Jeff Blogs

Before I started this diet my favorite vegetable was whatever I could up melted cheese on to mask the taste. To me vegetables were a necessary evil and if I had my way I would use them just as garnishes to add color to my plate.

Our dining room plates consist of white 12 inch Corningware with a black and white checker pattern around the edge. The pattern is important since it acts as a visual aid of where the plate boundaries are. I thought of these as the guardrails to the plate similar to those found on the Interstate. They helped to contain all the food that I would load on my plate every meal.

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Less than three weeks ago I celebrated my birthday. When my wife and kids asked what I wanted as a gift I did not respond with my desire to get some electronic gadget or something baseball related. No, what I really wanted was a new pair of pants.

Yeah you read that right. I wasn’t asking for the new Apple iPad or a new lens for my Nikon camera. I didn’t ask for a gold leaf All-Star baseball or an autographed bat from the Arizona Diamondbacks. I just wanted a pair of jeans that didn’t fall off my waist or hips.

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When I began my weight loss journey using the Take Shape for Life program I secretly worried that I would not be successful. I had never been on a diet before and I wondered whether I would have the self-discipline to stay on track. I had heard horror stories of other people trying to lose weight only to see all of their hard work go for naught and they came away discouraged, disappointed, and still heavy.

What if despite all of my hard work I didn’t lose any weight? I’m a very results oriented person and I wasn’t exactly sure how I would react if my body just didn’t want to go into fat burning state or stay there. I was investing a lot of time and money into this program and I didn’t want to look back at this experience and say I failed.

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Ever have one of those moments when you think to yourself, “What was I thinking when I suggested THAT?” Yeah this is definitely one of those days for me. At some point of my youngest daughter Whitney’s high school years I suggested that when she was a senior I would let her choose where she wanted to go for her graduation trip.

Beginning with my oldest daughter I had instituted an incentive where the graduating senior would be allowed to pick where we went for family vacation the summer before they went away for college. At the time it seemed like a good idea to help them gain a few more memories before leaving the nest and starting their new chapter in life.

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One of the things I have realized during my time on this weight loss program is that the more things you can get control of in your life the better your chances for success. For example, if you can somehow manage to stay close to home where you can control what food you have access to, appliances to prepare the food, and minimalize the outside temptations then it’s pretty easy to stay on task. It is when you introduce variables into the equation that things can get dicey.

I’ve been fortunate that for the most part I have not had to be too far from home during the past 10 weeks. Sure I have had to go back and forth to the office to work but I was able to manage what meal replacements I could bring. This allowed me to manage around some of the measuring and special cooking instructions and keep the distractions to a manageable level.

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