Week 8 Begins: What's Your Strong Finish Strategy?

While weight loss and fitness is a lifelong pursuit, there are only 5 weeks remaining in our competition.  The results look good thus far, though I believe many of you are only half-heartedly focusing on your program.  What can you change, today, to finish strong, and continue on the path you've begun?

• Be honest about your food intake.  Do you keep allowing yourself "cheat" days?  These effectively cause your body to have to restart, as if you haven't done any work at all.  Stop cheating.  Start winning!
• Even if you just don't have time to work out, or if life is too hectic to fit a routine into your program, make the time to walk.  Walk the stairs.  Park far away and walk.  Right after dinner, take a walk around your neighborhood.  And, talk a closer look at your schedule.  I'd bet you make time for TV.
• Keep aligned with your partner.  Keep each other accountable.  Just because this is not top of mind every moment of the day doesn't mean it shouldn't be top of mind at least twice a day.  Call, text, stop by...check in with each other.

For some of you, fatigue has set in.  Lack of motivation has begun to rule your resolve.  This is when you must look to your team to support your continued participation.  This is why we're not doing this alone.  Take advantage of the support offered by each of your team members to help you with success.

What's keeping you from being the best you possible?

Team: You Need to Support One Another This Week!

Not to imply you're not usually supportive (although there has been a lot of happily shared food porn amongst you, even when I'm present...); however, I will be out of the office in Florida this week (in a bathing suit -- please imagine immediately how you would feel if you had to put on a bathing suit RIGHT NOW) and cannot badger anyone effectively from that distance (do not breathe a sigh of relief Joe or Nate).  Each of you need to encourage the others, especially the ones who show signs of receding in interest or intensity; who cannot remain committed to their own goals.  It's week 7!  Not much time left.  Or, in another way of thinking, there is a lifetime left, and you're just 7 weeks into preparing to make it the best lifetime you can.  :)  I like that...

I'd like to challenge you all to blog effectively -- some of your posts are so amazing and helpful to all of us -- and to check in with each other on your progress.  Team is more than just an occasional gathering -- it's really trying to be supportive and empathetic and strong for one another.

Let me come back from Florida to find my team strong and engaged.  Best thing I can imagine.

It's All About Planning

PS:  I have no idea why some of this text is outlined in white.  Have tried for 20 minutes to fix.  Just all gonna have to deal with the ugliness...

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882 American Poet Essayist

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.
Tom Landry
American Football Player Coach

As we enter week 6, I am certain of one thing -- without planning, your program will fail.  Planning encompasses so many different components each day.  If you are a morning work out person, laying out your clothes every night is an essential part of the plan to make that early morning commitment.  It's easy to use the excuse that your clothes are in the laundry basket in the basement, and it's absurdly early to be stumbling about trying to find them... and decide you'll do it the next day.  If you are an evening work out person, you have to plan to bring your gear with you to work, so you'll head right for the gym.  A stop at home generally spells the end to your good intentions.  

As I write, the scent of oven-fried chicken and sirloin tip roast is making my home redolent with amazing, mouth-watering scent.  Six chicken legs and a 3-pound roast.  And I'm cooking for one.  Why do I do this on a Sunday night?  It's the only way I can be sure that I'll have healthy, delicious dinners every night this week.  I can leave work at 8 pm, and not have to drive through somewhere cause I'm too tired to think about cooking.  This is so do-able!  It doesn't even take much more time than just cooking one dinner!  In fact, it makes my life so much easier.

Workout clothes laid out.  Dinner prepared for several nights a week.  This relieves a lot of pressure each day.  And, there's another thing I do to prepare, a trick that I only recently started, but it is one of my best.  I make an egg scramble on Sunday morning that creates at least 3-4 breakfasts for the week.  Talk about easy!  It's difficult for me (and maybe for some of you) to figure out how to get a good breakfast in when I'm rushing about trying to get to work.  

Here's what I've been doing:

Cut up a bunch of veggies (onion, yellow bell pepper, broccoli, spinach) and saute (I love coconut oil or bacon grease for this part)

Saute some meat and chop up (chicken sausage, bacon, ham; use your imagination)

Scramble 10 eggs (I use coconut milk; but water, almond milk will be good too)

Add eggs to the veggies and meat.  Scramble.  Enjoy deliciousness.  Separate the left overs in easy to carry containers (I can get 4 breakfasts from this recipe).  Microwave every morning after gym time.  Or, just to get your day kick-started.

The bonus of establishing a good plan is that there is no guess work left each day.  Take the stress out of your nutrition and your exercise by creating and executing a good plan that works for you.

Would love to hear your tips for planning that works for you!  

Welcome to Week 6!!

Make Decisions as if You are Your Future Self

First and foremost:  The NY Giants -- Superbowl Champs!  Excellent game, mixed reviews on halftime & commercials.  Were you able to resist the temptation of party food?  

We're embarking on week 5 already!  Isn't it astonishing that time passes so quickly?  I'd like to hear from those of you who have had breakthroughs in the first 30 days.  Have your sweet cravings been reduced?  Do you find you've lost the urge to drink soda?  How about your commitment to exercise?  Does the journal keep you on track?

I'm going to repeat a post from last week's blog because I believe it will resonate with everyone:

Nassau William Senior said, "To abstain from the enjoyment which is in our power, or to seek distant rather than immediate results, are among the most painful exertions of the human will."  Thus, when we set goals (like weight loss or achieving fitness levels), we end up creating a struggle between who we are now (our present self) and who we wish to be later (our future self).  The problem with this struggle is that it is not a fair fight.  Our present self is with us always, and makes all the decisions.  Our future self doesn't have a voice, so can't help us make the appropriate choices that allow us to reach our goals.

The disparity between who we are today, and who we want to be in the future will always be with us.  Can you give your future self a greater say in your decisions?  Can you look at the food you crave ("enjoyment which is in your power") and decide as your future self (at which time you have reached you results) not to succumb to the immediate (perceived) pleasure?  Make decisions every day as if you are your future self -- and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy!