Category Archives: Rambling

ABC’s of Selfishness

Posted by ksteede in Rambling

Taking care of yourself requires a certain level of selfishness.  Many of us find this difficult.  Most likely we were raised to be thoughtful, kind, sharing and considerate.  At some point in our adulthood we take these personality traits and put them on steroids.  Next thing you know the needs of everyone and everything around you become more important that your own.

How many times have you skipped lunch at work, came in early or left late.  Made different plans or canceled a personal appointment because you had to finish up that project or cover that shift.

Who eats first at your house?  Kids, partner, dog, cat, hamster then you?  How many nights are you standing in the kitchen alone doing dishes while everyone else in the house has their face buried in some electronic device or video game?

There are times when we give so much of ourselves to everyone around us that we forget to leave some for ourselves.  The problem with being selfish is that some people have a problem with it and some have NO PROBLEM AT ALL!  By being overly unselfish we in return make the ones around us more selfish.

We all know how hard it is to “say no” to tempting foods.  I think it is just as hard to “say no” to the loved ones around us so we have time to take care of ourselves.  So you may be asking yourself…how does an unselfish person become slightly selfish?  Practice using what I like to call the “ABC’s of Selfishness”.

A – Analyze your patterns or routines that are causing you stress and taking up to much time.

B – Break the cycle with a plan to overcome the obstacles that you have identified in the analysis phase.

C – Communicate with the ones around you about the changes you are going to be making and why you need to make them.

I am telling you, this works!  This can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.  Using this process I have been able to find more time to play with my son, execute a regular exercise routine and maintain a high level of productivity at work while using my break time for personal errands or tasks. Amazingly, my slightly elevated level of selfishness appears to have a VERY POSITIVE impact on the ones I love….including myself!

Who’s asking you the questions you’re not asking yourself?

Posted by ksteede in Rambling and tagged with , ,

Some people are either afraid to tell you the things you need to hear because they don’t want to hurt your feelings OR they are not afraid to tell you what you need to hear but they do it in a way that hurts your feelings.  So how can we overcome these types of situations?  By opening the lines of communication, recognizing how we communicate with others and learning how others communicate with us!

I will use myself as an example.  There are times when my husband (god bless him) tries to motivate or support me in my weight loss efforts only I often take it out of context. He will say something like “You shouldn’t be eating that” or he will ask a question like “Your not full?”  and my immediate response is to get all pissed off and storm away.  I do this because I know he’s right.  I do this because the truth hurts.  I do this because at that moment in time I do not recognize that he is trying to communicate with me.  He has seen or heard me time and time again talk about what I need to do or what I should be doing.  Now he goes out on a limb to try to help and in return I end up ripping his head off!

Eventually these people in our lives who are trying to help us, like my husband, will shut down.  They will stop trying.  They will stop asking the questions or making the comments.  Next thing you know…you shut down.  You stop putting it out there.  You stop talking about what you need to do or what you should be doing.  All lines of communication are down and you are struggling in silence.  I am pretty confident that I was at this point and now that I am recognizing it…things are starting to change.

The other night my husband made the following comment to me “You just do not seem that committed”.  Instead of my usual knee jerk reaction I sat and processed his comment for a moment. I really thought about what he was saying to me and you know what, he was right!  I learned a lot from his observation and his honesty.  It helped me to refocus my commitment and I actually found myself being very thankful that he was asking me the questions that I was not asking myself.

Submerged in a pot of boiling water

Posted by ksteede in Rambling

The other day I was told that if you placed a crab directly over heat it would freak out and do whatever it needed to do to try to get away but if you placed a crab in a pot of water it would sit and boil to death.  I thought it was a pretty interesting analogy for many things in life.  As a business…is your industry changing and are you staying ahead of the curve?  As a person, are you gradually packing on the pounds without realizing how bad it’s getting?  As a partner or a lover, is your relationship changing gradually day by day to the point you do not even remember the person you fell in love with?

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our lives that we do not even notice the gradual changes.  Next thing you know we find ourselves submerged in a pot of boiling water headed towards uncertainty.  So I guess I need to ask…are you going to keep sitting in a pot of boiling water or are you going to wake up, feel the heat and do whatever you need to do to make the changes in your life?

Own It

Posted by ksteede in Rambling

It has been 32 months since my Biggest Loser Finale and I will be the first to admit that I am not exactly where I imagined I would be. My fitness level is nowhere near what it was when I left ranch and I have definitely gained weight…a lot of it!  Now I could ramble on about all of the reason “why” I feel the last 32 months have been so “tough” for me but I am going to spare you the excuses and keep it real.  It is my personal belief that in order for someone to learn from their mistakes they have to first admit that they have made one.  So what am I trying to get at here…or better yet…what mistake am I referring to?  It’s what I like to call “Owning it”.  I am not very good at “owning it” meaning, I have a very hard time recognizing and accepting where I am and what I have done.  Prior to the Biggest Loser I would hate looking at pictures of myself.  I would delete them off of someones camera if I didn’t like them or just exclude myself from the photo all together.  It’s almost as if I didn’t actually see myself like that…then it wasn’t really true.  I found the same thing on the other end of the scale.  I lost total of 167 lbs.  I was the smallest I had ever been in my adult life yet…I did not see it.  I did not “own it”.  I kept looking for that extra 20 lbs never celebrating where I was and how far I had come.  I see it time and time again where people give credit to every other person in the world for their personal accomplishments yet they for some unknown reason just cannot own the fact that THEY did the work.  They made it happen.  They made the change.  This ladies and gentleman is something I need to learn to do.  I need to own the good and the bad. I need to accept the fact that when I have gained weight…I did that.  I do not care what the circumstances were surrounding it.  I did it.  I also need to acknowledge that when I lose weight.  I did that too.  I cannot brush it off as a fluke or “water weight”.  If we keep downgrading our accomplishments we will never reach our full potential in life.