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 and medical director, 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 six 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 Type 2 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 :-)

Pull the Stake, Walk Away

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Beth Moore.  I've gone through several of her Bible studies and enjoy her insights and practical applications.  One of Beth's quotes from her "Breaking Free" study continues to challenge me: "To the the degree that I'm in captivity, I'm believing lies.  To the degree that I'm walking in liberty, I am believing the truth."  

That statement causes me to reflect on my journey from 260 pounds to goal, a time when I was finally able to walk away from over two decades of emotional eating.  For years, I was caught in what was truly captivity, unable to break free from a miserable cycle of emotional eating and yo-yo dieting.  I believed for a long time that I couldn't get out of it, that this was my "lot in life", and that led to feeling pretty hopeless.  There were times when I was in the midst of binge eating and realized how sad and destructive it was, but dismissed it as "well, I have an eating disorder," dismissing my actions because I believed I couldn't help it.  I tried over and over again to lose weight and my repeated failures led me to believe that I couldn't lose weight.  I was over 50 and believed that women my age couldn't lose weight.  I believed a lot of things that weren't true and, as a result, those lies kept me captive.

As I've shared before, I didn't believe that Medifast would work, but decided it was worth giving it a try.  The first untruth that was exposed was my belief that I couldn't lose weight, that women my age couldn't lose weight.  I started losing weight right away and my long-held belief about my ability to lose weight began to crack in light of the truth.  Because of the cost of the program, I made a commitment to stay on plan for one month (I couldn't justify the cost unless I was actually doing the program).  When the stuff of life bubbled up that would have plunged me into an emotional eating binge, I found that, with God's help, I WAS able to stay on plan and deal with the emotions instead of stuffing them.  As that happened time and time again, I realized that although I was certainly an emotional eater, I had the ability to walk away from it - I was not a helpless victim.  I finally began to embrace the truth that I was only held captive as long as I chose to be held captive. 

I've shared this story before, but since it fits so well here, I'm going to share it again:

Have you ever seen an elephant at the circus?  I don't know if they still do this, but years ago circus elephants could be seen standing next to a small wooden stake in the ground with a chain around one ankle. In the story I read, the writer became rather curious as to how one small wooden stake could hold a large elephant captive, so he did some investigating.  As it turns out, the trainer begins using the chain and stake when the elephant is just a baby.  The baby elephant is unable to pull free and, over time, gradually accepts the chain and the restriction it provides.  What the elephant never realizes is that as it grows stronger, it could easily pull the stake out of the ground and be free.  You see, the elephant adapts itself so completely to the chain that it loses sight of the fact that it could free itself in a moment, if it only realized that the chain no longer had any power over it.

The lies we believe are the puny stakes in the ground that hold us captive.  We have the ability to walk away the minute we choose to believe the truth, and the truth is that we CAN walk away.  It's not easy, but it's possible.  The choice is ours today . . . 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 our pain, rather than make it go away. We're still in pain about what we were in pain about before we ate, but now we'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?' On top of the discomfort we had before, we've now added the feelings that accompany failure. 

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 :-)

Celebrating Five Years Since Reaching Goal . . . The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Celebrate with me today! Five 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/Medifast 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 this program 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 six years ago that I would be celebrating five full years at a healthy weight, I wouldn't have believed them.  If someone would have told me six years ago that I would be working full-time as a health coach 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.

Right now I'm about 15 pounds above where I really want to be, and while that isn't ideal (and I'm working on it!), I've learned to grant myself grace and not waste time berating myself when I haven't followed my own advice about choosing wisely :-).  I AM celebrating maintaining an over 100 pound weight loss for five years and celebrating the ongoing improvement that has made in my health.  I still eat six small meals a day and 2-3 of them are still Medifast meals. I have recently made the decision to eliminate wheat and gluten from my diet, so am thankful that many of the Medifast products are gluten free. I have gone back to tracking my meals to keep better track of my calories and am finding this accountability to be incredibly helpful.  Even when eating healthy, which I do, it's easy to eat more than I should and too much of a good thing, even healthy food, is NOT a good thing :-).

