I've gained 25 pounds
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Spring of last year I was out in the pasture catching goats for their annual shots. I'd just turned 40. Everyone talks about your body going downhill after 40. I lunged at a particularly skittish goat and felt a snap in my left arm. I knew right away it was bad. I looked down and my bicep was deformed. The tendon had torn off my elbow and the muscle had retracted up toward my shoulder. I had surgery that week to reattach it. Then I was in a brace for months that started me locked at 90 degrees and straightened a little more each week. Physical therapy after that. It was the better part of a year before I could load that arm the way I used to. Here's where things stand today. I'm 6'5" and I weigh 275. That's 25 pounds more than I was carrying eighteen months ago. I'd like to blame the injury. But exercise has never been my problem. Eating has. My activity dropped and my eating never adjusted. A little more of the storyAt my heaviest I was 347. At least that's what the scale said the first time I stepped on one, in my mid-twenties. I'd lose some and put it back on. By my mid-thirties I'd held in the 290s for a few years. Five years ago I hit one of those moments where I didn't feel good, I didn't like how I looked, and the pain of staying the same finally outweighed the pain of changing. Over about six months I got down to about 235 before settling around 250 until my bicep injury. I wrote a whole series about it back then. What I ate, what I tracked, what worked and what didn't. I won't get into that here, but I'll send it to anyone who wants it. So I'm not a man who needs more information. I know exactly what to do. That's the thing I’m actually writing about here. The gap between knowing and doing is where almost all of this lives. And it's the same gap that shows up in every other part of life that matters. You know how to be a better husband. You know what your kids need from you. You know how to better lead yourself. We don't have a knowledge problem. We have an execution problem. Why botherA week ago a buddy texted me. He’s down over 10 pounds in a few weeks. I feel the extra weight I’m carrying and what I’m eating is affecting the way I feel. He inspired me to set a goal and tell him about it. But before chasing a goal, it’s good to think about whether it’s a goal worth having. So I've had to get specific about what I'm actually after. I want to feel better. I want energy at the end of the day when my family needs me most. I’m over 40 now. I can’t eat junk without feeling like junk. And I want not only a long life but to have quality of life. I want to be a grandfather one day who’s healthy and active and mobile. Decisions and habits I form now matter more than ever. And I want to be a walking example. I write about leadership. I ask men to make commitments and follow through. It matters to me that what I look like and what I say line up. When I'm snacking at 10pm or skipping the workout, what I say is out of alignment with my appearance and what I’m doing. That gap is more uncomfortable than seeing the number on the scale go up. So, I’ve set a goal on the scale. But the outcomes are health, energy and integrity. How this goes wrongI’ve lost weight plenty of times before, so I know the pitfalls. At 347 I was unhealthy. At 295 I was still unhealthy. And at 235 I was still unhealthy. Let me explain. My weight was the symptom. Food was my coping mechanism. Not alcohol, not substances. Food was recreation, comfort, and the way I celebrated a good day or took the edge off a hard day. Then I lost the weight. And at my leanest, food still took up an enormous amount of space in my head. What I was going to eat. When. What came after that. Except now it was logging, weighing, planning, calculating. Same obsession but in the opposite direction. The tracking and the incremental results became the escape. I was physically unhealthy at my heaviest. I was mentally unhealthy at my leanest. We’ve all got our thing. Usually it's less about the thing and more about what the thing is doing for you. It’s the same difference between a couple drinks with friends and the nightly beers you need to stop thinking about work. Or between the evening hours you spend on a passion project and the extra hours at the office because you feel more capable there than you do at home. Which brings me to the target. I'm going to 250, not back into the 230s. Last time I pushed lower than 250, it stopped being about health and started being about the number. Motivation is not a planHere's the core idea regardless of what your goal is. You’ll have a moment of inspiration that makes you want to do something. Inspiration is energizing and temporary. In my case it was the text from my buddy that inspired me. Inspiration may lead to motivation as you develop a strong enough reason to take action. Motivation is more practical than inspiration, but it fluctuates. I’m motivated by the thought of feeling better, improving my health especially into the decades ahead, and better aligning my actions with my words. Discipline is where intention becomes consistent behavior that’s aligned with your chosen commitments. But how can I consistently make the right small choices throughout the day after my inspiration fades and as my motivation fluctuates? I feel plenty motivated at 6am. I have almost zero motivation by 10pm which is when I want to eat junk before going to sleep. So here’s what I do. I make important decisions during moments of inspiration that protect my decision making when my inspiration and motivation are nonexistent. Here’s what that actually looks like:
Stuff like this makes it more painful to make bad decisions. You make a handful of decisions while you're clear and motivated, and it makes fifty smaller decisions easier later, when you're neither. What this looks like for other thingsI just had a group of men put money down to join my program, partly because they wanted to be held to things they already knew they should do. Not many guys are willing to do that. That’s an identity affirming move. It also makes it more painful to fail and more likely to succeed. They’re invested for the next 90 days. They’ve got other guys they’ve committed in front of and the money translates to skin in the game. Environmental moves can have the same effect. Remove the option instead of resisting it. Get the junk out of the fridge or pantry. Or delete the apps off your phone. Sure, you could drive to the store or download the apps again in a moment of weakness, but adding that extra step can be just enough friction to keep you on track. I talked recently with a guy who bought some of those boxes that lock up your phone or snacks or whatever for hours or days. Some look at a move like that as weakness. “You don’t have the discipline and instead need something like that?” But it’s not weak, it's wise. Figure out what works for you and make that big move in a moment of inspiration. Tell someone else about your commitment. Make a big change to your environment. Get some skin in the game. Make it hard or even impossible to fail. The pattern is the same every time. Spend the inspiration while you have it, building something that keeps working after the inspiration fades. What this actually isThis isn't a weight post. It's a self-leadership post. The men I work with run companies. They watch numbers, hold people accountable, and make hard calls under pressure. Then they come home and give their families what’s left. The clock is ticking on the time left before the kids grow up and move out. They know something needs to change. They commit to the program during a moment of inspiration and we then translate that to execution. Because your kids aren't going to remember what you told them about health. They're going to remember what you did, every ordinary day, for years. Mine are watching me carry 25 extra pounds right now and experiencing my low energy. They're also watching me do something about it. Both of those are teaching them something. And this isn’t about guilt. Guilt has never once made me healthier because that emotion comes and goes also. This is about opportunity and conviction. So I'm at 275 and I'd like to be at 250. But what I want more is to be a man whose life increasingly matches what he says he believes, in the small stuff, on the days nobody's looking. I'll let you know how it goes. But for you, where's the gap between what you know and what you're actually doing? And what would make it harder to keep ignoring? Hit reply and tell me. That’s a significant move because I’ll respond and I’ll also follow up later on to ask how it’s going. Keep leading. -Andrew |