Measuring Progress

Apparently if you are trying to reach any goal, measurement is important. My habits coach Rael Kelly says that you will only manage what you measure. Therefore it is important to measure everything that has anything to do with your goal. In business I measure how many prospects we had out to meetings, and how many appointments we had. That makes sense.

Once I lost the weight I wanted to lose, I think I stopped measuring. I have not been on a scale in years. I think this is one of the reasons why people don't keep off the weight that they lose. I know myself whenever I have reach the goals I set in the past concerning weight loss, I stopped paying attention to any of the measurements. I also went out and celebrated by eating pizza, drinking beer, stocking up on wine, and indulged in huge plates of cheese. I had achieved what I wanted so it was time to be FREE again! All of that FREEDOM led to more BONDAGE of weight gain, so maybe some ongoing habit changes are in order...

I was not very committed to measuring during weight loss in the past. Even recently when I wanted to lose 20 pounds, I didn't even have a scale in the house. I just simply guess because I had size 22 clothing in the closet, and when I was able to wear size 20 or 18 clothing I knew I had made a difference. This time I decided that was not enough. I not only need to measure what my weight is, I need to take other measurements as well. I also need to do an assessment of the size of clothing that I'm wearing, and I also downloaded an app onto my phone that measures things like how many steps I walk in the day.

I use the Samsung Health app. It works very well. I just carry my phone with me when I go for a walk and it tells me that my goal should be 6000 steps for my age and my weight. And it measures every step that I take. It is also able to record my heart rate, and the oxygen in my blood, and a few other things.

I have never been much of a calorie counter, because I've always used the Fit for Life Principles of Food combining to lose weight, and then to maintain weight. This time however I decided that in the spirit of measuring everything, even though I am sticking to those principles, I would measure every calorie as well.

The Samsung Health app is awesome because it tells me how many calories I should be consuming if I want to be in weight loss mode. Apparently it is 1800 calories a day for someone my age and size. That is why the 400 calorie Starbucks lattes were not contributing favorably to a healthy lifestyle. Who knew?

By using Fit for Life principles, I only eat fruit in the morning. Usually I start out with fruit juice that is freshly squeezed with nothing else in it. Then for lunch, and for dinner I usually only have 25% of the plates covered with something that is not salad. It works best if there's only one thing at a time. For example chicken breast with salad is not only delicious, the chicken is about 25% of what is on the plate and the rest is raw salad items.

A couple of times a week I make a cleansing soup. It can be the cabbage soup from the cabbage soup diet, or different kind of cleansing soup like lentil soup with only onions and lemons and seasoning in it. As I've been recording my measurements, I have found that I typically eat 1200 to 1300 calories a day, so that is working well.

22 days into my program I had lost 14 pounds. It's nice to actually know because I have stood on a scale.

There are many different kinds of programs that one can use to lose weight, or to maintain weight, but the important thing is that you measure frequently. Start conditioning your mind now to keep getting on the scale everyday even after you have attained your goal weight. It took me a while to get the affirmations to kick in so I would want to exercise, so I am starting now to program myself for weight maintenance before I need that skill. I may change how many times a week I exercise once I have all of the weight off and I may let myself eat some foods occasionally, but measuring will need to become a lifestyle change. Otherwise a treat is not a treat anymore, it becomes a daily ritual. Daily rituals of Italian pasta with cream sauce and cheesecake for dessert quickly takes one back to where they started. My new bathroom scale is now a friend for life. I named her Nancy. She is my accountability partner. I want to manage, so I will measure.

What are you measuring? Write something below in the comment section, or share a link to your blog. You can also subscribe to mine up in the right hand corner.

Lie To Yourself

Apparently what we tell ourselves is important. We continually tell ourselves all kinds of things. Much of it is negative. Much of it is not true. We just think it is true at the time.

For instance we typically say things to ourselves like "I never am on time." Is that true? Are you NEVER on time? Isn't that an exaggeration? If you have a job, you must be on time some of the time or you would get fired. So that can't be true.

We all lie to ourselves continually so it is important to tell ourselves lies that bare good results. You have heard of faking it until you make it. Some people think that is not real. I happen to know that it works. There were lots of things that I faked it on. I pretended to be good a public speaking. I pretended over and over and over and over again. I faked it so much and I told myself that I was good at it. Now most people would agree. I rock at public speaking. That was not true the first time I did it. My knees knocked. I forgot what I was saying. I shook. I had no confidence. I just made myself do it and I told myself I was going to be good at it. Eventually I became good at it. I am sure you can think of something that you faked for a while too, and then you got good at it.

Affirmations can feel like faking it at first. I have heard folks say affirmations don't work. Well actually they do, but you also have to work. You have to keep saying them. If you write out one sentence and say it sometimes. You won't get much of a result.

A few years ago when I first went into business, I knew I had to change the way I thought about things considerably. I was making no real money and I had to change the way I was thinking about money. I had realized that I thought money would only come to me through hard work. Money came to others without hard work. Money came to others who were seemingly undeserving, so that meant it should work the same for me. I wrote down, "Money comes to me easily." I put it on the lid of the toilet seat so I would see it every time I went to the bathroom. I put it on my steering wheel in my car. I wrote it out in my journal and stuck it to the top of my computer screen. I said it several times a day. I doubled my income that year, and the next and the next after that.

Affirmations worked. I knew it. I had seen it.

Rael Kalley my habits coach reminded me of that when I started working with him last December. His plan was a little more radical so I decided to give it a go. He taught me to write out my affirmations with a lot more detail and to spend 5 to 7 minutes at a time thinking about how having that thing would make me feel. He also encouraged me to say them a minimum of 6 times a day. Things started to change right away in some areas.

I was saying "Money comes to me in an avalanche of abundance through my brilliant ideas." In less than 48 hours I had a really huge brilliant idea. It made me a bunch of money really quickly. That was very cool.

The affirmations that I was saying about what I ate took about 2 months to kick in. I wasn't ready for change immediately. My head rejected the sayings at first and recognized them as lies. I was saying, "I only desire foods that drive me closer to my ideal weight of 150 pounds." I laughed out loud the first few times I said that. I thought about the beer and pizza I was planning to enjoy and giggled as I ate them, but I kept saying it. Within 30 days I was desiring less pizza. In fact, I was rejecting milk products like cheese and sour cream without even thinking about it. I was not ordering them when I was at a restaurant, instead of insisting on them bringing me a vat for my baked potato. I stopped ordering extra dressing and condiments. I had 1 beer instead of 3. My cart at the grocery store was suddenly full of fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods.

My exercise lies took even longer. The first month I said "I love to exercise," and I physically grimaced when I said it. I thought of going outside and then I shuddered. Yuck. Who wants to do that? I did not even have excuses. I didn't need them. The answer was not even "No." It was a loud, "HELL NO!"

Kerry George
Walking at Nose Hill Park

I made my first commitment to exercise in January and by mid February I realized I was not going to do it. I was not ready. I decided instead to just keep lying to myself until the lie seemed closer to truth. It took a few months. In March I tried to go for a walk. I took 5 steps and went back in the house. Yuck. Then it snowed. That was a great excuse to put it off for a while longer. It was in April that I realized that I felt ready. May 1 was going to be the big day. Francois was going to help me. He was going to go with me. We were planning to do it 5 days a week. Now we do it 6 days a week. Last night we went bowling as well. It is awesome when you have a partner or even a friend who will support you. Now I had 1 less excuse.

Affirmations work. If you work the affirmations, they will work for you.

Write out your affirmations. Not just one line. Write out how you want it to be as though you already have it. Write about wealth, and health, and things you want to accomplish as though you already did it. Write out things you want to have, as though you already have them. It should be several sentences long. If you don't like to write, start with, "I love to write." Tell yourself some worthy lies that you want to become reality.

Now I love to lie to myself and the lies are good ones. I tell myself I am what I want to be so often, and so hard, and with so much emotion that I am becoming the lie. It is my new truth.

What kind of affirmations are you writing for yourself?

Tell us all about it below in the comments. In writing out your commitment and sharing it with the world you are one step closer to doing it always. Also please subscribe to these blogs on the top right hand of the page.

Whispering Walkway
Through the woods in Nose Hill Park

Why I Use Fit For Life From 23 Years Ago

I had to get on a weight-loss program so I decided to go with what I know has worked in the past.

The interesting thing about diet is that everybody has a different opinion. Many of those opinions back them up with what they believed to be scientific fact. Everybody has different facts though. Facts and studies can be produced was just about any outcome that you want. Just get on the internet start searching. You can support your opinion, even if the majority would say that your opinion is crazy. Somebody is out there that has some kind of documentation that would support crazy.

Rael Kalley my habits coach says that whatever book you read about nutrition and weight-loss you should stick to if it works for you, because if you go back to the book shelf and buy another one it will tell you all different things. Which one is true? Now you are just confused. The reality is that there are different paths to the same end. You could cut your portions in half. That works. You could eat nothing but lettuce. That works. You could walk 10 km a day. That also works. Diet books come and go but what works in your body? Can you create a lifestyle with that knowledge? Go with that.

I'm going to share with you my opinion about a book I read over 20 years ago called Fit For Life, and I would encourage you to try a little experiment in your own body to see if you might feel the same way. Why use other people's opinions? Try some things out and see what your opinion is after you try something different.

Many years ago when I was in my early twenties I was very sick, a lot of the time. After I ate I had pain, and bloating. I also got headaches a lot, and they were really intense and sometimes I had to be hospitalized. Doctors had differing opinions of what was causing these problems. In the end it seems that perhaps there were two causes (although no doctor actually contributed to that opinion because they could not seem to agree on anything.)

The headaches were likely unrelated to the stomach problems. They were likely caused from food coloring, preservatives and MSG. I started going without these things and diligently reading labels and I immediately seen an improvement in the frequency of the migraines.

The stomach issues were a little bit more complicated, and many tests were ran. The doctors were unwilling or unable to come up with any satisfactory diagnosis. One suggested that it was probably irritable bowel syndrome, but at the time they seemed to not be certain of that either. All I knew is that I felt gross a lot of the time. I had little energy, and pain in my lower abdomen almost constantly, and more so after I ate.

When I got married to my first husband I wanted to impress him with my culinary skills and did a lot of home cooking. This included foods like homemade bread, and perogies and cabbage rolls, and lots of meat and potato dishes. I quickly gained 30 pounds in less than 6 months losing my trim figure and adding a little depression to my diet.

On a trip home to Saskatchewan my aunt had told me about her experience with reading a book called Fit for Life and how she had been planning to have a hysterectomy because of female problems and pain in her abdomen continuously but once she had being on this diet for about six weeks the symptoms had disappeared. She had also lost about 40 lb. I quickly went out and bought the book and began to apply everything in it.

The result was that I quickly lost the 30 lb but there were some other interesting side effects. The pain that I had been experiencing after I ate stopped entirely. My energy level went up significantly. In fact, from that point to this day I have always had a high energy level. It seemed to replenish vitamins and minerals in my body in some very visible ways. For instance, I had always had weak fingernails and suddenly they were strong, hard and growing. My hair was glossier and also began to grow faster, requiring to be cut more often. My skin became more clear and even my eyesight sharpened up.

Reducing the artificial enhancements to food had reduced the amount of headaches that I had had significantly. When I was in my late teens I was having a migraine headache at least once a week and sometimes three or four times a week. With those dietary changes I had reduced the amount of headaches to about once a month. I had started making those dietary changes when I was about 20. When I read the book Fit for Life I was managing the monthly headaches and I had truly believed that life was as good as it was going to get. However at age 25 when I started applying the principles of Fit for Life the headaches completely disappeared. To this day I rarely have any kind of a headache, and I think I've had two migraines in the last 23 years.

I'm a Believer in the Fit for Life principles because I have used them myself to take off weight, to feel better and more vibrant, and it has given me back my life. Over the years I have encouraged other people who had struggled with health issues to try it out. I'm not a doctor and I can't make it prescription however I can hand somebody a book and say listen if you don't believe it, just try it for 6 weeks and see if you feel a difference.

I've seen people with colon problems, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and a variety of undiagnosed issues, work themselves back from the brink of distress, in a matter of 4 to 8 weeks. Over the years when I have followed the program I had long periods of weight maintenance. When I stopped following the program I rapidly gained weight and then uncomfortable symptoms and stomach pains began to reappear.

These days Fit for Life can be found in a second hand store usually for about $2. Some people say it was a fad diet and that there was not enough science behind it. There are lots of other more recent diet books that are on the shelf next to it in the bookstore. Over the years I have read some of the more successful ones, mostly out of a point of interest or because some friend of mine was trying a new program. We all know how zealous our friends can be when they are trying a new program. They want to tell everybody about it, and anything that you might know prior to they're reading this new great book is irrelevant because this new great book has new information. After reading many of these books with new information I have concluded that most of them that actually deliver results have stolen all or most of the program that was actually originally printed in Fit for Life. That's why they work. Don't take my word for it, go ahead and read Fit for Life, then read the Atkins diet, then read the South Beach Diet, then read whatever diet is trending right now, and you tell me if I'm wrong. There's always some variations but the core is about combining food in a way that better results happen, even if they don't tell you that is what they are doing. The Atkins book for example tells one to remove all carbs from their diet. That naturally leads to food combining because without any carbs in your diet you can't improperly combine a carb and a protein. It takes the carb off your plate.

In summation the Fit for Life program it suggests that you should never put meat and potatoes, or meat and bread, or meat and pasta, on the same plate. Fit For Life calls that a "bad combination." The reason is - it takes two different kinds of chemicals in your stomach to break them down. Starch requires alkaline, and meat is a protein which requires acid. If you remember your days of chemistry in high school what happens when you put alkaline and acid into the same container? They neutralize one another and therefore digestion is impeded. Which is why when you eat a nice big turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, you feel really slow and sluggish for several hours. All of that food of mixed combination working against each other in the same confined place takes a lot of energy out of your body and never actually properly digest the food, because alkaline and acid have been pumped in together into the same space.

Knowing this one thing about how food breaks down, empowers me to make better choices. If I want to have a steak, then I should enjoy a steak with some very nice salad. That keeps the steak without a heavy starch carbohydrate that requires alkaline. If you don't believe me, I don't blame you. I would ask you though to run an experiment. Have steak for two nights in a row. The first night eat your steak with a nice big baked potato with sour cream on it, and make sure you have a piece of bread with the steak. After you are done go lay on the couch for a while. Think about how you feel. How does your stomach feel? Consider your energy level. Do you feel like getting up to go do something outside? Write your observations down. Continue your evening doing the things that you normally do. The next evening prepare the steak again but this time, eat it only with salad. Make sure everything that is with the salad is raw. Raw lettuce, raw tomato, raw cucumber, and use a light dressing. Eat as much steak and salad as you want, but don't have any bread, or quinoa, or potato, or rice or, or pasta. After you're done your meal go lay on the couch and think about how you feel. Ask yourself the same questions.

Try this experiment with Fish and Rice one night. Then try it again with fish and only salad.

Try this experiment with chicken baked in the oven, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Then the next night make a nice salad and put chicken on the salad.

I encourage you to form your own opinion. Don't believe everything you read from any source, including Fit for Life. Try these things out in your body and write out the results in detail. See how you feel or if you notice the difference. This is why I believe this is a great program, because I can feel a difference. I think you will too if you stop and think about how you feel after you eat.

Tell me how your experiment worked?

And also please subscribe to this blog on the top right hand corner of the page.

100 Days Of Fire

Have you ever felt like you needed to just burn some things out of your life?

Rael Kalley my habits coach in April was encouraging me to do a 100 Day Challenge. To me it seemed a bit extreme. I had to ask myself how badly do I really want change? Maybe I like the pain of not changing better than the pain of disciplining myself to change.

Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Good things come to those who wait.

Or is it only the things that are left behind by those who hustle?

I don't know, there has to be some good excuse for being non-committal.

Inside I know he is right. I just don't like it. I want to fight it.

Who wants to light fire to the way that they are and purge out all of the ugly at one time? That sounds painful.

