Well, our Project Transformation experience has formally come to a close. Tomorrow night we have our farewell party, and officially fly out of the nest. We have all taken our final tests, received our final results, met with our trainers who have sent us on our way with instructions, met to prepare and eat Breakfast for Performance, received recipes and learned what our bod pod results were. Some of us will continue at CHLI, and some of us will go to other gyms, hike and walk on our own, join classes in yoga and dance, and do other healthy things.
But for myself, while I am flying solo, I will be thinking of the magic that this program has wrought on not only me but all of us. I can't imagine that any of us are going to walk out of the hotel tomorrow night feeling like the same person we were when we walked in. My son-in-law reminded me on Saturday how ambivalent I was as I entered the contest. Not about how good an experience it would be, but whether I would be up to it. I think we all walked in with doubts about ourselves, and I think that I can detect that our physical muscles were not the only ones that were built in the course of the program. In mulling over what I have learned, in addition to the obvious instruction in nutrition and physical training, I have learned, as I told Dr Barr, to say both "yes" and "no". I have learned that when I am offered some water by someone who will go and get it and bring it to me, there is nothing wrong with saying "yes, thanks". There is nothing selfish about letting someone else take good care of you, and then you can return the favor sometime. There is nothing wrong with being pampered, with feeling good, with looking good, and with feeling the power of accomplishment. There is also the important "no" that I have learned. Saying no to overload, or overwhelm, or overcommitment is good for neither the body, nor the psyche, nor the job that needs to get done well.
When we started, I was in a place where I never said no. One of the reasons I stated about wanting to be chosen was that I wanted it to be my turn for a change. I had always felt that it was as if I were in a line, and as the people in the line had their needs met, they stepped to the back and waited for their turn to come again, but when I got to the front, someone else always seemed to have a more urgent need than mine, and I stepped to the rear without ever having my needs met. Project Transformation was a way to get my most important needs met, the way to learn to take really good care of myself, and --surprise!--in doing that to take really good care of the people in my life. From what we have discussed briefly, the other people in the program had similar experiences. Some families are eating at home more, have jettisoned fast food from their diets, are incorporating more exercise into their days, and are more aware of what they eat, what's in it, and how it will help or hurt their goals for themselves.
So all that I can say is that the Magicians of Project Transformation have waved their magic wands, and given us gifts that will stay with us all our lives, hopefully now that will be all of our healthy lives, and the magic dust that has fallen on us was so generous and plentiful, that others have benefited as well.
We have been given the gifts of SMART goals, Kaizen Steps, learning the value of restful sleep and breakfast, label reading, and portion control. Is there any way to say 'Thank you' to magicians, except to be ambassadors of living well and healthily, to being living examples of all that has been taught and given to us so generously?
And one more thing, and not a small thing at that. The Four Seasons hotel has made us welcome with smiles and greetings and feelings of welcome from the beginning, from the door personnel, to the locker room attendants and the pool personnel. Each thing that we have experienced, from the Spa, the massages, the healing sessions with Barbara, and the makeovers with Billy has been more (dare I say?) icing on a very lavish and amazing cake.
I hope to continue my blog and keep my readers apprised of what I am doing and how I have taken the lessons of Project Transformation and use them in my everyday life. I pledge to keep everyone informed as to my progress. It will be one of the many forms of accountability that I will be working into my daily program of self improvement.
To my faithful readers, thanks for sticking with me. Hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as I have. It's far from over.
And to the Magicians at CHLI and the Four Seasons hotel, Thanks for the ride.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Things Happen for a Reason
Always having been a believer in the sentiment that "things happen for a reason", I have thought of this phrase several times recently. I think that all of us Project Transformationists are dealing with mixed feelings that our time with the Project is reaching its end. I think that I can say that without exception, all of us have done better than we could have imagined, losing weight, getting fitter, feeling better, seeing surprising and very pleasing changes in our test results. But the thrill of this is mixed with some degree of trepidation about being able to sustain all that we have done and continue to use all that we have learned. We have not reached the end of the journey, or the top of the mountain, but have miles to go yet. And then there is the very real work that will go into maintaining all of the gains we have made once our goals have been reached.
We have , I think that I can say without exception, appreciated how lucky we have been to have been the recipients of all of the attention of the Community of Caring that is CHLI, and the courtesy and helpfulness of all of the staff of the hotel and spa that we have interacted with, that has without doubt been pleasant and rewarding. But now it is time for us to 'leave the nest', to be out in the real world, to fly on our own, to arrange our world so that we still have all of the elements that have made the journey possible: accountability, diligence, balance, hard work, and patience. And to realize that continuing the journey will reap the rewards of continued good health and fitness.
