Building Better Systems for Weight Loss

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Dinnertime was always a struggle for me because by the end of the day, I’m tired and I don’t want to make any more decisions. So, I’d either: make something convenient that was not so helpful on a weight loss journey; or, get takeout (also not helpful and too expensive). I knew that If my weight loss journey was going to be successful, I knew dinnertime was something that I’d have to overcome.

Strategy #9: Building Better Systems

I had to build a better system that would accommodate my needs. A couple of things I know about myself:

  1. I’m a planner. If I have a plan I will follow it.
  2. I need a variety of food. I don’t want to eat the same thing every night. I would quit tomorrow if I had to eat grilled chicken over salad every night.
  3. I need a little flexibility. If I have all the ingredients in the house for these recipes – I like the option of moving them around to suit my needs. Not everything is set in stone but there is enough structure so I don’t have to think too much.

Paprika helps me with every aspect of what I need to plan for dinner. I typically plan the beginning of each week (it’s nice because I can create grocery lists and export them on my Reminders). If I want to get SmartPoints values I use Weight Watchers or Skinny Girl, or sometimes I use the nutritional values to create a food.

Tonight is the last night for my planned dinners for the week. We are having Mexican Chicken, a Weight Watchers Recipe:

Mexican Chicken 2 Smart Points
3 SmartPoints

I’m not trying to sell you on using Paprika or joining Weight Watchers, because I can’t know what will work for you. Only you know yourself. Do a little inventory about what is not working for you. Consider why it’s not working. Then build a better system. Try it out, reflect, and tweak it as you go. I promise you can find the solutions you need and make meaningful actionable changes that make your life better.

Incentives & Expectations

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Having expectations is tricky. Weight loss doesn’t always play fair. One day weight can fluctuate by two pounds and other days weight can go down consistently like clockwork. So when I think to myself, “I should be at my goal weight by November.” I need to be a little cautious because a statement like that has the potential to turn a holistic process into a pass/fail situation.

Strategy #8 Be a Visionary

My weight loss journey is taking time to unfold. The way I perceive this time has a huge impact on my morale. I have a lot of weight to lose and it’s easy to get snagged in the day-to-day pitfalls of (very normal) weight fluctuation. Sometimes it helps A LOT to take a different perspective.

To be truly visionary we have to root our imagination in our concrete reality while simultaneously imagining possibilities beyond that reality.

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I have expectations for my progress, and I think I need to have those, they are like a beacon to guide me. Otherwise, I think I’d get too comfortable with where I’m at. Lots of people look great to me, but say they struggle with the last leg of their journeys: “I only have 7 pounds to lose but I keep going back but I’m stuck.” This is when it helps me to be a visionary. I can keep tabs on how it’s going now with my sites set on my future success. Yes, success is a given when using this strategy. I have to believe that I can do it, if I don’t believe then I won’t make it, guaranteed.

A way to manifest that visionary stance is to go to the data to analyze what is in the past to plan for the future. It affords me a greater perspective, one that celebrates all the effort I have dedicated to this process:

Over the past 11 days (7/31/23 – 8/10/23) I have gained 3.6 pounds and have lost 5.1 pounds. That means I’m trending downward down 1.5 pounds overall. According to experts (take your pick: Centers for Disease Control, American Medical Association, The National Institute of Health), A healthy average weekly weight loss (that can be maintained over a lifetime) is said to be between 1-2 pounds per week. This all means I’m doing great and I’m on track to achieve my goal. Being a visionary means you can see what others cannot yet. If you’re going to be visionary about anything in life, I think starting with yourself is a great place to begin.

It’s a Beautiful Day

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The rain has come calling on this August day. Outside rainwater is collecting on the backyard furniture until it spurts off into tiny rivers. They rush into the grooves of the table, eventually gathering back together to form micro waterfalls that plummet and splash onto the pavers below. The sun is hidden from our view as if she has left on some exotic holiday. The grass and the leaves are a healthy dark green in sharp contrast to the grey cloudy sky. Outside the world is sighing with relief for this beautiful day.

Strategy #7: Shifting Perspective to Gratitude

Having a sense of gratitude for what is right here right now is one way to maintain a positive mindset during (and beyond) a weight loss journey. I keep a Gratitude Journal where I write five things I am grateful for every day. It keeps me grounded in positivity and turns off the negative critic in my head – I told you about her already, let’s not wake her up. This is something I am doing for myself, and I find it really helpful, you may too.

This journal is my cue to write 5 things I am grateful for.