I was in the army. It was about 100 years ago. Right after we all got off the ark. Things were different then. The grass was greener. The sky was more blue. It was easy to leap into the flame and get shot at, and swim the river, and get gassed with tear gas. That was then. This is now. I have a different body now. Invasion of the body snatchers came and stole that old body away. I could do 100 push ups back then. I could hang upside down on monkey bars and do 50 crunches. I could take a punch to the stomach and punch back. I could run 10 km before breakfast. Now I couldn't do one push up. Literally, not one. There would be much moaning and groaning and weeping and wailing and nashing of teeth if I tried. If you hit me in the stomach your fist would sink in about 2 feet and I would double over and die. I wouldn't leap into anything accept maybe bed, or perhaps the buffet line at a Chinese Restaurant.

100 days of discipline. 100 days of fire. Hmmmmm I think that I hear a pizza calling my name...

100 days of sticking to the program. I get to pick the program, but then I have to stick to it.

100 days of committed exercise. I have to decide. Is it 3 times a week? Is it 5 days a week? Is it 7 days a week? I get to decide but then I have to stick to it.

At military boot camp, I did not get to decide. I had to do it. They literally threw us out of the beds at 4:35 am if we did not respond to the 4:30 wake up call. We had to run 10 km even if we only felt like running 1 km. We had to keep up. If we puked, they did not care. If we cried they did not care. If we quit, they dragged us along. Then they punished our entire group for the one who was lagging. That was a great way to make friends.

I used to have that girls body in the photo above. That was me. Except I had dark hair. I carried a gun. I was in the army. I thought of myself as a superhero.

100 days of fire.

Okay I will do it.

For 100 days I committed to some business goals. I have to make 10 calls a day.

For 100 days I committed to my eating program. I went back to Fit For Life because it works for me.

For 100 days I committed to 5 days a week of exercise.

I started May 1st.

We have been walking 6 days out of 7. Sometimes more than once.

I am already down by 13 pounds.

Only 80 days of fire left. I am getting my body back!

What would you commit to for 100 days?

Changing Habits

For the last few years I have been using business coaches to help me grow my business www.cibnconnect.com

I am very blessed because as the owner of The CIBN I get introduced to the best of the best and over the years I have had some exceptional help that has given us wings even in a bad economy. In the network I also get to see who brings real results and who has practical techniques that are easy to implement. We have a few great coaches right now who specialize in different things but my main personal coach is Rael Kalley. Rael is worth his weight in gold.

Rael is primarily a habits coach. He is one of the most successful coaches that I have ever met and it is likely because he has mastered his own personal habits. He is not ruled by his habits, he actually rules his habits. As a result he makes really good money. I think that is an important quality in a coach because many of them want to give me all kinds of advice and they can't even afford a basic membership at The CIBN for only $700. If someone can't afford that little amount then I don't want to take business advice from them. I certainly would not introduce them to you either.

The first thing I noticed about Rael is that he did not blink when we told him the price for the MasterMind Program and he joined immediately. He has money. He takes his own advice. The second think that I learned about him was from one of his clients that was leaving his office one day. The man disclosed to me that he was making about 6 times the average in his industry. Rael also self-published a book a few years ago and has sold over 40,000 copies. That is unheard of. I decided last December I had to have him as my coach. I really need people like him around me.

An interesting thing happens when you hire Rael Kalley to be your business coach. You lose weight. No kidding.

The reason is because he is a habits coach and habits affect every part of our lives. Many of Rael's clients over the years have lost weight and more importantly they kept it off after they lost it. Some of his clients lost more than 100 pounds. That is not a common thing. Most people gain back what they lose.

When I hired Rael I was topping the scales at 244. It is the heaviest that I have ever been. I hired him in December of 2017 and by the end of February I was down to 230. I had not even changed much. I was not exercising yet at all. I was just changing the way I was thinking. After a few months, I had not lost more, but I had not gained it back either.

Because of Rael I was examining my habits. Mostly I was doing it to see gains in my business, which went up by $20,000 in monthly revenue in January of 2018.

By examining my habits I realized that I had set myself up for failure in business, in life, and definitely in weight-loss. Click Here to review my bad habits.

