The Last 2 Weeks

Jan. 16~

I wasn't able to attend this Sat. morning class because I sustained an injury in my right calf playing basketball on Friday night against the Young Women. I had felt great throughout the game until the last few minutes when I became confused and then stepped wrong. Ouch! I have been taking it easy and resting it so I am doing so much better now. I was so worried about not being able to exercise that I felt despair. I was able to get through this and I am doing much better now because of the encouragement I felt from many of you. Even from those of you who also received injuries as well. I hope you are also doing much better now. I appreciate you. I tried my best to continue diligently with portion control since that was all that was within my power in these last two weeks. I struggled on some days but then on others I succeeded which is the way it truly goes.
Erin taught the lesson this week on The Body is a Blesssing. The link can be found on the sidebar for that talk. Our bodies are amazing and it was our challenge to remember that! Also, Gloria showed an interesting video presentation on the effects that refined sugar has on our bodies. Since not everyone was able to stay to watch that video, Gloria will make arrangements to make sure that you can watch it if you'd like and you can arrange that with her. I also heard that the Y.W. basketball game was a topic of conversation for the importance of exercising and realizing that we need to take baby steps to stay fit.

Jan. 23~

I felt today's meeting was very insightful. Melanie shared lots of positive and encouraging information today. Here are some of the highlights:

• Take care of our bodies to the best of our ability. (1 Nephi 3:7)
• Keep a WOW journal and write down how you resisted food temptations. (like not eating that brownie you really wanted)
• Consider how much energy you use to carry your own body. How else might you spend that energy if you felt healthier?
• Be healthy.
• Reach our goals. We can do this!
• Remember the beautiful dream that Melanie has in mind for each of us. Make our own dreams reality.
• Mormonad: Don't be fooled! Remember the story about the snake.
• "Being in the water won't drown you but staying there will." We don't have to stay where we are at. We have the power within us to change.

Remember: We'll be starting a clothing exchange in the next two weeks. The purpose and hope is that as we lose weight we'll not be in any one size very long and exchanging our clothes amongst each other will help with the expense of buying new clothing.

Other inspirational quotes:

The greatest wealth is health. ~Virgil

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. ~Bruce Lee

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong. ~Lao-Tzu (600 B.C.)

One starts an action simply because one must do something.
- T. S. Eliot

First Weigh-In of 2010

On Saturday, Jan. 9, was the first WOW meeting for the year. I'm excited to start fresh again. A clean slate. A new day. In my mind, I'm learing that weight loss is not about food. Believe me, I still love food. For me, it's about learning control, training new healthier thoughts into my brain and how to lead a sustainable, healthy lifestyle.

Here is a little run down on what happened at the meeting:

This WOW session will be for 20 weeks. Remember that the aim is a very reasonable 2 lb. loss per week, the hope is to be able to lose 40 pounds (2 dress sizes). If you need to lose less than 40 pounds then you definitely should reach your goal! Some may lose more. Overall, may each of us help everyone reach their healthiest best!

We brought and if you couldn't then you can bring next meeting:

1. A hopeful self to get your before picture taken. (As I took these pictures, I felt inspired to remind you that each of you are beautiful right now. We already are beautiful...like Melanie talked about. Here again, I'm reminded that weight loss isn't about beauty either.)

2. A measuring tape (one provided if you don't have one) to take your measurements. (In truth, this wasn't easy and very telling but I feel it will be important for myself in comparison later on.)

3. A nice outfit you would like to fit into that is two dress sizes smaller. (I'm still looking for the outfit that I want to buy back so it is not too late to get into this game.)
Melanie will be keeping the outfit at her house, but you will have the opportunity as you get healthier to earn WOW bucks, to buy it back! Then on the evening of May 29, a dinner/dance will be held to celebrate our 40 lb losses in our "new" earned outfits!

Remember:

Rule #1: What happens in WOW stays in WOW! (All of your personal info., i.e., weight, measurements and photos are for your records only etc..)

Rule #2: No excuses.

I was also very inspired by the challenge this week which is to strengthen our posture and think UP! I'm still working on this. So, it reminds me of a little Dr. Seuss:

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!

I have looked into the mypyramid.gov and sparkpeople.com - the problem I had with sparkpeople is it didn't recognize shredded wheat's. Mypyramid.gov will show every type of shredded wheat along with many other foods.
With mypyramid.gov, you start by going to my pyramid tracker to log in. Then you can add your food or activity. Research the activities, they even have sleeping, reading and computer and many other choices. You want to put as much activities to fill 24hr if you can. It shows the food by measurement, 1 cup, then it allows you to set your servings, 1.5 or 2. Sparkpeople doesn't do that.
The problem I have with mypyramid is after you enter your food intake, it says saves and analyze. The top box says calculate DG comparison, DG means dietary guidlines. Your 2 choices are 1. maintain weight or 2 leads you to gradually loosing and maintaining healthy weight. clicking 2 gives me as warning saying The height and weight you entered in your Personal Profile indicates you need to consult an health care professional about weight-loss strategies prior to starting a weight reduction program. I am 236l.b., 5'6"
I do not know what to do about this development. I will still post my food and activity because I like the reminder of how many servings I have missed so I can do better.