motd Tuesday April 13, 2010

[Guest guest]

A HOBBY?

Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Do you have any hobbies? Oh, I'm sure you do. When I was a kid, one of my hobbies was collecting salt and pepper shakers. It was quite some hobby, too. I mean, have you ever had to dust 742 sets of salt and pepper shakers?

Another hobby I shared with my family was playing board games with Leonard, Shirley and Lenny. My favorite was Monopoly. (I just didn't like having to go "directly to jail." LOL!)A lady visited my website a few days ago and left me an e-mail. She told me about all of the diets she'd been on over the past 35 years. Oh, she'd been on the Cabbage Soup Diet, the All-Protein Diet, the Nonfat Diet and the Red Wine With Dinner Diet, just to name a few. In fact, I'll bet she must have named at least 20 diets she'd been on in her lifetime! But, in spite of her long list of diet attempts, she told me that she'd still not been successful at losing weight! Even after all of those attempts, she just couldn't get the hang of the whole weight-loss thing.She also told me about a couple of hobbies she enjoyed, crocheting and needlepoint. She'd done pillows, bedspreads, sweaters and mittens. And she was so proud of her needlepoints that she'd framed some of them to give as gifts or hung them in her living room.

Very nice hobbies, crocheting and needlepoint but...I guess you could say this lady had a third hobby she didn't even realize she had...dieting! Now, I want you to listen. Losing weight cannot be treated like some hobby! Losing weight and keeping it off is a lifestyle!Now I'll admit, I was a "diet-hobbyist" at one time, too. If I heard about some new diet, I had to try it immediately. I'd say to myself, "Oh, this diet is the one!" But, sadly, every time, it would end up not being..."the one." And boy, was I ever confusing my body with all of those wacky diets. One week, it'd be hard-boiled eggs. The next week, it'd be all grapefruit on the Grapefruit Diet. (I'm sure many of you have heard of or tried the grapefruit diet, haven't you?)

Every time I began a new diet and then stopped it, I'd feel worse about myself each time. My self-confidence reached new lows and, many times I'd end up throwing in the towel, saying to myself, "Who am I kidding? I'm just meant to be fat!"So let me ask, how do you think I wised up, finally lost the weight and have managed to keep it off? Well, it's by practicing what I've been preaching for all of these years. Some of you have known me a very long time and you know I've never changed my sermon. It's all about loving yourself, exercising regularly and creating a food plan that you can live with.Hey, I love food and I eat food. (We all do.) But I eat the right foods, in the right-size portions and that's how I've been able to maintain my healthy weight for all of these years. So I want you to do your jigsaw puzzles, play your board games, do your needlepoints and any of the other fun hobbies many of you may have. I think hobbies are good for you. But please, don't ever think of your efforts to lose weight as...a hobby! Remember, it's a lifestyle!So, are you on program today? Or are you still trying to find that "magic diet" out there? Well, take it from me...it's not out there. The magic is inside YOU!Love,