Determined To Succeed

Hey there, crew! How are you? (I’m a poet and didn’t know it)

It’s Saturday and I have decided that my brain needs a break from writing sometimes, even if it’s just one day a week. So, starting with this Fourth of July holiday weekend, I will be doing one weekend post to cover Saturdays and Sundays while still maintaining the daily Monday through Friday weight loss blog. My brain just needs a break from writing because I am just tired. Doing my awesome martial arts class is just that, awesome. However, I must have some time to re-juice the batteries, too, mentally and physically. I am, after all, human.

And speaking of my martial arts class, it continues to rock. I have started altering my tricep dips so that the work is being done by my arms exclusively instead of both arms and legs. Ouch!!! Wow, those 20 were hard. Hard, also, is shadowboxing for a three minute mixed round. Kicks, punches, foot movement…it takes a lot out of you but it is so worth it. I am already seeing some definition in the muscles in my arms and back (so cool). There is a saying in the facility that I look at when I arrive and when I leave – “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” It is so right. As with weight loss, skill, precision in movement, toning and definition won’t happen overnight and I can’t wait to see where I am in a few months. Again, if you want to try this stuff please consult with your doctor and/or find a fitness program that’s good for you to begin.

As I ease on down the brick road of this holiday weekend I am also trying to eat better, too. Eating grilled foods instead of fried. Fruit instead of candy. Water instead of pop (or if you’re not from the Midwest, soda). I desperately want to have July be THE month I finally lose the last ten pounds I need to lose to get back to my goal weight, understanding I am building muscle at the same time which is heavier than fat. So we will see and I will keep you posted.

My blog today is rather, well, bloggy, isn’t it? It feels random because it is random. Again, my brain is only firing on, like, two-and-a-half cylinders and needs to re-juice. Hell, I even just inappropriately used the word “like” in a sentence. This summer rambling I am doing is simply fitting for a lazy holiday weekend. Things remain the status quo, which is good. I continue to do some of my martial arts “homework,” which is also good. Most of all, I take a deep breath and admire the clear blue sky (something we all need to do from time to time, especially in weight loss).

I guess, my friends this entry is the equivalent to seeing each and every one of you at a BBQ. You know, you grab a (hopefully recyclable) cup from a table, belly up to the drink station, pour yourself something over ice and catch up with a few friends, talking about everything and nothing. If I have to be “on the clock,” as it were, and talk about weight loss I would just say to think about two things:

1) Control your portions.
2) Know that one day of eating isn’t going to derail your weight loss journey. Just get back into your healthier routine Monday.

Those two things, plus the tips on my homepage, should help you get through this and any holiday situation. In the meantime, let’s be “off the clock,” sit a spell, catch up on things and enjoy the fireworks together as we celebrate freedom and independence (always tipping a hat to our service women and men who give their all every day – sometimes making the ultimate sacrifice – so we can enjoy silly things like cookouts and enjoy lazy holiday weekends).

That’s all. Happy 4th of July, everyone. Take care and I will check back in with you on Monday.

It’s Sunday morning, it’s early, I’m groggy and I’m still trying to wrap my head around some of the movie logic in the movie I watched last night – “Hot Tub Time Machine.” Did you guys see that one? It’s the story of four guys who get transported back to 1986 thanks to a really nifty (and wet) time machine and the accidental spill of a modern-day energy drink.

Following me so far? The hi-jinks ensue when our band of best friends (well, three best friends and one kid who will ultimately find out his origins) realize they can’t screw with too much in the space-time continuum or else the future will altered BUT (and there wouldn’t be a movie without a but) they want some things to change because in the future none of their lives turn out the way they wanted them to.

