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!