Are You Suffering From Post-Holiday Letdown?

January 29, 2010 By

calendar

It’s finally over – the major holiday season is past us. For many of us – myself included, avoiding the post-holiday letdown is an important part of our continued success. The whole months of November and December were spent either planning how to avoid forbidden delights, or planning how to include a taste of those delights without going overboard and feeling like we were ruining our hard work. 

It can be stressful.

But now that is all past us and I thought it would be a great time to check in with you and see how you are feeling now – a month after the new year started.

I still remember “making it through” the holiday season WAAAY back in 1997 without a gain. I felt triumphant that I had seemingly conquered my never-ending desire for sugar cookies, cakes, and chocolate. But when January rolled around I almost felt a little bit of a let-down. Sure I was energized because it was the new year – but on the other hand I was a little bit tired of the continual need to watch what I ate and became weary of always “being good.” 

I remember I had a slight gain in January of a pound or two and I think it was because I had been good for so long that I almost let myself slip back into some old habits. Fortunately, the gain went away quickly and I continued on to reach my goal shortly after that time.

So as we continue with the dreary winter weather for those of us in the US, I want to encourage you to use these quiet months to reflect on how far you’ve come, affirm that you are doing the right things for yourself, and commit to yourselves that you can reach your goals. Because you can.

Here’s some ideas to get your started as you reflect how far you’ve come:

  ◊ What can you do now that you couldn’t do six months ago?

◊  If you graph out your weight loss over time is the line trending down?

◊  What are some Non-Scale-Victories (NSV) that you are particularly proud of?

◊   What foods have you discovered are tasty that you might have rejected before?

For me, taking the time to reflect on how far I had come was a great way for me to push through and keep going towards my goal. I realized that January long ago that I could do things like:

◊ Sit on the floor (and GET UP) without practically breaking the chair

◊ Walk 3 miles whereas before I couldn’t walk to my mailbox easily.

◊ Say no to things I previously would have said yes to in excess

◊ Walk into a room without feeling embarrassed by my appearance

◊ Talk with people who I would have previously considered “above me”

◊ Buy clothes in the regular sized departments

So as dreary January draws to a close and February comes into view – I’d encourage you to take stock of where you are and all you have accomplished. Refocus on your goals and commit to sticking with it for the long term.  So how about you? Have have you been feeling since we have closed the door on 2009?  Diane

Filed Under: Appearance, emotions, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

Are Weekends Harder?

January 22, 2010 By

happy weekend

 

I always seemed to have the hardest time staying on track over the weekends. I’d do “okay” throughout the week days, but then the weekend would come and BAM, I fell right off the perilously balanced wagon I had been riding on. It happened every time I tried to lose weight.

It was extremely frustrating to feel my self-control slipping away and even more frustrating when I would realize on Sunday night how awful I had eaten over the weekend. I felt very guilty and felt like a failure. Why was it that I could make decent choices during the week but then fall apart every single weekend?

On the average “dieting” weekend I’d end up baking cookies, going out to eat several times, overeating at home, and snacking on foods I ordinarily would have turned down. These episodes didn’t do anything to help the scale move, but rather hindered my small forward progress. Eventually, faced with yet another Monday of starting over, I’d just give up all together.

Looking back, I realize that for me, weekends were harder for several reasons:

  • My daily schedule was much more fluid.
  • I didn’t plan my meals on the weekend (I don’t know who I thought would do it – but I didn’t!)
  • The weekends felt like a holiday and I celebrated thus.
  • I wanted to reward myself for all the deprivation I experienced Monday – Friday.

I realize that none of these reasons are very good ones for making poor choices, but they were the excuses I used during those 10 years of unsuccessful weight control. And looking back I think for me, the weekends were harder than the week. Some things that I did differently during my successful weight loss endeavor were:

  1. Planned every meal – even if it was going to be a restaurant meal
  2. As best I could – plannedfor unexpected snacking opportunities, ie: meeting friends, going to the movies, etc.
  3. Didn’t use the weekend as an excuse not to exercise
  4. Gave myself permission to “mess up” without feeling like I had ruined my entire life

Those four things, coupled with a lot of saying, “I don’t need or want that,” really helped me get through the weekends without completely sabotaging myself. And the great thing was that every weekend that passed successfully was one I actually enjoyed more. I so enjoyed spending time with friends and family without worrying so much about what I was going to eat. I loved being able to have that special dessert because I had planned for it. And because I had planned for it I didn’t feel as though I needed to eat the entire thing. Those strategies were actually very freeing.

So where are you right now? Weekends harder than weekdays? If so, what do you do to combat that tendency, or what winning ideas do you have to help us all in this journey?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

My Lame Excuse List

January 15, 2010 By

Being overweight seemed to have some advantages.  I didn’t have the desire to buy a lot of clothes, so I used the excuse that we couldn’t afford new clothes for me as a reason for looking so incredibly dowdy. I felt uncomfortable in some social situations, so I learned to invent excuses to get out of parties and outings.  I learned that right or wrong, a lot of people judge others on their appearance.  Thus I realized that people didn’t expect a lot from me.  I think a lot of them thought I was lazy and stupid, so they didn’t ask for my help. But just in case they did ask, I always had the “I’m too tired” excuse sticking in my back pocket when people wanted me to do something that required physical activity. 

I also used a lot of excuses when it came to weight loss. 

  • I couldn’t diet in February because it was Valentine’s Day. 
  •  July wouldn’t work either since it was fourth of July. 
  • Anytime after mid-August was  completely out since a lot of family birthdays took place then. 
  • And you might as well “x” off November and December because of that was too hard a time to diet through.

So basically, no matter what time of year it was, it was the wrong time to try and lose weight and get fit.  If I didn’t blame the calendar for not beginning a weight loss program, then I would find another target.  I couldn’t start Weight Watchers again because we couldn’t afford it.  And since we couldn’t afford to join Weight Watchers right then, I couldn’t just try on my own either.  I never acknowledged that the money I was spending on fast food meals and chocolate would have easily paid for a very long-term membership at Weight Watchers.

It was just one excuse after the other.

Even though I did try over and over to lose weight, I spent more time making excuses for why I couldn’t lose weight than I did focusing on my eating. With each and every lame excuse that came out of my mouth, even I knew what I was doing.  I was putting off for another day what needed to be done right then.  The more weight I gained, the harder it became to lose it.  I often think if I had just gotten serious about my weight after I gained the first 30 pounds it would have been so much easier to lose that relatively small amount, but I didn’t.  I just watched the scale inch up, then leap up, until I was dangerously overweight.  I recall with such clarity the first time I saw the big clunky weight on the doctor’s scale move over to signal I had achieved another milestone in my life.  I had topped 250 pounds.  I remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, “I’ll never lose it,” I thought.  And for a long time I didn’t.  I used every excuse that came to mind, from the calendar to finances and everything in between. 

Finally, one day, the excuses had to stop.  They stopped when I came to a point in my life that I knew I had to make a change, and I was ready.  After all, the pages on the calendar keep turning in the same order year after year.  Why did I let the time of year stop me from getting serious about my weight loss?   In 1997 I didn’t let anything stop me.  I worked through the physical issues of cutting back on the amount of food I ate.  I worked through the emotional issues I was struggling with.  I prayed for strength and courage, because it took courage to say “no” to food I loved.  And with persistence and hard work it paid off.  I stopped making excuses for why “now” wasn’t a good time to get fit and get serious about weight loss. 

What’s been your favorite “I can’t get started” excuse? Or do you have a tip for people who are having trouble getting going?  Diane

Filed Under: excuses Tagged With: ,

Psychological Costs

December 28, 2009 By

Unhappiness with our appearance

Stress related to unhappiness with our health

Anxiety over social situations

Depression

Someone emailed me recently and asked if I thought there were psychological costs to obesity.  I responded to them privately, but thought that the question was a very interesting one.  Are there psychological effects to obesity? And if so, how can we overcome those feelings. First off, let me say that I believe therapy is a great choice for many people who are dealing with depression, anxiety, or anything else that talking with a professional may help. I know from reading your blogs that quite a few of you have been through therapy for a variety of issues and many found it helpful. John and I went to see a Christian counselor during the third year of our marriage seeking help in dealing with an extended family relationship. That time taught us a lot of techniques to use in dealing with certain situations.

I do believe that there is a psychological cost to obesity. I’m no therapist, but I lived the obese life for a decade, and know that those years took an additional toll on my psyche due to my size. The times that I felt shunned by friends and acquaintances, overlooked by salespeople in the stores, and judged because of my size did bad things to my self esteem. I began taking on for my own other people’s perception of me. Perhaps I really was lazy. Maybe I was deficient in self-control. And perhaps I wasn’t as good as everyone else.