Shortcuts for Weight Loss

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To be transparent, the title of this post is a bit misleading. There really are no shortcuts for weight loss… sorry. But stick with me anyway. Technology has been helping me in some very important ways to make my habits stick.

Strategy #6 Automating Good Habits

  • Weight Watchers – This app is motivating me to keep tracking my food. It makes it easy to figure out the nutritional values (we use SmartPoints). It gives me activity points and synchs with my smartwatch. There is an online community through connect, live coaching, and a suite of other services like fitness, articles, and recipes. It really offers everything a person could need.
  • Apple Smartwatch – I love this more than I thought I would. My sister had one and Christmas was coming up, and I didn’t know what to ask for so… why not an Apple Watch. I set fitness goals and it gives me these rewards. It links up with my sister, daughter, and some friends. It also synchs to my Peloton and my Weight Watchers App. I love it. Plus I use the timer often it helps me with my Two-Minute Rule and my other goals like reading for 20 minutes a day.
  • Peloton – Activity has to be something I love to do or I will not do it. I love Spinning. Before COVID-19 I went Spin at my local gym 3-4 times a week. When the pandemic hit I really missed it. Thanks to my husband, he bought me the Peloton, I have this incredible piece of equipment and now I ride every day. Find something you love doing then you’ll feel so much better and stronger as you travel your weight loss journey.
  • Paprika – Dinnertime has been the bane of my existence for many reasons. One: by the evening, I am tired and don’t want to make any more decisions. Deciding what to cook was so draining for me. Two: having a solid plan for what to make for dinner helps me manage my weight loss efforts. I know how many points (or calories) to save for dinner. Three: knowing what I need to have in the house helps me make smart food shopping lists. Plus, Paprika synchs to my Remind app on my iPhone, so I have my shopping list ready to go.
  • WordPress – Writing is an excellent way for me to reflect. So much important learning (consolidation) happens during reflection. I am the kind of person who wants a big community, and sharing my reflections with all of you is an important piece of why I have my weight loss mojo back.

Now you have my list of favorite apps. What are yours? If you are feeling up for making connections here I would welcome your comments because we can learn so much from each other. As always thank you for reading.

Casting My Vote

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James Clear, author of Atomic Habits contends that the habits we keep are like casting a vote towards a person’s identity. So if you want to say you live a healthy lifestyle, but you only eat fast food, and don’t exercise, you’re casting your votes for living an unhealthy lifestyle. We are what we do. This is where some may think, “Well that makes sense but getting into the habit of living a healthy lifestyle is overwhelming. There is so much to do, and it’s difficult to manage it all!’ I hear this and can relate!

Strategy #5 The Two-Minute Rule

If you want to establish a habit but it feels too hard to get started then the two-minute rule is just what you need. You can do almost anything for two minutes! Here is how it works; basically, the goal is to spend no more than two minutes doing something. For example, if writing were a challenge tonight, I would set my timer for two minutes at the end of that time, I know I met the goal. There is a little dopamine release, “Yay I did it.” and now I feel good. If I do this every day (over time) I know I am the kind of person who writes every day. I can say, “I am a writer.” that becomes part of my identity.

I am also the kind of person who enjoys a fun beach day now and again. This is a local beach close to where I live on Long Island, New York. It was a really nice summer day.

Redesigning My Life for Weight Loss to Happen

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Habits are a funny thing because they seem so obvious to everyone. When a behavior is repeated with a high degree of frequency over time it becomes a habit. If the behavior is easy to do and requires little effort or thought the more likely it is to become a long-lasting habit. It is all pretty basic. Some people rail against the idea of forming habits to lose weight because it all seems too Pavolov’s dogs, or rats chasing after cheese in a maze for them. I get that but here’s the truth. The truth is everyone already has habits even if they are not conscious of them.

A Day in a Life of a Weight Watcher

Here is a story I’ve heard before. A woman closes up her kitchen for the night and then sits in a favorite chair. She enjoys winding down her day by reading a book. After a while, a snack craving happens. She tries to ignore it but eventually succumbs getting up and going back into her kitchen, thinking to herself, “I closed the kitchen.” to make herself a snack. As she is doing it she may even be thinking, “I should not be having a snack. I’m not even that hungry.” Then she eats the snack (or snacks) as she reads her book. She has mixed feelings of reward and disappointment, chalking it all up to a lack of willpower. This happens night after night and is sabotaging her weight loss. The root cause is not a lack of willpower, this is an example of an unhelpful, unconscious, habit.

