Dreaming Big

So often we think that what makes someone successful is determination or commitment or self-discipline.  If we think that we just don't have that same level of commitment or self-discipline, we may end up deciding that we just can't be successful.  But what if the key to success is something entirely different?

One of the things I've heard over and over again is "the most powerful force that drives people to success is the quality of their dream."   What do you think about that?  Do you agree with this statement?  Is it possible that whether or not we're successful has less to do with our level of self-discipline and more to do with the quality of our dreams?

We often talk about reaching our goal, but do we really envision what that is going to look like?  When you think about your goal, is it a fuzzy, nebulous thing out there, or have you fleshed it out in your dreams?  If it's fuzzy, it's not very compelling and you may be more vulnerable to the lure of immediate gratification.  On the other hand, if you are focused on a clear goal, it's much easier to stay on track because you know exactly where you're going.

How would you rate the quality of your dreams when it comes to reaching a healthy weight?  Are you clear on where you're going?  I'm not just talking about what the scale will say - I'm also talking about where you're headed in terms of how you will feel.  What will it feel like physically to be at your goal?  What will you be able to do and enjoy?  What will it feel like mentally to have the struggle to lose weight finally over?  How will you feel emotionally when you are no longer defined by your weight?  

If your dream is powerful, it will become a driving force that will keep you moving toward your goal.  If your dream is powerful enough, your choices will be clear because you will make the choices necessary to support that dream.  So dream big, then choose wisely :-)

Training for a Marathon

I read a story that I thought had great application for all of us (myself included!) who are committed to making changes in our lives.  So often we have great intentions but get sidetracked - and sidelined - because we're so worried about what others might think of what we're doing.  Here's the story:

Recently, when my wife and I wanted to meet our sons and their families for a quick bite to eat, we decided that, with everyone’s busy schedules, it would be easiest to meet at a nearby fast-food joint. When I called my son Joe to suggest the plan, his response was, “Well, I can meet you there, but I can’t eat that stuff. I’m training for a marathon.” 

. . . Joe had a goal in mind—the successful completion of the marathon. He knew that reaching the goal was going to require months of disciplined choices, like waking up early to run longer and longer distances. And it meant that he would need to carefully guard and consider everything that he took into his body. Each meal—in fact, each snack—became an opportunity to choose to nourish and energize his body toward a successful marathon run.

One of the things that impressed me about this story was how matter of fact and unapologetic Joe was, and how accepting his family was of his statement that he would join them at the fast-food restaurant but not eat the food.

It's funny, but if a marathoner turns down food because they're training for a race, absolutely everybody understands and supports the decision, and most people won't try to undermine the decision.  It's universally understood that you don't mess with an athlete in training, and people training for a marathon (or other athletic activity) are amazingly disciplined because they are focused on the ultimate reward.

Why are we so often reluctant to make the same declaration?  We are in training, too, only this isn't just a race, this is our lives and our health.  Yet we find ourselves apologetic when we're in social situations if we don't eat what everyone else is eating, or we cave in because we don't want to offend anyone.

Today my challenge to you is to think and act like a marathoner - be focused on the ultimate outcome and be bold!  This is the marathon of your life, and you are in training - learning new healthy habits that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Ready . . . set . . . go! There are choices to be made today, so choose wisely :-)

Heroes

Eleven years ago today, in the wake of the terrorists attacks on our country, so many ordinary Americans became heroes.  They didn't wake up that morning intending to become a hero, but these individuals risked their lives, and some gave their lives, to save others.

A speaker I heard a while back talked about some of the heroes in our country.  Whether it was one of our founding fathers, the brave pioneers who explored space, the brave men and women who serve our country, or ordinary citizens who responded on 9/11, the speaker pointed out that all were and are ordinary people just like us.  The difference with heroes is that the difficulties never deter them - they define them.  Most of them certainly didn't set out to be a hero, but when faced with challenges they didn't flinch but chose instead to keep moving forward.

We can learn a lot from heroes.  So many of us (and I certainly include myself in the "us") somehow expect things to be easy, and when things aren't easy we're tempted to bolt.  As I think about some of the true heroes in our country, it's almost embarrassing me to even compare the challenges of staying on plan to the kind of challenges these individuals faced.  Staying the course when it's hard is only possible when we have our eyes on the greater good.  If we're only focused on the here and now and being comfortable in the moment, we'll never do it because it's always easier in the short-term to focus on immediate gratification.

