All Hope is Not Lost for Your Healthy Life

We are almost to the third month of the year.  Here in Wisconsin, this is the time of the year when we start itching for warmth and want to be freed from our homes where we have been hibernating for the last few months.  This is also the time of the year when our resolutions have either completely disappeared or fallen far to the back of our minds.  It can be frustrating.  We can start to feel hopeless.

For the past couple of weeks I have been exercising in front of my TV in the morning.  I have been watching news or talk shows while I march, stretch, lift weights and do my exercises that I ripped out of my WW magazine.  The TV is rarely on in my house. We have way too many activities to do to have time to turn on TV so I have found these programs incredibly interesting.  One thing that has interested me is the number of times I see commercials for weight loss programs and businesses that want to help us lose inches off of our bodies with simple procedures.  While I am lifting my weights and doing my funky exercise moves, I hear a commercial from someone who says, "Are you tired of exercising and watching what you eat only to have those muffins tops stay on your body?"  At first, I say, "Yes!!" because I am out of breath and tired of exercising but then I realize that I am getting results.  I will not give up hope.

Yes, I work my tail off five mornings a week to get and stay in shape but it is not without a reward.  I feel strong and fit.  Is my body perfect?   Far from it.  I still have parts of my body that I wish I could change and those commercials look very enticing but that's just not me.  I'm not about to go pay to have a procedure done on my body when I can work on it myself.  I know that I will never have the body that the models have but that needs to be okay.

Hope is not lost.  I need to stop being so hard on myself.  I'm allowed to eat some treats on the weekend. I'm even allowed to go a day without tracking from time to time.  It's okay.  Just because I don't look perfect or act perfect, doesn't mean that hope is lost.

The past 2 weeks have been "successful" weeks for me.  I am defining that success only by the numbers on the scale.  I have lost weight each of the last 2 weeks.  I still haven't lost all of the weight that I gained over the holidays but again, all hope is not lost.  If it takes me 2 more months to lose that weight, I know that I am a success because I have not given up.  I have still kept trying week after week.  There have been no perfect weeks but again that is okay.  I want to be as forgiving to myself as I am to my children and the world around me. I will not give up on them and I will not give up hope for me either.

We can so often be our hardest critics and lose hope in ourselves.  No matter what your successes or mistakes over the past day, week, month or year, all hope is not lost.  There is always the next minute, hour or day.  Remember to be hopeful and it will make a world of difference in your results.  You are an amazing person capable of amazing results.  You must believe and have hope that it is possible.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal." -2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Can a Magazine Help you Lose Weight?

Are you a magazine reader?  In my humble observation, most people either read lots of magazines or almost no magazines at all.  My mom loves to read magazines.  She always jokes that if she buys the magazine that says, "Lose 20 pounds before Thanksgiving" after Thanksgiving then she has until next Thanksgiving to lose it.

I remember reading the teenie-bopper magazines for a year or two when I was a young teenager.  After that, I didn't get too into magazines.  I didn't graduate from the teenie-bopper magazines into the many magazines that exist about the stars.  Maybe that's because it's when I was a teenager that I fell in love with the one star that really matters in my life - Jesus.  The rest of the "stars" are just people to me.

When I became a mom I got back into magazines.  I'm frugal so I have a hard time spending money on magazines, but I signed up for every free magazine I could find about raising kids.  That was 14 years ago.  At that time there were plenty of free magazines that I could get. I red most of them faithfully for the first few years of motherhood.  I even read one that wasn't free because my sister-in-law had given it to me as a gift.  After a few years and a couple of kids I stopped reading those magazines. I realized that most of the information was the same I had been reading for the past years and by now I had my own parenting style anyway. It also takes time to read magazines and time is a rare commodity in my life.

In 2008 one of the perks of being a WW leader was that I had free access to Weight Watchers magazine.  I admit that I was hooked.  I read each issue cover to cover.  Since 2010 when I gave up my job with WW, I didn't have free access to the magazine and had not been buying the magazine....did I mention that I was ridiculously frugal?  Last year I got an email from my cousin's daughter for a fundraiser.  She was selling magazines again for school. I like to support the fundraisers when I can but don't like spending money that I wouldn't normally spend or spending money on things that I just, plain wont use.  I almost closed the email without buying anything but then a little voice in my head said, "C'mon Corinna, you want to support her school.  You can find one magazine that you can make use of."  I then remembered how much I like the WW magazine and ordered it.

The magazine comes every other month, which is perfect for me because I like to read as much of it as possible but don't have a lot of time for extra-curricular reading in my life.  It takes me 2 months to read through it.  I admit that I have not read every one cover to cover but have read them all from time to time.  This past month I've taken a special liking to the magazine.  This is a tool that I have in my house that I paid for and I should use it.  I now read it at most meals.  I like reading while I eat.  I've passed that habit on to my kids and poor Bryan can't stand it.  He wants to see plates on the table, not books and magazines, so we don't read at the table for dinner because it would drive Bryan crazy.  We only read at breakfast and lunch.  It helps me to read my magazine because it gives me great tips that I wouldn't normally take the time to find.  This month I was particularly struck by the success stories. It's so nice to read about someone else's success and realize that you can be that successful too.  Those people are just people like you and I and they dug into their lives to change them for the better.

I have also enjoyed my magazine for the exercises.  I have grown bored of my exercise DVD's.  If you have read my blogs since their inception, this is no surprise to you.  I grow bored of exercise easily. I constantly need to change things up or I stop exercising completely. In each issue of the WW magazine they have a page or two dedicated to showing you a workout or exercises that you can do.  I went into my pile of magazines and found the last 3 issues and tore out the exercise pages from each magazines and stapled them together. Now each morning I exercise in front of the TV for 45 minutes and just use these different exercises.  It has been giving me a good workout, keeping me from getting bored and keeping me up to date on life outside by watching the news. Sometimes I vary the exercises the way that I feel like doing them or add weights to them.  I'm feeling stronger and great about my exercise.

I got a lot of help out of these simple magazines because I chose to use them. What tools do you have at home that you could use to help you lose weight or maintain your weight loss?  Is there something that you have forgotten about?  Tools are a great thing.  We need to depend on them to help us with our goals.

Have a great day,
Corinna

"Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked; for the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will go out. My child, fear the Lord and the king, and no not disobey either of them; for disaster comes from them suddenly, and who knows the ruin that both can bring." -Proverbs 24:19-22