It seems impossible that we're only two days away from Christmas, and just over a week away from ringing in a new year! With much to do over the next couple of days and with our 4-year old twins spending the night (for the first time with us!) next week, I'll be taking a break from writing my blog until the first of the year.
Regardless of where the scale says you are right now, most of you weigh less and are healthier now than you were just a few months ago. You may not be where you want to be, but you also aren't where you were - celebrate that!
Over these next couple of days, don't allow the busyness to distract you from what you really want - a healthier you! If you've made the decision to stay on plan through the holidays, good for you - you'll never regret it. If you've made the decision to wait and get back on Take Shape for Life/Medifast 5&1 after the holidays, set a firm restart date and write down all of the reasons you want to get to a healthy weight, then stick to that restart date. It can be challenging starting again, and it's never as easy the second (or third) time around because you know the drill, but focus on what you want and go for it!
Most of all, over these next couple of days, don't allow the busyness of the season to detract from the REAL Reason for the Season :-). "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." ~ John 3:16. God gave us His very best gift, Jesus Christ. My prayer is that there will be no unopened gifts for you this Christmas.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year . . . and, of course, choose wisely :-)
Showing posts with label weigh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weigh. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
The Battle
Yesterday afternoon we saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I love the Narnia series and really enjoyed the movie. I won't give anything away (don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie yet and aren't familiar with the story), but one theme was very interesting to me and had great application for all of us.
The characters are on a grand adventure and, like any grand adventure, there are dangers along the way. For the characters in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, most of the dangers are from within, not without. Early on they are told "to defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness inside yourself." And so the Dawn Treader becomes a voyage of self-discovery, in which characters are challenged, tempted and tried before finding the wherewithal inside—and outside—themselves to triumph.
Each character is faced with their own dangers from within, temptations that threaten to defeat them. Each character's temptation is different, and each character had to come to terms with this internal struggle.
For me, the struggle on this program was much more of an internal struggle than a struggle with external things. It was an ongoing challenge to not only defeat the internal voices that told me I couldn't do this, but to also battle the desires for immediate gratification. There were also times of discouragement when the scale wasn't moving and it was hard to stay the course.
Right now there are a lot of external temptations to be sure. For many of us, it's hard to think about the holidays without thinking about all of the traditional food that accompanies them. However, even during this time with external temptations, the greatest battle we face is the internal one.
Do we want to reach a healthy weight? Do we believe we can? Are we willing to make the choices necessary to reach our goal or will we choose to give in to the temptations?
It's a real battle and we need to acknowledge that, but it's a battle that's worth waging - and it's a battle that can be won. We will win this battle one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)
The characters are on a grand adventure and, like any grand adventure, there are dangers along the way. For the characters in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, most of the dangers are from within, not without. Early on they are told "to defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness inside yourself." And so the Dawn Treader becomes a voyage of self-discovery, in which characters are challenged, tempted and tried before finding the wherewithal inside—and outside—themselves to triumph.
Each character is faced with their own dangers from within, temptations that threaten to defeat them. Each character's temptation is different, and each character had to come to terms with this internal struggle.
For me, the struggle on this program was much more of an internal struggle than a struggle with external things. It was an ongoing challenge to not only defeat the internal voices that told me I couldn't do this, but to also battle the desires for immediate gratification. There were also times of discouragement when the scale wasn't moving and it was hard to stay the course.
Right now there are a lot of external temptations to be sure. For many of us, it's hard to think about the holidays without thinking about all of the traditional food that accompanies them. However, even during this time with external temptations, the greatest battle we face is the internal one.
Do we want to reach a healthy weight? Do we believe we can? Are we willing to make the choices necessary to reach our goal or will we choose to give in to the temptations?
It's a real battle and we need to acknowledge that, but it's a battle that's worth waging - and it's a battle that can be won. We will win this battle one choice at a time . . . choose wisely :-)
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Having It All
I had the opportunity a few days ago to watch a vintage TV commercial from the late 1970's or early 1980's. The ad was for a cologne and it featured a woman who proudly proclaimed she could bring home the bacon, cook it up in a pan, and never let her husband forget that he was a man - singing all of this as she skillfully (and cheerfully) moved from a corporate look to wearing an apron to wearing something sexy to remind her husband . . . oh, never mind! :-) The implication was that a woman really could have it all, at least if she wore the right cologne.
A couple of decades later and I think most of us have figured out that we really can't have it all, at least not at the same time. Some of us have spent a lot of time and driven ourselves and our families half-crazy trying to have it all - all at the same time - and ended up tired, frustrated and disappointed in the process. We then conclude that we must be doing something wrong because we're sure that if we just did things right, we could somehow pull it off.
