Bloating. Joint pain. Shortness of breath. Your physical looks. Horrible sleep. Perpetual exhaustion. Your overall poor state of health and fitness. These are the reasons why you decided on a lifestyle shift. To quote an overquoted quote, “You were sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
But, you set your vision and your goals. You lost weight. You got in shape. You went through a period of being nothing short of amazed at how great you felt and looked. You reached the magic number on the weigh scale. Now what?
Don’t Forget Where You Came From
Humans adapt quickly to their current state. When you lose weight and get in shape, you have a period of euphoria where you just can’t believe how great you feel. You wonder how come you didn’t do this sooner. You confidently state that this is the new you. This is the way it will be until you die peacefully in your sleep sometime after 100 years on this planet.
But, that euphoria fades. Being healthy and in shape becomes just the way it is and the whole idea can lose its lustre. You take your improvements for granted. People around you stop marveling at your success. It’s just the way it is. It can fast become the new, dull, boring you.
That’s when things can start to slip. You have a blowout eating crap food at a restaurant with friends one night then find an old bag of chips to munch on when you get home. The next day, you don’t feel any ill effect and the scale doesn’t show any added pounds. You think maybe this is your new metabolism. You paid the price, now things will work internally to allow you to eat and drink like the old you.
Wrong. Your old lifestyle will cunningly sneak back in if you don’t remain vigilant. You’ll notice a bit of weight gain and decide that if you simply don’t weigh yourself anymore then you won’t see anything wrong. Out of sight, out of mind.
Soon, you’re back to where you started. All the problems you had when you first began your lifestyle shift are back. But, you don’t stop there. You end up adding even more weight and feeling even more like a bag of shit.
It Doesn’t Have To Happen That Way
So, we need to remind ourselves everyday how incredible this lifestyle shift makes us feel, compared to when we started. We need to remember the pain, the waistline, the uncomfortable nights in bed, the battle to climb stairs. We need to remember that and be so very, very grateful that those days are gone.
We need to adjust our vision and set new goals when completion of the original ones approaches. Once we’ve reached that weight we were looking for, there has to be something new and exciting to spur us to even better improve ourselves.
Maybe the goal does put us at our ideal weight and we really don’t need to lose any more. In that case, fitness goals might be the best alternative. Now that we’ve got the body we want, let’s use it! Do we want to run a marathon? Do we want to climb a mountain? Do we want to through-hike the Bruce Trail (Or Appalachian Trail for my American friends)? A lofty fitness goal will certainly ensure that we don’t lose our edge.
Whatever you need to set your sights on to continue being the best you that you can be. That is something that should always be on your mind.
My Personal Experience
Over the 30+ years of my adult life, I have had my ups and downs as far as my physical health and fitness go. I have had a handful of major lifestyle shifts where I rapidly corrected the downward trend in my health and fitness levels.
Each time, I maintained for a good amount of time – sometimes the better part of a decade, even. But, as you can read from my story on this website, I obviously returned to a level of relatively poor health.
So, this time, it’s going to stay, right? Yes. I have the experience and wisdom of past triumphs and failures to know that I will not fall back into old pitfalls. I’ve already reached a point where I almost forgot just how crappy a place I had quite recently come from. There was a day, not long ago, that I felt that maybe I wasn’t making anymore forward progress.
That’s when I had a sit down with myself for a serious talk. I reminded myself of only being able to sleep in one exact position in bed because I couldn’t breathe right with my body in any other position. I reminded myself of the incredible pain in my shoulder that would result from this one single sleeping position.
I reminded myself that the constant bloating in my stomach was gone and I will not let it come back. I reminded myself of how clothes I had given up on not only fit me again but fit me loosely. I reminded myself that even though I couldn’t see my insides, they were probably functioning at a level not seen in a number of years. I am now a well-oiled machine and I want to keep it that way…
After that serious talk, I have carried on with accelerated success. My own personal pep talk fortified my vision and goals and ensured my lifestyle shift would endure.
If you find yourself in a similar position, I hope that you also can see through it and carry on creating the optimum you!