Can we celebrate for a minute?

THIS IS MY 53^rd BLOG POST!

That means I have writing to you all for over a year now!

WHAT?!

Three years ago, you never would have got me to believe that I would write that many posts!  Even a year ago, I would have told you,

“Yeah, right.  No way will I do that posts many in a row.  I hate writing.”

I would have said that because I knew I was really good at sabotaging myself.  Actually, I still am good at it.  When I don’t see the results right away, when things get kind of hard, when I don’t believe I’m good at it, when I don’t quite reach my goals…

I quit.

Then, I think something is wrong with me.  That I’m the only one that can’t follow through.  That I'm not good at anything.  That it must just be easier for those “other” people.

But those are all lies.

We all struggle. 

And we ALL sabotage ourselves. ...

I’m a weight loss coach…if you haven’t figured that out by now

Women come and tell me they want to lose weight. When I ask them how they plan on doing it they go into a laundry list of ideas:

• Eat more vegetables
• Plan more home cooked meals
• Stop eating the sugar treats
• Eat less often
• Get up and exercise in the morning
• Cut carbohydrates
• Quit snacking in the evening
• Replace a meal with a shake drink

The list goes on and on.  While all of these are good ideas… none of them are the best way to lose weight.

Why?

Because, most people have tried these things.  They work for the short term but they always seem to fall back into old habits and gain the weight back.

Did you know that 85-90% of people that lose weight, gain it back again?  Not only that, but they usually end up gaining more weight back than what they lost.

So how does that 10-15% do lose the weight for good?

That's a great question.  One you should start out with if...

Brand new year.

Brand new you?

You want to... lose 50 lbs, exercise 30 minutes a day, clean out the basement, re-decorate the living room, volunteer an hour each week at church, add that extra project at work, stop fighting with your husband, spend 5 hours with the kids each day, bring a home cooked meal to church member each week, learn how to play the guitar, and schedule a date nights with your friends each month....

And you're going to figure out how to do this things in the next two weeks.

Overwhelmed?

Then...

Real life starts to happen. School starts up again, work gets stressful, kids become sick and the credit card bill from December is due.

Forget the goals.  Those seem way more stressful than the life you currently have.

You’re not alone in this. 

So many of us do this.  Not only do we have to many goals at once, but we also have REALLY big goals.

Let me tell you about last year.  I started the year with not...

What do you do when NOTHING works?

How do you react when EVERYTHING is going wrong?

As I am writing this, I am trying to deal with 5 different tech issues at once.

Nothing is working right.

I can feel myself getting frustrated.

I can feel the anger and annoyance building up inside.

That’s when I glance to the kitchen. 

“I’m hungry.  Maybe I should get a snack.”

Yep.  That bad habit that I thought I had tamed pops up again.  I turn to food when I start feeling frustrated, angry, annoyed or just plain mad.

It may make me feel better in the moment.  But, only for a second.  When I get back to the tech issues, the frustration just starts flooding back.  Along with that, I'll be frustrated I ate.

If I had been using willpower to stop myself from eating, I would have gave in at this moment.

I would have thrown my hands in the air and declared, “I DESERVE THIS for the day I’m having.”

But I’m not...

It’s the week of Christmas and all the talk is about gifts. 

My kids get so excited to share what they received, what they want and what they are “sure” they are getting next. 

It is so fun to watch their excitement.

Well, this year I know what I want and what I’m getting.

I actually gave it to myself last year.

It is the gift that keeps giving.

It is the best gift I’ve ever received.

I became my own best friend.

I’m going to get back to that.  But first, I want to share part of the definition of a friend according to Urbandictionary.com:

“A friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone whom you trust and who trusts you. A friend is honest and makes you want to be honest, too. A friend is loyal.”

This last year, I learned to love and respect myself.  I can trust that what I say I will do; I will follow through.  I’m honest with myself and aware that...

I don’t want to....

Can you hear the shrill voices of your kids saying this? I sure can.

But... to be honest, I can also hear myself saying it a lot lately.

We all get in this rut sometimes where we just keep repeating it.

I started this morning saying, “I don’t want to get out of my warm bed.” Then it continued with, "I don't want to work out." "I don't want to get the kids up yet." "I don't want to..."

Have you noticed? It has become kind of a plague in our society.

“Do the things that make you happy.”  “Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel good.”

Guess what? 

Shoveling snow doesn’t make me happy.  I do it anyway.  I’m always glad I did when I am done.

Cleaning doesn’t feel good while I am doing it, but it feels great when I am done.

Passing on the chocolate peanut butter dessert at a holiday party does not make me happy or feel good in the moment. 

...

Many of you are going to be with family over the next few weeks to celebrate.  But for some of you, it won’t feel like celebrating.  It will feel painful, difficult or frustrating.

These get-togethers aren’t pleasant experiences for you.  You won’t want to go.  You’ll want to hide. You may even have thoughts of becoming sick rather than being around certain people.  Or, maybe you have already started thinking up all the excuses you can use to leave early or not go at all.

Don’t do it.  Don’t give into the temptation.

I challenge you my friends.

Relationships are tough.  But they are tough because we feel like we have no control over them.  We feel that other people have act in certain ways for our relationships to be better. 

None of this is true.

Consider this.  Just because your mom comments on your weight doesn’t mean that you are fat.  You are the...

I knew a woman.

She was a beautiful woman with a wonderful life.  She lived in a nice town with a great house and worked a good job.

She had one problem with her life, as she saw it.

Her weight.

She was constantly going up and down.  Losing some, gaining it back again.  Usually gaining back more than what she lost.

It frustrated her.

She couldn’t understand why it had to be so hard.

Why did it have to be hard to feel good about yourself?

That was the problem.

It wasn’t her weight.  It was what she told herself. 

She was telling herself she couldn’t do it.  She was telling herself she struggled with her daughter.  She was telling herself that she wasn’t a good boss. 

She was telling herself she wasn’t good enough… 

It wasn't something she even was really aware of. And, she didn’t want to admit that she was even saying these things about herself. Since she didn't...

I stood in the kitchen staring….

…staring at that container full of cookies. 

They are my favorite.  Chocolate and peanut butter.  I already had one.  It wasn’t on my plan for the day.  I go for the container and open it.  I shove that second cookie down so fast so nobody will know.  Nobody will see that I lack the self-control... that self-control I help my clients build daily.

But it doesn’t stop at that one cookie.  I think about the chocolates in the pantry.  You know, those Lindt truffle ones.  My brain is going crazy.  “Just have that too.  You already have screwed up your plan. Keep going.  You’ll get back on the wagon tomorrow.”

That’s when I realize….

I’m sliding down into the pit of self-sabotage.

I’ve been on this journey before.  I can see the gaping black hole I'm about to free fall into.  It is so tempting to...

Weight loss can be a spiritual journey.

Have you ever thought about that?

It did not occur to me for a LOOOONG time.  So, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

I was listening to the radio the other morning, and the announcer was talking about how he started on this journey to run a marathon purely out of selfishness.  His wife wanted him to lose weight and as he put it, “I was tired of looking at myself in the mirror.” 

So, he started running.  But it turned into so much more than that very quickly.  He put a purpose into his running by raising money for a local non-profit.  Through this God opened his eyes to how He was working while he was running and trying to lose weight.

After hearing this, I realized, I too had a spiritual journey through weight loss.  It is one of the most valuable journeys I have ever been on.

See, three years ago I was a mess.  You wouldn’t have seen it on the...