Tag: #maintainingweightloss

Find Your Passion and Stay Healthy with Pat Bissell

December 10, 2024 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Find Your Passion and Stay Healthy with Pat Bissell #168

Pat Bissell talks with Jill and Chris about how she found her passion and has consistently found ways to stay healthy and fit.

A long time friend of Chris’s, Pat describes herself as a very active mature female. She has been active her whole life always enjoying sports, exercise classes and strength training for the past 25 years.

We discuss:

How important the social aspect is to enjoying exercise
Working out with strength training on machines
Types of cardio she enjoys
Working through injuries and rehabbing after surgery
Recently turning 70 and keeping fit
Lifetime membership in weight watchers
Her alternative to butter
The key of using Small Steps when you are facing a challenging time
Eating lots of vegetables and fruit everyday.
Measuring what she eats and enjoying lentils and other healthy grains
Tracking minutes or distance with exercise
Healthy eating, exercise you enjoy and socializing as a key to staying healthy with food and activity

To ask Pat a question, please email Chris at Chris@becomingelli.com and she’ll pass along your question and email.

Podcast Partner Spotlight for December 2024:

Wendy Battles is a curious soul who loves to talk to people and understand their experiences. She believes that reinvention is a natural part of life and something that many of us have done numerous times.

Listen to the Reinvention Rebels podcast with stories of unapologetic women, 50-90 years young, who have boldly reimagined life on their own terms, to find renewed purpose and possibilities.

Website: Reinvention Rebels
Instagram
LinkedIn
YouTube
Email: wendy@reinventionrebels.com

Healthy Weight from Spices and Greens

July 25, 2023 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

#135 Healthy Weight from Spices and Greens

In episode 135, Jill and Chris speak about using spices and greens for a healthy weight with Joanna Wen.

Joanna Wen is a weight loss coach who helps her clients lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way. Her unique approach helps her clients love their food and lose weight without deprivation.

Joanna also helps her clients get to the true root cause of their overeating and remove those blocks so that they keep the weight off once and for all., Joanna specializes in online nutrition and weight loss coaching through her website, Spices & Greens.

Joanna has studied and experimented extensively with the healing powers of food to de-stress, gain energy, and lose weight. When she contacted us, she said that she enjoys learning about nutrition for longevity because she is approaching her 50th birthday.

Joanna Wen uses spices and greens to help control cravings and aid in weight loss.

We discuss:

Why it is so difficult to be a healthy weight
How she helps her clients with food cravings
Special tips for losing weight for women over 50
Strategies to stay on track with healthy eating
Advice for dealing with hormonal changes and eating
Her top food hacks for reducing stress and emotional sweets cravings
What tweaks she made in her morning smoother to gain energy
Three spices she likes recommends for helping with weight loss and why
What type of exercise she recommends for losing weight
Why fiber in food helps and how juicing doesn’t work as well

Links:

The Juiceman was mentioned in the podcast (but juicing didn’t help her that much)
Her Spices & Greens website
Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest

Spices Help Me to Maintain a Healthy Weight

February 21, 2021 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

Spices help me to maintain a healthy weight because foods that I normally don’t particularly like, taste very appealing.

During the winter months this can be particularly important to me as it seems like I feel more hunger, even when I’m not really hungry. Perhaps it is the cold… or boredom… or longer nights. I’m not sure why.

Adding spices to my recipes and food prep has really helped me to stay on track.

I thought I’d share some of these in case it might help someone else as well.

Spices that help to Maintain a Healthy Weight

Garlic and Cayenne Pepper – Two spices that add a lot of flavor without adding any calories… Garlic is great for starting many recipes (like when you’re sauteing minced onion, celery and green peppers.) Cayenne Pepper gives a kick to bland foods. My problem is that I don’t really like the flavor of each of these, so I go very sparingly if at all. I only start with these two because they are GO-TO spices for many people and I think most people like them.

Dill – I often use dill in my salads and it reminds me of spring and summer. It tastes great with vinegar based dressings. I often use it in my veggie potluck salads. And I love to add dill to jazz up boiled cauliflower. The small green herb adds color to the otherwise white dish.

Pumpkin Spice – In the fall, it seems like half the world turns to pumpkin spice. Roasted acorn squash or roasted butternut squash is amazing with this spice added to it. For a dessert treat, I blend frozen bananas with a little bit of this and sometimes I even add a bit of a can of pumpkin for added fiber. I like to make my own with just some ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground allspice, and ground cloves. Here’s a link to a recipe for pumpkin pie spice and you’ll end up saving some money when you make your own. Jill makes her own pumpkin pie spice.