I was so pleasantly surprised to reexamine the papers that we had filled out at the beginning of the program, when we set goals, and designed strategies to make those goals a reality. I had done just about all of the things that I set out to do, setting goals, designing small Kaizen steps to reach those goals, and defining what the barriers to success might be so that they can be dealt with before they become a problem, along with identifying supports and rewardss, extrinsic sources of motivations. I never did identify any rewards on my sheet, but now that I have achieved some of the goals, I can see that the rewards might have been having to revamp my wardrobe, wearing things that might not have been comfortable for me to wear before. Internal rewards are being realized often when people compliment me on how good I look, and I feel good about it.
So the things that have happened for a reason are first and foremost, the winning of the contest that made such a difference in our lives and the lives of our families, because the learning that we have done has benefitted not only ourselves, but spouses and children as well. Another is the sense of self that we have gained. For me there was a learning curve to taking my place at the "front of the line" not all the time but certainly sometimes. Learning to make the time to get fit equally important as all the other things that we somehow manage to schedule into our days has set us up to be on our own, and to still set aside time for this very important activity. And now, being cut loose also has a reason. Taking the opportunity to order our lives in such a way as to maintain our achievements and set new and perhaps differet goals for ourselves. As kids, we had the opportunity to set goals of good grades, or awards, or scholarships, or athletic wins. Later we had educational goals perhaps, graduating college, advanced degrees, jobs, and personal goals of marriage and children. Now we have the responsibility of other personal goals that only we can control: Maintaining health and fitness to the best of our abilities, staying active, being aware, recognizing when we need help and seeking it out.
So as we phase out of this very rewarding place that we have been so fortunate to have been blessed with, we will take with us a renewed sense of life and self, what it means to have goals and to work hard to achieve them, and the very real rewards of being healthy and fit and continuing along this path for the foreseeable future.
We have , I think that I can say without exception, appreciated how lucky we have been to have been the recipients of all of the attention of the Community of Caring that is CHLI, and the courtesy and helpfulness of all of the staff of the hotel and spa that we have interacted with, that has without doubt been pleasant and rewarding. But now it is time for us to 'leave the nest', to be out in the real world, to fly on our own, to arrange our world so that we still have all of the elements that have made the journey possible: accountability, diligence, balance, hard work, and patience. And to realize that continuing the journey will reap the rewards of continued good health and fitness.
I was so pleasantly surprised to reexamine the papers that we had filled out at the beginning of the program, when we set goals, and designed strategies to make those goals a reality. I had done just about all of the things that I set out to do, setting goals, designing small Kaizen steps to reach those goals, and defining what the barriers to success might be so that they can be dealt with before they become a problem, along with identifying supports and rewardss, extrinsic sources of motivations. I never did identify any rewards on my sheet, but now that I have achieved some of the goals, I can see that the rewards might have been having to revamp my wardrobe, wearing things that might not have been comfortable for me to wear before. Internal rewards are being realized often when people compliment me on how good I look, and I feel good about it.
So the things that have happened for a reason are first and foremost, the winning of the contest that made such a difference in our lives and the lives of our families, because the learning that we have done has benefitted not only ourselves, but spouses and children as well. Another is the sense of self that we have gained. For me there was a learning curve to taking my place at the "front of the line" not all the time but certainly sometimes. Learning to make the time to get fit equally important as all the other things that we somehow manage to schedule into our days has set us up to be on our own, and to still set aside time for this very important activity. And now, being cut loose also has a reason. Taking the opportunity to order our lives in such a way as to maintain our achievements and set new and perhaps differet goals for ourselves. As kids, we had the opportunity to set goals of good grades, or awards, or scholarships, or athletic wins. Later we had educational goals perhaps, graduating college, advanced degrees, jobs, and personal goals of marriage and children. Now we have the responsibility of other personal goals that only we can control: Maintaining health and fitness to the best of our abilities, staying active, being aware, recognizing when we need help and seeking it out.
So as we phase out of this very rewarding place that we have been so fortunate to have been blessed with, we will take with us a renewed sense of life and self, what it means to have goals and to work hard to achieve them, and the very real rewards of being healthy and fit and continuing along this path for the foreseeable future.
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