Don't Let Your Success Make You Lose Your Discipline

There are many reasons why people fail to reach weight loss goals and their goals in general.  They get bored, lose their motivation, don't succeed fast enough and give up or they do succeed and throw themselves a party.  We all need encouragement when we have reached a goal or milestone, but the problem with throwing a party is that then most people revert back to their old ways.


That is what happened to me over the winter.  I had already slowed down because of the cold weather and I went off my new eating habits because of the holidays.  I thought to myself that I would be fine since I had already lost so much weight..... But I thought wrong.  Before I knew it, I was addicted to Brooksides Chocolate Acai Berry snacks and I was flirting with 5 pounds that would come and go.  I had completely lost the discipline I had gained.  I felt like I was spiraling out of control.


I decided that I had to do something fast or I would be right back to where I never wanted to be again.  I took a month off to regroup and focus on my mindset.  I gave up the Brooksides (which was harder than you think) and made more of an effort to exercise while I had no pressure of documenting everything and weighing in.  I found my motivation.  I remembered that I like to exercise and eat healthy.  I finally feel like I am getting back on the right track.


I have re-found my discipline with every intention of keeping it from here on out.


Have you found your discipline?

Make An Effort

As I have reclaimed my life, I noticed that I never really stayed in touch with my friends anymore.  I waited for them to contact me and when they didn't I felt even more unworthy.  I don't know how I managed to bury myself so far in my own doubt and misery that I felt it was totally up to them to keep in contact with me.  I've always been a very social person.  I love talking to people, going places, meeting new people and having get togethers at my house.  I didn't even realize that I had shut everyone out of my life until I was struggling to begin the me initiative.


It is so much harder to uncover you when you don't have a solid support system.  Especially when it is your own fault as a product of your hiding from the world.  In the effort to protect myself from further emotional injury I gave myself the worst kind of injury.  I left myself with no one to go to for aid in finding me.  No one knew the real me anymore, I didn't even know my true self either.  Thank goodness for Cathy, Stacey, Allison, my daughters, Leesa, and a few others who never gave up on me.


Now I make an effort to connect with my friends.  Every Monday I send a "Happy Monday" message to a group of people whom I don't want to lose touch with.  I also send a "Sydney was here!" message at random times when I'm thinking of them.  There is no pressure for them to respond, but they know they were on my mind.


I have rediscovered that it is not up to other to make me happy, it is up to me.  Everything I do has to make me feel happy and leave me with the ability to sleep at night.


Don't lose your friends and support system because you are hiding from the world.  You will never be happy.


No matter what, Make The Effort!

Exit Your Comfort Zone

Exiting your comfort zone is one of the scariest things to do.  It is our comfort zone for a reason.  It is safe, easy and known.  The fear of the unknown is really what holds us back from leaving our comfort zone.


For me, it was not the unknown that I feared.  I feared/fear what others would think.  It took me a long time to stop worrying about what others thought.  I had a conversation with one of my coworkers about an issue I was having with my old boss.  I asked her how she handled it and she explained to me that I could not worry about what others did or thought.  It is up to them how they think, it is up to me how I react to what they say and do.  If I let them drive me then I would always feel stressed and inferior.  This was a pivotal moment for me.  I finally realized that they had not traveled my path to where I was and their approval wasn't necessary for me to get where I was going.


The hardest thing for me to do now and then is to exercise in front of other people.  I know it sounds stupid, I mean I was in the Army and every day for years I had to do PT in front of thousands of my "closest" friends.  But I found myself unable to even exercise in front of my daughters.


I have slowly overcome this one day at a time.  I started by swimming laps in my pool, very difficult since I hadn't even worn a bathing suit in five years when I started swimming again.  Then I went to an adult tap class at my daughter's dance studio, again very difficult since I haven't danced in over 15 years and I never took lessons.  I had a real break through a few weeks ago.  I actually took my mini stepper out on the balcony and spent my hour exercising in the great outdoors.  Okay!  I made the girls keep me company and I read a book on my iPad, but I did it! 


I consider every time I take it outside to exercise a major win.  Even now, after exercising on my balcony many times, I'm still a little daunted by the thought of exercising in a gym.  One good thing is that I don't ever really have to take that step, but I probably will eventually.


Every day I try to do one thing out of my comfort zone. 


how about you?  What is the hardest thing for you to overcome?

Find Your Happy Place

One of the first things you should do is find your happy place.  Where is that one place, or maybe two places, where you feel the most joy and the most peace?  Your happy place could even be a person, someone who calms you just by being in the same room.  Where you can go to center yourself and reflect on what has set you off balance.