If I could turn back time and go back to 1986, what would I change? I’d be in high school. Assuming it’s summer I’d be wrapping up my sophomore year. “Top Gun” was in theaters. I was only 15. I’d change my future by “inventing” lots of stuff. Laptops, iPods and Google chief among them. I’d also “create” such wonderful, high-grossing movies like “Die Hard,” “The Lion King,” “Forrest Gump,” “Titanic,” “The Matrix,” “True Lies,” “Predator” and so many more. I mean, who wouldn’t create a better life for themselves in the future by changing something critical in the past. Sure, it might mean the rest of the world is irrevocably changed (ala the Butterfly Effect) but who cares I’d be changed and for the better.

But this wouldn’t be Bill’s Weight Loss Blog if I also didn’t cop to the fact I’d change the physical me, too. I’d stop eating all the bad foods I ate back then. I’d start exercising regularly (doing 20 tummy crunches a day might have made me get a set of 6-pack abs of steel instead of my 24-case of flabs of steels). Of course I would do this, too, because I realize what 24 years of extra time would mean to my body. I would never have achieved 400 pounds. I would never have had high blood pressure. I would have been much healthier much sooner and able to enjoy every bit of those 24 extra years (especially thanking God for extra time with my mom, JoAnn – I love you, Ma) of healthier, stronger Bill.

Someone very wise once told me that, while you can reconcile and make peace with the past, it is just that – the past. The not-so-smart choices you made back then are done. All you can do now is make much smarter ones moving forward. That just happens to be the driving principle behind one of my cardinal rules of weight loss – forgiving yourself the weight you gained up to now and not letting that weigh you down as you begin a weight loss journey. Sure you are the weight you are, but instead of being sad about how that happened, concentrate on what you’re gonna do about it now and every day after today.

My friends, we may not be able to turn back time like they do in the movies but we don’t need a time machine to start altering our lives so that our future selves benefit from our actions today. In other words, do not lament 24 years ago, project 24 years into the future. For me, I’ll be 63 and a damn-sight healthier and stronger than I would have been had I not started this journey. Why? Because I am in this moment of time telling me to change what could possibly be my unhealthy, obese and self-destructive future. And what could have easily been a one-way ticket to an early death – 400 pounds ain’t healthy for no one – is now a great chance to create a better life for me in 2034 by changing that something critical in the past…today…in 2010.

So think about that stuff the next time you curl up with a movie on a Saturday night. Sure, the movie itself may be just O.K. (“Hot Tub Time Machine” did have its moments) but one of the true gifts of the movies is that they all make us think about possibility.

So now that you are here in the present, what are you going to do today? Me? I think I’ll start with 20 tricep dips and, hmmmmm, maybe 20 or so tummy crunches…

Oh and P.S. – Thanks to writing this blog today I now have Cher’s song “If I Could Turn Back Time” running through my head. Thanks a lot, me. I’ll be spending all day with a fork in my eyeball trying to get that song out of my head.

Today feels like a such Monday to me. I don’t know how that happens it just does. It could be the weather, a three-day weekend or the way we wake up in the morning. Some days just feel like other days of the week. Maybe it’s a glitch in The Matrix.

Perhaps it feels like a Monday because it also happens to be a first, June 1, and the beginning of the work week for most people (hence the feeling of it being Monday). Getting in your car, getting much-needed coffee before waiting in absolutely horrible traffic just to turn around at the end of the day to wait in even more traffic with even less coffee. For me, though, it symbolizes something else. It is June 1 and I am still twelve pounds above re-reaching my weight goal of 225 pounds.

Over the past few weeks my stress eating has been ramping up because in eight more days it will be the one-year anniversary of my mom, JoAnn’s, passing. What does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. It means I am going to lose at least this two pounds I re-gained so I can get back to my “Battle of the Final Ten” before that anniversary.

I had so wanted to have this weight be done and gone by now. Ya know? A year is a long time, especially when it took me three-and-a-half years to lose 175 pounds in the first place. But because of the everyday things that happen in life, including many stupid food decisions, I still have twelve pounds to re-lose.  I know my pants still fit (thank God) and I know I am not that far from my goal but still…it gets under my skin.

