Over the past few years, it’s been very difficult for me to concentrate on writing. I thought it was merely because I was getting older and perhaps a bit burned out and maybe a little disinterested, but I was wrong. Very wrong.
And you know what? You might be in the same boat I was in and not even realize it.
Whatever life situation you’re in right now, if you have moments when you feel underwhelmed, unenthusiastic, and way beyond just tired, unable, and seemingly incapable of creating your best work – for that matter, or to even try your best, and you’re more likely to give up, hit the sofa to eat and watch a movie instead of writing, you are not alone!
5 years ago I quit smoking, finally. Halleluiah! It was the best decision of my life.
But then something happened, I started to eat. When I say eat, Lord, you don’t know, I started to eat E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I couldn’t pass a fast food joint without getting a burger (maybe 3 or 4) and fries, I couldn’t pass an ice cream stand without at least getting a multi-scooper on a sugar cone!
It was a disaster.
Within just a few months of quitting smoking I put on 10 pounds, then 20, and then 30. And you know what, I gave into it. But after a while I noticed it wasn’t just that I was gaining weight, I was getting tired faster, wanted to sleep longer, and I just didn’t have the desire to write all that much anymore.
Have you ever gotten instantly depressed merely from looking in the mirror?
I did. And it didn’t simply go away when I stopped looking. It lasted, and crazy enough, it made me eat more.
People kept saying the weight you put on after quitting smoking eventually goes away, like magic. Let me tell you two things, it doesn’t just go away and there is no eFF’ing magic to it! Zero.
I haven’t written all that much over the past three years. It’s been a struggle to sit down, face the keys and type anything, much less words that matter. I got fat and with each pound, I lost more and more of my drive.
New Flash: According to the Harvard School of Public Health, weight gain impairs physical functioning, reduces quality of life, and is associated with poor mental health. And now, friends and neighbors, I can personally confirm this! Or, better said, no shit!
Most of my life I’ve been a rather small guy, slim, 130 pounds soaking wet, with a size 29 waist. When I went into surgery for my hernia a while back, I weighed in at 200lbs! I’m not a tall guy, so 200 pounds is a big deal for me. It was a shock.
About 4 months ago I went to the doctor because I felt pulling in my chest after I ran upstairs. It freaked me out. The doc did an EKG and it didn’t come back all that great.
Let me tell you when you get EKG results that aren’t “good,” everything changes.
I could tell something was wrong when the nurse was finished and she hurried out with the results with a very concerned look on her face and then the doc came back in a minute later seriously looking over the results. I started getting scared.
Apparently, there was an anomaly in my results, I won’t go into the diagnosis in this post, but I will tell you this, from that day forward I changed my eating habits overnight. For 3 years I had wanted to change my diet, but it had been damn near impossible. However, with this new motivation, I changed my choices of food without a second thought.
Isn’t it strange how something can suddenly be so life changing? We can struggle for years and then something snaps and the change becomes instant. I wish we could do this without extreme crises.
This isn’t the first time medical results caused me to change instantly. In fact, my doctor’s warning about emphysema caused me to quit smoking from one minute to the next. I had tried to quit for years and his lab results caused me to quit instantly. It’s sad that it takes such dramatic life and death warnings to get me to choose to stop killing myself.
I’m sure I am not alone, so take it from me, don’t wait if you find yourself in unhealthy lifestyle situations. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Waiting isn’t the problem. It’s the sudden clicks in our heads that get us to take action, but until the buttons are pushed, change seems impossible.
I used to think people overweight simply didn’t want to lose weight. I thought it was a choice. Same with smoking, but how did that work out for me after so many years doing it? Not great! Teeth problems, breathing problems, and so many underlying issues―many that I might not even know about yet. God willing, my body will heal itself.
Weight is even worse because it’s not like you can only stop eating―you have to change nearly everything you do eat (or, at least I had to).
And let me tell you, no matter how much smoke shaming, fat shaming, whatever-you-struggle-with shaming, and yes, even worse, self-shaming we have to contend with, none of it compels us to positively change. All the shaming just makes it worse. I wish it would stop.
Non-smokers, slim people, and anyone who thinks they know better and have to be an ass about it, stop it. One day, there will be something someone’s going to shame you about (if it’s not happening already).
Instead, consider helping, supporting, loving, and just plain caring. Or get out of the way and leave well enough alone.
Without the need to shame anyone, please know that change is possible. I did quit smoking. I did lose weight―40 pounds!―(finally), and I am making better lifestyle choices. You might not be a smoker and you might not be overweight, but there might be something causing you distress and self-harm. Know this: Positive change is possible.
Know this: Positive change is possible. Click To TweetMajor Changes
These are the major changes I made:
1) Stopped eating junk food and limited sugar intake!
The first thing I did after I got the results of my EKG is I committed in my mind that I was not going to eat junk food anymore. I also stopped eating “added sugar,” in other words if it’s not a natural sugar, I don’t eat it.
This may sound like a small undertaking, but truth be told, I ate fast food and drank soda daily! I’m an on the go person and fast food fit my lifestyle. This was one of the biggest changes I’ve ever made.
2) Stopped eating white bread, rice, and pasta.
Actually, I have practically stopped eating bread altogether. I do eat one slice of gluten-free sunflower seed bread in the morning with a slice of cheese. I love rice and would eat it by the bowl, especially when I would get Chinese food to go. Spaghetti was another quick meal I would frequently make.
This might surprise you, but a study in 2015 published in the British Journal of Nutrition studied people who were split into two groups. One group lowered their whole grain bread consumption and the other group lowered their white bread consumption. The group that ate less white bread in their diet lost weight, in particular, belly fat. To add to this, I’ve lost 70% of my belly fat in the last 4 months!
3) Started eating salads for lunch and stopped eating large meals at night.
In the past, I would have a complete junk food lunch, and later, at home, I’d eat another full meal. The sad thing is, most of the time I wasn’t even that hungry in the evening, but I grew up with dinner at 5 and I’ve kept to that regardless of how much I had already eaten for lunch. Now I usually have a light bowl of soup in the evening.
4) Stopped trash snacking.
When I would sit in front of the TV or when I was working on a writing project I would frequently eat cookies or chips (or another trash snack), and often I’d have a little dip to go along with the chips. No more!
5) Replaced trash snacking with plain or lightly salted popcorn.
Popcorn is actually a low-calorie healthy snack, when, and only when, we pass on all the other toppings. Lightly salted (if you’re not prohibited from salt) and perhaps a little parmesan cheese, but all that other stuff, like butter, is a no-go. The great thing about popcorn is that it fills me up crushing the munchies that used to do me in.
If you like popcorn, the best option is to air pop it yourself. It’s very easy, simply put the popcorn kernels in a brown lunch paper bag and fold the top over twice to ensure it’s closed. Microwave on high until the popping has about a two-second gap in it, 1.5-2.5 minutes depending on your microwave. Dump the popped popcorn into a large bowl, salt as you want it, and enjoy! It’s cheaper and a lot healthier than pre-bagged microwave popcorn.
Other snacking I enjoy are grapes, nectarines, apples, and other fruits.
Here’s a quote I love from Jim Rohn:
We’ve all heard the expression, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away.’ Well, I’ve got a question for you: What if it’s true? Wouldn’t that be easy to do-to eat an apple a day? Here’s the problem: It’s also easy not to do. – Or, the guy messed up the saying, the guy says a Hershey bar a day… No! It’s not a Hershey bar, you’ve got to be smarter than that.
6) Started exercising.
I started with some light aerobics to music in the mornings. I made it fun by treating it like a dance and not going too serious right away. At first, I only did aerobics for about 15 minutes, but now I do it from 30 to 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how much time I have available. I’ve also learned that in order for exercise to be effective, 5 hours a week is the optimal amount of time that should be spent doing it. I make sure I get my 5 hours every week!
I thought I would hate exercising, but after doing it for several months, I don’t know how I ever lived without doing it. It makes the entire day so much better.
Feel Profoundly Better
The above list might seem easy to some, but let me tell you, these are major, even dramatic changes I had to make. The improvement in how I feel, how I can focus and concentrate are nothing short of profound. I find myself writing again, heck, later this year I will publish a new book! Getting your blood flowing and having nutritious food in your system increases motivation and decreases procrastination. And, let me tell you, I was a world champion procrastinator!
I hope the changes save my life. I want to live to be 100! We live in a fast food world and we are in a century of ever-increasing productivity and go-go-go. The problem is the human body wasn’t made to be under so much constant demand and live off of processed food which provides practically no nourishment.
Whole foods rich in natural nutrients have changed my life.
I do my best to stay away from processed foods. I strive to eat what my body can actually use. For example, my body can get the most out of fruits, which do contain sugar, but that’s no excuse to eat a candy bar―which also contains sugar. The difference is my body can use the vast nutrients found in grapes and other fruits, but candy bars are useless with the exception of adding to body fat and adding other dangerous ingredients to my body.
Of course, you can overdo your sugar intake by going overboard on grapes, but under all circumstances, I still prefer them over cookies, chips, and candy bars.
I learned the hard way if you want to feel right – you’ve got to eat right!
If you want to feel right - you've got to eat right! Click To TweetI love writing. I love creating. I love living. I’m going to eat and drink accordingly going forward. I prefer to eat healthier and exercise rather than feel like crud every day and not write the way I want to write and be the person I want to be, healthy and energized.
Every writer, artist, and creative, should consider eating healthy and exercising. You won’t just get back to creating your best work, you’ll feel much better too! I promise.