For me it is our pool.  I actually picked my apartment because I have always loved the pool.  I would drive by it and it would just call to me.  Others are concerned about having a laundry set up in the apartment, me I would rather tromp up and down a million stairs to have free access to the pool all summer.


I love being outside and anything in and on the water.  Canoeing, boating, fishing, swimming I love them all.  Something about being out there forces me to slow down and to confront everything in my life.  The quite time, the stillness in the air, the view of the clouds and the gentle lap of the water centers me like nothing else.


I am saddened when the pool closes each September.  I then switch to my balcony and try to spend as much time as possible outside walking and hiking.  But it is not really the same.  Nothing brings me as much peace as a day around the water.


Where is your happy place?

Make a Goal And Then a Plan

A dream is just an idea until you make a goal and then a plan on how you intend to reach that goal.  For years I dreamed of creating a new me, but I never made any lasting changes until I made a 4 year plan in the me initiative.


I know a 4 year plan seems daunting, but let us be realistic.  It took me 15 years to hide myself from life.  And I do mean hide myself.  I wore my fat like armor keeping me from having to interact with the world.  I became this quite, mousy person who in no way represents the me I have been my entire life.  If anyone noticed the me underneath all of that armor, I would immediately go and add more armor.  This was not something I did consciously, I didn't even realize it was happening until it was almost too late.  When you reflect on all of the time I spent hiding, a 4 year plan is a very short time in comparison.


Every person's dream is different, so their plan is also different.  My dream is to be able to live the life I want to live when my youngest daughter graduates in 2020.  I will only be 42 and I plan on enjoying the 20s I spent being the soul provider for my daughters and the 30s I spent taking care of my parents when that time comes. 


My plan is laid out like this......


Year 1 - Get my eating habits under control and start losing weight while I work on finding my confidence and learning how to love myself first.


Year 2 - Turn my exercise routine into a habit, continue refining my eating habits and getting fit as well as lose weight while continuing to find my confidence and learning how to love myself again.


Year 3 - Update my wardrobe and start "dating" my friends to re-learn how to be social with adults and continue everything from year 2, while being open to dating just not actively looking.


Year 4 - Start actively putting myself out there in the dating world, put myself in more social situations and figure out what I want to do with my life going forward, while continuing everything from year 2 and 3.


Don't worry if you have to make changes as you go along.......Plans, like dreams, do tend to change.  It is a good idea to reevaluate your goals and your plans every year. 


What is your dream?  As a goal?  As a plan?

What a Difference a year Makes

Who would have thought that a year would bring so many changes.  Last summer I was at the beginning of my journey in the me initiative.  I was well into changing my eating habits and really starting my work out routine.  My goal was set and my 4 year plan was starting to come together.


It was scary and daunting when I thought about the expected results at the end of 4 years.  I really had to attack it one week at a time or I was almost too afraid to carry on.  Even then, I had moments when I felt that this would all be in vain.  I had many conversations with friends and received some good suggestions and guidance, but for the most part I knew I was on my own for this journey.  Failing or succeeding was going to have to come from me and my own intestinal fortitude.


I know it seems odd to find a new, well not really new but returning to an old, lifestyle scary.  But I knew there had to be tons of changes and sacrifice to get where I want to be.  The unfortunate part is that the closer I get to my goal the scarier it gets.


It seems that the closer I get to my goal the harder it is to get there.  I find that I begin to doubt myself and my right to be happy more and more.  And I start to erect unconscious barriers keeping me from reaching my goal.  This is it, the point where I have to decide to keep going or stop.  I'm 17 pounds from my goal, the closest I have ever been.


I choose to keep going! 


What will you decide?

When you feel like doing it the least you need to do it the most

As I have traveled on this journey, I have found times when I really didn't want to be bothered with exercising.  For me it is when it is cold outside.  I really hate the cold!  It was never my favorite time of year, but after you get frost bite it becomes your least favorite.


Often it took everything I had to make me get up and move.  Once I was into my exercise it was great, but just getting started on days like that is the worst.  But those days are also the most rewarding.


Something about breaking a sweat when you really didn't want to move makes it seem so much more meaningful.  I am free to let my mind wander during my work out on those days and I have such a sense of accomplishment when I finish.


It is those little victories of just getting up and moving when I wanted to stay still that give me the motivation to continue towards my goal.


Always remember, only you are holding you back.