Imagine for a moment the following scenario
You drive up to your annual family holiday event and walk through the front door into the warm embrace of friends and family. You are feeling pretty damn good, albeit form the awkward family member who always treats you in some ambiguous manner involving your cheeks, breaking your hands with a handshake, or some other gesture that involves pain or humiliation.
Right after you conquer this first hurdle, you notice a massive spread of appetizers in your immediate eyesight. You begin to drool and get into an all-but-brief food sex day dream where you imagine yourself stuffing your face with a plethora of cheeses, egg nog, crackers, and other delectable. Before you rush into the table you stop yourself and ask,
“Wait one of my goals for the New Year is to go in shape, eating all of this probably isn’t a good idea”
Sound advice you believe, but then you second guess yourself.
“A few pieces of cheese isn’t a big deal, I mean I am going to go to the gym on January 1st, errrrr rather maybe the second since I will be to hung-over on the 1st.”
And this is where the inevitable tipping point, or “@#$k it” comes into play. You decide to fully partake in all of the holiday eating and not only consume enough calories to last you two days, but also destroy your plan to get back in shape and healthy this coming year. Why does this happen? Why is it that every year there are millions of people across the world that create diets for the New Year and ultimately fail and reside themselves to a life buried inside of a Cheetos bag?
There are literally millions of reasons, but rational and totally ridiculous, that explains why people are usually total failures when it comes to the resolution of loosing weight. And these reasons become all the more prevalent during this holiday season. Concepts like “heart conditions”, genetics, recent surgery, illness, laziness, all seem to lead to a life spent at Baskin Robbins rather than lifetime fitness. But what can you do? Is not eating the crappy appetizers and skipping on your second helping of apple pie really going to start a domino effect where you get your shit together and ultimately sculpt your dream body? Probably not. What a small step like restraining yourself during the holiday season will do is allow you to start to form a pattern that will ultimately lead to a lifestyle change that will grant you physique you have always imagined.
It’s these small steps that form patterns that eventually turn into habits, and habits become a lifestyle and more importantly, a piece of the puzzle that you have called your dream life. But this clearly isn’t the domino effect I mentioned above, this is hard shit, forming habits and making changes to your lifestyle are not brain surgery, but they damn sure can feel like it to anyone who has tried to make a serious change in their life.
What I am suggesting in this brief, but succinct post of today is that you make the decisions this holiday that reflect the lifestyle you want to have, and feel good about it. Even if you know that by skipping the cheese plate will only be a failure when it comes time for apple pie, the mere fact that you took a step in the right direction could set the wheels in motion for your fitness goals for 2010.
Even if you are already in shape, or are not worried about your health or appearance for whatever reason, you can easily apply this advice to any area of your life that you are trying to improve. Instead of skipping the cheese plate you might choose to donate some of those gifts you were going to give to your kids to the unfortunate, in your efforts to be a better philanthropist. Maybe you jump online and start that new investment portfolio while you sip some egg nog after the Christmas storm has passed. The possibilities will end only with your imagination.
So remember, enjoy life, take action in your life, and don’t get yourself into an egg nog coma.
Cheers
Gabriel
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