Today I stepped on the scale and I was the lightest I have been since starting my weight loss program just 18 short weeks ago. I woke up and did a little fist pump at 6:00 this morning and hopped into the shower. I started thinking about what I should write about today and it quickly entered my running mind.
I knew I was going to give an update on Student Teaching (See below for some good laughs) but I wanted today to be more about that. I wanted people who are struggling with something to know that it is okay to fail. Yes OKAY to fail. No I am not crazy (at least I don't think so).
I don't know all the personal stories, but I do know some of yours and I believe that people expecting perfection are absolutely crazy. Maybe you deal with a drug or alcohol or gambling addiction. Maybe you are like me and trying to lose weight, or maybe your struggle is more interpersonal than that. Maybe you don't love your friends enough. Maybe you don't always get your homework in on time. Maybe your biggest struggle is just being able to be happy. I am here to remind you that failure doesn't always mean that you are not succeeding.
You are an addict and you have been clean for 6 months and today you relapsed. Are we calling that a failure? Before I started my weight loss, I would have considered that person a failure but over the weeks my mind has been opened and I look at it different. What I see is someone is who struggling with an addiction just went 6 months of staying clean and instead of 6 months of failure, they just had one day of failure. That is still a huge accomplishment. They just experienced 180 days of success!
The thing that changes that person to a failure is if they take their mistake and believe they are going to repeat it and use their mistake as an excuse. Here is my personal example of that.
Before I started my diet at Medifast I tried diets by myself. Sunday night I would eat my "last meal" and Monday I would wake up, motivated to get healthy. All day I would eat healthy and feel great about myself. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, same thing! Then the weekend came... I would work at Broadway and after my shift I would indulge in a burger or some chicken wings. I loved it, but after the food was gone, the guilt came. My thought process was "I just went 4 days with healthy eating and I just ruined it all." Not only that, I thought that I ruined my whole week and gave up. Saturday and Sunday would bring only more junk food and then the process would start over again. I can't tell you how many "last meals" I had but I can tell you that it was almost a weekly struggle.
What I have learned about myself after 18 weeks is that if I eat one unhealthy meal, that it is okay. What isn't okay is if I turn that bad meal into a bad day, or turn that bad day into a bad week. That is when you are using your one mistake as an excuse. Too many times I used to think, "Well I already ate a bad lunch, I can eat terrible for dinner as well." I am speaking from recent experience here. I hit a huge success when I hit the 50 pound mark and I was so proud of myself. I decided to use food (of all things) as a reward and went and got some fast food. It was delicious obviously but immediately after I was done I was pissed at myself. I hit 50 pounds but now I have to hit it again because I am obviously gaining weight because of that meal. I stayed around 50 pounds for about two weeks and kept thinking that there was nothing that I could do to change that. Maybe 50 pounds lighter is where I am meant to be?
Wrong. I took the last week and decided to eat super healthy. I worked out twice over the week and really watched my activity. I packed healthy lunches and tried to not eat anything that would be considered cheating. This morning when I stepped on the scale I was 54 pounds lighter than I was 18 weeks ago. That mentality that one meal ruins my whole week is no longer there.
So finally for people who are on a diet or who are dealing with the struggles. Don't focus on the negatives. If you eat a bad meal or reach a point of weakness, make sure that you see how far you have come and be happy with yourself!
If you have made it this far in my blog, well then I love you and have decided to reward you with a variety of quotes that I have heard inside the classroom. Remember that these kids are 7th graders and are about 12 or 13. Here is a list of some of the best things I have heard. Many of them came in the day when I showed them a picture of Cassidy and I after they begged me for a couple days.
1) "When is your girlfriend coming to visit, she is hot!"
2) Student: "Can I have her digits?"
