SpiritDragon

I totally get that. I find with Canadian winters lasting as long as they do that I can only count on about four months of the year that being outside is truly enjoyable. It often works out to more depending on how the year plays out, but still as a general rule I know myself well enough to know that when it's cold and miserable and icy I prefer to stay indoors. Perhaps you'll want to leave lunch time walks and bike rides for days when the weather is nice as an auxiliary activity while the primary focus is on five to six short 15 minute workouts in you man cave. Joint pain can be a tricky thing, because it often goes away with a little more activity, but it can also signal worse things to come. Do your knees have pain in the front, side or rear when descending stairs? Do they crack and pop? Feel tight? Does the pain stop immediately or continue a while after the stairs have been completed? Often times joint pains are also due to muscle imbalances and my corrective exercise nature is wanting to look at that for you. Unfortunately, I can't do a thorough assessment without meeting in person. Perhaps the following will be of some assistance: https://www.diyjointpainrelief.com/knee-joint-pain-relief.html I have found Gary Crowley to be useful for teaching some good release techniques that you can do yourself. Sadly, I see the site has a lot more advertisements than it used to. How does a 15 minute circuit 3x/week with 5 minutes of stairs 3x/week sound to start? Back off the stairs and replace them with simply marching in place if your knee pain is getting worse and not better. In time your knees will be ready for stairs. For your circuit try the following: 1 minute intervals of doing as many repetitions as you can Body weight squats Push-ups Jumping jacks Full body extensions (low impact vertical jump, don't actually jump but move like you would fairly explosively) Active recovery walking in place/fidgety standing and hydration Repeat 3 times Sounds great! I may need to do something similar myself. My wife has had juice around to try to encourage our oldest to have a strong signal for potty training - I really like juice, but would usually have water because I wouldn't have the juice around. Forgive me - this is about you and not me - I think you're on the right track. How do you feel about this plan? It's good to know that about yourself. I maintain that you are the true expert on you, I've learned a thing or two about how the human body works and how people respond to different things, but when it comes to you, you will always know better than I do.

Those all sound like great ideas. You'll have to keep us all in the loop with the yoga and volleyball. As for yoga there are plenty of videos out there, I took the libertay of grabbing two at random from youtube to share in the event they are helpful to you. In keeping with the fact that you have already expressed that incremental changes are likely better for you I like the idea of of keeping nutrition as simple as the vague idea of more veggies and less sugar while you are adding exercise into your routine. A good rule of thumb I learned from Precision Nutrition is to ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely you are to succeed at implementing a new behaviour. If the answer is less than nine, then the behaviour needs to be simplified. Once you make changes so small that it is hard not to succeed you start to build momentum by having small successes instead of the set backs from multiple failures. Even if the success is small it is still success. So this is to say that if your primary objective for now is to go curling and volleyball, daily Yoga, and eating veggies are all secondary then you get success points for the primary change of taking on curling and bonus points for any of the other stuff, but no guilt over not making it all happen now. I have a sister-in-law who has used the spoon analogy to try and explain her life with an autoimmune condition, so I'm familiar with the idea of fewer spoon days. I hope your healthcare team can make a big difference for you. Sounds great. It's only for three days to get a sense of your eating habits. Remember not to change how you eat for the purpose of journaling, you'll only short change yourself of uncovering what modifications are needed most.

