If you want to improve your overall health and wellness you HAVE TO make changes. The severity of these changes depends upon your current condition. To evaluate your current condition you have to take an honest look at yourself both physically and mentally. The physical evaluation may seem obvious but many people have come to accept their current physical state and in doing so they have put themselves at risk. Other than possible health-related risks, the most dangerous risk is complacency. Being complacent leads to a mental deterioration because the mind is tricked into thinking: I'm fine living the way I am and in reality such may not be the case. If the mind becomes rigid in its acceptance of unhealthy living, no matter how slight it may be, the soul, where your conscience resides, will have a hard time keeping you balanced. This I write not with some online degree in a Walgreen's frame on my wall; I write to you because I have been there, done that, struggled, and worked my tail off to make changes and live by them. What I can tell about my past experiences in trying to be healthy and well organized in my time management in order to do so is that it is dang hard! I can also tell you that when the mind has a stronger influence on the way you live more so than the soul health and wellness is an uphill battle.
For most of my life I have never used a scale to determine how I felt about myself; I used my belt line. In fall 2011 I realized that I needed to buy all new pants. Size 34 just did not fit me anymore. All my play'a clothes looked like tightly wrapped bandages unable to contain their contents. And here is what is scary...I was okay with that. I figured oh well, I am 42 now and that is just the way life is supposed to go. Oops, that kind of complacency was dumb. At 42, I just didn't feel like working that hard and making any more sacrifices in order to stay well. To make a long story short, a story I have often told over and over, stand up paddling helped change all that. Adding a new element to my lifestyle helped me return to a better way of thinking. I took on a mindset that changed my way of living and right now I am really happy with the results.
As I look back on where I was in June of 2012 to where I am now in the waning days of May 2013 I have come up with a philosophy that sums up the process. Achieving positive change should take place in three stages: sacrifice, moderation, and reward. How long one must endure each of the three stages depends upon how hard they are willing to work.
THE SACRIFICE STAGE
-What you have been doing isn't working so you need to get rid of what is holding you back from being well.
-Often this mainly has to do with eating habits but it can also mean sacrificing comfort.
Sacrifice means just what you think it does. Giving up things that one thinks might be valuable to them but really aren't. I strongly feel that this is NOT the time to take one day and eat whatever you want as a lot of nutrition experts might suggest. Now is the time to be disciplined and NOT return to the way things were AT ALL. It's just too easy to backslide when living the wrong way isn't far enough in the past. As your body gets healthier the mind will only get stronger. Use this period as a time of growth. Walk across the coals for a while and come out stronger on the other side.
-Getting off the warm comfortable couch to go make your body move around in various positions and at various speeds, especially during inclement times IS a sacrifice. Time is precious to many of us and when we forego a little bit of peaceful down time in order to make ourselves healthier and more fit it should be defined as a sacrifice. Giving up one thing in order to take on another, especially if the other makes you better, will definitely make you stronger.
-Enduring through the Sacrifice Stage on your own is extremely difficult. Often one needs support from either a loved one, a trainer, a hobby, or a group in order to get through the rough times. The Sacrifice Stage is not a lot of fun but very necessary to get the body re-tuned. The harder you work during this phase faster you can move on to the next.
-Staying strong and staying active will get you through this self-imposed boot camp and into the Moderation Stage as not only a healthier person but stronger person and moderation requires strength...
THE MODERATION STAGE
-This stage is when you notice positive changes but understand, without hesitation, that there is still a long road ahead with lots of work to be done.
-Once you notice and feel the positive results from all the hard work required by the Sacrifice Stage you should be strong enough to start incorporating more fun things into your weekly routine without making them habitual or regressing into a complete backslide and having to start all over. You should notice positive results when you are: going well beyond the norm in your exercise routine and making better decisions about nutrition. Also, exercise becomes a HABIT NOT A BURDEN. This could mean more time and more mileage on the treadmill, more reps with stronger weights, you actually want to go workout rather than having to make yourself go workout, more interest in active pastimes than reality TV, and you don't look back when you pass the frozen pizzas at the grocery store. Best of all, your current wardrobe is fitting just a bit looser.
-When I reached this stage last year I allowed myself one slice of pizza a week and an occasional Reese's Cup. I never bought more than a slice of pizza and one Reese's package because I still knew that I could revert back to my old harmful ways if tempted enough. When I did indulge in some fun I knew that I still had to make up for it in my workouts the next day. You are not out of the woods but the woods are getting thinner and you can start to see some daylight breaking through the canopy.
-During the Moderation Stage you don't have to deprive yourself ALL of the time, but you can't let up either. It is still important to somehow and in some way make up for the moderate payoff's you give yourself while working toward greater achievements.
-It is just as easy to fail during the Moderation Stage as it is to fail during the Sacrifice Stage. This happened to me last fall. The celebration of my engagement was a little too extended and a little too often and I wound up reverting to some old habits. Cold weather started setting in and it got ugly. I had to start the sacrifice stage all over again and that sure is never fun! By not adhering to moderation I lost a lot of the positive momentum I had gained during all those months I had worked so hard. A few days after the wedding it was back to sardines and raw vegetables until my positive progression became a habit.
THE REWARD STAGE
-You've reached it when you are accomplishing goals on a regular basis, and even going beyond what you thought possible, and making good healthy decisions feels natural.
-A reward isn't just a Snickers bar or a day of eating whatever the hell you want; a reward is a new pair of boardshorts because everything else you own is falling off you! Eating isn't really a reward anymore because your body needs just about everything you can grab because you are working so physically and mentally hard in other areas of your life.
-I knew I had hit this stage when I could go visit my wife at work in her family's bar and drink ginger ale without worrying about it. Oh yeah, previously if ever I walked into her bar or any bar I was ordering a cold beer no matter what time of day it was. Not an issue anymore. It feels good to have the strength to do this now when it was definitely an issue not too long ago in Spring 2012.
-A Reese's Cup isn't a reward any longer because you don't have the craving for them anymore. Your body is so attuned to receiving what is right that a bowl of Greek yogurt and honey feels like a major reward. To be honest I don't know if I have ever reached this stage before in my life until recently. Everything feels so different. All the decisions I had to battle over in the Sacrifice Stage are no longer sacrifices; avoiding the bad is now the norm. It's crazy what a little hard work will do for you!
So this is what I came up with. People have asked me what happened in my life over the last year and I often have trouble explaining it in detail. Sure I can say "I started stand up paddling" but there was a lot more to it. SUP just enabled me to stick it out through all of the difficulties in the different stages, including multiple Sacrifice Stages over the last year. My soul is in charge of my body NOT my mind. Hopefully, now I have a premise should others wish to make changes in their own lives and seek my help to aid with the process. I'll make no bones about it, at the start the road seems long and hard and it damn sure is, but...by sticking with it you'll reach new places that open up a world of new opportunities and harmonious feelings. And when you get there it feels pretty good too!
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