Diet vs. Life

So many people are obsessed with the idea that it all happens quickly-you’re body’s changes that is, and I don’t blame you! Every magazine I pick up in line at the grocery store has a massive transformation of one star or an other, and you see the before picture, and think well hell! I swear I just saw them and they were like 30 lbs heavier! And now look at how fit and delicious they look. I’m going to do that, I can definitely do that. Why not? And then I prance off, magazine in hand, with a new plan of action ready to put into effect, at this point nothing will shirk me! The problem is, three days later when I’m standing in a comparable line, in a comparable store, I’ll see a very familiar magazine layout of an other woman who did it in even less time, and it’s diet let’s me eat three more gluten-free wasa crackers a day! Hallelujah!! So I make the change. And a week later while in an other line, suspiciously set up like last week’s I’ll see an other magazine...

It goes on and on like this. The body yo-yo’s about, from one extreme to an other. From “no starchy carbohydrates”--which one can handle for about 3 days before biting into a piece of toast and waking up 30 minutes later from a starch coma and finding an empty bread bag lying directly to the left, having nothing but a guilt headache for company. Panic ensues, the decision that the cabbage soup diet might be better instead. You can eat as much soup as you want, and you’ll have no need for portion control, thank you lord! (I’ve thanked the lord for such things before!:) Before you know it, you’ve bought the South Beach Diet book, and you’ve torn through a list of diets, pills, and juices, that are supposed to transform you into the “you” that you’re hoping will look the slimmest in that dress hanging in your closet. The one that you haven’t ever worn outside your bedroom.

You know exactly what I’m talking about, you never find it in you to throw it out, because you’ll wear it at this event, or that wedding, or by your next birthday. There’s always a promise to yourself for the looming date ahead. The point of all of this (and believe me, there is one) is that this is a possibility. The stupid thing is that by the time you’ve stopped to scold yourself for your failure of your ump-teen diets, it’s been 3 months, and you could have been at your goal had you picked a healthy plan and allowed it the time to work for you in a steady progression.

Whether you like it or not, you didn’t gain the weight or extra inches instantly, and you’re not going to lose it instantly either. Every diet does work, every exercise plan and ploy and trick and tip really does work. What you need to ask yourself when you’re making the decision to change your body; to look and feel the way that you were meant to, is: “what can I live with?”

Ultimately that’s the idea. You don’t want to be dieting for the rest of your life. You want to find that happy medium, where you learn and execute healthy living so that it’s what comes natural to you. Your body will thank you, by giving you the slim, healthy, energetic body that you’ve been envisioning inside the dress that’s hiding in your closet. Time to give it a reason to move! Steady progress adds up, make small changes in your life every day and it really will make the biggest difference in your life. Make a decision, choose to follow through with it for yourself and trust it. Trust yourself, no one will know you better.
-J