To the Disappointed, Tempted, & facing Resistance:

To my friends who have been scorned by the scale after a week of honest "trying":

(Preface: This isn't for those who have been binging on pizza all week long & haven't spent more than an hour working out all week. This is for those who have put in the work & the scale is honestly not reflecting the work you've put in).

If you find yourself this week in the same position I found myself in this morning, stepping on the scale and seeing a +1 when you were hoping for -2 and you just want to run into your room, slam yourself into your bed, pull up the covers & cry for about 30 minutes, then you need to have the same epiphany I had just an hour or so ago...

Anytime we run into 3 things on this journey we have the opportunity to either use it as an excuse to fall back into the destructive habits that are making us unhappy & unhealthy OR to use it as needed motivation for doing even better & committing more to ourselves & this process- these 3 things are: disappointment, temptation, and resistance. And the question is not IF we will encounter these things as we change our lives, because we WILL- & if we haven't decided ahead of time how we will handle them, then the emotions that they cause will almost always lead us into choosing the first option (read: ordering a #1 from Burger King).

• Disappointment WILL come when: we don't see what we think we should on the scale (which realistically happens), & when it is taking WAY longer to make it to our goal weight than we had originally planned.
• Temptation DOES come when: Well shoot...when does it not!? haha No, but for real- when our co-worker brings in a pound cake for everyone or buys the whole office pizza and the salad you brought suddenly looks like rabbit food, when you go out for dinner for your friends birthday and the complimentary chocolate cake comes to the table & you just want to indulge since it's a "special occasion," and temptation will most definitely rear its ugly head after you've had a sucky weigh in that morning & lunch comes around and you just want to throw it all out the window since it seems like your not progressing anyways. Yes- temptation comes every. single. day.
• Resistance WILL come when: Your schedule somehow has completely filled up with activities & events that leave you with no time to work out, you (or a family member) gets sick and you aren't able to make it to the gym, you suffer an injury that means you have to modify your work outs, or perhaps you even have a friend/family member in your life that is seeminly trying to sabotage your new way of life.

THESE THINGS HAPPEN (sometimes daily) and we cannot ALLOW them to rule our lives. Key word: ALLOW. Surely, we do not have a choice whether temptation, disappointment, or resistance will come b/c that is out of our control; however, we do have a choice how we will ALLOW them to effect the rest of our day/week moving forward.

I already told you how I felt this morning (and the feeling still lingers a bit) when I gained a pound: like I suck, that I'll never be able to weigh less than this, and that all of the great decisions I made this past week were not worth it and didn't mean anything. Um. LIES!

I had to recognize this situation as another golden opportunity to commit even more to myself & this process as well as use this frusteration as motivation to do even better in this upcoming week.

We have to accept that the disappointments, temptations, & resistance we face on this journey are NOT indicators that we aren't doing well or that something is wrong with us but just an indicator that we are making a life change & that will never come easily regardless of what you're trying to do (quit smoking, raise children, etc.)

Friends, no matter which of the 3 you have been facing this week- know that it isn't a sign of your impending doom. Accept that you can be and are just as strong as you want to be and use it as an opportunity to become that much stronger- not ALLOWING ANYTHING to hold you back or stand in your way!

Let's. Do. This.