Salt/Pepper – This seems so basic, it barely requires mentioning, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t. I try to limit my salt, even though my blood pressure is almost always more low than high. I think too much salt masks the flavor of food, so I don’t add it while I’m cooking, but generally a small shake just before I eat the food helps to bring out the flavor.

Oregano and/or Basil – I love to add these to most things with tomato in the recipe. Sometimes I’ll pair them together, sometimes just oregano. I usually smell each of these spices to see if that’s the flavor I want. It’s funny, when I’m cooking I can’t remember these two flavors unless I smell them first. Most of the other spices, I can see the name and almost taste it in my mouth, just by reading the name. For some reason I struggle with mixing up oregano and basil. We often grow basil plants in the summer and bring them inside in the winter. You’d figure I would know and remember this spice better!

Turmeric – I like to add these to my scrambled eggs. The favor isn’t very strong, but supposedly turmeric helps with inflammation in joints. Be careful with this one, yellow stains will appear on fingers or clothes if you get too wild with the turmeric.

So how do these spices help with weight maintenance?

When I use spices, I’m cooking from scratch. I’m not opening a box of something that is pre made. Just that alone, by using real whole foods more and using processed foods less (or not at all) really really helps me to maintain a healthy weight. So many premade foods have fructose corn syrup or other things that I really need to avoid.

By focusing on the favor of the spice, I happily anticipate more homemade recipes and foods that have dense nutritional value.

Are you interested in making more of your own spices? Check out this handy downloadable PDF to make your own spice mixes from the NDSU Extension – Nutrition site. (Thanks Brenna!)

How about you? Do you use spices to enhance your foods? Which spices did I miss and how do you use them? Leave a message below or send me an email at Chris@becomingelli.com.

Sustaining Weight Loss using Vegan Eating & Intermittent Fasting

February 25, 2020 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

In episode #52, Dawn Maloney is interviewed about sustaining her weight loss. Dawn is wife, mother, realtor, and mostly vegan intermittent faster.

With 130 pounds fluctuation between her highest adult weights, Dawn needed to find a sustainable eating and movement lifestyle to help her consistently live a healthy life.

Through intermittent fasting, plus a nearly 100% vegan lifestyle, she has finally found the balance she wanted.

Topics and resources we discussed:

Lifetime of dieting started right after high school.
She started a vegan way of eating in 2016-early 2017. She lost weight but stalled after a while. After starting intermittent fasting in November 2019, she is doing well with that.
Feels better with a plant-based diet.
Changing her diet and losing weight helped to eliminate her problems with prediabetes.
Chef AJ
John Pierre
Delay, Don’t Deny by Gin Stephens
Dr. Jason Fung on Twitter
Jill’s book review of The Obesity Code (written by Dr. Jason Fung)
Life Fasting Tracker

Recipe: Making Rice or Grains in the InstantPot

4 cups of rice and lentils (or the grains you want to use)
5 cups of water

Cook for 15 minutes in the instant pot. This makes enough for several meals so good for meal prep days. She likes to put the rice or grains over greens and eat with with salsa and beans

Dawn holds a pair of pants that she used to wear.

To reach Dawn:
Website: Dawnsold.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dawnsmile
Instagram: www.instagram.com/therealdawnmaloney

Recording Your Body Measurements

September 13, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 1 Comment

Today I want to talk about the value of recording your body measurements. We’ve talked about weighing ourselves in this blog (To Weigh or Not to Weigh) and I think that’s a useful measurement to track. It’s certainly useful to know that your weight jumped five pounds in the past month.

I gained some weight on my super-duper exciting summer of travel and now I’m trying to take it off. I went to the beach twice and on a ten-day visit to Italy and had a great time. There always comes that moment when you come home and jump on the scale. Sigh. Putting weight on is so much easier than taking it off. It doesn’t seem fair, but I guess it’s also a lot more fun to put the weight on than to take it off.

I’m back to working out and I’m training to run the half marathon at the end of September. That actually made me start thinking about the weight because I figured the running will be a bit harder if I weight more. It’s hard enough running 13 miles without adding extra weight.

I keep a log of my weight. It’s just a paper journal that I use to write the date, my weight and the body fat number that my scale gives me. I flipped back to last year and found that last year in September I weighed 5 pounds less. OK, so I felt a bit better because it feels like I gained more than that. It made me feel a bit more confident about running the half marathon.