People have noticed my weight loss and have especially noticed I’m more upbeat and animated and that’s so rewarding to me for others to acknowledge my efforts to overcome my personal struggles. Several have asked me sincerely how they too can lose weight and/or deal with their various struggles, and at first, I wasn’t sure how to answer, but after thinking about it, allow me to offer these steps as suggestions:
1) Make a conscious decision.
Before I quit smoking and before I started to eat better I had already determined that I wanted to do those things. Although both changes I made in an instant manner due to the doctor scaring the shit out of me, the fact that I wanted to do these things was something I had already decided, so the actions were in line with my will.
Now here’s the thing, I wanted to eat and live healthier not just so that I would feel better or that I would lose weight, I ultimately wanted to live healthier because my heart needs me to and I want to live longer. Feeling so much better and losing weight are two major side effects of this new lifestyle.
I didn’t say to myself, I’m going to start losing weight tomorrow. What I said to myself was, I’m going to consciously choose better foods and stop eating junk food! Period. And, thankfully, I did that.
The conscious decision was key. If you’re not sure or half-ass about whatever you want, change will not happen. I know, because all of my previous efforts failed due to indecision.
2) Make way-of-life changes.
Fad diets, crash diets, 6 week or 6-month diets, are, for the most part, bullshit! Seriously, why go through so much effort simply to go back to the way things were when you were not as happy, when you didn’t feel like you wanted to feel, when you didn’t look like you wanted to look, and when you weren’t being the person you wanted to be? Think about it.
Diets are temporary, that’s why we so often say they fail because we expect the results to last after we stop them. However, the good news is that when you make a lifestyle change, meaning you change the way you live your life, such as your eating habits or any other habit, you make a commitment to yourself forever. Lifelong commitments last. Temporary changes, don’t. You would think this would be a no-brainer, but most all of us fall for the idea of diets.
What I discovered is that when I changed my eating habits at first the food was different and it didn’t necessarily taste as good, but now, months later, I love what I am eating and it tastes far more delicious and nutritious than all the junk I had been eating. Processed foods have so many additives and crap in it that we don’t even know what it’s like to not eat them.
Once you get used to natural whole foods, you discover what you’ve been missing. Commit to lifelong change, my friend.
3) Get out of your own way.
What I mean by that is we are a results-driven society, but this drive hurts us when we are trying to hurry the human process along. Once you start to improve, let’s say you start to lose weight as I did, you might get excited and overeager for the process to hurry up and you begin to check your weight every morning. I personally think this is a fallacy and is more likely to lead to failure.
The human clock works on its own time, there’s only so much you can do to hurry it along. Waking up in the morning expecting to have lost 5lbs because you starved yourself the day before is not just impossible, it’s dangerous.
If you’re doing the right things, such as exercising and eating the right food for you, the results will eventually be obvious, but you shouldn’t get so impatient that you try to hurry them even more. Trust that you are already doing what you need to do and forget about your weight for a while, just let it happen. It will.
I don’t know how many people ask me about my weight daily. What’s the number today? They look at me strangely when I say I don’t know. I check at the end of each month, but not day to day.
4) Do what’s right for you.
This is so important. What I eat and do, might not be right for you. I enjoy aerobics in the morning. It reminds me of doing martial arts in my childhood, so now that I’m into it, I am even getting a little back into martial arts. I discovered the other day I can kick again!
What’s your thing? What would you like to be able to do again?
We are also lucky that today, even better than just 10 years ago, there are more healthy choices, premade salads, fruit bowls, and other ways of eating healthier. It’s not as challenging. Take advantage of it! If that’s your thing.
Ask yourself these questions to help motivate yourself to get started:
- What do I want?
- What would I enjoy most if I were healthier, more energetic, smarter, not procrastinating, smoke-free, you pick.
- How can I do it?
- Who can I ask for help or advice?
Last Word: CHANGE Is HARD – But Can Happen In An Instant!
Everyone makes the mental changes they need to in order to change in an instant. However, until that instant comes, whatever may cause it―be it a decision, a diagnosis or just the fact that you’ve had enough of whatever it is already― real change can’t and won’t happen.
We can want and even try for years to do something, to change something, but it’s not the years that make the difference, it’s the instant the mental change is made within you! I can’t make it for you, nobody, no matter how hard they try, or how much they preach, can make this change happen for you. Only you can.
After the EKG I could have continued my unhealthy lifestyle and I would have paid a high price, but in an instant, I made a mental change that may have saved my life! Yes, it was the results of the EKG that motivated me to change, but why? Because it was a trigger.
What I have learned about making real changes is that we have to find out what our triggers are first. For example, when you become attracted to another person you go out of our way to discover what they like and don’t like so that you can best appeal to them via their triggers. This is basic human nature, and therein is the answer.
Instead of discovering what the triggers are for other people, find out what your own are and use them to create change in your life. What is powerful enough to motivate you to change in an instant? You know what it is. Trust me. My health was most important to me when it came to smoking and weight. What’s most important to you?
Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.