Those sound like great tips. If they work for you - Awesome! Sounds wise. If you were to pick one thing to improve this week what would it be? When starting out a new habit like consistent exercise one of the biggest obstacles is setting aside the time. Sometimes it helps to do something as basic as simply walking, or even thinking about walking for 5 minutes on the days you set out to go. Once the time is set aside then making more detailed plans to get more results comes in handy. I'm wondering if this might be a fit for you since you wish to avoid high impact activities. Dr. Joel Fuhrman has had lots of success with a variety of conditions including depression and psoriasis using his nutrient dense approach to eating. https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/health-concerns/10/psoriasis https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/health-concerns/23/depression You might find that it's worth a try to see if you don't have to be dealing with a life sentence. He has plenty of great books to choose from which cover his basic eating plan, although he does tailor it a little to various issues like diabetes and heart disease in his books specifically for those conditions. His website also has a membership option where you can consult with him and get support. Just something you might find worth looking into. No pressure. Aside from nutritional support that may be a game changer for you - it was for my wife who had terrible eczema, similar to psoriasis with how bad it was all over her face and arms, now people have forgotten she ever had it - what types of exercise do you enjoy? If you follow the directions for keeping a food journal that I have given to others, specifically @unixknight and @anatess2 that will be a great place to start. Then we can look at what changes should give the biggest return on investment.

I thought I'd input some basic resources that might be useful as starting points. Exercise: Since I can trust that everyone here has some form of internet access, fitnessblender.com has a variety of free workout videos with a range of equipment options designed for the home exerciser. If you don't want to put much thought into it and just follow along then fitness blender delivers a reasonable workout to fill the bill. I could nit pick about form and such, but overall they put out sound routines and it's free aside from the cost of internet access. Also a great resource for understanding a little more about the importance of strength training for weight loss - It's a little lengthy, I have a copy converted to mp3 that I can listen to while doing dishes and such. Realize that when he says dieting doesn't work, he is only partially correct. Diets that you go on and come back off don't work. Changing your eating patterns for good is a must for long-term weight management success. Nutrition https://www.precisionnutrition.com/fix-a-broken-diet This is a great article on some basic strategies to fix some big culprits. Sure there can be fine tuning like nutrient timing and so on, but really it is far more important to just nail down the basics. No fancy shakes, or pills needed, just quality food and decent quantities. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nutritionfacts.dailydozen&hl=en_CA This can also be very useful for setting a goal to get in some really nutrient dense foods. This particular Dr.(behind this app) is a strong proponent of plant-based eating, but even alongside flesh these foods will be helpful for health and weight loss. Anyone on the fence about going plant based can find watching Dr. Gregers nutritionfacts.org videos or listening to his podcasts extremely enlightening. I do believe that this is most in line with the word of wisdom (let's skip the debate on that in here) and what the preponderance of evidence suggests to be the most healthy way to eat, but just like the best exercise plan is the one you'll stick to I also firmly believe that you need to find an eating system that you're good with. If plant based doesn't do it for you, find something that does. The fact of the matter is that any diet seems to create improvements over ad libitum eating of standard western food in the 21st century. if you prefer to go keto, paleo, vegan, nutritarian, lowfat, I don't really care as long as it is an improvement over what you're currently doing. You may miss out on the health benefits of eating a whole food plant based diet, but you can still improve your health a great deal with these other options compared to the see food diet.

Excellent. Have you been fairly active in the last few months? If not I'd suggest starting with something as simple as walking interspersed with some calisthenics to start with. Is the weather nice where you are? This would be similar to what boxers might call roadwork. Simply walk or jog for a couple of minutes and then drop and do as many push-ups as you can, then get back up and carry on walking/jogging... stop at the end of the next block and shadow box for 30 seconds (or if that's not your thing do some burpees, squats, mountain climbers etc.) This is also convenient indoors and you don't need any fancy equipment, just march in place or jog in place and stop every so often to do some calisthenics. If you have some good stairs in your house or in the neighbourhood (hopefully safe and not just the 'hood) then you can alternate days of roadwork with days of stair climbs. It's not a bad idea at all to start stair climbing with just walking. It is surprising how much you can feel it the next day or three after walking stairs for ten to fifteen minutes straight. As you get in better condition you can start running up the stairs every third or forth ascent. If you've already been quite active you could start right in with some metabolic resistance circuits or HIIT. I'd rather you err on the side of starting too slow though because it's easy to get injured overdoing things at first. I worked with a physiotherapist once who maintained that February is the busiest month for rehab because of all the injured New Year's resolution fitness kicks ending in overuse injury. Cool. I'll look forward to getting your report when you're ready. That's good news. You're already winning that battle - you might want to get rid of the tempting 20 oz bottle though. A rule of thumb that holds true is that if something is in the house it is going to be eaten, especially those things we are trying not to eat/drink. Similar to the office candy jar study I linked for @NeuroTypical if you have to leave your house to get a sanck or treat it's less likely to happen then if it only requires opening the cupboard.

