How Far Can You Go?

September 28, 2009 By

I was reading some blogs this weekend and came across this post from 266. In it she describes her experience pushing herself to walk 25 km in one day. For those of us who are metrically challenged, that’s approximately 15 miles. And no, 266 is not a super athlete, training for an iron man triathlon. She is a weight loss blogger, who is pushing herself beyond where she ever thought possible.

As I thought about her post, I looked back and reflected upon my own weight loss journey. I realized that although I didn’t walk 15 miles in one day, there were many, many times where I pushed myself far beyond where I would have thought possible. Initially just getting up early was hard for me. And getting up early to attempt some exercise at 300 pounds was even more incredible. Walking down the dark neighborhood roads for 10 minutes seemed impossible, and when I got home those first few days you would have thought that I had walked 15 miles as drenched in sweat as I was.

Every day, when I got up and exercised I was pushing myself beyond where I would have thought possible. I still remember the first time I walked for 30 minutes at one time. When I got back to the house John said, “I was starting to get worried about you.” I looked at him and smiled, thinking, “I was a little bit worried I wasn’t going to make it back home.” But I did.

I eventually worked up to jogging a bit and ran a 5K during that year of my weight loss. I still remember the triumphant feeling when I crossed the finish line at about 34:00. I never dreamed that I would be able to walk a 5K, much less run one. But I pushed myself, and realized that I could go a lot farther than I had ever thought possible.

Pushing myself farther didn’t just relate to exercise. As I reflected on my journey, and what made this time different than some of the other attempts I had, I realized that I pushed myself in every area of my life. I pushed myself to try new foods, including things like asparagus, artichokes, and squash. I pushed myself emotionally, by taking the time and effort to examine why I was making food choices that were harmful to me. And I pushed myself socially, by opening myself up to new experiences and relationships.

It was a year of reaching for something new. It was a rediscovery of myself and of the abilities that had been hidden under layers of fat.

Sometimes, it can be scary to push yourself. Why? Because, if you are like me, you may be afraid of failure. Or, you may be worried that you just can’t do it. Or, you may lack the self confidence to just try.

This week, as you go about your life, I want you to think about pushing yourself. It doesn’t have to be weight related, but rather can be anything. It may be something that you’ve set as a goal for yourself if you are participating in Steve’s challenge, or it could be a private goal. Something you’ve always wanted to do.  Take the next seven days and do something to make that goal a reality. Even better if you have to push yourself to do it. 

I’m going to push myself out of my comfort zone and make some contacts with people that I’ve been a little nervous to call. What can you push yourself to accomplish this week?  Diane

Filed Under: emotions, Exercise, goal setting 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: , ,

Frustration: Friend or Foe?

September 14, 2009 By

I was thinking this morning about weight loss, weight maintenance, and frustration with weight. As I was reflecting on those three aspects of weight management I thought it would be interesting to look at the role frustration plays with weight loss success and failure. When I thought of frustration with weight, here’s the definition I came up with.

♦ Frustration with  Weight – Can occur before, during, or after weight loss attempts. In other words, at any time!

Frustration with my weight was a daily, if not hourly feeling. When I first married, and started putting on weight, I was constantly frustrated with how I looked. I hopped on and off the scale every few days not understanding how I was gaining so much weight. I couldn’t admit to myself that I was the reason I was gaining so much weight. And because I couldn’t admit to myself that I was the problem, my frustration with myself and the scale grew.

I remember getting fitted for an outfit when John and I belonged to a singing ensemble at church. Believe it or not, we had to wear Victorian costumes. I selected a beautiful green satin fabric, and a intricate ballgown pattern. I took the fabric and the pattern to the seamstress, where she measured me and said to come back in two weeks for a fitting. When I went back two weeks later, she had the dress mostly completed, and it seemed to fit nicely. However, when I went back a month later to pick up the completed dress, hat, slip, and bows for my shoes, I had gained a bit of weight.

This caused a problem.  I could barely zip the zipper.  I vividly recall standing in her bathroom trying my best to get the zipper to close. I sucked in my breath, reached my hands behind my back and tugged and tugged. Miraculously it went together. It went together, but I could barely breathe. I looked at myself in the mirror, and wondered if she would notice that the waist was tighter than it had been a month before. And of course, when I walked out of the bathroom for her to see the dress, she said, “Have you put on some weight?” Shaking my head I said, “I don’t think so,” knowing full well that I had just told that nice old lady a lie. Standing in her living room with her fussing over the dress, I vowed to lose the pounds I had gained, and get back to where I was less frustrated with my weight and appearance.

