Weight Loss Contest Update and The No. 1 Skill for Weight Management

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By David S. Chang

The weight loss contest continues! Here are the updated weights, rankings, and weight percentage change. We have more teams that have decided to participate. That is fine with me since that means a bigger victory for Beth and I to win! To some these may be “fighting words” but that is the beauty of competition, to absolutely crush those that get in your way :-). And not surprisingly, we are in first place, followed by “Kaihau,” and “In the Lead” actually more like “In the Middle.”  We will have one more team join us, and they are using all their brain cells to come up with a name. So far “Kamikaze” is what they have come up with. Fitting word to the end they will experience in the contest! Since December 31st is the end date for most of us, getting through the Holidays is key. So when malasadas with ice cream and chocolate magically begin to appear in your office space, don’t fret, just eat them, that is why they will be there for you to enjoy! But like all things, this is about longevity and consistency. The article below will help all of us for the next several months! (Don’t say I never did anything for you guys!) Good luck!

Week2 Chart

Please click here for the official rules and week 1!

Please click here for week 2!

I also have attached an article that will help our participants as well as any other people that are interested in losing weight. Read on for the No. 1 Skill for Weight Management!

By 

What do you think it is?

I’ll start by telling you what it’s not. It’s not willpower, determination or motivation. It’s not avoiding carbs or sugar or fats. And it’s not cooking, hitting the gym or sticking to your plan.

No, the most important skill in weight management is learning how to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on with it. Whether it’s the predictable—holidays, birthdays, anniversaries or vacations—or the unpredictable—illness, death, marital discord or injury—life has a bad habit of getting in the way of our best intentions. And mark my words, you’re going to fall down.

So how do you maximize your chances of picking yourself back up? Unfortunately there’s no app for that. Instead you’re going to have to rely on these two simple strategies:

• First, you need to respect reality. The fact is, life happens. If you don’t respect the fact that as a species we have comforted and celebrated with food since time immemorial, then the inevitable guilt, shame and frustration you’re going to feel when you exercise your right as a human being to use food for purposes other than fuel may well lead you to throw in the towel.

Instead of being frustrated that your weight management or healthy living strategies are affected by reality, try to remember that your best efforts vary. The best you can do over the week of Passover or Easter is undoubtedly less healthful than the best you can do the week after. If your goal is your best, you’ll never fall into the trap of repeatedly letting yourself down.

• Second, you need to like the life you’re living while you’re losing.This truism is perhaps the one most regularly forgotten by newly minted dieters. Ultimately, if you don’t like the life you’re living while you’re losing, even if you lose a great deal, you’re eventually going to head back toward the life you led before you lost weight.

Putting this in the perspective of reality, when life does up and offer you a reason to stray from your plan, it’s going to be that much harder to get back into it if your plan was one you didn’t enjoy in the first place. The more weight you’d like to permanently lose, the more of your life you’ll need to permanently change. And because “permanent” is an awfully long time, truly the easiest way to evaluate the approach you’ve chosen for weight management or healthy living is to ask yourself: “Can I happily keep living this way?” If the answer’s no, you need to find a new approach.

Put another way, the most important skill in weight management isn’t a synonym of suffering, it’s one of embracing imperfection, of rolling with life’s pleasant and unpleasant punches; it smacks of reality, not reality TV.

The healthiest life that you can happily enjoy sometimes isn’t going to be that healthy. Accepting that is weight management’s most important skill.

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