January 3rd, 2017 Boulder Revisited

January 3rd, 2017 Boulder Revisited

I need a good rerun tonight! I've got one a little later in this post.

Today was a solid on-plan day--very busy, too. I prepared one of my favorite meals: Chicken kebobs with grilled peppers and onions with a side of pan prepared sweet potatoes cooked with olive oil spray---but then--just before plating the sweet potatoes, I gave them generous sprinkles of cinnamon. Oh my... oh my... And as a bonus, I was eating by 6:15 and not 9:15!

I had a great workout tonight at the gym. I haven't changed it up--still a solid max level 20/30 minute elliptical ride-and it did the trick this time.

I also maintained the integrity of my maintenance calorie budget, remained abstinent from refined sugar, exceeded my water goal and I stayed in excellent contact with great support connections.

I visited with mom a little bit this evening. We have a meeting to discuss her care plan with the nursing staff on Thursday. She told me one of the staff members recognized her from the New Years Eve picture we took. Mom isn't on my blog or Facebook during this time, so it took her a little by surprise that someone would recognize her. She was smiling, so I suppose it was a good experience.

This post is a fairly recent one, from late November last year. It's one of my personal favorites of the last few months.

Boulder In The Stream  

Caryl writes: Hi Sean. Need a bit of insight. How did you determine your non-negotiables and how did you stick to them when things got hard?

First of all, you determine what's reasonable. Once you define the most critical elements of your plan boundaries- and you've determined they're doable on a typical day- then you make what I call an iron-clad decision. It's a promise to you from you, to give this element a non-negotiable stance come what may. 

Think of it as a boulder in a stream. Life is the rushing water. No matter how fast that water rushes, the boulder isn't moving. The boulder isn't sacrificed or compromised. The water has no choice, but to make its way around it- and it does. And the boulder in the stream stands strong.

On a deeper level, this creates growth/development in other areas, like coping skills- it develops growth in learning what good accountability and support skills are about. The more consistency you gain, the more you'll prove to yourself that it is possible to maintain your plan in the toughest of times. 

And that's the idea, a plan, not a diet. 

You're developing a plan that takes care of what you need. In honoring your plan, you'll notice the side effect of consistent weight loss. This is what Dr. Lerner (Transformation Planet Podcast Episode 7) means when he speaks of the focus NOT being a diet, but rather, a food plan you can live with indefinitely. And it can still have the boundaries you need to feel satisfied. Especially when you reach maintenance mode and increase your calories. But again, it's all about the daily plan--and not all about the numbers on the scale. If you take care of your daily plan-the weight loss will come.

How important are your non-negotiable elements? 

It is the consistent maintenance of what you're willing to define as non-negotiable that creates growth, and in that--a natural evolution of you unfolds.

Think once more about the boulder in the stream. The boulder stands strong against the current and because it does, the stream evolves--changes course, grows and with the gift of time, develops different paths and canyons. If the boulder simply moved out of the way every time the water came rushing--the stream would have an easier path--one of least resistance. In the path of least resistance, nothing changes. No growth, no canyons.

I've often written about the effects of maintaining non-negotiables. The only way our food plan develops/evolves over time, is by maintaining the integrity of the plan. All growth, all of our positive progress--it all depends on our willingness to create, accept and embrace certain non-negotiable elements of our plan. Determining what's reasonable is VERY important. If your non-negotiable is extreme, doesn't fit what you naturally like--is overly restrictive and monumentally demanding, it'll be a horrible experience.
Make it doable for you.

If we sacrifice our plan for whatever reason, the boundaries are broken and growth is stunted. If we develop a habit of consistently sacrificing the integrity of the non-negotiable elements of our plan, we literally become stuck--and often this "stuck" place becomes the very definition of insanity.

Life keeps coming. And there's no such thing as a "perfect time." There's only here and now and with it, a forever fluctuating rhythm to life. Let life flow around the boulders of your non-negotiables... and with the passage of time, you'll experience growth--you'll see and feel the changes, mentally, spiritually, and physically.

Developing your plan for accountability and support is important. When we decide to create non-negotiable elements of our plan, we lose a coping option. Excess food was always my number one coping tool, albeit not a good one. It lied to me every time--because it never fixed anything. When I developed my non-negotiables, it strongly encouraged me to either seek positive ways to cope or find other destructive ways to do it. We gotta cope one way or another. My skills haven't been and still aren't perfect, but it's a practice each and every day. Staying connected with good support and seeking out those connections in whatever way you can is critically important. There are many options available!

Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean