Eating an Elephant: a Paradoxical Metaphor for Weight-Loss

Small changes can alter our lives.

I know, I know. "Thank you, Captain Obvious." We all know that small things have large effects. Look at David and Goliath, the Lilliputians versus Gulliver, the damage a little deposit of hard water can do to our showerheads. But how often do we apply this notion practically?

Weight-loss is one of those challenges that is a perfect place to begin looking at this idea. It's so multi-faceted that we can't just tackle the whole thing at once. It will defeat us. Sure, we try. And it's simple enough to break down weight-loss into two easy columns: "nutrition" and "exercise."

So the obvious answer is "eat less, exercise more," right?

Well, no. Not exactly. It's not wrong, but the whole concept is more complicated than that.

We have hundreds of little habits every day that contribute to our overall lifestyles. That Kit Kat bar you have at midnight every night. Never trying new foods. Munching while you cook. Driving everywhere (which, admittedly, is somewhat of a necessity when civilization is massively spread out.) And my personal favorite? Soda.

So I took a minute to sketch out some of my habits, and it overwhelmed me in the course of about ten seconds. There was a lot more than I thought. How was I ever going to change all that?

By using the same method you would to eat an elephant, of course.

That's how the "Little Changes" list was born. I outlined at least twenty small changes I could make, or even experiments I could try, to change my lifestyle. Here are a few examples:

1) Drink 8 (8 oz) glasses of water per day. Do not have soda or juice until this requirement is met.

2) Put together a scrapbook of light recipes so that it's all in one place.

3) Plan your meals for the week and shop accordingly.

4) Experiment: go meatless once per week.

5) Take one processed food out of your cart every time you shop and replace it with a fruit or vegetable.

6) Drink water while you cook instead of grazing.

Things like that. And I decided, since I am organizationally challenged anyway, that I don't have to do it all at once, or even go in order. I pick one or two, work on changing those things, and when they've become habits, I check them off the list. Likewise, with experiments, I try them, see how they work. Then they either become a change, or something I don't feel strongly about maintaining. Check it off the list. Move on to something else.

This method, my friends, is the only reason that, during my plateau, I didn't gain all my lost weight back. It's because of the small changes I made to my diet and lifestyle that stuck even after I fell into my rut. True story.

I didn't know elephant was such a health food.

Planning: Kicking Procrastinators in the Head, One at a Time

I procrastinate.

It's a fact of life.

I have been known to write papers the night before they were due (or even a few hours before.) Stayed up late because I didn't feel like going to bed. I consistently wait until my laundry basket is overflowing and I have no jeans to do laundry. I even sometimes pack a few boxes and then wait until the day I'm supposed to move to finish the majority -- and then sit down to write a blog about planning instead of doing it.

Don't look at me like that, I don't own very much. But still. Irony lives, right?

So given this premise, planning how I eat seems like a life-altering blow to the head. And who knows, it might well give me a self-inflicted concussion - not unlike how when moving during college, I dropped a box on a handtruck while bending over, thus allowing the heavy metal bar to smack me right in the temple. (Yes, I did have a mild concussion from this.) On the other hand, it might be a positive change.

So I'm officially putting myself on a month-long challenge to plan what I eat each week.

The breakdown:

On the weekend, I will take an hour of my time to put together a list for that week.

1) Determine, given your plans for the week, how many meals you will need and categorize them by breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack.

2) Looking at your schedule, see what kinds of meals you will need. Are you going to be needing a sack lunch at work? A nice dinner at home?

3) Examining your recipes, determine what meals you want to have on what days of the week. If you want, even include a meal that you will cook once and then break it down into smaller portions for several meals (note: be sure to break it up right from the get-go, or if you're like me, you will fail.)

4) Make a grocery list based on what you planned and go shopping.

Then, if you like, you can always switch a meal with another meal if you just don't feel like having baked tilapia on Wednesday night. And on the plus side, it means that most of the food worth eating in your house will be based on a plan that you made beforehand, meaning that you'll (possibly) be less prone to buying excessive amounts of junk food and grazing on it all week.

Sure, it probably won't work out perfectly. Life inevitably happens. Friends come over last-minute and your dinner plans won't work anymore. You go out to an impromptu lunch with a co-worker. You get stuck behind a cattle drive on a twisted narrow road going up a hill for three miles and by the time you get home from work, you're tired and annoyed and the traction on your tires is filled with cow crap and damnit, you just don't feel like cooking.

But adapting to that is just being flexible. It doesn't mean that we can't stick to a plan, especially when that plan means that we might start eating smarter. And I'll gladly take any opportunity to change my habits around.

So I'm challenging myself, and you're welcome to do it. Several smaller changes add up to large results.

...but I'll start later. Because right now, I have to finish packing.