Tracking Body Measurements

Besides recording my weight and body fat percentage, I also measure myself about once a month. I weigh my waist, at my navel, the widest part of my hips, and around my right thigh. Once in a great while I measure my neck but it’s difficult and I don’t think that number is very accurate. I don’t measure anything else because it’s hard to do on myself. These numbers work well for me. These body measurements allow me to see my progress or lack of progress.

I write these numbers down in my log too, which allows me to refer back to them when I want.

When I returned from all of my vacationing, not only had I gained weight, my measurements had all gone up by an inch or more. That was alarming to me. So this is what I checked today. I’ve only lost a couple of pounds since I gained the weight over the summer but my measurements have improved. I’m not quite where I was at the beginning of the summer but it’s going in the right direction.

Here’s the interesting thing. I went back to September 2014 in my log. (Yes, I’ve been keeping this log for a while.) My weight is about the same number as it was then BUT my measurements are still consistently less than then. So, I weigh the same but I am thinner. That’s because I obviously have more muscle now and less fat than I did then.

This is why just fixating on what the scale says can be so misleading. Weight only tells you so much. It’s a great indicator of how you’re doing but don’t count on it as the ultimate fitness number.

You can do a similar thing by using a pair of jeans or some other item of clothing and try it on periodically. I like having the actual numbers but you may not like data as much as I do.

Body Measurements at the Gym

Besides the measurements that I do monthly, I get assessments done at my gym where they weigh me, calculate my body fat, and take body measurements. They do more measurements than I can do so that’s also nice. Besides waist, hip, and thigh, they include chest, arm, and calf. I do this approximately every six months or so. It’s also a great way to keep my eye on my progress. Sometimes I’m delighted by the results. Sometimes I’m not so happy and I work on a plan to improve what I’m doing.

Body Fat

I’ll do a separate post about body fat some time because I’ve had this measured in different ways. It’s interesting how those results can vary.

For my own personal log, I just use the number on my Fitbit Aria scale. I know it’s not the most accurate body fat measurement but it’s consistent. I can see how I’m doing on a daily basis. So right now my scale tells me that I have more body fat than I did six months ago. It goes along with tracking my weight.

I don’t know that it’s the most important data in all of this but I track it just because the number is there in front of me.

Recording Body Measurements

Here’s my advice on tracking weight and such. Include measuring some parts of your body. Just grab a measuring tape and weigh what you can. Record it somewhere. If you use a food tracking app, you can usually add it there. I just write it down in my trusty journal because it’s quick and easy. Plus, I use food tracking apps inconsistently so I hesitate to rely on one for this.

I use a Fitbit Aria scale. That means it uses the WiFi in my house to access my Fitbit account and logs my weight and bodyfat percentage whenever I use the scale. Therefore, that data is also available online. I don’t log my body measurements there so that’s not included. I bet I could find a way to include that information if I wanted.

Fitbit probably knows more about my body than my doctor but that’s a discussion for a different day.

I find it helpful in my journey to be fit and strong to keep track of how I’m doing. When I start to feel negative about myself, I go back and see how far I’ve come. If I see that my numbers are backsliding, I can begin to focus a bit more on how I’m eating and making sure that I’m getting in my exercise.

Maintain Weight Loss and Health Through Food with Karen Parrott

August 28, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

Episode #16 of Becoming Elli – Fit, Strong Women Over 50

In today’s podcast, we talk with Karen Parrott, a popular blogger who writes about her weight loss journey and how to maintain weight loss. You can find her blog at Garden Girl, Weight Maintenance and Food Sobriety by abstaining from sugars, grains (NSNG) using a Paleo, LCHF, modified AIP, mild Ketogenic food template with a Primal Blueprint lifestyle. If you’re wondering what exactly all that means, we get Karen to define this and describe her way of eating in more detail.

How Karen Lost Weight

Karen Parrott is a 52 year old Licensed Medical Technologist living in Carlsbad, CA. She began gaining excess weight as a child and struggled with yo-yo dieting, obesity, morbid obesity, and binge eating until she was 46.

In 1997, Karen was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease and takes synthetic thyroid hormone replacement with great success. She also focuses on her diet to support her health.

