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 60 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 Shpe for Life.  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

A friend of mine posted a quote on my Facebook page that I thought was good enough to share:  "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."  I like that!  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.  I remember talking with a pharmaceutical rep four or five years ago 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 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 my friend's 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 four 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 five 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 eating habits) and I knew that she was a mirror of my future if nothing changed.  Her weekly calendar was often filled with doctor appointments: internal medicine specialist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, retinal specialist, renal specialist.  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 :-)

It's Not Fair

More than once I've felt like it's just not fair that I can't eat "normally" like everyone else.  Anytime I've even ventured into the neighborhood of my old eating habits, the scale and the way my clothes fit quickly remind me that I can never go back there.  I wish I could honestly say that none of that food ever tempts me, but that's not the truth.  The brutal reality is that I still have a fully-developed set of fat-girl taste buds and most of the old stuff still tastes pretty good to me.  I choose to eat healthy the vast majority of the time, but my natural inclination would take me back to that old, high fat, high carb/high sugar neighborhood.  Were I to settle back into that neighborhood, some unwanted things like high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes would most likely take up residence with me as well.

When I'm tempted to throw a private "it's not fair" pity party, I am also reminded that when we eat like "normal Americans" we get "normal American" results - 66% of us are overweight or obese!

I think that a lot of us would like to figure out a way to eat "normally" and still get to and maintain a healthy weight, but that's not possible, at least if we define "eat normally" to mean "like we used to eat."

My new reality is that I AM eating normally for someone with my goals. My goal include staying at a healthy weight, BEING and STAYING healthy, wearing fun clothes in small sizes, having the energy I need to do the things I want to do and keep up with my grandchildren (soon to be 8 of them!). And while it may not be fair I can’t eat in the same way as (some) other people, it would be so much more unfair if I couldn’t reach my goals.

It always comes back to the fact that I've made the decision to be healthy.  That is my primary choice when it comes to my health.  To support that primary choice, I will, for the rest of my life, have to make the secondary choices necessary to support my decision to be healthy.  Much like the concert pianist who makes the secondary choice to practice for hours whether he feels like it or not because he wants to be a concert pianist, those secondary choices aren't always what we WANT to do.  But they support what we REALLY want.

If we take our eyes off of what's most important to us, it may not "feel" fair to make those secondary choices, but when we keep our eyes on the prize, we'll find it's much easier to choose wisely :-).

Lace Up Those Running Shoes!

My daughter is a runner and is preparing to run a 25K on Saturday (the largest 25K in the country).  Because she is preparing for this race (at 16 miles, this is slightly longer than a half-marathon) she is focused on endurance and knows she needs to pace herself so she can go the distance.  Preparing for a marathon is very different from preparing for a 100-yard sprint, and running a marathon is very different from running a sprint, too.

The difference between preparing for and running a marathon versus a sprint certainly applies to the journey we're on, because we've embarked on a marathon.  We really have to prepare ourselves to stay consistent over the long haul, because no matter how long it will take for us to reach our goal, reaching our goal is only the first phase of this program.  Maintaining at a healthy weight is the rest of the program - one marathon after another.

I'm not a runner, but I've watched bits and pieces of a few marathons over the years.  As I think back to the marathons, one thing I remember is that most of the runners aren't smiling while they're running.  Some of them look like they're concentrating, and others are actually grimacing.  The exhilaration of taking off at the starting line eventually fades and the marathoner is faced with the task of just putting one foot in front of the other.  At some point along the way, it's not particularly fun any more.  But running a marathon isn't necessarily about having fun along the way (although some runners really do enjoy the journey).  Running in a marathon is about finishing it and having the satisfaction of knowing that the runner accomplished something difficult.  There might not be a lot of smiling going on during the marathon, but there are lots of smiles and lots of celebrations at the finish line.

Sometimes we have unrealistic expectations about the weight loss marathon we're on and we expect it to be fun and exciting the entire time.  That might be true if it was a 50 yard dash, but it's not a dash - this is the marathon of our lives.  The reality is that we will alternate between exhilaration and exhaustion, between feeling like this is the best thing we've ever done to hating the thought of doing this one more day.  In the end, we will experience a full spectrum of emotions on this journey, but as long as we keep putting one foot in front of another, we will cross the finish line.  And when we cross the finish line and reach goal, there will be smiles and lots of celebration.  

And after the celebration we'll begin the next marathon - maintenance :-).

So, are your running shoes laced up this morning?  It's another marathon day - are you committed to staying the course today?  Your commitment will be reflected in the choices you make . . . choose wisely :-)

What I've Learned . . . Again . . .

