Sometimes in life we need to make repair and replacement stops. Already, at this early point of my journey, I need to make a stop and change vehicles. I anticipate that this change will allow me to both complete the journey and to find joy in the journey.
Previously, I had set a goal to use the TSFL program which includes 5 replacement meals a day and one "Lean and Green" meal. In all, this diet amounts to about 1200 calories/ day. I found that my failures with the program revolved around feeling desperately hungry at the end of the and. This hunger often led to binge eating episodes. Some of these episodes could contain up to 4700 Calories! I do believe in the TSFL program and I feel that it's very helpful to a lot of people, but right now I think it's not the right thing for me to do.
But that doesn't mean I still can't maintain a better diet! Here's the new diet (as in, what my diet consists of, not, "I'm going on a diet") plan: I'm going to eat a healthy number of calories (I'm shooting for around 2200) each day focusing on fresh fruits and vegetable and lean to leaner proteins. I will use My Fitness Pal to help track my calorie intake each day as well as my exercise. This plan may not make me lose as much weight for me in the short run, but in the long run, since it is more maintainable, I see this being a much better vehicle to a longer lasting healthier lifestyle change.
I also see myself enjoying this journey a lot more. Sometimes we forget that part. We forget that there's joy to be had here and now - Today - not just at the end of the road.
Despite my issues in the diet department, my exercise plan is working great! From last Monday through today I've walked/run over 20 miles! I'm in the middle of week 2 of the Couch to 5k training program, and I'm excited about the progress I've made there. Here's a record from my walk from today.
John, you are inspiring to me. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'm glad that you're continuing with your journey. Second, I think it's a wise decision to "change vehicles" sometimes. I've seen that a lot with my own goals that I've set. Sometimes I set goals that I don't realize are a bit unrealistic, and it can be disappointing when I don't reach them, but you just keep learning and adjusting along the way and not giving up.
ReplyDeleteYour post from Monday made me think about long-term and short-term goals. This isn't contradicting what you said, though it might sound like it, but I think sometimes we focus too much on our long-term goals and forget that it's the short-term goals that lead to the long-term goals.
Let me give an example. I have a goal of writing 500 words a day, 6 days a week. So, that translates into 3000 words a week, right? Wrong! When I was thinking of my longer-term goal of 3000 words a week, then whenever I missed a day I was suddenly 500 words behind. I had to make up those 500 words, and as they piled up, all those extra words started to feel overwhelming. I would even carry them over from week to week, getting further and further behind.
Then I decided to just focus on the day to day. I wasn't going to keep track of my writing per week, just my writing each day. If I missed a day, it was no big deal because the next day was a fresh start, another opportunity to do it right, and I didn't have to worry about things piling up.
After a while I had gotten good enough at keeping my commitment to writing that I could start keeping track of weekly goals. Now I still shoot for 500 words a day, but also 4000 a week—in other words, the 500 a day plus an extra thousand words somewhere in the week. What at first seemed like an overwhelming longer-term goal became easier for me to achieve when I focused first on my daily victories and gave myself the opportunity to, as per Ms. Frizzle, "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy" (more or less.) Only after I had developed the ability to keep my short-term commitments could I start working on my ability to keep the longer-term ones.
So that's a fairly long example to go in a comment, but hopefully that helps illustrate the point I was trying to make. As you develop your ability to keep your short-term, daily commitments of healthy living, you'll get to the point where you can keep your long-term commitments of losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. So if you mess up one day, don't sweat it. The next day is a brand new opportunity.