Raining and yucky, but no snow... I'm happy.

Everyday is a new beginning.

I've got Zumba and Step today, so I know I'll get a good calorie burn.

Ro (Rochelle) & hubby coming over tonight for lobster-- yay!

With or without great scores, we've got some outstanding results.

Get in the Game, stay in the Game-- it works.

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Could the weather have been any better this weekend? We need to bottle it up and save it for some of those horrible winter days...

Shout out to all of you who participated in Pink-- it was a fun event packed with  things to do.

I'm still tired from getting it all together-- there's more to this event planning than meets the eye! Still accepting donations online and at the club until the end of October. We have close to $14,000 (amazing!), and are still trying to meet our goal of $20,000.

Double bonus points (40%) for those of you who met goal (lost 1% of your body weight) AND exercised at least one hour on Saturday either at Pink at elsewhere.

Struggling? Look at portion size and journal so you can figure out exactly what went wrong.

Have a great week! Game On!

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Rod left earlier than me this morning-- never happens. Didn't reset the alarm. Got a call at 6:10AM-- are you teaching Buddha Camp this morning? (It starts at 6AM).

Long story short, I said I can be there in 7 minutes (10 because I HAD to make a cup of coffee) The gang said come on in.

Bottom line, taught an abbreviated class at no charge (my bad), Buddha Campers happy, I'm happy.

Moral of the story-- get off to a bad start, something unexpected happens, shake it off and move on as planned-- we're only human!

Game on!

PS bought a new pink water bottle-- it makes me happy.

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I have moved on to one of my favs-- chili. Yummy and filling.

Shout out to Ro and Sheri who were bringing it home in Half Step last night.

Lori hasn't met the water requirements yet, but she's got the food under control... baby steps... Rome wasn't built in a day.

Make it fun, make it real.

Weigh yourself everyday to see where you are going-- you should know whether or not you'll meet your goal weight at the end of the week. Make adjustments and hit goal.

Yanks in NY Thursday night-- the final game. If AJ Burnett can do it, anybody can!

Game On!

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Cold today, but guess what? You burn more calories when it's cold!

Day one: drink water, eat, and exercise.

Do right things right, get results.

Fire up! 

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Congrats to everyone on a great Week One.

With a long holiday weekend coming up, you really have to plan ahead to stay on course. What's your day off? What's your meal off?

If you know you're going to a cookout or 4th of July celebration, buckle down now and amp up the exercise. (Synergy will offer spinning, Zumba & an express weight training class (30 minutes) on the 4th!).

Here's 10 tips from Spark People to Keep from Overeating at a Party:

1)  Say no the first time around to appetizers. See what's being served before you eat.

2)  Limit your alcohol. Alternate alcohol with water or another low calorie drink.

3)  Eat before you go. You'll be less likely to binge if you're not overly hungry.

4)  Treat appetizers as a meal. If you're going to eat 400 calories worth of appetizers, know that that's your dinner.

5)  Survey the spread before you fill your plate. Confronted by so many rich foods you may be tempted to start piling up the food, but stop and take a deep breath. Think before you serve yourself (and try to serve yourself , so you can control the serving size).

6)  Keep track of what you're eating. Don't mindlessly eat, and try not to eat and make conversation at the say time. If your eating and drinking are spread out you might not realize how many calories you are eating.

7)  Buddy up. Share your dessert with someone else. You'll eat less and not do as much damage.

8)  Use a smaller plate, or commit to just one round of food. Don't pile your food so high that it is falling off your plate.

9)  Be choosy, and stick to proper serving size. Take only those foods you really like, and don't overload on them.

10) Bring a dish if appropriate. If you bring something healthy, you know there is at least one good-for-you option at the party. Take small helpings of other dishes and load up on your healthier one.

Game On!  

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It's that time!

It's summer time-- what better time to start your own summer meltdown.

It's fun, motivating and it gets results.

GAME ON!

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Check out this article from Spark people:

There are several kinds of motivation problems that people run into, and each requires a different set of strategies. Let's start here with a little quiz to find out which motivational problems you might be dealing with.

Get out a small piece of paper to mark your answers to the following five questions. Respond to each statement with "True" if you think it applies to you more often than not or "False" if you think it doesn’t apply most of the time. Next, indicate on a scale of 1-10, how big of a role you think the statement plays in your motivation problems. If you think it plays almost no role, give it a one. If you think it is by far the most important factor in your motivation problems, give it a 10.