My long-term goal is to fully internalize the principles in Dr. A's Habits of Health, THE best book out there for long-term success and health.  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 five 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 healthy is absolutely worth it!  You're facing your own set of choices today - how I hope and pray that you will choose wisely :-)

Backwards Thinking

Why do we tend to 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 six years ago, just before starting on Take Shape for Life/Medifast.  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 this program 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 Wednesday will mark my five-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 :-)

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 5:1 :-).  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 61 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 Shape for Life/Medifast.  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

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."  I like this quote!  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.  Prior to starting on 5:1, I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep 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/Medifast 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 this 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 five 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 six 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 I knew that she was a mirror of my future if nothing changed.  Her weekly calendar was filled with doctor appointments: internal medicine specialist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, renal specialist, podiatrist.  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 :-)

"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 morning 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 :-)

It's Worth It!

Sometimes it's good for me to go back and re-read some of my earliest blogs, just to remind me of where I was less than six years ago.  When I started this program and wrote my very first blog, I had NO idea that so much would change in the course of a few short months.  Looking back, I'm thankful that I decided to start a blog to record my thoughts and my progress.

I came across this blog, first written on September 24, 2007 - three months to the day after starting the program.  I hope that what I wrote then will be an encouragement to you today!

Yesterday started my 14th week on Take Shape for Life/Medifast and I have lost 40 pounds so far!  I'm also down 3 pant sizes (and my current size is getting mighty loose) AND my formerly elevated blood glucose level has returned to normal.  That is so much WONDERFUL progress in such a few short weeks!  I am getting not just thinner but HEALTHIER, one day and one meal at a time.

Last night was our bi-weekly small group Bible study and, as always, there was dessert - last night it was hot apple crisp with ice cream.  And no, I didn't have any - not a bite!  The amazing thing is that I really didn't even WANT it.  What???  That is the honest truth.  I had a Medifast meal just before we left, so I wasn't hungry (that helped!), but more than that, I took a look at the dessert and knew that it would not help me reach my goal.  It was easy to say no.  Who would have thought such a thing of me a few months ago? 

Never before have I had a mindset where I could easily and readily turn down food (that probably explains why I started this program weighing 260 pounds!).  Every other diet I've ever been on automatically included "off diet" meals or days for me, as I couldn't imagine not ever straying off plan.  But this time is different for me, and now I can't imagine NOT staying on plan.

What's changed?  Seriously considering weight loss surgery made me realize that I had turned desperate, and I found information on Medifast while researching weight loss surgery options.  It seemed, and I firmly believe, that God led me to this program when He did to show me there was another, better way for me.  I was looking for what I thought was an "easy" solution (as if permanently rearranging my insides was the easy solution!), but what I found instead was a plan to truly change my life.  I also knew that I had spent the last 20 years of my life battling weight, and I didn't want this to be one of the defining factors of the rest of my life.  Having four precious grandchildren (4, 2, and 10 month old twins) makes me want to be healthy so that I can be a truly FUN grandma.  I want to be around and healthy so I can dance at their weddings and eventually rock THEIR babies :-).

Committing to this journey has resulted in a different mindset for me.  It didn't happen all at once, but as I have made deliberate decisions each day to make wise and healthy choices, it's become easier and easier, and now it's second nature.  I am finally learning the joy of self-discipline (even 55 year old grandmas aren't too old to learn new habits!!), the satisfaction of delayed gratification, and the sheer pleasure that comes from knowing, deep down, that I'm doing the right thing for my body and my health.

I have a LONG way to go until I reach my goal, so I have not in any way, shape or form "arrived" - physically or mentally - but I'm getting there, one meal and one good decision at a time.

Those new habits that were beginning to form 14 weeks into this program took root and not only brought me to my goal, but have enabled me to maintain my weight loss for almost five years :-).  The choices I had to make certainly weren't always easy, but I have no regrets!  The four grandchildren I referenced in this blog are now 10, 8, and 6-1/2 and they have no memory of me being obese; we've also added five more grandchildren since then (yeah!!). All our grandchildren know is that they have a healthy grandma who loves chasing them around and having fun with them - and I really DO look forward to dancing at their weddings and rocking their babies someday!

Losing the weight and maintaining requires the same thing: staying focused on what we want and then, one meal and one day at a time, making the decision to choose wisely :-)

Run Like a Rhino!

Here's an interesting piece of trivia:  a rhinoceros can run 30 miles an hour!  Given it's size, 30 mph is an amazing speed (a squirrel can run 27 mph).  Do you know what's even more amazing than how fast a rhinoceros can run?  Rhinos can only see 30 feet ahead.  Think about it!  The animal can only see 30 feet in front of him and he's running 30 mph.  The person who enlightened me noted that rhinos run full speed ahead, even though they can only see 30 feet in front of them, figuring that what ever is at 31 feet better be afraid of what's coming!

Now what does this have to do with losing weight and getting healthy?  

So often we're afraid to move full-speed ahead with getting to our goal because we can't see what's ahead.  We want to see the entire path laid out before us before we're ready to just go for it.  We think we need to know exactly how transition will look and we especially want to be able to envision life in maintenance.  When some of those things are a bit fuzzy, we can find ourselves putting on the brakes because venturing into the unknown can be scary.

This can be particularly true for those of you who have struggled with weight your entire life.  If you've always been overweight, heading towards a healthy weight really CAN feel like you're the near-sighted rhino running full speed towards who-knows-what, because you're heading to a place you've never been before.  You may not like what's in your near view, but it's familiar, and that can be enough to keep you in a cycle of self-sabotage.  

If this sounds like you, here's my best suggestion:  run as fast as you can towards your goal, even if you don't have a clue what it will look like when you get there!  This requires a certain amount of courage, to be sure, and it requires some trust.  However, with each step you take, you'll see one more step ahead, so don't worry about the steps you can't yet see - they will become clear when you get there. 

And the destination - a healthy, thin body - is worth every step of the journey.  And YOU'RE worth it!  And you'll get there one meal, one day, and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)

Falling Leaves

I can hardly believe this is the first day of May!  In my part of the country, the month of April took us from the last of wintery weather to spring with trees, shrubs and tulips all beginning to bloom.  It's funny, but in the midst of all of the new growth I'm seeing all around me, here and there I'm seeing dead leaves on the ground.

Most of the leaves dropped last fall and were raked up and disposed of long ago.  However, a few leaves clung tenaciously to the trees all winter, despite cold winds and lots of snow.  A hard winter could not dislodge the leaves, so they stayed put until a week or so ago when new leaves began to emerge, finally pushing those dead leaves off the tree.  

Those dead leaves are like some of our most deeply-ingrained bad habits.  There are some habits that we can shake off fairly easily, but then there are those OTHER habits . . . habits that can't just be shaken off.  For many of us here, we've tried to drop some bad eating habits, only to find them clinging fiercely to us until we think we're stuck with them forever.

The good news is that we CAN get rid of the bad habits - AS we replace them with healthy new habits.  Replacing an old, unhealthy habit with a new, healthy one is the only way to make a permanent change.  And how do we develop new, healthy habits?  Practice :-)

Each day that we make a healthy choice instead of our former unhealthy choice, we are doing two important things at the same time:  we are strengthening the new habit and weakening the old habit.  Making this change takes time - a minimum of three weeks is needed before new habits begin to take hold (and old ones begin to loosen their grip).  Solidifying those new habits will take more time yet, and maintaining them will require ongoing diligence - but it's worth it!!

We can't just eliminate a bad habit - we need to replace it with a new, healthy habit. When we eliminate a bad habit, the void will quickly be filled by something else (often another bad habit!) unless we are very intentional about filling the void with something positive, something that will keep us moving in the direction we want to go.

Eliminating bad habits and incorporating healthy habits are reflected in the choices we make today.  Choose wisely :-)