.  Don't take a break - just keep moving forward!

In Dr. Andersen's book, "Dr. A's Habits of Health," he writes about shifting our focus from where we started to looking ahead to where we want to go and what we want to achieve, which is optimal health.  (This book is terrific, and if you haven't ordered it yet, make sure you do.  Everything you could possibly want to know about how to reach and maintain optimal health is there.)  

Over 4-1/2 years since reaching my goal, I am finding the need to continue to focus on moving forward in my own journey towards optimal health (and it is an ongoing journey!).  It's been over 5-1/2 years since I first started on 5&1, so each day takes me a little bit farther away from the pain and misery I experienced at 260 pounds.  It's easy for me to forget how miserable I was, and it's also easy to begin to rationalize unhealthy eating.  I have had to refocus on what I want, which is optimal health for the rest of my life.  Being back on 5&1 to peel off a few pounds I've picked up, getting to the health club for a good workout on a regular basis, whether I feel like it or not, getting adequate rest - all of these things have me moving in the direction I want to go and it feels great!

Regardless of whether you're just getting started, somewhere in the middle of your journey, or, like me, dealing with the challenges of maintaining a healthy weight, the challenge for all of us is the same: to make sure that stay focused on what we want and continue to choose wisely :-).

One Shovel at a Time

There was once a little boy with a small shovel, which he was using to try and clear a pathway through deep, new-fallen snow in front of his house.  A man stopped to watch the little boy for a couple of minutes and then asked the boy how on earth he expected to finish such a big task with such a small shovel.  "Little by little, that's how!" was the response, and the boy kept shoveling.

Some of us may feel like we have tackled an enormous task with the smallest of shovels, and it can feel overwhelming sometimes.  I know that the prospect of losing 120 pounds seemed impossible to me, which is one of the reasons I was researching weight loss surgery options when I found an on-line ad about Take Shape for Life/Medifast.  I mistakenly thought that having surgery would be the "easy way" to lose weight, and also the only way.  It was only because the surgery wasn't a covered benefit under my insurance plan that I even decided to give this program a try.

I approached my first day much like the boy with the small shovel.  I faced an enormous challenge and my resources were puny at best.  I couldn't tackle the entire pile in a single shovel, but every Medifast meal that I ate was taking one more small shovelful and tossing it aside.  Each meal on its own seemed pretty insignificant, and each day seemed pretty inconsequential as well, but those meals and those days added up, until that enormous pile was finally gone.

There are days when it gets tiring, and there are days when staying on plan isn't much fun.  I tell people all the time that I did NOT wake up every single morning joyful that I faced another on-plan day :-).  But the thought of not reaching my goal, and my desire to put over two decades of morbid obesity behind me once and for all kept me at it, one Medifast meal at a time.

In the story, I found it interesting that a man stopped to question the boy and tried to raise doubts in the child's mind.  We all have those people in our lives, and some of us even live with them - people who raise questions, who have their doubts about whether or not we will really do it this time, people who have seen us try and fail over the years and fully expect us to fail once again.  There are naysayers everywhere and they can quickly discourage us - if we allow them to.  I think the little boy's attitude is exactly what ours needs to be - he just kept on shoveling!  

When it all boils down, we have to do this for ourselves.  Different people will have different opinions about what we're doing and I can promise you that not everyone will be supportive.  It can be hard to ignore the naysayers and keep on keeping on, but that's exactly how we'll reach our goal!

Choose wisely :-)

Valuable Stepping Stones

My husband has a sign in our office that says, "The lesson is in the struggle, not in the victory."  He has this sign as a reminder that there is value in the struggle, and even in the failures we experience along the way to what is ultimately victory.

We are a success-oriented, success-celebrating society, and most of us have spent our lives viewing failure as something to be avoided at all costs.  That thinking has been difficult for many (or most) of us who have struggled with our weight for years.  It's hard to be a walking example of weight loss failure in a society that rejects failure. 

When we start on Take Shape for Life, we all experience immediate success as we see weight begin to drop, and that early success propels many of us on all the way to our goal.  However, that early success doesn't keep everyone motivated and many find themselves struggling sooner or later.  

