All for One and One for All!

It's hard to believe that we are entering our seventh week in the challenge. At his point we have discovered that no matter what, we will not let anyone give up. We have all come so far, in such a short amount of time. At this point though, I am beginning to see the clouds accumulate and our fire burn a little less brightly. Now this is not because we do not want this, we certainly do. I think at this point our bodies are fighting us every way it can! For some of us, the food is getting to the point of sickness and boredom. For others, energy and motivation are the culprits. Whatever the case, now is not the time to give up.  I really started to see this the other day when one of our team members said she just wasn't "into it." Lately she has been tired and lacked motivation. After her little pity party, I proceeded to turn the speed of her treadmill up! Like I said so many times before, FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!

To me this is a great place to be. It is the place that you have to dig really deep and determine the true motivation of your heart. It's the place where the rubber meets the road and only the strong survive. This is my place! The place that I am oh so familiar with. I am a master at being put in difficult situations and circumstances that would have otherwise caused me to throw in the towel, only to come out better than when I went in! I finally see that in myself now!

So for me, this is exciting. The moment that I get to see if I can be what I hope to be for the rest of my life. I know I have 30 days to wait for the results of my Personal Fitness Training Certification Test, but this is so much more than a piece of paper. This is real life, and not just any life, this is the lives of the one's I've become so close too. I can't let them give up, I can't let them fail. So I am bringing out the big guns! It's time to move beyond being in a "challenge" and trying to win. This is the point we all have to have a heart to heart and come up with our own personal strategies. It's one thing to want to lose weight, but in reality the major goal for anyone should be to change their lifestyle for good, because if you can't accomplish that now this will just be another 12 weeks and a few pounds away from getting right back on the out of control roller coaster you call your life. The reason most of us do the yo yo thing is we go all out for whatever reason and never get to the root of the problem and the behaviors that are causing them. For me, I know I am a stress eater. I know that when I am depressed, I will eat and go right to bed (or sometimes not even get out of bed at all). When I'm not sure how I am going to pay the rent or tuition or keep the lights on, what do I do? Yup, shut down from the inside and then not even realize the things I think are comforting me, are only making matters worse. You get the picture, right. Now for me over the years this has caused me to go up and down with my weight. Its my version of an eating disorder. I guess it would similar to binge eating, or having a drinking problem or something like that. Since I know my triggers, I have to learn to have a contingency plan in place for the moments when I am faced with the things that cause me to react. And this plan is one that will be with me for the rest of my life. Not just for the times when I am trying to loose weight or get a new job or whatever else is going on.

The same thing holds true for my friends! We as a team need to discuss life beyond the Challenge. What are their life goals and what are the behaviors from the past that can effect their success in the Challenge and beyond?  What will happen when Marie, and Medifast, and Drink More Water are long gone? Does life stop when the Challenge stops? So that means we still have work to do...I still have work to do, with and for them! Think about it, I know you are reading this because we asked you to be a follower and support us. But in reality, what are your struggles? What sends you over the edge? Is your body as healthy and as strong as you want it to be? Do you sit and wonder how you go to this place? Did you say, "wow, if I had the been part of that Challenge THEN..." What is your state of mind right now? What stresses do you have that are effecting your every move? Have you made excuse after excuse to let your dreams and aspirations pass you by? What about your job, your family, your friendships, your marriage? Are you happy? Are they healthy relationships or are they toxic? We all have our "things" or "demons" that haunt us. The question is what are you going to do about them? Let me take that back, its not what are you doing to do, it's when are you planning on getting unstuck? When are you going to get some guts and let nothing or no one stand in the way of accomplishing your next goal?

