Beauty Is

 

I was looking at my cat the other day, and admiring how beautiful she was when I was reminded of the adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Phrasemix defines this simply as “Different people have different ideas about what’s beautiful.”

Now this one has been a little difficult for me to fully grasp as I’ve observed some people’s choices, and have scratched my head wondering, “What were they thinking?” Kind of like that occasional purple house you come across now and then. 

However, accepting our differences in tastes does make life a little more interesting. If everyone was the same it could get quite boring. I try to point this out to my oldest grandson as he questions his middle brother’s choices in pretty much everything.

In our Pinterest perfect world it can get exhausting to keep up with all the latest trends. In choosing the countertops for our current house we went with granite, even though quartz seemed to be the trend of the day. In our last house our walls remained white while others were being painted the popular gem tone colors. Interestingly, when the time came to sell, white had made its way back into the lexicon.

Let’s encourage our children not to be too judgmental when it comes to other’s tastes, and remember the other old adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Noom

Around mid-March something came across my Facebook feed that caught my attention. It was an advertisement about a weight loss program called Noom. 

Now as you probably remember I’ve been a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers for many years, and have had good success with the program. In fact, if I still lived in the metroplex I would not even be writing this post. I used to look forward to my weekly WW meetings, and had even reconnected with a high school friend at one of the meetings.

One of the things I liked about the meetings was the flexibility I had to choose a meeting time that worked for me. When we moved to our new rural community there was actually no meetings less than an hour away. Over time a meeting in Stephenville (about 15 minutes away) was available , but not always practical. During the winter months driving in the dark to and from the meeting wasn’t something I even wanted to attempt due to the many dead deer you would see along the highway. 

As time went by I was having less and less success with maintaining my weight. As much as I hoped to be able to do so on my own I rarely can maintain my weight without some form of accountability. That’s where Noom came into the picture. 

Now technically I only had about eight pounds to lose to get back to my desired goal weight. However, left unchecked I knew my weight would continue to increase if I continued on the same path. 

I went ahead and signed up pretty impulsively for me, since it’s cost was more than what I was paying each month to keep my WW online tools. I did so knowing that I was only committed to a two months stint, which in my mind seemed like a fair amount of time to see some results. 

I shared with Chuck that I was needing something to kickstart my return to healthier eating. 

He agreed that Noom sounded like a perfect solution for me. 

I must admit I have really enjoyed the program. It is easy to follow, there are no restricted foods or food groups, and it provides for easy tracking of weight, water, steps and food intake. But, most of all it includes daily lessons that range from nutrition to psychology. All of which I have found helpful. The basic membership includes a group coach that you can reach out to if needed, and a group chat feature like Facebook. 

In the first two months I had lost the eight pounds, but decided to sign on for two more months to help me with maintenance. I was excited to see that they provided lessons about maintaining your weight, as well. This has always been the hardest part for me, and I have appreciated the support I have received during this phase. 

The program really is working for me, and I want to put my health high on my list of priorities. I’ll take it two months at a time to see if I want to continue. After sharing the program with my doctor at my yearly check-up he pointed out that the actual monthly cost wasn’t too unreasonable if it helped me stay healthy. 

If you have any more questions please reach out to me, and I’ll be happy to answer any of your questions. 

Levi

 

Guest Post-Brittany Beahm

Yesterday we were at my parents watching the boys play on the water slide. Levi was sitting in my lap and my mom looked over and said to him, “God sure knew what he was doing when He made you!”

Levi just shy of two responded, “Amen!”

It was the sweetest, most innocent response and definitely took us by surprise!

We love you big Levi! 

Amen is right!

No Use Crying

 

When pouring some milk for my youngest grandson the other day I ended up spilling some of it. 

Immediately the old adage, “No use crying over spilt milk,” came to mind.

According to Undeniably Dairy this adage means, “there’s no point being upset over something that has already happened, and cannot be changed.”  I can’t help but wonder if some farmer long ago had his cow kick over a bucket of milk, and although he felt frustrated, he realized that all the anger in the world would not return the milk to the bucket. 

The lesson, though, might be to be more careful the next time. 

In teaching this adage to our children, the lesson is not to be unconcerned about mistakes or “spilt milk” but rather to move on, not beat ourselves up, but look for a way to maybe do things differently the next time to prevent the mishap. 

Goal Orientation Theory

 

I learned something new today about goal-setting. 

According to Noom (my on- line weight loss program) there is something called “Goal Orientation Theory” that divides goals into two categories. These are based on what motivates different individuals. 

Some people are motivated by “Performance-oriented goals” which revolves around the “demonstrating their competence” to others. 

Others are motivated by “Mastery-oriented goals” where they are focused more on “mastering tasks, self-improvement and developing new skills.”

After learning this it answered so many questions about how I’ve never been motivated by competition or challenges. My motivation comes from with in and my “competition” is more with myself. 

What I already knew to be true is that what works for one person may not necessarily work for another. There really is no one size fits all. That being said, knowing what makes you tick can help you to be able to achieve your goals. 

According to Noom, Goal Orientation Theory “Helps us understand why people are motivated to work toward a goal and can predict someone’s likelihood to achieve and sustain it.”

“To thine own self be true”

William Shakespeare 

Self-Discipline

 

“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Benjamin Franklin

When it comes to self-discipline I think kids have it easy. You  see no one really expects a child to have much self-discipline, so that responsibility falls upon the shoulders of the adults in their lives.

Kids get plenty of sleep because their parents give them a bedtime. 

Kids are continually learning because they are required to attend school. Their reading time may also be monitored through reading logs and homework. 

Kids food choices are controlled by their parents.  Their tv time, screen time, and outdoor activity are monitored by their parents as well. 

In other words, if a child is blessed to have good parents he won’t have to worry too much about whether what he is doing is contributing to a healthy, well-rounded life. 

On the other hand, as an adult, except for your employer, most every thing you do is up to you. No bedtime, chips galore, and Netflix binges, are pretty much your choice.

This is where self-discipline comes into play, and to be quite honest for me it’s really hard to do. Except, I know that if I’m visiting the gym, eating “healthy” snacks and reading on a regular basis my quality of life actually is better. 

However, each of these require something called self-discipline. 

According to The St. Thomas Source in their Virtue of the Week series “Self-discipline means self-control…take(ing) charge of yourself.”

By being in charge, and following through with your commitments and goals you can accomplish the things in your life that you really want to achieve.  Is self-discipline challenging? I’d say that for most people it is, but for those who learn to lasso it the rewards can be great. 

Two Wrongs

I think perhaps “Two wrongs don’t make a right” is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children. 

Sometimes in our anger our first reaction is to lash out. We’ve all been guilty of this. 

Except returning in kind does not really rectify anything. It might make us feel better initially, but we can’t feel proud when we have done a wrong as well. 

Helping children to brainstorm some ideas of better ways to react to a wrong will help them more in the long run. Actually giving them tools and strategies will arm them for the future.

Teaching our children to aspire to live with integrity is a legacy of love we can leave to them.