Through the Glass Darkly, or Monkeys In a Cage

I started to focus on personal fitness at the first part of this year. Weight loss is mostly motivational. Its about finding the right mindset. I coach people to find motivation in selling and managing all the time. I just needed to coach myself.  I suppose most life style changes come about as a result of some event or revelation.  This “whack on the side of the head” can either be a positive event or a negative one.  How we react to it can either be positive or negative as well.

They say a heart attack is supposed to be a wake up call. I must have hit the snooze button after my minor infarction in 2001.  A cardiac rehab period with a fitness coach, and a session with a dietitian started well enough, but my fixed mindset took over. “I know how to do this, I just need to find a plan that doesn’t change my life too much.”  I made several attempts at the Atkins, or the bacon diet as my wife calls it. Each attempt was temporarily successful, each designed to jump start my weight loss and fitness program. Soon though I was heavier than where I started, and doctors started talking about boarder-line diabetes. My energy level was diminishing. My 56th birthday was 3 months away, and my wife was at the most fit she has ever been. I needed to do something.  But what? I had quit smoking on January 1st 1991. What was different then?  What was the motivation?  Why was I just able to quit when I did? What was it that I couldn’t tap into now?

My  weight-loss “red line,” I discovered was the seat-belt extender. I am a frequent flyer; about 150,000 miles a year, and the thought of asking for an extender mortified me.   On a flight in late December I took my seat and as I attempted to insert the flat metal tip into the buckle, I panicked.  I removed everything from my pockets; not enough.  I pushed back into my seat; closer. Finally I fully exhaled and pulled as tight as I could; click. “Thank god,” I thought. “I have not reached that point, yet.” That event however, set off a flood of emotions that I hadn’t felt since being relegated to the glassed-in cages with the other smokers at the airport 22 years ago. Peering out of the smoke stained glass, trapped like a zoo monkey, my eerily wan faced reflection staring back at me.  “Wait, come back I am not really supposed to be here.  I don’t want to be like the unwashed masses. I am not like them!” They say that reformed smokers are the worst. I believe that is a reinforcement behavior. It is a statement that you are no longer part of that club.  I am really not an elitist, well not that that much of one, I just decided to quit the club.  I had stopped being a smoker before I quit smoking, it was time to stop being a fat guy, even before I lost the weight.  I am NOT like the rest of THEM.  First lesson to accomplishing anything is to tap into the power of cognitive dissonance. The mind cannot hold two conflicting thoughts, if I think like a non-smoker, I have to stop smoking.  If I see myself as a fit person, I will have to become one.

Initially my goals were to develop enough stamina to begin an exercise program in earnest, and to make sure I had some activity everyday.  I had read a study that suggested that the shear act of exercising willpower, in fact depleted it.  That is the reason why so many attempts at weight loss and other fitness programs are doomed to fail.  I decided to keep it simple and do-able. Here are some tips on getting started:

1. Find your “red-line” –  the motivation that says, I need to do this now.  Create a sense of urgency. Don’t think high school reunion or bathing suit.  Events tend to come and go, and that is not how you change a life style. Think broader life issues.  Who are you? Who or what do you want to be like?  What are your values? Tap into Cognitive Dissonance.
2. Write down everything you eat. -Yes everything. There are enough calorie counters online to shut down the internet. I will discuss some in a future blog post. But write it all down. Feel good about days when you meet your calorie goals, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t.  What could you have done differently?  
3. Do some exercise everyday.– …and write it down.  Even if it is just a walk after dinner. Look, don’t go from doing nothing to training for a marathon. Don’t laugh, people try it all the time. One of the major causes of failure is the wrong purpose, or setting unreasonable goals. For right now, make your goal, movement.  Simply do something most everyday.
4. Walk whenever you can.– For me that means no moving sidewalk or train in the airport. Parking further away from the office. When you walk, walk with a purpose. Hold your head up and stride. Have some pride in yourself and what you are doing. Its not about anything other than building habits and developing some stamina at this point. Walk when you play golf. Get creative, and write it down.
5. Most importantly- Don’t beat yourself up if you miss something. Failure to be perfect is simply an opportunity to learn. It is ok to screw-up.  If you don’t screw up once in a while, you aren’t trying. Mistakes and failure are our way of learning. Without failure, there can’t be any learning. As the title of my blog says- you are not trying to be perfect,  just try to get a little better everyday.

I have added a 6th for me. Keep a journal.  So here it is 2013, 56 years old and I am starting a journal.  Good news is I am almost 30 lbs lighter than I was on January 9th.