weight control

I have just come back from a week of vacation and was able to maintain my Lifetime Goal weight at Weight Watchers when I weighed in the week following. How was I able to vanquish weight gain during vacation? I was able to maintain the hard fought 175 lbs. (actually lost a pound) using 6 simple tricks!

Washington Monument — Washington at Night

Wherever I Went I was Walking! One of my favorite movies is Forest Gump and the line I love the most is when he starts the jogging craze in the 70’s – “From that day on, if I was going somewhere, I was running!”. Being on the backside of fifty and with somewhat creaky knees, I modified Forest’s plea to walking. It is low impact and allows you to take in your vacation at a more leisurely pace. Almost all the tours I took in Washington and Virginia historical areas were walking tours – averaging over 15 k steps a day with the peak day over 30 k. Walking the streets of Williamsburg and the hills of Monticello and Montpelier allows you to take in the sights and sounds of our Founding Fathers and Mothers the way they did. It also allows you to eat some more food and counter it with exercise.
Indulge but count. Which brings me to point to. You should indulge a bit on vacation. The new Weight Watcher’s program allows you to do just that. While on Vacation, I shared a few deserts with my wife for the first time in a long time. But I was also careful to track everything I ate to know that I was in striking distance for the week. By tracking and not attacking the buffet line, I was able to enjoy some of the colonial recipes and comfort foods in Virginia in a controlled manner. I was able to indulge and avoid the bulge!
Drink water to counter the beer. One thing that I indulged in during the trip was beer. I love microbrews and the beer recipes from earlier times (Williamsburg has beer based on 300-year-old recipes that are off the charts!). Besides counting the points for each beer, I was careful to drink water to remain hydrated and trigger my metabolism. Beer dehydrates you, so it is important to balance your beer with water that is clear! (A little Dad joke for you all!)
Destress, rest and learn something new. This fourth point is a critical one. You are on vacation and the purpose is to destress and rest. It is therefore important to put work on hiatus or at the very least plan the times people can reach you if critical tasks are at hand. Here is a case in point. I really needed to take a work call but there was a show about Martha Washington that I wanted to see which overlapped the call. I got to the show early to get a seat that would allow me to listen to the first hour of the show and then sneak up to a hill that had a great view of Williamsburg but was isolated enough to take the call. It is better to turn off on Vacation but in my case, I get more stressed if I do not balance critical work with fun. By planning, I was able to destress by learning about Martha Washington for the first hour and still was able to take a critical call. A little planning on vacation goes a long way!
Vacation with someone that has your back. It is also important to vacation with someone who understands how far you have gone on your weight loss journey and wants to help you. My wife Colette is great in this respect. She has always been able to maintain her weight (I envy her metabolism). When we go out to eat, she is very accommodating in the places we select and does not push me to eat something that would push up the points. On the flip side, she does not nag me not to eat something if I make a choice to indulge. Lastly, she knows how important it is to me to track my Smart Points, so she allows me to use my phone while at dinner.
Wait to weigh in. This last point is the most important one. The best way to maintain your weight on vacation is to not obsess about the scale. I did not weigh myself until the Sunday evening after I returned. In addition, I was mentally prepared to be higher than I normally am on a Sunday evening prior to my next Saturday weigh in. In this case, I was 3 lbs. higher than my normal Sunday weight but had confidence when I hit Weight Watchers the next Saturday, I would be at the goal weight I needed to maintain.

So, there you have it. Vacations are for fun! You can control and ultimately vanquish the vacation pounds by applying these and other simple rules from Weight Watcher’s Freestyle and other lessons learned.

This is the second of my Father’s Day blogs and it is inspired by a movie that I just saw on one of America’s most famous Father figures – Fred Rogers. Some may not think of Mr. Rogers as a father figure. He was not the image of the prototypical human father. He was not strong, dominating or particularly stern. He did however have characteristics of our heavenly Father. An image of compassion who suffered the little children to come to him. He sought to protect children from the vagaries and violence of the modern-day world through the explanation of the simple truths of compassion and right living.

