How many of us in eager anticipation to get healthy, skinny, and hot looking basically swan dive into a new health regime? We make plans to go cold turkey on carbs, junk foods, and sugar. We plan to go workout 5-6 days a week for at least 45-60 minutes each day. We go buy a bunch of new exercise clothes, equipment, and tapes. We sign up for a new gym membership and shell out for the trainer package because they were having a "Buy 10 sessions Get 2 free" special.
Before this burst of leaping into the healthsphere, we were mostly couch potatoes exercising maybe 2-4 a month. Our diet basically consisted of take out, frozen foods, and things in a box. Gold's and 24-Hour reminded us more of party nights with a sugar daddy rather than a gym, and the only trainer we met with was the one on TV whom we would watch train other people into fitness while we basked in the comfort of our couch with Pirate Booties.
Beating yourself into a healthy submission just doesn't work...long term.
Yes, you make stick with your swan dive into health for maybe a month or even two, but if we're looking into a year, three, five years time, the only way you are going to stay healthy is by changing the bad habits and unhealthy patterns that got you unfit in the first place, and that kind of re-conditioning takes time. The changes are more effective if you also ease yourself into it to the point where it doesn't feel like a major overhaul.
You see, for most people, the psyche does not like swift radical change. Oh no! In the beginning, things may seem kosher, but that is an illusion because your psyche is really in shock. It hasn't sunk in yet as to what "you" have done. As soon as the psyche realizes what extreme changes you made, it will start to strike back starting with a thing called resistance.
We all know when resistance starts to rear it's menacing head when our plan to exercise 5-6 days a week drops to 3 times every 2 weeks. Vegetables start to look real boring and that Pepperoni pizza with stuffed crust starts looking better. The new exercise clothes are resting in your dresser, and the yoga CDs have yet to spend time in the DVD player.
If you get too gung-ho, there is also a thing called injury. Yes, you physically injure yourself, most likely pulling muscles and shredding cartilage because you are over doing the exercise, not warming up or down properly, and basically hurting your body because you're pushing it harder than is safe.
Yes, the picture of you in your skinny jeans is intoxicating, but there really is no rush to get there. Really. And besides, most importantly, once you get back into the skinny jeans, you want to stay there. It's no fun to only be in the skinny jeans for a month. You want to be in them for years. In order to achieve long term success, start by easing into health changes. In the long run, the changes will be less painful, more enjoyable, and long lasting.
