I have a friend who has strug­gled with his weight for the past three decades. It is a painful bat­tle, and my heart breaks for those who deal with this.  As I’ve watched him in this fight, I have observed a “start and stop” rhythm in his exer­cise and eat­ing habits which is very problematic.

Now, I know that much has been writ­ten on the sub­ject of health by those who are far more edu­cated in this arena. But I thought I would share my expe­ri­ences as a guy who has taken a dif­fer­ent approach.

The prob­lem with the “start and stop” rhythm is that this approach is never a good strat­egy for bat­tle, and that is exactly what main­tain­ing peak health is: a battle.

We can’t win this bat­tle if we focus on it for a few weeks by eat­ing pack­aged, low-fat, processed foods in pre-subscribed quan­ti­ties and work­ing out for 20 min­utes three times a week….and then toss it all to the wind when our weight goal has been reached or we become frustrated.

Unless we change our think­ing, we will not break out of this “start and stop” behavior.

Like my friend, we will look for the next great­est diet. It could be no carbs, just grape­fruit, all meat, no meat, fist size, etc….

For any of you who have ben­e­fited from these types of diets, I am not say­ing they are bad. What I am say­ing is that our think­ing must change first if we are going to see our health improve over the long haul.

So, here is a sug­ges­tion on how to go from diet­ing to main­tain­ing good health as a way of life:

Change your “Why.” You may want to get to a cer­tain weight or size, but that is usu­ally not enough to keep you going. You need a more sig­nif­i­cant “Why.” Per­haps you would love to be able to keep up with your kids when you play together, or you want to add more pain-free years to your life. Maybe you are moti­vated by what you don’t want, like spend­ing so much time in doctor’s offices, or being the one who holds your fam­ily back on vaca­tions, or becom­ing a bur­den to those you love.

When it comes down to tak­ing action and mak­ing bet­ter daily choices, these kinds of rea­sons are more likely to tug at your heart than the dream of a single-digit dress size.

Iden­tify your Non Nego­tiable Dis­ci­plines. This is crit­i­cal. My sug­ges­tion is that you start with dis­ci­plines you can nail at least 80% of the time. Exam­ples of this could be to replace your soda intake with water, or to snack on veg­gies, fruit and nuts twice a day so you are not as hun­gry at lunch and din­ner. Once you start to build momen­tum incre­men­tally, you’ll find the big­ger changes come more easily.

Find an Exer­cise Buddy. Who do you know that will com­mit to walk­ing with you four morn­ings a week? Who will go for a jog with you every other day at lunch? Who can you hire to teach you how to prop­erly lift weights and stretch? If you can afford to meet with a trainer reg­u­larly, it could be one of the great­est invest­ments you make in your life. But whether you hire a trained pro­fes­sional or recruit a friend, you’ll find you have greater suc­cess when you’re account­able to another person.

Now, remem­ber my friend who has tried every diet under the sun? His chal­lenge isn’t to start the next great diet or quick fix exer­cise pro­gram to max­i­mize the short bursts of time when he’s focused on his health. It is over­com­ing the daily drive-through habit and the lack of exer­cise when the diet stops.

He could be the world’s great­est dieter, but it won’t pro­duce real change with­out a shift in thinking.

The bat­tle is won when health becomes a lifestyle, not a task to be accomplished.

This is a rich topic, and I wel­come your com­ments and questions!

Related posts:

1. Why?
2. Is it Really That Bad?
3. Play­ing Like a Kid, Long After Recess
4. Con­flict: Friend or Foe?
5. Rebound­abil­ity

Tags: Accountability, Behavior, Dieting, Disciplines, Lifestyle, Non-Negotiable

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 8:35 am and is filed under Self-Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.