The reality is that when we choose one thing, by implication we are also NOT choosing something else. That's true in life and it is most certainly true when it comes to our weight and our health. Unless we are blessed with a killer metabolism (and the fact that you're reading this means you probably don't have one!), we have to choose between eating everything we want, when we want it and in the quantity we want, and getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. This time of year we may want to eat everything at the holiday parties and throw caution to the wind, but we can't do that AND keep moving toward a healthy weight at the same time.
It's not always fun living with the reality of having to choose. I want to eat all of my favorite holiday goodies, but I know I can't do that and continue to zip my size 6's . . . there's nothing like white sugar and white flour mixed with lots of butter to pile pounds on me pretty quickly! I think part of that is due to the fact that I just don't metabolize that stuff very well and I think the other part is that once I start eating that kind of thing, my brain disengages and portion control tends to go out the window.
I have a whole collection of great holiday recipes - cookies, breads, etc. that I haven't baked since December of 2006. I was on 5&1 in December of 2007 and have been in maintenance since then. I was looking through the recipes a few days ago and really had some conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I remembered many of these recipes with a lot of fondness - they are great recipes and I enjoyed making them and eating them. On the other hand, there was a bit of sadness because I'm not sure that I'll ever make some of them again. We generally have a couple of desserts on Christmas day, so there isn't any need for me to bake up a storm and serve a lot of extra things. My entire family eats a lot healthier now and we're much more careful about what we eat; if I baked a lot of extra things, they would either end up getting thrown away or worse, I'd end up eating them.
As much as I enjoyed baking and eating all of those things, I hated weighing 260+ pounds and being diabetic. I loved baking and eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, but I hated how I looked and felt. So I have to choose what I want because I can't have both the food and my health.
Ultimately we will choose what is most important to us. Our challenge is to not lose sight of what we really want. This time of year it's easy to forget and succumb to immediate gratification, so take a minute to remind yourself of what you really want, then choose wisely :-)
A couple of decades later and I think most of us have figured out that we really can't have it all, at least not at the same time. Some of us have spent a lot of time and driven ourselves and our families half-crazy trying to have it all - all at the same time - and ended up tired, frustrated and disappointed in the process. We then conclude that we must be doing something wrong because we're sure that if we just did things right, we could somehow pull it off.
The reality is that when we choose one thing, by implication we are also NOT choosing something else. That's true in life and it is most certainly true when it comes to our weight and our health. Unless we are blessed with a killer metabolism (and the fact that you're reading this means you probably don't have one!), we have to choose between eating everything we want, when we want it and in the quantity we want, and getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. This time of year we may want to eat everything at the holiday parties and throw caution to the wind, but we can't do that AND keep moving toward a healthy weight at the same time.
It's not always fun living with the reality of having to choose. I want to eat all of my favorite holiday goodies, but I know I can't do that and continue to zip my size 6's . . . there's nothing like white sugar and white flour mixed with lots of butter to pile pounds on me pretty quickly! I think part of that is due to the fact that I just don't metabolize that stuff very well and I think the other part is that once I start eating that kind of thing, my brain disengages and portion control tends to go out the window.
I have a whole collection of great holiday recipes - cookies, breads, etc. that I haven't baked since December of 2006. I was on 5&1 in December of 2007 and have been in maintenance since then. I was looking through the recipes a few days ago and really had some conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I remembered many of these recipes with a lot of fondness - they are great recipes and I enjoyed making them and eating them. On the other hand, there was a bit of sadness because I'm not sure that I'll ever make some of them again. We generally have a couple of desserts on Christmas day, so there isn't any need for me to bake up a storm and serve a lot of extra things. My entire family eats a lot healthier now and we're much more careful about what we eat; if I baked a lot of extra things, they would either end up getting thrown away or worse, I'd end up eating them.
As much as I enjoyed baking and eating all of those things, I hated weighing 260+ pounds and being diabetic. I loved baking and eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, but I hated how I looked and felt. So I have to choose what I want because I can't have both the food and my health.
Ultimately we will choose what is most important to us. Our challenge is to not lose sight of what we really want. This time of year it's easy to forget and succumb to immediate gratification, so take a minute to remind yourself of what you really want, then choose wisely :-)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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 was part of a devotional I read this morning and I thought it had 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 Take Shape for Life/Medifast 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 :-)
This quote was part of a devotional I read this morning and I thought it had 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 Take Shape for Life/Medifast 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 :-)
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