1. True or False: My motivation seems to depend on what the scale (or tape measure, fit of my clothes, etc.) says. I feel motivated when I see results, but unmotivated when I don’t. SCORE (1-10): _____

2. True or False: I feel like I am in a constant battle with myself. In my “normal” state, I want to eat whatever I like, whenever I want it, and/or my body just naturally gravitates towards the couch. It’s very hard to make myself do what I know I need to do. SCORE (1-10): _____

3. True or False: I really want to eat healthy and exercise most of the time, but I just can’t seem to resist the temptations that I run into most days. SCORE (1-10): _____

4. True or False: I think I would do much better if I had more control over my life and my time. There are just so many demands on me that I can’t fit exercise and healthy meals into my day as often as I want to. SCORE (1-10): _____

5. True or False: I do well for a few hours (or days or weeks), but then I have a bad time and things really go downhill. All I see is what I did wrong, not all the things I did well. I get flooded with negative feelings, and just want to give up. SCORE (1-10): _____

QUESTION 1
If you marked this statement True, and gave it a high score (5+), you are relying too much on external (extrinsic) forms of motivation and need to work on developing your internal (intrinsic) motivation.

There is nothing at all wrong with extrinsic motivation—we all need to see some concrete, measurable progress towards equally concrete and measurable goals. But, since these external results are so fickle and unpredictable when it comes to weight loss, you also need some internal motivation to keep you going when the scale (or your body) isn’t cooperating with your expectations. Here’s a simple exercise you can do to find out which sources of internal motivation might work best for you:

Imagine you live on a planet where scales and mirrors have never existed, where everyone wears one-size-fits-all unisex robes that effectively disguise their actual physical appearances. There are no standard height and weight charts, and your doctor has never heard of the Body Mass Index or waist-to-hip ratios. How will you decide whether your body is the way you want it to be? If you decide some changes are necessary, how will you know whether you are making progress towards those changes?

For example, ask yourself how you’re handling everyday tasks, like squatting down to pick something up, getting up from a chair, or working on your feet all day. If you’re carrying some extra weight, it may begin to affect your performance or comfort level when doing these activities. To make things easier, you may decide to reduce your calorie intake to get back down to a manageable size and building strength to make moving easier. Set a concrete, measurable goal that will make you feel better—like getting up out of the chair without using your arms—and set up an exercise program that will strengthen your muscles and improve your endurance. Keep track of your progress by noticing changes in your ability to handle your daily activities.

Use the same approach if your physical condition is causing problems with your moods or energy levels. Remember when you felt mostly good and ask yourself what you did to feel that way (not what your weight may have been). Start doing more of what you did then, as best you can, and experiment with different exercises and foods until you come up with options that help you feel the way you want to.

You get the basic idea here: weight is not the real problem, and losing weight is not the real solution. The problem is how you feel and what you can do. The solution is doing things that make you feel better (physically and mentally) and improve your functional abilities. To find out what those things are, you need to look inside yourself and observe what happens when you try different things.

Once you have some ideas along these lines, try to turn them into specific goals and measurable outcomes you can incorporate into your SparkPeople program.

QUESTION 2
If you answered True to this statement and gave it a high score (5+), you may have some inaccurate assumptions about what motivation means and feels like.

Many people seem to think that "being motivated" means not having to struggle with opposing desires. Not so. It is our nature as human beings to pursue both the gratification of our senses (eating what we like when we want it) and the psychological gratification of achieving meaningful but more abstract goals (being healthy, fit or attractive).

Judging one of these pursuits as superior to the other is to deny half of what and who you are, and set yourself up for endless inner conflict and turmoil—not exactly the stuff motivation is made of, right?

Your motivation will be much stronger and consistent when you focus on making conscious choices about what you can do consistently to meet all of your needs and desires.

QUESTIONS 3 and 4
A True response to either or both of these questions and a high score (5+) indicate that you may be assuming that your behavior is dictated by external factors (the needs of other people or the “appeal” of tasty foods), rather than by internal factors (your own values and decision-making processes). It is very difficult, if not impossible, to stay motivated when you believe you have little choice about what to do or how to manage your own feelings and desires.

One thing you can do to begin transforming these assumptions about who or what is controlling your behavior and choices, is to put the "I" back into your vocabulary. Take a closer look at how you define problems and situations in words. When you start using "I" statements to describe problems, as suggested there, you will automatically reprogram your mind to look for ways you can put yourself in control of what you think, feel, and do.

QUESTION 5
If you answered True to this and gave it a high score (5+), you probably struggle with some strong either/or and all-or-nothing thought patterns, as well as an overdose of perfectionism. These habits are real motivation-killers. The emotional upset they cause when things inevitably don’t go perfectly makes it impossible to stay focused on what really matters: what you can learn from your slip-ups to do better next time.

Unfortunately, just telling yourself to stop being such a perfectionist and to start thinking in both/and terms rarely solves this problem. You need to learn more about how this problem develops and how to effectively break the cycle of pessimism and self-defeat. See The Challenges of Maintaining a Healthy Weight - Part 2 for more help.

For a more detailed look at these issues, read:
Mastering the Mysteries of Motivation - Part 1
Mastering the Mysteries of Motivation - Part 2

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

2 HRS Zumba-- 6:30-8:30PM! Go for the burn. I teach 7:30-8:30PM!

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I hope everyone is enjoying this special holiday season.

