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 six 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 six years ago, in January of 2008.

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I'm still 100% on plan and have been since starting 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. 

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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 six 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!  Six 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 :-)

Holding 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 :-)

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 5-1/2 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 6-1/2 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!

If you need a little encouragement to stay focused and continue moving forward, I encourage you to sign up for Take Shape for Life's Stop.Challenge.Choose 12-Week Health Transformation, www.stopchallengechoose.com.  This is free and participants will receive a daily morning e-mail for the next 12 weeks from Dr. A with encouragement and suggestions that will help to keep you focused and motivated. 

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 :-).

My 600 Pound Life

For the past couple of weeks I've been watching TLC's "My 600 Pound Life", (airs on Tuesday nights).  Each episode follows the story of an individual over the course of a year (they all end up having gastric bypass surgery).  For each of them, their lives and their health have spun out of control due to their super-morbid obesity and it's painful to watch their struggle.This past Tuesday tonight's episode featured a woman from Chicago who was on oxygen and who hadn't left her house in two years. She talked about food and how it made her happy, even though it was clear that she was miserable and feeling hopeless.  How ironic to hear her talking about food making her happy when it was the very thing keeping her trapped!

Even though none of us were or are 600 pounds (thank the Lord!), how many times have we thought the same thing about food?  Even as we've watched our weight increase, even as we've perhaps begun to experience health issues due to our weight, even as we've shied away from activities and social events due to our weight - we've stuffed our faces and told ourselves that food makes us happy. It's easy to see the irony when a 600-lb. woman talks about food making her happy, but sometimes easy to dismiss that same thinking and behavior in ourselves. 

One of the things that's sobering for me to watch this program is knowing that, but for the grace of God, that could have been me. My highest weight was 268 and when I started on Take Shape for Life in June of 2007, I was on the fast-track to reach 300 pounds and beyond. I think I understand what happens to allow someone to reach 600 pounds - I believe they completely lose hope and get lost in their obesity and food addiction and then the food addiction takes over. It's scary because I know what a stronghold my food addiction had on me and I know at one point how very hopeless and out-of-control I felt.

I am so thankful to God for leading me to this program when He did . . . I didn't even realize how ready I was to change my life until I started on program and began to see real results. Yes, my body changed dramatically as I lost 126 pounds in less than a year, but what changed even more dramatically was my relationship with food. I learned to stop running to food, stopped expecting food to fix my stress, my boredom, and to be my comfort. As I did that, as I turned to the true Source of my comfort - my Heavenly Father - I realized that food never really comforted me, it never fixed anything. That realization brought tremendous freedom and it's a freedom I live in today as I approach six years since I reached my weight loss goal.

For so many of the individuals on "My 600 Pound Life," their struggle with emotional eating continues after their weight loss surgery because the surgery could only address their physical hunger, not their emotional hunger.  For those of us here, we have the same challenge. If we don't address our emotional hunger, long-term success will be a challenge. 

For some, it may be as simple as learning to replace old, unhealthy habits with newer, healthy habits. For others, embracing new, healthy habits will be important, but some of those emotional hunger issues may remain.  One book I've found incredibly helpful for me and a number of my clients is "Made to Crave" by Lysa TerKeurst. Lysa is a recovering emotional eater and is very transparent in sharing her own struggles as well as how she is overcoming her food addiction. I highly recommend this to anyone who, like me, struggles with emotional eating.

Getting healthy, physically and emotionally, is a journey and involves making small choices that support our long-term goal every day . . . 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 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!

Keep shoveling . . . and choose wisely :-)

The Secret to GUARANTEED Success!

I am SO excited today!  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 if you're feeling a bit disappointed.  Before starting on this program, 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 keeping it off!) 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.
This program 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 :-)

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014!  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's, and I also hope that you're ready to make 2014 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 2014, 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 :-)