Newest bookmark in my internet listing

10 Steps to the Body You Want

Pretty neat assortment of motivating items to help people stay motivated to keep up with a fitness or weight management program. So, in the interest of getting underway, here goes with one of the suggestions - a personal contract with myself, adapted from the website with ideas and beliefs that I agree with and a smattering of my own thoughts and goals in there.

I, Lori H, commit to starting my weight loss program on April 15, 2008.

I believe that I can accepts and complete my challenge of losing 19 pounds (10% of my body weight) to the best of my ability.

I realize this is work and accept the self-care price that I must pay to achieve my mental, spiritual, and physical transformation. I believe that without any one transformation, the others will not be permanant changes in my life.

I commit to keeping a daily journal that tracks my progress and forgives my slipups. It will be found on my SparkPeople blog.

I will practice these principals to help myself stay the course:

• I will find my motiviation.
• I will learn to let joy in.
• I know that I may (and probably will) whine, but I will get the job done. I refuse to let my brain keep my butt on the couch.
• I will forget the search for "perfection". It is an impossible ideal that nobody ever reaches.
• I will focus on embracing my progress.
• I will strive to reduce stress and replace it with peace in my life. If I can't do anything about a situation, I will not worry over it needlessly.
• I will give myself a license to chill.
• I will fight for my self care.
• I will form a 911 squad of special people in my life that I can turn to for support in times of weakness, who will remind me of my goals and the reasons for them.
• I will expect and adapt to adversity and see tough times as learning opportunities.
• I will strive to take actions and not to ruminate, gripe, moan, or whine.
• I will be self-assertive and fight for the right to take care of myself.
• I will acknowledge and reward myself fo rmy achievements along the way.

I will do battle battle with my inner demons that will try to pull me back into my familiar, self-destructive way.

But in the end, I WILL WIN!

Every time I embrace this challenge and use these principles, I am one step closer to the best person I can be.

I won't bore folks with my efforts too much, or daily journaling of my activities related to this, but I do reserve the right share any yummy recipes I come across and humorous stories that may stem from my weight loss efforts here. And, I imagine, an occasional progress report wouldn't be too bad.