I want to encourage all of the strugglers today.  Your struggles, and even your failures, are valuable stepping-stones on the way to ultimate success.  Every struggle and every failure teaches us what doesn't work and gives us the opportunity to fine-tune what we're doing - if we're paying attention along the way :-).  I once heard a speaker say that "the hallmark of achievers is that they have failed their way to success - every failure teaches us what doesn't work."

The key, of course, is to pay attention and use those struggles and failures as opportunities to learn.  We may trip and fall a dozen times, but if we get up again and learn from the experience, we'll be stronger in the end.  The victory will also be that much sweeter - and there WILL eventually be victory.

When we fail - and we all do, one way or another, sooner or later - we are faced with a choice.  We can either beat ourselves up and allow the failure to define us, or we can choose to learn from the failure and use that failure to propel us to future success.  The choice is ours, so choose wisely :-).

The Secret to GUARANTEED Success!!

I am SO excited this morning!  I have a secret to share with you - THE key that will GUARANTEE your success on this program.  It doesn't matter if you're just getting started (if so, welcome!) or if you're a veteran who's been on the program for several months (or longer).  This is it - the key that is guaranteed 100% to get you to your goal.

Are you ready?  Here's the key to your success:

1.  Get started
2.  Don't quit

Yep - it's that simple!  Here's the good news:  since you're reading this, I'm assuming that you've already started.  If that's true, then you're half-way there!  :-)  Getting started is often the hardest part, especially if we've tried and failed before.  Failure tends to breed failure, and if you've failed before (like I did about a zillion times), the very thought of trying again can be overwhelming.  The fear of failing yet again can keep us from even trying, so the very fact that you've started is encouraging.

The second half of the "guaranteed success" equation is to keep going and not quit.  You already know that this plan works.  If you've been on plan for even a week, you've lost weight - possibly more weight than you've ever lost in a single week on any other plan.  All you have to do is keep going :-).

This is such a great time of year to keep going and not quit!  First of all, with everyone just coming off the holidays, a lot of people are focused on eating healthier and losing weight.  There are less temptations now and you are more likely to encounter sympathetic, supportive people.  For everyone who lives in one of the cold weather states, you have several months before shorts and swimsuit weather is here - great motivation!  Getting started and not quitting means you'll be at your goal (or at least a lot closer) by the time warm weather arrives.

I do apologize if the key to success wasn't exactly what you were looking for - I fully understand!  Before starting on Take Shape for Life, I was always on high alert, looking for THE thing that would finally unlock the chains of my own morbid obesity.  Almost every January would find me perusing the diet section of my local bookstore, checking out the latest and greatest plan.  Every year I hoped and prayed that the latest and greatest new plan would be THE key.  When someone I knew lost weight, I'd always ask them how they did it.  When they responded that they changed how they ate and started exercising, I was always disappointed because that answer was so simple - I wanted to hear about something new that would let me eat whatever I wanted, continue to be a couch potato, and still melt the pounds.  

Of course, that "secret" never materialized, and I know now that it never will.  There IS no magic potion, pharmaceutical wonder, or anything else that will bring the results we want without effort on our part.  Sigh!

However, this plan works and it works fast.  All of the hard work has been done for us - we don't have to figure anything out.  No counting calories, carbs or fat grams, no worrying about whether or not we're getting the nutrition we need - it's all been taken care of.  All we have to do once we start is just keep going and not quit.  If we do that, the chances that we'll reach our goal is 100%.

Get started.  Don't quit.  The choice is ours, so choose wisely :-)

How 'Bout Those Resolutions?

We're one week into the new year, so how's it going so far?  I read an article that said, according to research, many people don't have the willpower to make their New Year's resolutions last longer than a week.  A week . . . which means that there are some people whose resolutions are already starting to weaken or have even collapsed.  

I hope that doesn't apply to anybody here!  I do know that successfully losing weight (and maintaining it!) requires a lot more than what is usually found in a New Year's resolution.  Most of my past New Year's resolutions were mostly wishful thinking with very little resolve to be found.  I know that's true because they rarely lasted a full week.  

