The Greatest Gift

Time off to be with my family and friends HAS to be, by far, the greatest gift of the holiday season. I'm not much for the material gift giving and the feeling of obligation to give something to everybody. But the gift of time together is truly priceless.

This morning, I went to Weight Watchers for the first time in ages. They are still doing the points plan or the CORE Plan, but they've repackaged it a lot and it seems workable, if you just take the time and attention to plan your meals and make healthier choices. That has to rank higher on my priority list, because I've been gorging lately out of stress and worry. I'm going to try doing CORE again immediately after Christmas.

It was really weird, because I was hesitating going to the meeting, especially since I know I won't actually be starting the new plan until the day after Christmas. (My Grammy is going to cook a calorie-dense Christmas dinner for us on Monday). But I figured I'd go there and get an idea of what the plan is like now, any changes in it so I'd be ready to start fresh on Tuesday.

The leader there, Roberta, is a really nice gal (and very inspiring). I've been to her meeting before. She is on the CORE plan herself and really loves it. She's kept her weight off for many years. The CORE plan is my plan of choice, because you get to eat until you are comfortably full of healthy food choices. On the points plan, I would only get 20 points per day, which isn't much! In the past, when I've been on that plan, I've felt deprived.

At any rate, Roberta's day at this particular center is Friday, but she told me that she does a Saturday meeting every week at a location not too far from my house, so I may very well be attending her meetings on Saturdays in the future. I think she would really inspire me and charge me up!!

One thing she did that was really neat was pass around some little gift cards that you normally put on Christmas or Hannukah gifts with the "to"/"from" on it. She wanted us to write to (our name) and from (our name). Then she had us flip the little tag over and on the back, write why we want to give OURSELVES the gift of losing weight. How would we benefit from it. On mine, I wrote "feeling of control, good health, nice appearance, more energetic, self-satisfied." So I'm writing it here on this blog as a reminder to myself to think of dieting in a NEW way. I'm not denying myself anything - I'm GIVING myself a gift of good health. How nice is that? I deserve to be healthy, but only I can give that gift to ME!!!!!

Now I turn this back to you, dear friends. What gift can you give yourself in 2007? The gift of peace? The gift of love? The gift of more time? I'm thinking that all of these things are tied together in a nice little gift package. When I get stressed-out and deny myself the gift of indulging in what I ultimately want, I find myself stealing those good feelings in other (more destructive) ways by compulsively eating/shopping/ etc. So how can I make myself feel good in healthy ways? Maybe by de-stressing in other ways. Meditating. Walking. Knitting.

I love it when I have a stream of days like this to reflect on my life. Having time is really really a precious thing. And something that I need to use better and more wisely so I can take the time to make healthier, more satisfying choices in weight loss and everything else.