So after writing this weight loss blog today I’m going to continue with my exercise (or as I put it rediscovering my inner sweaty, smelly and grunty child) to make sure these two pounds are gone by June 9. That’s my goal, a do-able and smart one, too. It’s also going to help me get my mind right as it gets closer and closer to the auditions for the “win your OWN show” contest for Oprah and her new network, OWN.

I am also going to think about my basic rules for losing weight:

TELL EVERYONE! (which I do every single day with you, my friends).

WHEN YOU CAN, PURGE YOUR “FAT CLOTHES.” With summer here I need to do that with the wardrobe I just pulled out of storage. This way I can give myself a nice little mental boost as I get back on track to re-losing this weight.

BE FORGIVING OF YOURSELF. In this newer more-Zen way of thinking I am trying my best not to do this.  Today is DAY ONE, at least that’s the way I am thinking about it. Beating yourself (or myself) up is negative energy you (we) don’t need. And o.k., so along my journey I re-gained twent after my mom’s death and I still need to re-lose twelve to get back to my ultimate goal of 225. THAT STILL MEANS I STILL LOST EIGHT OF THE TWENTY AND THAT’S GOOD!!!

USE WHAT YOU HAVE AVAILABLE TO YOU. With summer here it’s a great time to get out and walk, ride a bike, jog, walk the dog, something to get you outside and moving. And remember you (and I) can do sit-ups, push-ups and stairs in our own homes.

KNOW THIS WILL TAKE TIME: Weight loss and maintenance will be a part of my life for the rest of my life and I know this last ten or twelve will come off with time. I can be impatient sometimes but I will be more patient with me because…

YOU ARE WORTH IT SO MAKE THE TIME. …and I will, starting (or re-starting) right now.

Whew! See, I do take my own advice. I, too, need my pep-talks every now and then to keep me going, too. I am, after all, only human. And like everyone on a weight loss journey I especially need to keep these things in my mind during crazy weeks where you wake up on Tuesday but it feels like Monday (and you have to take the red pill – Matrix devotees know what that means). Have a great (and short) week, everyone.

P.S.: I will continue to keep you all posted on when I have to take a break from the blog to be all homeless and stuff waiting to audition for Oprah.

Crap!!!! I’m so behind the eight ball!!!!

How many times do we start the day saying that phrase? A lot, I know. Even today, my weight loss blog is soooo late (and my complete apologies to you all) because I’m just returned from the conference in Atlanta and I am pretty wiped out. Enough so that I slept really late today and had to make an early appointment before I sat down to put fingers to keyboard.

While there may be some debate as to the origin of the phrase “behind the eight ball” we usually take it to mean being “in a tight spot,” or “not likely to win.” But do we all realize how much we place ourselves “behind the eight ball,” especially when it comes to losing weight? Or in life? Not enough, I’d imagine.

Recently I’ve tried to be way more Zen about weight loss. I said yesterday that I was sure I’ve gained weight at the conference I attended, and I did. But it was only two-and-a-half pounds. Not too shabby for having such a limited food selection and not working out the way I wanted to. But I know I will lose it (or in my case re-lose it. Or is it re-re-lose it?). I am just choosing to not, I repeat NOT, put myself behind the eight ball when it comes to this stuff. I am choosing not to stress out about certain things, like gaining a couple of pounds on a business trip, waking up late and having to get to a meeting before writing, because that makes me nervous and anxious and all sorts of discombobulated – key factors in me stress eating. See how that works? In other words we are, most times, not behind an eight ball at all, we only think we are.

All too often we choose not to see how much we can actually calm our own lives down. I know there are times when we think we screw up, do rash or impulsive things, worry, don’t have enough time to finish projects, meet enough people, get from points A to Z, etc. But on our weight loss journey, as I’ve always said, the number one person you have to take care of is you. You are the most important thing, deadline, task or meeting you have to do.  Most of all, it will be OK. It is OK.

