One of my recent ponderings regarding the whole weight loss issue was about what I consider one of the critical steps in it - the actual point of starting up. Motivation, willpower and commitment are always nice words on the paper (or on the blog page); however, as we probably all know it, there’s a whole world between words and action.
“I’ll eat healthier tomorrow”, “I’ll start my diet tomorrow”, “I’ll go exercising tomorrow”… Replace ‘tomorrow’ by ‘Monday’, ‘next month’, ‘after the holidays’ or whatever else fits the situation, and all of a sudden, does this sound familiar? I am pretty sure that rare are the people who never go through such a phase, even if in their thoughts only, and I don’t only mean regarding weight loss and exercising. I’ve experienced the same attitude, for instance, in a cousin of my boyfriend, who recently stated “Monday, I stop smoking”. My immediate reaction was to ask: why Monday? Why not now? She answered that she was waiting for Monday so that she could go buy nicotine patches to help her; fine and dandy, did I think then, but what if she doesn’t have the time to go buy said patches on Monday? What, then?
‘Tomorrow’ is not a good word when we need to start something as important as becoming healthy again, whether by losing weight or stopping smoking. ‘Tomorrow’ is a backdoor, a safe exit left open for us in case things don’t go as planned, in case we lack time, in case this, in case that. ‘Tomorrow’ is a deceiving word, especially when all these ‘tomorrows’ keep on piling up into weeks, months or even years. ‘Tomorrow’ is even a dangerous notion, when it gives the perfect excuse for a last orgy of food before starting the diet. So why do we put things back to ‘tomorrow’?
I’ve been there, when I was younger, or even when I had managed to lose a few pounds at first. I’ve been through countless week-ends of excess, of stuffing my face with chocolate, cake and various other sweets, thinking “Monday, I’ll start being careful again”. The Mondays all came, I never started being careful again, because I was tired, because work was stressful and I comforted myself with more sweets, because of more irrational reasons… and evidently, I packed the pounds on again. Being careful was an abstract notion, a nice blindfold I had crafted for myself, as a way to indulge in advance all my wrong eating behaviors. Being careful was a promise to myself I was never keeping.
It’s not about being able to start a new eating plan only once we have the right foods at home; it’s about placing oneself in the right mindset to succeed. It is Saturday evening, I’ve just finished this awesome “diet” book telling me everything abut how to lose weight, I feel motivated, yet I know I don’t have enough fruits, appropriate vegetables or any other needed “ingredients” for the eating plan I wish to follow, and the stores are all closed, so I cannot go buy anything before Sunday or even Monday. Is it however a reason to not make a first step, as small as it may be? I can begin exerting portion control, just to make sure I don’t eat two plates of the unhealthy frozen meals I still have in store for the week-end. I can eat half a pizza only instead of a complete one. I can start drinking water only instead of sodas. I can start getting rid of the really useless junk food in my cupboards, the cookies packs, the chocolate leftovers from New Year, or placing them on high enough shelves that only my boyfriend can easily attain - all of this in order to minimize the temptations before starting the exact meal plan.
In the end, it’s all about giving ourselves the keys to stick to it. And one of these keys isn’t ‘tomorrow’: it is ‘now’.
- Kery
