My Nutrisystem Journey

"Change takes time. It takes time for  the seeds to begin growing within, time  to understand and process, time for the  growth to mature, and time for the old  self to die and fall away." ~ Bryant McGill ~ Nobody likes change and I am no exception to that. I've had to deal with plenty of it over the years and I fought it every time. The energy I spent fighting change was wasted, because change comes whether you like it or not. It didn't matter if it was changes at work or changes in my personal life, whatever it was it used to send me into a panic. When I decided to address my weight on 12/29/18 and hit the submit button for my first Nutrisystem order I was taking the first step towards the biggest change my life has ever seen. A lot had already changed and it wasn't all bad, but I had yet to address the changes that were needed in me. Once I finally "saw" what I really looked like I knew I had to do something. I sat here on ...

                                                                                                                         Rapa Nui (Easter Island) "Be good to yourself. Listen to your  body, to your heart. We're very hard on  ourselves, and we're always feeling  like  we're not doing enough. It's a  terribly hard job."     ~Marcia Wallace~  I chose this quote today because I've always been so hard on myself. I think it's a trait that a lot of women share. Nothing I ever did was good enough and when things went wrong I always blamed myself. I could easily see the good in other people but for whatever reason I could nev...

 "When you're struggling with  something, look at all the people  around you and realize that every  single person you see is struggling with  something, and to them, it's just as  hard as what you're going through."     ~Nicholas Sparks~ I remind myself of this all the time, because it's something that helped me get through some of the hardest times of my life. Even when my bank account was at zero and bills were piling up I knew another paycheck was coming. I would always tell myself I was lucky to have a great job with a steady paycheck. When I had leukemia I thought about people who didn't have insurance or had inadequate coverage. I also thought about people who wouldn't have an income during the fight of their life. I was fortunate to have great insurance and receive my full salary the entire time I was ill. The lesson is that despite some hard times I had a lot of blessings in my life too. My struggles wer...

"When you embrace the idea that  you'll never be perfect, you can accept  that mistakes are an important part  of   your life's journey that contribute  to  who you are."     ~Charlene Martin Lillie~ I love this quote because I've embraced the fact that I'm not perfect and never will be. I almost said "I've always embraced the fact that I'm not perfect" but I had to change that, because I realized it wasn't true. For so many years I tried to be perfect and sometimes I thought I was. Turns out I wasn't. I failed at being perfect repeatedly. Since I thought I was perfect, it was pretty demoralizing when things didn't go my way. In my mind it was never my fault. The whole world was against poor me ! I always put on the happy face but I was dying inside and at some point I just stopped trying. I figured life was never going to get better and I was "stuck" with the path I had chosen, so why both...

"Don't regret being a good person, to the  wrong people. Your actions say  everything about you, and their  actions say everything about them."     ~ Vex King ~ Most of us can probably think of at least one person you were good to that didn't really deserve your kindness. I know I can think of a few I've encountered over the years. Who knows, there may be people who think of me as that person. I'm sorry if you do. I'm certainly not perfect and I've made plenty of mistakes over the years. I probably wasn't much of a friend to anyone but until recently I was barely surviving myself. If I tried to reach out and didn't get the response I was looking for there was never going to be a second attempt. I eventually gave up on developing friendships and a support system. Food had always been my friend and it never let me down, so as long as I had that I was good to go ! Anyhow, I saw today's quote on one of Vex's posts ...

"One of the greatest discoveries a man  makes, one of his great surprises, is to  find he can do what he was afraid he  couldn't do."    ~Henry Ford~ Over the past 416 days I've done a lot of things I thought I couldn't do. It seems like every obstacle I get past makes the next one I encounter that much easier to overcome. When I started Nutrisystem I "hoped" to be successful with losing weight but I wasn't sure I could. When I started using the treadmill I wasn't sure I could stay with it. It was really hard to find the motivation needed to make exercise a regular part of my life. At some point I finally realized I was doing it ! The weight was falling off and getting on the treadmill every day was getting easier. It took me a while but I finally settled on the Total Gym to help with strength training and it's been relatively easy to incorporate it into my day. While all this was going on I was also paying down debt ...