Lies all of these. But lies I grew to believe because I felt myself living up to them. I couldn’t seem to control my weight or my food intake. I didn’t get as much done as my thin friends, and maybe I was a little bit lazy.

I began to experience anxiety in situations I never had before. I dreaded meeting with new people and often times found myself feeling ill over the thought of having to introduce myself to a thinner person. I gave every excuse in the book to avoid parties and often succeeded in staying home. Anxiety became part of who I was. Before I gained 150 pounds I wasn’t an anxious person. I wasn’t the most extroverted person in the room but I didn’t “freak out” when I had to meet new people. So for me, obesity took a psychological toll.

The fatter I got the more unhappy, anxious, and borderline depressed I became. I tried to convince myself that I was the same Diane I always had been, but the mirror showed the truth. The psychological component to obesity is real, and the effects of obesity can be very difficult to overcome.

I still feel a little awkward walking into a room full of strangers. “Will they accept me?” I wonder. I sometimes have to tell myself to get a grip on myself, because there is no reason they wouldn’t. Unfortunately I know all too well that we are often initially judged on our appearance, good or bad.

So for me, the psychological cost of obesity was and is real. It was hard to be obese in a thin world, and my psyche took a hit during those ten years. Fortunately, not everyone who struggles with obesity feels the way I did. I always admire people who are at peace with their inner soul while still working on getting the outer body in better shape. I wish that had been me.

What do you think? Is there a real psychological effect associated with weight problems?  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, excuses, obesity, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

The Hunger Excuse

November 19, 2009 By

cheezitsIf you had asked me how often I was hungry when I was an obese, 300 pound, size 28 woman I would have said, “ALL THE TIME!” Because I thought I felt hunger all day long. It seemed to me that from the time I woke in the morning to the time I went to bed at night all I could think about was food.

There were many a day where I started eating before breakfast with a little brownie or two, had some sort of sweet breakfast, ate a snack or two, or three; then had a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger, large fries (or two) and a diet coke for lunch. A few more snacking episodes happened between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m. then I went off somewhere for dinner, and back home later to enjoy yet another healthy, filling snack of chips, cheese, and ice cream. Why did I eat so much? I was hungry.

Or so I said. But I wasn’t that hungry. I didn’t need 4000 calories a day to keep me healthy, nor did those 4000 calories sustain my health or move me anywhere near where I wanted to be.

I had fallen into the trap of false hunger. I was eating when I wasn’t really physically hungry, and did so by using the “hunger excuse.” Are you familiar with that excuse? I need these crackers because I’m starving. I “need” this extra biscuit because I’m hungry.  I “need” this King Sized Hershey bar because I’ve had a bad day. I did this all day long for years. I used the hunger excuse instead of really looking behind my excuse at the reason for my over-eating. For me, learning to disassociate myself from the excuses and work on the behind-the-scenes emotions was difficult. But as hard as it was, staying in the place where I had landed would have been harder.

Hunger is an important signal. It’s wise to learn the difference between the feeling of true physical hunger and the feeling of the hunger excuse. Here’s some things that I did when I was learning to eat because I truly needed food and how I learned to make a different choice when what I needed wasn’t food, but rather another type of comfort.

1.  Gave myself permission to “feel” the emotions of the moment. This may sound strange, but I found that I often turned to food when I was upset. So by telling myself, “Yes, that situation is bad, but you don’t need to eat through it.” I was able to learn to disassociate the hunger excuses I was trying to use with the emotion of the desire to eat.

2. Waited before I ate between meals. I literally ate all day long. If I started to graze mindlessly between meals I put the timer on for 15 minutes and made myself wait. I really thought about whether I was really hungry or not. If I was, then I had something healthy.

3. Carefully planned my food.  Before I started to get healthy, when the feeling of hunger struck I just ate. Anything. Instead of eating just anything, I began planning for snacks, meals, and even treats. It helped remind me to eat because I needed to eat, and not because I thought I should.

I pulled out the hunger excuse as a reason to fill any emotions I didn’t like with food. You may use the hunger excuse in a different way, or if you are lucky, this isn’t even a problem for you. But in my experience, most of us who are weight challenged often struggle with eating when we are not really hungry.