The research identified the reason for failure as a lack of willpower, but I disagree.  Willpower really has nothing to do with it, because we almost always end up doing the things we really want to do.  We just need to decide what it is that we want and keep what we want in focus. 

When I decided that what I really wanted was to get to a healthy weight, that became my focus and there was a level of resolve that hadn't been there before.  Foods that had formerly been huge temptations suddenly became obstacles to me getting what I really wanted.  The food hadn't changed, of course, but my focus had and I wanted health far more than I wanted the food.  To be honest, I still wanted the food, and sometimes it was really, REALLY hard to walk away from it, but I was able to walk away because there was something else I wanted even more.

I've often heard people say that they can't lose weight because they don't have enough willpower.  Sorry, but that's a cop-out!  The truth is that they just don't want it bad enough, at least not yet.

The good news is that Take Shape for Life is designed to get us what we really want - if we really want to get to a healthy weight - and it will get us there pretty quickly.  We just have to decide if that's what we really want.  Once we decide, we'll make choices that support that decision.  Once again, decide what you want, then choose wisely :-)

Feeding the Dogs

There's no denying it - getting to a healthy weight and maintaining a healthy weight is an ongoing battle.  We are constantly challenged to make wise choices, and the struggle to choose between immediate gratification and what we REALLY want - a healthy body - can be a fierce struggle.  One friend told me that she said she felt like she had an angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil on the other, with each whispering in her ear.  I've had that same feeling and I'm guessing that a lot of you have, too.  We know what we SHOULD do, and perhaps it's what we really WANT to do, but then there's this other voice that says, "just this once won't hurt . . . ".  All of the sudden, the battle is on as two conflicting desires pull us in two different directions.

The battle that wages is about so much more than whether or not we're going to eat something at that particular moment.  The battle that's waging is really the battle between getting healthy and staying overweight/obese.

Take Shape for Life did a lot of wonderful things for me, and I'm continuing to reap so many of the benefits, but it did not cure my obesity.  The plan enabled me to return to a healthy weight and put me on a path towards optimal health, but it did not cure my obesity.  That beast is there, always there, ready, willing and able to rear its ugly head and take over my life if I choose to become mindless about what I eat and do.

Everyday that I make healthy choices is another day that develops the healthy habits I want to keep and develop for the rest of my life.  However, I am aware that the beast is alive - just hungry and underfed at the moment :-).  I'd like to think I could starve it to death, but that's not likely to happen.

I once heard a story about a man who talked about the internal struggle he was having and likened it to a fight between two dogs.  Someone asked him which dog was winning and the man replied, "Whichever one I feed."

Everyday each and every one of us has to face the dog fight yet again.  We're in a battle for our health, and one of the dogs in the fight is named obesity.  This dog may be a little skeletal at the moment because it hasn't been fed in a while, but it's watching in the corner, waiting for an opportune moment.

So every day we plan, and we commit to NOT feeding that dog today!  Every day I realize all over again that I CANNOT do this on my own and ask my Heavenly Father for a fresh measure of His grace and strength.  And every day that I do that - and every day that each of us makes a commitment to making the sometimes hard choices - is another day that moves us a bit closer to a healthier you and me.

Which dog are you going to feed today?  The choice is yours - choose wisely :-)

Choosing to Believe

"If you were to take the most talented athlete in the world and put him or her in a room of liars and verbal abusers for two hours a day, you'd see the athlete's performance sharply decline.  The level of talent remains the same, the training continues, but the ability to win vanishes.  Why?  Because no one can listen to constant discouragement and be encouraged.  No one can have confidence undermined and still be confident.  No one can doubt his or her ability and still use it effectively.  What we believe matters a lot."

This quote has wide application for many areas of our lives, including this weight loss journey.  As I've shared before, the food part of this program is simple - it's the head and heart part that's the challenge.  What we believe about our ability to be successful in losing weight matters.  The kind of feedback and support - or lack of support - from others also matters.

We have to choose who and what we're going to listen to because there will always - ALWAYS - be thoughts and words that discourage.  Our struggles in the past can cause us to doubt our ability to be successful now or in the future.  For some of us, there are people in our lives who are natural-born naysayers and who seem to think it is their calling to say a discouraging word at every opportunity.  If we believe the negative thoughts we have and listen to the negative comments of others, this journey is going to be even more of a challenge.