This blog may be late but I am OK with that. I just know I have a lot to tackle today and I will get to it. Like my exciting entry in Oprah’s “Win Your OWN Show” contest. Like planning to go to New York for Book Expo America next week to try to get in front of publishers. Like even paying bills. It will all get done. I just need to focus, not get caught up in how many things I need to do and just do them, one by one, until they are done.

So today’s blog my be short but it’s sweet and to the point. By just calming down and relaxing I can take away my nervous “need” for different crappy foods that may be fast but are unhealthy. By calming down I can take control of my day and my life and my eating so I know I take a moment, breathe, think about what foods I am consuming and remove myself from the eight ball.

I don’t know if you all play pool or not (I do on bar occasions when one is handy and not occupied by stupid drunk people) but I like the simplicity of pool. It may take a passing knowledge of physics and definitive skill to sink solids or stripes into the corner pocket but it’s your mastery of that eight ball that wins you the game.

It’s not often we get to time travel. No, you didn’t read that wrong. I did say time travel…a mix between the H.G. Wells kind and the “Flash Forward” kind.

Let me explain…yesterday I had the absolute honor of speaking with the first person to sign up for my personal one-on-one weight loss motivation sessions using Skype. While we were talking he told me about how he connected with me because, in me, he saw himself. He said looking at me let him know there was someone just like him who went through the exact same thing with the almost exact same set of circumstances. We discussed foods (including our likes for certain fast foods), clothing (and the need to shop in certain stores that carry that size) and the emotions we feel – about how being overweight can act as a shield to protect us from being hurt by the stinging words of others.

While I was listening to him and his story I felt a kinship to him, too. And this is where the time travel bit comes into play. As much as he saw me as the man he wants to be in terms of clothing sizes (I now wear a large t-shirt and have a size 36 waist) I saw how far I’d come (we wears the exact same size clothes I used to wear). It was like he and I both looked into a double mirror of sorts – him peering into his future and me into the past.

It was a remarkable conversation and made me think back to a few things…

…like the fact that if my current self went back to talk to my past 400-pound self I don’t think I could have believed I would have been able to lose that much weight.

…like the fact I needed to take a good, long look at myself and see me as other saw me, the big 400-pound man I had become – the first time in years I faced reality and the cold, hard and bitter truth.

…like the fact it took me bottoming out and saying “I won’t ever be heavier than this ever again” after taking a good, long stare at my aquarium photo to really begin my weight loss journey.

…like the fact I had to say “I want to be thinner more than I want that plate and/or kind of food,” and really stick to it pushing through the temptations to reach my goal (again, applying the Zen principle of removing clutter to best see the goal).

It was also a remarkable conversation because it made me think about the present and appreciating what I’ve already accomplished and, again, how Zen I need to be about all this. I have really and irrevocably changed my lifestyle for the better and it will be that way for the rest of my life. And while I still have to make choices every day about exercise and eating right, I don’t just know the path…I am walking the path. Thank you for reminding me of that, my friend.

So today’s weight loss blog is dedicated to my new friend, my new brother on this weight loss journey. Dude, you did a brave thing yesterday opening up and talking, and now you need to take that next, brave step and look at yourself and be honest with you about how much you weigh and how you look. It will hurt but it will be OK. It will be because you got a glimpse at the future. The future you want. The size you want to be. There will be stumbling blocks, too. I guarantee that. But how you deal with them will determine your success. If you stumble get right back up. It’s OK. I’ve stumbled and I’ve gotten right back up, too. Hell, I continue to stumble (as you read here in these virtual pages) but I still get up and back on track. You are so worth the pain, effort and commitment this will take. Trust me.

I’ve always said to everyone on a weight loss journey “we are all in this together.” And my friend, we are, and you will never have to feel alone again. I got you.

