big changes in little pieces.
The October issue of Health had an article title I Ditched Dieting (and Lost Big Time!) which stopped me in my tracks, because the idea of not dieting and losing weight is somehow appealing to me.
Me and every other forty-mumble year old on the planet.
So the gist of the article is that these five women chose one small change to make and ended up losing huge amounts of weight. The idea is that, once you accomplish the first small goal, you see yourself differently, and you are motivated to make the next change. When I read this I remembered when The Heath Brothers admonished us to make small, short-term resolutions for the New Year, rather than the typical sweeping, life-altering resolutions that are so common.
I poo-pooed the Heath Brothers because 1) I have a flair for the dramatic, 2)drinking 8 glasses of water a day = less than dramatic, and 3) I’m short on patience and I wanted to lose 20 pounds by January 7.
I made that resolution January 1, 2010. Guess what my resolutions were on January 1, 2011 and January 1, 2012?
Judge all you want. Hey, Pot, my name is Kettle.
When I read the article in Health, I thought maybe I should have listened to Chip and Dan back in 2010, and maybe I should listen to Health right now. And I did the only thing a reasonable person would do under the circumstances. I googled.
Google, always a reliable way to find yourself completely sidetracked, uncovered Nerd Fitness, a very fun blog, where the article How to not suck at building healthy habits caught my eye. The nerd over there says to start small, build momentum, make it automatic and to remain accountable. He also gives a couple of awesome success stories about people who hammered out their big goals one small goal at a time. This “one small change at a time” thing seems to have worked for quite a few folks.
So I thought it might work for me, too. After considering what I should do I realized that I am in one of those life transitions, having just sent my youngest to Kindergarten. This little turn of events leaves my days free to write and eat.
Really, what could go wrong with that?
So for my “little change” I am going to have a giant salad for lunch each day. There are some rules for my salad: it must contain protein, it must have a vinegar based dressing as opposed to a creamy dressing, it must be composed of a variety of leafy greens, and it must be sprinkled with crumbled bacon. Did I mention that it has to be giant? I plan to stuff myself with leaves so I’m less tempted to eat the cupcakes on my kitchen counter. And also bacon.
The cupcakes will be my next small change. Or maybe the one after that.
I like this idea so much, that I’m working on goals in other areas of my life besides health/weight loss. Writing, home organization, etc.
How about you? What single small change are you going to make?
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[...] plan is to ease into it, which is counter to my personality but something I’m working on, by getting up 30 minutes earlier for a week at a time until I [...]