Patching Cracks
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One of my less successful goals for 2016 was to lose 30 pounds. Faced with the end of the calendar year, I buckled down and lost 10 pounds through a mixture of exercise and disciplined eating. This happened in the beginning of December. Then Christmas happened. Christmas is a stressful, busy time of year with lots of parties and wonderful gifts of food. As cookies, candies, cakes, and great leftovers began stacking up around my kitchen, my disciplined eating habits fell off and so did my exercise habits. Shortly after that, I found the 10 pounds I had lost. I don’t think I’m alone in the gained-weight-during-the-holidays predicament. It’s weird, because I had the best intentions as I went into the season and I spent a big chunk of the month of December losing weight. I have been puzzling over the problem, but realized the issue when I read about “activation energy” last week. Activation energy refers to the amount of effort needed to start an activity. The more mental and physical energy required to start an activity, the less likely you are to do it. The converse is also true: the less energy required to start an activity, the more likely you are to do it. The concept was discovered during the Vietnam War, when the military dealt with a heroine addiction epidemic amongst the troops. They found that when the soldiers got home, they tended to overcome their addiction problems quickly. Study of the phenomena found that the combination of lower stress levels, no association with other heroin addicts in their home towns, and the relative scarcity of the drug, made the drug habit easier to break. The activation energy for the habit had increased to the degree that it was easier to chose not to indulge, whereas the activation energy in Vietnam was much lower. Applying this to Big Sandy means that I can eat healthy when healthy food is available and in sight. I eat fruit when fruit is on my counter and there is no easier alternative, like cookies. However, when my stress levels increase and there is junk food everywhere, I will eat it. It’s easier and more pleasing. For me and exercise, activation involves getting out of bed, getting dressed, and going to the gym. Once I am there, there is no doubt I am going to do it. The trick is actually getting up and going. This idea applies to all manner of other habits and behaviors. Last year I wanted to read more, so I made it easier to read and harder to watch tv or surf the internet. I discovered that, for me, the activation energy required to do something passive for entertainment was so much easier to overcome than the energy required to start reading, that I rarely read. I had to switch the requirements around. The good news is that this means that you really only have to have enough will power to get started, then you’ll usually follow through. So, going to the gym means you will exercise. Buying healthy food and not keeping junk food around means you’ll eat better. I recently switched from reading Kindle books on my iPad to reading them on a Kindle that I couldn’t surf the internet. This helped me overcome the desire to surf instead of read. It’s an easy trick and very effective, requiring only a little brainstorming to create solutions.
