As we make our way through January – the month where the gym always gets more crowded for a short while, and your inbox and social media accounts are likely filled with offers to share the secrets of healthy eating or how to make six figures this year without lifting a finger – it occurs to me that this is just an exaggerated version of what we do to ourselves continuously throughout the year: the cycles of great resolve and failure – and for many, another excuse to hate themselves.
These cycles are very real. According to an ABC News article, dieters for example typically make four to five attempts each year. An article by Amy Iggulden in the Telegraph quoted the Fitness Industry Association as saying that while January is the most popular month for gym sign-ups, “almost 22 per cent of people who join will have thrown in the towel after 24 weeks. A further 20 per cent will disappear before December.” In addition, “Research from the consumer analyst Mintel shows that 15 per cent of people paying membership fees visit less than once a week, including three per cent going less than twice a year.”
“Then I’ll be Happy”
I think of New Year’s resolutions as a collective “clean slate” experience that starts around January 1st – all based on the enticing idea that “if only” we “truly commit” ourselves “this time,” the big change we wish for will finally happen – and then we can be happy. Then we can like ourselves.
Interestingly, there’s also a lot of pre-emptive cynicism around these resolutions (the universal running joke about the fact that they are rarely, if ever, kept) – which doesn’t strike me as particularly helpful in creating and supporting meaningful change for ourselves.
I’m personally not a big fan of the “finally this time I’ll make that huge improvement” approach, especially when it comes to things like overhauling eating and exercise habits. For one thing, we usually have pretty strong lifestyle habits built up around them that aren’t that easy to shift all at once. For another, we likely have reasons for those habits, many of them associated with self-care (however misguided), which will leave a vacuum when abandoned. And third, the drive to achieve huge change like that is typically (in my experience) fueled by self-hate rather than self-love – which I have never seen work for long.
The Power of Incremental Micro-Changes
I find that the most successful changes require small, gradual shifts over time – think of them as incremental micro-changes that (eventually) make up a larger whole. For example, my journey toward healthy eating started in my early 20s when I noticed that I was getting a headache each day in the early afternoon that was resolved by drinking an Arizona Iced Tea or a Pepsi. What?! I was addicted to caffeine!
At that time in my life, I was highly allergic to being dependent on anyone or anything, so my reaction to this realization kicked off an absolute refusal in me that, quite happily, opened the door to an unexpected health benefit – and the possibility of a lifelong approach toward shifting my eating habits.
In my refusal to be addicted, I made a big change on a very minor scale. I stopped drinking anything but water and herbal tea at that point and – once the headaches went away – discovered I felt healthier. As a bonus, I had dropped five pounds. Woo hoo! I didn’t change anything else at that time, just my beverage choices. That was one tiny shift that was simple to make and has lasted for decades, and since then I’ve spent years making one small food-related change at a time, experimenting to see what works for me and my body and lifestyle, keeping what works and discarding what doesn’t, and building up eating habits one tiny step at a time, with the result that I now have a solid baseline of healthy eating habits.
This doesn’t mean I’m perfect when it comes to eating! I still struggle at times with stress or boredom snacking, especially at night and especially if I’m emotionally depleted or upset. But I have long been a follower of Geneen Roth’s wisdom regarding being mindful toward eating and compassionate toward ourselves, and so move through these periods with kindness and curiosity about what’s going on. The nice part is, my eating baseline is so sturdy and steady after all these years of micro-changes, there isn’t far to go to get back in balance.
Setting a Realistic and Doable Baseline
My love of exercise (for years I refused to even call it that, preferring the term movement) also started in my 20s as a daily 20-minute morning walk. Like many people, I had struggled to exercise regularly, always trying to follow “expert” advice, but finding that the recommended 30 minutes of aerobic activity seemed like too much to maintain. So I examined my schedule and decided I could consistently carve out 20 minutes to walk each morning. And if it was a morning where I couldn’t even get my head around 20 minutes, the deal I had with myself was that I would go outside and walk around the block for at least 5 minutes. The point was to walk out the door every day, preferably around the same time of day, to create and maintain the habit of moving my body.
At some point in my walking career, my body started urging me to jog a bit, and it slowly grew from there – but always with the understanding that if I did nothing else, I would walk around the block for at least 5 minutes a day.
Now my body craves daily movement, typically for 40 or more minutes at a time, usually more than once a day, and I find it more uncomfortable not to exercise than to exercise. These days, 20 minutes is my minimum baseline if I just need to “get the gunk moving” or work out some stress or grab a breath of fresh air, but it didn’t go from 5 to 20 overnight. That habit took years of consistent daily practice to gradually build, and it started with carving out the time and head space to get myself out the door for no less than 5 minutes a day.
Resolution #1: Compassion
I repeat: None of it happened overnight, and none of it happened because of an all-or-nothing New Year’s resolution. All of it came about because of an earlier resolution I’d made while in college: Be kind and gentle with myself. (Again, thank you, Geneen Roth.)
The nasty voice in your head that tells you what a loser you are doesn’t help you make positive, lasting changes. It makes you want to stop at the store on the way home and buy a box of donuts and a family-size bag of chips and dip – not to mention a good helping of chocolate.
Instead, try a dose of kindness and a tiny goal you can actually commit yourself to. Allow that to be enough. Make it a meditative practice, a ritual your body can count on. At some point, it will have become a habit and require so little of your attention that you will have room for another incremental change.
At some point, those micro-changes will become a macro-change – a lifestyle. And you will have liked yourself the entire time, not just once you got there.
P.S. Since I’m writing about food and health, I am compelled to note that I am not a medical professional, nor do I play one on TV. My goal is to share insights into what has worked for me in building a healthier lifestyle in an already-healthy individual. I share all this with the assumption that you will do what’s right for you and consult with your doctor or proper medical professional of choice regarding any health concerns or needs specific to you.
