Lazy and Lax in my eating protocol

 In April 2021 President Russell M. Nelson , Prophet for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gave a talk call Christ Is Risen; Faith in Him will move mountains.  In this talk he said a phrase that has been on my mind  this week.  "Lazy learners and lax disciples will always struggle to muster even a particle of faith."  I am coming to the conclusion that I have been a lazy learner and lax in my eating protocol this past year.  I've wanted to eat what I want when I want and that has not served me well at all.  He goes on to say  "To do anything well requires effort." Eating what you want when you want is taking all the work out of doing something well.  To get what you want out of life you need to study and work hard at it.  I've done a lot of studying about what foods are good for me and what foods are not so great for my body.  But I've been Lax and Lazy in wanting to prepare the things my body needs to be healthy.  I study up on all different diets but quit because it does not have the foods I really want to eat.  I've tried many different diets over the last 40 years.  I do all of them for a while but then quit because I always want to go back to the foods I love to eat.  So what if there is a way to have the foods you love and still loose the weight you want.  That is my resent quest.  I'm going to watch what I eat and take note as to how my body does with any food I eat.  My family does not eat to many veggies but I do, so I am going to make sure I include the veggies I love into the meals I make for the family.  If they don't want them, that is fine but for me I know I want them and I know that my body needs that type of food to function at its best value.  Last year I wrote a blog about failure and I decided to reread it for some inspiration about how to get out of the slump I am in.  Here is that blog.  

A few years ago we had a superintendent at our school that told us Failure is Not an Option.  She was referring to our students.  To her if our students were failing then we as teachers were not doing our job. She wanted us to do all we could to make sure our students were not failing, call home, adjust their assignments, give them more time to do their work.  We had to fill out a paper to prove that we were doing all we could to  make sure our students did not get a failing grade.  So what were we supposed to do when  they just didn't care and they were lax and lazy and did not deserve a passing grade. Oh and really as a teacher you want to help your students succeed you do everything to help them but  sometimes THEY don't want it enough. 1st you need to want what goal you have in mind, 2nd you need to be willing to do the work to get that goal.  If you fail, fail with desire to reach your goal no matter what.   Today I want to talk to you about failure and why it is OK to fail at something.

Sometimes in life we fail to succeed. What I've learned  in this life is there is opposition in all things.  Good for bad, holiness for misery, righteousness for wickedness,  life for death, corruption for in-corruption(2 Nephi 2). You experience pain to find joy. Without opposition you can't truly be happy, so our job is to take what happens to us and turn it into something good.  If I fail  at something, how can I turn it into something good.  Think about these experiences, how do you turn a divorce into something positive, how do you turn losing someone you love into being happy all the time. Chantel Allen has a great pod cast on failure, in fact all of her pod cast are great! One thing I've learned from Christy and Chantel, is it's ok to fail , what's not ok is not trying to do something just because I was afraid to fail. 
Looking at my weight loss.  How many times did I start a weight loss program and end up stopping a few months later.  Why you might ask, because when I started I knew I was going to fail. So many times I wanted to start my journey but I didn't because I didn't want to fail.  So I just never tried because I knew I would fail. If I never tried  I would still be in the exact same place I was always in, heavy and miserable.  Christy asked me when I started this journey, what if you don't fail this time.  For me this time Failure is not an option.  I finally am to a point where failing at weight loss is not in my vocabulary. This time I tried and to be honest there are moments I still fail sometimes, there are moments when I don't control my brain and I eat things I probably shouldn't, but this is the difference now-  I don't let those failures stop me on my weight loss journey.  Those moments actually inspire me now. Instead of thinking oh shoot I messed up, I think why did I feel like I wanted that food right now? What is my trigger? Why did I make that choice again, there is a deeper meaning to why we don't do what we say we're going to do.  There is a deeper meaning to why you are eating that donut or candy bar. My job now is to find out what that deeper meaning is.  I've done a lot of brain work and by brain work I mean I go inside my brain and feel my feelings.  Sometimes those feelings are hard to feel, sometimes those feelings are  not what I want to feel. I'm telling you right now that if you can learn to feel your feelings and work on excepting those failures in your life as moments of growth, that is when your life will start to change.  That is where you will become a better you.

 Failure is an option when you let it guide you to become a better you.  I've been working in a book called The Self-Confidence Workbook, by Barbara Markway, PhD  and Celia Ampel, on page 147 they talk about accepting setbacks, " We make some strides, then hit a bump in the road.  I don't expect you to jump for joy when you experience a setback. But after your initial gut reaction of getting angry about the problem or feeling disappointed, step back and ask yourself. 'What can I learn here? What opportunities are hidden behind this obstacle?' ....When you hit a bump in the road, at least that means you're going somewhere."  This really made me think about the huge bump I've hit over and over this last year.  Here are some things that have helped me search for a deeper meaning than COVID for my set backs.  One- I do know is that if you think "once I loose this weight I will have the confidence to do the things I am afraid of doing".  If you cannot find the confidence now, you probably won't find the confidence later.  I was talking to a friend the other day, and she said to me that when she was skinny people listened to her, I said I felt the same way.  When I lost 80 lbs, people wanted to know how I did it.  Not so many people want to know how I gained weight...hahaha   But really, I think people responded to my confidence at loosing 80 lbs, when you gain weight, you forget your knowledge you have gained.  You start doubting yourself and your abilities.  So how do I turn that around, go back to what I said in my previous blog, feel your feeling, except failures for what they are and learn from them.  We can't be better unless we fail first.  So now I am learning what I need to learn from this year of failure.  Changing your mindset is one of the ways I am working on being better. Finding my confidence in my abilities right now will help me be confident later.  I have to be happy now at the weight I am or when I loose my weight that will not change. Loosing weight won't make me happy, my mindset now will be the key to my happiness.  Nothing can make you happy, you have to choose that everyday of your life.  Nothing can make you loose weight, you have to choose to eat the foods that will help you with that goal.  If you struggle with that it might be time to look at your mindset.   

I'm starting to do what is called mindful eating.  I take a moment to breathe before I eat and I try to focus on how this food is going to serve me in my journey.  I pay attention to what this food does for my taste buds.  I pay attention to how full this food is making me.  

So just to recap Failure = growth, mindful eating = figuring out what is good for your body.  Being Lazy and Lax in anything you do will not serve you.  So pay attention to what you are lazy and lax in, pay attention to the things you fail at, write them down and decide what you want to change.  Once you decide, things will happen in your life to help you change that.  Pay attention and be ready to respond.  

You Got This!  I've Got This!  Talk to you next week!