Me: "I think she is a little too old for you"
Student: "I am really mature for my age"
3) After explaining Reconstruction and how the North and the South had to become friends after the war was over I gave an example about how if I got into a fight with a friend (using a student as an example) how we would have to work out our differences and become friends. A student next to the student who I was using as an example as my "friend" yelled "What did he do, steal yo girl"
4) "Mr. Hines, do you play Flappy bird?"
5) "Sorry, I didn't take my pills today"
6) "Of course it deleted, ugh I hate technology!"
7) "You are good at teaching but not as good as Ms. (name taken out). She is old though, so I am glad you are teaching us."
8) This is my personal favorite, although it is a little inappropriate.
The students are playing a game called Passcode. In the game two students are facing away from the whiteboard and there is a word for them to guess on the white board. They are alternatively asking classmates for one word clues that will help them figure out the word on the whiteboard. Get it, got it, good?
Okay so the word for this round happens to be Waterfall. The first student calls on his buddy for a clue. The student yells out that his clue is Niagara (as in Niagara Falls if you didn't get it). The student who is guessing then guesses that the word on the whiteboard is pill!
At first no one said anything. No one realized why the student would guess pill. It was only after about two seconds that I realized that the student thought his friend said VIAGRA instead of NIAGARA and that is why he guessed Pill. After the other teacher asked him why he guessed pill he quickly got quiet and didn't say anything so the teacher could move on. I sat in the back of the room trying not to laugh because I couldn't believe what just went through a 12/13 year old mind.
So there you have it. Probably one of my longest blog entries and to be honest, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you did, share it with your friends. If you didn't, well then shame on you :)
Have a good Tuesday!
-J-
"Sometimes helping others succeed, is the best way to help yourself achieve greatness."
So finally for people who are on a diet or who are dealing with the struggles. Don't focus on the negatives. If you eat a bad meal or reach a point of weakness, make sure that you see how far you have come and be happy with yourself!
If you have made it this far in my blog, well then I love you and have decided to reward you with a variety of quotes that I have heard inside the classroom. Remember that these kids are 7th graders and are about 12 or 13. Here is a list of some of the best things I have heard. Many of them came in the day when I showed them a picture of Cassidy and I after they begged me for a couple days.
1) "When is your girlfriend coming to visit, she is hot!"
2) Student: "Can I have her digits?"
Me: "I think she is a little too old for you"
Student: "I am really mature for my age"
3) After explaining Reconstruction and how the North and the South had to become friends after the war was over I gave an example about how if I got into a fight with a friend (using a student as an example) how we would have to work out our differences and become friends. A student next to the student who I was using as an example as my "friend" yelled "What did he do, steal yo girl"
4) "Mr. Hines, do you play Flappy bird?"
5) "Sorry, I didn't take my pills today"
6) "Of course it deleted, ugh I hate technology!"
7) "You are good at teaching but not as good as Ms. (name taken out). She is old though, so I am glad you are teaching us."
8) This is my personal favorite, although it is a little inappropriate.
The students are playing a game called Passcode. In the game two students are facing away from the whiteboard and there is a word for them to guess on the white board. They are alternatively asking classmates for one word clues that will help them figure out the word on the whiteboard. Get it, got it, good?
Okay so the word for this round happens to be Waterfall. The first student calls on his buddy for a clue. The student yells out that his clue is Niagara (as in Niagara Falls if you didn't get it). The student who is guessing then guesses that the word on the whiteboard is pill!
At first no one said anything. No one realized why the student would guess pill. It was only after about two seconds that I realized that the student thought his friend said VIAGRA instead of NIAGARA and that is why he guessed Pill. After the other teacher asked him why he guessed pill he quickly got quiet and didn't say anything so the teacher could move on. I sat in the back of the room trying not to laugh because I couldn't believe what just went through a 12/13 year old mind.
So there you have it. Probably one of my longest blog entries and to be honest, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you did, share it with your friends. If you didn't, well then shame on you :)
Have a good Tuesday!
-J-
"Sometimes helping others succeed, is the best way to help yourself achieve greatness."
