On a Diet and It Doesn’t Feel So Good

I’m on a VERY strict no carb, no sugar, no happiness diet. I’m even avoiding diet sodas. Oh, Diet Mountain Dew, I miss you. 

Ketchup, bbq sauce, chocolate, no more. Gracious, it’s soooo hard. And it seems that the progress, the rewards come so slowly. 

I’ve been on this Third World diet for almost 12 hours now. 

Seems like forever!

Just kidding. I did start this thing today and so far so good. But that won’t last. By day 2 and 3 as my body goes into carb and sugar withdrawal, I’ll be praying for Sandra to smother me with a pillow in my sleep. 

Tim Grover, author of Relentless, and once the personal trainer for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, would put his athletes on this strict diet. He knew when they cheated. On days 2 and 3 if he asked his clients how they felt and they said “good”, they were cheating. Follow the diet strictly and you want to die. 

So why willingly put myself through this torture? Life is hard enough without purposefully compounding the crisis. 

I found a quote on the internet that Al Gore invented that sums it up. Many people are credited with variations of it, so whoever you are, thank you. You really understand us humans. Here goes:

Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. 

The pain of the next few days is the size of a gnat compared to the pain that will be life present and future if I don’t change. I see my diabetic and heart diseased father who can’t get around without help and it makes me sad. And overly self-reflective. I can live on autopilot and quite possibly suffer a similar fate or I can be proactive. 

Seth Godin put it well when he said that change-making happens when we fall in love with a different version of the future. 

I’m falling in love.