You Can't Win If you Don't Buy In

Driving to work the other day, listening to the news, I heard that the Powerball lottery had risen to an insane amount of money --- millions of millions. Since I have kicked my bad habit of eating in the car, I had little to do except start to day dream about what I could do with millions of millions of dollars…

For several minutes, I mentally built my list of the things I would do with unlimited resources. I always think about traveling (which I love), and then I think about the places I would spend some time. I would bring my family together again! After that came the things I would buy: a new car (cars!), an RV… a horse or two! Oh my goodness, just think what Patrick and the kids could do with this money! Think of all of the needy projects of the world that I could contribute to… and clothes – I could buy more purses and shoes…. <sigh>

Of course your thoughts come skidding to a halt when you hear the news that someone else has won the lottery – someone else has stolen your dream! Which brings it home to you: You Could Not Win Because You Never Bought a Ticket! (In other words: You can’t win if you don’t buy in.)

Life in general is certainly a lot like winning the lottery, and it seems to apply to weight loss in particular. You can sit and think of a lot of things you would do if and when you lost weight: you’d look thinner, you’d buy new clothes, you’d get compliments, your family would be proud of you, you’d be able to walk further and your doctor would rave about it at your checkup when looking at the results of your tests… but WAIT. YOU CAN’T WIN if you don’t BUY IN.

Buying in means believing that you can get the winning ticket. It’s the first step in making the weight dream a reality!   

Garbage Can!

EXPERIMENT: Pick up something to eat... pause as you get it to your mouth... think about what you are putting in there... is it worthy?

It's a funny thing about the food we eat -- as soon as we get it chewed and swallowed, we forget about it... until it's time to track it... and even then, we rationalize it. But do we ever ANALYZE it after the fact?

Have ever caught yourself  "cleaning a plate" by eating it instead of scraping it into the garbage? Or picking up a piece of candy just because it is in the bowl as you walk by? Taking the potato salad or macaroni salad on the pot luck buffet just because Aunt Alice made it 'just for you?' Or stalking the perfect 'snack' at night, foraging and bypassing healthy foods for just the right thing to relieve your craving?

EVALUATION:  Let's start looking at the quality of our food, and that might just help the quantity!

Caution: Contents are Fragile

I meet and/or chat with lots of people every week. These smart, fun, intelligent, hard working, sharing and caring people are fabulous to be around. Therefore, when I hear some of their “background” stories, I am amazed at the ways they have overcome (and are still trying to overcome) adversities in their lives that are often caused by those closest to them.

I have asked an innocent question, like, “why do you feel that way?” and the response brings on a sudden outpouring of emotion, often tears, and a heartfelt need to explain what happened to them recently – or long ago – to instill in them a distinct feeling of inadequacy, low self esteem, or a deep-seated feeling that they will not succeed no matter how hard they try. These are the affects of things done and said to them by moms, brothers, sisters, husbands, uncles, and other family members and friends… the people who are closest to us.

You’d never know it by looking at them or having a casual conversation with them.

Just realizing that each of us carries around the remains of what has been done or said to us is a good step in overcoming our feelings that we are not ‘good enough’, ‘strong enough’, or “enough enough’. Success breeds success, and every little thing we accomplish should be celebrated to our own standards and not the expectations of others.

Feel good about you.

The poster below speaks eloquently – that Albert Einstein was a smart guy, huh. (And under- appreciated by his family!) (Many thanks to the anonymous provider of the artwork accompanying  the quote! I found it on Facebook and it was not given credit.)

I Love Great Quotes, don't you?

Switch: ON

I was walking through Kohl’s today (strolling, really) when I glanced to my left and saw a Weight Watchers member shopping. I see a lot of our members out and about, and I often just let them be so they don’t think I am stalking them. As I walked on by, I heard “Excuse me!” and when I turned around, she asked, “Are you the Weight Watchers lady?” She was happy to see me and could not wait to tell me how pleased she was with her progress on the program. She had lost nearly 25 pounds, she told me, and was looking forward to that next  25 pounds so she could get to her goal. She tugged at her pants and said, “I just bought these and they are already too big!”  Her switch was obviously “ON.”

The best part, she told me, was that a gal who worked with her had noticed and was excited about joining her at the meetings. My talkative member went on to say that she had told her friend about members who attend the meetings  and had lost over 100 pounds (the same circumstances her friend would be starting with.) Her excitement was so obvious that I noticed other shoppers giving us a glance as they passed us by.

