Looking good and feeling great are two things that don’t come easy. Before I went into business for myself, I struggled with food, family, health issues, and my own self-esteem.

But somehow for me, the lessons I learned early in life sparked a fire in my belly and a passion in my heart. In turn, these led me to a career path that I was destined to pave.

For over 30 years, I’ve been fortunate to have made a difference in the lives of thousands of people with regard to weight loss, self-respect, and learning to live happier and healthier lives. It is my hope to make a difference in yours too.

It’s your life – come on, let’s make it the very best it can be!

Love, love, love,

Of course you do!

We ran around all day, played catch, swam, danced around, rode bikes, skateboarded and bounced off the walls until we were told to stop.

Back in those days, we called what we did ‘play’ and we loved it.

Something strange happened as we become older, though. Now, as adults, we call all those things we did as a kid, ‘exercise.’ What used to make us happy and excited has somehow morphed into something many of us now loathe. If you’re one of those people who look at exercise with disdain, you have to ask yourself, ‘Okay, what’s the deal…what’s changed?”

Look, if all goes well, we’re going to grow older. What isn’t inevitable, though, is growing-up! It’s okay –in fact it’s really good for us–to embrace the mindset of a child in certain aspects of our lives. Tapping into our ‘inner youth’ allows us to accomplish what we need to do (exercise, in this case), while maintaining that air of happiness, unbridled enthusiam and fun.

Let’s delve back into the inner-workings of a typical kid—that younger person we used to be.

As a kid….

we could turn almost anything into a game.

our motto was, “Why walk when I can run!”

we knew that laughing made us feel good.

we looked for new adventures.

we knew that it was always more fun having others around.

we used our imagination.

We were darn impressive, fun-loving, little human beings back then, weren’t we? Well, I can tell you that it doesn’t have to be a past-tense, distant memory. We can bring all of the same joyful attributes back into our life right now.

Imagine if you would take each and every one of those child-like qualities and bring them into your exercise routine. (Notice I didn’t say, ‘could’ because you can!)

• You would turn working out into a game by being competitive with yourself (or your workout buddy) and shooting for new personal records. You wouldn’t forget to cheer yourself on and brag a little about what you do.
• You would approach everyday things as an opportunity to increase your fitness. You can tweak the “why walk when I can run” mindset into a “why drive when I can walk” or “why take an escalator when I can jog the stairs” strategy. But you wouldn’t stop there. You would look for ways to be more active every chance you got.
• You would put on your imaginary cape and turn into “Captain Fantastic” or “Wonder Woman” any time you wanted! You would believe in yourself and your strengths. You would rescue yourself from the Killer Couch Potato. The word, ‘impossible,’ wouldn’t be a part of your vocabulary.

Fun stuff! Like the quote pictured says: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to kid-around a lot more in my life!

We love our football. Go Lions!

Even if you’re not a football fan, you probably know the basics of the game—each of the two teams competing in the game needs to move the ball down the field (marked off in 10 yard increments) in order to score the most points. There are all kinds of ways they can do this and believe me, they’re going to try them all out to outwit, outrun, outplay and outscore the other team.

Weight Watchers members are a lot like those tenacious football players we see playing on the field. In order to win against Team Overweight, we do everything we can to keep possession of the ball and we expend a lot of effort in continually moving with it toward our goal. Like our favorite team, we strategize our moves, put them into play, always have a backup plan, become adept at playing both offensive and defensive positions and work toward smaller goals that will lead us to reaching the end zone.

Besides the game itself, another part of of the broadcast I really get a kick out of is the post-game report. During this wrap-up, commentators, players, coaches and arm-chair quarterbacks determine what the players did right….and where they messed up. A lot can be learned from this post-game chatter and applied to the “next time.”

So why all this talk about football in a health and fitness blog? Well, being that we’re quickly approaching the end of 2011, I think it’s a great time for each of us to do our own post-game analysis of how well we played on Team Weight Watchers over the past year.

So sit back on that computer chair and have a wrap-up talk with yourself by reflecting upon and answering these questions. I promise that it will make you a better player!