Do you relate to the “hunger excuse?” How have you overcome it?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, cooking, emotions, excuses Tagged With: , , ,

Challenges of Life

October 23, 2009 By

This post is a sensitive topic for me. It deals with weight loss, weight maintenance and life. As I traveled through a decade of obesity and then morbid obesity, I faced many challenging situations in my life. Life happened regardless of where I was on my weight loss journey. During those 10 years of obesity I tried over and over again to lose weight, but never kept focused. Rather I continually let the stresses of life and the tendency to be an emotional eater distract me from completing my journey.

I’ve had a lot of people in my life who I have helped get on the path to healthy living. As they worked through their issues with food, there were times along their journey that horrible things happened. Deaths in the family, miscarriages, job losses, financial problems, relationships dissolving. These life’s challenges more often than not caused them to falter and stop their attempt to lose weight. Sometimes they got back on track and managed to get where they wanted to be, but sometimes they ended up gaining all their weight back. It always saddened me.

When I see people both in the real world and in blog land struggle with life’s challenging situations I try and encourage them to look at these circumstances as practice for maintenance. Because your life won’t magically improve once you get where you are working so hard to go. Life will still happen and the practice that you get during weight loss in dealing with life’s challenges will serve you well once you lose all your weight.

Often times I have people tell me that they maintained a weight loss until something stressful happened. It’s understandable isn’t it? So often our hold on our new weight is tenuous until we’ve had some trials by fire. I had some trials that happened to me during the weight loss year and during the  first several years after I reached my goal weight.

♥ One really big stress I had was experiencing a reunion with my birth family. As an adoptee I was always curious about my family or origin and thus was thrilled when my birth mother found me. That happened mid-way through my weight loss year.

♦ I had two miscarriages in the second year of  maintenance.

♥ We moved state to state three different times for new jobs. This involved months of separation from John waiting for our house to sell.

♦ Financial obligations and stresses reared their ugly head several different times throughout the years.

♥ And finally, I had four babies after I lost the weight.

I don’t share all of those things to make you say, “Oh, Diane – you’ve been through a lot.” But rather to have you see that it is possible to keep on your path in spite of losses and trials. Not easy. But possible.

What challenges do your foresee that will be placed in your life over the next year? How will you continue on your path to good health while dealing with life’s challenges? Can you succeed?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: ,

It’s All Too Much

October 14, 2009 By

Have you ever felt like it’s just all too much? The meal planning. The exercise. The eating good foods. The talking about it. The self examination. The ups. The downs. The gains. The losses.

Is it too much? Is it all too much trouble?

I felt that way sometimes during my journey to lose 150 pounds. It all felt overwhelming at times. I’d get tired of saying no to well meaning friends and relatives. I’d be tired of eating good food and long for an entire bag of peanut M&M’s. I’d get bored with exercising six days a week and long to sit on the couch and stuff my face with tortilla chips smothered in cheddar cheese. I had days like that where I felt like it was just all too much work.

But in spite of all the work and effort losing weight and getting healthy took, I never once gave up. Why not? Because it wasn’t too much work when I compared the work I was putting into getting healthy to the work it took to be obese. Here’s what I mean.

It was work to:

  • climb stairs
  • walk to my mailbox
  • find clothes that fit (not even flattering, just fit)
  • keep up with my personal hygiene
  • get out of bed
  • keep up with my children
  • climb in and out of the car
  • tie my shoes
  • put on pantyhose
  • complete tasks on time
  • lift heavy objects
  • feel good about myself
  • look people in the eye
  • go into new situations
  • visit old friends
  • take long car trips
  • fly on airplanes

Those things were work. Weight loss was easy compared to that list. I realized when I got burned out from the effort of getting healthy that this little bit of effort to plan my meals was a lot easier than walking up stairs. I understood that choosing not to eat the M&M’s was easier than reuniting with old friends who didn’t know I had gotten fat. And I knew that exercising now would be easier than having to use a wheelchair if I kept getting fatter and fatter.

Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s not all too much. It’s just enough.

All your hard work and effort is just right. It’s the perfect way to put the work it takes being overweight behind you, shed your fat suit, and move into the place of health and healing.  So I’d encourage you that if you start to get frustrated and fed up with counting points, or planning healthy meals, or exercising every day to remember how much work it takes to be overweight. What’s really harder?  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, emotions, excuses, Exercise Tagged With: , , , ,

Are Secrets Hindering Your Success?

