When I made a temporary move to Knoxville to attend the University of Tennessee, I was thrilled to discover the town has an indoor ice skating rink. Long fascinated with the sport, I jumped at the chance to take lessons. I could handle staying upright on the ice fairly well thanks to a childhood spent on roller skates, but I had trouble figuring out efficient ways to stop, handle turns, and such. Summer lessons ended up being great fun. It all felt fairly natural, so found myself mastering each new concept well -- until hockey stops.
If you've ever seen hockey on TV, you've seen how the players zip along then put their skate blades parallel to each other, bend their knees, and come to a quick stop amid a shower of ice flakes. Lemmie tell ya, it ain't as easy as it looks. "You'll get it if you keep practicing," the instructor advised. "Just slow down a little." No luck. I kept slipping and sliding around. She told me about three mores times to slow down before she finally grabbed the back of my tee shirt and forced me to really slow down...which ended in a perfect hockey stop. Oh. That slow. I had to keep doing it very slow until I'd practiced enough to for the motion to feel familiar. Once that mind-body connection was there, I could do a fast hockey stop. Ta dah!
That same summer in Tennessee was when weight loss really clicked for me. Looking back, I feel sure that the reason it started working is that I started slow. I'd read somewhere that it takes three weeks of practicing a change before it starts to become a habit. Thus I made a list of all the things I wanted to change to get healthy. Creating the list actually happened in the spring, but I put all kinds of things on it -- from eating veggies every day to flossing to wearing a hat in the sun. I only tackled one item on the list every three weeks, yet by summer all those habits were starting to stack up and some of them were paving the way for weight loss. And its amazing how many of those good habits have stuck with me over a decade later. In fact, I have the feeling I would have gained a lot more weight with wedding/career change/cross country move/pregnancy/new motherhood if those habits weren't largely still in place. Those habits have been helping me maintain my weight for a couple of years now too.
It's so tempting to be "gung ho" at the beginning of trying to get healthy. I think my favorite phrase in the past has been, "I'll just jump start my weight loss by...." But when I try too many changes at once or I am too strict in my efforts, it may feel wonderfully effective for a little while, yet it becomes too hard to sustain. Soon it all falls apart and the deprivation only makes the rebound that much harsher.
Not this time. I want this to be permanent. So check back on the blog soon, because in the next few days I'll be posting my updated Get Healthy List.
What about you? Does "jump starting" work for you or do you think it is better to go slow?
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