As I shared yesterday, a lot of "life happens" is happening in my life right now and my response hasn't supported my long-term goal to live a longer, healthier life.  Without even realizing it, I somehow found myself firmly back in a survival mode and mindset, solely focused on the here and now rather than keeping one eye fixed on my long-term goals.

I've been reminded again of a couple of key, and very basic, principles.  When these are forgotten or set aside, the outcome is seldom what we truly want.

The first basic principle is that we HAVE to stay focused on what we really want long term.  Life happens to all of us and there is an overwhelming tendency to set aside our real goals because we're caught up in surviving the moment.  That may be our natural tendency (at least it's MY natural tendency . . . ), but doing that doesn't serve our long-term, best interests.  Choosing to lift our eyes from the here and now to focus on our real goals will help us regain perspective and will also remind us of the wise choices needed to reach those goals.  I temporarily forgot about what I really, truly wanted.  Now that I've reminded myself again and have focused on that, my head and my heart are in a different - and better - place.

Second principle, and this may be the most important one of all (at least it is to me):  Food won't fix it.  No matter what the situation is, no matter how stressful a situation may be, food doesn't fix it.  My "go to" food lately has been sweets.  My normally "clean" kitchen has been infiltrated by things that are normally banned . . . and I did the infiltration myself :-(.  "Treating" myself to these things left me feeling sluggish and less able to deal with the stress, to say nothing of the fact that some clothes are fitting a bit more snug right now which generates a myriad of not-so-happy feelings.  Making poor choices not only fails to fix the original issue, but doing so creates more stress and more negative feelings.  NOT a good cycle to find ourselves in!

One of the things I learned on my 5&1 journey in 2007-2008 was that I needed to look to the TRUE Source of any comfort I needed - my Heavenly Father.  Although I've done a lot of praying lately about some of the situations we're facing, I haven't continued to ask God for the strength I needed to make healthy choices. I realized in 2007-2008 that I couldn't lose the weight without His help, but somehow I slipped into thinking that I could maintain and continue to make healthy choices on my own.  I've been reminded - again - of my ongoing need to depend on the Lord ALL the time.  That's a good thing :-)

So that's where I am today, and I'm committed today, with God's help, to choose wisely :-).

Dropped My Oxygen Mask

Crazy-busy doesn't even come close to describing the last three weeks of my life.  Our son got married two weeks ago in a small, family ceremony (we are now empty-nesters!!), we spent a week in Arizona attending a conference, we helped our son and his wife move into a new apartment and we are helping our oldest daughter and her family get ready to move into a new house in two weeks.  Our son and his wife also just took temporary custody of her nephew (3) and niece (10 months), so I've spent some time helping them with the children (his wife also has a 3 year old son).  Like I said, crazy-busy!

What happened in the process of being crazy-busy is that I didn't make the time to really take care of myself.  Sleep got short-changed, exercise went out the window and - true confessions - I wasn't particularly mindful about what I was eating, either.  I still gravitated towards healthier food for the most part, but I wasn't mindful of portion sizes.  My stress level went up - way up - and I stopped taking care of myself, slipping into an old "survival" mode.

So what was the end result of this?  Scale went up, energy level plummeted, and I found myself dealing with all of the busyness feeling less than optimal - sluggish and a bit out-of-sorts.

I took stock this morning and realized that enough is enough!  Things are going to be crazy-busy for a while . . . I'm not sure how long my son and his wife will have these two children plus they are having a baby in July so things will be busy there, our oldest daughter is not only moving to a house closer to us, but she is expecting her second set of twins late this summer and one of the twins will be born with a fairly significant disability - I will be very busy helping her, I'm sure.  To juggle the needs of my family and have the energy I need to help with THREE new grandbabies (!!!!!), I need to be at the top of my game. 

This means that I have to take care of myself, too!  Eating right, getting in regular exercise and getting adequate sleep is essential so that I can give my best to my family.  It's so easy to set aside taking care of ourselves when things get busy and we are busy taking care of everybody else.  For moms with young children in the home, this is an ongoing challenge - I remember those days very well!

Every time we fly, the pre-flight instructions include the flight attendants telling us that in the event of a change in cabin pressure that results in oxygen masks dropping down, it's important that we put on our own oxygen mask first before we attempt to help someone else.

It's a bit scary for me to see how quickly I can drop healthy habits and revert to things that aren't serving my best interest.  It's been almost four years since I reached my weight loss goal and I keep thinking that eventually maintaining is going to get easy, but I'm realizing that it never will be easy.  Constant vigilance and daily wise choices are needed and always will be.

So today I'm recommitting to making those wise choices.  I'm too busy to NOT take care of myself!  No matter how busy we are or what's going on in our lives, if we want to feel good and have the energy to deal with the stuff, even the craziness, we have to make the decision to choose wisely :-).