During my TOPS-now POSITION, I have made several bad moves that have caused me to stray away from my KOPS status six times. I am still in an ATTACK mode, though, to get back there for the seventh time. I have often referred to these bad moves as a blunder, failure, glitch, lapse, miscue, misstep, flaw…well, you get the idea.…
The game of chess has many terms that describe various moves of the game. Soon, I will be using the names of actual pieces used on the board. However, there are still a few more terms for me to refract on. I believe this next term will motivate your spirit. In terms of chess, EXCHANGE refers to trading pieces of…
I finally started losing again. However, I am stuck on a hamster wheel, losing and gaining the same five pounds month to month. Some call it a plateau, others may refer to this as hitting my set point. I do not like either label. But sometimes, it feels like something is preventing me from moving forward. A BLOCKADE in chess…
I have previously refracted on my first time I went to a TOPS chapter meeting: the fear of the unknown, being extremely uncomfortable and being weighed by someone I had just met. My thoughts were racing on what world I had just stepped into. Twenty-plus years ago, an in-person meeting was the only option. Given where my head was during…
DEVELOPMENT is the method of moving chess pieces from their starting spots to a POSITION to gain an ADVANTAGE. Players do this in an attempt to control the center of the board. As I refract on the first eight installments of Making the Right Moves with TOPS, I realize my journey to a healthy lifestyle has always been in DEVELOPMENT.…
As much as I want to focus on just one thing at a time, it never seems to happen that way. In the blink of an eye, many things are happening all at once. Sometimes I do not even notice what type of COMBINATION is occurring. In chess, a tactical approach of forced moves to exploit a player’s POSITION in…
Whether it’s the right place at the wrong time, the wrong place at the right time, the right place at the right time, or the wrong place at the wrong time, being in the right POSITION can have an impact on reaching a goal. In chess, POSITION refers to the locations of every piece and how they are moved to…