In May of 2011, a month after a co-worker died suddenly, Karen decided to lose weight by using a packaged weight loss plan and a health coach. She lost 70 pounds in 40 weeks. She says, “the first thing I did at goal weight was to go into menopause! I transitioned onto Paleo (it fit well with my post-auto immune disease), then onto Low Carb.”

Finally, after an 8 to 10-pound unintentional weight regain, she tried a fasting protocol from The Salk Institute, from Dr. Satchin Panda’s lab. Switching to 16:8 fasting most days (16 hours of fasting with a 8-hour window for eating) helped Karen lose that regained weight slowly over half a year back to maintenance. It also produced the same low levels of ketosis that helped her lose the weight in 2011, without having to buy the packaged food.

Maintain Weight Loss

Karen uses about 20 different weight maintenance tools with abstaining from her binge triggers as the top tool.

She measures and records the following at various times:

glucose
ketones
weight
hemoglobin
A1C,
high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-crp)
triglycerides,
bone density

She wears a Fitbit and tracks her weight and food on My Fitness Pal. www.myfitnesspal.com

For exercise Karen walks 5- 6 miles daily, stair runs 3-4 days a week for intervals, and she goes to the gym to do resistance training one or two times a week. Karen says she often does stretching, pushups and some flexibility movements.

In this episode, we talk with Karen about:

How she lost 70 pounds
How she has kept the 70 pounds off for more than 6 years
The food template she uses to select her daily meals
How she exercises

Chris “met” Karen online in 2012 when Chris hit her goal on Weight Watchers and was looking for resources on maintaining a weight loss. “I feel it is strange when one person knows someone from reading their blog, but they don’t know the other person,” Chris says. This is how we support each other these days. We meet and get to know each other from social media, forums, blogs, and podcasts.

Karen’s Tips

Karen follows a low carb eating plan. She identified foods that cause her problems by following an Autoimmune Protocol (AIP). She describes this in her food discussion with us. Based on the results of this protocol, Karen realized that besides avoiding grains and dairy, she also needed to quit eating nuts.

Karen says that we all need to do the research and figure out what works best for each of us. Some of us can eat a lot of carbs while others cannot. What works for Karen may not work for me and what works for me may not work for you.

Perhaps the best advice that Karen gives is not to be apologetic about what you eat or don’t eat. She suggests that we all need to be methodical about our eating. Nobody can tell us more about what makes us feel the best than ourselves. Don’t let others make you feel embarrassed about how you choose to eat.

Karen is a researcher by training and clearly loves to research the different ways we can support our health. The following are links to the different books and sites that she refers to in our talk:

Links:

Refuse to Regain!: 12 Tough Rules to Maintain the Body You’ve Earned by Barbara Berkley MD Kindle or Softcover

The Paleo Solution Robb Wolf

Paleo resource Sarah Fergoso

AltShift Diet, Jason Sieb

The Four Tendencies Gretchen Rubin –

23andMe DNA Genetic Testing & Analysis – 23andMe is the first and only genetic service available directly to you that includes reports that meet FDA standards. Use your 23andme raw genetic data to learn the environmental and lifestyle contexts research suggests may be best suited to your genetic polymorphisms.

Found My Fitness – A website by Dr. Rhonda Patrick – a Ph.D in biomedical science/expert on nutritional health, brain & aging. The focus is on genetics with a database where you can run your 23andMe report.

Promethease is a computer program developed by the SNPedia team which allows users to compare personal genomics results against the SNPedia database, generating a report with information about a person’s attributes, such as propensity to diseases, based on the presence of specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)

Franziska Spritzler – Low carb dietitian

Cleveland Clinic Function Medicine

Dr. Mark Hyman

Satchin Panda, Ph.D.- Salk Institute

Rhonda Patrick and Satchin Panda, Ph.D. have worked together on the benefits of a Low Carb diet. Watch this interview to learn more.

Gut microbiome may have its own circadian rhythm. Check out My Circadian clock app

Dr. Jason Fung

Ruth E. Patterson – Fasting and Breast Cancer

Valter Longo, Ph.D.

The Salt Fix

AIP – Auto Immune Protocol (elimination diet)

Vinnie Tortorich NSNG – No Sugars No Grains –

Anna Vocino – Eat Happy

Ultra runner NSNG Zack Bitter

Adele Hite Easy Vintage Meals

Definitions:

Hashimoto’s Disease: Auto Immune disease

High sensitivity C reactive protein (CRP)

IRB approved study – Institutional Review Board of the US Food and Drug Administration

Intermittent fasting 12:12 or 18:6. Eating early in the day is referred to as Early Time Restricted Eating

Otto Warburg Effect

BRAF Gene Mutation

How to contact Karen Parrott:

Blog: Garden Girl

Instagram: Karenspaleolife

Twitter: @Gardengirl_kp

Facebook: Garden Girl KP – Weight Maintenance and more

Pinterest: Gardengirlkp

To Weigh or Not to Weigh?