The first thing that I needed to change to get better results was how I was thinking about things. I had to change the way I thought to make permanent changes to my habits. I would like to tell you that those changes came overnight, but they did not. They took some time. In December 2017 on Rael's advice I started writing out affirmations and saying them 6 times a day minimum. Mostly they were about things I wanted to change for business, but Rael insisted that I look at healthier living choices as well. I did not want to. I did not care if I was fat. I like myself just fine. I was not motivated to be any different. He did raise a valid point though that I would not live to see the empire I built if I gave my body no further consideration. That was a good point.

I really, really, really had to start by changing the way I thought; especially about exercise. I had a lot of stuff in my head about how I hated exercise. I did not like it when:

• It was too hot
• It was too windy
• It was too cold
• It was too hard

I did not like to bike or walk, I really hated it a lot!

So the affirmations that I told myself went like this:

• I love to exercise (cringe).
• I love to go outside (groan).
• I only desire foods that drive me towards my goal (sigh).
• I enjoy walking every day (moan).

Most people would probably start a program a lot faster than me. I first had to defeat the demons in my head and my personal bad attitude.By January I was eating more salad and on a program for eating better. By February I stopped cringing when I said the statements about exercising. By April I was planning to actually go outside. It wasn't until May 1 that I started doing it. Now I am going outside for a brisk walk and even a little jog 6 out of 7 days in the week. I am making progress. Don't judge me.

Tell me how are you progressing? I won't judge you either.

Go ahead and click up on the top right hand of the page to get updates so you will see my next blog, and don't forget to write your comments at the bottom of the page.

Quick Fixes And Other Bad Habits

If you have been following my story you will know that 2 years ago I tried laser therapy weight-loss. Just so you know, it did work. It was a quick fix. It is however costly. I paid over $2000 at the time and it does reduce inches.

I wanted a quick, easy, painless solution. I wanted to beam it off my body like having a sci-fi experience of some type. Seriously, who wouldn't want that? That is why people go get their stomachs stapled and others opt for sucking out their fat. It seams easier than the alternative which is hard work. Nobody wants that program. Yuck. Exercise? Stop eating food I love? Stop drinking my calories? Who is signing up for that?

I guess people do sign up for that. Weight-loss centers around the world make money off us as we come in to buy the pills, buy the food, take the programs, and so on. The reality is, we do take it off if we use some of these things. We also can do it ourselves if we apply some hard work and actually exercise. The thing is though, we are not keeping it off.

I took off more than 20 pounds back in 2015 but I gained it back. I also gained an extra 30 just to be sure it stuck.

Recently I started examining why.

Apparently it is my habits. I have many of them. Most of them are bad.

I have had the habit of not exercising. I did not like it actually. I would even cringe at the mere thought of it. It seemed more distasteful than anything, except maybe eating properly. That was also distasteful... quite literally.

Rael Kalley is my habits coach and he started getting me to look at my habits. This is what they look like:

• I like to sleep until it is time to rush in the morning.
• I don't like to exercise at all. I hate all exercise equally. I don't even enjoy watching others do it. I don't watch sports. I think it is a waste of time and money.
• I like to eat no breakfast at all and then when I am starving for lunch I like to overeat heavy calorie foods with lots of fat. My favorite is sour cream. I prefer to smother most of my food in it.
• I eat in a restaurant several times a week. I like to put whatever I want into my mouth and savor the delicious food that my tongue wants and I don't usually care what my body has to deal with later.
• Fruit seems cold to me. I don't like it.
• Veggies seem too good for me. I don't like them.
• I don't like to drink water. It is too wet.
• I do like to drink coffee. I obviously need something to keep me going. I particularly love to drink Starbucks lattes. Especially pumpkin spice and other decadent 400+ calorie drinks.
• I don't like pop or sugary drinks. Thank God, I have one good thing going for me.
• I don't take the stairs. Those are for skinny people. I secretly am suspicious of skinny people. They are just way too skinny.
• My days are spent in restaurants and coffee shops.
• I come home and spend a few hours on the computer in a sitting position doing the marketing that I did not get done while at work.
• I like to overwork at work and then at the end of the day I lay around.
• I eat a home cooked meal twice a week. It is usually something delicious and high-calorie. I have several favorites like perogies smothered in sour cream or pasta with cream sauce. Mmmm mmm
• I like to watch TV at night and it is even better if I am eating chips with onion dip and a yummy craft beer.

