On Bravery

Let's talk about how much you weigh. Let's tell anyone who wants to listen exactly how much you weigh every week, and let's let them watch you work out and try to lose some weight. Let's even make you wear a really skimpy workout outfit and get on the scale with everyone watching.

Sound like fun? Not exactly. I am pretty sure most of us don't even tell our spouse what we weigh (well, I guess most of us women. In my experience husbands are a bit less concerned with those numbers and who knows them.). But this is exactly what the contestants on “The Biggest Loser” are doing every week in an impressive display of bravery.

This is one of the things I find most amazing about this program. I wrote about the show months ago (2 seasons ago in television world) and admitted that I love watching it. That took some guts on my part, since I suppose I like to present a slightly more highbrow side of myself than “reality tv viewer.” But real bravery? Admitting you have a problem you haven't fixed on your own, and getting the help you need in a format that allows others to watch your struggle and draw inspiration from it. Making a self-improvement resolution and putting it out there for public consumption means that these people have an accountability that may actually give them the ability to achieve what they couldn't before now.

I haven't yet made any resolutions for this new year. I am keeping the ones I've made in years past, and I have made some small post-holiday changes back to some healthier habits that I try to have in general. But now that I think about it, the resolutions that I did the best job of sticking to are the ones I told people that I was doing. So, to pay my respects to the brave souls on the scale on my tv screen, I will outline a few things that I am doing to improve my own health.

Counting Calories: Regardless of whether I am in the process of trying to lose weight or not, I have learned that I make healthier choices if I am writing down what I eat. Looking at 10 tortilla chips vs. a slice of bread with tofu makes it fairly simple to see what is going to make me feel better and get me through the afternoon. When I have to write it down, I am less inclined to eat crap. It doesn't matter that no one else is seeing what I write.

No processed food: This one has gone from being very difficult (when I started, new year's 2006) to one that almost I don't even have to think about anymore. I have a few exceptions to the rule and my definition of processed food is based on number and kinds of ingredients more than packaging (I'm not grinding my own floor and baking bread, but I am choosing bread baked locally with no chemicals and very few ingredients), but in general this has been revolutionary in improving the food I eat and serve to my child.

Prioritizing my time so exercise is consistent: I have been an avid exercise person for a long time now, but with many demands on my limited free time I have found that unless I absolutely put exercise at the top of the list, it is hard to get enough. I love the things I do for exercise and my mental health is totally dependent on them, but even given that strong motivation I have to seize every opportunity and make it mandatory or the chance is lost.

I'm not going to weigh myself in my sports bra and post the results here every week, but maybe I'll tell a few friends here and there what I'm trying to do so that when I am tempted not to follow my own plans, I'll have a little extra accountability to help me through those tough times.