After she had left me, I thought about that enthusiasm and it seems to reinforce something another member, Toni, told me a few years ago: the switch has to be in the ON position!

When Toni had become a lifetime member of Weight Watchers, I had asked her, “What makes it work for you?” Her thoughtful answer was:

“It’s like there is a light switch inside your head,” she said. “It is either switched ‘on’ or it is ‘off’.  I finally realized, after years of watching my weight go up and down, that I was the one who had to turn the switch on and make sure it stayed on!”

Too bad the switch is not equipped with a motion detector – wouldn’t it be nice if it went on automatically as we approached the refrigerator, the buffet line, or the bar!  

Maybe just knowing that we have it and can use it is inspiration enough! Have you looked lately? Is the switch….. ON?

You’ve Got This in the Bag (or It’s All About the Shopping Experience!)

You might take your weekly (or daily) trips to the grocery store for granted… or maybe you have come to realize that “You Can’t Eat it if You Don’t Have It”. (If that sounds familiar it is because it is the first Power Start session!) The truth is, you have to learn to make those trips work for you in terms of ‘good foods.”

Let’s try an experiment this week: I am giving you TWO (one seemed too limiting) brown paper shopping bags. Your mission (should you accept it) will be to take a stroll through the aisles of your favorite grocery store and fill those two bags with the foods that will lead most to your weight loss success (or weight maintenance success) this week.

Choose wisely! (You only get 2 bags to last you the whole week!)

Here are some hints that were suggested by the members in the meeting room this week:

Make a list, spotlighting Power Foods. (Hint: shopping the advertising circulars really helps spotlight the great deals.) Eat something before you go shopping! (Less impulse buying!) Shop the perimeter. (Most stores are laid out with the “healthy foods that spoil” on the outside edges of the store!) Take your calculator or smart phone. (You will want to know about an item before you buy it!) Shop alone! (Or take your book end!) Shop when it is not busy in the store! Don’t be tempted by the ‘impulse items’ in the checkout line! Take your cookbook along so you don’t miss a key ingredient.

How are you coming with filling up your 2 brown bags? Can you really make that happen? Of course! What will be the outcome of this mission? Weight loss success, which leads to Living the Weight Loss Dream!!

The Infamous Cauliflower Pizza Crust Pizza!

I have made this a few times now and am totally happy with it!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp garlic salt
olive oil (optional)
Pizza sauce, shredded cheese and your choice of toppings*

Directions:
To "Rice" the Cauliflower:
Take 1 large head of fresh cauliflower, remove stems and leaves, and chop the florets into chunks. Add to food processor and pulse until it looks like grain. Do not over-do pulse or you will puree it. (If you don't have a food processor, you can grate the whole head with a cheese grater). Place the riced cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes (some microwaves are more powerful than others, so you may need to reduce this cooking time). There is no need to add water, as the natural moisture in the cauliflower is enough to cook itself.

One large head should produce approximately 3 cups of riced cauliflower. The remainder can be used to make additional pizza crusts immediately, or can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.

To Make the Pizza Crust:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir. Transfer to the cookie sheet, and using your hands, pat out into a 9" round. Optional: Brush olive oil over top of mixture to help with browning.

Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.

Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, toppings and cheese. Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (approximately 3-4 minutes).

Enjoy!
*Note that toppings need to be precooked since you are only broiling for a few minutes.

Get your motor runnin'.

Like everything else, it starts with getting started. Or, as they say in the song that used to roll through my head as I roared out on my motorcycle, “Get your motor runnin’.”

I am not sure where the motivation comes from, but it’s motivation that gets us started and keeps us going. It’s the “light bulb moment” or the “aha moment” or just the fleeting thought of what could happen that gives us the push, the power, and the motivation. In one given moment, we have decided to rise to the challenge and make changes in our lifestyle. We are off… with our motor runnin’, heading down the weight loss highway!

But THEN, after what could be hours, days, weeks, even months of feeling motivated, we run out of gas. We putt putt to a stop. Or come to a screeching halt. Or take a wrong turn… or the wheel falls off entirely.

I have spoken with about 200 people this week regarding the things that motivate them and what KEEPS them motivated. The number one thing that rang out overwhelmingly was the BELIEF that this is really possible. It is the inner strength to believe that even if we have small ‘failures’ (as we tend to think about them), we can really and truly pick ourselves up and go on.

SO it’s time to fill up the tank, get your motor runnin’ and accomplish what you believe you can do! (If you don’t do it, who is gonna?)