A FUMBLE is when a player drops the ball. A fumble that sticks out in my mind is when I went to a party hungry, rushed, tired and totally unprepared for the decadent buffet glaring at me. (I don’t know why I assume there will always be healthy options.) Well, it tackled me. Let me take that back– aI allowed it to knock me off my feet. I ate foods that I didn’t even want or really like.

• What was your biggest fumble in 2011?

A RECOVERY is taking control of a ball that has been fumbled. I forced a recovery on the fumble I just talked about by getting up the next morning, forgiving myself and immediately getting back on program. I worked hard at trying to remember everything I ate, coming up with a PointsPlus value for the food and writing it down so I could access the damages in black-and-white. I also wrote down my feelings before I overate and how I felt after, which wasn’t very good. I didn’t do this to beat myself up, but so I could learn what triggered this episode and preparing myself better so I could avoid it happening again.

• Did you recover from your biggest fumble? Think about how you did it and what you learned from it?

The game of football requires that the team successfully moves the ball toward their goalpost in 10 YARD INCREMENTS. Each increment moves you closer to a touchdown. Some of my short term goals include: Exercising in the morning. Trying new delicious and healthy recipes and foods. Logging onto eTools every single day. Making sure I attend a meeting at least monthly as a Lifetime member.

• What short term goals did you set for yourself in 2011 that moved you closer to your goal post?
• How did these short term goals help you?

BLOCKING is a term used when the offensive line uses their minds (planning) and bodies to fight off tackles. I’ve had to block many times over the past year so that I didn’t mess my plans up.

• When did you have to block off challenges so that you didn’t land on the ground?
• What was your strategy and how well did it play out?

When a football player is benched, it means he, for one reason or another, has to sit out of the game and not be part of it.

• Share a time you felt benched from reaching your goals this past year.
• What did you do to get back in the game?

A team is comprised of a group of people linked together, helping each other toward a common purpose.

• How important to your success is your Weight Watchers meeting room team and members?

The Coach is the person in charge of training members of their team.

• What is the most impactful thing you learned from your Weight Watchers leader and how did it help you.

After the season is over, just about everyone involved in football —from players, to coaches, to commentators, to fans—make predictions for the upcoming season.

• In terms of weight loss and your goals, what do you predict for yourself in 2012?
• How can you bestow upon yourself the MVP award in 2012—in other words, what do you need to do to be successful and the star when it comes to reaching your weight and health-relate goals?

I want to end this posting by pointing out that unlike football, become healthier is not a game. Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is important for your overall health and can help you prevent and control many diseases and conditions. So put on your game face and get down to the business of YOU! Remember, a healthier you is a happier you!

As I was shopping online (and overspending like crazy, I might add), I happened upon an article on CNN Money. It had to do with budgeting and it included some good strategies about coming up with a budget and sticking to it. A handful included:

• Budgets are necessary.
• Creating a budget generally requires three steps.

Identify how you’re spending now
Set goals that take into account your long-term objectives
Track your spending to make sure it stays within those guidelines.

• Spending beyond your limit is dangerous.
• Beware of luxuries dressed up as necessities.
• Don’t count on windfalls.
• Beware of a spending creep.

As I was reading the article, it occurred to me that the strategies sounded strangely familiar – really familiar! Then it hit me like a hammer. Each step mirrored those that we, as Weight Watchers members, take every day to stay on track and within the plan’s guidelines. Scroll up and review each of the strategies again, but this time put your Weight Watchers hat on and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

You don’t need me to tell you (but, of course, I will ) that this time of year can wreak havoc on our our weight, and possibly our health if we lose focus of our objectives and stray from our game plan. Being mindful will remedy that, though. It’s one strategy that will keep all the others in check.

Don’t let the concept intimidate you. You don’t have to be a Zen master to practice it. I’m certainly not one.  Mindfulness is nothing more than being in the moment, paying attention and taking everything in. It’s knowing who we are, what’s going on and what we’re capable of in that moment.

Mindfulness allows us to tap into how good it feels to have a plan and to be in control of ourselves, no matter if we’re entertaining (or being entertained), shopping, wrapping, celebrating, sitting down to dinner or traveling. You’ll be surprised when you practice using all of your senses because food and eating takes on a whole new, wonderful dimension. You no longer eat just to eat. You recognize when you’re really hungry or if you’re just feeding your emotions or giving into an impulse.You pass up on foods or snacks that are just so-so. When you do enjoy a meal or a snack, you savor each bite. You stop when it no longer tastes as good as the first bite. Eating is no longer a free-for-all. You move food down a couple of rungs on the ladder and allow people, traditions, celebrating and life to take its place.

“When one is fully present in the moment, life takes on an incredible richness. This richness cannot compare with even the most decadent of desserts. With mindfulness, life becomes the dessert!” – author unknown

It’s a game where you’d whisper a message in a friend’s ear, that friend would whisper it to someone else and this continued on and on, from person to person, until the final message was comically distorted by the time it reached the last person

What might have started out as, “My favorite flower is a rose,” became something like, “My father has no nose,” by the time it reached the last person.

Weird things happen when we move information from person to person. The messages can get garbled and have no bearing to what was first communicated.

This holds true with the messages we get about exercise. So to debunk some of the things we heard through the grapevine about exercise, let’s talk person-to person, with no middle-(wo)men to misinterpret the facts:

• Contrary to infomericals and weekly tabloid headlines, there is no such thing as being able to take weight off in specific areas of your body by doing exercises that target those areas. If you want to lose those love handles or firm up your thighs, you have to lose your overall body fat first.
• Any type of physical activity has an impact on burning calories, so any time you move, it’s worth it. Sure, it helps tremendously to have a regular 20 -30 minute exercise routine most days of the week and I recommend it. But add extra movement throughout your day to complement your regular workout. Every little bit helps a lot!
• You don’t have to pant for air and practically fall-over from exhaustion for a workout to count. Forget the all-or-nothing mentality when it comes to exercise. The important thing is to start exercising…period. Once you get into the groove, then build upon your workout slowly. Fitness does not live or die by excrutiating 60-minue workouts. You should never feel pain as you’re exercising.
• You don’t have to exercise before breakfast in order to burn more calories. From a practical perspective it does help a lot of people, though, because they get it in before their day even begins.
• People who are overweight or older should not avoid exercise. Before anyone starts an exercise program, however, they should talk with their doctor first. Beginners should then start out easy and work their way up to a routine that benefits them.
• Resistance (weight) training is a great add-on to aerobic exercise because it helps maintain or even increase muscle mass, boost metabolism and reduce fat Weight training can help you keep the muscle while you lose the fat. Women should not worry that weigh-training will make them look like a bodybuilder with big, bulging muscles. Bodybuilders do a lot of other things besides a typical strength training workout to bulk-up.
• It only takes 10-12 weeks of regular exercise to become better “fit” but your health can improve after that first brisk walk. So,close your browser’s window, lace up your shoes and get your body moving!

Hearing this definition, would you say that you have ay obsession with the scale?

Many do and it’s really unfortunate that in today’s image conscious world, people allow themselves to become emotionally wrapped-up and addicted with  the number the scale spurts out.

My advice to you is, “Don’t give the scale that much power over you and your weight loss efforts!” The scale is just one way to determine success and certainly not the best indicator.

Here’s what I mean:

For just a minute, pretend that gravity doesn’t exist. Everything, including you, is weightless, just floating around like the astronauts do in a zero-gravity chamber. You can’t step on a scale to see how well you did over the past week because the scale is also floating around with you. Without a number, how would you gauge how successful you were?

Let me tell you, there are dozens of ways! Maybe you know that you’ve gained more control with overeating at night in the past week. Perhaps you snuck in an extra day of exercise, kept up your journal like no one’s business or planned out more healthy meals. On the other end of the spectrum, you admit that you’ve had to loosen up your belt a notch or that you’re extra-feeling more sluggish from all the sugar you’ve consumed over the past few days.

The point is YOU know before you even step on the scale how well you’re doing (or not doing) with your healthy lifestyle behaviors.

