6th July 2010 facebook email

Joy is the best makeup. Anne Lamott

Boo I gained 2lb yesterday, I really didn’t expect that! I’m hoping it was just a blip and will be gone by next week, but it has made me realise I need to journal everything not just the good bits, so tracker is open and on my desk and so begins another week ;-) As I said to someone yesterday, life is good and weight gain is just a side effect! We can and will rectify it.

It’s moms birthday today, she’s 72 – I really hope I’m like her when I that age, complete with the rewind button and all! For those who don’t know what the rewind button is, its when she tells me something then presses her rewind button and tells me it all over again five minutes later. Actually I think that buttons on permanent pressed in sometimes ;-) and she’s bought the other old ladies in the street one too!

Yesterday was a good weight loss day, over 100lb lost in my meetings, most people have their holidays on the horizon so want to lose an extra few pounds so they can enjoy it.

Here’s today’s habit changing tip;

Seek the Right Kind of Support - The help and encouragement of a buddy, mentor, or professional can go a long way—as long as they believe in you and your goal 100 percent. Choose friends and mentors who will never tear you down but always cheer you on.

Your meeting is the ideal place to find people to team up with. The better you get to know your Leader and meeting members, the more you’ll all feel like a team.

Support is vital when you are losing weight. The trouble is, sometimes those you want support from, turn out to be more interested in stopping your success on the scales. Sometimes it unintentional sabotage but it can still stop you losing weight if you don’t deal with it.
When you make positive changes like eating more healthily and moving more, your family and friends can react negatively, this isn’t necessarily because they are deliberately being mean to you, it can be because they have their own issues, so it’s important to understand why they are doing it. Then you can work out how to deal with the problem.

Some reasons that your other half may not want to see you lose weight could be that;

• They may feel uncomfortable with your growing confidence
• They could be jealous of you
• They may fear that they will lose the ‘old’ you
• They miss sharing things with you from the ‘old’ lifestyle
• They may be resentful of the time you spend at Weight Watchers meetings or following the plan online, down the gym or out walking
• They may feel inadequate if they have failed at weight loss themselves
• They may not fully understand your reasons for wanting to lose weight.
• They may associate giving you food with nurture or love

Experiencing these negative feelings, can cause them to behave in ways that sabotage your best efforts. They might make fun of your weight loss attempts, urge you to eat high pointed foods, criticise your plans, make unhelpful comments about what you’re eating or say general statements that leave you feeling deflated.

Now that you can see who your saboteurs are and why they do it, you can get yourself prepared to deal with them. Remember it’s your body, your health and your weight loss goal so give yourself plenty of positive self-talk and recognition for your successes so far. Think about the things you can say when faced with such a situation, practice saying them. If you’re offered a second helping or a pudding you could say “It was delicious but I’m full to the brim, thanks.”

Talk to your partner about why you want to lose weight and how they can support you, a lot of partners start to think all sorts of things when you begin to lose weight and regain your confidence. Be specific, tell them how to help, non-edible gifts, snacking where you can’t see them, attempting to cook a WW recipe together instead of the Friday takeaway. If you’ve never read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” you should, or “Why men lie and women cry” both books are great for explaining our differences and the later book does it in a very witty way.

It’s also important to get partners to tell you exactly how they feel about weight loss and the changes that are happening. Ask them if they’d like to join you at a Weight Watchers meeting even if they just come once as a guest to see what it entails. They could sign up to your gym or accompany you on your daily walk. Get them involved and they may start to enjoy a new lease of life too.

Remember Life Starts NOW!

Are you living yet :-)