http://www.thirdage.com/workshops/health/weight_loss/lesson11.html

Lesson 11: Community Workshops Alumni Activities
We hope you’ll take advantage of the following features, which are just for you and other alums of the Community Workshops:

1. Community Workshops Survey.
We need your help making our online classes even better. Please take five minutes to answer our Community Workshops survey: Let us know what worked, what didn’t work for you, and what classes you’d like to see in the future.

2. Tell friends and family about the class.
Send this special e-rendezvous to friends and family, inviting them to take a ThirdAge class.

3. Volunteer.
As you know, ThirdAge’s online classes are free, thanks to our amazing community members who volunteer their time to help with the class discussions and chats. Please consider becoming a Community Workshops host or tutor!

4. Alumni Conversation Discussion.
Visit and post to the Community Workshops Alumni Discussion. Here, students share class recommendations and simply get to know one another. This is the last lesson from ThirdAge.

Weight Loss the Second Time Around

If you are overweight, then chances are you are no stranger to dieting. Perhaps you’ve never been able to stay on a weight loss plan for more than a few weeks-or even a few days. But maybe you’ve lost a significant amount of weight in the past-even reached your goal-before encountering a setback that caused you to regain some or all of the weight (or even more than you lost). In that case, you may be struggling not only with losing weight but also with your feelings of regret or failure for not keeping the weight off the first time.

You’ll have a better chance of succeeding for good this time if, instead of holding your past setbacks against yourself, you figure out what went wrong last time and make the necessary changes. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win.”
From DietWatch

editor’s note~~It is my second battle after losing weight in the year 2,000, regaining and now in 2,006 faced with doing it all over again. Perhaps you are in the same boat I am in. I would love to blame ignorance for regaining, but if I credited God for my loss, how can I blame ignorance for not holding on to the victory that was given me?

One thing I know for a certainty, is that I can turn to Him for a second chance. I now know much more about maintenance. I have knowledge galore in the diet tip field. What I do have to work with this time, is the positive thinking which is not the same as the over-confidence that I had.

I thought I didn’t have to be just as careful maintaining as I was in dieting. I thought it was an ongoing personal crisis topped with menopause that caused my weight gain–a fluke. I thought that by helping others I was helping myself. I thought that I would not have to weigh in weekly or count calories. And this all led to stinking thinking. I thought I was above a fall. His Word tells us that pride precedes a fall. I had thrust my dependency from God, onto my sheer genius of coming through a year long diet victorious, but now I gave myself the laurels.

This time I have hindsight coupled with great humility. Perhaps it was God’s will to work for good that I stay in this field with a healthier mindset. I will always call upon God, I will always help others in this area, but I now carry with me the thought, “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win.”

I am counting on you to not only have the victory you desire this year, but to keep it for ever more.