I would like to write a book someday. Perhaps that also plays into my desire to improve my mastery of the english language. I might indeed try to give you some strict guidelines at some point if you think it will help. My personal experience with clients over the last ten years has lead me to believe otherwise though. Most people (and you could very well be an exception) buy in a whole lot better when they play a role in designing their own routine. This is especially true when it comes to eating. People tend to be a lot more willing to try different exercise programs, but as soon as they are told what to eat (and perhaps more importantly what not to eat) they get defensive and rebellious even if only at a subconscious level and it doesn't work out. So while it may require more effort on your part to get started if you don't mind I'd like you to start by trying to find yourself in this article and using it as a rough framework to build your own menu from. https://www.precisionnutrition.com/fix-a-broken-diet You might find using https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate useful as well for looking at what foods would fall into what categories. For instance, meats and legumes are going to be considered proteins (although practically all whole food has protein, these are particularly rich sources), nuts and seeds are going to be healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables are going to be fruits and vegetables. Dairy as a food group is over-rated.

I just wanted to touch on this part as well. I think it really helps to have a compelling answer to this question. Not just, I want to be healthy, or to look hot, but something like I want to still be around to play with my grandkids and be able to run and have fun, I want to be at my daughter's/Grandson's (insert important person) wedding and not have to be chair bound etc. sometimes it helps to look at the default future of where you will end up if you stay on your current trajectory. Are you most likely headed to a stroke that if it isn't fatal will change your life forever and make you a burden to your family? Is your heart going to start failing and make you a shut-in. Are you going to be a grumpy person who family only visits out of a sense of responsibility but not because they want to see you? It can help to look at your parents and grandparents for what your family traditions bring. It can also help to visit a long term care facility or old folks home to see what living with your default future is really like. Make it as vivid and real as possible so you have a clear picture of what you don't want. Then find someone who has aged gracefully and is inspiring, get a clear picture of what you do want. The more vivid the better. The more powerful it will be to help you turn down that extra helping of tuna on rice and go that extra five minutes in your workout. I would suggest doing a screening questionnaire such as this one http://uwfitness.uwaterloo.ca/PDF/par-q.pdf to get a sense for where you're at. If you answer yes to any of the questions be sure to see your health care provider for guidance on contraindications to exercise. However, if you have a doctor that says not to exercise, I would urge you to get a second opinion. There is almost always some form of exercise that is safe and it is one of the best things you can do to improve your situation. If you can detail amounts eaten and time of day and place eaten for three days that will be extremely useful. For instance: Monday January X Breakfast 7:30 am 2 medium red delicious apples diced into cubes over 1 1/2 cup oatmeal with 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tbsp honey and 1/4 cup raisins with a small handful of slivered almonds (probably 1/4 cup) eaten at the dining room table while reading the paper Snack 10 am driving past XYZ fast food joint I needed to stop for a pastry because I was ravenous and I love them. I ate in traffic and it wasn't satisfying Lunch 12:40 pm Chicken and lettuce wrap - chicken portion about the size of a deck of cards cut into strips on a whole grain wrap with 3 leafs of romaine lettuce and a smattering of diced onions and peppers. Ate at my desk while working on other projects.. Oops I also downed a bag of peanut M&Ms because ti was there and I wasn't focusing on eating... You get the idea. Different strokes for different folks. Some people enter into a state of flow while exercising, some while watching a movie and some while working with wood and so on. Exercise does release feel-good chemicals (endorphins) but a euphoric state or runner's high is far more elusive than it's been made out to be. you are most likely to enter a state of flow, where you're so engaged that you loose all track of time and simply enjoy the moment, when you're doing something that you find fascinating. If running doesn't do it for you that's more than okay and you're far from alone. This sounds like an excellent place to start (after medical screening because of your weak heart). Are you currently going? Is there anything preventing you from going if you're not? Get consistent first and then when a successful pattern is established we can look into the minutiae of fine-tuning things. You have lots going on here. Is your mental health in a good place now? Is home life more conducive to balanced eating than visiting the Philippines? Make sure to be treating all of you and not just parts of you. Get the help and support you need for your mind and heart in addition to make changes to lifestyle behaviours. Often times mental health can be helped with a combination of prayer, meditation, nutrition (extra b vitamins, essential fatty acids, magnesium) and sometime require counseling and/or medication or a combination of all of this. Just like an diet exercise program is best ultimately judged by results is a plan for mental health judged by results. If you've tried prayer and meditation, but it didn't cut it for you, look into other options. Just keep in mind that fixing your body can help fix your mind, but also fixing your mind can help fix your body.

