Splat!

"The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette."

-Henry Hoskins

When you first get started on the health and fitness path, you're NOT going to see immediate results outwardly.  You're just not.  It is important that you keep your expectations realistic so that you don't give up too soon.  It's also important that you just keep going anyway!

There are many "victories" you can find along the way if you remain open and expect slow positive progress.

Here are just some of the rewards, benefits, small successes that you can be on the lookout for over time:

• When you eat the very first healthy, clean meal that is calorie or content controlled, think of how you FEEL.  It feels good to make that next right choice.  Stay in that moment and enjoy it.
• When you drink a lot of water, you can feel your body responding and after a few days your skin will feel a little softer and healthier.  You may be less puffy (my face improves a lot when I am well hydrated.)
• Your poopies will get more regular and less sludgy (yeah, I went there.  I'm sorry, but you are what you eat and when I eat sludge, I poop sludge.  That's a good barometer for me if I'm eating the right things.)
• Eating less refined CRAP and more lean protein and dark leafy greens/vegetables you will find you have more energy and a more positive disposition.
• After just a couple of weeks you will feel your clothes fitting better and bloating leaving the scene.
• You might be sweating less.  (When I eat processed CRAP I sweat a lot.  When I exercise a lot and don't eat CRAP, I stay a lot cooler.)
• There will be a little extra zip in your step.
• You may have more focus.  I sure do, in all areas of life, when I am exercising and eating well.
• You will feel so much better about yourself, knowing in your heart that you are doing what you can to be healthy.  That feeling translates into all your other interactions.

It can be frustrating making good next right choices and not seeing the scale drop 5 pounds per week, or not seeing the inches melt away immediately.  Take a slow, steady, consistent path to healthy eating and exercise and the slow, steady, consistent results WILL add up over time and you WILL reach your goal,

You just can't give up.  If you keep going, you'll make your goals.  If you turn around and go back to eating CRAP and ignoring the health ramifications of not exercising....you will never find what you truly want.  You know it's not back there.  It's ahead!! So get moving in that direction!

My friend Matt shared this with me while I was quitting smoking and felt like it was never going to get easier.  It applies here, too:

'A man meets a guru in the road. The man asks the guru, "Which way is success?"

The bearded sage speaks not but points to a place off in the distance.

The man thrilled by the prospect of quick and easy success, rushes off in the appropriate direction. Suddenly, there comes a loud "splat."

Eventually, the man limps back, tattered and stunned, assuming he must have misinterpreted the message. He repeats his question to the guru, who again points silently in the same direction.

The man obediently walks off once more. This time the splat is deafening, and the man crawls back, he is broken, tattered and irate. "I asked you which way is success," he screams at the guru. "I followed the direction you indicated. And all I got was splatted! No more of this pointing! Talk!"

Only then does the guru speak, and what he says is this: "Success is that way. Just a little past splat."

Carly