But there is a greater good that comes from staying on plan:  getting healthy by getting to a healthy weight.  I can't begin to describe how much this changes your life, but those who've lost weight and reached their goal can testify to the difference it's made.  Staying on plan, even when it's hard, and eventually reaching your goal just might make you a hero to your family members and friends, as they are watching and some of them may end up getting healthy as a result.  In my own family, I not only lost 126 pounds, but my husband ended up losing 50 pounds, my son 60, my mom 40 (and she got off her insulin), my dad lost 30, my son-in-law lost 65, one of my best friends lost 70, and the list goes on and on from there . . . and as these individuals lost weight, other people in their circle of influence were inspired to lose weight and get healthy, too. 

The ripple effect is amazing, and it starts with you and the hard choices you make today.  Choose wisely :-)

The Choices We Make

Every blog I write addresses, in one way or another, the opportunity we have every day to make choices that move us in one direction or another.  I emphasize choices because I don't want any of us to ever lose sight of the fact that we don't have to be victims of our circumstances, and to also encourage you to be an active participant in making your future what you want it to be.  We always have a choice.

So many of us have felt stuck for a long time, maybe trapped is even a better description.  For me, I felt trapped inside a body that I hated.  I hated how I looked and I hated how I felt.  I hated the size I was in and resented the fact that designers seemed to think that plus-size women liked to dress in awful colors and patterns.  For a long time I felt helpless to change my situation, but I kept trying - and failing.  This seemingly endless cycle of trying and failing further fueled my despair and my belief that I couldn't change.  It was a difficult situation to be in - hating where I was yet feeling powerless to change.  I blamed my failure on being weak and undisciplined and I beat myself up mentally and emotionally on a regular basis.

When I was seriously considering weight loss surgery, and contemplating taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, I realized that I had somehow turned a corner in my thinking.  I had reached a level of desperation with my weight that I hadn't experienced before, and that's when I was finally ready - finally - to change.  Finally ready to admit that I couldn't do this on my own.  Before mortgaging our home and our future, I decided to give Take Shape for Life a try. 

So my first choice on my journey was to order a month's worth of product.  That first month was amazing for me because I not only saw weight beginning to melt and saw my blood sugar return to normal, but I also did something I'd never done before - I followed the plan as written and didn't cheat.  Every day that I was on plan empowered me and propelled me forward to the next day.  I'd heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit or break an old habit, so I made the choice to stay on plan for 21 days to see if it really would be possible to break old habits and begin to establish new ones.

I had no idea that those choices would set in motion a series of other choices that would finally bring me to my goal, and that the new habits that grew from those choices would keep me in my goal range more than two years later.  The choices we get not only have their own set of consequences, but they beget other choices.

Do you want your future to include a healthier you?  Choose to be an active participant in creating that future, because it's there if you want it.  As always, choose wisely :-)

Choosing a New Direction

As little children, many of us were encouraged to believe we could do anything we wanted to do.  Once I became a parent, I tried hard to instill in my children the belief and confidence that, with God's help, they could become whatever they wanted to be.  I read my children a fair number of Dr. Seuss books, where they not only learned that they just might like green eggs and ham, but they also learned other things like:  "You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  You're on your own.  And you know what you know.  And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go."

But what happens to us when we become adults?  We may have brains in our head and (most of the time!) we have feet in our shoes, but we often shift from believing that we can decide where to go to thinking that we're trapped where we are.  The disappointments many of us gather along the way to becoming adults, and the failures we experience as adults slowly drain away that "can do" attitude we had as children and we allow other things, people and circumstances, to decide where we'll go and who we will be.

But the reality is that we still have brains in our head and feet in our shoes and we can still steer ourselves in any direction we choose.  We just have to choose.

We may have to shake off those concepts we've accumulated over the years, and that's not always easy to do, but we are never really trapped.  We can begin to move in a different direction the moment we decide to do so.

For many or most of us here, we may have felt trapped for year inside of a body we didn't want and some of you, like me, may have felt pretty hopeless at one point.  Repeated failure as losing weight had worn me down and reinforced my concept that I couldn't do this.  Part of me just wanted to throw in the towel and stop trying because every attempt ended in failure and a deeper sense of frustration and despair. 