When I was on 5&1, I had a lot of negative thoughts that ran through my head that caused me to doubt this program would work.  All of my past failure seemed to have a megaphone that shouted "give up, it will never work."  No one could have been more skeptical than I when I started on this program.  Thankfully I didn't have any nay-sayers in my life - my husband was supportive from the very beginning - but I believed a lot of lies about myself and my ability to change.  

My belief about what I could and couldn't do began to change because of two things.  First of all, while I "believed" I couldn't stay on plan for a month or a year, I knew that I could stay on plan for a day, so I took it one day (and sometimes one meal) at a time.  As each day on plan was added to the one before, the days turned into a week, then into a month, and what I believed about what I could and couldn't do began to change.  I realized that I had been believing a lie and I had allowed that lie to keep me stuck in a very unhealthy pattern.

Secondly, I surrounded myself with encouraging people.  The daily support and encouragement I received from others who believed I could do this was amazing!  I also drew a lot of inspiration and encouragement from reading about people who had reached their goal and I spent a lot of time looking at their success photos and reading their stories.  Realizing that others were successfully losing weight helped me believe that I could be successful, too.

Right now you may not believe you can be successful, but do you believe you can stay on plan for a day?  Do you believe that you can make your next meal a Medifast meal?  Start there, and by taking one tiny step at a time, you will not only change what you believe about your ability to lose weight on this program, but you will also change your life.

If you have nay-sayers in your life, find a way to mute their negativity.  You may or may not be able to avoid them, but by surrounding yourself with others who will encourage you, you can begin to get the support you need to continue moving forward.  You have the right to have the support you need!

The choices we make today go far beyond what we're going to put in our mouths.  We also have to choose what we allow to resonate in our hearts and minds, and we have to choose what we're going to believe.  Choose wisely :-)

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013!  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's, and I also hope that you're ready to make 2013 your healthiest year ever.  It doesn't matter if you're just starting on this program for the first time or if this is your umpteenth go-around.  It also doesn't matter if you blew it royally over the holidays.  The only thing that matters is that you've made a decision NOW to create something wonderful - a healthy, thin YOU, living the life you want to live.

That may sound next to impossible to some of you; it sure sounded impossible to me when I started on this program in June of 2007.  I was desperate to lose weight but, at 5'5" and 260 pounds, I didn't think it was possible to lose the weight I needed to lose.  Two decades of failure with multiple weight loss attempts only reinforced what I believed to be true.  Funny thing, though - what I believed to be true about my inability to lose weight ended up not being true at all!  I not only lost a total of 126 pounds on this program, reaching my goal in May of 2008, but I've been fairly successful in maintaining my weight loss ever since.  I say "fairly successful" because I haven't done maintenance perfectly,  but this program has given me the tools I need to know what to do when the scale blips up.

So how do you shift gears and move forward, even if you don't really believe you can?   It's simple (please note:  I said "simple," not "easy"!).  You shift gears by focusing on what you want.  Have you made the decision to lose weight and get to a healthy weight?  I'm not talking about you wanting to lose weight, because just about everybody wants to lose weight :-).  I'm asking if you've made the decision to lose weight and get healthy.  This isn't a matter of semantics.  Everyone wants to lose weight and would opt to do so in a heartbeat if it could be done quickly and without giving anything up.  However, very few people actually make the fundamental decision to get to a healthy weight, because once you make that decision, things begin to change.

It's not that making the decision to get to a healthy weight somehow waves a wand that magically makes it happen, but once you make the fundamental decision and focus on what you want, you will begin to make the choices necessary to support that decision.  Making the decision also doesn't mean that you won't ever slip up, because some of you will, but if you have your eyes on your goal and keep focused, you'll keep moving forward.

Forget what's happened in the past - you can't change it.  The past can only rule your present and determine your future if you allow it to.  Today, at the beginning of 2013, you can set your course for a different future - IF you know what you want and have made the decision to go for it.  Once you've done that and focused on what you want, all that's left to do is make the choices that will support your decision.   Decide, focus, then choose wisely :-)