I left her house with my beautiful ball gown in hand, determined to make a change in my eating habits. But the minute I got in my car, instead of heading to the health food store to stock up on some food that might help me end my frustration, I drove straight to McDonald’s and ordered a couple of cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke. After inhaling that food while driving down the road, I visited Wendy’s to top off my frustration with a Frosty.

green ballgown2

So for me, merely feeling frustrated with my weight wasn’t enough to move me into action at that point. In fact, once I went from merely overweight to morbidly obese, I wasn’t asked to be in any ensembles anymore. Instead of wearing ball gowns, I wore tent shaped jumpers, white tennis shoes, and stopped wearing my contacts.

My feelings of frustration grew, my waistline expanded, and I often felt paralyzed. I couldn’t seem to move forward in my attempts to get healthy, and instead kept eating, and eating, and eating.  I wanted to stop grazing on chocolate, inhaling chips, and baking cakes, but I felt out of control.

No matter how frustrated I felt, it wasn’t enough to get me moving in the right direction. Morbid obesity was very frustrating. I hated getting on the scale, buying clothes, and looking at myself in the mirror. But the frustration alone wasn’t enough to get me moving in the right direction permanently. Why not? I think for me, because frustration is such a negative emotion. Every time I lost tried another diet based solely on the frustration I felt, I failed. It wasn’t until I combined the frustration and fear with something positive that I was finally able to move forward.

What are your thoughts about frustration and weight? Does frustration hold you back from reaching your goals, or is it an emotion that you can use to move forward? Diane

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

When The Scale Won’t Move

September 3, 2009 By

I gave up on almost every diet I ever tried. From Weight Watchers, to random magazine diets, I never followed through. I always had some excuse for quitting, but by far my most common excuse was that my weight loss attempts had stalled.

Truthfully, this could have been just after five days of dieting, or it could have been after several weeks. I liked the scale to keep moving. And quite frankly, if you are trying to lose some weight, who doesn’t?

If quitting isn’t an option, what should your reaction be you hit the inevitable plateau. Like everything in life, you have a choice.

  1. You can quit (my unfortunate choice many, many times)
  2. You can keep doing what you have been doing
  3. Honestly evaluate what choices you have been making
  4. Be patient
  5. You can change things up
  6. You can go eat some chocolate

Any of these are an option, and there are countless others. I’d encourage you not quit, or eat chocolate. Instead, look at Options #2, #3,  #4 and #5, as possible ways to get yourself through the times when the scale seems stuck. With weight loss, nothing is static, and nothing is set in stone. Unfortunately, what worked for the first 10 pounds, may need some tweaking for the next 20. 

When I initially started losing weight the last time, I mentally prepared myself  for the fact that my weight loss wouldn’t continue on a “perfect” curve, but would rather have some dips and valleys along the way. That mental preparation really helped me when the plateaus came. And when they came, I started out with Option #3 – I forced myself to be honest with the choices I had been making. There were times when I had starting slacking up and had allowed extra food to creep in here and there. If that was the problem, I fixed it, and I did see the scale start to move again.

Since I had such a large amount of weight to lose, I got plenty of practice dealing with plateaus. If fixing some bad eating habits didn’t solve the problem, then I moved on to one of the other options. Sometimes I just tried to keep making the good choices I had practiced. In that case I had to be patient. But sometimes, even with patience and good choices, the scale wouldn’t budge. Then, I had to change things around.

This was where the rubber met the road for me. It took some extra work to mix things up so that I could continue on towards reaching my goals. Here are some things I tried. Usually either one, or a combination of several worked.

Changed up my exercise, either the type or intensity, or both

Cycled the calories around (read more here)

Changed the nutrient level of my diet (either more carbs, or more protein) on any given day

You see the common denominator? Change. Sometimes to have success you have to change things around! I’m not saying that plateaus are easy to get through, because they are absolutely not. But don’t let the plateaus that will come along get you so frustrated that you stumble on your journey to get healthier!  How have you handled the plateaus that weight loss brings? Any difference now, as opposed to the past?  I’d love to hear your ideas.    Diane

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