September 29, 2009 By

A few weeks ago, I got this comment from Vickie:

“Please add this to your list of things to write about – keeping secrets and why the secrets have to come out/stop in order to get to a place where one can lose weight, maintain losses and be happy (with themselves). It can be the number on the scale, the secret stash of food (which you have written about), or the daily habits. and I think that it can also be the $$$/debt on a credit card, the condition of the clutter in our house, how we spend our time, and lots of other things that we MAKE into secrets.”

I’ve been thinking about this topic ever since I got the comment from Vickie. Why do we keep secrets? I can’t speak for the world in general, but in my own life, I realized there were many reasons to explain why I kept/keep secrets.

  • Embarrassed/Ashamed
  • Protect Myself
  • Protect Other People
  • I Know What I’m Doing Is Wrong
  • Don’t Want Others To Emulate My Behavior
  • Fear
  • Uncertainty
  • Selfish
  • Power
  • Establish or Destroy Boundaries

As I was writing these things down the last one I wrote resonated with me. It seemed to be the common denominator among them all. When I was hiding food from my husband, or eating drive thru meals on the sly, I was putting up a fence between the Diane I wanted people to see, and the real Diane. And for me, that fence wasn’t a see thru chain link fence, but rather an 8 foot solid wood fence. It sent the message: DO NOT ENTER.

The boundaries I was establishing by keeping secrets were a hindrance to my progress. I realized as I was contemplating this question, that the secrets we keep from other people and from ourselves are often times determential to us, not only in weight loss, but also in life. As Vickie alluded to in her comment, there are many secrets that we can keep. Financial, emotional, cleanliness, habits, weight, etc. Is there any correlation between the keeping of secrets and our forward progress?

For me, there definitely was. It wasn’t until I could admit to myself that I was struggling with food and my secret habits were damaging my life and my body, that I could move forward. It’s similiar to shining a light in a dark room. Until the light is on you can’t see what’s hidden in there. And until you can see what’s hidden, you don’t know what you are dealing with.

Secrets for me weren’t just about food. They were about relationships and life. I kept things from John and my friends hoping that they wouldn’t think badly of me. The funny thing was, they didn’t think of me any differently once I showed them my secret food habits. In fact they were proud that I was strong enough to come clean, and that I trusted them.

Secrets have a way of being revealed whether we intend for them to be or not. And when they are revealed, there is sometimes pain. The pain in my life was what often sent me to food. Pulling the secrets out and really dealing with them helped move me past my dependence on food, and start relying more on my faith and on the realization that no secret was worth keeping if the consequences were bad for me.

Do I still have secrets? Of course! We all do. But knowing what secrets are okay to have, and which ones are bad for you is an important part of your success in life. It’s never easy to open yourself up, either internally or to other people, but sometimes it’s necessary and healing.

What are your thoughts on the secrets we keep? Harmful or helpful?  Diane

By the way – I got to tell my story to Skinny Scoopers Diet Detectives! They have a great newsletter too! 

P.S. This next week my goal is to get my act together with my blogrolls. If you’d like to be on there, please either let me know in the comments or email me at diane@fittothefinish.com. I’m going to keep it broken into two sections (I think), one for those “Fighting the Fight” and those for “Staying the Course.” If you’d let me know where you’d like to be placed that would be great!  I’ll keep this P.S. up on the next several posts so I can catch everyone who likes link love, and don’t we all!

Filed Under: Choices, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,

“But I Made This For You”

September 23, 2009 By

The other day I had to make cookies to bring to our small group. There are about 10 of us, so I took enough cookies for everyone to have 3 if they so chose. Here’s a picture of the cookies. (I just had to put this up because most of my food isn’t worthy of a photograph, but these were pretty!) So forgive the cookie picture.

cookie close up

Anyway, we had a nice meal together and shared some good laughs and fellowship. We then watched an awesome documentary called The Heart of Texas. After the movie was over, everyone prepared to leave. I went into the kitchen and noticed there were several cookies left. I didn’t want to take them home, because there were already some at home! So I started offering them to the ladies that were still there. I offered to leave them with our hostess, Molly, but she refused. Then I tried to give them to our friend Kristy. She refused too. So, I took them home.

As we were riding home, I thought about how hard it used to be for me to refuse food that someone made. Store bought cookies were easy to say no to, but if I’m at Aunt Ida’s house, and she is standing there with a homemade cake or pie telling me, “But I made it just for you,” then that’s a different story. Before I started losing weight, I’d never turn down any food, store bought or not. But when I started dieting in earnest, I found myself unsure of what to do. Did I take the food just because she made it knowing I’d like it, or did I refuse the food and risk hurting her feelings?