I'm there, I've found my "happy place" and its so liberating! I've been where you are, and I stayed there so long I began to think that was who I was. Then earlier this year I said enough is enough, I can't take this anymore! Our church was doing the beginning of the year 21 day fast. That is my time to regroup and see what the year ahead will hold in store for me. This year was different though. It wasn't about giving up the food as much as it was about giving up the things that would prevent me from being free! I took that time to shut myself off from the world and everyone that consumed my time. I was completely quiet! Learning to quiet my spirit and my soul was one of the best things I could have ever done. In my quiet time, I had a chance to listen to my heart and make the hard decisions and choices. I did this for the entire 21 days! When it was all over I learned I had to stop allowing others to determine my happiness and success. My financial situation didn't change, my job situation was still a mess, and my health was still deteriorating, yet I had this sense of peace and assurance that everything was about to change and it was finally going to be alright. I decided I had to clean out the closet and bag up negative friends, family habits, behaviors, mindsets, and even my man and donate them to another cause! Since then, life seems to be all that I've imagined it could be. I am not talking about the material things either. I think I'm relating to the person in the Bible who said he was "content in the whatever state he was in."  What a great place to be! I found that peace, comfort and confidence in living life with purpose and on purpose!

So my thought for you today, stop making excuses and making it about everything else! Start to looking within. Start to think long and hard about what it is you've always wanted to do. How you've always wanted to look and feel. Where you planned to be and how you got off course. Now take a deep breath and get those garbage bags ready! That right, GARBAGE bags! Because how many of us go back to the trash to pick something out to keep it? If you said me, that's gross! Trash not meant to be taken back. Its meant to be taken to a dump and left there to deteriorate and disintegrate! That's what you have to do to make the next phase of your life work. But be honest, brave and specific! Don't just do it to do it, that won't work. You will only replace one piece of junk with another.

And know this, you are NOT in this alone! Like my team, you have those around you who are there to lift you up and set you back on course. Those who want the best for you even when it seems hard and you feel like giving up. The ones that will ride or die with you! The FEW that will hold your hand and PULL you along kicking and screaming, because they do actually know what is best for you! Thanks RCR!

Green team and Challenge participants. We are in this together for the long hall, Challenge and beyond! We will leave no man stranded! Its All for One and One for All!!!

The Bathroom Scale.....My Fair-Weather Friend

Every morning before I get out of bed, I complete a pre weigh-in body check. I assess if I’m holding excess water by clasping my hands together, I evaluate the altitude of my abdomen and I squeeze the fat on my outer thighs to see if any of it has melted away overnight.

This ritual is usually an accurate predictor of what the scale will say. But since I have been participating in the Healthy Challenge, my morning body assessment and the scale do not always report the same findings. This morning I woke up feeling great. I had a great workout last night, stayed 100% on my Medifast plan yesterday and definitely had less fat to evaluate. I was certain that I had lost a couple of pounds.

When I stepped on the scale, I had not lost an ounce! NOT ONE OUNCE. I was so disappointed I wanted to go to McDonalds and eat two Sausage McMuffins. I FELT thinner, and dang it I LOOKED thinner! People tell you that muscle weighs more than fat and your body’s water composition fluctuates and so on, but that is no comfort when I have allowed the numbers on the scale to dictate my daily mood for the past 30 years. To add to the scale-induced psychoses, I am weighed once a week in front of my teammates and the weight of the week is then printed in the paper. So, does the number on the scale have an unhealthy effect on my quality of life?

Yes it does, but starting today I am changing that. When my scale “cooperates” with me, I feel energetic, motivated and ready to conquer the world. When my scale does not properly reward me for all of my hard work, I want to get back into bed and plan a binge. This is going to stop. I will no longer defend every ounce of water weight to myself, my team or to all of Prince George’s County. I am thinner, evidenced by a reduction in dress size, and I am stronger and have more energy. This competition is measuring my success in pounds, but I will institute new measurements to preserve some of my sanity along with muscle mass.

I want my team to win, but after the competition is over, I want to have won new peace of mind and a new reliance on health in place of the scale. Having my weight printed in the paper took away some of the power of the actual numbers, but my private dependence on the scale still crippled me.

So, I should just throw the scale away! Maybe, but I’m keeping it. I still need the scale for motivation on the days that we are “friends.” On the other days, I will rely on a consensus from my blood pressure, my clothes and from the woman in the mirror, before I allow the number on the scale to exert any power over my day.

Why ME? Goes to Pick ME!