Strategy #4: Habits are Helpers

It’s easy to read along with this and say, well ok Captain Obvious. It’s obvious to us right now because we are not the ones experiencing the cravings, or anticipating the rewards that habits bring with them. I’ve been that woman, and I can tell you for sure, it wasn’t obvious to me. I know at least some of you reading right now are doing this same behavior too. So how do we get rid of unhelpful habits? We wake up to them and then we redesign our lives.

I was able to redesign my habits to get rid of snacking at night but I noticed I had not been reading. I love to read fiction, and I need to read nonfiction for work if I am going to stay abreast of the latest educational trends. So I redesigned my life with a helpful habit.

  1. I included reading for 20 minutes a night on my habit tracker.
  2. Each day I think about a convenient time to read for 20 minutes. Sometimes it’s during lunch, or in the evening, I like having flexibility.
  3. The reward comes from two things: checking off the habit on my tracker (because it’s a habit I want to create) and the act of reading itself.

Habits happen either way. Will you make them your friend or foe? I am telling you it’s not fate, you get to make that decision. If you master your habits you can get anything you really want. This is true for weight loss, and anything else. Think about this because I am telling you are your greatest resource if you know how to tap into your power.

habit-tracker-getting-to-goalDownload

If you’d like to purchase this habit tracker go to my Amazon List

Being Rich

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They say you should write about what you know, so this post isn’t going to be about financial security. I’ve never been, am not, and most likely will never be – rich – in a monetary sense. My experiences reside with definition number 2…

Strategy #3: Use an Abundance Lens

What if we viewed weight loss using a lens of abundance rather than scarcity? Instead of focusing on what we need to give up in order to lose weight, let’s focus on all that we are gaining during the process. How would that change the experience of weight loss? Here is what I now know:

  • I can eat what I want to until I am satisfied
  • Understanding that food tracking is about self-awareness
  • Daily weight fluctuation is normal
  • Activity brings strength and resilience to the body
  • Daily reflection improves the quality of life

This all may sound matter-of-fact to some. However, there is a giant gulf between knowing and believing. I believe everything I have written, and I could not have discovered this without my weight loss journey. Now I have this incredible gift of perspective that I can lean into it when times get tough. I am learning how to believe in myself.

While I would definitely enjoy being rich in the monetary sense (some money would be really nice) and who knows… maybe someday… hey a girl can dream. I do have a deep appreciation that perhaps my riches are being granted in the form of wisdom. I am learning how to tap into my own personal power to achieve my goals and that is something I am hoping you discover for yourselves, dear readers.

A Birthday Wish

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If you know, you know, gaining back weight is hard. I think it’s very important to try to make sense of why this happened to me. I regained 74 of the 94 pounds I lost over the span of five years. This is a hard post to write, so why do it? Why be so vulnerable in such a public space? I want my story to be about resilence not failure, and I want to evolve. I also need to understand why it happened. Sharing these blogs helps me to reflect, and a weight gain story isn’t that unique. Lots of people struggle with weight gain and maybe if I take the risk and put myself out there others will be inspired do their own work of uncovering their why.

Looking Back to Go Forward…

I am at a mid point in my weight loss journey, I have another 35 pounds till I reach my goal, and my intuition tells me that it’s time to take a look back. When I reached my weight loss goal last time, my motivation was all about turning 50. I wanted to look and feel my best, and I did it. I felt really amzing, I was really proud of myself. I did maintain my weight loss for a long time, until COVID happened. Then two of my most reliable habits were taken from me: going to Spin classes, attending in person Weight Watcher meetings. Everyone was home doing jig-saw puzzels, drinking, and eating. Old habits set up shop and I let myself be oblivious.

Regaining the weight was a slow process. Life events my coping strategies made it so easy to lose touch with my body. My “lockdown” was to set up house in my head and live there taking the rest of me for granted. Does that make sense to any of you? I was going along slowly gaining for a long time and it felt almost annoyomous. What I mean is while my weight fluctuated up and down (with a long term trend of going upwards). Just last year, my friends at work were complimenting my weight loss. They would remark about how great it was that I was maintaining the loss. I wasn’t maintaining it – and I knew that, but I ignored that it was happening.

By the winter of this year, the jig was finally up. By then there were no complements about me maintaining weight loss. To the outside world, it was obvious I wasn’t. On the inside I was feeling physically and mentally sluggish, and my confidence was taking a beating, I certainly wasn’t happy with my appearance. Everything to do with food had felt like it once had, overwhelming. It became very clear to me that I could no longer ignore my problem.