OK, my weight loss blog today is a little tangential. So please forgive me. I eventually do get to the point. I just need a little exposition to set up the story…

You guys know me well enough to know how much I love movies. You’re saying to yourself “gee. I never would have figured that out, Larson. You only show tons of posters and quote movies at least once a week.” Yeah, I know. But today there’s a quote I’m gonna use and it’s one I don’t wanna use.

“There’s something wrong.”

Even though it has many variations this phrase has been used countless times in movies to signal a shift in the momentum from bad to good, to herald something action-oriented coming, etc. Here are some examples that come to mind:

“There’s something wrong! They’re coming back down!” – said by the Huey Lewis-looking bad guy from the original “Die Hard” to baddie Hans Grueber played by the always awesome Alan Rickman.

“There’s something not right here. I feel cold…death.” – said by Luke Skywalker to Yoda in “The Empire Strikes Back” (yes, of course I had to throw in a Star Wars quote as there is one for everything).

“Sir, we have a serious problem. This freeway isn’t finished.” – SWAT guy to Joe Morton’s SWAT leader, Lt. McMahon, in “Speed.”

No matter who uses this phrase or its derivations something’s afoot and something’s out of place. Like the teeth in my mouth

Ugh. I think I told you guys a few days ago that I had my mouth worked on a bit by the dentist. Like a ten-year-old I had to get fillings (two of them, actually) in the bottom rear of my mouth on Wednesday. While it was quite fun having the lower right quadrant of my face numb for several hours my mouth and teeth felt like there’s “something wrong/not right/we have a serious problem.” I knew they beat my mouth up pretty good just getting the damn things in but sheesh! I knew I shouldn’t have felt any pain after a day or so.

Again, that was Wednesday/Thursday.

What does all this mean for yours truly? How does this tie in to weight loss and maintenance? Well…if I can’t see the dentist until Monday or so it looks like I am eating quite lightly this weekend. Not that I hadn’t planned on it anyway but I’m talking the kind of stuff that doesn’t require chewing. Soup, uh soup and possibly more soup. You know how it gets when your mouth hurts, you don’t wanna eat anything. Well, I am in that boat today.

Has this ever happened to you guys? This good news/bad news kind of thing? Good news is I KNOW I won’t eat as much this weekend. Bad news is my teeth and gums hurt causing me to not have much of an appetite. Grrrrr. I know we all look for the perfect appetite suppressant at one point or another on a weight loss journey but this is slightly ridiculous – no matter how weirdly positive it may affect my waistline.

So I may make that 233-pound weight goal after all by Monday, just not the way I planned. And why?

Because “There’s something wrong…” – Bill to the best readers, fans and friends in the world in the greatest movie of all time (no! Not “Avatar”)…real life.

Sorry this blog is going to sound a bit scattered and cluttered. It’s just how I’m feeling today.

Back when I worked in the movie promotion “biz” I used to have piles on my desk at work because I never used to have much of a filing system. I used to place all my documents, etc. in one central stack (or a couple of stacks because one could easily topple) as my way of “knowing where everything is.” It was a scattered, distracted way of doing things, and this coming from a guy who always wanted (and still does want) to be successful. I always told myself “Oh, I’ll get to that later.” And the piles kept growing and me more distracted with them.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? What does that have to do with weight loss? Why tell you about that? Because I am so freaking distracted lately! I hate to say it but I am. Man! It’s like I have life ADD. For example, I could be throwing laundry in the washer but then I see a movie on TV and I start watching. Or I get started on something and then – poof – something grabs my attention on the internet. I could want to go workout but then I get sucked into the virtual world of which I spoke the other day.

And slowly I see my piles of stuff coming back – half-finished stacks of laundry or filed receipts or dust bunnies that need to be swept away. I feel like an old AM radio on which you just quite can’t get the station. The announcers are talking but the reception is all fuzzy with static.

