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.

3-D Ultrasounds

While I was at the doctor's office yesterday, a sales rep for a pharmacuetical company came in to see the doctor to peddle her drugs. She was quite young, cute, and about 6 months pregnant. She's having one of those pregnancies that you just know will result in a beautiful baby and a mother who is wearing her prematernity jeans within a month. But I digress...

She had pictures on her phone of the latest ultrasound result. She'd had one of the new 3-D ultrasounds done, and it was really bizarre - it was just like looking at a sleeping baby, not one that still has 16 weeks in the womb before she's born. You could tell who's nose she had, who's chin, it was wild.

With technology like this in development and now starting to be put to use, how much longer will it be before exploratory surgeries are a thing of the past? Doctors might be able to use this technology to plan out their procedures, not so many surprises... wow.... It's amazing....