Our world is filled with things that are complex and difficult to fully understand. Look around the room you are sitting in, could you even begin to describe in detail how many of the things that surround us every day work? Technology, and the complexity that comes with it, provide great opportunities but also come with a fair dose of frustration, confusion and loss of control. Taking on, or any hard, large or difficult problem can feel the same way. And, for me, the first steps on this journey were filled with far more questions than answers. I quite unknowingly made some decisions early on that I believe made all the difference. Here’s what happened…

Joining WeightWatchers was a good first step and that ‘magical’ day certainly set me on a path. But, to be honest, in my life there had been dozens of those days where I would commit to action. Sometimes I would sustain that excitement for a week or even a few months but inevitably the newness wore off, the progress slowed and I fell back into old patterns. Any weight I had lost returned (and then some). Adding to the mix is that each ‘failure’ made the mountain a little higher and seemed to put my goals a little further out of reach. My belief in myself would diminish, and I’d feel a little more broken and like a failure.

The question I’ve asked myself over and over in the years since then is, why did it work this time? What did I do differently? Over the last six years I have asked those questions a lot. The answers, like the plan, is that I kept things simple.

Here are the core lessons learned:

• I was accountable: Each day I tracked everything I ate.
• I was focused: I did one thing–focused on my food intake.
• I was honest: I tracked exactly what I ate and tracked my weight each week and logged it no matter what.
• I ‘worked small’: Each day I recommitted to my plan.
• I was mindful: Every time I ate I made myself aware of how much I was eating. In most cases I pre-measured food–not because I was super worried about how much I was eating but to try to teach myself portions.
• I was aware: Every time I walked past the snack cabinet or thought, “I can have just one of those,” I reminded myself that I was going to have to write that down.
• I was forgiving: I made mistakes and led with self-forgiveness and grace which made it possible to just press on.
• I was determined: No matter what I just stuck to the plan.
• I played the long game: I did not focus keeping score and wins/losses or working towards an end, but rather focused on establishing habits that were sustainable forever.

Even more critical than what I did was what I DID NOT do:

• I did not try to do everything all at once: I focused just on food, exercise would have to wait.
• I did not take a day off: I didn’t want to feel like I was punishing myself or rewarding myself. I was just learning to live my life in a new way. You don’t get to take days off from living.
• I did not judge myself when I was less than perfect: Good enough was good enough. I accepted that I was not perfect and could not do things perfectly.
• I didn’t ‘game things out’: In prior attempts I would try to make sure I lost some weight every week so I would do stupid things like trying to sweat off weight the day before a weigh in. Each week would turn into a challenge to beat the last week until I couldn’t win and would quickly become exhausted from trying.

In retrospect, while I applied these concepts I don’t think I could have written them down like I did above. In the early days of my journey I didn’t really have a perspective. I just clung to those few simple things and they started to work.