The Cascade Effect
How one small change became many
When I decided to get healthy, I knew I needed to make some fairly fundamental changes in my life.
Like so many people, I thought they all needed to happen at once. Because there really was no point in exercising if my diet was crap, right?
When I couldn’t stick to it all, I would get discouraged and quit. Sound familiar?
Change only started to really happen when I decided to cut back on my soda intake.
I was a huge Mt Dew drinker from a young age. I could down a can right before bed and sleep like a baby. The amount of soda I would go through in a day was disgusting. Like, how did my body process that much sugar and caffeine without shutting down.
I made a bet with one of my work friends to give up soda for Lent one year, the day before Lent started. 40 days of no soda, it’s not that hard. Unless you don’t plan ahead and hate coffee. I persevered and made it to the end of the 40 days. Gained a new appreciation for tea and water additives (caffeinated Mio for the win).
So I stuck with it, not totally cutting out soda, but cutting back. It didn’t do much for my waistline because I replaced the sugar from the soda with other sweets, but I felt better. I was hydrated.
Cutting back on soda lead to drinking more water. Which lead me down the rabbit hole of other small changes to my life.
Hydration
Obviously, I had to replace my soda with something. Most of the time it’s water. My friends and I like to joke that I’m the queen of hydration. I generally drink a gallon or more every day.
Waking Up Earlier
I’m not a morning person (nor really a night owl). I’m one of those people who are usually good if they get up around 10 or 11 in the morning. If you had told me I would regularly get up at 5 every day, I would’ve laughed at you. But I do, almost every day.
Morning Routine
The whole point of the early wake up time is so I can get some of the things I always say I want to complete done. I’ve built my morning routine up over time to include: exercise, meditation, Duolingo, journaling, and reading non-fiction books. It took a while to find just the right mix of little things to get my day started on the right foot.
Writing
I used to be one of those people who wanted to write, but never found the time. When I would write, it would be all encompassing and swallow me whole for a week. I’ve tried to calm myself a bit and work it into my daily life so I can continue to make progress towards my goals.
Exercise
This is a big one. I’ve built myself a routine where I work out a lot. Like I look at my schedule and old me vomits at the amount of time I spend in my home gym. It took a long time to find the joy in pushing my body and there are still days I drag my feet about getting into the gym.
Weight Loss
One of the best things to come from the small push to cut back on soda has got to be the loss of over 50 pounds from my body. My joints don’t hurt, I have more energy, I just feel better.
It’s always tempting to go full steam ahead on anything I start. But I need to remember that usually leads to burn out quickly. It’s far better to start small and work on getting better and adding more over time. Small changes do lead to big things.
