Life is short....

Just the state of mind that I am in right now....While I was giving the getting started session to our 3 newest friends, my phone rang...twice. I thought it must have been important for someone to call me when everyone knows that I work Saturday mornings. And to do it twice, it had me worried.

Right after everyone left (it was just Kellie, Tracey and myself), I checked my vm. A message from one of the ladies that I carpool to work with telling me that passenger number 3's husband died Friday night----self-induced. How could life possibly be THAT bad. Those poor kids, and my friend, omg.

Needless to say, I wrapped myself around my family this weekend. What ever we have going on cannot be that bad that we feel we need to make everyone else's life hard. OOOHhhhh the suffering, the guilt,....

Why do we beat ourselves up with our weightloss? Is it really that much of a tragedy if we gain a pound this week? We are here to gain it....isn't that great?!!!! Should we really make the rest of our day suck, because we are up on the scale? Life is ours today. We breathe. We share love. Aren't we lucky?!!!!

How much luckier are we than those without the friends we have made in Weight Watchers? I cannot count. THAT's how lucky I am today. I wore my goals shirt last Saturday, because I lost focus. Today I am focused. Today I am grateful that I can be focused. Today I have me. And you.
You are lucky. You have you. We have each other.

Stay focused. Be grateful for something. Tell someone you are grateful for them. Make their day.

Today's diddy: "Sometimes it is not always the thought that counts. Sometimes the action counts more." ---Jenny Wright

No pain. No gain.

Life just seems so busy. It feels like forever since I have done this. I was at church this weekend listening to the preacher when I had this revelation: (keep in mind this applies to our spiritual life, our WW life as well as to other parts of our lives.

"We cannot make self-improvements painlessly." Now think about this. Have you ever tried to change a bad habit? How hard was it? Did it hurt? How did it hurt?

I went through a period of life where I looked at my flaws and tried, little by little, to change these or at least to become aware of them so that eventually they could each be changed. This was painful. First of all, because I had to admit that I was not perfect. I know, right, who REALLY thinks they are God?! How stupid. But it was a hard pill to swallow. Then I had to look at each of my defects and figure out WHY I acted the way I did. Not only do I work on fixing these things and going back to old behaviors, but also to make amends for some of those whom I have hurt along the way.

Can you spell P-A-I-N-F-U-L-L ??!!

Now lets apply that to our WW life. Lets fast forward to the week we joined. (There are soooo many feelings and behaviors to discuss that we had BEFORE we joined. That is what I am fast forwarding over here.) How hard was it to step on that scale for the first time? Was it harder because it was a total stranger behind the desk? OMG!!! Did I really get THAT big? How did that happen? What was I thinking?

Now that lady behind the desk knows how fat I am. I don't want to go back there. She may laugh at me. She may talk about me later. (Just so you know, if you don't already.....I care about you, but I can't remember what you weigh without looking at your folder. There is no way we would EVER laugh. We respect that you are here and that you continue to come back week after week.) I am so ashamed. And embarrassed.

And so the hard part is .....coming back. PAINFUL. Now we have admitted that there is a problem. And we are doing something about it. Good for you. Now what? Let's start with using the tools of the program.

Then after several weeks of losing, I begin to lose less and less. Then I start to gain. PAINFUL. Now what? Re-assess the tools of the program. What needs to happen for you in order for you to make a good weight loss this week? YOU are the only one who can answer that question. Well, what is it?

For me, sometimes the painfullpart is making the decision that I know is the right one. MAAN! Do I want that chocolate chip cookie, or that order of french fries, or that greasy burger.... But here now is the PAINFUL discussion that happens in my head:

"Boy that (fill-in-the-blank) sure looks good."
"I bet it tastes good too."
"You have not had one of those in soo long. It would be ok."
"Yeah, but you know how you will feel in the morning."
"What?! I have points left over for the day. It would be ok."
"Alright. So it would taste good right now. And you might enjoy one or two bites. But after that you won't. You know it. Then how will you feel in the morning about it?"
"Well, I don't want to give up THAT many points for something that I won't thoroughly enjoy. I will have some regrets and possibly have the 'I-wonder-what-would-have-happened-ifs' blues in the morning. Yeah. I don't want to have to do that much thinking in the morning. Better not have that (whatever-it-was) right now.

JUST having this conversation is PAINFUL. Why would I want to relive it in the morning? So. I don't go there. And on the rare occassion that I do, I know that I have to be ok with my decisions from the night/day before. I made my bed, I have to sleep in it. (I made my sandwich, now I have to eat it.) hehehe

We do gain from our pains. We gain knowledge. We gain experience. We gain strength. We can courage. We gain esteem. We gain confidence. We gain ourselves back. RE-gain!!!!!!!!!

Today's diddy: "Nothing in God's world is done by mistake." --Don (We may not have the answers to WHY right now, but maybe we are not supposed to have those answers right now (or ever).

Holy Cow

This morning, I stepped on the scale and found out that I am less than one pound away from my 15% goal. (Note: when I lost my weight the first time, I did not step on the scale except for at my WW meeting.) As exciting as this is, I think that I have decided to continue with a bit more of a loss.

Part of me wants to be a bit less. Part of me just wants to have that "wiggle room" in which I can mess up occasionally.

Today has been a good eating day so far, but for some reason I feel really hungry. And I feel sort of wierd....like....I must be bloated, but don't feel that way. It is leftovers again for dinner tonight. I don't know what my husband took for his lunch, so it may end up that I cook. I would like to have chicken pasta side with sauteed mushrooms. However, I have soo many points still left to eat.

