I love you guys!

So, first, let me say -- it has given me a huge charge to check in every day and see the hit counter at the bottom of the page moving up and up. --Especially, these last two weeks when everyone has been so busy with the holidays and so many of you (and me too) have had vacation time. It is really cool that you are still checking the blog even though you are not at work! Thanks!

Secondly, I was talking to a buddy of mine who is preparing to head out on a mission trip in January. He needs to raise funds and I was taking a look at the website of the group he is going with (mostly because I hadn't ever heard of this organization and was curious about how they worked). I stumbled across a tab entitled Motivational Minutes. I am always curious to see how others motivate, so I clicked on the tab and ended up on a the page entitled "I can do Anything for Ten More Minutes". The gist of the article is that when something is difficult (the author specifically talks about running but this is applicable to most any situation) if you can focus on getting yourself over the discomfort of the immediate future (the next 10 minutes) then usually the discomfort passes and you don't get bogged down by the whole distance you are trying to go -- just focus on getting through the next little bit (does this sound like mindfulness to anyone??)

It made me think about how we talk about weight management. Sometimes, we get so bogged down thinking about the whole amount we have to lose (let's say you want to lose 50 pounds) and it just seems like too much when you break that down into how long it is going to take, how much you won't be able to eat, how many weeks you are going to need to deprive yourself of your favorite foods, how often you are going to have to tell your friends you can't eat out with them because you are on a diet -- it all becomes too overwhelming and you just want to quit!

Don't quit!! Make a decision to deal with the next 10 minutes or the next snack time or the next boring breakfast meeting with donuts sitting on the buffet that you don't really want to eat but you are so BORED out of your gourd and it would be nice to just be able to stretch your legs because this meeting is putting you to sleep and it is only 8:20 am!!

Just make the next eating decision with as much grace as you can muster. Once that is done, then think about the next one. One decision at a time. Eliminate 30calories here, 150 calories there -- the weight will come off consistently if you are consistently making the small decisions to eat a bit less.

You can do almost anything for 10 more minutes. Keep that in mind next time you start to get bogged down.