Susan gave me some matzo ball soup (yum!) and Sheri gave me a special "Game On" Easter basket.

The basket had cheese sticks, organic brocolli, carrots apples, bananas, the little orange things (not tangerines) and little plastic eggs filled with jelly beans and chocolate (in 100 calorie portions I'm sure).

Tracy thought it was sad; I thought it was beautiful!

Can't wait to dye some eggs! Haven't decided yet what hunk of meat to put in the oven for Sunday.

Life is good! 

Comments (76)     

There is nothing more discouraging than stepping on the scale after a week of diligent dieting and grueling workouts and not seeing any drop in the number. The plateau is a common problem among dieters and can typically be waited out, but there are measures you can take to keep your metabolism fired up even as you reduce your caloric intake.

The best way to break a plateau is to keep your salt intake below 2,000 milligrams a day and drink lots of water. Make sure you're not eating any processed carbs, period. That's right — no chips, sugar, white flour, and so on. And hit the gym hard! The boost in exercise will make your body swell and hold fluids for a few days, but after a week you should see the benefits on the scale.

You can also try playing around with your caloric intake a bit, varying it from day to day throughout the week while keeping the same weekly total. The body can't slow its metabolism to adjust to a reduced caloric intake if the intake isn't fixed from one day to the next. For instance, to bust my plateau, I might have 1,200 calories on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and then eat 1,500 calories on Tuesday, 1,600 on Thursday, 1,400 on Saturday, and 1,700 on Sunday. Get it?

The plateau effect can sometimes simply be a matter of flagging resolve. If mixing up your caloric intake just isn't working, make sure you're not slipping up on your diet or slacking off in your workouts. I'm serious; it happens.

As with any program, there will be highs and lows, but stay with it. Your body is trying to adjust to the weight loss. Don't get scared or discouraged. Just be patient and know that you are worth it!

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Prune. Not the fruit, the verb.

To prune a tree is to remove the branches that don't serve its growth and vigor.

A diseased branch or low performing shoot not only doesn't serve the tree-- it drains the energy that can be used elsewhere. The energy that can produce more fruit, more flowers and stronger branches.

Pruning or removing two diversions from your life each week eliminates more than 100 distractions for the year.

Prune and sharpen your focus. Recommit to why you're playing the Game.

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Day One of week 3-- time flies!

It's a good day to re-commit and analyze where you are and where you're going.

Slow and steady wins the race-- if you're not where you want to be, look at portions-- eating too much of a good thing can be devastating!

Mom's 79th birthday yesterday-- sushi! You really can't go wrong with raw fish!

Game On!

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Doing final preparations for the Zumba Party tonight-- clear the group ex studio to make room for party-lovin' Zumbaistas, put up tropical lighting, pick up food, finalize playlist... A great way to end the week and go for the burn.

Let it snow...

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I can't tell you how excited I am about our team and the scores and results posted for week 1.

It's not easy to make a lifestyle change, but if you truly commit to trying it will come.

In this sense, the Game mimics life. That old saying that "it's insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect different results" certainly applies here. The Game with all its rules and requirements is trying to teach us how to replace old unhealthy habits with new healthy habits.

If you play the Game only living for the end of it so that you can revert back to what you were doing before then ultimately you have lost. The weight will come back, you will have to go back on blood pressure medication, your joint pain will come back, etc.

Embrace change and make it a part of your life. I can look at this team and know everyone on it can do it-- may be some can do it faster than others-- but you can all do it. And you know what? You're going to have to keep doing it or you'll be back where you started.

It starts and ends with you. It's truly empowering.

Game On!

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Checked out some of the scorecards-- great job everyone, especially the rookies. Stay focused and organized-- the Game works! And you don't have to have the best score to get great results.

Game On!

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the t-shirt cutting workshop held this morning was so much fun!

there's another one tonight at 7:30PM-- bring your shirt, scissors and a ruler!

Wait 'til you see Arlene, Ethel. Isabel, Sandy, Geri & Nila!

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5 small meals a day helps you boost your metabolism and burn more calories. Keep the fire burning!

Game On!

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Good morning!

Focus on what you can do, not what you can't do! When in doubt eat green veggies-- a great way to keep hunger pangs away.

I'm off to Pilates clients and Zumba! There is no better exercise for the core than Pilates. Get our Groupon deal tomorrow-- 6 Pilates or yoga classes for $30. You won't regret it.

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The next Game starts Monday, March 14, 2011.

Don't miss another opportunity to get to where you want to be.

It will be well worth it!

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Today's the last day of the Game. Scorecards will be in and the final results posted.

This was agreat Game by all gamers. Through 7 weeks we lost 411 pounds! Don't forget to donate food for every pound lost-- 411 pounds will make a big difference for the Food Bank!

If you still have pounds to lose or you want to reinforce the lifestyle changes that you made in this Game, join up for the next Game that starts Monday, March 14, 2011.

It will have some interesting new wrinkles.

Game On!

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