March 17, 2018 / Chris Brown / 5 Comments

After losing weight several years ago, I’m still weighing in everyday. I know that there is some discussion online if it is a good idea to weigh or not to weigh everyday. For me, the choice is to weigh.

I was reminded of this when something popped up on my Facebook feed in the memories section. It was about weighing in and BMI.

5 years ago on Facebook – March 2013 –
Had a great day the gym yesterday… I’ve been doing those weight management workouts twice a week and yesterday was the end of the first session. I lost 8.5 pounds and gained one pound of muscle over 8 weeks. My trainer said that I actually lost a whole other pound of fat to replace it with muscle, which he says burns about 40 more calories a day… I’m excited because my BMI numbers take me from overweight to normal. I even “ran” the track for 12 minutes. (Okay… my arms were running, but my feet still looked like a fast walk.) Best of all, I feel a lot stronger. I signed up for the second session that starts Monday. This has been my “solution to reach a new years resolution.”

To Weigh or Not to Weigh

Do you weigh yourself? Some people weigh everyday. I know that it helps me.

Some people just get on the scale once a week, usually at an organized weigh in. When I did the weekly weigh ins I would already know what I weigh from weighing in a home. I used to obsess about it.

Long ago, when I really did need to get fit, I rarely weighed myself. In fact, the only time I used to weigh in was at a doctor’s office.

I remember the first time a doctor talked to me about my weight: “You really need to get a treadmill. The Ohio weather just isn’t nice enough to exercise outside reliably.”

It wasn’t the lack of treadmill that was my problem! It was primarily food choices and food portions. I’ve since heard things like “It’s 80% the kitchen and only 20% the gym.”

After I decided to adopt a healthy lifestyle, I changed my relationship with the scale and have been weighing myself every morning when I wake up. It probably is a bit obsessive. I do find it helps me to keep things in check. I have a “scream weight” which I refuse to go over. But it is the strength and muscle mass I’d really like to stay focused on now — that and maintaining my weight loss.

Body Fat Percentage

Some scales measure a whole lot more than just weight. They will keep track of your body fat percentage and the muscle mass numbers as well as the overall weight.

Many of the new scales have the numbers for water percentage too. My water number changes all the time (obviously) based on how much I am drinking or if I am slightly dehydrated.

Not sure I can always believe the fat percentage, but that’s the number that I’d really like to change. Move some of my overall weight from the fat side to the muscle side.

I think I need to lift more – and run less. Well, maybe not run less. (I get more hungry when I run!!) I do like the effects of cardio exercise. The endorphin feeling is great and there is something satisfying about seeing the mileage add up.

I know some people are working on changing their BMI (Body Mass Index.) BMI is a quick way to measure the weight to height ratio. For a some people, for instance those who weight lift, it is way out of whack, but in general, it is a guide. A quick google search will provide lots of BMI calculators, if you want to check your BMI bynber,

General guidelines want your weight to be a at a BMI number 18 and 25. If I get to 25, it’s only for a little while, but I’m generally 26 or 27, which is just into the overweight category. While I like to think it is all my muscle mass, I’d be fooling myself! I’m not there yet!

I think better yet would be a BMI scale that measures fat percentage and muscle mass. There probably is those calculators too.

Being heavier really bothers me for running particularly, because it slows me down. Think of running around holding two 8 pound weights all day. I know I’d be faster if I could drop those weights.

So, while I weigh in everyday and know my BMI number, it isn’t what I want to measure! It’s muscle mass. Gaining muscle! But I still insist on stepping on the scale every morning.

How about you. Do you weigh every day? Why or why not? Do you know your percentage of muscle mass? Please leave a message below or send me an email at chris@becomingelli.com.

Maintaining Weight Loss – Consistency Over Intensity

February 10, 2018 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

During the winter months, it can be difficult to stay the course for maintaining weight loss. Long dark nights. Cold blustery weather.

We are almost six weeks into New Year’s Resolutions and I find that I need a reminder about what I promised myself.

Maintaining weight loss. Developing muscle strength. Cultivating good eating habits.

Already this year I’ve not been to the gym on a regular basis as much as I intended. Maybe two days a week instead of my usual four or five.

Generally I go skiing down the slopes at a nearby resort during the winter months. This year I haven’t been outside as much as I’ve wanted to, partly due to sub freezing weather the early part of January. Then I’ve also been dealing with an unexpected schedule, requiring me to be out of town and away from home. Consistent eating habits are more of a challenge when I’m away.

I am reminded that fitness is not a race. The ocean smooths large rocks into tiny grains of sand by consistently waves washing in and out.

My big goal this year is to stay consistent with exercise and healthy eating habits. I know that this will help me with maintaining my weight loss.

Consistency Over Intensity

For 2018, I’ve picked a phrase that I want to focus on: Consistency Over Intensity. It kinda follows that mantra of many marathon runners – just put one foot in front of the other.

I think about this when I push snow around on the driveway. Shoveling some snow has helped me get steps when I really hadn’t expected to get some. I talked about that in our recent podcast episode 2. When my son was in high school, it became his job to shovel the snow on the walks and the drive. When he went away to college I returned to snow removal duties. The result was one of the rude reminders of being out of shape. By consistently getting my steps, challenging myself and going to the gym to get exercise, I’m now able to easily spend 30 minutes clearing the snow, without any problem.

I was reminded of consistency over intensity when I read a post in Weighty Matters from a Canadian doctor who writes about the food industry. “And I tell people, day in and day out, that if they’re curious about how they’re doing, the answer to that question isn’t how much they weigh, how much they’ve lost, how their clothing fits, how they feel physically, or how they feel mentally. Rather I tell them that if they want to know how they’re doing, they have to reflect on what they’re actually doing…”

Going skiing is fun. It requires a lot of gear. Fitting into those same pair of ski pants is one indication that I’m maintaining my weight loss.

We all know it is so important to stay mobile, flexible, strong and fit. Lately I have been especially reminded of that when I’ve had recent unexpected challenges of caring for a relative. By keeping myself healthy, fit and strong, I’m able to be there to help others.

Having a “go-to” exercise routine helps replace that dragged out feeling of tiredness with the powerful feel good hormones that are released after exercising – dopamine and endorphins. This keeps me coming back for more.

Being more fit and strong just feels good. It allows me to do things that I find really difficult. I guess that’s called a feeling of self-confidence, but it’s not exactly that.

Consistent change = Positive Progress

I find that too much intensity leaves me feeling a bit overwhelmed. All or nothing dieting. Over the top exercise. Too many rules and changes. I simply won’t stick with it if the plan is too drastic. I need to stay the course. Keep on keeping on.

Sometimes consistency feels boring. I’m tempted to switch out with something “not so good.” Just this once. Special occasion. (Why does it sometimes seem that there is a special occasion more often than a regular day?) Birthdays, holidays, happy times, sad times. Friday night TGIF. Sunday Funday. Stressed-out-Monday. It’s easy to make exceptions, isn’t it?

I know in my heart that consistency is the key to maintaining a weight loss. Intensity comes and goes. Heck, I know that too much intensity can easily lead to injury. And if I’m not consistent with my recovery strategies I can end up having a problem.

Motivation wanes. Huge goals overwhelm, but I know when I have a good step-by-step plan, that I can do consistently, I can reach goals that I never thought possible. For instance, back 10 years ago, I never would have dreamed that I could have run a half marathon or bike 150 mile in a weekend.

I’ve come to realize that the way to make it work is to get a good plan and work it.

At one point I liked the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” I helped me to dig in, knuckle down and do something I was struggling with. I’m not exactly sure when my brain started completing that saying with my own “yeah, right out the door!” Some how the cynical side of my self talk popped in. It probably when was I was digging too deep, white knuckling too hard and finding that my consistency was replaced with too much intensity.

I have several strategies (or maybe they are actually tactics) for maintaining weight loss that have worked pretty well for me in the six plus years that I’ve managed to keep the weight off. And since I’ve become an exercise lover (athlete?) I’ve found that recovery and pacing are part of my training too. I’m working on an article to share with you in the future. More about that at another time.

Now it’s your turn. Tell me:

What do you do consistently to help you to get fit and strong? Or stay fit and strong? Are you working on your New Years Resolution consistently?
What is your motivation for maintaining weight loss?
Remember that song “Keep on Keeping On”? What phrase or mantra is in your head that you repeat over to yourself?