Living the Lifestyle - Wednesday, June 12th

gadgetgirlIL

We meet here to explore, share, celebrate and (sometimes) agonize over how we do (or don't) incorporate weight loss guidelines into our daily lives. "It's a lifestyle, not a diet" is easily and often said, but sometimes not so simply put into practice.

This is a thread for everyone. If you're new to GoaD, or to weight loss, your questions and comments are always welcome. If you're maintaining, or a long-term loser, your thoughts on the topic may be just what someone else needs to hear. If you're reading this, join in the discussion!

Each weekday, a new topic is offered up for discussion. Thread starters for June are below:

Monday -imastar2 (Derrick)
Tuesday - GavinFlynn1 (Gavin)
Wednesday - GadgetGirlIL (Regina)
Thursday - misterhub (Greg)
Friday - Al_Howard (Al)

Today's Topic: Asking for help

How likely are you to ask others for help? This could be in the context of needing assistance at home with food prep/shopping, help with tasks at work, or even asking strangers for directions when you find yourself lost.

What effect, if any, does your willingness (or not) to ask for help support your healthy lifestyle?

gadgetgirlIL

It is another crazy week at work with very long days. While I usually prefer to go to the store myself for some of my food staples, I simply don't have the time this week. So I've been leaving notes for my DH regarding things I've run out of. Thanks to his willingness to go shopping, I'm managing to pull together quick and healthy things to take to work.

I'm still trying to get better at work at delegating smaller uncomplicated tasks. That is work in process as our new assistance isn't detail orientated like I am and tends to leave out important pieces of information in emails that we ask her to send out to our new students. I've given up asking another office assistant to place my lab orders as early this year I found out that she had never followed up on 2 orders from November. I finally got the items in March. Sigh.

Asking for directions? Hah, I'm the queen of redundancy for my bike rides and hikes! Although I included this since we had a new rider show up for a 200K I was running last Saturday. They only took a cuesheet and somehow managed to get lost (It was one of our least complicated routes of the year). They didn't call me and eventually just went back to the start for a DNF. I wish they would have reached out as my co-leader wasn't riding and we could have gotten them back on the route.

88olds

I joined WW by finding the meeting near our house and showing up in person. I guess I went there asking for help. I found it very embarrassing. Especially when I realized the women’s club nature of the enterprise and accompanying hostility.

But I had read somewhere that the most effective weight loss tool was keeping a list of what you eat. And I also thought I should count something. I had tried counting calories and had not made it work. I knew WW counted something that wasn’t calories. So I thought I’d give WW a shot.

When I got there they dangled a 3 month package. I thought “OK. I can do 3 months. Give it a fair shot. See what I get.” It exceeded my wildest expectations.

But when I started WW I had already turned my life around. I had gone from 285 lbs to about 215. I was a gym regular. My CPAP, HBP, back and knee pain were all long gone. But I had been stuck around 215 for years. I was desperate.

This was important- when I went to WW I accepted that I was in uncharted waters for me. I didn’t know what to do. I’m pretty surprised by the returning members claims of “I know what I have to do”. I always cringe a bit when I hear that. Seems like they usually mean they think they need to beat themselves into submission.

Is that it with asking for help? There’s something we don’t know?

podkey

Gosh I hate it when folks leave out important details. I often get invite reminders without any of the who,what,where,why,when details. Gosh in todays cut and paste is that so hard?
I hear ya about cue sheets and bike rides. I often go over the route and add detail to the cue sheets the day or two BEFORE a ride. I use my Garmin too.
I am not against asking for directions when available too. I remember one bike ride when we were somehow off route. Somewhere out in the rural area far far away we ran into a sign for a small gravel road leading to a cemetery which was marked by the sign DEAD END. Well duh I thought. A friend whipped out her cell phone, found where we were and got us back on track.
I have done best in one man labs without a lot of helper bees in general. True enough.
My DW did help yesterday by mowing the back lawn after I mowed the front lawn before the heat hit (95°F+ later). We could do better helping each other out.
I liked the simplicity of WW and the small numbers myself when starting out.

imastar2

Well I guess I'm a typical Male that goes about not asking for directions and drives DW crazy. Since g maps and other directional aids that's not a problem anymore. However asking for help with the food preparation and planning meals is still difficult for me. I had an assistant once that by the time I delicated the task and ask for follow and then having to wait for them to get to it I could already have it done. I'm a get it done type of person but I get my plate too full schedule wise and then guess what. The food planning and meal planning goes out the window. There seems to be no one to ask for food preparation but DW and her schedule is jammed as well. We are way to busy for our age. ☹ It does effect weight loss regularly.

misterhub

I have no issue asking for directions. GPS has minimized that, but it's never really been an issue for me. I am a truly pragmatic person, and I look for the most efficient path to my end goal. If that means asking for directions, then I will.

In the kitchen, I am a little different. I like having full control of the kitchen. However, I will as for limited sous-chef help, especially if time is of the essence.

I don't have a problem with delegating. But, I am very specific about what I want, and I provide very narrow tasking in most cases, which can be expanded as trust expands.