I'm so thankful that there was another part of me that kept trying, that refused to accept that I would live out my life in a 260+ pound body.  As health issues related to my obesity began to emerge, I finally realized that my obesity threatened to shorten my life.  That reality gave me the focus I needed to make the choices necessary to go in a new, healthy direction.

The good news is that my experience isn't unique - I've seen countless others make the fundamental decision to get healthy and then turn around years, even decades, of unhealthy habits.  The same can be true for everyone here.  You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose.  Choose wisely :-)

Good Intentions

I am the queen of good intentions - really I am.  Over the years I've found that my follow-through often falls apart, but wow, my intentions are SO good and so sincere! 

A while back I finally tackled a long-ignored pile of papers that was in the bottom drawer of my desk.  This pile accumulated over several months as I would throw papers in there (usually just before somebody came over in an attempt to quickly straighten up my office), always promising myself that I would get to the paper pile "soon."  Then things would get busy and soon more papers would be added to the growing pile.

As I finally got through that pile of papers, interestingly, one of the things buried in my paper pile was a book entitled (and I'm not kidding!), "100 Ways to Simplify Your Life."  When I bought the book, I obviously had good intentions at the time about getting more organized and simplifying things!

The problem is that good intentions or even the right tools (like my book) aren't enough.  Without follow through, good intentions pile up like the papers in my desk drawer.  Tools that remain used are useless, or worse, add to our guilt because they remind us of what we intended to do but never quite got around to doing.

Everyone who started on this program began with good intentions - the BEST intentions.  This was IT - it was time to lose weight and get healthy once and for all.  This program comes with a variety of tools for us to use, and with the tools available and the ease of the meal replacements, there really isn't any reason why everyone doesn't reach goal, right?  Or ???

The missing ingredient to success for many is the follow through.  We get off plan for one reason or another (the reasons don't matter), and we mean to get back on, really we do.  We have good intentions . . . but our follow through is lacking.  Sometimes we sabotage ourselves for a variety of reasons, and sometimes we're too quick to settle for less than what we really want because we're distracted by the lure of immediate gratification. 

We have the right program, we have the right tools, and we have good intentions.  The only thing we need to be successful is follow through.  That is the choice facing us today . . . choose wisely :-)

Two New "Whys"

One of the things that Dr. Andersen (Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life co-founder) talks about a lot is finding our "why."  It's never enough to know what we DON'T want, because that won't sustain us over time.  Our sustainable motivation comes from knowing what we want and why we want it.

I have two more "whys" as of last Wednesday  :-).  Our newest twin granddaughters, Madelyn and Evelyn, were born late last Wednesday night, weighing in at 4 lb. 15 oz. and 4 lb. 13 oz., each 17.5 inches long. They were born 4 weeks early and are doing GREAT - mom and babies came home Friday evening.

Almost six years ago (November of 2006) my daughter gave birth to her first set of twins.  The attached picture shows my husband and I holding them shortly after birth, along with a picture taken of us last Wednesday night holding her newest (and last!) set of twins.  One of the reasons I made the decision to get healthy in June of 2007 was because I wanted to be around for my grandchildren.  Having just turned 60 in July, it is sobering to realize that by the time my new grandbabies turn 20, I will be 80.  That takes my breath away!  More than ever, the choices I make today will determine the quality of life I have at 80.  Do I want to be as active and vibrant at 80 as possible?  My answer is an obvious "yes!"  I know I can only be that vibrant, active 80-year old IF, and it is a big IF, I continue to make healthy choices.

That's not as easy as it sounds, nor is it as easy as I wish it was.  Even more than four years after reaching my goal, consistently doing what I need to do is a challenge.  The operative word here is "consistently."  As I have shared in the past, my "fat girl tastebuds" are still alive and kicking and I find myself often challenged to stay the course with what I know is best.  An occasional "not stellar choice" meal is certainly OK, but sometimes a few of those get strung a bit too close together and the scale and my clothes remind me of that.

Dr. Andersen says, both in person and in his book, "Dr. A's Habits of Health," that eating a cheeseburger today doesn't make any difference today, but over time it makes all the difference between being on an unhealthy path and being optimally healthy.

Looking into the face of my newest grandbabies, I know I want to see these girls grow up and I would like to be their fun, vibrant grandmother out on the dance floor at his wedding.  Another reason for me to choose wisely :-)