I've been taking a few minutes to reflect on the past month and why I think this time around the entire weight loss journey has been going so well for me and have noticed from a few of the other journeys are starting to hit a rough spot. This will likely get a little long and rambling so the TL;DR version is "Finding a way to make my personal weaknesses play as strengths"
Here are a few thoughts on how I've managed to do this so far and will hopefully serve as a reminder to myself in the future.
Laziness.
I am a lazy lazy person and will always find a way to take the path of least resistance. I like to kid myself from time to time and rebrand my laziness as being efficient in the use of energy but realistically I am plain lazy. So this time around, instead of trying to commit to something that's going to require a huge change to how I function day in and day out I've decided to try a series of small changes. Instead of signing up for a gym membership/boot camps/team sports etc etc, I decided that my main form of cardio at least in the beginning was going to consist of taking a commuter bus to work instead of driving (nearly a 50 mile commute one way for me) and walk to/from a bus stop that let's me get in 4+ miles of walking each day I take the bus. I've been feeling better because of the exercise and I get to sit back and relax on the bus for a good 45-60 minutes each way as a way to embrace my lazy nature.
Inconsistency, lack of commitment
I'm pretty scatter brained and have trouble dedicating significant effort in any one direction, as an example I like to read but at most points I'll have 3-6 different books that I'm in the process of trying to get through. Same goes for projects in the house, at work and in the rest of my life. I'm attempting to turn this into a positive this time around by flipping through a series of different types of exercises that I'll pick up week to week... a couple weeks ago it was pushups and crunches, this week it's body weight squats and front planks, next week it might be trying to perfect that karate kid 'crane technique' standing atop a junk of wood in the back yard. While at first I saw this as a bad thing as I never seem to get really good at any of the chosen exercises I'm focusing on, due to one of my other scatter brained fixations of listening to Ben Greenfield's podcast of something called the SAID principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands) that suggests that over time your body will become more efficient at doing specific exercises and you'll start to use less energy to complete these exercises. I'm choosing to take this to mean that flipping around various exercises is not such a bad thing after all and because this plays into my basic nature of not focusing on any particular activity for too long my hope is that I can keep finding new things to try. Last time I managed to follow a 12 week exercise program which took commitment but I had to rely on a workout partner for a lot of motivation to get to the gym day in and day out. He's a different personality type and can commit to following a program like this, I can't. Since that first program, he's completed at least another five 12 week programs, me: zero.
Making it harder to fall off the wagon then to stay on and enjoy the ride
This one goes back to the laziness factor but it has been critical to me managing to stay on track so far. By preparing large batches of food all in one go I have found that it's far easier to keep bringing lunches to work which means it is always easier to grab my lunch from the fridge rather than go try to find something reasonably healthy at the cafeteria. I've also been giving myself leeway with the types of food I still add to the mix. The difference now is that what used to be a single meal's worth of those evil foods gets spread out in the lunches I pack over the course of multiple days. It's helping me avoid the cravings that I would normally be fighting and helps me remember that it's sometimes a question of how much vs what you eat that can get you. Same goes while I'm at home, as long as there are healthy alternatives around that aren't going to take time/effort to prepare, it's easier to avoid grabbing the unhealthy choices.
Celebrating the little victories
I've been trying to notice and appreciate the changes I've seen and felt since starting. Easy to focus on the lack of progress in a particular area, especially during plateau awareness month, but thinking back to how much more difficult things seemed at the start has been a big help. In fact, I'm going to go find and reread an early post of all the small things I said I'd been celebrating and see if there are any I forgot to celebrate.
Competition
Seems to go against my lazy nature at face value but I also enjoy taking on challenges. By pitting my laziness against my competitive nature I've been able to commit to short duration challenges against myself 350 pushups/crunches in a week, 500 bodyweight squats, walk 14 miles in a week etc. Playing weaknesses off against each other seems to be helping me turn them into strengths this time. This thought first occurred to me when a friend suggested that I get rid of all my bigger clothes when I lose enough weight to fit into my smaller clothes. Once I hit this goal and give away my bigger clothes, if I ever start to regain weight it will play my cheapness and laziness of not wanting to go out and rebuy clothes in the bigger size against the laziness that would see me start to regain weight.
The longer I stay on track with this the more I realize that it has to be a customized plan if it's going to succeed in the long run. Reading through what has worked for others is a good way to get ideas but if it's going to last it really has to be a plan that you come up with that best matches your personal situation. If you're an ultra organized specialist vs generalist personality type I would expect that a lot of the ideas I've been following would look pretty silly and counter productive. For me when I see someone that can dedicate themselves to a single area and stick with it for the long term, I have a lot of admiration for them but know I could never follow that same type of plan. If you're still reading this then snargle wargle widdly wooooo. I can't believe you just read that... now please stop reading and go think of what you need in your own perfect fit plan.