@anatess2 this is really sweet of you. I have to say that my primary consideration in language right now is improving english. I'm starting with increasing vocabulary and then I'd like to take some courses to improve grammar. The fact of the matter is that I'm not actually too keen on learning Bisaya at this time. That may change at some point and if so I hope I can come to you at that time, but for the time being let me save you the time giving me lessons that I'm not ready for. Thanks so much though. I really appreciate your desire to give back. The best gift you can give back for the help offered in the weight loss thread is to stay accountable and get your health back this year. Happy New Year!

I'd love to keep going with help for everyone, please be patient with me. My three-year-old has finished her lunch and needs daddy to play DinoTrux. I hope you can understand putting my own daughter before virtual strangers, especially on a Holiday. I can get back at it when she's napping later this afternoon.

I'll aim to stay more in the suggest and less in the critique zone. I recently heard a quote that I really liked, I'm paraphrasing, but it basically talked about the importance of being great in practice, not just belief, great in results and not just practice. I really like this because it speaks to a true principle. So many people I know come to me saying they are doing all the right things but nothing is working. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you run marathons or do short intense HIIT workouts, if you hit the weight room or the Yoga studio, eat paleo, vegan or just follow national guidelines and use moderation as long as you are getting the results you're after. If not then you need to ask the hard questions and make some changes. This takes me to Og Mandino's scroll #1 from the Greatest Salesmen in the World, "Today I begin a new life. Today I shed my old skin, which hath, too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity." If you haven't ever exposed yourself to Og Mandino's scrolls I believe you're missing out, but I digress. You nailed it here. Routine is critical. We tend to follow specific patterns in our daily activities and when we disrupt the flow of those activities we miss out on other things as well. Consider your night time routine - you possibly brush your teeth and slip into pajamas and then say your prayers and so on. Now consider you skip a step, does the following step still also get done? Often times it won't. BJ Fogg of tinyhabits.com calls this the power of the after. If we string desired changes into sequence following activities we do anyway we are much more likely to achieve consistency. Your morning fall out of bed push-ups is a perfect example. It sounds like the evidence is in favour of what you're doing getting you results. The trick is the disruptions to what you are doing. I believe it was in the book Change Anything by Vital Smarts (highly recommended reading) that I learned about the idea of identifying critical behaviours and crucial moments. Essentially, you want to evaluate what activities are creating success for you, or would be if you were doing them, and then identify the crucial moments that determine whether you do them or not. This allows you to make strategies to deal with distractions. This portion starts off with a perfect example of a crucial moment. The office goody share. What strategies might help you to resist the treats available at the office. Only you can answer what will work for you, but some possibilities might include making sure to have your own lunch packed to help resist temptation or finding a strong enough reason to avoid indulging that you can tell yourself in a meaningful catch phrase quickly. You might even share this study https://www.nature.com/articles/0803217 from 2006 with key policy and decision makers and see if you can't get a designated place for goodies to go which is out of sight and not too close to the main work stations so that those who would like to indulge can seek it out, but those who only indulge because they see it won't do so very much any more. It's amazing the difference proximity and visibility make on food choices. Changing the environment really helps when you have the power to do so. Again, your results speak for themselves, so nothing I have to say one way or the other really matters over that. My key tip remains to look for ways to stay consistent and isolate and neutralize things that derail you. Beans do rock! They are not only super great at filling you up with fibre and resistant starch, but they actually exert a second meal hunger suppression effect, meaning that even after leaving your stomach beans are still exerting a satiating effect which helps you eat less at the next meal by helping regulate blood sugar control better - cool stuff. They also happen to be associated with the longest lived peoples and protect against heart disease, cancer and diabetes among other things... I'll stop now. Beans Rock! You betcha. Your pre-made meals are a great idea to simplify life once the week is underway and life gets hectic. This is a great strategy for overcoming the, "I'm just too busy to eat well" objection. I think you would do really well to learn more about the six sources of influence in Change Anything and how you can modify them to work in your favour instead of against you. Otherwise, keep doing what you're doing that's working and try to limit events that have you fall off the wagon.

