The other day, someone came up to me and said, “I want to be skinny like you. How did you do it? How did you lose all that weight?” Honestly, I haven’t lost that much weight–about 40 pounds. There are plenty of people out there who’ve lost more weight than me. But I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, of how I’ve accomplished it.
I answered her in a way that wasn’t very helpful. And I’ve regretted it ever since. You see, it’s really hard for me to talk about myself in person. I can write about my personal feelings, but speaking about them is a totally different deal.
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I’ve got a friend. A friend who works really hard–too hard for his own good. He works so hard that he doesn’t take care of himself and he seems very stressed. He’s eating poorly, not exercising enough, gaining weight and generally digging himself a hole that he’s going to have to work very hard to get out of. He keeps saying that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. He says that soon he’ll be able to concentrate on his well being. Soon. I’m worried that soon won’t come soon enough.
My friend is a man of extremes. It’s all or nothing for him. Right now, all he does is work. If soon ever comes, all he’ll do is concentrate on getting as fit as he can. This is no way to live a healthy life because life is about multi-tasking. I don’t know of anyone who can spend 100% of their time solely concentrating on one aspect of their life. Surely it’s easy to see that if you only concentrate on one thing, then all the other things fall into disrepair.
It’s like he’s one of those plate spinners that you sometimes see at a circus. He concentrates on one plate at a time, while all the others keep spinning in the background. And for short periods of time this works for him. But then something gets in the way and he finds that one of the other plates starts to wobble. So he shifts his attention to that plate. Sooner or later, I’m afraid one of those plates is going to fall.
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I write this blog for a lot of reasons. I want to learn about fitness and wellness and share it with others. I want to have a record of my successful journey on the way to being a healthier individual. I want to be held accountable by my readers so that I never let myself become the unhealthy person I used to be. But mostly, I write this blog because I want to help others.
I want to help the person who asks me how to be skinny. I want to help the people close to me who aren’t as healthy as they could be. I want to help you. And I’m going to start doing a better job.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Help!!!!!! I need it. I’m that all or nothing person too. I wish I could be consistent and have it in my life at all times, but that’s just not me. When I’m working out, I’m doing six days a week and going full speed. And then suddenly something will push me off the track and I’m done. It’s so hard to keep starting and stopping.
Great post, Mac. You’re making an extremely important point.
I think I know your friend, and I’m very concerned about him too. If I were your friend, I’d put a treadmill in my office and walk on it while doing the research and writing that is occupying my every waking moment right now. Please tell him I said so. [And, by the way, if you really want to show him you love him, you'll spend $300 on a treadmill on Walmart.com and have it shipped to his office as a Christmas gift.]
You’ve raised some important ideas about sustainability. When making major changes in lifestyle habits — changing what and how and when you eat, adding exercise — it’s not enough to be goal-oriented. You’ve got to be process-oriented. By that I mean, you’ve got to answer the question, “how can I maintain this process over the rest of my life in a way that won’t make me hate my life?” It’s such a difficult question to answer.
One of the things I admire about you, Mac, is how fearless you are about confronting the shortcomings of your approach to diet and fitness and how willing you are to re-engage with the process over and over again. In the early days of this blog, I would get very frustrated watching you pick a strategy, watch it fail, then try the same strategy over and over again without making any changes. But in the past year I’ve watched you repeatedly step back, make a slight change, and then try again, learning from your mistakes and taking advantage of your strengths. Here are a few examples.
You discovered that you like to run (and that you can do so without injury). But you also found that your childcare responsibilities often knocked you off your running schedule. So you got a running partner, whom you don’t want to let down: this keeps you motivated to overcome the scheduling problems. Both you and your running partner have also leveraged your desire to run races, so that you not only run for exercise but you train for races — a longer-term goal that keeps you motivated and engaged over a longer time period. (I wish you’d get a lifting partner for your gym workouts.)
You discovered that counting calories works for you, but that doing it by hand was unsustainable. So you found a smart-phone app that makes it easy. Beyond that, though, during those times when you’re not even motivated to enter your food intake into your phone, you remain highly vigilant about how much you’re eating. In this way, even though you’re not losing weight, you’re also not gaining. Through practice, you’ve honed your sense of how much food is enough to maintain. You’ve learned that you’re particularly prone to fall off the wagon at some times more than others, and to heighten your attention around problem eating times — when you’re stressed over housework, when you’re out to dinner with friends, Superbowl, dinner parties, when you’re on vacation, and so forth.
The post here that really impressed me was when you realized that you were completely overwhelmed by housework and childcare stress and weren’t spending time with Pam — along with eating poorly and not exercising. You put your heads together, came up with a babysitting plan, and broke out of the spiral — you even combined a dinner date with your wife with a workout at the gym. I love that series of posts — the fearless way you acknowledged the problem, worked through some underlying issues that it turns out had nothing to do with “self-discipline” around eating and exercising, came up with solutions, and executed them. You weren’t afraid to stop the bus in the middle of traffic and get yourself back onto the right road. I really admire the way you pulled that off.
You often beat yourself up over your inability to be consistent in exercising (although you do that less now than when you first started). But I see a more profound resilience in you, which is your willingness to not let previous failures stop you from re-engaging. This is a real strength, something to be proud of. This last fifteen pounds (or is it ten?) seems to be getting the better of you for the moment. But I’ve seen you overcome setbacks in the past and know that when you’re ready, you’ll make a few adjustments in your daily routine and apply the tools that work for you to this, and get it done. There’s no magic pill here, just repeatedly climbing back on the horse over and over again, learning as you go and applying what you learn so that each trip out into the ring is a little more informed by experience than the list trip.
aw, I know that feeling. I still regret an un-thorough answer to a sort-of friend well over a year ago. (He asked how I seemed so at peace generally speaking, and the truth is that it’s from spending less than I earn, but I really blew the answer – one that I think he desperately needed to hear, no less.) I guess one idea is to get an answer ready for the next time someone asks – I surely have!
I don’t know if it’s possible to set up a weekly or every-other-weekly hiking date with your friend, but something that is SO removed from just “fitness’ and work might be the ticket.
Keep being a good example.. I know it’s just about time for me to climb back on the fitness horse.
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Greenman–You do know my friend. In fact, I sent him the post before I published it and he said I could be more specific. I didn’t think it added anything to the post, so I left it as-is. Thanks for the kind words. Part of the reason that I’ve been able to “re-engage” comes directly from being held accountable by my readers. You have a great deal to do with that because your comments are some of the most thought provoking ones. You have an uncanny ability to read between the lines of what I’m saying and flesh out MY thoughts…sometimes even better than I have done. Thanks for that, and stay tuned for when I am finally able to make that small adjustment and get rid of those last 7 pounds!
Bethh–That’s great advice about having a pre-planned answer for the next time the question comes up. I see that person often and probably will be asked again. You can bet I’ll be ready! Thanks again.
Thank you, Mac.
So… What do you wish you would have said to the woman who asked about your weight loss? Write about it here and your message will reach way more than that one person.
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I’ve found my blog a great place to talk about my personal stuff – when things are going well – not so useful when they aren’t funnily enough.
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