While all of us applaud ourselves for losing pounds during our weight-loss journey (as we should), there are many times during the process that we get down on ourselves simply because something as trivial as gravity dictates to us that we’re a failure. All too often, I’ve talked to Weight Watchers members who KNOW they’ve worked hard in the past week and are proud of their accomplishments and feel good UNTIL they step on the scale and the number it spurts out doesn’t meet their expectations. How they react to this one barometer could make or break them. That’s how much power they hand over to it.

While a scale is one gauge to monitor progress, it’s certainly shouldn’t be the most important tool one should rely on and it’s certainly not the most accurate. Sure maybe the number accurately reflects your behaviors leading up to weigh-in day but other factors could come into play when it doesn’t match your honest expectations, such as water retention, the clothes you’re wearing or even the time of day you’re weighing in.That why I strongly recommend that we don’t become fixated on the scale and to only weigh ourselves only once a week.

Weight loss is an internal process, so as you’re working to get to a healthy weight through good nutrition, exercising and by developing a good relationship with food and being active, tune into your body and mind. Be honest with yourself. What are you doing well, how do you really feel, in what aspects of daily life do you need to step up to the plate? Recognize all things that point to whether you’re ‘on track’ or slip, sliding away.Take that number the scale hands out to you and do some honest self-evaluation

By doing what you need to do to lose weight and by sweating the small, everyday stuff, I promise the scale will begin to reflect your progress. It’s not “it” that I trust, it’s YOU! I want you to get to that trust-level, too!

Got a minute to try to solve this riddle?

I am your constant companion.

I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.

I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.

I am completely at your command.

Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,

and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.

Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great people.

And, alas, of all failures as well.

Those who are great, I have made great.

Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine.

Plus, the intelligence of a person.

You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.

Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.

WHO AM I?

Hmmm. Whomever or whatever it is, it sure is a force to be reckoned with!

If you’re stumped but don’t want to give up just yet, consider this your spoiler alert and read no further.

Drum roll, please, because here is the unveiling: The answer is, “I am a habit!”

Seriously, habits aren’t mysterious things at all. We all acquire them—good ones, not-so-good ones and “it is what it is” ones. Repeated behaviors become habits, not necessary because they’re what we need or should do, but because, through repetition, they become automatic.

Do you gravitate to the coffee maker each morning? Habit!

Do you brush your teeth before hitting the bed at night? Habit!

Do you say automatically say “hello” when you pick up a ringing phone or “How are you?” when you pass a co-worker in the hall? Habit!

Do you turn on music before you even put your car in drive? Habit!

Yep, we all got them. Habits are such familiar, cozy creatures. Habits are easy—we don’t have to think, we just do.

Just doing can get us in trouble so I have a proposition for you: For the rest of the day, pay attention to those things you do automatically–almost like a robot. Tomorrow, pay particular attention to the habits that you’ve picked up over time that are stopping you from getting to a healthier weight. One key to losing weight and keeping it off is learning more about yourself. What gets in your way? What habits do you need to drop? Then, spend 2 days from now really thinking about which new habits you can adopt—ones that will benefit your overall health and happiness.

Can you get in the habit of pre-packing a healthy lunch instead of winging it at lunchtime?

Can you get in the routine of waking up early to fit in 20 minutes of exercise before hitting the shower?

Can you make writing in your tracker/journal just a normal part of what you do?

Can going to the store with a grocery list become the regular way you shop?

These are just a few things that you can learn to make routine with thought and practice. Come up with some more.

When dropping or learning new habit, be patient with yourself and realistic. Leave the drama to the Kardashians. Giving up a nightly bowl of ice cream is going to take some practice, planning and compromise. You might whine and miss it—I know I did when I gave up my Breyers–but, the truth is that it isn’t going to throw your world off its axis. Put things into perspective and remember, habits don’t happen overnight but they will become a part of who you are if you work at them.

Old-school thinking was that it took about 3 weeks to form a habit. That changed with a research published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. The study showed that habits form anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days, with 66 days being the average. How long it will take you to form a habit depends on your commitment level and the difficulty of the habit you’re trying to embrace.