That's understandable. I don't think too many people like to feel achy and sweaty. Do you find this happens with all kinds of physical activity or just certain kinds? @Grunt does make a good point talking about interval training. It's not for everyone, but when the work intervals are done with high intensity the fitness gains and body composition changes are impressive compared to steady state aerobics or long slow endurance activities. Most studies I've seen show that high intensity intervals lead to similar improvements in cardiovascular fitness in addition to increased anaerobic power (think in terms of how much work you can do in less than two minutes), the biggest excitement is that it can be done in a fraction of the time. Unfortunately, the time commitment is often exaggeratedly small to make high intensity interval training sound even more effective. What they'll do is have a group of exercisers work hard (as an example) for 30 seconds at 90% effort followed by one minute of active recovery (basically resting, but still moving) and repeat this 8 times. Eight 30 second intervals makes only four minutes of exercise, but the rest between is also necessary so the real time commitment still would have been 12 minutes in addition to warm up and cool down. So realistically this workout that might be touted as four minutes of exercise is still going to be a 20 minute time commitment. Still a lot less than an hour jogging for sure and almost surely with comparable results, often skewing in favour of the shorter intense workouts. It makes sense because the main goal of exercise (from a training effect perspective) is to elicit a training response or to make your body do something it is not accustomed to and stimulate adaptation. Another thing to consider is that fat loss is more desirable than across the board weight loss. This means you want to preserve muscle mass which can be done with resistance training. resistance training circuits can get a best of both worlds training effect where you can also stimulate energy system adaptation (aerobic and anearobic power and endurance) while ensuring that muscles are being called on to adapt as well so that you maintain and even gain muscle if needed. It is important to realize that over 90% of metabolic slowing with age has to do with muscle loss over the years. When the muscle is preserved, so is the metabolism. What's more, if you really hate exercise you can still get into a healthier body with dietary modifications alone. In fact, what you eat (and how much of it) is going to determine your weight far more than exercise can. Exercise helps to be sure, but eating patterns trump exercise unequivocally. That's getting a touch long, I hope I'm not oversharing - I don't want to get too technical, but at the same time I like to understand things so I tend to explain things for others to give them some of the understanding that I would want to know to make a similar decision. Might I suggest that you look into activities you enjoy to start with. the best exercise program at the end of the day is the one you will consistently do. I'll respond to more later, but for now I have some pulchritudinous little girls that need to go sledding with daddy on New Year's Day😃

