A Change Is in Order
Nothing changes until you change. While the difficult takes time, the seemingly impossible just takes a little longer.
Today marks one year since the day that my dad knocked on my door about midnight in early August and told me to get up. He and my mom were worried about me. He called 911, and I was rushed off to the emergency room. I spent the next couple days pondering my life when the endocrinologist looked at me and said that I had been moments from something catastrophic happening. He didn’t say days; the doctor said I had only been moments from losing my life. I have diabetes type 2. My weight was 344 pounds. My blood pressure was high. My A1C blood test was 14.9 where a normal range is 4.5 to 6 percent. I was in really bad shape. A high triglycerides level is 200 to 499 mg/dL, but my triglycerides were beyond high at 2,784.
A year later, I look back on that day and ask myself what has changed, and the answer is simple—nothing has changed. And I’ve thought about it day and night. I think about being self-disciplined, I think about routine, I think about structure, and if I’m going to be honest with myself, I think about all I’ve made is one excuse after another.
I said, “Tomorrow I’ll change. I’ll do it tomorrow.” And then I said, “How about on Monday? Monday I’ll start.” But when you talk about a specific starting date or you talk about starting tomorrow, that only says one thing—it says that you’re not really committed to making the change. My weight is down to 337 pounds, and because of medications, all of my blood sugars and my blood work are okay; my health is in check, I’m feeling good. Actually, I’m feeling great! But that is nothing more than a Band-Aid on the real problem.
As I talked today with my personal trainer and another emergency room doctor at the Crossfit Center, we decided to get real with each other. Well, they’ve actually been real with me for a while; I just haven’t been real with myself. They’ve designed thirty-one workouts of the day. I’ve completed only ten of them. I need to be honest with them and with myself. I do travel. I am on the road a lot, but they have also devised workouts in that plan that I can do while I’m traveling. So the bottom line is this: In one year, I haven’t changed, but I’ve continued to make a lot of excuses.
I am going to commit to three simple things right now.
- I’m going to wake up each day with a commitment: a commitment to myself and a commitment to my health.
- I am going to keep a written account. Every single day, I am going to write down where I am and where I’m going, what I did for a workout, and what my diet consisted of.
- I am going to set a goal that is specific, attainable, and measureable.
If followed through on every single day, those three things should really only take six to eight weeks to develop into a new purpose and a new habit.
Just remember—nothing changes until you choose to change!