How could I possibly gain weight on those habits?

I just want a quick fix, I don't want a long-term commitment. Apparently I have to change the way I think.

Life is not fair.

Go ahead and vent below. Tell me why life is not fair, and it is not your fault. We can agree together and support one another in our bad habits just for right now. Later I will tell you how I am overcoming these habits but for now, go ahead and wallow in it and get it off your chest.

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A New Plan

I have not written a blog here in about two years. I have been writing, just not here on my personal page. My business has been growing and I have had a lot of things to contribute to the blog on my website www.cibnconnect.com as well as on my LinkedIn profile.

I am going to start writing here again to talk more about personal matters as well as to track my ongoing weight-loss program and then weight-maintenance. I have discovered that weight-maintenance is actually even more important than weight-loss. I am making a new plan to take me forward to May 2019 one year from now.

Did you know that television programs like The Biggest Loser have a hard time planning reunion shows because the people gain the weight back? In fact, many weight-loss programs and dieting centers have the same problem. People do lose weight. Then they gain it back.

I too, have had some of these challenges, so I have been on the hunt to find out why and make some positive changes. I think I have learned a few things. I want to share them with you and maybe you can join me on this journey for a healthier life-style.

A pretty accurate picture of what I look like

Let's start with a recap. I gained weight for the first time as a newly wed. I was 25. I put on 30 pounds trying to impress my new husband with Ukrainian food and fresh baked bread. My aunt gave me a book that was popular at the time called Fit For Life. I applied the principles increasing fresh fruit and fresh vegetables and I lost the weight. Irritable Bowel Syndrome also vanished. I was back on track for several years. I also got rid of the husband. He was bad for my figure, my financial figures, and for me in general.

I was slender until my third child came into my life in my early thirties. That was my first real challenge. I think many women experience weight gain with having more children. After a few years of unhappy struggle I had a couple of girlfriends help me out by encouraging me to go back on the dietary plan I followed before and they got me out walking. I lost the weight and kept if off for about 10 years.

Many people talk about yo-yoing. I never really seen it as yo-yoing. I knew when I worked at it, I lost weight. When I stayed focused I kept it off. When I stopped eating healthy and stopped exercising, bad things happened. There was no real mystery about it. I knew what I was doing. I was making choices.

Lately I have realized most people are not thinking about it like that. They are not seeing daily small choices as being the leading cause of where they are at now. They seem to not see the correlation. Whenever I gained weight, I knew exactly what I was doing. Every time I put food in my mouth I knew if it was a good idea or a bad idea. Every day I opted for no exercise I understood I was adopting a Body By Pizza Hut attitude. Maybe that was even worse than not knowing.

When I hit 40 I suddenly found it harder to take weight off and keep it off. The metabolism was changing. It was even easier to gain weight. To make matters even more challenging I started a new business that was very demanding. It was hard to think about meal planning and even harder to plan exercise as part of a daily or even weekly routine. That was enough to start packing on the pounds but I had an even bigger problem. My business took place every day in restaurants. Suddenly I was eating in a way that was very different to my regiment. There was lots of salt, lots of sugar, and some places didn't even serve a proper salad. So I gave in to eating what my tongue desired, when it desired it. To top it off, I also began to enjoy more beer and wine. Yum. My taste buds were ecstatic. The rest of my body was screaming.

Fast forward to 6 years later. I have gained about 70 lbs. No joke.

My knees hurt. It is hard to exercise. My grandson who is 2 is outrunning me. I think it is time to make a change.

My business is no longer in a learning curve. We've got this. I don't have to be in a restaurant 5 days a week anymore, nor am I too weak-minded to create new strategies. So I have run out of excuses. I am making a change.

Over the next days and weeks and months and years I am going to be blogging here, because this is a life-long project. If you want to join me in the journey make a comment below. I will be sharing what is working and what is helpful. You can share your tips too. Let's do this together!

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