Tiny Tummy Dispatch: Day 102

I am totally excited about a new program I am launching at work in July. It's a two month program that challenges employees to try a new, healthy, habit every week - habits like walking, drinking water and gratitude journaling. The program doesn't kick off for a few weeks, but I've started inviting colleagues that have signed up to a closed Facebook group as a means to start creating the social identity of the group. 

Early last week I posed the question to the group, "What's good today?" The responses ranged from healthy food choices being made, to meetings that went well to a colleague who shared that her and her husband had put down their phones during dinner. It was all pretty awesome and you can already see some cohesion forming in the group. This is definitely going to be a very positively-focused experience.

In an unrelated Facebook thread, not on the group, a friend asked me that same day why one should bother with Bariatric surgery if you have to do all the same things you had to do before to lose weight without surgery. I told her that, honestly, I couldn't answer her question. Surgery worked for me, but I can't tell you why and there's very little research available that I could point her towards.

I spent some time mulling over the question with Jillian, therapist to the stars, this morning. Slowing down and being mindful helps. Never being physically hungry helps. And having a built in regulator via a Tiny Tummy definitely helps. But, more than anything, the positive reinforcement you get through the quick win of dropping pounds like a crack whore in the first two weeks really helps. 

Just like the group at work, there is a real sense of hope when you can celebrate the victories, no matter how big or small - and hope is very powerful.

So, taking a cue from the lessons of the week, I decided to sit down and reflect on the wins from the week - wins big and small. It wasn't a perfect week, but it was better than the week before. There is hope.

• I went shopping last night for some new clothes and everything I bought - everything - was from the "regular" sized side of the store. It's a little tight, but I have hope it won't be so for very much longer.
  
  
• Driving home from my appointment with Jillian, therapist to the stars, today I realized that I was probably hungry. I was definitely craving protein and hadn't eaten much all day. I almost convinced myself that stopping at McDonald's for a Sausage McMuffin would be okay - but then I reminded myself that all bread tastes like crap to me now and one stop at McDonald's was going to be a slippery slope. I passed one fast food restaurant after another and almost stopped at a few of them, but I didn't. I looked up the menu of a local Lebanese restaurant that I'd be driving by on the way home because shish kabobs sounded good, but I didn't stop there either. I made it all the way home without stopping for any of the food I was craving and ate one veggie burger (no bun) when I got home. It was satisfying and good for me.
  
  
• Willie, my brother from another mother (he's a student of my mom's and refers to her as his "white mama"), came over and cleaned my house yesterday. The house looks good, smells good and I didn't have to lift a finger - and Willie appreciates the work as much as I appreciate him doing it for me. Okay, probably almost as much because I really, really, really appreciate him.
  
  
• I finished my fourth paper in a month yesterday. And now I don't have another one due for another month which my cohort is starting without me while I head to Vegas for a conference tomorrow.
  
  
• I learned so much from the four papers I just wrote. I made a promise to myself that this semester I would focus on learning as opposed to performing and the results were so much better. I'm really proud of the work I've submitted and two of the papers have already come back with an A grade. When you reframe the experience and learn, performance follows.
  
  
• I haven't had a cigarette in 201 days.
  

So... what's good in your life today?