Weight Loss - Day 5

After a few little fits and starts, I'm beginning to settle in to a new routine. I avoided the scale until this morning because I don't see any reason to check yourself constantly. I don't want or need that kind of pressure in my life. Weigh yourself once or twice a week if you must. What is far more important is that you weigh yourself at about the same time of day and that you are in very much the same condition each time. So if you set your benchmark when you begin by weighing in at 7 am after your shower, before your coffee, wearing only your unmentionables, then try to do precisely that each time you weigh in.

Before I tell you what my results were after five days, let me just say thank you to all those who seem to be following along. The number of visitors daily is growing, and that is gratifying to see, though it appears that most of you are too busy or too shy to post a comment. If shyness is the issue, then I would still encourage you to say hello by e-mail and let me know how I'm doing. Your feedback is very important. I would also like to hear how YOU are doing.

Now, day 5. My daily routine is basic and it is not iron clad, but the results in just 5 days are encouraging. I've lost, according to my digital scale, 3.8 pounds. I fully expect that I will not be able to sustain that rate without making some iron clad rules though, so I do not plan to lose 25 pounds in 25 days. Frankly, I haven't exercised as much these first five days as planned to. Maybe I was dreaming. But I did get in several good walks and started doing some upper body work. I even threw in several sets of pushups while I was watching football playoff games.
My job in a manufacturing lab sometimes is sedentary, and on those days I really have to push myself to do more in the evening. I would prefer to get more exercise earlier in the day, but since I start work at 6 am, that's just not a practical plan. One thing I would encourage you to do as you plan your own weight loss project is build some flexibility into your plan. That way if something unexpected comes up, you don't feel like you've lost your way or that your project has been derailed. Remember this, a guided misssile is ALWAYS off course up to the instant it makes the final course correction and hits the target. So you will get off course too, maybe more often than you would like, but don't let that even slow you down or dampen your enthusiasm. If you set out to do something good, something you thought was important, remember that. And always be willing to refocus your mental image as needed. You can do anything that is important to you. Anything!

If Not Today, Why Bother?

The art of procrastination - or, the type C personality.

We all know the "type A" folks who are always overbooked and under pressure. Most of the pressure is of their own making, but don't try to tell them that. They have to get to the airport way early so they can be the first to know that their flight will be delayed. They get angry because the car wash has no passing lane. Then we have the "type B" person who might be heard to say, "Well, I meant to get that done today, but I just didn't get to it. Maybe I can do it tomorrow." They don't put too much stress upon themselves or anyone else. Life is to be enjoyed, experienced, savored, and it just doesn't make sense to get all flustered over every little thing.

But we seem to have a third group that no one is talking about. Maybe we should call them "type C' personalities. These are the folks who never appear to busy doing anything, but never seem to have time to get anything much done. They don't seem too bothered about it either. Some of them have developed procrastination into an art form. Carl Hurley tells about the two fellows sitting in the shade of a tree near the road. One is facing the road, one facing away from the road. A girl walks by and says "hey". The fellow facing the road says "hey" right back. About 30 minutes later, the other fellow says, "Clem, was she pretty?" Clem says "Yes she was". The other fellow replies, "Too bad I wasn't facing that way".

Regardless of our personality type, we all need to come to an understanding about just what we can safely put off, and what we better take care of today. In fact, if we put certain things off, there may be no reason to do them at all. For example, if you are way over due for a checkup, today would be an excellent day to make the appointment, and then KEEP IT! If you have been putting off telling someone you love just how you feel about them, today would be a great time to do that, because tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. If someone has done something nice for you and you owe them a thank you, it will mean a lot more today than it might if you put it off. And if you owe someone an apology, today is the right time to take care of it. If you wait, there is a good chance they will become less and less receptive as the days go by. In fact, TODAY is just about the best day there is to do almost anything you have a mind to do!