For instance, making it a habit to attend your weekly Weight Watchers meeting may be relatively easy with just a little finagling of your schedule or asking someone to babysit or carpool. With a little ingenuity and a lot of wanting, it will become a routine thing for you to do, most likely, in very little time. On the other hand, learning to pass-up junk food that your partner, roommate and/or kids flaunt every evening while watching TV (yep, that’s what I call it, “flaunting.”) might take more time because there are more emotional and physical triggers attached to it.

No matter how long it might take you to make good habits a part of who you are, I promise that you won’t regret the time and practice you put into it.

Let me end this post with a story about a person on a horse:

The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the rider is going somewhere really important.

A bystander shouts, ”Hey, Where are you going?”

The rider replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”

Like the horse, our habits are the power—the driving force– behind where we are going and where we’ll end up.

Many of us wake up each morning and turn on the TV or check a phone app to find out what the weather is going to be like. If we’re “weather people”, the forecast can provide insight as to how to go about the day and what needs to be adjusted to make for a good day.

For instance, if the report calls for all-day thunderstorms, we might make a face and vent a little, but still know we have to go about our daily business, such as going to work or school or showing up on time for an appointment. We also have to come up with a strategy or two to work our way around the weather, such as grabbing an umbrella, bringing an extra pair of (dry) shoes and maybe even leaving the house earlier than usual.All of this adjusting and tweaking is good and necessary if we don’t want to be held hostage by the elements, but we can’t forget to first focus on our attitude. We can either CHOOSE to go into the day all gloomy and doomy to match the weather or we can look at the positives and set ourselves up for a great day. The physical challenge bad weather—an external force which we have no control over—places on us is really not all that important. It’s not the end-all to be-all. If we want to, 99.9% of the time, we can successfully work around it. What’s really important is our decision to enjoy the day and make it productive no matter what it’s like outside. To do this we tap into our own resources —-internal forces which we do have total control over! I’m talking about resources like ingenuity, perseverance, willpower, abilities and talents.

Using our inner resources is something we rely on in the weight loss process, too. When we free them and put them to our use, we gain the power to manipulate the external challenges that try to stop us from achieving permanent weight loss success. Our success manifests itself internally. It always has and it always will. It’s not based an external factors, like parties, vacations, food-pushers or dining out. We set the tone and we have control over the results.

Just like getting a dismal weather report, when we’re faced with a weight-loss challenge we have to “internalize it” and:

• DECIDE what we want to achieve.

• DETERMINE the steps we need to take to work our way around the challenge or through it.

• BELIEVE in our abilities to do it.

• REMAIN MOTIVATED by keeping ourselves focused on all the positives the will come from our efforts.

• ASK 	for help when we need it.

• THINK POSITIVE.

As you work at becoming healthier, it’s important to keep her words of wisdom in mind. After all, your thoughts, and how you feel, drive your behaviors. If you want great results, you have to be in a good place NOW—mentally and emotionally. Really, is there such a thing as being too happy in life or prematurely happy? I don’t think so!

A starting point to getting to that “good place” is to focus on all the positive lifestyle habits that are now (or quickly becoming) almost instinctual to you: you’re aware of nutrition labels and how to decipher them, you order your salad dressing “on the side” or use lower-fat substitutes, you practice portion-control (or are at least aware of when you overeat), and you know how energized and good you feel when you exercise. Don’t downplay anything good that you’re doing—this is joyful stuff!

All to many times I’ve heard Weight Watchers members as they weigh-in say, “Ahh, I only lost a pound this week.” If they would only recognize their accomplishment for what it really is, they could step down from the scale feeling quite content. Just think, if a person loses one pound a week consistently, that means they would be 50 pounds lighter within one year. Or—they could step off the scale telling themselves, “One pound off! That’s like melting 4 sticks of butter from my hips!” Better yet, they could take the focus off the number on the scale and recognize all the ways they’re now taking better care of their bodies and all the rewards that come from that.

The main reason we set out to do anything in life, including working to maintain a healthier weight, is to achieve a sense of happiness. There’s no need to put that on hold! Look for the joy in everyday life..it’s abundant and unlimited. I assure you, it’s not embargoed for “some day down the road.” Better yet, it’s an equal-opportunity employer that’s waiting for you to grab hold of it today!