THis gives me a dilema. I don't want to over eat with something else. But I don't want to overeat either. mmmmmm.....what to do? Guess we'll have to wait and see what else is in the fridge.

Hope you are having a great week so far.

Today's diddy: "If id doesn't taste great, don't eat it." --Anonymous

I'm Almost There.....

I woke up this morning and was up in weight a skosh from yesterday. Most days I question why that is. I usually figure it out right away. Today, though, it did not even cross my mind to be curious about that. I was actually excited.

Remember I told you that I am having this little contest with my aide over who can get to their goal the fastest? Well, as of this morning, I am1.6 pounds away from mine. She is over 3 pounds away from hers. I will have this off in a day or two. I am not necessarily excited about winning. In fact, quite the opposite. I think it would be good for her to beat me, in more ways than one. To lose more weight in less time than a WW leader would be something to hang your coat on, right?

However, she is kind of a "sore winner" if you will. I don't want to win to gloat. or brag. or even to ever bring it up again. I want to win, just so I don't have to hear her talk about it alll the time....talk, sing, dance, whoop, you know.

She is doing a great job. I am proud of her. She looks great. And it sure is fun to have someone eating the same as me at work. Used to be that she very easily influenced me to have Taco Bell for lunch. Not anymore. Once she realized I was serious, it kind of kicked in for her.

Random thought:

I started a new 3 month journal this week. I really like the quotes in here. Some of them have been my inspiration for my blogs. Here is the one in week one, day 2: "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

Do you ever feel like that? This is the third or fourth week in a row that you have been up or the same. Everyone seems to be working against you. The stress is mounting. The food is everywhere. All hope is slowly drifting away? You are thinking about quitting WW, because you just aren't "getting it"? Why try?

I will tell you. You are worth it. Before Ben Franklin discovered the lightbulb, he found 10,000 ways NOT to make a lightbulb work. (Or so it goes something like that.) It is too early in your weight-loss journey to give up now. We have only just begun. Look how much you have lost so far. Why would you quit now? So you can go home, gain more weight and have to lose more? Why not just stick it out right here, right now where you are and DO IT?

So much more can be accomplished with the support of others than alone. This IS the way to do it. WE are all here for you.

Random thought #2:
Let's talk about maintaining our weight. I think this is much harder than losing. Losing is easy compared to this. Why?! Have you ever played a balance game? Try not to sway from one side to the other too much. Just like weight loss. You don't want to continue to lose (at least not too much), but you definately don't want to gain anything.

How much of it is in our own heads? I don't know. I do know this.....when I was "maintaining", I was really just slowly gaining. That lead to a whole bunch of other issues. Right now I am on the downward slide still. I am approaching my original goal of losing 10% of my weight. However, I think that to have a nice healthy BMI, I would like to be 5-8 pounds less than that. So, for the timebeing, I am still a "loser", not a "maintainer". Once I get there, I will blog that journey.

Here is what went through my head: I can gain a bit, I am pretty far below my goal. I am not there yet, it is ok if I gain some more. My clothes fit ok, a couple of more pounds would be no big deal. Then I got to my goal. OK. as long as I can get back down before the next official weigh-in, I will be fine. Then it happened.....I was living for eating like crazy for two weeks so that I could take off the weight in orde to be in compliance for the next weigh-in. How crazy is that????!!!

I knew that I could do it. By do it, I mean lose the weight. So why play the games with myself and my job every month? Because I could. Did I like it? NOOOO!!! And it was stressful.

You know what ? I am much happier now, working the program the way it is supposed to be worked. I am in smaller size clothes. I get at least one compliment a day from someone. My husband has noticed (I don't know why he did not notice the last time I lost this weight, but.....) and I think he likes me more. Life is good. Work hard.

Today's diddy: " If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." --Author Unknown

Start with Yourself

The thought that has consumed my every thought lately is that I cannot control anyone or anything but me. (My son is reaking havoc on my life right now.) I know that we have influence over people whether on purpose or not. I know that EVERY person in my life as affected me in some way, big or small. Every person with whom I come in contact has a reason for being in my life. My kids. My husband. My parents. My siblings. My co-workers. My friends. You. People I see at the store. My church friends. The daycare workers. The parents of my students. Everyone.

You have had a bigger impact on my life, than I could possibly have on yours. For that, I THANK you.

Which leads me to my main thought. I know that every change I make (yes, I am still making changes) has to start with me. I am the one who makes it happen or not happen. I am the one in charge of my thoughts. And actions. And words.

By changing myself first, I then can have a better handle on how to help others or at least be a good role model. Now this applies to my WW world as well as to my kids. The kid thing is going to take some time and much more effort. The WW deal is simply doing as I am supposed to do. And as of this morning, I am down (drum roll, please) 12.8 pounds since mid-November. If I can do it, so can you.

We all have obstacles. Get a move on.

Today's diddy: "Temptations is sure to ring your doorbell. Just don't ask it to stay for dinner!" --Author Unknown

Love in Weight Loss

AAaaaand we're back.

Just wanted to let you know that the world woke up tonight at about 6:30pm. That means our modem arrived and we are back in service.

I will be back tomorrow with some thoughts. Tonight, though, I must go to sleep. Better sleep, better weight-loss, better skin, better feeling....

Love in Weight Loss.
Talk to you tomorrow.

Internet is Down

I won't be able to blog this week. My DSL modem shot craps Saturday night/Sunday morning. I should have a new one in 3-5 business days. Can you spell SUCK? (Sorry, but it does.)

I am currently "not on the clock" at work. But really, I should not be doing this from here. So, you may not hear from me all week.

I hope that you have a good week, and I will see you Saturday.

Love in Weight Loss,
Jenny