Guiding Principles - Avoid Extremes

Going to the extreme is something that I have done, as well as seen others do more times then I can count. I'm sure you know the feeling. One morning you wake up energized to change the way you eat, or start working out more. Maybe it is a New Years resolution, or maybe you watched an inspiring episode of Extreme Weight Loss or The Biggest Loser the previous night. It is that motivation that drives you to declare "I will never snack between meals again" or "I am completely done with junk food" or "I'm going to spend 2 hours at the gym every day" or even "I'm going to head outside and run a 5K" (even though you haven't run at all in years).

I believe in my past experiences, this is misguided motivation. What I have learned is that going to the extremes rarely lasts. After a couple of days without chocolate, I crave it so much that I stop at the gas station for a candy bar. Or maybe I use running that 5k as an excuse to have just 1 snack, that turns right back into my old eating habits. The truth is, there is no such thing as a sustainable extreme. The diet and exercise industry has convinced us that going to extremes is the only way to lose weight and stay healthy.

I have become a firm believer in starting small and building up over time. For example, when I started to focus more on my diet, I started by decreasing the amount of diet pop that I was drinking and also adding a fruit and vegetable to each meal that I ate. After those became habit, I started making my own breakfasts and lunches instead of eating out all of the time. Next I worked on reducing portion sizes at my meals and eliminating items that weren't needed. Now I am to the point that I am focus on snacking less often and I try not to eat after 6 or 7 at night. All of this happened over the course of 3 - 4 months and it has given me time to really get used to it. It has also shown me how little I actually need to eat to provide the necessary energy to support my exercise and training.

As far as exercise goes, I learned a long time ago that starting too fast out of the gates will just lead to burn out and/or injury. Our bodies are awesome and can do some amazing things, but it is important to build them up over time. This is a big reason that I follow the training programs that I do, it allows me to increase the distance I run, slowly, overtime. It is true that a walk around the block won't burn enough calories to show a difference on the scale, but if one block today leads to another tomorrow and then eventually a mile or 2 a month from now then you are really onto something.

Sustainability is really what I am going for. When I decide to set a new goal or try something new, the first question I ask myself is, "Can I live with doing this forever?"