“Practicing how to throw. Getting good at throwing. If you get good enough at throwing, the catching takes care of itself.”
― Seth Godin, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work
We often approach dieting as a short journey that we hope will take us to our final destination – the big and greatly anticipated Weight Loss. We think that we can go on a month long juice fast, or a two-week long strict diet, we will loose the excess weight and then it will all be merry.
Like a cheesy romantic comedy ending – they lived happily ever after.
I hate to break it to you, but in life, there is no such thing as “happily ever after”. Falling in love and getting married is just the start of the journey. The problems and arguments start after all the sparkle and shine have faded away. Similarly, loosing the weight is not the end.
We can’t just go back to our old habits of eating bad food and binging on Netflix series and expect that we just get to keep the weight loss.
The grim reality is that as soon as you go back to your bad habits, all the weight will come back quickly and with vengeance.
So what’s the solution you ask?
First and foremost, you will need to make a choice, pick up an identity if you will – do you want to be overweight for good, or do you want to get trim and healthy?
If you decide to pick option 1, then our job here is done. You are free to go about your usual routine and activities. But get this – the weight is never coming off, not permanently at least.
But if you do decide to pick option 2, which by the way I think is the way to go, you will need to make peace with healthy eating and changing your habits for good. Moreover, you will need to fall in love with real food. You will need to fall in love with the process and forget about the end result. Sure it’s good to have a target weight, but obsessing over it and weighing yourself daily are not going to get you there any faster.
I’ve come to realise that the body needs time to release this extra fat that it has been amassing for years. Not only that, but you need time practicing making good choices over and over again. You need time to break those bad habits that have gotten you here, and you need time to develop good ones. This is the only way you will be able to become trim and healthy. And not only on the outside, but on the inside too.
This might sound exaggerated, but the only way to permanently shed those extra pounds is to fundamentally change how you see yourself. You need to start adopting the mindset and behaviours of a fit person, making fitness and healthy choices an integral part of your identity and daily routine.
“Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done.” – Jim Rohn