"Because you can't have enough good people around you...."

“You can’t get enough people like him,” Kraft said, according to USA Today. “Life is about collecting good people around you. You can’t have enough good people.”

This was a recent statement by Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, upon signing Tim Tebow on a 2 year contract to play.

I love this sentiment.

Kraft knows that surrounding yourself with good people sets you up for success.

Who are you surrounding yourself with? 

Our support system is SO important.  It is vastly important to surround yourself with like-minded people who are life-givers, who help you to be the best person you can be. 

When you find such people, "collect" them as friendships and pour in to their lives as well.  If you have a desert landscape on your horizon as regards friends such as these, begin to seek them out.  Relationships are so important on this journey we call life, and especially when we are seeking to become optimally healthy.

Is everyone around you a nay-sayer?  Is everyone around you trying to sabotage you or are they telling you that you won't succeed?  Ditch 'em. 

Seriously.  Well, not if they are immediate family. 

What if it is a spouse?  In THOSE cases, lovingly remind them that you DO have what it takes, then go about proving that without using your words.  Do the work.  Do it in the background if you need to, do it quietly and without complaint.

I can't tell you how many times I tried a new "diet program" in the years after I got married to my husband, and he would sit back and watch me try...and fail.  Try....and fail.  Try.....and fail.  So it was no wonder that it was with a bit of skepticism he allowed me to try THIS program. 

So be gentle with your spouse if they are doubting.  Allow your actions to speak LOUDER than your words.  Is he still watching you steal "just one" french fry from your child's happy meal?  Does he KNOW that your little one didn't in fact finish his pasta at dinner, but oh look the plate on the table near the sink is now empty?  Did he suspect that you probably ate "just the crusts" of the leftover pizza that went uneaten at lunch during the game?  Does he see the "horizon line" of the ice cream container inching it's way down down down day by day, knowing that HE nor the KIDS are eating it?  Does he watch as the block of cheese gets smaller day by day in the refrigerator?  Or that the cereal box seems a little more empty in the morning than it was at the end of breakfast the day before?  Does he wonder why none of the brownies actually HAVE crusty edges?

If he is seeing any of this going on, then he knows one thing.  That you are STILL not being honest with yourself or the plan.  So he may bite his tongue, shake his head and hope for a better tomorrow, or he may just ask you why you keep wasting money on "that Medifast stuff" month-to-month because I'll tell you one thing, if you ARE doing those things in that paragraph above, you AREN'T being honest with yourself and you AREN'T being honest with the plan.  Ask yourself one thing:

WHY NOT?

Aren't you tired of this cycle?  Aren't you tired of this hamster wheel?  I was!  I was tired of MYSELF and the shenanigans I continued to play when I was "playing at Medifast" or "playing at TSFL". 

I was tired of feeling bad.  Of feeling guilty.  Of feeling shame that I couldn't even control what I put in my FREAKING mouth for 24 hours!

Is this you?

There IS hope.

FIRST, you must SAY WHO IT IS YOU WANT TO BE.  Without this, you are directionless.  Formulate in your mind WHO IT IS that YOU want to be.  WHO is the best version of yourself?  What does she look like?  What does she do?  How do others view her? 

Find her.  Then become her.  How?  By doing the things ONLY THAT PERSON would do.

When I decided to become fit and healthy, I was anything BUT fit and healthy.  But look.  Poof.  I'm fit and healthy.  Because I started doing every day what fit and healthy people do every day.  And eventually my outsides caught up with my insides. 

Eventually.

My outsides.

Caught up.

With my insides.

I changed my inside.  I changed my mind.  That junk became "not my food".  At Costco when I'd pass the red wine and black licorice my mantra was "I don't buy that stuff anymore".  And I didn't.  Did I FEEL it every time?  No.  But I DID it every time.

What will YOU do today?

Rinse and Repeat!

I'm Stacy Phillips.  And I'm who I want to be.  I'm fit and healthy.  I've lost 130 pounds and kept it off for over a year now.  Who are you?  Who do you want to be?  Become her.