"It's a Holiday" - the ultimate excuse

Someone said to me the other day that we picked a bad time to “diet” because of the holidays.

“Seriously”, she said, “This month we have the 4th and then there is the 24th and then Labor day! That’s a lot of BBQ’s and beer to give up!”


Let’s just get it all out there people.

Here are a list of the US Holidays:

Jan – New Years Day & Martin Luther King Day
Feb – Jen’s Birthday, Valentine’s Day & Presidents Day
March - Saint Patrick's Day (oh the green beer!!!)
April – Easter
May – Mothers Day & Memorial Day
June – Fathers Day & My sisters Birthday, Karilynn’s Birthday
July – Independence Day, My mom’s Birthday, Jades Birthday and Pioneer Days (24th)
Sept – Labor Day & My Dad Birthday
Oct – Columbus Day & Halloween
Nov – My birthday, Jack’s Birthday, Veterans Day & Thanksgiving
December – Christmas Eve, My Grandma’s Birthday, Christmas Day & New Years Eve

I stuck some birthday’s in there just to illustrate a point… Everyone knows you can’t “diet” when someone is celebrating a birthday right?!?!? Let me ask you this… how many of you don’t know AT LEAST ONE PERSON who is celebrating this month? I bet if you thought about it, between work, friends and family, you could find at least 1 person each month to celebrate with.

Thus, providing us all with at least 1 day to skip the “diet” and eat cake.

Based on this calendar and the IDEA that holidays prevent us from “dieting”, it looks like the only month that I can “diet” is August because the rest of them are chuck full of good holiday, BBQ & Birthday fun!

COME ON PEOPLE!!! LET’S GET REAL!!!


First of all why are you “dieting” in the first place???
It's like Karilynn said, “Stop dieting and start living”!

As long as you are looking for an excuse to eat like crap and make poor choices you’ll find one! I hate to break it to you all but those holidays and even those birthdays are JUST ONE DAY. So even if you do choose to partake of some good old B B Q fun on the holiday LEAVE IT AT THAT!!! If you worked hard and ate GREAT (not just ok or pretty good, GREAT) six days of the week and ate like total CRAP-OLA one day a week you’d still see results!
It’s SOOOOO easy to get caught up in all of the excuses we give ourselves to make bad choices. It’s so easy to think that you’ll put it off till just after this holiday or that, till tomorrow or Monday. But after every holiday there is someone’s birthday; Tomorrow never comes and Monday you’ll just find another excuse.
(Trust me people I'm preaching to myself here)

Making change starts RIGHT NOW! The next choice you make can be a better one than the last. Don’t beat yourself up for choosing to eat at your family BBQ. Stop telling yourself that because you ate the potato salad you jacked up your “diet” and now you may as well kick back a six pack of beer.
Have potato salad just don’t eat enough for 3 people…
Have a beer but you don’t need a 6 pack.
YOU CAN DO THIS!!!

I CAN DO THIS!!!

We just have to choose to!


For those of you that remember this I wrote one year ago... I’ve had a crappy month. No excuses… it is what it is. I have not weighed in for weeks and I’m not looking forward to it either. I was trying to blog and since it wouldn’t let me log in or ANYTHING I started reading my old posts. I used to inspire people… now I find myself complaining instead of working. Falling apart instead of digging in. I feel like I’ve been fighting for so long. Not just at this but at so many parts of my life. I don’t want to fight anymore. Still, if I’m not fighting then what’s the point right? Or have I gotten it messed up in my head somehow?

Consistently Inconsistent

So far in this competition I'm SUCKING IT UP BIG TIME!!! Just can't seem to stay on track. I've been up and down and all around when it comes to exercise, diet and water intake. I have been sick for a while and then out of town for a week and lots of stress coming at me from every angle. Mostly these are just excuses but they're enough right now to keep me on a roller coaster.

I'm just consistently inconsistent right now and I'm driving myself CRAZY!

12 days left in this month... let's see if i can pull out a loss shall we?

