I wish I was as thin as I was back when I thought I was fat!

Due to many years of yo-yo dieting, struggling to lose weight, struggling to keep weight off after losing weight, seeing family and friends work on losing weight, etc. I originally thought that the hardest part about losing weight was just not being enough. Not motivated "enough", not dedicated "enough", not exercising "enough",  etc. I now know that the hardest part about losing weight is letting go of the beliefs that we have about food and eating. These beliefs are ingrained in us from childhood. We are surrounded by these beliefs in our homes, in advertisements, in the media. We spend our lives scheduling around when you can eat, where/what you are going to eat, who is going with you to eat...
Americans typically have food beliefs such as, "Clean your plate", "Don't waste food", "Eat and you'll feel better", and so much more. One of my biggest issues has always been eating because it is time to eat. It is lunch time so I must eat. I may not get to eat later so I must eat now.

The best part about the Naturally Slim program that I am doing through my job is that I am working very hard to change my beliefs about food and eating. I am feeling GREAT. It all just makes so much sense to me. I feel like if I would have known all of these beliefs are not true and don't work for me then I would not be part of the 2/3 of Americans who are overweight or obese.

I am really enjoying this program and learning about hunger and fueling my body. I am making smart decisions about food. I am LISTENING to and paying attention to my body's hunger signs. I am eating when I am truly physically hungry.  I am eating healthy snacks (hunger savers) that will satisfy my belly until I am able to eat my meal. I am chewing slowly, I am not rushing through my meal. So much of our lives are spent celebrating with food, socializing with food, coping...with food. "You earned that cupcake!" "Hey, you've been good ALL week, you can eat whatever you want on the weekend and just get back to it on Monday." I am striving to consciously eat, not mindlessly eat. Changing your beliefs is hard. The hardest part.

I have been setting movement goals for myself and I am blowing them out of the water which increases my endorphins and encourages me to continue. I set a goal for myself to reach 5,000 steps daily before leaving work. I have been doing well with this goal for a couple of weeks now. Earlier this week, I decided to increase my daily work step goal to 6,000. On the first day, I left work with 5900 steps after multiple surprise walk-in appointments. I would have completely reached my goal if it weren't for that! The next day, I left work with over 7,000 steps. Today, I am just shy of 4,000 steps before 11:30am. See how you can be your own best motivator? It also helps that some of my colleagues have seen me walking the halls and will say things like, "Getting your steps in?" or they will ask me how many steps I am up to. This is encouraging for me.

My biggest struggle, so far, is also adding in ADDITIONAL exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. I am not beating myself up about it. I am primarily focusing on my food beliefs, eating well, and increasing my movement. I am seeing the scale decrease daily. I am a structured person. I do very well all week long, but I have to really make an effort to increase my steps on the weekend (other than wandering around cleaning the house). I also have to really focus on making sure I drink enough water all weekend.

I am enjoying the Healthy Wage challenge that I am in with my co-workers. I think the time is perfect since I started the Naturally Slim program the week before the Healthy Wage challenge. I do not plan to update my weigh-in until the end of the month although I am weighing in weekly for both programs.

I am also still working on the Blue Zones Project for my job site. This is the wellness initiative for making our community a "healthier, happier place to live, work, and play". I am enjoying working on the project and making sure that my job site is a healthy work place. I look forward to getting some of my co-workers included in the project soon.

For anyone struggling to lose weight, I highly recommend the Naturally Slim program. I am only on week 3 of the 10 week program and look forward to what I will learn over the next 7 weeks.

Best,

healthier, happier place to 
live, work, and play.

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, but much more rewarding.

My awesome employer has a wellness committee called Revive Wellness. They offer a lot of wellness incentives for the employees. I just received a free stability ball today for my office. One of these perks is a program called Naturally Slim. It is not a diet plan. It is a 10 week program that consists of educational tools/videos to teach new habits and ways of thinking about food. Did you know that 75% are truly only hungry twice per day? The majority of people are not truly hungry until 4-6 hours after waking yet we've been trained that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Most people eat out of habit or eat because it is "time to eat". This happens to me often. We typically eat dinner early because kids, bedtime routine, just want to relax, blah blah blah. I am not always hungry yet I find myself pressuring myself to eat because it is dinner time. There's also times that I just have no idea what I want to eat. Either everything sounds good or nothing sounds good. This just means that I am not truly hungry (or I am TOO hungry). I am happy to complete the lessons, journal, and learn new-to-me techniques for losing weight. I started the program today. I know it will take at least a week to have consistency thinking in a new way. The program started today and ends in 10 weeks.

I wouldn't necessarily say that I am a super competitive person, but let me tell you how I always made my mile time in high school athletics. I have always enjoyed sprints and plyometrics vs. "long distance", but it was required in softball especially during off-season. So there was this girl named Courtney. She was really short and had these tiny little footsteps when she was running. She was my pacer. I always made sure to stay near her because she always made her mile time. Then I would sprint past her for the last 100 of the mile so that I would beat her. She never knew that I was competing against her--at least she never said so. Thanks Courtney for always making sure I made my mile time, lol.

To appeal to my competitive side and the fact that money is a good motivator, I also joined a Healthy Wage weight loss challenge through my employer. It is a 12 week challenge with 4 teammates that starts on May 1st. The goal is to be the team who loses the most weight (percentage). There are monetary prizes--which is motivating. The top three teams will win: $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000. How awesome would one of those prizes be? If you lose 10% of your weight, but didn't win the top three teams then you get your $35 registration fee back.

I have "officially" lost 3 lbs since April 10th so unfortunately, those lbs do not count for either of these two challenges. Darn, lol. I just figure that I have lost weight in the past, but never kept it off so I need to do something different. I have been eating well over the last couple of weeks so I am striving to keep that up while implementing the lessons I learn during this 10 week program.

I LOVE bell peppers. I always buy one of each and sometimes I don't eat them because I don't cut them up. I decided to go ahead and chop all of them up for easy grabbing. We had pesto caprese paninis last night. They were delicious. I brought ham and cheese lettuce wraps, eggs, avocado, string cheese, and yogurt today (for breakfast, lunch, and snack). I am still drinking coffee with one creamer.

Tomorrow, I am going to follow the Naturally Slim recommendation to wake up and drink 20 oz of water. I usually bring my breakfast to work and eat at my desk. I am going to drink water in the morning and see when I naturally reach Level 3 hunger. Some people don't even eat breakfast--in terms of the meal time not breakfast items--but then they think, "Oh I didn't eat breakfast" so they use that as an excuse to eat a huge lunch. Our stomachs are only the size of a loosely closed fist. I have to train my brain to realize this. I want to eat satisfying foods that I like that are healthy for me.

I am also striving to leave work each day with a minimum of 5,000 steps. So far, I have been doing well. It's a little bit strange to walk the floor that my office is on because it is so small, but it is a good way for me to get steps in, stretch my legs, and give my eyes a break from my computer. I make sure to walk at least one around around the floor before and after going to the restroom. I also get a few laps in every hour, before lunch, and after lunch. I also take the stairs to go get water a few times a day.

For both programs, I have to weigh on the start date and the end date. Of course, I'll be weighing along the way--can't seem to break that habit. I look forward to seeing where I am in 12 weeks.

I hope you'll hang in there for an update.