Take It Slow

Current Weight: 233 lbs.
Change 3: Take it slow.

Don’t make too many changes at one time, especially drastic changes. My first impulse when I wanted to lose weight was to change everything I could toward achieving my goals. However, looking forward toward the long-term, I realized this was a quick path to failure. It is easy to become overwhelmed by too many changes and give up far short of reaching any milestones.

Everyone is different, and is more open to changing different aspects of their life easier than others, so set your own change pace. For me, changing two or three things about my lifestyle and habits a week should be attainable, so that will be my weekly goal. Some changes will be much easier to make than others, some will be harder, but the harder changes can typically broken down into smaller changes.

Start slowly, make one change. If you can keep to that change for a day or two without too much effort, make a second change. If you find yourself slipping and unable to keep to the current change, go back 1 step. It is far easier to recover from one step back than to stop completely and start over.