It’s true. I
am big boned.
I was also
fat.
In the past
two years, though, I have lost a bunch of weight by changing the way I eat.
This is the
time where you should congratulate me for my hard work …
Oh, geez.
Stop. Now I’m blushing.
Okay, in all
seriousness, I have been thinking about why I have been able to sustain a
two-year journey toward a longer life. I had tried to do this many times
before, but never with much success.
So why now?
All over the
world, people are unable to break bad habits. The eat poorly. Smoke. Watch Housewives
of Orange County.
I think I’ve
stumbled onto the secret to breaking those habits …
All of us
tend to make promises that are extremely hard to keep. For years, I promised
myself that I would lose weight. And I promised myself I would lose a ton
of weight. I also promised I would stop smoking every single cigarette I ever
wanted to smoke between now and eternity.
It always
started well and ended poorly. I would break the promise I made to myself over
and over again and feel like I let myself and my family down.
Then I would
eat a hot fudge sundae and smoke a ciggy to make myself feel
better.
The feeling
of letting myself down begat more negative results. I was putting a negative vibration
in the cosmos, which then bounced back to me in a way that was amplified.
I used to
lose 5 pounds and gain back 7. I would break a one-pack-a-day habit and then
replace it a few weeks or months later with a pack-and-a-half-a-day habit.
So why the
new (and smaller) me?
Here is what
I changed (at least so far).
First, I do
what Kathy Kolbe taught me years ago. I COMMIT … to very little.
I have
decided that the only way to change a bad habit is to be present in the thought
about that commitment for one day only.
Today I diet.
Tomorrow?
If I choose
to diet, I will; if I don't, then I won’t.
This seems a
lot less overwhelming to me. And if tomorrow I choose not to diet, I won’t
freak out that this is my choice for me, for one day.
I can always choose to diet the next day, if I choose.
Small
victories lead to big accomplishments. Small losses are seldom the “ball
game”. I am two-sizes smaller today than
I was in October of 2011. (So I guess in my case, a small victory led to a big
accomplishment in the form of a smaller man.)
I am not
going to guarantee that I stay that way forever. The only thing I can promise
is that I CHOOSE to be that way TODAY.
Your
homework: Try giving yourself a break. When you want to change something,
try promising yourself one thing and one thing only. Say, “I will change
that something today but guarantee nothing tomorrow.” You may choose, guilt
free, to continue on your course or to change your daily commitment to
something else. You might find that the day-to-day accomplishments really
become the habit that replaces those things in your life that you would like to
forget.
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