Eat right and walk: Never, ever quit

Two ways to fail, one way to win — Part four of Ron Irwin’s road to weight loss.

In every single one of life’s activities there are two extremely common and very powerful ways to assure failure and but one-way to win. Failure is the result of self-deception and/or just quitting and accepting failure. Whatever you seek to achieve in life requires staying honest and true to yourself and never ever quitting. Winners never quit and quitters never win. Consider this.

Believed by many who follow the game of baseball, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels is one of, if not the best, player in the game today. His salary is more than $15 million and then, of course, there are endorsements and other income streams. Mike is doing very well for himself. Yet for all of this fame, glory and money 7 out every 10 times he steps up to the plate and swings his bat he either strikes out or is otherwise thrown out.

Mike Trout’s batting average is .321, meaning in only three out of each ten trips to the plate does he gets a hit. If you needed surgery would you knowingly hire a surgeon who had a 30 percent survival rate among his patients?

So here you are, stepping up to take a swing at losing excess weight and building better health. There is a minimum movement goal of two 30-minute walks per day every day. But what if one day you skipped the second 30 minutes. A few days later you just didn’t walk at all because you got too busy. What do you do? Do you accept failure and quit? Absolutely not! You pick yourself and get back in the game with new resolve. How many times do you do this? As many times as it takes to get the job done and that job is to reshape your life style. You simply never ever under any circumstance quit.

It is exactly the same thing with food intake issues. You will be given a wide range of food knowledge designed to help you achieve your goals of weight loss and better health. But there will be those times when you are under pressure, in a hurry and darn hungry. So you swing through your favorite fast food restaurant and grab some sodium and fat laden mega high calorie meal. You know this is bad but do you just quit. NO! NEVER!

If Mike Trout allowed himself to get discouraged because 70 percent of times he went to bat he did not achieve his intended goal he would no longer be in Major League Baseball. No, what Mike does is face each pitch as a new challenge and in so doing he gets done what he wants done often enough to be a true professional athlete super star. Never ever quit.

Perhaps even more disastrous is the all too human tendency to deceive ourselves. When we are enjoying our bad habits, whatever they may be, we will always find “excuses” for our self-destructive behavior.

When I was nearly double my ideal weight at about 315 pounds I simply never allowed myself to see my image in the bathroom mirrors and never ever got close to a scale. If my loving wife ever brought up the subject of my daily consumption of bad food, alcohol and cigars I would reply by telling her Winston Churchill smoked and drank and ate abundantly yet he managed to bring his country through World War II and lived until age 89.

Of course, I totally ignored that Sir Winston was a wild exception and absolutely not the rule. When on December 18^th 2012 my lungs and heart just quit my game of self-avoidance, deception and destruction came to a screeching halt. Not everyone gets that second chance so be totally honest with yourself and face up to your realities right now because only then can you really begin to make a new, stronger and better you.

You are doing this for you and it is you and only you who must be in charge. That becomes impossible when you are lying to yourself and willing to accept those lies.

You want very much to win this challenge. You want to gain or regain a strong, healthy body. You want to live a strong, long and healthy life. Ultimately in the game of life you very much want to be a true winner. Nothing else is acceptable. So armed with vision you must always be on guard against that all too human trait of dealing with self-destructive behaviors by simply ignoring them. That can no longer be a part of your life style. And even though you will certainly miss the mark on occasion you simply will never, ever quit. You will simply get right back on track with new resolve and determination.

Got it? Good. And unlike Mike Trout who routinely faces opponents equally as skilled and determined to thwart his intentions, you have but one person to deal with and you will find his or her image in a mirror. Take total responsibility for yourself, learn from your mistakes and never under any circumstances quit and you will be a huge winner.

You can, at any time, get your very own copy of my true and real guide to effective and permanent weight loss, Lose Live available at lulu.com, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Just be sure to keep checking in right here for regular updates. And if you have a question or comment for me please send your email to: [email protected]

Copyright © 2016 Ron Irwin

Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3

Photos by Ron Irwin unless otherwise noted