A weird title for a blog post, but stick with me here. There is a crepe myrtle in my backyard that has been plaguing me. It looks awesome, but it drops its petals on my sidewalk, they stick to the bottom of my shoe, and then I track them into my gym.
So I started off solving this problem by continually sweeping out my gym. Take that myrtle! As you can guess, that didn’t really solve the problem. I was sweeping those petals out every day.
So I really got smart and swept the sidewalk where the petals were sticking to shoes. Listen I didn’t graduate from Grissom High School with a 2.3 GPA by being a dummy.
But guess what? The petals just kept a'comin down and that became my new daily sweeping chore.
If I really wanted to solve the problem, I should sweep the spot where all this is coming from right? By trimming the branches that hang over the sidewalk I could prevent all this from happening.
There is one caveat for that though. It is not my crepe myrtle. I can trim the ones that I can get to, but there are some that I can’t. I will just have to make it work.
I am a little slow in learning this sweeping/pruning stuff, but I see the same thing with people with their nutrition and exercise habits. People that try to exercise like crazy to overcome a poor diet.
Then they switch to strict nutrition habits, but then the exercise habit starts to fall off. It becomes too much to handle.
So how do you get to the sweet spot of exercise and nutrition? By changing your mindset.
Don’t try to outexercise a bad diet. That is impossible.
Don’t put yourself on some crazy, restrictive diet that makes you miserable. The short term results you get are not worth it because it is not sustainable and you will gain all the weight back.
The sweet spot is found where you find some form of movement that you enjoy and you can stick to. Then you find a way of eating that nourishes your body, makes you feel good, and actually tastes good! When you add consistent, effective exercise to consistent, effective nutrition you start seeing tremendous results. And these are long term changes that will stick around.
Then there is the things that are out of your control, like rogue crepe myrtles, thyroid issues, or genetics. If you can’t control it and no amount of worrying will change it, then it is time to let that go. You just do the best you can with what you got.
Don’t get down on yourself, but also don’t use it as an excuse to quit. Just do your best and keep your focus on what you have the power to change.
PS-The Ultimate Sugar Challenge starts on Monday! If you haven't had a chance to complete your free registration, please do so before time runs out. If you have registered, the program starts on Monday but there will be 2 days to get comfortable with how everything will work.