Weekly Fit Check
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It’s hard to believe that it’s Wednesday already. This week is flying by.
I’m excited about next week. On Monday, I’ll be speaking at our local Chick-Fil-A’s Battle of the Bulge meeting. I’ve been asked to come speak about staying motivated to lose weight.
While I’ve been stagnant in my weight-loss for awhile, I have maintained my loss for nearly a year, so I think I can address that topic. Even this week, I stayed about the same, which is pretty exciting to me since my workouts were practically non-existent last week.
Brian took off work and we had so much going on that it was hard to get consistent workouts in. Maintaining on that kind of week is always exciting. It’s also exciting to get back to a routine, which I’ve been doing this week.
In my speech, I’ll be covering my tips for staying motivated, which include:
Stay focused on your reasons. One of the best pieces of advice I learned while losing weight is to stay focused on your reason. The Beck Diet Solution suggests writing all the reasons you want to lose weight on an index card – from the big stuff (to feel more self-confident, to get healthier) to the little stuff (to be able to wear cute lounge pants).
Anytime you’re feeling tempted to give up or give in, you can refer to that list of reasons to remind yourself why you’re working so hard to change your life.
No turning back. As I would lose down into a new clothing size, I would donate all my “fat” clothes, so that I wasn’t able to move back up to that size without making a conscious decision to do so. Gaining weight meant buying new “fat” clothes and who wants to do that?
Find an activity that you enjoy. This was huge for me. If I didn’t thoroughly enjoy running and biking, it would be much harder to make myself do them on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if it’s spin class, kickboxing, cardio-dance or anything else – just find something that you enjoy doing, so you’ll be happy to stick with it.
Find food that you enjoy. I don’t know that I would have been as successful as I’ve been if it weren’t for finding good, healthy foods that my whole family enjoys. The recipes at Skinny Taste have been a huge part of that, along with learning to try new things and prepare foods in healthier ways.
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t marvel at the way my family has completely changed our eating habits. Some of our favorite meals are foods that we never would have considered trying a couple of years ago.
Maintain accountability. Find a friend of family member who will hold you accountable without becoming your diet police (unless you need someone to police your diet, but that usually bugs me). I have told my husband, “Never let me go back.”
After years of watching me struggle with obesity, he takes this task very seriously. He’s good about recognizing when an occasional indulgence is starting to slide down that slippery slope toward bad habit and he’ll call me on it. I appreciate that more than he can know.
Track your food. I am so bad about letting this one slide, but it’s such a good habit because it helps you to maintain a realistic view of how many calories you’re consuming. My Fitness Pal is perfect for this. Now that I’ve got a smartphone and have installed the app, I’m hoping that I’ll be more consistent about tracking my food.
Don’t quit. Even when it gets frustrating, if you just keep doing what you know you should be doing – eating right and staying active – you’ll get past the slumps. The only failure is quitting. Do or do not, there is no try.
Those are my tips. Any suggestions that I might should add?
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Do or do not. There is no try.
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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.