Weight Watchers Says I Should Weigh 500 Pounds!

To lose weight and keep it off you must want to lose weight so that you’ll feel better, look better and be healthy. In order to experience the change you want, being aware of what you’re thinking is crucial. I’m working with a young woman who is slashing carbs from her life and because I’ve been through the minefield of thoughts that occur when one cuts addictive carbs (especially sugar) out of one’s diet, I’m able to be a critical step ahead of what she’ll most likely encounter on her journey to stay on a healthy diet and what she’ll confront is her thinking.

Reason 1   If you were on a high fat, low carb diet, you’d never count calories and you could cut the amount of your exercise you do in half and lose weight.

Weight Watchers is good at addressing the psychological issues of dieting and when I was attending those meetings I found that valuable, however I no longer agree with the WW theory of calories-in-calories-out, because it just isn’t true. If it were, I’d weigh about 500 pounds today!

Reason 2 If you are disciplined.

I was a strict disciplinarian with my three children and they learned at a very early age, to behave with good manners, eat at the table like ladies and gentlemen and, mind without a countdown to some unknown penalty. That education I provided for them has served them well.

How would you like to attend a funeral for the death of your credit cards? That was my goal in 2002, when I faced $26,000 in credit card debt. I’d fallen victim to the lure of fake ownership and the do-it-now-pay-later trap! I’d been having real financial difficulty because my sister was ill and I falsely looked at my credit cards as income, hoping she’d get better and we’d be back in business! I wrote all about it in The GOOD Book.

It was during that time that I got real familiar with the “voice” behind my spending behavior. If you are suffering from credit card debt, how old have you been acting to be in the predicament you’re in? I discovered I was nine years old!

Please Attend an Official Credit Card Funeral

I actually had a funeral for my credit cards because I mourned their death and I wanted closure. They’d become friends that paid me when I didn’t have the money to get what I wanted. Flylady attended, joined by her husband, Robert, who is a real judge and who officiated. So not only did I get the funeral, it was official! And there’s more!

My husband videotaped it! I decided at the time, I should open the funeral up to other mourners and allow them to officially bury their credit cards and the rest is not only entertaining and enlightening and it’s history!

Did you know that a daily routine that directs your day and leaves you organized with lots of free time to be spontaneous and play, is filled with good habits? It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Of course the opposite is true too.

A day that lacks a collection of good habits and is filled with a bunch of bad ones will leave you frustrated and pooped at the end of the day. But once you’ve established a daily routine filled with good habits, you’ll see how fun and easy it is to be organized.

Once you see how making a good habit is so easy (it just takes time), you can handle more than one new habit at a time.
Baby stepping into change is good, but there comes a time when you have to grow up, if you intend to thrive. Once a bird learns how to fly, it flies; it doesn’t flutter and flop around for years complaining to its flock that it struggles to fly.

If you’ve told me or Flylady you’re fluttering, it’s time to stop it and find out what’s wrong with your wings. I can tell you, most likely your wings are fine, it’s what’s in your head that needs changing. There are thoughts you’ve collected in your life that have become habitual thoughts and they’re the ones that wear you down and keep you from succeeding. They are thoughts you’ve thought so often you don’t even realize you’re thinking them.
 

Do you like the taste of marinated meats? Since I’ve been living in the low-carb world, I’ve been marinating a lot. My low-carb physician is the one who suggested it. As the years have passed, I came up with the idea of using the pickle juice from my favorite pickles. If I like the pickle, why not put that flavor into chicken, pork or fish?

So I always save my pickle juices and use them on the meat of the day. Since I love Bubbies Dill Pickles, I love the brine and it’s especially delicious for chicken. This video will show you exactly what I do.

Set Priorities Learn to Say No!

Life is really, really busy for all of us. Whether you’re running a business, going to school, dealing with keeping the house clean and enjoying family, friends and loved ones, it’s important to learn how to prioritize. That’s why being organized, just enough to please you, starts with knowing what’s important to you.

Prioritizing can be difficult because it requires you to be aware of what you really want out of life. It requires you to be mindful of what’s important and have the ability to say no to what isn't.

In Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, I wrote:

We were afraid to say no for fear of being stamped uncooperative. We needed the approval of others, and saying yes was one way to get it. In that first week of soul-searching, we made the astonishing discovery that we needed to give others the opportunity to be praised. By leaving some of the work for others, we also were leaving them a chance to get the credit. So, charitably, we posted a sign by our phones that read, in capital letter, “SAY NO!” and from that day on, we rejoiced in our freedom to decline.

