Yeah, I know it’s the fifth month of the year and it’s a weird time to be talking about New Year’s Resolutions, but let’s analyze this, shall we?
I bet that right before last Thanksgiving you started promising yourself that you were going to start buckling down and working out right after you made it through the holidays. Then, right after Christmas, with the New Year looming upon you, you vowed to finally do it this year and lose all that weight you’ve been meaning to lose. You were going to go the gym, cut back on eating and shed pound after pound. You figured you’d be able to lose 20 pounds a month and by summer time, you’d be in great swimsuit shape. At first, when January got here, you started off great. Gung ho, you made it to the gym and worked out 4 times a week. Even though you weren’t cutting back on eating, you figured your exercising made up for it and, well, heck, you deserved to treat yourself for working out. By mid-February, though, you noticed that the weight wasn’t coming off nearly as quickly as you had envisioned. In fact, it was hardly coming off at all. Frustration started setting in. You started skipping trips to the gym, and went back to all your bad eating habits. By March, the New Year’s Resolution was a distant and faded memory. Now, here we are in May and at the end of this year, you’ll make the same promises to yourself followed by the same New Year’s Resolutions.
Biting off more than you can chew
Where did you go wrong? While it’s good to have goals, you should be realistic with your expectations. I speak from experience. I always thought I could blast through 20 pounds a month if I just tried hard, but that’s not possible. If you were to take a more conservative and realistic approach by going slow and steady, you can expect to lose an average of one pound a week. Wait, wait, wait…I know that doesn’t sound like much, BUT had you done that since the beginning of this year, you’d be down 18 pounds already and seeing significant differences instead of being overwhelmed and frustrated with little to show for it.
Here’s what I suggest: Start over again right now, but with more realistic expectations. Sure, it’s May and not New Year’s but why not now? I started back in August of 2010. Also, don’t tell me you’re too busy because then I’ll tell you to do a little thought experiment. I want you to take 5 minutes (which should be plenty) to think about an extended period of time in your future when you will NOT be busy.
Go ahead, think about it, I’ll wait.
Did you come up with: “when I’m dead?”
My point is that you simply cannot wait until you are “not busy” to start eating better and exercising more. “Not busy” is NEVER going to get here. You just have to incorporate this lifestyle change into your life right now.
Okay, so let’s say you DO start right now and you make small, but consistent changes to your lifestyle. You can expect to lose about a pound a week. Which means that by the end of THIS year, you’ll be down approximately 33 pounds. So, right around Christmas, you’ll look significantly different. On top of that, you can save your New Year’s Resolution for something other than weight loss this time. It can be something like “I’ll run in my first 10k this year,” or “I’ll learn to play guitar this year,” or “I’ll write that screenplay this year.” But it won’t have to be “I’ll try to lose weight” for the umpteenth year in a row.
Getting off track
Also, if you make small changes, it won’t be so difficult to get back on track once you derail yourself from time to time. I’ve been dealing with this lately. As regular readers know, I participated in the Crescent City Classic this year for the first time. It happened the day before Easter. The entire week following Easter, I was off from work. At home, bored, with a ton of Easter candy in the house is not a good combination. I found myself eating a lot more than I should have and eating things I should not be eating. However, despite these setbacks, I did not throw in the towel entirely, I still exercised throughout the week by jogging or cycling. In the past, I would have given up altogether after the first binge. But this time around, I am allowing myself a binge now and then as long as I get back on track. Mentally, I seem much better prepared this time around to resist giving up completely. Also, I am going to use this experience as a lesson for myself. I have a big problem resisting eating while I am bored and I know summer vacation is just around the corner, so what I am going to need to do is get rid of any unhealthy choices in the house and replace them with healthier alternatives. I need to outthink myself and plan ahead better.
Also, because I have been going “slow and steady” for a while and not making huge, drastic changes, it’s much easier for me to get back on track. I know what I need to do, I don’t have to make overwhelming changes to get back to where I need to be.
I know it can be frustrating, I’ve been there so many times before. I think the reason it’s working better for me this time is that I kept it up long enough to where I want to keep it going. I couldn’t get over that initial hump before because I thought it was taking too long. With my realization that it was going to take a while firmly planted in my head, I was able to get through those first several months until I was able to see significant changes. Once I did start seeing changes, I wanted to keep going. I think if people could just get through those first difficult months, they could be more successful. Right after Easter, I went to try on new clothes because my old jeans are much too big for me now and I really have to cinch the belt tightly in order to hold them up. I went to JC Penney’s and tried on some jeans. The old ones I had have 44-inch waists, I managed to fit into jeans with 36-inch waists this time around. Things like that are starting to motivate me more and more to continue with my fitness goals.
Epic Fail
One thing that’s been something of a resounding failure lately, is that in my blog a couple of weeks ago, I wanted readers to post comments afterward telling me about some of the issues they’ve had to deal with in losing weight and getting in shape. For some reason, only one person (Samwise to my Frodo), actually posted something. I don’t know if I got such a lackluster response because people were afraid of posting anything or if no one was really interested. It’s unfortunate because I think that once you’ve stated and set down your issues, you can begin to tackle them. They become concrete things you can deal with rather than a vague set of “OMG! I have all these issues!” I started this blog because I kept posting updates on facebook and people were encouraging me to start a blog. By journaling the issues I have had to deal with in getting in shape, I’ve had a much better awareness of my weaknesses and the pitfalls that are around me. Again, I encourage you to post some of the issues and concerns you have so that we can deal with them. Posts are anonymous unless you leave your name and even I can’t see who has posted on my blog. I won’t judge anyone or any issue you may have, I’ll just try to give some advice from a guy who’s been there.