I may need to look into the context better at some point in case there is more to it that I'm not addressing. However, my cursory analysis would be to state that Christ has overcome sin and death. In doing so He has bridged the gulf between us caused by our carnal nature. As the second article of faith states we are not guilty because of our first parents mistakes, and as such children are innocent, but we all severally and invariably transgress the laws once we reach the age of accountability. Sin separates us from God and disqualifies us from entrance into His kingdom. Only as we are are cleansed through the atoning blood of Christ can we gain entrance into everlasting life. I realize you have a different take on the degrees of glory than I do, so will likely disagree with what this all means in the eternities. From my perspective living in the lesser kindgoms still represents a form of separation from God and therefore still represents a death of sorts or certainly a damnation meaning a stopping of progression. Only those in the Celestial kingdom will have true eternal life in the sense of not being separated from god in the least degree.

Yes and no. Being born again is not a second birth in the physical sense as Jesus explained to Nicodemus it refers to a change of heart leading to repentance and baptism. Repentance is said to refer to literally turning our hearts to God. Through the process of repentance we put off the natural man and are born of God. King Benjamin does a fine job of teaching this: He later asked his people to find out how his teachings were received and learned that they were indeed reborn as followers of Christ: The first birth is our birth into mortality in a fallen state as the natural man, even though children are innocent until the age of accountability. Being born again is symbolic of conversion. Conversion is progressive, but also has a tipping point that leads to the waters of baptism and a life of faith or at least acts of faith. Baptism is symbolic of being born again. A symbolic commitment and covenant of rebirth is made at baptism and renewed weekly partaking of the Sacrament. Conversion happens much like Alma's analogy to testing faith like a seed. It grows as it's nourished. It could be said that the baptism is THE rebirth event and everything after is akin to a child growing in understanding. But the analogy could also be used to describe starting fresh every day doing your best to be Christ-like and honouring covenants with a true hope that Christ has paid the price of sin and death. It means to be converted. If ye are not born again, ye cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, Alma 7:14. Ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, Moses 6:59. The kingdom of heaven! As noted above, not being born again precludes inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. We need to be converted, hence the new curriculum is strictly pointing out that conversion is the goal and not simply obedience to daily scripture study. Studying is a means to an end. The end is for the spirit to work in us and bring about conversion.

Which would you find more likely that you could be consistent with - 15-30 minutes 5-6x per week or 45-60 minutes around 3x/week? Tracking everything you eat for at least 3 days is really helpful to get a picture of what changes can make the biggest difference in the least amount of change. Once you have completed your first week Pepsi free seems like a great time to start a food log. For best results, eat like you would anyway, don't try to do better for the sake of the log. That way it will show what's really going on, holding back only cheats you out of a useful tool for detecting key area of improvement. Would that work for you? That would have us ready to hear your report Saturday or Sunday. Stopping Pepsi is a perfect example of already knowing what to do and making an incremental change. Do you drink other soft drinks besides Pepsi? For best results it really helps to eliminate caloric beverages 90+% of the time. I don't like to tell people to eliminate foods/treats altogether, but some things really do need to be greatly limited. Somehow the idea of never being able to have a Pepsi again would likely be stressful to you, but knowing that you can have one, but are saving it for your birthday is often less stressful and helps avoid the forbidden fruit appeal increasing the power the particular culprit comestible has over you. The caveat here is that if you do have one and it leads to binging or withdrawals, then you really may need to stay away entirely and find some form of substitute for when you would have infrequently indulged.