"If you cannot find peace within  yourself, you will never find it  anywhere else."    ~Marvin Gaye~ I never thought I'd have peace in my life again. I've been through cancer, I've been through an abusive marriage, I've been through the loss of 5 dogs and 5 cats, I've been through difficult financial times, I've been through a house fire, I've been through a broken wrist, and I've been through the closure of my office. For years every time life seemed a little bit brighter something would happen to shatter that, so I was pretty much always waiting for the next disaster. It got to the point where I couldn't enjoy anything in my life and I think that's when I started walling off my emotions. If you don't allow yourself to feel happiness then nothing can happen to take it away from you. Once I was widowed in 2014 life started to get better but it was not without its challenges. I had to say goodbye to 3 dogs betwe...

"If you want something you never had,  you have to do something you've never  done." There are so many things I never had and thought I wanted. I spent years yearning for things I would never have and it turns out I really didn't want most of them. All I really wanted was to feel better about myself. I couldn't see that until I actually did start feeling better. It took doing a lot of things I've never done to get to that point. When I hit the submit button on my first Nutrisystem order I was stepping out into the unknown. I'd never been very successful with losing weight or keeping it off. I can see now why so many people get caught up in the cycle of yo-yo dieting. I don't consider Nutrisystem to be a "diet". I'm not on a "diet". I'm learning about portion control and eating the right foods. Unless you do that, any weight you do lose will come right back when you "go off" your diet. Hence the ...

"Exercise not only changes your body,  it  changes your mind, attitude and  your  mood. The stronger you are, the  better  you feel. Invest in yourself.  Chase  those  endorphins." I was thinking today how much my attitude towards exercise has changed. There are still days I don't really feel like exercising but I push myself to do it anyway, because I know how good I will feel. When I first started using the treadmill in February 2019 I took advantage of every excuse not to exercise. That's because back when I was still close to 300 pounds it was still hard just to get up from the couch, let alone to walk on the treadmill. As the weight has come off I've realized more and more just how much my weight limited me. Fat people are often labeled "lazy" and to a degree that might be an accurate assumption, but in reality the fatter you get the harder it is to move and the more your body hurts. I can remember sitting at ho...

"I am in competition with no one. I  have no desire to play the game of being  better than anyone. I am simply  trying to be better than the person I  was  yesterday." The day I decided it was time to address my weight I wasn't thinking about competing with anyone and I never thought of myself as being better than anyone else. I just knew I had to get serious and stop killing myself with food. If I wanted a better life it was up to me to make that happen. No one was going to swoop in and do that for me. When I started working on getting more fit there was no thought of competition there either. I knew exercise was necessary to speed up the weight loss and heal some of the damage I'd done to my body over the years. My entire focus was on improving myself and I've never measured my progress against anyone else. As far as I'm concerned my only competition is me. Every day I look in the mirror and tell myself I can do more or I can do bette...

"If you achieve your goal, you  celebrate and feel terrific, but only  until you realize you just lost the  thing that gave you purpose and  direction. Your options are to feel  empty and useless, perhaps enjoying  the spoils of your success until they  bore  you, or set new goals and reenter  the cycle of permanent pre-success  failure."         ~ Scott Adams ~ Now that I'm "only" 27 pounds away from my goal weight I've started thinking about what I can focus on next. I may decide to lose a bit more weight, but if I don't go that route I'm definitely concerned about not having a goal other than maintaining my weight and continuing to work on my fitness. Boredom is definitely a concern, which is why I'm thinking about doing some landscaping once the snow is gone. I was thinking about hiring someone to give my house some "curb appeal" but then I started wondering...

"By understanding what drives you  emotionally, you can discover creative  ways to get inspired and propel yourself  towards success." I never thought of myself as an emotional eater, which is laughable since I was totally an emotional eater ! I guess that over time my eating habits just became my "normal" and I got really good at putting my head in the sand, instead of facing life head on. I also buried my emotions for so long that I didn't really have a recognizable emotional response when I was eating, so it took a while for me to make the connection. Or maybe it just took me a long time to admit it to myself. My idea of emotional eating was people who "binge" when faced with trauma or an obstacle. Turns out there is a whole lot more to that and binge eating is just one facet of it. When I look back now I can see the pattern that developed in my life over many years. What's ironic is that a healthy meal can be just as fulf...