Ever feel like everything needed to happen yesterday? Do you feel that way about your life? Today is your day to do something significant with your life. Now is your time to live with purpose and meaning. Not tomorrow, not yesterday. Right now.
Whenever someone starts a new diet, or anything for that matter, the progression usually goes as follows like Sally’s story – Sally is sick of being sick so she decides to give Paleo a shot. She’s very excited and reads everything she can get her hands on in 24 hours. She cleans out her cupboards, sticks her Paleo Made Simple Guide to the fridge and begins! Day 1 breakfast is great – eggs, bacon, butter (what is there not to love?), lunch goes well because excitement is still through the roof, and dinner is fine, even though she ate out at a local steakhouse. Day 2 is similar to the first. On Day 3, however, Sally’s co-worker brings brownies (Sally’s absolute favorite!) – the worth it kind – and Sally eats 3 immediately on impulse, no thought, no question. Afterwards Sally feels guilty for eating the brownies and thinks, “Maybe Paleo isn’t for me. It’s really hard and although I haven’t researched it much, I’ve heard that bacon grease is unhealthy so maybe I’ll just go back to Weight Watchers/Slim Fast/Meta Fast/etc.”
Here Sally has a decision that many beginner-Paleoer’s have – quit Paleo and go back to whatever wasn’t working for them before because they are more comfortable in their misery than living in uncertainty OR forgive herself for messing up and return to the plan.
Thankfully, Sally chose the latter. She knew she messed up, but she had give herself permission to fail without falling off the bandwagon. She knew that her metabolism was really messed up as evidenced by her weight, her sluggishness, her medications, her poor sleep. She chose to think of the BIG PICTURE of 30 days instead of individual battles within that time.
In a war are many battles. The outcome of one or two battles do not determine the outcome of the war, but the outcome of several battles over a period of time. The same applies to transformations. Your body and mind really like what they are used to and are resistant to change… at first. Nothing that you appreciate and care deeply for came without conflict and/or hardship. Any deeply meaningful relationship that you have has been tested at some point and you had the choice – do you care enough about the relationship to work through it OR it’s meaningless, so you drop it like a bad hat?
I really want to encourage you today to be like Sally and decide “Today is my day for success! Now is my time for transformation.” (Tip: It’s a good time to begin saying those words to yourself AND out loud. Say it and live it until you believe it.)
Honor your learning journey with Paleo. I know it is difficult at first. You cannot undo 20 (or more) years of damage overnight, but 3 or 4 days isn’t enough to say you’ve truly given it a shot! There will be hardships but at the end of the day, do you want to feel successful (even if you’ve fallen short in a few areas) because you gave it your best? Or do you want to continue in your vicious cycle of sickness, try something, fail soon after, give up, sickness, wish you could try something, try something, fail once or twice, give up, etc., etc.?
You can do this! You don’t have to succeed at Paleo yesterday! Learning is the meat and potatoes of the journey! When you truly understand Paleo, you’ll realize that not only that you CAN do it, but that there is extensive freedom of choice. But understanding doesn’t happen instantly. Yes, the “AHA!” lightbulb may go off, but it’s usually not the first, second or tenth day. Sometimes it takes weeks and others months.
The point is that the time you spend learning and doing is invaluable to your overall success. Every victory and every mess-up take you further along your path towards success! But you have a map and you know where to go! So I know you’ll be successful.
Congratulations, by the way, on taking this journey. I admire you because I know undoing 20+ years of nutritional propaganda is hard and no small risk. Your stories and results are encouraging to me because they affirm how resilient you are and the fact that Paleo truly works.
What do you think? Have you honored your journey of time? Or wanted everything to happen yesterday? Comment below!
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