It's Saturday night and the sky was getting darker and darker. Hopefully the storm would hold off until the Team Challenge at the Washington Freedom Soccer game was over! Our drive from PG Co. to the stadium was like a mini vacation - from hell. Traffic was horrible and it took us all nearly 2 hours to get there! That in itself was stressful, since we were warned if we were late we would get points taken off. So we were all calling each other on the phone on the way up seeing what exits we had passed. It was crazy, but we all arrived safe and sound.  If they do this again next year, maybe they will consider having some of the events in PG County. We have plenty here for people to enjoy, a professional football stadium, minor league baseball teams, a huge sports and learning complex, major universities, and the brand new attraction, the National Harbor - all in PG Co.!

I'm sorry, back to the story. We were given the object of our challenge a day or so before the event. Instead of all of us having to kick balls into the goal against their mascot, like I thought we were going to do, we had to complete this obstacle course with 5 stations. One for each of the team members. One had to throw the ball in (which I gladly volunteered for!) One had to kick the ball fifteen feet to the next team member, who then had to dribble the ball with their feet through a set of cones, the next person had to kick it into a small goal net, and the final person had be the one to kick it into the goalpost to score the winning point! 

Now for most of you that sounds like a ton of fun I'm sure. But for me, hardly! First is was freezing outside, the wind was blowing like we were in Kansas waiting for Dorothy and Toto to appear, and to make matters worse, "I"  that's right,  "I" was chosen to be the one to kick the ball into the final post to score the points for the team! No pressure there huh! Whatever! I reminded them how I was always the last one to be chosen for a team in gym class. Well sometimes I got selected before the nerd, but most of the time the fat girl got selected last. Why did everything have to hinge on me? I swear God is trying to rip me out of my comfort zone and throw me to the lions! I had no choice. I decided to be a trooper and got all the love, support and "you can do its" from my family and trotted out onto the field like I knew what I was doing.

Norm flung the ball in like a pro, Lya's swift kick had the ball to Charlene in seconds, Charlene bobbed and weaved through the cones so fast it was hard to believe she had never kicked a ball before, then our Coach, Oteal took it straight to the pug! It all happened in a matter of seconds and we were the first to get the ball down on that end. We had a chance to make it all happen. The pressure to perform was now on me (oh joy). I wasn't told that I could kick the ball from a position closer to the goal post, so I took one giant step and had at it.  As the ball creeped to the Mascot, it was like it was in slow motion. My 3yr old grand baby (oops, sorry, my son's daughter! I'm to young and too fly to be a grandma-you'll get that on the way home) could have done better. So into the Mascots hands it went and back it came. Thankfully he shouted, "move closer and kick" When I heard that I felt more confident and in it went! The night ended with us coming in second for the soccer challenge and second overall for the team challenge, having missed the point spread by .5.  Not so bad for a girl a former "fat girl" who was always picked last. Look at me now! Let's do it again! Pick me...pick me...pick me!

So the moral of this long post is, once again we are all being taken out of our comfort zone and we are becoming better for it. The bad memories the may have haunted us in the past are not who we are today, and are certainly not who we are becoming! It's getting easier day by day to look in the mirror and like what is staring back at me. Soon, I won't even remember who the other person was.  GREAT JOB TEAM! GO GREEN!

There is no "I" in Team! Recovering from my meltdown!

Tuesdays are always hard for me. The battery in my scale has been broken since the Challenge began and I refused to replace it, at least until last night! So in we go, we all have been doing a great job sticking to the plan and getting out workouts in so this should be a no brainer right? WRONG! How about last night, after I was all excited about hearing the word that Potomac River Running was able to secure Heart Rate Monitors for everyone valued at $180, I go to the weigh in with the gang all gung ho waiting to hear that I hit the 15 lb mark. NOT SO! Yup, that's what I said NOT SO! And to make matters worse, I go through the same weigh in ritual that I do every week, only this time our wonderful and beautiful Gazette reporter/photographer, Anath,  is there to report on our progress and I have NONE to report! When I got on the scale and saw the number I was excited, at first...but then I realized I was thinking about the numbers that are reported in the paper (which is are actually a week behind). In actuality, I had gained 2oz since our last weigh in (which to me felt like a million), while everyone else on the team had reduced between .4oz-6.5lbs! What the heck! I felt like I let the entire team and myself down! Funny part was I could believe how upset I was.

