All In, At Least For A Little While...

Picture this: so many times I’ve buckled down and cut nearly all the carbs out of my diet. No candies, very little bread, no macaroni & cheese or pasta… Basically nothing I enjoy except meat and cheese. As I write this, I have an image in my head of Buddy the Elf telling the fake Santa he smelled like beef and cheese. I knew a guy like that once; front lobby Bobby! He ate summer sausage and cheddar cheese every day for lunch and it oozed from his pores, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my point so I’ll get back on track…

With regards to changing my own eating habits, I even remember a time where the only things I ate after 5p was two cans of tuna with a splash of Italian dressing and some hot sauce. Over the course of 30 days or so, I dropped more than an inch off my waistline but I still struggle to even touch a can of tuna and that was nearly 15 years ago!

Regardless of the approach, going all in to cut carbs and trim down was always a chore but I typically did really well for a few weeks. Sooner or later though, an image of a particular round dish began dancing in my head. The rolled out dough, the sauce, a monstrous amount of cheese… I could see, feel, and smell the grease dripping off it and running down my arm as I ate the first slice; then another, and another… And once that got in my head, all bets were off! At least half of a large New York style cheese pizza would soon get demolished in one sitting. Make no mistake though, the other half rarely survived the next 12 hours…

I’m clearly making a bit of a joke out of this, even though it’s an extremely accurate account of how the cheese covered kryptonite has knocked me off the low carb wagon so many times, but I’d be willing to bet you it’s not all that different from what so many other people experience when they go all in on some new and extreme change with hopes of complete transformation. 

Again, I’m not questioning the results we can achieve by taking such measures and sticking with them over the long haul. And I’m not saying that it’s impossible to do! However, I am saying that those who can stick to those complete and total lifestyle changes for long periods of time are few and far between. And even then, such major immediate shifts can cause negative effects.

I won’t go into detail all the different scenarios this could apply to - workouts, diets, professional development, saving money, giving up smoking, etc. - but going all in with a complete change of lifestyle for nearly anything can be incredibly difficult. But if we’re willing to develop a plan that involves us making a commitment to even small, consistent changes in the direction of what we’re working to achieve, our chances of sustaining those changes increase dramatically.

Remember the tortoise and the hare? What I’m starting to touch on here isn’t all that different. We’ll look at that in more detail next time. Until then, here’s the link to get all the detail you’ll need to take advantage of the complimentary continuing education credits that are available with the webinar Cindy and I are hosting on Friday, January 15 at 2:30p!