Early one morning, I stepped on the scale and to get reacquainted with reality, I thought to myself, “Now you know.” This was quickly followed by an onslaught of negative self-talk. My inner voice was all too happy to share her opinion about how I had let myself down, “You gained back so much weight! How could you do that? You knew it was happening. What’s wrong with you? You are practically starting over”. I realized that if I was going to do this; “Again!” (there she is) and have a of shot of being successful, I’d have to figure out how to quell that inner voice.

The Body Remembers…

Muscle memory refers to the body’s ability to reproduce a move without giving it any thought. So if you are a person who has lots of experience doing yoga, playing golf, or even riding a bike your body knows the script. This is the best analogy I can think of to descibe how I felt after my freak out session about my weight gain. I decided it was time to say goodbye to my negative inner voice, pack my bags and move out of my head and trust myself that I could indeed make weight loss happen again.

Strategy #2 Living As If…

Starting over was hard but something that helped me was to live as if I was feeling confident with my habits even if I wasn’t. That negative inner voice kept opening windows in my head and shouting down to me, “This is too hard!” When that happened, I would play this little head game. Let’s say a thought pops into my head like, “Ugh, I don’t want to drink any more water.” Another thought bubbles up, “This is just what you do. You are the kind of person who drinks 64 ounces of water every day. Now drink up.” I would act as if this is the total truth, and eventually it actually does become the total truth!

In a lot of ways, I’ve already arrived. What I mean is, I’m not wishing I were living a healthy lifestyle I am living it. And, yes, I have a way to go before I hit goal, but I’ve got this. Healthy living is becoming part of my identity. With this change, I feel like I can be more flexible when some other life event comes along and messes with my systems. I do want to lose weight but more than that I want to hold onto feeling physically better and mentally freer.

It’s very likely that I’ll always need to be warry of negative thoughts. Pictures will happen, feeling inadquate will happen, and there will definately be low days in the future. My big work is to learn how to manage that negativity. This strategy of living as if, is teaching me to understand that what I do in the long terms matters a whole lot more than what I think in a fleeting moment.

My Birthday Wish…

Today is my birthday, and I’m old enough to realize that I have so much to be grateful for already. In a real sense my wish has already been answered, because just being alive is the crown on my head. So here is my birthday wish – I’m sharing it with anyone reading this post at any time: “I wish that we would all believe in the power that we all possess to change ourselves for the better.” We can do it together.

Weight Loss Strategy #1: Taking Reflection Breaks

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Sometimes, a weight loss journey brings real insight into how to improve a person’s quality of life. Other times, it can be fraught with disappointment and stress. I have been on the receiving end of both of those scenarios. Taking some time to reflect may be the missing piece to a weight loss puzzle. So, how is your weight journey going? Are you experiencing either of those extremes? Are you somewhere in the middle?

Right now, I am in a good place. My habits seem to be serving me well, and I am losing weight. I’ve lost, 31.5 pounds since January. Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit hungrier, so I’m making sure to eat higher-protein snacks like almonds, pistachios, or Greek yogurt. That seems to be helping, and just asking the question: “Is anything blocking my weight loss efforts?” helps me to stay flexible and responsive.

I am encouraging you to really dial into your own weight loss journey. If you are genuinely interested and approach it with some curiosity about what is (or isn’t) working engagement is sure to follow. You are worth all the effort, and I hope you never forget that as you keep moving forward through life. So let’s do this, together.

Doing the Work for Weight Loss

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There is a lot to be said for just doing the work of weight loss. Don’t overthink it, don’t agonize over negative self-talk, and don’t let little things distract you from the big picture – reaching your goal. Strong habits and systems alievate all of that worry and angst. I think that is my big takeaway after a few days of challenge.

I started teaching a four day a week elementary reading and math program. It is a terrific program, and I am already really so fond of my students. I am very happy I signed up and was selected to do this; however, the up front work of planning has been very time consuming. I was worried that this might be the “thing” to derail my systems and habits.

What I’ve come to realize it is that my systems and habits are the “thing” that saved me during a highly stressful time. Everything is so automatic now, I don’t have to think about what to do, I just do it. There are no decisions to make in the day-to-day, other than deciding what to eat or how to workout. The tracking of food and activitiy is embedded into what I do it requires no thought and little effort.

Here are some things that I’ve been doing all week:

  • I kept going and finished the work and I did not sacrifice my fitness goals
  • I took some time to eat foods that I had planned and made sure to keep hydrated.
  • I allowed myself to lean into my habits to help me stay on track during a stressful time.

I have written this before, but still I feel the need to write it again; I am grateful for my weight loss journey because it continues to teach me about myself.