Life or Death

I'm in PA right now visiting my in-laws. We came out here pretty unexpectedly when we found out my father-in-law is having open heart surgery. We decided that before all that took place it was a good idea if they met our daughter.

Monday they met with the surgeons and got less than good news. Right now his health is so poor that he's a bad candidate for surgery. All of his numbers are up and before the doctor will operate he's going to have to lose about 50 pounds. I wasn't present for the conversation but was told later that the statement was made, "lose the weight or you will die". You see without the surgery he'll die and he can't have the surgery till he loses weight. YIKES!

Since I've known him weight has been a struggle. A few years ago he lost his job and has been struggling with unemployment and his self esteem since then. As all of us know that's a bad recipe for disaster with someone that is already fighting to keep their weight down or off. I'm not sure exactly how much he's gained but it looks like it was 52 pounds TO MUCH!

We were talking last night about his diet. My husband was giving him some advice about what he should and should not be eating. I was filling him in on the tips I've learned from doing this competition thinking it would help him at least a little. But, he looked up at me and said, "I love those ideas Mindy... But I don't have any choices now. I don't GET to do this or WANT to do this. I HAVE to do this or I will die."

It got me thinking, Will a life or death diagnosis make a difference? Would it for me?

Let's face it... A lot of us are in that exact position but just haven't allowed ourselves to think of it like that. We've got; high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Diabetes or digestion issues. Stretched skin, week muscles and joints. We look in the mirror and see ourselves getting older and bigger but we struggle to make the distinction between living and dying.

So? It's got me thinking. If someone said, "You must lose the weight and get healthy or you WILL die." Would we somehow snap out of it? Would we somehow overcome the obstacles that hold us back every day? Or would we continue on, oblivious to the truth staring us in the face, pretending we'll live forever?

Setting Goals

As some of you know (and some of you don't) I am an independent consultant for Tastefully Simple (For more information check out my website. ;0) www.tastefullysimple.com/web/mmiller13 ) I've been working that business for 9 months and I LOVE IT! Already I've won a 4 day trip to Cancun Mexico (all inclusive) with my sales. I had to have $18,000 in sales ($2000 per month) Jan 1st - Sept 30st. I hit the 18,000 mark last month. The number one reason that I was successful in doing so was because I set goals. Every month that I've set goals for myself in my business I have succeeded. I haven't always hit the goal exactly but I've hit more than I've missed and I've gotten darn close. One month I didn't set any goals and I didn't even clear the $2000 mark. Something that is pretty easy if I'm completely honest. My focus was nowhere AND that's exactly where I ended up.

It didn't take long to figure out what had gone wrong in my business that month. It was quite simple to see. At that point I made myself a promise to always set goals for my business: Yearly, Monthly and even weekly. So far I've had great success.

Thinking about that has made me realize that I MUST set some goals for myself in this competition. One of my favorite sayings (you'll probably hear it about a BILLION time) is "It's better to aim for the moon and miss than to aim for a cow pie and HIT IT!" SO TRUE RIGHT. One of my Tastefully Simple team mates said to me... "You know Mindy! If you aim for the moon and miss you'll still hit a star!"

I came across this document at work the other day and I loved what it said so I thought I'd share. Check it out and then if you haven't already GO SET SOME GOALS!!!

When it comes to dealing with life’s setbacks, you must step up to the plate and be proactive. Look your problem in the eye and take action.Having a plan can help you stay on track. The following tips can serve as a guide to reaching your goals:

• Be specific. When setting goals, be exact and you are more likely to succeed. For example, instead of saying you want to save money, set a specific goal to save $20 per week.

• Put it in writing. Write down what you want to achieve and post it in a visible place to remind you what you’re working toward. Use positive terms. For example, instead of writing, “I will stop eating junk food,” re-word your goal: “I will make healthy food choices.” (I love that... how often do we focus on the negative instead of the positive? I know I do ALL THE TIME)

• Set realistic goals. When you think about setting goals, make sure that they are within reach. Be mindful of your finances, schedule and other personal affairs. It’s unreasonable to expect to make big changes overnight. (I think this is so true. I also believe that you must stretch yourself when you set goals. If you only set your goals for what you know you can do easily then there is no challenge in that.)

• Develop an action plan. Create a timeline with specific steps and timing. Cross them off as you go. Sometimes watching your list get smaller can give you a sense of accomplishment and help you stay motivated. (This comp helps with this. We have an established timeline with several checkpoints. What is your monthly goal? What is your overall goal?)

•Believe in yourself. Stay positive about your progress. As the saying goes, “If you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” (Another favorite. I've heard it, "Think you can or think you can't. Either way you're right!)

• Be flexible. Setbacks happen. Don’t give up. Try again! Your hard work will pay off! (YUP! That one's for me)

• Ask for help. If you need encouragement, don’t be afraid to ask. You’d be surprised at how supportive people can be. (Another great thing this comp does. BLOG! Not just "Hi. I'm here. Checking in." Talk to us!!! Tell us how you're doing. The good, the bad and the ugly. That's one of the reasons we're in this. To support each other along the way~)

• Reward yourself. Acknowledge your achievements, even the small ones. Reaching a goal takes hard work. Be proud of your efforts.Celebrating can mean something as simple as taking time for yourself. (Reward yourself DOES NOT mean EAT ICE CREAM! I'm just saying!)

Having a clear plan can help you weather the biggest and smallest of storms. Setting goals puts you back in charge.

A little bit about me

HI! I think that most of you know me by now but I figure there is a chance that some of you may not so I thought I'd start out this competition by telling you a little about me.

My name is Mindy ;0) I'm 31 years old, married to the love of my life and have 1 little girl. My baby girl Jade is AMAZING! By far the greatest thing I've ever done.

Exactly 1 year and 11 month ago (TODAY) I had my little girl and weighed in at an astounding 376 pounds. This was me just before I gave birth:
And this was me just a short time after:
Over the course of the last two years I've competed a lot and won a little. I have had months that I lost 1 pound and months that I lost 18 pounds and did that steadily until about 9 months ago. This was me then:

In October of last year I had some personal struggles that really set me off track. Since then I have steadily gained back roughly 30 pounds. I could do the exact math but it's not that important. The point is I have gained. The good news... I'm still at a BIG loss. I'm down over 50 pounds still and looks like I'll be going down from here. The bad news... This is me NOW:

Yep! I pretty much feel EXACTLY like I look. WOW, I had NO plans to EVER post this picture before I'd stated working and actually accomplished something but here I am adding it to this post.

The thing is; this is the truth. The reality of me right now. There was a time that I would have been ashamed of this. That I would have never EVER said out loud that I was weighing in at 376 pounds or that I'm weighing in at over 320 now. The fear of the response that people may have was overwhelming. Right now, surprisingly all i feel is encouraged. LOL Who would have thought huh?

As you have seen from my last post I was unsure about this competition. Not sure if I would "win" even if I wasn't taking first place. But right now I realize that I already have. Until this moment I didn't realize how competing has already changed me for the positive. I may not be at my goal weight and I'm not even close to skinny but, look at me! I'm amazing and not ashamed of me, even in my failure and I'm way excited to realize it!

I'm not excited that I've gained. I'm mortified that I have been avoiding the scale in an effort to avoid knowing exactly how much. Even more than that, now that I know, now that I've let myself see the number I can also see it when I look in the mirror. That sucks! I wish I had seen it all along... still, I was not willing to do anything about it so it probably wouldn't have mattered.

I see now... and after this so do all of you. I promise you that when you see this picture next month it will be side by side with one that shows amazing loss. Perhaps not in scale weight but in inches FOR SURE (I'm way better at losing inches than I am losing pounds). I can't wait for this month to pass to see how they look.

I'm EXCITED! Hope you are too!

~Good luck~