Why do I have life ADD? Well, some of it is personal (I’ve been feeling distracted with thoughts of my mom, especially with Mother’s Day approaching followed closely by the one year anniversary of her death from pancreatic cancer) and some of it is professional (just trying to keep up with things I need to do and people I need to see to keep moving forward with this website and my writing).

I know I talk about the “Star Wars” movies a lot but there really is a quote in them for everything. In “The Empire Strikes Back” (which I can’t freaking believe is 30 years old already) Yoda is training Luke who has many questions because he’s anxious, young and very distracted. Yoda, in speaking about Luke, says “Always has this one looked away, to the future. Never his mind on where he was. Hmmm. What he was doing.”

Yoda’s right.

Sometimes distractions can be good – very good really – like planning trips and vacations to see family, or reconnecting with people to let them know you still care (even if it is 3 o’clock in the morning) or getting inspiration to write a weight loss blog even though you start the morning in a sleepy fog. It’s just the other distractions that are bad and those are what can keep you from your weight loss goal. This is what leads to me stress eating, binging and eating crap that’s no good for me. So today I will continue to be good with my eating (I am well on track to lose that pound by tomorrow) and stay focused.

It is easy to be lost. Lately I know exactly how that feels. But it’s OK. At the end of it all, underneath all those piles of goo that need to be filed is your focus, your goal. And you will get there.

Someone wise once said to me “ya know. If you clean off your desk and file things away you’d have more space to work.” And that is very true, even to this day. I need to focus on one thing at a time.

After all, these piles of crap won’t clear themselves away. Will they?

Happy mega-late-Wednesday night/super-duper early-Thursday morning, my friends.

Since I have to be in New York City Thursday morning for an appointment (I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to talk about the website and weight loss on the nationally-syndicated BetterTV), I decided to do tomorrow’s blog tonight. Er, or today’s blog yesterday. However you want to look at it. It feels kind of weird because I’m so used to getting up every morning, rolling back over when I see it’s earlier than I think, getting up again because it’s then later than I want, stretching and writing my daily weight loss blog post.

Yeah, I’m breaking up my routine. It happens from time to time to all of us. We get sick with a stomach bug that lays us up for days, or we travel out of town to visit a son’s graduation or we blow out our knees and have to take it easy to heal our joints and give them tender loving care. No matter what the circumstance, crap always happens and it’s during that time that a ripple effect occurs – when everything in our day gets thrown off, even eating, because of one tiny pebble thrown into the lake of our daily lives.

These past few days I have really taken advantage of detoxing from Coke to combine that with eating better and exercising to bring my weight down to a mere 12.5 pounds above my goal. But what makes me nervous is that having to get up early to beat New York traffic (o.k., NO ONE beats New York traffic but you know what I mean) to get to the TV studio on time means I have to throw off the rhythm of my day, including what and how I eat.

Sure I’m going to start out my day with my simple cup of coffee and fruit, like I always do, but having that be earlier than usual by a few hours, getting on the road, the increase of tension with less-than-agreeable other drivers, general nervousness and location all mean that the meals that follow may or may not get to be the healthiest I could have. Does New York have healthier food choices? Oh, yeah it does. But will I be close to any of them? I simply don’t know.

My brain tells me I’m being silly, that I know what I should and shouldn’t have and, therefore, won’t have it. I’ll wait until either a healthier choice pops up or wait until I return to good ol’ Cherry Hill, New Jersey for a morsel of din. But I know the rest of me better than that. I know the little devil that sometimes rules over my stomach which says “ah, go on. How often are you going to be in New York? Go to that Halal cart you like so much and get yourself a nice heaping plate of chicken and lamb, rice, pita and wash it all down with an ice-cold Co – “, er, you know, the soda that shall not be named.