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Some basic tips to start with: Focus on behaviours and outcomes will follow. Evaluate yourself. You know yourself better than almost anyone. You likely know the answers to what you need to do to solve your own challenges. You will likely be more responsive to answers you come to on your own than something you are told to do, especially if you don't like the response you are given. Consider whether or not you have had more success in the past making small incremental changes or doing a massive overhaul. As an example, would you be better at weening yourself off chocolate slowly or quitting cold turkey? I'm not saying you must give up chocolate but answering this question may help you determine how better to approach your goals this year. Do you make a small change every couple weeks, or do you plan out a program and go all in. Some people find the all in approach is great, while others will quit soon because they slip up. It helps to know what type you are. How many vegetable dishes to you know how to make? How many do you like? Try to learn at least 3 good vegetable-based dishes that you enjoy. In fact, learning new recipes is a great way to improve eating in general. Labour saving devices such as a high-power blender/food processor, microwave, instant pot/pressure cooker are all useful for the time-crunched (average) person if you have space and funding available for such. These are not required, just helpful. Consider what types of physical activity you enjoy. Do you like socializing with exercise? Perhaps you would do best with a running or walking group or group exercise classes at your local health club. Do you have gym membership? Home-based exercises can be very effective as well with minimal equipment, especially for general health and fat loss. If you do have a gym membership and love to do weight training - great. That's helpful too. I'll be happy to get more specific with individual situations.

We are up and running. Ask away and I'll do my best to help. Happy New Year!

Some things that would be helpful for me to know to possibly help those of you that would like some help: How much time are you willing and able to commit to exercise on a weekly basis? Do you have any medical exercise restrictions? Are you willing to keep and share a food log? * disclaimer * All help given here is given with the understanding that we don't actually know each other and I am giving freely of the knowledge and experience I have gained. You are responsible to seek out any medical clearance before embarking on this or any other exercise and nutrition program. Although I do have a good idea what I'm talking about, please realize you are agreeing to take advice from an anonymous internet personality who cannot prove credentials without losing anonymity, you do so at your own risk.

Hey everyone, this thread will be dedicated to support and accountability in weight loss in 2019 and possibly beyond. I'm not around the most frequently and can't make an individual program for everyone here, but I can use my experience as a fitness professional to offer some insights and help where I can. Everyone is welcome. I do request that all comments be kept to supporting others, reporting on successes and failures, asking for help and so on - I guess I'm trying to say let's keep it a safe place where people aren't judged should they succumb to that double chocolate cake.

It's a new Year's miracle. The ban hammer is no longer keeping me in banishment.

I'll get right on it. See you in Health and Fitness discussions

That's awesome. In my experience, people do better setting goals that they have direct control over as opposed to goals which are dependent on factors outside of direct control. This often means setting behaviour goals instead of outcome goals in regard to weight-loss. One of my favourite agreements to make with new weight loss clients is as follows, "I am going to put together a program that should help you reach your desired outcome. I need you to commit to follow the program at least 90% of the time. You are responsible to the daily behaviours, and I am responsible to make sure the program works to get you to your outcome. This is a team effort. Every two weeks we can check in to track progress and discuss strategies. If you are following the program but the outcome is not working out, then it informs us that although the plan is generally sound it isn't working for you and I will adapt it for you and we'll find what works for you. If, however, the reason your not progressing is because you aren't following the plan, then you need to do your part. Does that sound fair?" This way my client can focus on doing the things that need to be done to get the desired result and leave the burden of what the weight is doing up to me.

I appreciate you looking out for me. It's a good reminder to use each scripture study session as an opportunity to seek the Lord and feel the spirit, not just an opportunity to increase knowledge.

@unixknight, @NeuroTypical, @Midwest LDS and anyone else interested I would be happy to help out with weight loss strategies. I've been a personal trainer for over a decade and have some experience in weight loss, but in all honesty my focus has been corrective exercise and performance. Still I'd be happy to offer tips and try to facilitate a sense of accountability the best this format allows. Would it be thread jack to do so here? I can start a new thread in health and fitness if we prefer.

I don't have a New Year's resolution per se, but I have the ever so vague notion of improving my vocabulary this year. I have been playing a game at vocabulary.com to expand my lexicon and it has been fun. I've enjoyed telling my wife and daughters how pulchritudinous they are and look forward to greater mastery of words. I've been somewhat inspired by @Vort's impressive use of words that I have to look up such as the first time I saw him use ersatz. I'm not ashamed to admit I hadn't encountered that word before.