I honestly don’t have the “right” answer for this. You may react differently than I did, but here’s what I finally decided to do. When confronted with this scenario, I had to make a decision. There were three alternatives as I saw it:

1.  Take the food but don’t eat it

2.  Take the food and eat it

3.  Refuse the food completely

I usually chose the third option, unless I knew I could take the food and not eat it without anybody noticing. For me, although it was uncomfortable to refuse outright, I really didn’t want to eat the sweet treat that was being offered. That treat didn’t fit it with my plan, and staying on plan was important to me. You may feel differently, and I totally respect that, but that’s how I felt.

What I always found interesting was how many times the hostess would repeatedly ask me, “Are you sure?” “Here, let me wrap some up for you.” “But you like chocolate cake.” “Why don’t you want any?” “You’re not trying to diet again are you?”

Sometimes it was almost comical how hard they would try and give me dessert. But after a few polite, “No, thank you’s,” they eventually gave up, and turned their attentions to someone else.

Uncomfortable? Yes, sometimes. But I never regretted not eating the treat. The times where I gave in when I didn’t want to were the times I regretted it.

What’s your feeling on this topic? It’s a sensitive one to be sure. I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to handle it though. Just as a side note – even all these years into maintenance, I still choose option number 3 more often than not. Not because I want to hurt someone’s feelings, but because often times the food they are offering really isn’t something I want right then.  Diane

By the way, Steve is doing a 100 day challenge with a homemade prize!

 

Filed Under: Choices, emotions, excuses, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , ,

Say Yes When You Want To Say No

September 17, 2009 By

So often in weight loss circles you hear the phrase, “Just Say No.”  Say no to treats. Say no to excess food. Say no to social occasions you can’t control yourself in. Just say no. And for a lot of situations involving food and weight loss, you do have to learn to just say no.

But for this post, I wanted to talk about saying “yes” when you want to say “no.” It seems a bit counter-intuitive doesn’t it? But let me give you an example:

It’s Sunday night, and you are thinking about your week ahead. You are super busy at work or have a lot going on at home. You know you should set your alarm to get up early and exercise but you are just overwhelmed when looking at your to-do list. So you don’t. You don’t set your alarm, you don’t get up and exercise, and then regret it later.

Here’s a case when it would be great to say, “Yes, I’m going to commit to exercising this week even though I don’t want to.” You’ve just told yourself “yes.” It’s not easy to do this, because often times our reasons for not working out seem valid.

We are busy. We are overwhelmed. We are tired. We don’t always feel like working out.  (Note that I’m not saying to over-exert yourself when you are feeling poorly, or that you have to exercise every single day!)

But by telling yourself “yes” during those busy times, you are actually teaching yourself a valuable life lesson. Because as you finish up your weight loss journey, life still happens, and the lesson you learned will serve you well into maintenance. In fact, it’s probably already a lesson you know. I say “yes” all the time when I want to say no. When my child has asked me the same question for the 100th time in one day, I want to lose my mind sometimes. But I tell him the answer to the question again, usually with a smile on my face.

You probably do this all the time at work. Your boss asks you to do something you’d rather not, but you say “yes” because you know it’s good for your career. Sometimes my husband will ask me to make some phone calls (which I hate) because he is absolutely swamped at work. I really want to say no, but instead I agree.

Can you apply the same principle to exercising? Even if you are exercising with some consistency now, there are often opportunities to increase your intensity or try something new. I remember the first time I rode a bike for exercise after I had lost all my 150 pounds. A friend of mine was an avid cyclist, and my Mom had just given me her old (nice) bike. So when my cyclist friend asked me if I’d like to ride with her I wanted to say no, because I was afraid I couldn’t keep up with her. But I said yes.

And guess what? I couldn’t keep up with her – but she was gracious enough to slow down for me! The feelings of accomplishment I had were huge. Twelve years later, still cycle fairly regularly, and enjoy it greatly. Imagine if I hadn’t tried that form of exercise. I might still be looking at the nice bike in my garage just wishing I could ride it fast.

What are you tempted to say no to when you could say yes? Has there been a time when you said “yes” and are glad you did? I’d love to hear your experiences.  Diane

Filed Under: Choices, excuses, Exercise, Weight Loss Tagged With: , ,
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