So tomorrow, like it is so many times during a day or in a week, becomes a chance to flex some will (Bill) power and NOT put tempting foods in my mouth. No one forces me to eat bad foods no matter where I am. And that number on the scale IS coming down and I want it to keep coming down to re-reach my 225 pounds. So to help occupy my brain I’ll play a game I like to play especially during Oscar time – changing the names of television shows or movies into food-related pun names (kind of like the adult film industry does but much, much cleaner). Some I’ve already thought of are:

• Planet of the Grapes
• Pie Hard
• Family Pie
• Lord of the Onion Rings (One Onion Ring to Rule Them All)
• The Breakfast Club Sandwich
• The Codfather
• The French Toast Connection
• The Hunt for Bread October
• Hot Sub Time Machine
• Iron Manwich 2
• Chex and the City

I will be OK I’m sure of it, no matter whether I play a cheesy, geeky name game or not. And on Friday morning I will tell you guys all about the show, but most of all I’ll tell you how I didn’t give in to the smells and tastes of one of the greatest food cities on Earth.

You guys remember Joan Rivers? Before she started doing those abysmal, tragically bad red carpet “interviews” and looking like the Joker in the Batman movies she used to be a half-way decent stand-up comedienne. I remember her bits from the early-to-mid-80s and one of her signature lines was: “can we talk here?” It didn’t matter about what she would talk after delivering that line, it was simply the tag line itself that made you feel a part of the in-crowd and in on the joke – the way a good joke should be. You were her friend and she was talking to you.

Over the past few days my weight has crept back up into the 238’s and it’s kind of bumming me out. I know I will re-lose the weight, it’s just that I want to re-reach 225lbs so bad I can – wait for it – taste it (hell, at least I keep my sense of humor about it all). And being in the 238’s I can feel my clothes get that-much tighter which only means I need to get that-much more diligent both in the gym and with eating.

With the weekend gone I did far better yesterday than Friday through Sunday. I had fruit, cheese and coffee for breakfast, a small helping of chicken for lunch and a sandwich for dinner. I also worked out yesterday, choosing to do more cardio to get myself back into the routine of exercise. And, my friends, today will be no different. I am back on track and I feel it thanks to a couple of wonderful reminders – the clementine oranges I love so much and springtime daffodils.

I can hear you guys now. “What the heck is he smoking? Daffodils and oranges? Jeez. This weight loss thing has really affected his brain today.” Well, while I cannot attest to how much of my brain is actually used on a daily basis (I was quite the under-achiever in school) I can assure you my brain has not gone the way of Julius Ceasar. At least not just yet. Let me explain…

For me, there are three reasons why clementine oranges are the perfect snack. One, the easy-to-peel and wonderfully sweet orange provides you with something on which to chew especially when you want that sensation of really munching on something (as opposed to yogurt). Two, it’s full of wonderful juice which quenches thirst and provides something sweet to “drink” especially when they are chilled in the fridge. Three, it’s seedless and portable, so you can take it anywhere and not worry about eating it. Just peel one and pop it into your mouth. We do that with candy bars so why not fruit?

Daffodils herald springtime. They are a beautiful and fragrant flowers and these small flowers are sometimes called in French “tete-a-tete” daffodils, or “head-to-head” daffodils. Why? Because if you look at them, I mean really look at them, they look like they are having a conversation, one leaning over to the other asking “can we talk here?”

I feel that way when I sit to write this weight loss blog. I feel like I’m talking with you. Talking with you guys is absolutely wonderful and what I need on some days to keep myself motivated on this weight loss journey. And you have no idea how much our talks help me to get back on track, reminding me to eat those delicious clementines and make the decisions to put down the bad snacks and embrace the good ones (this time, I will NOT make a “Star Wars” light side/dark side of the Force reference. Well, THIS TIME anyway).

Even if you think I’m loopy you’ve all heard the expression “taking time to smell the roses,” right? Well, today, take the time and smell some of the spring flowers blooming right about now. They, too, serve as wonderful reminders that we are all in this together, especially when we need that little extra push – that spark of positive energy – to keep us going forward when we’re bummed out about a few extra pounds here and there that we know, after a bit of time and attention, will be gone.