{"id":23,"date":"2006-11-03T09:43:14","date_gmt":"2006-11-03T14:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/2006\/11\/03\/chug\/"},"modified":"2011-11-02T17:45:05","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T22:45:05","slug":"chug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/?p=23","title":{"rendered":"Chug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>November 3, 2006<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Friday<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Victoria Chang\u00c2\u00a0was 34 when\u00c2\u00a0she won a competition sponsored by Southern Illinois University Press that led to the publication of her first book of poems, <em>Circle<\/em>. She told <em>Poets &amp; Writers <\/em>that she spent ten years writing the book and entered more than 30 contests before finding success. She recalled that an editor at a writers&#8217; conference said that &#8220;talent, luck, and chug (persistence) are the three traits that can lead to success in publishing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Those are three traits that can lead to success in anything, I think. When it comes to weight loss, I know I have the talent. That is, I know a lot about nutrition and meal planning. I know the importance of exercise and the need for balance in these endeavors. I also have a great deal of luck. I can afford high quality foods, I have no allergies or other medical problems that can complicate meal preparation, and I don&#8217;t have to cook for a family nor look after others&#8217; dietary needs. I have time and opportunity to exercise.<\/p>\n<p>What I lack is the Chug.<\/p>\n<p>Today I&#8217;m trying something new. I used to look at the total number of pounds I wanted to lose (more than 50), and I kept setting dates by which I wanted to lose them \u00e2\u20ac\u201d my birthday, the beginning of summer, the beginning of a new calendar year. And I kept moving toward those dates with little progress, so that it became impossible to get even close.<\/p>\n<p>The other day I mentioned the wedding I am going to on December 30. I&#8217;ve decided to keep that date as a goal, and to plan to be under 200 pounds on that day. That means I have to lose 2.3 pounds a week. That&#8217;s doable. (The fact that I have never done that for more than two weeks in a row is beside the point.)<\/p>\n<p>I like the little turtle crawling along the bar. I have some history with the image of a turtle crossing a road \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I once made a companion get out of the car and help a turtle that had started into our path. I can still see its legs continuing to move, move, move, as my friend carried it to the other side.<\/p>\n<p>Move.<\/p>\n<p>Chug.<\/p>\n<p>Get there.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img title=\"Weight Loss\" src=\"http:\/\/tickers.TickerFactory.com\/ezt\/d\/3;37;80;0;0\/c\/0\/t\/-18.4\/k\/e99b\/weight.png\" alt=\"Weight Loss\" \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 3, 2006 Friday Victoria Chang\u00c2\u00a0was 34 when\u00c2\u00a0she won a competition sponsored by Southern Illinois University Press that led to the publication of her first book of poems, Circle. She told Poets &amp; Writers that she spent ten years writing the book and entered more than 30 contests before finding success. She recalled that an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Refig\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}