One of the most compelling parts of the documentary was the explanation of Mr. Rogers’ daily ritual to control his weight. From his days in the seminary to his last days on earth, Mr. Rogers sought to maintain a weight of 143 lbs. Why do you ask? There were three main reasons and each of them is compelling.

Weight control – Mr. Rogers was pudgy as an adolescent boy. Although the documentary does not cover this in detail, I suspect that he was bullied over his weight (more on the impact of that later). Because of his concern to be happy and healthy, Mr. Rogers strove to maintain his weight at 143 lbs. daily. He had a daily ritual where he swam 1 mile in a pool and then weighed himself to make sure that he was at 143 lbs. I am no Mr. Rogers but I have a similar construct related to weight maintenance. Each week before my Weight Watcher’s weigh-in, I strive to weigh 185 lbs. or less. This is within the weight allowance to maintain Lifetime status but there is a more important reason for this target (as there is for Mr. Roger’s target which I will explain later). I was in the class of 85 for West Point and our class motto is “For Excellence We Strive, 85!”. The reason I believe in this moto is explained in this blog Life Lessons – Strive for Excellence Always!. The reason for Mr. Rogers weight goal is even more inspirational!

2. Leadership – It is hard to contemplate that a meek and mild man such as Mr. Rogers as the ultimate leader (especially in the current climate of shouting on both sides of the political spectrum) but he was! In my mind, he was the penultimate leader. He came of age when TV was reshaping the culture of America. He was dismayed with the children TV shows of the day that were nothing more than people shoving pies in each other faces and frantic cartoons of action and violence (unfortunately it is only worse now). He made it his mission to slow down the pace of TV and to talk to children in simple truths about love, compassion and being a good neighbor. He did this without puppets not pageantry.

After seeing the documentary, I got additional perspective on Daniel the Tiger. I always knew that Daniel the Tiger was an extension of Mr. Rogers but the documentary showing Mr. Rogers as a kid cemented it. Just knowing the period and seeing Mr. Rogers as a pudgy, sensitive, rich kid indicated to me that Daniel tiger and Mr. Rogers were one in the same. He must have withstood a lot of bullying and poured out the lessons of dealing with that pain in the words of Daniel the Tiger. You can viscerally feel the inspiration and the heart of Mr. Rogers every time Daniel the Tiger explains his experience and fears. The attached link on the death of Bobby Kennedy is one example Mr. Rogers on Assassination. Fred Rogers led the fight to protect our children and his message resonates now more than ever. As Jesus proclaims in Mathew 18:3: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”, Mr. Rogers sought to protect to the hearts of little children and those of adults to seek a higher calling.

3. Love – In the end, Mr. Rogers’ weight and message is one of a Father’s Love. His reason for maintaining a weight of 143 was due to the number of letters in a three-word phrase: I (1) Love (4) You (3). Mr. Rogers’ message to both himself and to the rest of the world is I Love You just the way you are! It does not matter if you are a different race, creed or color. It does not matter if you have a disability (see clip Mr. Rogers on Disability). You are a creature of God with a purpose and passion to better the lives of you and your neighbors. In this time of discord and constant bickering, we should strive to be good neighbors like Mr. Rogers. To see the good and with love, overcome the differences. And like Mr. Rogers like one another for their unique characteristics. I will close with a song by Fred Rogers and Josie Carey on the Mr. Rogers show and this clip concerning 9/11 Mr. Rogers 9-11:

I like you as you are
Exactly and precisely
I think you turned out nicely
And I like you as you are

I like you as you are
Without a doubt or question
Or even a suggestion
Cause I like you as you are

I like your disposition
Your facial composition
And with your kind permission
I’ll shout it to a star

I like you as you are
I wouldn’t want to change you
Or even rearrange you
Not by far

I like you
I-L-I-K-E-Y-O-U
I like you, yes I do
I like you, Y-O-U
I like you, like you as you are

Weight Loss and Leadership

Wellness through fitness, faith, and Leadership

Vanquish Weight Gain During Vacation!

143 – A Father’s Day Message on Weight Control, Leadership, and Love