What To Do When Your Stocking Is Filled With Coal...

Aha! I caught you eating a bag of chips, I caught you stealing candy from a baby, I saw you sneak that last piece of pie into your bedroom the other night. You’ve been a naughty weight-loser this year and have only lost X amount of pounds! Santa is sending coal your way this year.

Okay maybe not the most likely thing Santa would say to you… Did you have a less than perfect weight loss battle this year? I know I did. Sure I lost weight and kept it off. But I didn’t exactly meet my goal. Not close. I did however, meet one of my mini-milestones – which was that first fifty. I made it! And I’m not just patting myself on my back. I’m rewarding myself. Past reward? Night out to dinner. New reward? Piercings I’ve wanted since high school!

So you may have been naughty once or twice or maybe even ten times this year (or even 50+) and I’m sure a lot of it took place around the holidays. Holidays are emotional times. Don’t beat yourself up you’ve had enough of bullying for more than one life time. So pick yourself up off the floor, dust off your jeans and re-adjust your undies. That’s right! It’s a new year and you get to start from the very beginning!

WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! Another New Year’s Resolution? Are you serious? No freaking way am I doing that! Did you know that a New Year’s Resolution lasts at the most three weeks. Did you know that the highest amount of suicide happens on that third Monday, you know “Blue Monday”? Connection? I think so. People let’s not set ourselves up for the ultimate failure. We know that it’s a tradition to make a New Year’s Resolution, but let’s have a little reality check here and see that it is impractical to believe that because we’ve reached a new calendar year that you have reached a new heightened level of self-awareness. Truth be told, you probably haven’t evolved that much.

So my suggestion this year is to make up the most ridiculous New Year’s Resolution you can think of. Don’t smoke? You’re going to finally bite the bullet and start cold turkey! From now on you’re on three packs a week my friend! (Please don’t start smoking it really is bad for you…ask your doctor). Or how about you make the resolution to learn how to juggle and run away to join the circus? Learn origami and send cranes down the River Styx. Buy a Pot-Bellied Pig just to have your kids get attached and then make them bacon the next day and wait for the hysteria!! (But really give the pig back to the farmer that’s just cruel). Whatever you can think of. It’ll be like Happy New Year’s January Fool’s Day! And then you can get back to business:

Set up your mini goals. Fifty pounds seem like a decade away? Make it the first ten. Whichever increment you need to stay motivated to change your lifestyle. Write it down. On a piece of paper, the computer, your blog, a giant billboard on your wall, in your journal. Whatever! Write each mini-milestone and what your gift to your success will be. Don’t skip this step. If you don’t know what those next fifteen pounds will get you, you’re less likely to accept the challenge. Start out with a small gift if you’re just starting your weight loss journey, you’ll lose the most weight when you begin because your body will be in such shock from the exercise and lack of McDonald’s. But your second goal, your next five let’s say, that’s got to have a big gift because you are going to struggle for that five pounds! Trust me.

In fact my next goal is another fifty pounds where I get my tattoo, but to tell you the truth fifty pounds is too far away and I’m going to have to revamp my goals. And don’t be afraid to change your goals. Maybe you lose that fifty pounds you set out to lose but you’re not happy and want to lose ten more. Or maybe you set a goal of 100lbs but at 80 you’re happy with your new shape. Stop there, start the new goal of maintaining your weight.

As for me, I haven’t gotten my piercings yet, but I am promised them. A promise I made with myself a long time ago when my weight loss journey started. But I kept that promise to myself and didn’t get them before I lost the weight. Now I just need to get the money saved, the piercings through and I’ll feel my success. My painful but beautiful success!

smexy!

How To Keep Blogging On

I feel like I’m the only weight loss blogger out there right now. I’ve looked for others to follow and hopefully pull inspiration from them (and maybe a few readers too) but almost everyone I’ve come across either has stopped writing years ago or is completely off the topic of my blog. I did find one today called www.mrmeltdown.com . I started reading a bit of his blog and he seems to be in the same mindset as myself.


So do you have a weight loss blog that you’d like to connect people to? If so leave a link in the comments and I’ll read yours if you read mine ;) lol.

The only way we can help each other is to connect with one another. Leaving comments in a bloggers post is the only real way that they know that their words are being heard. And if they know that at least one person is reading and/or getting something out of it then it’s worth it and they’ll keep going – instead of laying their blog to rest in the blog graveyard of the corner of the web.

So reach out to a blogger in need this holiday season. They may need you more than you know. :) Happy blogging! Oh and Merry Christmas.

Don't Put All Your Calories Into One Cake!

Yes I have yet again failed the blogging community and fallen off track with keeping up with my blog(s).  I am just like every unsucessful blogger out there, I forget, I lose interest, I run out of things to say...well maybe not I just second guess whether or not what I'm thinking is worth writing about...

Right now I'm thinking....I'M STARVING!!! I have no food. I am in the process of moving and am trying not to buy groceries but damn I'm hungry.  I ran out of milk today and could really go for a bowl of special k vanilla almond....

Had a weight loss break through I believe.  Yesterday I went to my friend's place for a planned cookie exchange.  I made boxed brownies and chocolate cake from a mix.  I'm more into decorating let's be honest.  They looked amazing and everyone loved them, but you know what?  I didn't pig out and I didn't mow down on everything that everyone brought.  Let's get serious here, it's the holiday season, there are office parties, and family get togethers, and drinks with friends and of course the boxes of chocolates that those friends bring by to celebrate the tidings!  You're going to eat, you're going to pig out and you're going to feel guilty. 

But before you do that, take a step back and think, "what if I pace myself?" What if we all just take tiny bits of everything instead of indulging on an exorbitantly large piece of Grandma's Famous Apple Pie.  But then you look at cousin Sally longingly as she has some of Aunt Marigold's Fudge.  "Damn," you think, "I wish I had some fudge." So sliding over to the treat table, all eyes on you, you sneak some fudge into a napkin and eat and eat and eat...PROBLEM.
Everyone is going to be eating in front of you and they're going to have sweet foods, salty foods, greasy foods and "made with love" foods.  Take a tiny bit from each and enjoy.  Don't put all your calories into one cake!  This way you get to try everything that everyone brings to the festive table without over-indulging.

And remember that you have all day/night of christmas festivities where there will be food all around, so take your time, don't pile everything on your first plate.  Smaller portions go a longer way.

Don't berrate yourself if you step on the scale January first and have gained ten pounds, EVERYONE DOES.  You're no different just because you're fat.  I'm fat, I should know!  And we're all guilty of blaming ourselves after the holidays.  It's true.  But if you plan ahead, you won't plan to fail.