This month, December 31st actually, my husband and I started a vegan weight loss diet. We did it for weight loss, for increased energy, and because as older parents, we want to stay healthy for our children as long as we can.
THIS DIET IS A LOT OF WORK. Creating the shopping list for the first week’s meal plan took over two hours. For the shopping itself, I spent more than an hour in the produce section of Fairway, and 30% more than my usual weekly grocery budget. All of this even before the chopping began.
Where am I going with all this? Well, dieting is probably one of the areas where people most often talk about willpower. Specifically, about the willpower to not eat even though you are hungry. Yet as anyone who has effectively lost and kept off weight knows, it is biologically impossible to resist real hunger when it happens. To really lose weight, we must inform ourselves, do the work, and notice the results. That is the only way to change habits. So it’s not about resisting under duress. It is about resisting the inertia to even try. It is about taking a leap of faith and doing the work (in this case the shopping and chopping) without focusing on the outcome.
Do you now see where I am going? Whether it is weight loss, job promotion, different communication with friends and colleagues, so often we want to know exactly how it will go before we try. We want proof. As someone who has been coached and who coaches others, I know that the only way we can change habits is by actually doing something different, trying a new path, even when we don’t know where it will lead.