CHAPTER 7

Step 4: Make Gradual Changes

Your first small step toward wellness can be a giant leap for your self-confidence. Don't make the mistake of turning your life into an existence you no longer recognize as your own. Any unwise habits you have probably took years to form. Your best chance to change them is to take it slowly.

PART 1 The Wisdom of Baby Steps

Just the Facts

Exercise is Everywhere!

A crash diet to take off weight might seem like a good shortcut, but that often leaves dieters hungry, bored and weak. A more gradual, small-steps approach can improve your diet without making you uncomfortable and frustrated—in other words, you have a better chance of sticking with it. A study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association tested the effectiveness of making a series of small changes to women's diets. The researchers developed seven days of baseline menus to model the intake of women ages 31 to 50 years. They progressed through a series of three transitional menus to a final target menu. By the end of the study, the group reduced sodium intake by 32% and brought saturated fat levels down to the recommended level of below 10% of energy intake.

PART 2 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

You know Thomas Jefferson's saying: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Jefferson certainly accomplished a lot in a lifetime, yet most of us are prone to procrastinate. Why? Because putting off a task delays the effort we must make. Making no attempt to get something done completely eliminates the chance that we'll fail. We tell ourselves we'll be in a better mood to do it later. We still have plenty of time, we say. We are comfortable in our warm, fuzzy old routine and doing something new is a risk—however small. READ MORE

Even when there is a task we really want to accomplish, our short-term decision-making doesn't always match up with our long-term needs. You set out your exercise clothes and shoes before you go to bed, but you hear the alarm the next day, click it off and go back to sleep. You can start working out tomorrow! Joseph Heath, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto who has written extensively on procrastination, points out the value of acknowledging procrastination as a self-control problem and strategizing to overcome it. He says chronic procrastinators should draw on “the extended will,” predicting their procrastination and endeavoring to outmaneuver their future self. When you put your exercise clothes out for an early morning run, put them across the room from your bed—with your alarm clock on top. No reaching over to turn it off and snooze. It just might work. LESS

PART 3 Do One Thing

Michael D. Stein, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Community Health at Brown University, was seeing a patient who needed to exercise and change his diet to avoid serious health complications from diabetes. He did not hand the man a list of foods to avoid or an ambitious workout plan. He asked the patient this question: “What is one thing you can do tomorrow to start moving toward this goal?” Overwhelming grand plans are easy to reject out of hand, but a series of small changes is easier to accomplish. If you are trying to improve your health and well-being, here are some changes to try, one at a time: