Happy New Year! Top 10 Inspirational Words of Wisdom

This is the opening post for the year 2014. Happy New Year everyone!

First off, thanks to all Her Weight Loss Diary's followers, friends, family and stalker for your support in 2013. Thank you for the encouraging comments, motivation, and the listening ears. May this new year brings all the crazy colors and fun in your life. 

It was so sad and embarrassing to say good bye to 2013 because I DID NOT complete my weight loss goal. Not even close. But to give up? It's way too early to call it quit. I posted this question before, about setting a deadline for a weight loss goal. I believed weight loss deadline could be a great motivation booster. Hence I set my goal to be on my ideal weight before my birthday last November. But that never happened. That soft deadline clearly did not help me to stay motivated until my goals done. It stresses me out, to be honest. Another year goes by without any major accomplishment. So this year losing weight with a deadline is not going to be part of the plan anymore. Giving weight loss a deadline is creating a sense of urgency that sometimes coupled with unrealistic expectations. And when things don't go as planned you may end up with frustration and that will altogether kill your motivations. Furthermore, weight loss is not about exercise and diet but it's about healthy lifestyle. It's a lifetime commitment.

I don't want to apologize for being an annoying blogger. You read a lot about weight loss stuff here but you were like, she's not going anywhere. It's true that I am not a success story yet. Well, MISSED DEADLINE IS NOT A DEATH SENTENCE. I don't need to feel bad about myself after not achieving my weight loss goal on a certain time frame. And there's no reason to worry about what friends and family might think. I'm not in a competition to win approval from anyone. I am in my own race to be healthier. And as we're entering a new year, I think it is important to reflect and re-evaluate myself and my weight loss goal. 

Here are top 10 inspirational words of wisdom worth sharing. I hope these wisdom can help you to reevaluate your failed goals whatever your goals might be and I hope it stays with you throughout the year, inspires you to set realistic and obtainable goals you can actually reach.

Imagine becoming successful
1. What you declare, you will achieve. - Abraham Lincoln

3. If I have correct goals and I keep pursuing them the best way I know how, everything falls into line. If I do the right thing, I am going to succeed. - Dan Dierdorf

4. If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. - Jim Rohn

Have faith in what you can do
5. If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. - Zig Ziglar

6. Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make. - Donald Trump

Take action and do your best
7. Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new. - Brian Tracy

8. If I had to select one quality and one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick persistence and determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, "Here comes number seventy one."
- Richard M.Devos

Learn from your past experience, and try not to repeat your mistakes
9. If you mess up and learn nothing, it's a mistake. If you mess up and learn something, it's an experience.
- Mark McFadden

10. A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. - John C. Maxwell

I don't have "losing weight" in my New Year's Resolution list this year. What about you, what's in your bucket list for 2014? 

 

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Merry Christmas 2013!

I wish you joy all though your holidays,
I wish you good luck that forever stays.
I wish you the love of family and friends,
I wish you happy days that never ever ends.
Merry Christmas to all Her Weight Loss Diary's friends!

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Weight Loss: How to Save Your Diet In the Middle of December

Hello December.

Can you hear the Christmas bells ringing? Christmas is just around the corner I am super excited. I absolutely love December because it's the Christmas season and I simply love Christmas. This is the month we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and it's also the time for the family to get together. Eating cookies is a good thing too!

I haven't update this blog in a while because I feel less motivated. I blew my diet BIG time and I gain 2 kg. I totally pigging out most of the time and sometimes I just feel like giving up and forgetting about the whole idea of weight loss. Even though December is a joyous month, I know it can be awful for people with eating issues like me.

I admit the thought of binge in December did cross my mind. I tell myself, I will start fresh after the holidays. But then I think again. If I splurge my diet during this holiday and I probably gain 2 or 4 kg, wouldn't it be like having a double effort to lose weight on the New Year’s weight loss bandwagon then?

It's difficult to stick to your diet during the holidays and it's not hard to understand why. Huge dinners and parties will always be a major part of the holiday season. Maintaining a control is a huge challenge. 

Are you going to stick to your diet to lose weight during Christmas or are you going to start your diet in January?

I find this useful tips on Binge Theraphy so I decided to reblog this here as a reminder to myself before heavy foods coming my way. I hope you will find it useful too.

1. Don’t use the impending New Year as an excuse to binge

No more "I will lose 10 pounds" New Years resolutions this year. Each morning, when you wake up, begin anew by telling yourself, "today I will do my best to go toward health and wellness." And each morning, set a mini goal for yourself. A mini goal might be, "I will allow myself to sample some office goodies intentionally and consciously, but will not binge on them," or "I will do 10 minutes of meditation at some point today," or "I will reach out for support today if I want to binge" or "if I've already begun eating something that I didn't intend to in order to prevent a binge."

2. Don’t engage in black & white thinking

If you find yourself eating something unconsciously, like snacking on chocolates from a bowl in your office or eating too many bagels one morning, don’t let that turn into a binge. Remember that it happens. Just because you ate a handful of Hershey’s kisses, doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of the day bingeing on cookies and cakes and eggnog or whatever else it is. Stop, take a breath, and be kind to yourself. Take a moment to reorient yourself and bring yourself back to the present. What happened? How did you wind up at the chocolate bowl? Was it a conscious choice or were you putting something off, or were you upset or stressed about something? Think backwards to what might have happened. Forgive yourself and accept that it happens. Make a plan for something else that you’re going to do to make you feel good about yourself that day. If you think that you might not be able to resist, call a support person and tell them that you’re feeling shaky because of the unintentional kisses, but your intention is not to binge and you could use a check in call. Let them know that you’ll call them at the end of the day.

3. Focus on people rather than food

Before holiday parties or luncheons, make sure that you've eaten before you go so that you are able to focus on the people around you rather than the food. If you find that you are only focused on food, take some time to breath and try to refocus on someone interesting. Make a goal for yourself at the party, such as, you are going to talk to 3 new people and try to focus on that rather than food.

4. Don’t drink too much at holiday functions

Binge drinking is a prelude to binge eating. It immediately brings you into an unconscious state which then does not allow you to have a choice around food.

5. Be cautious about leftovers

If you host a party, either have someone help you to clean up or have someone else clean up for you. Often for hostesses with eating issues, it’s not the party that’s challenging, it’s cleaning up. Leftovers can be a huge binge trigger for many people. If tit is for you, give them away or bring them down to a hungry/homeless person.

6. Don’t keep trigger foods at your desk at work

Just because the holidays are here doesn't mean you need to have a bowl of candy on your desk for people. If you must bring it, put it out of reach from yourself so that you need to actually think about what you’re doing every time you get up to grab something.

7. Eat a breakfast with lots of protein each morning

This will keep you satisfied and your blood sugar stable so that you’re not looking for a pick me up come mid-morning.

8. Recommend a Wellness program at your office

Instead of junk food, suggest that people bring fruit baskets. Make a suggestion that the food baskets you receive be donated to a homeless shelter nearby. See about starting a lunchtime yoga class for your office.

9. Stay active

The winter months are a good excuse to hibernate. Don’t succumb. Get out of the house or office. Take a vigorous walk during your lunch break. Go ice skating! Go window shopping! Move. Activity is a stress reliever. Letting go of stress will help you not binge.

Losing weight during the holidays can be incredibly rewarding. You feel better. Your clothes fit better. You avoid the post-holiday feelings of guilt. You don’t need to make weight loss your New Year’s resolution, because you are already doing this. And best of all you are healthier.

Are you going to stick to your diet to lose weight during Christmas or are you going to start your diet in January?

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Confession of a Fatso

Yesterday was my birthday. 09.11.2013.

I vowed earlier this year to lose 20kg by my birthday.

...and on my birthday, I still stuck.

I know this gets old, and boring but I just post my frustration anyway.

I love eating, but hate exercise. I am lack of discipline. My motivations keep fading. My diet has always start tomorrow.

I want to lose weight to set a good example to my children. And maybe I want to lose weight to impress my husband. But most importantly I want to lose weight to end the cycle of dieting. I want to be healthy. I want to fit into nice dresses. The bad thing is I can't fight my inner demons. If I can write about something positive it's perhaps I didn't gain weight. I neither gain nor lose any.

It's less than 2 months until New Year 2014. I want to stop wishing. Maybe I just stop posting about my weight loss progress here for now (and by the way I'm not making any progress) and simply follows Nike's slogan - JUST DO IT. Let's see if I really can end this cycle of dieting this year. Let's see. I dare you, myself.

End. Good night.

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Time Management Tips: Top 3 Ways to Control Your Time

I've been M.I.A lately.

Yes. This what was happened to me the past few weeks. I am hooked to Korean drama after a friend mentioned about it on Facebook. After watching the first episode I continue to the next episode and I ended up spending the whole day just watching all the episodes. And this habit continues for weeks. I must say, watching Kdrama online is so addictive. The plots and dramas are so captivating. It's my biggest distraction. For a while, I lost the momentum and excitement of blogging. And I got enough plain lame excuses too for why I have "no time for exercise" or "not enough time to exercise".

But here I find my focus back. Thank you for not abandoning me.

Well, time management is very crucial for everyone's personal life. It is very easy to lost time on unimportant activities. The greatest procrastinator is certainly you. I found this old book. Not very old actually. It's the Sunday Times' Creating Success book series called Successful Time Management by Patrick Forsyth. I'd like to share snippet from the book that I thought helpful to me and hopefully to you too.

Three Critical Ways to Stop Wasting Time and Get Organised:

1. Do not put off the things you find difficult
The time wasted here can occur in two ways. First, decision making is delayed, then implementation is delayed and both let time leak away. The task is difficult so you put it off, perhaps you try to think of some best way of doing it.

2. Beware of cyberloafing
With internet, informations are only at your finger tips. Some real discipline may be necessary when surfing the internet. It can be tempting to spend a minute or two more 'just in case you can access something better or more specific', and then a minute or two more again.

3. Make use of checklist
Checklist will save time, by preventing those pauses for thought and more importantly removing the necessity to do something again.

Do you waste time? How do you combat the time wasters?

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