Whenever you begin a new routine for a healthier lifestyle, you will typically notice a huge change in the very beginning. This is both very encouraging for your efforts, as well as very deceitful for the long-term success of your endeavors. The key to pushing past the realization that the huge change in the beginning will not continue is making the little things count.
Heck, the same can be said for tabletop wargaming hobbies, right? What if we try and equate this to being akin to learning or getting into a new game?
Whenever we get into a new game, we do so in a huge avalanche of money and enthusiasm. Just like when I started to lose weight and eat better, everyone encourages you and gets you pumped up to play the new game, right? So much happens in a flurry of time and excitement that you often find yourself deep into the new game without seeming to have expended much effort at all. This is very much like what happens when you first start losing weight. People even use the expression of it just "Falling Off" at times. Is this a bad thing? Well, that depends on how it affects you when it stops being so easy. Let's keep going with the example...
You get excited and show up the first day for playing the new game with your freshly-assembled models, only to get your face stomped. You shrug it off the first time it happens because you didn't know the rules very well, and hey you're new, right? But what happens when you get beaten the next three weeks in a row? Don't lie to me or yourself, you're going to get discouraged and you know it. Even with the best attitude of "It's not whether you win or lose…", because that's a bunch of crap, we still get discouraged. We all like to win once in a while, right? Is it really worth putting the models together, trying to paint, playing the game if you didn't win at all? The same thing happens when you begin to see the huge numbers slow down to smaller numbers of weight loss. Sure you dropped 20 pounds in 3 months, but in the entire last month you only lost 3? Well that's not a lot, is it? What is going wrong? Is it you? Is it something else? Is it worth the hassle and work for only 3 pounds?
Yes. Yes it is.
Sure you maybe lost the last 3 weeks in a row, but what did you learn? Did you learn to deploy better maybe? Did you learn a new way to deploy so you can't be shot at? Did you learn the turn order better so that playing your turn doesn't take as long, or maybe even just how to figure out what your target number should be after modifiers? Ask yourself, "What did you learn?"
If you say nothing, you are lying to yourself. Not only are you lying to yourself, you are actively discouraging yourself to the detriment of your own enjoyment of a game!
So maybe you only lost 3 pounds. Or heck, maybe you didn't lose anything and plateaued for the month. What did you learn? Nothing? Bull crap. Maybe you learned you ate too much of one thing, or didn't exercise enough. Maybe you learned that you need to switch up your routine to get off that plateau. Whatever it is, you learned something.
Maybe what you should learn is that the little things count. Maybe learning how to not deploy one way is a good thing. Maybe you learning the turn order better helps you play two games instead of one. I don't care what it is, but the little things you learn add up to a friggin big thing that means you get to play that new game and have fun doing it!
Maybe you should learn that the little things count. That 3 pounds isn't a lot, but it is 3 pounds less than what you weighed last month. That you didn't gain weight instead of lose. That for every 3 pounds a month you lose, in 10 months you'll have lost 30 pounds and only be 9 more away from your ultimate goal and that EVERY POUND MATTERS.
I weighed in last night at 239.8 pounds. That means I lost a total of 2.8 pounds for the entire month of April. It also means that I'm officially past the halfway point to my goal of a total weight of 200 pounds.
And every single one of them counts.
- Tim
Great work Tim! I think one of the things to remember when losing weight, is to constantly look at things "other" than the actual weight loss numbers. Look at the clothes scales shifting as inches come off...but more importantly? If you are working out, keep track of where you started. Compare that to where you are. It can be truly amazing and a nice kick in the butt to keep you going.
ReplyDeleteThings like "Wow, I would have been winded going up this flight of stairs 6 months ago" to "I did all of this and I'm not tired?"
Etc etc! Keep up the good work!
Heck yeah, Greg :) There was a ton of things that I could have fit into the "Little things count" category, but I was already running long in the tooth with this post.
DeleteYou most definitely hit every nail on the head though, my friend. I can really see differences in exercises, Tae Kwon Do, and I'm about to drop another pants size as well :)
Congrats Tim. 3 pounds is still a great achievement. Also remember that doing exercise builds muscle, which is heavy, so the weight might seem to not be falling off so quickly, but you are actually building up muscle and being much more healthy :)
ReplyDeleteI hear ya man - I plateau-ed hard just a few pounds shy of my goal, and found I had to change up the routine a bit to push through it. I'm really inspired by your posts about it, and dig how you've been tying it back around to the hobby - keep up the great work bud! Gonna have to find the hotel gym at GenCon, will definitely need to work off the inevitable Brazilian BBQ while we're out there!
ReplyDeleteThis is the hard part, small change, but long term goal. Most people fall off here. Good work, keeping at it :)
ReplyDeleteYou are not wrong sir. I find it's also far easier on the psyche to not even count lbs lost (or gained) and just judge progress by how much better my clothes are fitting. Somehow, I am a 32" waist again for the first time in..... 10 years?
ReplyDeleteStill have to get rid of the gut that hangs OVER the waist though! :)
DeleteStomach is the worst. Last to go, first to come back!
DeleteYou should be proud, Tim. Great work and good article. I agree that there are pitfalls in the middle when things seems to slow down and be prepared as you reach your goal as the temptation to eat garbage because "you are doing so good" kicks in. You seem to have a ton of discipline though and I am sure you will hold yourself to the ultimate goal!
ReplyDeleteYou should be proud, Tim. Great work and good article. I agree that there are pitfalls in the middle when things seems to slow down and be prepared as you reach your goal as the temptation to eat garbage because "you are doing so good" kicks in. You seem to have a ton of discipline though and I am sure you will hold yourself to the ultimate goal!
ReplyDeleteYou should be proud, Tim. Great work and good article. I agree that there are pitfalls in the middle when things seems to slow down and be prepared as you reach your goal as the temptation to eat garbage because "you are doing so good" kicks in. You seem to have a ton of discipline though and I am sure you will hold yourself to the ultimate goal!
ReplyDelete