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?