If you would have told me that I gained 2oz two months ago it wouldn't have even phased me. Oh what a difference a few weeks and accountability to others makes. The fact that I had kicked up my workout routine to 6 days that week and added a rigorous resistance training schedule 3 times made 2oz hit me like a brick. So I pouted, emailed my team apologizing, treated my family horribly (even though my daughter kept telling me I looked great) and finally went to bed feeling like a loser, but in the other sense of the word. 

It wasn't until this morning that I realized just how wonderful being part of this amazing team is! I got up to encouraging messages and support. I realized at that moment that it there is no "I" in team. They all made me feel like it didn't even matter. Even Laura, our Medifast Coach, sent a humours but serious message to get me right back on track mentally and emotionally and keep me moving forward.

They are right, we are in this together, as a TEAM! The Green Team, 5 member lean machines!

So what have I learned in all of this? Just because I have spent the majority of my life going it alone and having to do things for myself with little or no support, I am not in this one alone! I'm learning to love and appreciate others being there for me and welcoming it when it happens. For once, someone cares enough to have my best interest at heart and wants me to feel good on the inside more so than for how I look on the outside. I've learned that what you think people are perceiving about you is probably far from being accurate. In fact, when you allow yourself the opportunity to let someone into the places that you've guarded for so long to protect yourself from the all so familiar hurt and pain, you open yourself up to beginning to heal and experience a sense of liberating freedom.

Thankfully is doesn't just have to be about me and what I can and cannot do. I'm at a better place than I was four weeks ago because I have the encouragement and support of others. 

How motivating it is! This morning I drove into work with a smile on my face, ready to take on whatever the day would bring. And guess what? When I got into the office the first words I heard were, "Oh my goodness, you look great! You are getting sooo skinny. You are going to have to give me your secret." All I could say was thank you and think to myself, wait till I tell my team!

Whew! What a Week!

Wow, what a week! Personally, my week was filled to the brim. In fact, I found myself in tears on more than one occasion feeling totally overwhelmed. This was the week to make the college decision for my daughter. We waited until the 11th hour factoring in all we could and praying and trusting that the decision we made was going to be the right one. As a struggling single parent, this was probably one of the more difficult things I've had to do, knowing that we would have to once again step out in faith for the deposit and then pray all the money we need comes in so she can actually attend the school she selected. When it was all said and done, at 11:00PM on Thursday night, the decision to attend Shenandoah University was made, AND the deposit was sent! Prayerfully everything else will come together, it somehow always does. I'll keep you posted.

For all the single parents out there who are struggling to make ends meet to ensure their children have opportunities for a better life. Let me take a moment to encourage you. IT IS ALL WORTH IT! I am so proud of my babygirl! She had schools calling her day and night, sending personal notes and letters, increasing her award packages...it was unbelievable! And when she spoke with department heads, she did it with such grace and maturity! I am so honored to have her as my daughter and look forward to all that life will offer her in the days and years ahead. 

Besides all the stuff going on at home, this week was a Challenge week for sure! In addition to the workouts and weigh-in, we made our way to Potomac River Running (PRR) to get our fabulous NEW running shoes! That took us out of the house FIVE days this week (M-F). Norm said we got to see him more than his wife did this week. Sorry Ms. Norm! Thanks for sharing him!

But in the end it was all worth it! Our weigh in brought more cheers, smiles and high fives, and the workouts...Whew! At one point during our spinning session I tried to convince the team to peddle faster, hoping our bikes would dismount and we would sail our way to the McDonald's for a Shake! That of course didn't happen (thankfully).

And then there was the trek to the mall to get the Prom Shoes and the Cinnabuns...are you starting to see a theme here? So instead of me burying my face in what was sure to be a sweet treat, I thought about my team and how hard we are working and decided watch my son's daughter (I'm too young and too fly to be a Grandma -you'll get that on the way home) enjoy her treat.  Instead, I we ate a healthy lunch at one of my favorite places, The Wild Onion, an all natural and organic hip new spot in Hyattsville, and then I made my way back to the gym to burn off my cravings! See you do have the power to change if you really want too. Give it a try!