Personally, I still dislike saying no. I want to help everyone. I want to be everywhere. I don’t want to miss out on something that could be a really good opportunity. But in order to be a loving wife, mother and friend and an inspired writer, I HAVE to say no.

In The Joy of Being Disorganized, I had this to say about saying no.

Is an oak tree organized?

That might seem like a dumb question, but I don’t think it is. It’s just that we don’t think that an object that appears to do nothing could have any organizing qualities.

Yet this tree runs on an unwritten agenda that follows a brand of order we can’t even begin to imagine.

This tree may look a little disorganized with her branches going every which way and broken limbs dangling in disrepair. But she isn’t bothered by appearances and it has nothing to do with her organizing skills.

This tree doesn’t need a watch to know what time it is or a calendar to know what day it is. Quite frankly Scarlet, she doesn’t give a damn because she’s organized in a way that would take volumes of To Do lists to accomplish what she does. Of course this tree is organized and just because she appears to do nothing, doesn’t mean she’s not busier than we ever stop to consider.

In chapter five of “The Joy of Being Disorganized,” I talked about meeting Oprah and what fun it was to find out she was a self-confessed SHE! It was a moment where a real life celebrity became just like you and me. Why can't eating be like that? You don't have to dine at the tables of Paula Deen, Rachael Ray or Giada to savor gourmet tasting food.

You can make it yourself! In this video I show you one of the easiest ways to bake salmon-- that heart healthy source of omega-3 fatty acids. Doctors call it “brain food” but you'll just call it delicious.

Throw in a sprig of rosemary and you'll transport yourself to an outdoor table overlooking the Mediterranean sea dreaming about what you'll do with all of those extra years of healthy living you have stretching out before you. Bon appetite mon ami, you're in for a treat!

The Farewell Wearing Ceremony

Spring is what I call ex-husband season. Mine was always unpredictable and the only thing predictable about him was his unpredictability. Before you unconsciously store the warm sweaters, knits and jackets that are for colder days, to make room in your closet for your spring clothes, remember how ex-husbandy spring’s weather can be and join me in a few Farewell Wearing Ceremonies.

What’s a Farewell Wearing Ceremony? It was coined by my good friend Krista. She’s very organized and she always looks great in her clothes. I see her once a week because we sing in a chorus together. She shared with me this fabulous idea she partakes in regularly to keep her wardrobe reflecting just what she loves and therefore wears. I just had to tell you about it, before you unconsciously store your warmer clothes that perhaps have seen better days. 

Krista is always looking for items of clothing she doesn’t wear regularly (those articles in your closet or dresser drawers, you keep passing over for various reasons, ending up picking something you really want to wear). Say she chooses a sweater she hasn’t worn in a couple of months, she puts it on and wears it for the day. (She often wears such garments to our chorus rehearsals and had a jacket that was being worn for its Farewell Wearing when she told me about this.)

During the day of wearing the sweater, she remembers as much about it as she can; where she bought it or who gave it to her. She thinks about all the times she has worn it, and if there were special occasions, she pulls up specifics about those events and relishes the fun she had.

She also talks to it and thanks it for its service. 

 Saved by a Compliment

The Magic of Habit

           Do you know how valuable it is to have a daily routine that directs your day and leaves you organized with lots of free time to play? I’m sure you do, or you wouldn’t be attracted to Flylady and me. But there are some daily routines that direct your day right into the ditch and you wonder what happened. That kind of daily routine is fueled by sneaky habit patterns of thought that disrupt your day and cause you to experience less than what you deserve.

 What Do You Think You’re Doing?

                                                  Remember your mom asking you, “What do you think you’re doing?” Usually when she did, she’d probably caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to do. That’s what moms are for and we ask that same question of our children when we catch them being sneaky. Now that you’re an adult, have you noticed that you can catch yourself doing something you don’t want to do? What do you do then? Do you let yourself carry out the action or do you stop yourself? 

 Habits, Good or Bad Cause Circumstances

Whether We Like Them or Not

We shot this cooking video last fall, because chili is such a fall comfort food.

However, the last few mornings, we’ve been waking up to temperatures in the 30s and I thought that chili sounded like it would really hit the spot, so I had Terry dig the video out of the archives.